‘How about you? Do you realise yesterday was Rosenmontag? No, of course not. You were too busy playing at politics. You didn’t celebrate Carnival. You just took the salute.’
‘The same clearly can’t be said of you.’
‘I had my fun. Thank you.’
Engelbert Rath shook his head. ‘Officials in your position need to be available. Even when they’re on holiday.’
‘Don’t get so worked up. I’ll call them back.’
‘You should have been in touch of your own accord. That’s what a dutiful police officer would have done. Where are you going?’
Gereon had had enough. ‘To make a telephone call.’
‘I haven’t finished. There was another call for you, a Herr Klefisch. Apparently he will be making a police statement after all.’
Engelbert Rath waited for an explanation, but Gereon refused to oblige. He stubbed out his Overstolz and left without another word.
14
Charly returned later than anticipated, to find Karin van Almsick on the telephone looking overwhelmed.
‘I’ll pass you over now,’ she whispered, placing one hand over the mouthpiece. She must have exhausted all her good will on her voice as her face was decidedly less friendly. ‘That’s four hours I’ve been waiting for you!’
‘Sorry,’ Charly took the receiver from her colleague. ‘Ritter, G Division.’
It was Gereon. Typical. Disappears for days, then calls at precisely the wrong time. She decided to keep things businesslike. Fortunately he wasn’t one for sweet nothings. ‘Are the Communists in revolt?’ he asked.
She gazed out of the window, away from her nosy colleague. The sky was even greyer than yesterday. ‘How nice of you to get in touch,’ she said.
‘I’ve tried God knows how many times in the last few days, both at Carmerstrasse and the office.’
The call had taken an unwanted turn. She placed a hand over the mouthpiece and addressed Karin. ‘Would you mind making us some tea?’
Karin lifted two cups from the desk and marched out of the room. Charly waited until the door was closed. ‘I was there.’
‘At the Reichstag? On duty?’
‘By chance. It certainly wasn’t a Communist revolt. There’s hardly a Communist here who dares venture out.’
‘Well, that’s something. About time that lot started taking cover.’
‘What do you know about politics? What is it you want? I can’t believe you’ve called to discuss the Reichstag fire.’
‘Yes and no. It’s just . . . they’ve ordered me back to Berlin. There’s a ban on leave.’
‘Because of the Reichstag fire?’ She might as well have said: because of the Communist witch-hunt, since that was clearly why the commissioner was pooling police resources. He wasn’t interested in an actual investigation.
‘My train gets in just after midnight,’ Gereon said.
‘Tonight?’
‘You saw it? The Reichstag, I mean.’
‘Greta and I happened to be passing. It was late and we had to take the dog out. That’s when we saw the flames.’
‘We had to take the dog out? You sound like an old married couple. You were in Moabit with Kirie?’
‘Greta looks after her while I’m at work. The poor thing has to go somewhere. Wieking’s forbidden me from bringing her here.’
‘Bergner’s perfectly happy looking after her.’
‘I can’t ask for the porter’s help every day.’
‘But you can ask Greta?’
‘She’s my friend, so yes, and she doesn’t complain when I’m late. Think of the money we’d be wasting on tips!’ Why, in God’s name, did she have to justify what she did with the dog? Who was it who’d left Kirie with her in the first place?
‘I thought Carmerstrasse was our home . . .’ said Gereon. ‘Sounds like I can count myself lucky if I see you tonight.’
‘You were saying about an old married couple?’
‘Need I remind you that we will be married soon?’
‘Remind me? Who’s the one gallivanting around Cologne while I’m stuck at home with Kirie? If I choose to spend the night at an old friend’s house because it’s late, then that’s my business, and my business alone!’
Charly heard someone clearing their throat behind her and spun around.
‘If it’s your business alone, Fräulein Ritter, and I’m perfectly happy to concede that it is, why do you need to conduct it using a police telephone?’ Superintendent Friederike Wieking stood in the doorframe, gazing sternly, report file wedged under her arm.
‘Inspector Rath has instructions to return to Berlin and wanted to . . .’
Superintendent Wieking wrenched the phone from her hand. ‘Inspector Rath,’ she bellowed into the receiver. ‘If you have instructions to report to Berlin, then I suggest you do so. God knows we need every officer here to repel the Communist threat. Now, if you would kindly refrain from distracting my girls!’
Charly longed to hear Gereon’s response, but couldn’t make it out.
‘Let me worry about that, Inspector,’ Wieking said pointedly, and hung up.
Karin paused in the door holding two cups of tea. Her eyes flitted between Charly and her commanding officer, towards her work station and back.
‘Please come in, Fräulein van Almsick. What I’m about to discuss with Fräulein Ritter is no secret, especially seeing that you, too, are affected by her actions.’
Karin set one cup on Charly’s desk and the other on her own. She sat down and opened a file. When her eyes finally met Charly’s she shrugged her shoulders as if to say: sorry, I didn’t mean to snitch. Charly didn’t believe her.
‘Were you at the Wittenauer Sanatorium this morning, Fräulein Ritter?’ Wieking began.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘I don’t recall sending you there a second time.’
‘Chief Inspector Böhm called and . . .’
‘I’ve spoken with Chief Inspector Böhm. He didn’t request a follow-up.’
‘What I was about to say was that Böhm called to inform me that Hannah Singer had escaped from the sanatorium, the girl I . . .’
‘And you saw this as an opportunity to send yourself back to Reinickendorf? Leaving your colleague here in the lurch.’
‘I thought I could help.’
‘A commendable attitude, Cadet Ritter, but in future you should wait until someone authorised gives the order.’
‘Yes, ma’am. It’s just . . . I felt responsible somehow. The interrogation yesterday . . .’
‘ . . . got out of hand. Yes I can see that. As for your report . . .’ Friederike Wieking threw the file onto Charly’s desk and tapped it with her finger. ‘You couldn’t call it a transcript. You mention glances, advance suspicions – but as for facts, as for a single meaningful word, I can’t find anything.’
‘That’s because she didn’t say anything.’
‘Extracting a statement from a crazy Jewish brat was always going to be a fool’s errand. But I didn’t want to turn down Superintendent Gennat’s request . . .’
So Böhm had engaged Gennat’s help, Charly thought.
‘If DCI Böhm gets fixated on something, that’s his business,’ Wieking continued. ‘What I can’t have is him commandeering my officers. Have I made myself clear?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Very well.’
‘Should I re-write the report?’
‘Leave it as it is.’ A smile spread across Superintendent Wieking’s face. ‘I don’t think Chief Inspector Böhm will be working on the case much longer.’
‘But . . .’
‘The report can wait. I’d rather you focused on the Red Rats. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had something to do with the Communist revolt. Graffiti like that, and days later the Reichstag’s on fire . . .’ Friederike Wieking waved her hand. ‘Well, I’m sure you and Fräulein van Almsick have it in hand.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Karin, who had interpreted the sup
erintendent’s words as praise. Charly had never hated working in G Division under Friederike Wieking so much.
‘Then you know what to do,’ the superintendent said. Reaching the door, she turned around, lifted her right arm and issued a brisk ‘Heil Hitler!’ before departing.
Charly and Karin exchanged surprised glances. Six months ago the superintendent would have risked disciplinary proceedings for the Hitler salute, which was still something she’d never have dared in Gennat’s presence. Party politics had no place at police headquarters, even if the Nazi leader was now Chancellor and his thugs working hard to destroy German democracy for good.
For the time being, however, the German Reich remained a Republic, and, like so many others, Charly hoped the March elections would give its government something to think about. Democratically – or at least civically – minded Germans might still rise up and fight. They couldn’t let these barbarians run the country.
15
The fog had dispersed but it was still cold beneath the elevated railway, where a sharp wind was blowing. It was at least ten degrees cooler than Cologne. Rath had never been able to stand the Berlin winter. The city was too cold for a Rhinelander.
Beggars gathered on the station steps. One man sat huddled on a piece of cardboard in a coat stiff with dirt, his hat on the pavement propping up a sign that said: War-blind, please give generously. Despite his white stick and pitch-black sunglasses, Rath felt that the man was staring at him. He rummaged for a ten pfennig piece and dropped it into the hat.
A cop bobbed up and down on his bootheels, wringing his gloved hands to keep them warm. Pigeons cooed in the bridge struts. Rath went over and presented his identification.
‘Why don’t you see how things are coming along,’ Böhm had said, though Rath hadn’t known what awaited him at Nollendorfplatz until he got there. At the foot of a steel column were two wooden frames, each covered with canvas. The canvasses were splattered with pigeon droppings. According to Böhm they’d been here since the weekend, guarded by the Berlin Police as if they were the Hohenzollern crown jewels.
Now Rath understood the cop’s disgruntled expression. It was all he could do to prevent his own mask from slipping. Had he really interrupted his carnival celebrations for this . . . shit?
Yesterday on the phone it had sounded as if the successful capture of the Reichstag arsonists rested in Gereon Rath’s hands alone. All leave has been cancelled, Erika Voss informed him, every available man is to report for duty. Within hours he was on a train to Berlin without saying goodbye to Paul, let alone explaining the misappropriation of his office. Revellers might still be spilling out of the station, but to Rath it felt like Ash Wednesday. The fun was over, and it was time to head back.
His late-night arrival at Bahnhof Zoo, on the platform where he and Charly had shared many a reunion and goodbye, was an anticlimax. She appeared bleary-eyed and absent-minded, while Rath’s delight was tempered by his guilty conscience. Conversation was no more than perfunctory on the journey home until, arriving at Carmerstrasse, they fell exhausted into bed.
This morning any notion that he might be involved in the Reichstag investigation had been swiftly disabused. Although the fire remained the dominant theme at A Division briefing, Gennat had assigned him to Wilhelm Böhm. Unlike most of his colleagues, Böhm saw little point in hounding the city’s Communists and had already been deserted by Cadet Steinke, who had volunteered for the newly formed Reichstag task force.
Rath lit a cigarette and examined the soiled canvasses, wondering if he shouldn’t follow Steinke’s lead when he got back, despite being sceptical about the general political madness: the Red threat had always been overstated in Berlin, and even now he couldn’t believe the Communists were on the brink of revolution.
He took the photo Böhm had given him from his pocket: the corpse of a homeless man, his coat covered in rime and pigeon droppings. He compared the thickness of the shit with that of the two canvasses remaining from the original six.
‘I come bearing glad tidings,’ he said to the cop, who stood at a distance from the site. ‘Our work here is done.’
The cop looked as if he had been given the all-clear following a lengthy illness. ‘About bloody time. You wouldn’t believe how many people have stood here mugging me off.’
‘Oh, I think I would.’ Rath gestured towards the canvasses. ‘Do me one last favour. Get these loaded into my car. It’s parked over there.’
The man was unenthusiastic, but obeyed all the same. Rath unlocked the car, opened the passenger door and the cop gradually lowered the two canvasses into the footwell, only for his blue sleeves to become smeared with pigeon dirt at the last minute. ‘Shit!’ he cursed.
‘I should say so!’
‘It wouldn’t be so bad if the Prussians picked up the goddamn cleaning bill! Instead it will be left to my wife. Communist blood, vomit and pigeon muck. She’ll be delighted, I tell you.’
‘Lucky there’s Persil,’ Rath said, as the cop tipped his shako with a pained smile.
Back at the Castle, Rath delivered the canvasses to Forensics.
‘What are we supposed to do with these?’ Klassen, one of Kronberg’s men, asked.
‘It’s to establish the chronology of . . .’
‘I know what it’s for,’ Klassen interrupted. ‘Right now we don’t have time. Anything to do with the Reichstag fire and the Communists has priority. The rest will have to wait.’
‘Perhaps the dead tramp was a Communist,’ Rath said. Klassen forced a smile. The pair had always got on well. ‘Come on! I’ve already compared them with the photos. All I need’s a quick look at the original coat and your signature, to make it official. I’ll write the report while you fetch it.’
‘Go on then,’ Klassen said. ‘But you’ll owe me.’
‘Of course.’
Rath sat at the typewriter, inserted a Forensics report form and began to type. Moments later, Klassen returned with the old soldier’s coat, which dangled from a hanger as if it were about to be returned to its wardrobe. It smelled as though it hadn’t been washed since the war.
‘It’s more or less a match, wouldn’t you say?’ Rath asked.
Klassen threw a glance at the canvasses, and at the dead man’s coat and nodded. ‘They’re both covered in about the same amount of shit, if that’s what you mean.’
Rath shook his head. ‘Which would suggest he was there four or five days before being discovered. Shocking. A man lies dead next to a busy train station for days, and the Berliners simply wash their hands.’
‘I fear it isn’t just Berliners,’ Klassen said, stamping Rath’s report and adding his signature.
Rath waved the ink dry and put the report in his pocket. ‘Much obliged.’
‘No trouble.’ Klaasen pointed towards the coat and canvasses, which were stinking out the warm office. ‘You going to take them with you?’
‘Me?’ Rath raised his hands. ‘Sorry, but that’s evidence. Nothing to do with me.’
‘You think I have any use for them now that the ‘examination’ is complete?’
‘Have them taken to the evidence room, or whatever it is you do. If in doubt ask Böhm. They’re no good to me.’
Wilhelm Böhm was in a downright filthy mood. ‘Four days,’ he grumbled. ‘Which means that Wosniak was killed on Tuesday. Possibly Wednesday if his overcoat was already a little . . . stained prior to his death.’
‘The twenty-first or twenty-second then.’ Rath noted the date. ‘Shall we launch a press appeal? Check if anyone noticed any suspicious goings-on in the vicinity of Nollendorfplatz on either day?’
‘Could do,’ Böhm said, ‘but I fear the press already has wind of the case.’
‘It does?’
‘And it doesn’t look as if they’re in the mood to help.’ Böhm gestured towards a newspaper on his desk. Der Tag. Most of the articles still concerned the Reichstag fire and its aftermath, but one carried the headline:
Police adopt questionabl
e methods in hunt for killer
Rath was astonished to see the name in the byline. Berthold Weinert, a former tenant of the widow Behnke’s, in Nürnberger Strasse.
You wouldn’t credit it: while Berlin police detectives search for the masterminds behind the Reichstag fire (see pages 1, and 3–5 for further detail) a lone officer stands under the elevated railway at Nollendorfplatz guarding – wait for it – pigeon droppings!
The attempt to determine the time of death of homeless man Heinrich Wosniak, whose corpse was discovered on Saturday morning beneath the steel framework of the railway station, has been going on for days.
Homicide Detective Chief Inspector Böhm was unavailable for comment yesterday but must surely be wondering whether such tasteless not to say dubious methods can be justified at a time when police resources are urgently required to stave off the Communist . . .
Böhm snatched away the article before Rath could finish reading. ‘You know this Weinert, don’t you?’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘I’m just wondering where he gets his information.’
‘Not from me.’ What a pleasure to be genuinely outraged for once. ‘You didn’t fill me in on the case until this morning. Though you’re right, I do know Weinert. Perhaps I should have a talk with him.’
‘I’m wondering whether that might not make matters worse.’ Böhm sounded wary. ‘At least Der Tag’s the only one making fun of us,’ he said, flinging his copy into the wastepaper basket.
‘Don’t you think we should put out a request for information? Especially now we can isolate the time of death.’
‘Perhaps we won’t need the public’s help,’ Böhm said, gesturing towards a folder on his desk. ‘Just in from Pathology.’ He had a gift for making his colleagues feel surplus to requirements. ‘Dr Schwartz has examined the wound in Wosniak’s head more closely. The weapon wasn’t a knitting needle but a blade with a triangular cross-section.’
‘Like a skewer,’ Rath said, receiving an angry glance.
The March Fallen Page 7
