‘What the hell is this?’ Rath asked without a word of greeting.
‘Give a guy a chance to wake up before you start abusing him.’
‘Abusing you? Look what you’ve written?’
‘What was I supposed to do? I called this Brenner, like you told me to, but he had a completely different perspective from you on all the main points. Besides, there was a press conference. The news that this lighting technician is wanted for murder isn’t only in Tageblatt.’
‘I explained to you that the murderer most likely only took advantage of Krempin’s design, and that he must have known the production schedule and script…’
‘Gereon, you don’t have to tell me all that again! If the police issue an official statement I have to adhere to it, and they’re saying that Felix Krempin is being urgently sought in connection with the Winter case – they’re even offering a reward! If you read my article more closely, you’ll realise that Tageblatt is the only paper that presents its readers with an alternative sequence of events.’
‘You sound like your chief editor,’ Rath said. He unfolded his paper: ‘The theory is not shared by all officers, however. According to our source, the fugitive Felix Krempin could be a thwarted saboteur, whose infernal machine was used by someone else to kill Betty Winter. Further insights are to be expected only once Krempin is found and makes a statement. Spectacular stuff!’
‘Sorry if you don’t like it, Gereon, but there wasn’t much else to say. You waited too long; your story wasn’t an exclusive anymore. Besides, it was you who told me that I shouldn’t mention your name.’
‘That would have capped it!’
‘You spoke to him didn’t you, Gereon?’
‘Pardon me?’
‘You spoke to Krempin, admit it!’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I have no idea what your connection is to this man, but if he’s innocent and wants to talk I would listen. As well as guaranteeing him one hundred percent anonymity and complete discretion. Is he really holed up in an allotment somewhere in Grunewald?’
‘You overestimate me. I have no idea where he’s hiding.’
‘I just wanted to let you know. He can trust me. Tell him the next time you speak to him.’
‘See you at lunchtime.’ Rath hung up.
He didn’t make it into the Castle until about nine, only to find the office deserted. Had Böhm stood Erika Voss down too? Rath got straight to work, filing the twelve pages of Gräf’s report with the rest of the reports on the Wessel funeral, which, among other things, he had requested from the political police. Böhm wanted the case to be treated as a straight murder, and everything political ignored – which was nigh on impossible given the reports on the victim’s burial. The Nazis had turned it into a kind of state funeral, and the Communists had disrupted it by denouncing the victim as a pimp. Reading Gräf’s report, Rath thought he discerned a certain sympathy for the Nazis at having to endure the abuse of the Red mob. They had conferred martyrdom on the dead man, while the Reds derided him as a ponce.
Rath took less than an hour to log everything, but, having finished, felt no desire to run straight to Böhm with the files. Better to wait until Voss got in and assign the task to her. He made a start on Weiss’s report. It wasn’t so easy to put his quarrel with Brenner into words, he discovered, as he searched for the most neutral way to phrase things. He could hardly write: Detective Inspector Brenner grievously insulted my erstwhile lover, homicide stenographer Charlotte Ritter, with the result that I saw myself obliged to restore the lady’s honour, but not without first having warned the detective against continuing with his affronts. When, however, Brenner refused to see reason and persisted with his slander, I was left with no choice but to prevent him by force.
He wrote the sentences anyway, as something to build on and edit until it was close enough to the truth without exposing Charly.
There was a knock on the door. Rath cursed his secretary. Did he have to take care of everything himself? He shouted, ‘Enter!’
Erika Voss came in, eyes fixed guiltily on the floor, said hello and hung her coat on the stand.
‘What’s all this? Why are you knocking? And why are you only here now?’
‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but – I…’
‘Lucky for you you’re usually on time,’ Rath said.
She lowered her gaze again, a shy gesture that didn’t at all suit her cheeky Berlin demeanour, and sat at her desk.
‘Then see to it that I’m not disturbed in the next hour,’ Rath said and closed the door.
He heard her telephoning quietly, most likely her sister again, but didn’t take her to task. Barely five minutes later, there was another knock.
Rath reacted brusquely. ‘What is it?’
The door remained closed, there was another knock. He lost patience, ran to the door and tore it open.
‘Did I not clearly say that I didn’t want to be…’
Pop! A champagne cork ricocheted off the lampshade with a metallic clang and hit the wall before coming to rest between the waste-paper basket and the desk.
The champagne bottle fizzed wildly as Reinhold Gräf endeavoured to collect the jet of liquid in a number of glasses. Next to him stood a beaming Erika Voss, and behind, looking a little embarrassed, Plisch and Plum. They began to sing. A reluctant four-voice choir gave him a birthday serenade. Their intonation wasn’t exactly secure, but they sang with heart.
Rath hated displays like this, especially on his birthday, but on this occasion he was touched that they had taken the time and effort.
Reinhold Gräf stepped forward, two champagne glasses in his hand. ‘Happy Birthday,’ he said, holding one out to Rath, who toasted all four of them.
Erika Voss dropped a curtsey. ‘Congratulations, Inspector.’
‘All the best from us, Gereon,’ Czerwinski said, raising his glass at the same time as Henning.
They drank. The stuff was sticky sweet, but goodwill was all that counted here. ‘I’m flabbergasted,’ he said. ‘How did you know?’
‘Simple detective work,’ Gräf said.
‘My sister works in Personnel,’ Erika Voss said.
‘You’ve got the right date, anyway. Your sister didn’t let you down.’
‘We thought you were keeping your birthday quiet because you didn’t want to buy any drinks,’ Gräf said. ‘But you won’t get away with that here!’
‘I might have known,’ Rath said, feigning remorse.
‘But first here’s something from us, Inspector!’ Erika Voss fetched a bright red package from the depths of her drawer and passed it to him. ‘From all of us.’
Rath tore the red paper to reveal a metal cigarette lighter and case. Normally he smoked straight from the packet, but it wouldn’t hurt to have something more stylish. For occasions like yesterday evening, for example.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Word got around quickly that I was smoking again!’
‘A development we wish to encourage,’ Gräf said. ‘You’re less irritable when you smoke.’
‘Well, you’ll be shot of me in a moment anyway – expect for Fräulein Voss. How come you’re here in the first place? Don’t you have to scrape and bow to Böhm?’
‘We were all here anyway,’ Henning said. ‘We’re assuming, of course, that you won’t tell Böhm where we went after the briefing.’
‘There was another briefing today?’
Gräf shrugged. ‘Böhm has one every day now. He wants to bring the Winter case to a quick resolution.’
‘I heard he’s even offering a reward for Krempin.’
Czerwinski nodded. ‘If we find him, the case is solved. If we don’t, it looks ominous.’
‘Does that mean no one’s conducting enquiries anymore? That you’re all just looking for poor Krempin?’
‘How do you mean, poor?’ Czerwinski hunched his shoulders. ‘If he hadn’t killed anyone, no one would be chasing after him.’
‘Good luck,’ Rath sa
id. ‘Finding Krempin, I mean. Perhaps you’ll catch the murderer at some point too.’
‘You’re pretty much on your own with that theory, Gereon,’ Gräf said. ‘Most of us think it was Krempin.’
‘That’s why he’s hiding. He knows he’s got no chance against all your prejudices.’
‘We’ll get him,’ Czerwinski said. ‘Then the truth will be revealed.’
The three CID officers were gradually becoming restless. ‘Time to go,’ Rath said. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for you getting into trouble with Böhm.’
A short time later, he was sitting at his desk tinkering with his report. ‘Your sister, Fräulein Voss?’ he asked his secretary, ‘does she have access to doctor’s notes and certificates, things like that?’
‘Could do. I’d have to ask.’
‘If you would, but discreetly please. I’d need to know what kind of injuries Detective Brenner has.’
‘Why? I’m not sure if I’m allowed.’
‘I’d like to apologise. I’m sorry about what I did to him. I never intended it.’
She looked at him sceptically.
‘I’d only need a quick look, that would be enough. I just want to know how he’s doing.’
‘I’ll ask Franzi, but I’m not making any promises.’
27
The porter was sitting in his lodge behind the revolving door.
‘I have a meeting,’ Rath said, wondering which name would make the greater impression, ‘with Herr Heyer…’ the porter furrowed his brow ‘…and Herr Weinert.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know these gentlemen,’ the porter said, ‘but you could take a look among the non-swimmers.’ He gestured towards the big room to the right of the entrance, which was full to bursting. Rath took off his hat and coat and looked around at not so many writers as onlookers trying to catch a glimpse of writers. That was his impression. Weinert was nowhere to be seen, and if one of the figures sitting at the tables chatting, reading the papers or simply staring into space was Willi Heyer, or if he was one of the many more scribbling in their notebooks, Rath couldn’t say.
He looked for a table on the glazed veranda, which was mostly populated by tourists hoping to do some celebrity spotting. Rath ordered a coffee and requested a copy of Tageblatt from the newspaper waiter. It was very pleasant in this glass case; the view of Berlin life as it raged around the stoic mass of the Gedächtniskirche was spectacular. The coffee was good too, and even came with a glass of water. Rath smoked a cigarette with his coffee, leafed through the newspaper and waited.
At shortly after one, Berthold Weinert entered the glass case together with a lean, tallish man who couldn’t have been much older than thirty, but whose hair was already thinning. He wore thick glasses and hadn’t shaved for at least two days. Weinert saw Rath, showed his companion to the table and made the introductions.
‘You write screenplays?’ Rath asked.
‘And you put murderers behind bars,’ Heyer replied. ‘Berthold told me about your work. Perhaps I can ask for your advice next time I’m writing a crime film.’
‘It wouldn’t hurt. The crime thrillers I’ve seen have precious little to do with real police work.’
The men took their seats at table. Weinert ordered a glass of Bordeaux, Heyer a vodka Martini. Rath sipped on his coffee, a little envious of the others’ drinks. He offered Heyer a cigarette but Weinert, the dedicated non-smoker, wasn’t afforded a look at Rath’s new case.
‘Let’s cut to the chase,’ he said, while lighting Heyer’s cigarette. ‘You sold the same story twice. Is that normal in your line of work?’ Not a good start, Rath noted, realising he had touched a sore point.
‘I don’t know what’s normal in this line of work,’ Heyer said. ‘It seems normal, at any rate, to take a story from an author and pass it on to a complete stranger.’
‘You’ll have to elaborate there,’ Rath said.
‘Gladly.’ Heyer drew greedily on his Overstolz. ‘I’ve been working with Oppenberg’s Montana for a long time, and we always got on well until I sold him my Zeus story.’
‘Didn’t he pay?’
‘He paid well, in fact, and on time, as always. The problem is that he bought the script about a year ago and wanted to turn it into a conventional silent film. However, as sometimes happens in the film industry, the project stalled, others were brought forward, and things kept getting in the way. Then finally something huge got in the way.’
Heyer paused theatrically, as the waiter served the drinks.
‘Talkies,’ the author continued. ‘Oppenberg decided to turn my film into a talkie, but in order to do so the script had to be rewritten. A silent film manuscript has very little dialogue, and if it does, it needs to fit on an intertitle.’ Heyer took another drag on his cigarette. ‘Sound film is different; there, dialogue is far more important.’
‘Let me guess,’ Rath said. ‘Oppenberg didn’t pay you for the additional work.’
‘Worse,’ Heyer said, ‘he had the dialogue written by someone else. To crown it all, he even changed the title. Vom Blitz getroffen – how poetic. Ha!’
‘What’s your script called then?’
‘Olympische Spiele. You get it? Zeus, the Olympian, is playing games with the mortals…’ Heyer aided his explanation by frantically waving his hands.
‘And you can just do that, can you?’ Rath asked. ‘Turn a script into a completely different film?’
‘Oppenberg bought my script, it belongs to him. He can do whatever he chooses with it. At least the story hasn’t changed.’ Heyer took a deep drag on his cigarette. ‘But for some reason Oppenberg must have thought I couldn’t write dialogue. Anyway, he left it with someone else, some snotty little theatre upstart. And the worst thing? It’s his name that’ll be appearing in the opening credits. All I’ll have to show for my creative efforts is that fair but fickle phrase: based on an idea by Willi Heyer.’
‘Haven’t you spoken to Oppenberg about it?’
‘Spoken? I’ve crawled on my knees, but in vain. The man is hard as nails. All my demands came up against a brick wall. Oppenberg showed me what screenplay authors are worth in this business: nothing.’ Heyer stubbed his cigarette out. ‘That’s when I got really angry, and thought: I’ll show him I can write dialogue. So, I transferred my Zeus story to the Nordic pantheon and offered it to Bellmann. With talking characters.’
‘Liebesgewitter with Thor, the God of Thunder, instead of Zeus, the Olympian…’ Rath nodded. ‘And Bellmann went for it straightaway?’
Heyer grinned. ‘Of course. He takes any chance he can get to hurt Oppenberg, the old anti-Semite. I have to say, I don’t particularly like Bellmann. Give me Oppenberg a thousand times over, both as producer and as a person, but in this case I made no allowances for that! I’m still hoping that Liebesgewitter will be a massive success and Vom Blitz getroffen comes a cropper. Then Oppenberg will realise who writes the better dialogue, and how important a good script is for a successful film: a thousand times more important with talkies.’
‘Unfortunately, Bellmann’s leading actress didn’t survive the shoot.’
‘I doubt that’ll harm the film’s chances of success,’ said Weinert, sipping his wine. ‘Quite the opposite. Bellmann is using the attention her death has caused. The title has been mentioned in almost every newspaper article, even made headlines.’
‘Death as a means of propaganda,’ Rath said.
‘You could see it like that,’ Heyer said. ‘Do you really think that Bellmann’s behind it? That he paid this technician to kill Betty Winter?’
‘If he wanted her to die, then he didn’t pay anyone. He did it himself,’ Rath said. ‘Felix Krempin might have devised the mechanism, but someone else triggered it. Someone who knew the script.’
Weinert nodded in agreement. ‘I can’t see Bellmann being that someone. Even if he’s an arsehole, he has his limits, and Betty Winter is one of them. His best actress! Now he only has Meisner, whose best days are behind him.’<
br />
‘Bellmann has already appointed Winter’s successor,’ Rath said. ‘Eva Kröger. Heard of her?’
Heyer shook his head. ‘Must be new.’
‘She still needs a stage name,’ Rath said. ‘Perhaps you can think of one, and sell it to Bellmann.’
‘He won’t pay for that. Anyone can think of a name. I don’t think they’re protected by law.’
‘And a story?’ Rath asked. ‘Can you really sell a story twice? Isn’t that open to a legal challenge?’
‘The lawyers are currently arguing that, but it looks bad for Oppenberg because I sold him a silent film manuscript, and Bellmann a talkie. That’s what Bellmann told me a few days ago. They’re completely different things, in terms of the number of pages alone. Besides, it was stupid of Oppenberg to change the title. The way things look, the race will be decided at the box office and not in the courtroom.’
‘Do you know Vivian Franck?’ Rath asked, changing tack.
Heyer nodded. ‘I’ve written a few films for her, though not her latest. Oppenberg got Verrucht from the same amateur who ruined my script.’
‘You know that she has disappeared?’
‘There are a few rumours going around.’
‘What kind of rumours?’
‘In the industry,’ Heyer said, ‘people are saying that Franck was going to leave Oppenberg and change producers. Even move across the pond.’
‘Across the pond?’
‘America, to Hollywood.’
‘Is her English good enough?’
‘No idea.’ The author shrugged. ‘If they want her, it must be. Unlike Jannings. They gave him an award and then sent him on his way.’
‘The great Jannings, a victim of sound film?’
‘If you like. We’ll soon see if the best actor in Hollywood can still hold his own here in Germany. The new Jannings film is out shortly.’
‘I know,’ Rath said. ‘If Vivian Franck really is in Hollywood, then why doesn’t anyone know?’
‘She doesn’t have to tell everyone. If she makes the big time, we’ll all hear about it, and if she’s a flop…well, who knows what she’ll say?’
The Silent Death Page 21