‘What if they prefer to get these things from Lapke and the Nordpiraten?’
‘The Nordpiraten are the only Ringverein that isn’t being harrassed by the SA, but the Nazis don’t need a Ringverein to do their deals, they just need the right people. My people. Lapke’s doing everything he can to win them over to his side, so far without success.’
‘Everything he can includes depriving men like Juretzka of an eye?’
‘The SA isn’t the only force in the new Germany. Believe me when I say that Lapke is backing the wrong horse.’
‘Him and the rest of the country.’
Marlow laughed. ‘You could be right, Inspector. The real question is: how long will Lapke’s horse be in the running?’
83
Hannah knew something was different. Clip, clop, the sound of a woman’s shoes. Not one of the men who came by with food, nor the one she knew as the doctor, who checked her wounds, listened to her heart with the stethoscope, and oversaw her medication.
The men treated her well, but she didn’t know who they were or what they wanted, and could only vaguely remember how she got here. Huckebein, who had ambushed her in that godforsaken rear courtyard. Felix, who had betrayed her. Then darkness. Fritze, who had appeared like her guardian angel, and with whom she had dragged herself to the old cinema, to her refuge behind the organ pipes. After that, nothing, but the face of a Chinese man who appeared in her dreams and whose gaze was somehow both distant and kind at the same time.
At some point she wakened in brightness, saw the doctor sitting alongside her, and feared for a moment that she was in hospital or, worse, Dalldorf, but the doctor wore a suit and the room was more like a princess’s bedchamber than a hospital ward. Through the window she saw bare treetops. Were they somewhere in the Grunewald?
The doctor had spoken to her but her tongue was tied and she remained silent. She felt relieved to be here, in this soft bed, for the chance to recover, but was troubled by an indeterminate fear. Two other men in the room gazed at her impassively. She had seen the same look in the Crow’s Nest: this mercilessness, as if something had sucked the souls from their bodies. These men were no different, just better dressed, and with good manners.
She hadn’t once seen any women, and was curious about who was approaching her room in stiletto heels. One voice was high-pitched, two others low. When the handle was pushed down, nervous anticipation toppled inside her like a house of cards. It was the policewoman who had shown her the image of Kartoffel with those awful burns, who had produced a photo of her father and shoved it under her nose. She gave a friendly smile and stepped towards the bed.
‘Hello, Hannah. I’m glad you’re feeling better.’
Hannah sat up but said nothing. She hadn’t spoken with the men, and she wouldn’t speak with the policewoman either. It wasn’t a conscious choice, she just couldn’t.
The woman sat next to the bed. ‘I’m a police officer. My name is Charlotte Ritter. I visited you in Dalldorf. You remember, don’t you? Today I’m here because I want you to know that the man who was trying to kill you is dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.’
Hannah felt a giant lump in her throat.
‘I need to hear something from you,’ the woman continued. ‘Something only you can tell me. Why did this man want to kill you? You knew him from the Crow’s Nest, didn’t you? Did he abuse you? Can you tell me his name?’
She could scarcely breathe. Don’t panic, she told herself.
The woman sighed and smiled at the same time, very friendly and patient. ‘Fritze sends his regards,’ she said at last. ‘He’s doing well, he . . .’
‘Fritze!’ Hannah didn’t know where the word came from. It was the first thing she’d said in four days, her voice a husk. The woman seemed delighted.
‘That’s right. Fritze. He called for help, you weren’t doing so well, you were badly injured. We . . .’
‘Fritze,’ was the only thing she could say.
The woman laid her hand on the cover. ‘It’s all right. I’ll get your friend. Just be patient, and he’ll be here.’
84
Rath drove until the tank was almost empty, then made for a petrol station. After tailing the sun for hours it had finally shaken him off at Königslutter, and was now no more than a blood-red strip on the horizon. The petrol station lights were on but he was the sole customer. ‘Fill her up, please. The spare can too, while you’re at it.’
As the attendant went about his instructions, he stretched his legs and searched for the toilet, splashing water on his face before stepping back into the dusk. Passing the shop window his gaze fell on a familiar logo. ‘You have Afri-Cola here?’ he asked the attendant, who was cleaning the windscreen.
He bought three bottles. Back on the road, he opened the first before rejoining the traffic. It was too sweet for his liking, but it kept you awake, and he had a long drive ahead.
He had told Charly what he was planning days ago, yet she had made trouble all the same. ‘After everything that happened yesterday I thought you’d understand that we were heading back out to Freienwalde today. She spoke; Hannah spoke about Fritze.’
‘And I thought I’d explained this is something I can only do at the weekend.’
‘With Fritze there, we can get Hannah to talk!’
‘We can do that just as well tomorrow or the next day.’
‘As if you’ll be back tomorrow.’
He had shaken his head and set off. It was his car. Let her take the train if she was in such a hurry. Loath as he was to admit it, he was looking forward to getting away from Carmerstrasse for a couple of days. Since Fritze had reappeared, being at home no longer held the same appeal. Everything revolved around the boy. A few times now he had stayed on in the office, and it wasn’t because he needed to work late. Even so, he still hadn’t managed to close the Rothstein suicide, which ought to have been routine. He had requested Saturday off nonetheless, mumbling something about marriage preparations, and with all the overtime he had accrued Buddha was in no position to turn him down.
At the start of the week he had been afraid Homicide might still be called out to investigate a corpse, at the Mühlendamm Lock or wherever else the Spree saw fit to wash up its dead, but with each day that passed he felt more at ease.
Despite knowing that Gräf and Steinke were chasing a killer who was resting at the bottom of the Spree, he continued to devote more time to the Alberich case than his own. The same was true of Charly, or else why was she so desperate for Hannah Singer to talk? He doubted whether they’d get much sense out of the girl but, like him, Charly wouldn’t let go until they knew whose body they had pushed into the river. What kind of person he was. Why he had been out for Hannah. Why he had killed three men. Above all, who he was. Benjamin Engel? Gerhard Krumbiegel?
Over the past few days he and Charly had asked themselves repeatedly whether Engel and Krumbiegel might not be one and the same but, whatever possibilities they played over, they always found some objection.
The Bonn officers shadowing Eva Heinen didn’t know that Rath had been taken off the case, so he continued to speak with them on the telephone, passing on their written reports to Gräf when, two days later, they arrived in the Castle’s official mail.
Gräf had carved out a space for himself and Steinke in the main office. They had made little progress in their first week on the Alberich case, which was hardly surprising but which pleased Rath all the same. Sometimes it pained him to see Gräf at morning briefing, and he would think back to the old days, to shared evenings in the Nasse Dreieck; shared investigations, more often than not in defiance of Wilhelm Böhm and service regulations . . . Those days would never return.
He had known from the start that Eva Heinen wasn’t telling the full story, but it was only after re-reading the reports that he’d decided to head back west. He was growing tired but, whenever fatigue threatened to overcome him he drank another bottle of Afri-Cola. It was after midnight when he parked the Buick on a dirt t
rack and finally yielded. His Cola supplies were finished, his cigarettes running out, and his eyes threatened to close. No sooner had he nodded off, however, than he was wakened by a downpour drumming against the roof and windscreen. Looking at his watch he saw that two hours had passed. It would have to do.
He smoked a cigarette and started the engine. Only three left, to be rationed over the next few hours. It was no fun driving in this weather but he couldn’t risk being late. Reaching the Bergisches Land around half past six, the rain behind him with the rising sun, he felt bone weary. He stopped to pee but what he really needed was coffee, wishful thinking in a rural wasteland such as this.
Away from the road he found a stream and splashed ice-cold water on his face. After running his wet hands through his hair, he plopped himself in front of the car mirror and parted it with a comb. If you ignored the rumpled suit and five o’clock shadow, he looked almost respectable.
An hour later he reached his destination, a car park built for day-trippers from nearby towns. This must be the place his Bonn colleagues had described. He had telephoned yesterday specifically to ask, using his credentials as a former Cologne boy to feign local knowledge, and extract a few details that weren’t contained in the reports.
Turning in the car park he concealed the Buick with the Berlin registration in a farm track leading downhill, and returned on foot. The clouds were gathering, but it was a pleasant enough morning. He looked at his watch. Another half hour or so. He crossed the car park and followed the narrow track into the forest. Reaching a clearing moments later, he knew instinctively this was the place. Through leafless branches he looked across a decommissioned quarry into the Rhine Valley and towards Bonn. On the edge of the precipice was an old beech tree with shimmering grey-green bark, between the roots of which the forest soil was brightly flecked. Stones, Rath realised as he crouched, little pebbles from the banks of the Rhine that someone had discarded here. He took one in his hand and laid it back down. Taking up position behind a rock, he smoked his last Overstolz and waited.
He had just stubbed out his cigarette on the damp rock when he heard the sound of an engine, a deep drone that could easily belong to a Mercedes, the crunch of gravel in the car park, and the clank of a Prussian Police Opel. Though the police car continued uphill, Rath was certain his colleagues would stop behind the next curve and observe the parking lot. They had never followed Eva Heinen into the forest, but, with Prussian meticulousness, merely recorded the time she exited and – usually a quarter of an hour later – returned to her vehicle.
Morning stroll the observation reports noted, nothing more, then the time, varying by four or five minutes at the most. Unlike Rath, the officers from Bonn had failed to take a closer look at the site, most likely because they were locals and knew the track led only to a decommissioned quarry, and because they couldn’t imagine the forest was suitable for anything other than a brief stroll.
Still, at some point the regularity of Eva Heinen’s dawn excursions had got Rath thinking, and now here he was.
The Mercedes puttered in neutral, then the engine was switched off. Moments later there was a crackle in the undergrowth, and a well dressed Eva Heinen approached with slow, measured steps to stop in front of the tree with the pebble stones. She stood with her back to him, lost in thought. It was almost as if she were praying, which perhaps she was. Reaching inside her coat pocket, she fetched a small white stone and placed it alongside the many others on the ground.
He felt curiously moved. A spirit of reverence seemed to have gripped the forest. He stepped out and cleared his throat. Her eyes filled with icy fury when she recognised him.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Not so loud, or my colleagues from Bonn will realise you’re talking to someone. In the last few weeks they’ve been happy to wait in the car. It would be a shame if today was the day that changed.’
‘I’m being watched?’
‘You’re surprised?’
‘Your colleagues from Bonn don’t know you’re here?’
‘To be perfectly honest, my colleagues from Berlin don’t know I’m here either.’ He looked around. ‘Nice spot, this. Of the Siebengebirge I know only the Drachenfels.’
‘The Ennert hills are part of a different range.’
‘Oh? Well, it’s a great view, anyway. That’s Bonn down there, isn’t it?’
‘What do you want?
‘The truth.’
‘I told you everything I know three weeks ago.’ She avoided his gaze.
‘At first I thought you were meeting him,’ he said, ‘but now I understand why you come here every morning. He’s really dead, isn’t he?’ Rath pointed towards the tree. ‘You buried him there.’
Eva Heinen nodded. It felt like a surrender.
‘Why did you bury an empty coffin nine years ago? Because your husband wanted a Jewish grave, and you couldn’t do that to your strict, Catholic family?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Edith has converted to the Mosaic faith and her grandparents haven’t disowned her.’
‘Then why a Jewish grave?’
‘It isn’t a Jewish grave, it’s just his final resting place. He wanted us to bury him here, in the forest. Without a headstone.’
‘But it’s a Jewish custom to lay stones on the deceased’s grave.’
‘I like the custom, and I didn’t want to lay flowers. No one can know a man is buried here. It’s illegal to bury people in the wild, as you are no doubt aware.’
‘You still haven’t answered my question. Why all the fuss at the cemetery nine years ago?’
‘Because my husband was still alive when we lowered the empty coffin into the ground.’
‘He was still alive when you had him declared dead?’ Eva Heinen nodded. ‘Then when did you bury him here?’
‘Four years, seven months and five days ago,’ she said. He thought he saw tears.
Achim von Roddeck was right to suspect Benjamin Engel had survived the war, but not that he had threatened him and slain his most loyal men.
‘Why didn’t you say he had survived?’.
‘Because Benjamin wouldn’t have wanted it.’
‘Sounds like you have a lot more to tell me.’
‘Why should I tell you anything? Walther wrote to say you were at the university. That you suspect him of killing these men.’
‘I don’t suspect your son.’
‘That’s not the way he tells it.’
‘Meantime I know who did it. I just don’t understand why.’
‘You think I can help you?’
‘I think you can help me get closer to the truth.’
‘I have to go back to Bonn, Inspector. I’m needed in the store.’
‘I’ve driven hundreds of kilometres to speak to you.’
‘No one asked you to come, not even your own superiors. I don’t know why you’re here.’
‘Because I can’t stand back and watch while our commissioner confuses an anti-Semitic witch-hunt with a police investigation. And because I want to know what really happened.’
Eva Heinen looked surprised by his honesty. ‘Do you know Bonn?’ she asked.
‘I’m from Cologne.’
‘Then be at the Rheinisches Möbelhaus on Brückenstrasse at ten. On the left-hand side as you approach from the Beuler Bridge, you can’t miss it . . .’
With that she turned and hurried back to the parking lot.
He listened for the noises of two engines, the sonorous drone of the Mercedes and the clank of the police Opel that followed. He didn’t have any Overstolz left, but waited for what he guessed was the length of a cigarette before making his way back.
85
They had washed the dishes together after breakfast. Fritze took Kirie for a walk while Charly read her book. Two pages in, the doorbell rang. She sighed and stood up. That wasn’t much of a walk, she thought. Had he already given up on his chores? He was only a kid; she should
n’t impose stricter standards because he had lived on the street.
She opened the door, ready to issue a few stern words and send him on his way, only to find Karin van Almsick grinning awkwardly, with a box of chocolates and a large brown envelope tucked under her arm. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb, just to see how you were.’ She handed Charly the chocolates.
‘Thank you, but there’s really no need.’ Charly felt thrown by the surprise visit.
‘It’s from all of us,’ Karin said. ‘Everyone sends best wishes, including Superintendent Wieking.’
‘Thank you,’ Charly stammered. Karin came as if from another world, reminding her of everything that had happened in the last few days. Those things that no one could ever know. She had thrown a corpse into the Spree instead of informing Gennat, concealed a wanted killer and escaped lunatic, visited the notorious underworld boss Johann Marlow and enlisted his aid . . . and, of course, she wasn’t the slightest bit ill and had spent the last few days gadding blithely around town. She felt her conscience breathing down her neck, an ugly little monkey that refused to be shaken off.
‘Can I come in?’ Karin asked, having already taken a step inside and started nosing around.
‘I . . . I was just on the sofa.’ A chance look in the wardrobe mirror revealed an idiot grin.
Karin hung up her coat and gazed around the living room. She whistled through her teeth. ‘Nice place.’
‘Gereon inherited a little money.’ It sounded almost like an apology. She adopted a long-suffering face to go with her supposed condition.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ Karin asked. ‘On you go, lie down, and I’ll make us tea.’
‘That’s not necessary, thank you. I haven’t lost the use of my arms.’
‘Is the kitchen through here?’
Charly nodded weakly and left Karin to it. She lay on the sofa with a wet flannel on her head until, a few minutes later, Karin emerged with a tray, two teacups and a pot. She pressed the flannel to her forehead. ‘What brings you to Charlottenburg?’
The March Fallen Page 34
