This time the silence lasted a little longer. ‘If you try and pull a fast one, this is the last time we speak.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t risk it.’ Rath took a pencil from his jacket and rummaged for a piece of paper. ‘So, where do you want to meet? An isolated clearing in Tegel Forest, no doubt.’
‘Not a clearing. The Funkturm. In the restaurant. Bring your journalist, but no one else. Tomorrow at one.’
‘I’ll be there,’ Rath said. ‘How will I recognise you? I’m sure you look different from your mugshots.’
‘I’ll recognise you. Just make sure you’re on time.’
32
Friday 7th March 1930
The sound didn’t surprise him; he had set his alarm for earlier than usual. But it wasn’t his alarm, it was the telephone! Rath switched on the light and glanced at the time: just before five. He rolled out of bed and walked barefoot across the cold floor into the living room. The telephone rang stubbornly. It could only be the Castle. Please, he thought, not another corpse.
‘Rath,’ he said, trying to sound awake, ready for Böhm’s voice, or some colleague on standby duty.
‘The boss can speak to you now,’ said a deep, sonorous voice. Marlow’s Chinaman.
Rath was immediately awake. ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled.
‘Inspector!’ Rath recognised the voice of Johann Marlow despite not having heard it in over a year. ‘Long time, no see. Except for in the papers, of course. Good that you haven’t forgotten an old friend.’
‘Let’s say business associate. Nice of you to call back. I had forgotten that you don’t go to bed until this time.’
Marlow laughed. ‘You’re right, I was just finishing when I saw you on my call list. Now I’m curious as to why you’re back in touch after such a long time.’
‘I have a favour to ask.’
‘Anytime. I have already offered you a small token of my appreciation, but I realise that I am still in your debt.’
The five thousand marks in a brown envelope, which Rath had found in his mailbox last September. He had guessed where the money was from, but spent it all the same. What else was he supposed to do? Drive out east and stuff it back in Marlow’s jacket pocket?
‘It concerns Vivian Franck,’ Rath said, outlining the case before telling Marlow what hadn’t been in the paper, above all the suspicion that someone from the underworld might have kidnapped and tortured the actress on somebody else’s behalf. The removal of the vocal cords as a message to Oppenberg: we have destroyed your great sound film hope.
‘You want me to ask around, see if anyone has been doing these vile things in exchange for cash?’ Marlow asked.
‘If that someone also has a key to the Luxor Cinema in Wilmersdorf, then we have a firm lead.’
‘I know a few people who’ll open just about any door for you without having the right key; but no one who’d take out someone’s vocal cords. For your sake, I’ll look into it. Can we meet tomorrow evening?’
‘I have a date.’
‘Come to the Plaza, I’ll get you tickets. Surely your companion will be able to spare you for five minutes. Half past nine, in the foyer, during the interval.’
After speaking to Marlow he hadn’t gone back to bed, but taken breakfast and set off. It was still dark enough for headlights, and it was a long drive out to Westhafen. Although he wasn’t happy to be back in touch with the gangster boss, Marlow was the best person to ask for information about the underworld. He had links to several of the Ringvereine, and was just as well, if not better, connected to the most important divisions at police headquarters.
Passing through Moabit, Rath stopped in Spenerstrasse again. On the other side of the road, behind the windows of her flat, a light was already on. She was probably having breakfast with Greta. With Greta rather than somebody else, he hoped. His heart was devoured by a jealousy so strong he had to light a cigarette to calm himself before continuing on his way. Ten minutes later he was rolling across Westhafenstrasse towards the harbour.
The clock tower by the admin building showed quarter to eight, but the harbour was already humming with activity, the Ford plant too. Even at this hour a few unemployed men were loitering hopefully outside the entrance. He parked the Buick directly under the Ford advertising hoarding.
Goatee Beard from Personnel was unpacking his briefcase when Rath entered the office. ‘Weren’t you supposed to come by yesterday?’ the man grumbled, passing several pages of names across the table. ‘I needn’t have hurried.’
‘More haste, less speed,’ Rath said.
He skimmed the lists in the car: over two hundred names complete with address and date of birth, details of training and start date. There were huge numbers of unskilled workers engaged here. No wonder there were queues of unemployed outside. Only four names appeared on both these and the Adenauer list: two Müllers, a Schröder and a Krüger. However, there was only one Anton. Anton Schmieder, trained car mechanic, had been with Ford for two years. It had to be the red-haired assembly worker whom Bahlke had called Toni. Why would a man like that leave his workplace on the spur of the moment? Perhaps after hearing that a police officer was speaking to the foreman? Rath noted the address.
He arrived at the morning briefing at nine sharp, ahead of Lange. Vivian Franck’s luggage was on the podium in front of the blackboard, which Böhm sometimes used to make notes or scrawl arrows and geometric figures that no one understood. He had laid out the contents of the suitcases on a long line of tables and was talking quietly to Kronberg. When he stepped onto the lectern, conversation in the room gradually ceased. At the last moment Lange scurried through the door, gazing around searchingly before sitting next to Rath.
Böhm praised the newcomer for having found the luggage together with Rath. Although Lange was keeping a low profile, the DCI probably thought the whole thing had been his idea, since the assistant detective had been the one to interrogate the taxi driver.
The luggage hadn’t yielded any significant insights, except that Vivian Franck must have had both good taste and a lot of money. Böhm was hoping for more from the list of names provided by the broker, which contained all those who possessed a key to the Luxor Cinema.
Nor had the bulldog forgotten the task he had assigned to Rath. ‘Have you found that private detective yet?’
‘I was going to look into it today,’ Rath lied, casting a sidelong glance at Lange, who didn’t bat an eyelash.
Surprisingly, the Winter team, which hadn’t made any progress for days, had made a little headway: Gräf and his squad had taken up Krempin’s trail again in Grunewald, in whose allotments the previous search had been concentrated. Gräf and Czerwinski had found cigarette butts in an abandoned summer house, the same kind Rath had uncovered in the empty flat on Guerickestrasse.
Unfortunately, Krempin was already gone by the time the police got there. The man never seemed to stay in the one place for any length of time. Would he be at the Funkturm this lunchtime? Rath still wasn’t entirely sure, but he had asked Weinert to come along and the journalist had needed no second invitation. Rath could barely concentrate on the briefing. He hadn’t told anyone about the meeting save for Weinert, and he intended to keep his word.
The morning passed uneventfully. At least Böhm hadn’t assigned them any of the key owners. He and Lange were to continue looking into the stranger at Wilmersdorf.
The police sketch artist was already waiting in the office when they emerged from the briefing. Erika Voss was making him coffee and seemed very interested in the man’s artistic skills.
‘What sort of thing do you usually paint?’
‘I draw,’ the man said. ‘Mostly in the courtroom, rather than for the police.’
‘Do you do it for pleasure too?’
‘Only to pass the time.’
‘What do you paint then?’
‘I draw. Cityscapes or street scenes mostly. Sketching from life.’
‘I see,’ Erika Voss said, pouring hot water into
the filter. Perhaps cityscapes weren’t her thing.
‘The witness should be here any moment,’ Rath said, hanging up his hat and coat. ‘Have you drawn a portrait from your imagination before? From another person’s testimony?’
‘It can work,’ the sketch artist said. ‘It depends on how good your witness is at describing things.’
Friedhelm Ziehlke provided a clear answer when he arrived shortly afterwards. The sketch artist had to keep pressing him every five seconds, aided by Lange, who tried again and again to jog his memory. Ziehlke wasn’t even sure about the man’s hair colour, remembering only that it was ‘kind of dark’. After quarter of an hour, the sketch artist had discarded five sheets of paper.
Rath doubted whether they would be able to identify the stranger from Wilmersdorf using this method, but at least it provided a pretext to keep Lange in the office. Rath took him to one side.
‘You hold the fort until old Zille here is finished,’ he said. ‘I’ll use the time to head out to Wilmersdorf. Perhaps something will occur to me there.’ Lange nodded and gave a forced smile, saying nothing. ‘Give the taxi driver until one. If we don’t have anything half-decent by then, send him home, and go and get something to eat with the artist and Fräulein Voss.’
There was still more than an hour until his meeting. Before making for the car, Rath looked for a free telephone booth at Alex.
Charly wasn’t home, only her friend Greta. If he had got her on the line, he might have tried to postpone, but he couldn’t call off like this, not through another person and over the telephone. He asked Greta to tell Charly that he would pick her up at half past seven.
Next he called the editorial office and asked for Weinert. ‘I can give you a ride in half an hour,’ he said. ‘That way, at least we’ll be on time. The last thing we want is to get stuck in traffic.’
Rath used the time to eat a little something at Aschinger before driving to Kochstrasse. Weinert was waiting outside the editorial building, a black umbrella wedged under his arm, seeming more nervous than usual.
They still had quarter of an hour when Rath parked the Buick in Masurenallee. It was quiet at the base of the Funkturm. There was no trade fair taking place, and the weather wasn’t exactly enticing. Weinert let Rath under his umbrella when it began to drizzle. They had to pay entry before entering the lift, just like everywhere in this city where there were too many tourists, and by five to one had managed to locate a window seat in the Funkturm restaurant. The waiter looked a little peeved when Rath only ordered a glass of Selters and Weinert a coffee.
‘We’re waiting for someone,’ Rath explained when the drinks came. Not that it was going to be a lavish midday meal, but the waiter didn’t have to know that.
What would Krempin tell them, and would he even come? Rath hadn’t told a soul about the meeting, with the exception of Weinert. Any one of his colleagues would have used the opportunity to intervene, and no doubt that was what Krempin meant to find out. The man was here somewhere checking the lie of the land; indeed, had probably been doing so for quite some time, making sure that Rath and Weinert really were on their own.
They sat at the table in silence, sipping their drinks. Rath lit an Overstolz. He was growing impatient. They had been sitting for ten minutes now. Had Krempin got cold feet, or had he taken some harmless passers-by for police officers and fled?
Outside, the rain fell in fine droplets over the roof edge and into the depths below. The weather wasn’t getting any better, but he could still just about make out the spire of Charlottenburg Town Hall. The view didn’t extend any further over the sea of houses, which disappeared into the dull haze.
A noise made him start. A loud bang, directly above their table. As if a large fist had struck the roof of the restaurant. The bang was followed by a clatter, scraping noises, as if something was sliding across the roof, and for a moment Rath’s heart stood still. For a fraction of a second he was gazing straight into Felix Krempin’s wide-open eyes on the other side of the window pane!
A dream, was his first thought.
Not a dream! He had really seen it. He lunged forward, his chair crashing to the ground. Weinert gazed at him in astonishment and a woman issued a brief, sharp cry. Rath turned and looked into horrified faces. Everyone had stopped what they were doing and stood rooted to the spot.
The waiter’s voice cut through the silence. ‘My God, somebody just jumped!’
Rath lay on the wide balustrade so that he could see down as far as possible through the sloping pane. There was someone lying there. The first onlookers were cautiously approaching the lifeless corpse on the exhibition grounds below. Rath looked at Weinert and the pair dashed to the lift which, predictably enough, wasn’t on the restaurant floor. A queue had already formed outside the doors.
‘This could take forever,’ Weinert said. They took the stairs at full speed, but it was still some time before they reached the bottom.
A handful of onlookers had formed an uneven circle around the body and were keeping a respectful distance, attracted and repelled in equal measure by the shattered corpse. Rath and Weinert pushed towards the front, and Rath recognised the tilted face of the dead man instantly. He gave Weinert a nod, and the journalist understood.
‘Weinert, Tageblatt,’ he said, approaching the bystanders with his pad at the ready. Instinctively, they stood back. ‘Did anyone see how it happened?’
A few people understood the question as an invitation to leave, but a stocky man in a grey uniform replied. Rath recognised the Cerberus to whom they had paid their entry fee.
‘He’ll have jumped, won’t he? Wouldn’t be the first! About time they stopped letting ’em up on the viewing platform, or built a high railing so they can’t climb over.’
Rath examined the corpse. It was Krempin, no doubt about it, heavily made up with his hair bleached light blond and his nose lengthened with a piece of wax. Apart from that, he was wearing a false moustache, which had come loose on impact and was now hanging by a shred. His face was unscathed save for a graze on the right cheek, but his unnaturally contorted limbs were a nasty sight. A pool of blood was growing under the body. Rath felt his carotid artery all the same.
Nothing, the man was dead.
A thought flashed through Rath’s mind. Better if your colleagues don’t find you here. ‘I need to get out of here,’ he said to Weinert. ‘You call the police.’
Weinert nodded and Rath took his leave. In the meantime, the lift must have reached the bottom floor, as a whole load of people he recognised from the restaurant came towards him. Even the lift attendant had left his post. Rath gazed up at the steel framework of the Funkturm. The viewing platform, from which Krempin must have plunged first onto the restaurant roof and then onto the surface of the courtyard, was easily a hundred and fifty metres. Seeing the abandoned lift Rath climbed in and, this time, went past the restaurant to the top.
He couldn’t believe that Krempin had jumped. Someone must have pushed him. Betty Winter’s killer, hoping to prevent Krempin from incriminating him, or from helping the police pick up his trail. But how did he know about their meeting?
Surely Krempin hadn’t confided in him. Or perhaps he had? Had the person whom Felix Krempin trusted most turned out to be his killer? The face of Manfred Oppenberg flashed through Rath’s mind.
The glazed viewing platform was deserted when he emerged from the lift. To get to the highest point he needed to climb another set of stairs. Suddenly he was standing in the open air.
Although it was no longer raining, there was a strong wind. Definitely not the weather for observation platforms. The parapet was fairly high, but it would be easy enough to scale, or to pull someone’s legs from underneath them and throw them over.
He leaned over the railing and gazed below. Krempin’s fall had left its mark on the roof of the restaurant. He felt dizzy. If someone grabbed his feet now, he would be done for. He stepped back and looked around. There was no one up here.
He inspec
ted the railing more closely. If Krempin hadn’t jumped, where was the man who pushed him? He would hardly have taken the lift. Perhaps Rath could still catch him. He hastened down the steel stairs. He had found it easier with Weinert a moment ago, but it didn’t help that he was now a hundred metres further up.
Don’t think about it! Just keep moving!
He tried to look down without his knees trembling, but it still wasn’t clear if there was anyone moving below. Every so often he thought he saw patches of colour flitting past, but couldn’t be sure. He continued to stumble down the steps until, all of a sudden, he saw something that seemed out of place in the steel framework. At first he thought it was an animal cowering in the supporting beams, but when he looked a little closer he realised what it was.
A toupee.
Had Krempin lost part of his disguise when he fell? Hardly – he had coloured his hair. Besides, whatever was being ruffled by the wind was only a hairpiece, rather than a full-blown wig. Someone had lost their toupee. Either a tourist who’d leaned too far over the railing, or a man who’d had it torn from his head.
The hairpiece was too far away to reach and, just as Rath was considering whether he was staring at a crucial piece of evidence, it was seized by a gust of wind and carried off, sailing slowly towards the ground, pirouetting further and further away before landing in a dense shrub.
When he reached the foot of the Funkturm the first uniformed officers were already on the scene. One of them was questioning Weinert – or perhaps Weinert was questioning the police officer, Rath couldn’t be exactly sure. Had the journalist struck lucky during his search for an eyewitness? At any rate, Berthold Weinert had his exclusive, even if it wasn’t the one he had been expecting.
Time to leave, before CID arrived and, with it, the prospect of familiar faces. Rath stole away from the exhibition grounds and tried to locate the shrub where the hairpiece had landed. Now wasn’t the right time; he would have to come back. He still wasn’t sure how he was going to explain it all to Böhm, but he’d think of something. At any rate, the DCI couldn’t get wind of the fact that Gereon Rath had been intending to meet a fugitive murder suspect without having first informed the police.
The Silent Death Page 27