The Night of Shooting Stars

by Ben Pastor

  “If you don’t … if you don’t leave this minute, I will call the police!”

  “I came with the police, remember?”

  Bora only let Frau Wirth get away with nothing more than a bruised ego because Grimm was waiting for him (and because he knew that his cousin Saskia would continue to live in this neighbourhood). Joining the policeman in the Niemeyer driveway, he asked: “Was the victim under surveillance of some kind? The neighbours noticed a vehicle parked within sight of the villa recently.”

  “Surveillance? Not by us. Not anymore. We observed him for a few months eleven years ago, after the Reichstag fire, as we did other clairvoyants who came up with sham predictions during that election period. It was then that horoscopes and similar mumbo jumbo were outlawed. Our man officially gave them up, and toured South America. Five years later – when all astrologers had to leave Berlin – he stayed abroad elsewhere another month or so. Practising ‘psychic medicine’ per se is not forbidden, so that’s how he was able to come back and elude the prohibition.” Grimm took out a greasy notebook and scribbled something into it.

  “The Wirth woman said nothing about a parked car before.”

  “She thought he was under official surveillance.”

  “Well, I’ll check and see if he was kept an eye on by some other government agency. Say, Colonel, I’m walking over to the fire station to see what they have on the blaze. Care to come along?”

  “No, I have to do some more reading. I’ll wait.”

  In this generally quiet neighbourhood, Grimm had left the car unlocked. As soon as he was out of sight, Bora climbed in and reached for the phone book in the back seat. There was only one Olbertz, A. listed, a medical doctor; he noted down his office number, 962175. I will not let him get away with vague hints at a funeral: if he knows something about Uncle Alfred’s death, he has to meet me and tell me more. He then opened the glove compartment and looked through it. A torch, a short truncheon, a six-pack of SA-produced Trommler cigarettes and a box of paper clips shared space with a loaded Mauser HSc. This did not mean the inspector might not also not carry another similar pistol in his pocket, and a larger calibre – a PPK, maybe – in his shoulder holster.

  Bora put everything away as he found it, and as he leafed through the folders in the back seat he saw that they belonged to other, unrelated cases. A further search of the car revealed nothing else of interest; the only thing Bora left untouched was the thin, sweaty pillow on the driver’s seat.

  He’d worked with policemen before – one never knew with them. Trusting them was necessary to getting things done, but also highly inadvisable. During their drive from the Adlon, Grimm spoke of a hunting rifle – loud, unwieldy to carry, but guaranteed to kill – as if its possession weren’t impossible in wartime Berlin. Of course, he spoke from experience. Still, Dahlem was out of the way for most city dwellers: you didn’t simply take a train or a tram there with a rifle in your pocket or your handbag. In the city centre, phosphorescent paint revealed the ghostly presence of pavements and street corners after curfew, but in the wooded garden quarters visibility must be close to nil. Even assuming he or she had a motor vehicle, a prowler would at some point have to proceed on foot, shouldering the gun and with a torch shaded with red paper or paint as his or her sole aid.

  Of course, leaving aside the list of four, a local killer would have a much easier time of it. Neighbours mind their business, and would only cover for one another at a pinch. The victim might have let in a friend, but would he open the door without a stitch on? Let’s not forget that Niemeyer’s married girlfriend apparently stole into the house through an unlocked back door. What if the weapon was brought to the property during the day, and kept hidden in the garden until the time came to use it? There is a gardener among the suspects.

  Increasingly puzzled, Bora went to rummage in the boot for more documents. Most of the material was promotional; no private correspondence whatsoever, although you’d expect lots of it. Requests for advice, thank-you notes, love letters, even threats or insults … If Niemeyer’s personal mail had gone up in smoke along “with the rest”, as Grimm put it, the loss could include irreplaceable clues. Inside a cardboard sleeve, Bora found a blueprint of the villa. He spread it across the bonnet of the car, and Grimm found him poring over it upon his return.

  “Take a look, Inspector: if this discreet little door opposite the garage was ajar, entering unseen through it would’ve been child’s play.”

  “The back door? Yes. Except that it was closed and locked from the inside when I arrived on the scene. Say the killer found it open: since it couldn’t have locked itself, before leaving the scene he’d have to have locked it from the inside and used the front door. Maybe. I think he entered and left through the front door. Here’s the fire sergeant’s report, Colonel.”

  The account was not as skimpy as Grimm had suggested. It detailed the time of arrival, equipment used, the ineffectual operations undertaken to douse the fire, and the minor injuries sustained by two crew members. It listed a gas leak as the probable cause, without actually discounting the possibility of arson: the blaze had raged to the extent that no precise answer was forthcoming.

  Bora kept any comment to himself. He folded the blueprint and got into the car, and when Grimm plonked himself behind the wheel and asked “Where to next?”, he only said, “Tell me about the gardener.”

  Unexpectedly, the policeman reached under his haunch and pulled out a file from beneath the pillow, where Bora hadn’t looked.

  “Take it.” He started the car. “No need to read my notes about him. Berthold ‘Bubi’ Kupinsky. As a youngster, he sold his tail at three marks a throw for a living, but a few months in jail after the Fritsch affair straightened him out. At the time he was a waiter at the Café Mexico on Alexanderplatz.”

  Bora opened the file. How convenient, he thought indignantly. A disreputable café right by the Criminal Police headquarters, where they could readily pick him up and use him to bring scandalous, trumped-up charges of homosexuality against General Fritsch.

  “And now?”

  “Now he mows lawns and does the gardening in this neighbourhood. He also looks after domestic pets for their masters. Niemeyer had a house full of them.”

  “What sort of animals?”

  “The feathered kind, especially parrots. The big ones, with a blue tongue.” While they spoke, Grimm found a shady spot to park the car. “The zoo has them now. Kupinsky would be close to the bottom of the list of suspects if he hadn’t had the bright idea of disappearing after the murder. Talk about a bird taking to the bush!”

  Bora did not smile. “His last known address is near Hermannplatz. Is he being actively sought?”

  “As actively as possible. At present, due to the air raids, house numbers count for little. He has no family in town or elsewhere, so he could be just about anywhere in Berlin.”

  “Does he know he’s wanted?”

  “Only if someone informed him when we delivered the subpoena to the Neukölln address.”

  “So we don’t know where he is.”

  “For the moment.”

  In the next ten minutes, Bora learned that in the days of the Republic Kupinsky’s parents ran a sweet shop and a dilapidated cinema in Neukölln. Left-wingers, they’d become embroiled in the riots after the Great War, with the result that they lost their businesses, and thus their livelihood. Bora could imagine the bowls of sweets tossed out into the street, the windows smashed by truncheons and rocks. A cinema called Spartakus must have been a red rag waved in front of the SA bulls. The street gangs set it on fire at the end of February 1930, with no thought for the tenants living upstairs. The final count of the victims came to thirteen dead and sixteen ill with smoke inhalation, but a couple of SA lost their lives when they were shot at from the blazing building.

  “The end of February 1930 – was it connected to Horst Wessel’s death?”

  “You bet, Colonel. The Reds killed the best man among us; we couldn’t simply
grin and bear it.” Crowding his passenger, Grimm took out the cigarettes from the glove compartment. He stuck one in his mouth and offered the pack to Bora, who said no. “Anyhow, little more than six years ago Kupinsky surfaced again, and we brought him in as a witness. The Fritsch affair, as I mentioned. It must be said he didn’t identify the general as a client, but he was the only one not to.”

  “General Werner Baron von Fritsch was cleared of all charges by the military court.”

  Grimm did not dare reply, but from his expression you could tell that, to his mind, a soldier tried by fellow soldiers is likely to be acquitted anyway. He lit the cigarette and carefully blew out the match before tossing it out of the window.

  “Kupinsky spent six months in a cell at Moabit. After that, he did odd jobs of all kinds, including distributing leaflets for vaudevilles and other shows. That’s how he first met Niemeyer. As you’ve seen from his photo, when you clean him up you can almost make him look like he’s not a pervert.”

  Without asking, Bora placed the Kupinsky file inside his briefcase. “It’s a long way from Neukölln to Dahlem. I suppose the wages he received here made it worth his while. Given that he did regular weekly chores at Niemeyer’s house, and given his past, it’s understandable that he’s in hiding.”

  Grimm stared at him through a cloud of tobacco smoke. “His past – meaning Kupinsky’s or Niemeyer’s?”

  “Kupinsky’s, naturally,” Bora fired back. “What are you implying: that Niemeyer’s sexuality was questionable, too, or that passing himself off as a Jew was in itself reprehensible?”

  “With all due respect, that is reprehensible in itself, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “What concerns you or me, Inspector, has nothing to do with this case.”

  A small gilded insect flew into the car from the thick shrubbery; Bora swatted it away. “Why would a homosexual with a police record kill his employer?”

  “I don’t know yet why. As for how – he could have stashed away one of the rifles from his old man’s arsenal. Years ago, I did my share of rounds of the places where those Red low-lives congregated, and I wouldn’t put any crime past a deviant.”

  “Kupinsky had better surface soon.”

  “He will.”

  Unasked (Bora’s curiosity was of a different brand), he added, “I’m from Neukölln myself. I can tell you, it used to be a rough neighbourhood before 1933. My old man, who was a shoemaker by trade, moved us all from Munich to Berlin at the end of the Great War. Seven of us, to Neukölln. I swear, as a boy you faced a simple choice there in those days: you either became a juvenile delinquent or joined the police.”

  “It’s clear which path you chose.”

  “But only after serving in the storm troops for a spell. Being able to wear shiny boots was what drew me in to begin with.” He stole a glance at Bora’s riding boots. “First thing I noticed about you, Colonel – top notch, hand-sewn. Not German.”

  “They’re English. Pre-war.”

  “I thought so. Anyhow, the SA did me good. As a Brownshirt, I learned most of the skills I needed to apply for a job in the Kripo.”

  Yes, Bora told himself, and you were able to indulge in all the bullying like a juvenile delinquent, without paying the price for it.

  “Did the Russians do that?” Grimm was referring to his injury.

  “No.”

  “The Americans, then? The English?”

  “No.” For all his sternness, Bora was seldom gruff. But he rather resented being asked about it, and had to force himself to go beyond monosyllables. “It was partisans, the day I arrived in Italy. You can be sure that they’ve never caught me off guard since.” He glanced at the watch on his right wrist. It was 10:30 a.m. His appointment for a late lunch with Salomon was two and a half hours away. Whether he wanted to or not, he should head back to the city centre. “Let’s see which suspect we can interrogate today. The Rüdiger woman?”

  “For sure. Rüdiger, Ida, 47.” Grimm finished his cigarette. Leafing through his dog-eared notebook with his big thumb, he read: “Hairdresser to the élite. Lives across from the post office on Landgrafenstrasse, in the Zoo quarter. The most high-ranking Party wives send their chauffeurs to pick her up when they need her.”

  “Let’s hope none of them is having her hair done now. Does she own a shop?”

  “Looks as though she works from her apartment. She was bombed out of her Ku’damm shop last November. We don’t have an official photo, because she has never been arrested.” Grimm’s choice of those words – instead of saying “She never broke the law” – was pregnant with meaning. “Although she teamed up with Niemeyer, she’s still married to a member of the Border Guards. And, as I said, she’s familiar with firearms.”

  LANDGRAFENSTRASSE, 11:10 A.M.

  Friseurin – Coiffeuse. The rich lettering on the third-floor door led to an elegant waiting room, where a petite girl in a light-blue smock told the visitors that she would fetch Madame for them.

  Naturally, neither Bora nor Grimm waited. Through an archway, they glimpsed the unfamiliar sight of a particularly female space. Partitions covered in abstract wallpaper separated the different stalls, each of them supplied with a hairdryer consisting of a metallic contraption on a stand with a long, flexible tube, and from the ceiling hung what resembled a lamp dripping with wires, used for the “permanent” curling of hair. Everywhere sinks and taps, shelves lined with bottles and containers of all kinds, towels in every shade of pastel. No clients, but three young hairdressers, who had time to squeal their surprise at this male intrusion before a gleaming white French door opened to reveal a very altered Ida Rüdiger.

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  Her perfumed, stylish person looked unimpressed when Grimm followed his usual badge-flashing with a mumbled “Criminal Police”.

  “This way,” she said, directing them into her quarters.

  The atmosphere there was smart and airy. Ida Rüdiger made it clear to the visitors that she would not be intimidated by the law or by military rank. “I have two ministerial secretaries’ wives and the sister of a field marshal coming shortly,” she declared. “I hope there’s a good reason for your barging in like this.”

  Women may be quicker to respond than men, but once they’ve rallied their wits men often overreact.

  “The ‘reason’ is Walter Niemeyer’s murder,” Bora said, without flinching. As for Grimm, he did an about-turn and pushed the door open.

  “How completely stupid and outrageous! I warn you, sir, there’ll be consequences.” Swathed in a tailored, low-necked scarlet gown, the manicured and aggressive Ida Rüdiger reminded Bora of the painted figurehead on a sailing ship. She was the sort of self-assured entrepreneur who in the old days would have advertised her shop as “catering to crowned heads”. And judging by the photos of some female members of the old imperial family on the walls, she probably had arranged their curls, years before.

  She stood her ground. “Don’t think that you can frighten me, Colonel. I have influential friends, and can afford the best of lawyers.”

  Bora was suddenly both angry and amused. He removed his cap and cradled it in the crook of his arm. “Why would I think of myself as frightening?”

  “As if you didn’t know! Your size, your uniform … you can’t fool me.” Critically tilting her head, she added: “Who cuts your hair? A tad too much of the razor … but I can live with it.”

  “The regimental barber will be thrilled.”

  “There is nothing to smile about! My space is being brutally invaded. I demand an explanation.”

  “Frau Rüdiger, to start with, I don’t think of myself frightening – I have the authority to be frightening. Second, it is I who demand to hear when you last saw Walter Niemeyer, whether there were any serious disagreements between you – and if so, why – and whether you have access to firearms.”

  Her well-drawn eyebrows rose critically. “Firearms, plural? Isn’t one enough for you?”

  “It depen
ds. Tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to say. The possession of firearms is forbidden, as you are well aware.”

  Bora thought of Bruno Lattmann, teaching his wife how to shoot. “Some women illegally secure guns and practise shooting for personal protection.”

  “Ha! Have your minion search the premises. I don’t need guns. And in case you’re wondering, let me disabuse you of the idea that there were any weapons in Walter’s home. He detested hunters and bloodshed in general.” She arranged a curl behind her ear, as if she were standing in front of a mirror. “It’s true that my former husband collected guns old and new. But that was before the war, when grousing was not yet against the law in Silesia.”

  “‘Former’ husband? I was under the impression that you’re still married.”

  She gave him a spiteful look. The scarlet dress, trimmed in emerald green, struggled to contain her outrage.

  “So young and already so hidebound.” (“I’m not hidebound,” Bora interrupted.) “I met Walter for the last time on Saturday, the sixth of May, at Kranzler’s. I couldn’t forget the date if I wanted to: the following day the café was wrecked by a bomb. We argued. As always, he tried to avoid the subject, which was his latest flame – he spun me a tale about feeling destruction all around us, and hearing the shattering of windows all along Ku’damm. I’d had more than I could take, so I tossed my iced tea in his lap. Well, so what? It’s no secret that I was furious with him for his continuous cheating, especially given his intolerance to cheating on my part. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander – if you get my meaning.”

  “I’m not hidebound,” Bora repeated.

  “Whatever.”

  She suddenly pulled something out of her plunging neckline that resembled a mother-of-pearl compact but was actually a card case.

  “Here’s the name of my solicitor. I know my rights. I have friends, even in law-enforcement circles.”