The Silent Death

by volker Kutscher

  ‘Bellmann, Cora Bellmann,’ the woman said. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to be here for Herr Meisner during this difficult conversation.’

  ‘That is a rather unusual request,’ Rath said. ‘But in view of the circumstances I am happy to make an exception. Perhaps I can take the opportunity to ask you a few more questions too. You’re the daughter…’

  ‘…of Heinrich Bellmann. That’s correct.’

  ‘Your father never told me…’

  ‘He says I’m to learn the trade by working my way up from the bottom. He doesn’t treat me any differently from the rest of his employees. Worse, if anything.’

  ‘Please take a seat.’

  She pushed a chair over to Meisner, who was gazing into thin air through his glasses, before finding a second chair for herself.

  ‘Herr Meisner,’ Rath began. ‘It’s very kind of you to make the effort to come here. Now, if you could please remove your glasses. I like to look the people I’m talking to in the eye.’

  ‘As you wish.’ Meisner’s voice had a cracked hoarseness, as if he needed to accustom himself to speaking again. He took off the sunglasses and revealed two red-rimmed eyes with heavy bags, no longer bearing the slightest resemblance to a youthful hero. It seemed scarcely credible that he had stood before the camera with Eva Kröger in this state. In a comedy! Were actors really able to deny themselves to such an extent? Perhaps they had to, if they wanted to be successful? Or if they had an unscrupulous boss like Heinrich Bellmann?

  ‘I would like, once more, to offer my condolences on the death of your wife, Herr Meisner…’ Meisner looked through him as if he were made of glass. ‘…I know this isn’t easy for you, but I need to ask you a few questions.’

  Meisner nodded.

  ‘How did the accident happen? Can you outline the order of events?’

  The actor’s eyes grew larger. The memory seemed to terrify him.

  ‘We did the scene again,’ he said at last, ‘and I had the feeling that this time Dressler would go for it. It went off without a hitch, Betty was marvellous. We were already through when there was this technical issue, the thunder didn’t work. I thought: it doesn’t matter. Just add it later, you can do that.’

  Rath was as sympathetic as a priest in the confessional.

  ‘That’s when it happened,’ Meisner continued. ‘The light came loose somehow, and then…’ He broke off. ‘My God! At first I didn’t even know what was wrong. Only when I saw her lying there…’

  ‘Why didn’t you pull her away? Why did you fetch the bucket?’

  ‘Pull her away? Impossible. And what can I say about the bucket? I don’t know myself why I fetched it. At that moment, I wasn’t thinking about anything save for perhaps, my God, Betty is burning! When I think about how she screamed! The bucket was backstage. There’s one every few metres. The boss always stressed how important they are; we have a fire drill once a month. I just grabbed the nearest one. My God, her screams! I only have to close my eyes and I hear them again.’

  Meisner closed his eyes and, gradually, Rath began to sense that the grieving widower was just another role for him; that his whole life was comprised of a series of different roles.

  ‘How was it with Eva Kröger?’ he asked.

  ‘Pardon me?’ Meisner opened his eyes again.

  ‘You filmed the scene again with her. How was that for you?’

  Cora Bellmann interjected. ‘How dare you?’ she said, rising from her chair. ‘Do you have any idea what Victor’s been through in the past few days? What he’s still going through, and here you are reproaching him for his professionalism? He’s an actor. Actors are expected to block out their private lives when they play a role.’

  Meisner pulled her down onto her chair. ‘Leave it, Cora. The inspector’s right. I don’t know who it was in front of the camera yesterday, some robot reciting a text, but it certainly wasn’t me.’

  A robot reciting a text. Business as usual, Rath thought, remembering Meisner’s last adventure film. ‘How are you coping with the death of your wife?’

  ‘Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could turn back time, the way you rewind a film, and bring her back to life.’ He faltered. ‘My God, how I miss her.’ He grimaced and began weeping silently.

  Rath looked at him helplessly.

  ‘I’m a murderer, Inspector!’ Meisner screamed suddenly, his chair clattering against the floor as he rose. ‘I killed my own wife!’ He pressed his wrists together and held them out towards Rath. ‘I killed Betty, I’m responsible for her death, I alone. Arrest me!’

  ‘Calm down! No one here’s blaming you for anything, nor should you be blaming yourself. Someone manipulated the spotlight so that it fell on her, and that same someone intended for her to die, or at the very least entertained the possibility of her death.’

  ‘What does that change? Without me, she’d still be alive!’

  ‘…and lying in the Charité with life-threatening injuries. If you’re to be charged with anything,’ Rath said, receiving an angry glare from Cora Bellmann, ‘then it’ll be for causing death by negligence. But no judge in Berlin is going to convict a grieving widower for that.’

  ‘She’s dead,’ Meisner screamed. ‘Don’t you understand? She’s dead and I killed her. I don’t give a damn what any judge says!’

  He buried his face in his hands and turned towards Cora Bellmann, who took him in her arms. She petted him and whispered something in his ear, as if comforting a nervous racehorse. At that moment Rath was glad he wasn’t alone with Meisner: anything was preferable to a despairing widower on the verge of breakdown.

  Meisner sobbed silently into his hands, and from time to time his body shook violently. Cora Bellmann looked at Rath as if to say: nice job, Inspector!

  ‘I think it’s better if you leave now,’ Rath said. In the doorway Cora Bellmann cast him a final, reproachful glance. She had put the actor’s sunglasses back on, probably so that no one on Alexanderplatz would recognise him, and for a moment Rath thought that if the pair of them were just a little more shabbily dressed they could earn a heap of money on Weidendammer Bridge, selling matchsticks or shoelaces, or by simply holding out a hat. He shook his head. These film types were hard as nails in front of the camera, and soft as putty in real life.

  There was a telephone on the wall, and Rath asked to be put through to Erika Voss. She started on the same theme as Gräf.

  ‘Inspector, what luck! Where are you? DCI Böhm has asked after you a hundred ti…’

  ‘Erika, would you be so kind as to bring the Betty Winter file up to date by this afternoon, I’d like to…’

  ‘The file is with DCI Böhm. Inspector, I…’

  ‘Then get it back.’

  ‘DCI Böhm is leading the investigation now, Inspector. You need to come to the station urgently. Superintendent Gennat has also been asking for you, Fräulein Steiner was even here in person and…’

  ‘Hello? Hello?’ said Rath.

  ‘Inspector?’

  ‘What’s that? The connection’s terrible. Can you hear me? Hello?’ He hammered the cradle with his index finger and hung up.

  The vultures were circling overhead, and their orbit was growing smaller. He couldn’t show his face in the office for the moment, typewriter or not, and it was only a matter of time before someone found out who had booked interrogation room B until one o’clock.

  Rath packed his things and decided to consider any further matters at Aschinger, in the branch at Leipziger Strasse. The risk of running into a colleague there was considerably lower than at Alex.

  He didn’t encounter anyone in the corridors, but almost collided with Brenner in the atrium, managing to duck behind a police vehicle in the nick of time. A few uniformed officers he didn’t know gazed curiously in his direction and he made a placatory gesture with his hands. Brenner was limping and wore his arm in a sling. Rath was already intrigued by the certificates he was planning to use against him. Brenner often skived off, which suggested
the man had an unusually easy-going doctor.

  Rath waited until Brenner had disappeared into the stairwell, then took the quickest route outside, got in his car and drove off.

  The clientele in the Aschinger on Leipziger Strasse was different from Alex. No small-time criminals, no policemen: mostly office workers and a few journalists from the nearby newspaper quarter, and shoppers taking a break between stores. Rath felt happier knowing there was no chance of being recognised, and ordered goulash soup as he leafed through the script. The thunder effect appeared on twelve separate occasions. He compared the scene numbers with the production schedule. All thunder scenes had already been shot and there had been no incidents, save for the last one.

  ‘You’re Inspector Rath, aren’t you?’ A small, familiar-looking man stood beside his table. Instinctively Rath was on guard.

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  The little man placed a card next to Rath’s bowl. ‘Fink, B.Z. am Mittag. May I?’

  Without waiting for a response, the man pulled up a chair and sat down. Rath continued eating his soup, now remembering him as one of those firing questions at Bellmann’s press conference.

  ‘I’m surprised,’ Fink said, ‘that there has been no news on the Winter case. Has it been confirmed as sabotage? Your colleagues have been pretty tight-lipped. I was referred to Inspector Böhm, but all he did was shout at me.’

  ‘Chief inspector,’ Rath corrected, wiping up the last remains of soup with half a bread roll.

  ‘He’s the one leading the investigation?’

  ‘There’s always someone in charge,’ Rath said, ‘it’s the others who do the work.’

  ‘I knew I was talking to the right man.’ Fink seemed genuinely pleased. ‘You’ve issued a warrant. Does that mean you know who the murderer is?’

  ‘Let’s not rush to condemn. We’re looking for an important witness. I can tell you one thing for sure: Betty Winter’s death was no accident. Anything else would be speculation, and I’d sooner leave that to you.’

  ‘I’d sooner have facts.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing new.’

  ‘Does Betty’s death have anything to do with the script in your hand?’ Fink pointed to the screenplay. ‘Liebesgewitter. That’s the name of her final film, isn’t it? Does it contain the key to her murder?’

  ‘Just routine.’ It was the only cliché Rath could think of.

  Fink looked Rath in the eye a moment too long and a shade too aggressively, before standing up. ‘You have my card,’ he said. ‘Call me when you know more. You won’t regret it.’

  Rath had heard that phrase suspiciously often recently, and couldn’t help thinking that someday he just might. He pocketed the card, even though he knew he wouldn’t be calling Stefan Fink.

  The clock in the dark, smoky restaurant showed shortly before one. Rath lit a cigarette and ordered a coffee. Now all he needed was a typewriter. It was too loud in Aschinger, so he gathered a few coins once he had finished his coffee and started looking for a public telephone. He found one on Dönhoffplatz, just next to Tietz. He knew the number of his old digs by heart. The operator put him through.

  ‘Behnke,’ a woman’s voice said.

  ‘Herr Weinert, please,’ said Rath.

  ‘Who’s there, please?’

  ‘A friend of Herr Weinert’s.’

  There was a click, and Rath could just see the receiver being placed on the little telephone table. He wondered if Elisabeth Behnke had recognised his voice, but it didn’t matter. The main thing was that she fetched Weinert to the telephone.

  The journalist came on the line with a careful ‘Yes?’

  ‘Gereon here.’

  ‘Oh, so it’s you who’s acting so mysteriously. I might have known. Old Behnke’s dying of curiosity. I told her something about anonymous sources.’

  ‘That’s kind of true. At least sometimes.’

  ‘Have you got something then? I could use a big story, preferably an exclusive. The rent’s already due.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Aren’t you on this Betty Winter story? That would be something.’

  ‘Are you interested in that?’

  ‘I’m interested in anything people are talking about.’

  ‘I don’t have much for you. Actually, I’m calling about something else.’

  ‘Do you want to move back in?’

  ‘Nit för Kooche.’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘That was Cologne dialect. Not if you paid me.’ Before Rath could continue, a heavy CLICK-CLACK by his ear made him start. Someone was pounding on the glass pane, not Böhm, not Brenner, but a woman. A grim-looking Fury, who might, perhaps, have been young and beautiful during the Kaiser’s reign, was banging on the cabin glass with the point of her umbrella, gesturing to the sign above the telephone that stated unequivocally: Keep it brief, be considerate of those waiting. Rath gave the dragon a nod and a placatory wave of the hand.

  ‘Gereon?’

  ‘Let me cut to the chase: I need your typewriter.’

  ‘Is there anything of mine you don’t want? I need that typewriter for work. Without it, I’ll starve.’

  ‘I don’t want to buy it. Just to borrow it for a day.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Today.’

  ‘Don’t you have any typewriters at Alex? Or have you been barred from the station?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Weinert considered for a moment. ‘I’ll make a suggestion,’ he said finally. ‘My typewriter for your car.’

  He could manage without the Buick for the rest of the day. True, he had been intending to drive out to Westhafen to visit the Ford plant, but that could wait so long as they hadn’t sent him the list of names from Cologne. Outside, the woman knocked on the glass once more. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘but I need it back early tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Wonderful! Then at least I’ve got a security against the typewriter.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up at Wittenbergplatz.’

  ‘And I’m supposed to just tuck the typewriter under my arm, am I?’

  ‘It’s only one station with the train.’

  Weinert laughed. ‘Might be better anyway. Old Behnke’s in such a good mood at the moment. I don’t want to jeopardise that by your coming here.’

  The dragon knocked again. He hung up before opening the door with a jolt and showing the woman his badge. ‘Do you know what it means to obstruct a criminal investigation?’ he shouted, without warning. ‘I could take you down to the station!’

  She gave a start. ‘But officer! I had no way of knowing. If you need to make another call, please go ahead.’

  Rath made a serious face and said: ‘Fine, let’s leave it at that. But in future, you should treat the work of police with a little more respect.’

  ‘Of course! Of course!’ The woman clasped her umbrella and handbag to her breast and made an immediate about-turn, no doubt glad to have narrowly escaped arrest.

  20

  Weinert was on time. Standing outside the underground station at Wittenbergplatz, he was difficult to miss despite the crowd, since he was the only one with a typewriter under his arm. The passers-by were unperturbed. Sometimes Rath thought that a five-legged, three-metre giant strolling across Tauentzienstrasse would elicit nothing more than a slightly raised eyebrow from a seasoned Berliner – provided, of course, that he was moving quickly enough. The only type of person who made an immediately negative impression on Berliners in the mad rush of their city was the astonished provincial, pausing to gawp at something and constantly running the risk of being steamrolled. The city showed its new arrivals no mercy, that much Rath had experienced himself; either they were consumed and ingested by the great organism within a matter of weeks, or they were spewed out.

  He turned onto Tauentzienstrasse, paused at the red light at KaDeWe and tooted. At least a dozen people turned to look before Weinert recognised the car and started towards it. No sooner had he settled into
the passenger seat than Rath stepped on the gas.

  ‘Hello, my precious,’ Weinert said, stroking the dashboard. ‘I hope he’s treating you well.’

  ‘If I’d known I’d be tearing a relationship apart…’

  ‘If you knew how many tears I’ve cried.’

  ‘You seem to be more faithful to cars than women.’

  ‘Could be.’ Weinert shrugged his shoulders. ‘On the other hand: I’ve never sold a woman.’

  Rath wore a dutiful, slightly wry grin. ‘Do you regret it?’ he asked. ‘I thought I’d done you a favour.’

  A few weeks before Christmas Weinert had lost a lot of money on the stock market, and his position as editor shortly afterwards. Rath had given himself the car as a Christmas present, in so doing helping his friend, who urgently needed cash, out of a jam. It had also enabled him to spend a portion of the five thousand marks he had found in his mailbox one late summer’s day.

  ‘I’m happy, at any rate, that you have the Buick and that I can still see it from time to time.’ Weinert held tight as Rath took the bend at Bülowbogen at top speed. ‘What do you need a typewriter for anyway?’

  ‘I’m taking a little work home.’

  ‘Is it that time again? Can’t you show your face at the station?’

  Weinert was brighter than he looked. ‘You work from home too,’ Rath said.

  ‘Yes, because I was too expensive for my publisher. Now I deliver more stories for less money, and they don’t even have to pay my heating costs.’

  ‘Times are hard.’

  ‘You’re telling me? That’s why I’m hoping we can rekindle our working relationship.’ He gestured behind the seat, to where two film cans were clattering alongside the typewriter. ‘Is that part of your case?’

  ‘Evidence. Winter’s death on celluloid.’

  ‘They filmed it?’

  ‘It happened during the shoot.’

  ‘Come on then, spill.’

  ‘We’ll do it like we always do. I tell you everything I know, but you wait until I’ve given the green light before publishing.’

  ‘I can live with that.’

  ‘And you make sure my name appears in the right places, without making it seem like I’m the one who told you everything.’