The Silent Death

by volker Kutscher

  The most beautiful woman in Berlin went a little red in the cheeks. ‘I’ve been trying to reach him for days,’ she said. ‘But all I’ve got is his secretary on the line. Paul likewise. Do you have any idea where he might be?’

  ‘Right now? He ought to be here,’ Weinert said, ‘because I have arranged to meet him. But nothing doing. He’s not in his local either.’ He shook his head. ‘Do you know I was sure he wouldn’t stand me up again this time. He even made a bet.’

  Wittkamp laughed. ‘Well, then you can stop worrying. Gereon really doesn’t like to lose a bet.’

  ‘I can only think he was called to an operation at short notice.’

  ‘We can find that out easily enough,’ Charlotte Ritter said. ‘A telephone call to the station will suffice.’

  ‘There’s a telephone at Wassertorplatz.’

  They made their way there together and, as they did so, Weinert learned that she had once worked in Homicide as a stenographer, but that her legal studies currently took precedence.

  ‘I know Gereon from his old flat in Nürnberger Strasse,’ he revealed. ‘I still live there.’

  ‘At Behnke’s?’

  ‘You know Frau Behnke?’

  ‘Indirectly.’

  Weinert drew his own conclusions and fell silent.

  They reached the telephone booth where he searched in his pocket for two ten-pfennig pieces. She took the coins and inserted them into the machine.

  ‘Berolina zero-zero-two-three,’ she said. ‘Homicide please.’ She had to wait a moment to be put through. ‘Evening, Reinhold. Have you been relegated to the late shift? Charly here. …Yeah, yeah, lots on my plate ’cause of the exam. Reinhold, the reason I’m calling. Do you have a major operation on? … No? … OK… Just an old friend who wanted to say goodbye to Gereon Rath. You don’t happen to know where he is?’

  She shrugged when she hung up. ‘Work-wise there’s nothing unusual going on, and he doesn’t appear to be at the station either.’

  ‘What are we going to do with the rest of the evening?’

  Charlotte Ritter sounded determined. ‘I think we should go to Alex,’ she said. ‘It feels strange that no one knows where Gereon is.’

  ‘Maybe he’s sitting in a pub somewhere getting drunk,’ Wittkamp said.

  ‘Not when he’s arranged to meet Herr Weinert here. And he hasn’t been in touch with us either, even though his secretary must have told him we called. Something’s not right and perhaps we can work it out!’

  She gave Weinert a look that brooked no argument. ‘Do you want to stay here in case Gereon comes home?’

  Weinert nodded. ‘I’ve got nothing better to do. Besides, the beer in the Nasse Dreieck tastes pretty good. Perhaps he’ll turn up there. Otherwise I’ll try my luck every half-hour on Luisenufer.’

  ‘If he should appear, please telephone the station and ask for Charlotte Ritter.’

  ‘If you should hear anything, just get in touch here at the pub. The Nasse Dreieck. Easy to remember. Don’t be surprised if the landlord doesn’t say anything. It just means you’ve got the right number.’

  52

  A throbbing pain fetched him back. He opened his eyes in darkness. Grey contours gradually emerged from the gloom. He couldn’t discern much, just the outlines of two large windows, but the night outside was almost as black as the room itself. He couldn’t see where he lay, perhaps on a bed or a sofa, at any rate he was comfortable. If, given his situation, one could speak of comfort at all.

  He tried to remember. Before being plunged into darkness he had seen the face of a dead woman. Jeanette Fastré, large as life, and so vivid that, briefly, he thought she was standing in front of him. Even Kirie had been deceived and barked at the photo.

  Where was the dog? He sat up with a start, worried that something could have happened to her. His head responded with acute pain. He touched it with his hand, almost surprised it was possible. He wasn’t bound. The blow had left a large bump.

  Wolfgang Marquard had knocked him out, sure enough.

  Marquard, the sound film hater.

  Marquard, the cinema killer.

  What was he up to? Where had he brought him? He couldn’t seriously believe that his problems would be solved by striking a police officer?

  For the time being though, Rath was the one with the problems. His headache was abating, albeit gradually.

  Suddenly, he sensed he wasn’t alone. A silhouette in front of the window moved, he heard the rustle of material and then a voice.

  No, not a voice, more of a wheeze, a strange hiss, a kind of panting.

  It sounded like a laugh without a voice.

  ‘Welcome to my prison,’ it said from the darkness.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You still have your voice, that surprises me!’

  ‘Do you…are you an actress? Did he remove your vocal cords?’

  The voiceless laugh wheezed through the darkness. ‘You wait,’ she hissed. It was meant to be loud but he had to strain to hear. ‘You’ll see.’

  He heard furniture squeaking and steps in the darkness. There was a click and then the room was light. He blinked and looked around at a dark, wood-panelled room with old-fashioned furnishings, but luxurious nevertheless. A woman was standing in the door. Despite her snow-white hair, she couldn’t have been much older than fifty. She returned to her chair and gazed through the window into the night, which, thanks to the light in the room, had become no more than an impenetrable dark mass.

  He sat up and his headache launched another attack.

  ‘I’m his mother.’

  She continued to gaze through the window as she spoke. In the light, Rath could understand her whispered speech even less. Listening was a strain, and with each attempt his head grew more painful.

  ‘What’s wrong with your voice, Frau Marquard? Did your son…?’

  ‘I would like so very much to go out to the lake again. He doesn’t let me.’

  ‘Did he…did your son remove your vocal cords?’

  ‘He doesn’t let me out anymore. Sometimes I stand in the tower and gaze at the lake and dream that I’m down there in the wind.’ Her whispering grew quieter with each sentence, as if even this mode of speech would soon no longer be possible. ‘I’m condemned to wait here for death, without having sat by the lake again and felt the wind in my hair.’

  Rath felt his headache getting worse. He stood up, and for a moment everything went black and he had to lean against the wall. He went to the next door and opened it.

  ‘You won’t get out of here, merely enter the next cell of our golden prison.’ She turned to face him, looking straight at him. She had a flawless, beautiful face and skin so fair it appeared almost transparent.

  ‘Why do you think you are up here with me? No one gets out if Wolfgang doesn’t want them to. You can’t even open the windows.’ She gave her panting laugh again. ‘It’s a good prison. My husband built it for Wolfgang. It was him who locked the boy up, not me, but I’m the one he takes revenge on. Strange, isn’t it?’ When she laughed she looked like the evil stepmother in Snow White, before she became the rapidly aged but still beautiful woman once more.

  He had to support himself on the door frame. His hand shook for a moment, but the moment passed. There was cold sweat on his forehead.

  ‘You need sugar. Otherwise you’ll die.’

  ‘Sugar? Am I… Did he…?’

  ‘He gave you an injection. That’s why he brought you here.’ She shook her head as if she couldn’t understand such dim-wittedness. ‘People are only brought here to die.’

  ‘Then give me some sugar.’

  ‘I’d like to enjoy your company for a little while longer. It’s so rare that I have visitors. Just a few old ghosts.’ The old lady smiled. ‘It would be very nice if you could stay, but that’s not in my hands. Soon you’ll be gone, and I’ll be alone again.’

  ‘You must be able to bring me something! Don’t you have any chocolate, or take sugar in your tea?�
� Rath felt his panic growing. ‘Fruit, sweets, juice, there must be something to hand, damn it!’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you. There has never been anything sweet up here, no chocolate, no fruit, no sugar, nothing. That’s the reason this prison was built in the first place.’

  53

  When they entered the Homicide office, Reinhold Gräf was at the duty officer’s desk reading the evening paper. Behind him a young officer Charly didn’t recognise sat brooding over files.

  Gräf put his paper aside and stood up. ‘Charly,’ he said, and cast her companion an inquisitive glance.

  ‘Paul Wittkamp,’ she said. ‘Gereon’s old school friend from Cologne – Reinhold Gräf, Gereon Rath’s colleague and partner.’

  The men shook hands.

  ‘Delighted to meet you,’ Gräf said. ‘Partner isn’t quite right though. Böhm broke us up, and for the time being Gennat hasn’t done anything to change it.’

  ‘Then you don’t have any idea where he could be?’

  Gräf shrugged apologetically. ‘He isn’t in his office anyway. I just telephoned, but there was no one there.’

  ‘Do you still have a key?’

  ‘Do you think he’s fallen asleep over a mountain of files?’

  Charly laughed. ‘I’d be very surprised, but you never know.’

  Gräf went to the hatstand and rummaged in his coat pocket until a key ring jangled in his hand.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Should I come with you?’

  ‘Not necessary. I still know my way around.’

  The office was locked. ‘He even has his name on the door,’ Paul said appreciatively. ‘I never knew Gereon was so important.’

  Entering, Charly turned on the light. The secretary’s desk was tidy in a makeshift way. She went straight into Gereon’s office and Paul followed. One desk was a gaping void; the other was submerged in chaos.

  ‘Let me guess where Gereon sits,’ Paul said.

  Charly looked at the desk. On top of the desk pad was a piece of paper with a note written in pencil. It was an address. Sandwerder had to be down by the Wannsee. A name was circled several times.

  She tried to remember, hadn’t Gereon mentioned the name recently?

  ‘You hold the fort in case he turns up,’ she said to Paul and took the note from the desk. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Gräf was surprised that she was back so soon.

  ‘Are there any ongoing investigations in which the name Marquard features?’ she asked.

  Gräf shook his head.

  ‘Marquard?’ The man at the desk sat up and took notice. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She displayed the note. ‘From Gereon…Inspector Rath. Perhaps it means something.’

  ‘Show it here. Ah,’ he stammered and stretched out a hand. ‘Lange’s the name, Andreas Lange.’

  ‘Ritter, Charlotte Ritter.’

  ‘I know,’ Lange said and blushed. He looked at the note and opened a folder. ‘I knew it! Wolfgang Marquard is the owner of the film distribution company Lichtburg. The address is identical to his private residence.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know if I can say.’

  ‘Come on, Andreas! Charly’s a colleague. Just on a temporary sabbatical.’

  ‘So: Lichtburg is one of the four companies that had keys to the cinemas in which we found the bodies of two dead actresses…’

  ‘Had keys?’

  ‘Supposedly they were recalled when the cinemas were forced to close, but you never know, perhaps they weren’t all returned. Besides, you can copy keys like that easily enough.’

  Charly nodded thoughtfully. ‘That was how you limited the circle of people who could have planted the actresses.’

  ‘Correct. There are hardly any other clues.’ Lange looked at the note again. ‘I’m surprised Inspector Rath came across this name; as far as I know he’s investigating the Winter murder.’

  ‘If we assume that Gereon wasn’t working on your list of keys,’ Charly said, ‘it can mean only one thing. He came across the same name while investigating another lead.’

  ‘Yangtao,’ Lange said.

  ‘Pardon me?’ Charly asked.

  ‘It’s here on the note. Above the address.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Some crazy idea of Gereon’s,’ Gräf explained. ‘Yangtao is a kind of Chinese fruit. That’s why he spent half of yesterday traipsing around the Chinese quarter.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘This Chinese fruit was in Winter’s stomach and Fastré’s fruit bowl.’ Gräf shook his head. ‘Coincidence if you ask me. The Winter case doesn’t have the slightest thing to do with the cinema killings.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Charly shrugged. ‘Is there really no connection there? What about this Oppenberg who also appears in both cases?’

  ‘Coincidence.’

  ‘Do you know where Manfred Oppenberg received the news of Vivian Franck’s death?’

  The two CID officers looked at her curiously.

  ‘In Wolfgang Marquard’s villa,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that rather a lot of coincidences?’

  ‘You think Oppenberg is the cinema killer?’

  ‘Or Wolfgang Marquard. Or someone they both know. No idea. At any rate, something isn’t right and Gereon has smelled a rat.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s gone out there. He didn’t say anything to anyone. Surely you’d take someone with you.’

  ‘Who knows? If he thought it wasn’t dangerous because he didn’t know the name Marquard had cropped up as part of the cinema killer investigation… Was he familiar with the list, Herr Lange?’

  Lange shook his head. ‘No. He can’t have been. The list was here the whole time.’

  ‘Holy shit,’ Charly cried inadvertently.

  ‘Are you saying that Gereon Rath has unwittingly stumbled upon the trail of the cinema killer?’

  54

  A telephone rang. Rath hadn’t noticed it until now, even though it seemed out of place in these surroundings. It was an old model. The mouthpiece was still integrated in the body of the machine so that you had to lift the receiver.

  ‘That’ll be Wolfgang,’ Elisabeth Marquard said. ‘No one calls here otherwise. Answer it, it’ll be for you.’

  He hesitated and she made an inviting gesture. Rath took the receiver from the cradle.

  ‘Yes,’ he said into the trumpet.

  ‘Inspector, how are you?’

  ‘You ought to know.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but you left me with no other choice. You shouldn’t have visited me tonight.’

  ‘I visited you before. You were perfectly friendly then.’

  ‘You didn’t have a dog sniffing around my house.’

  ‘What have you done with Kirie?’

  ‘You should be worrying about yourself rather than the dog.’

  ‘You can still go back. Let me go, spare my life. If I die things will only get worse. You don’t seriously believe you can escape arrest? Do you want to have to answer for a policeman’s murder, alongside the others?’

  ‘You haven’t understood anything, Inspector. This isn’t about murder.’

  ‘If I’m not mistaken you have two actresses on your conscience. What would you call that?’

  ‘I didn’t murder those women, I made them immortal.’

  ‘Tell that to the judge.’

  ‘The way you’re talking, Inspector, shows that you haven’t understood anything, not that it matters. I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another guest to attend to.’

  He hung up.

  Elisabeth Marquard looked at Rath expectantly. ‘Did he send greetings?’

  The woman had a nerve. ‘No,’ he said, and her sense of hope seemed to crumble. He felt his legs suddenly grow weak, but the moment passed. ‘Why does he keep you locked up here?’

  She shrugged. ‘Because he hates me? Really it’s his father he ought to hate. He�
��s the one who locked him up!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s how Dr Schlüter wanted it.’

  ‘What reason can there possibly be to lock up your own son, Frau Marquard? Was he dangerous, even back then?’

  ‘Dangerous?’ She looked at him as though even speculating that her son could be dangerous was one of the seven deadly sins. With a shake of the head she turned around and gazed out of the window again. ‘Wolfgang was fourteen when he fell ill. First it was just mumps, but then…the pancreas…a serious inflammation. We feared for his life. He survived, but paid a heavy price.’

  ‘Diabetes.’

  She nodded. ‘Dr Schlüter gave us hope. It wasn’t a total loss. The boy could still produce insulin, but too little. A strict diet, the old doctor said, and Wolfgang can live for many years yet. But the boy was foolish.’

  ‘That’s why you locked him up? Because he couldn’t have kept to his diet otherwise?’

  ‘I didn’t lock him up! It was my husband.’

  ‘Where is your husband? Why isn’t your son avenging him?’

  ‘Richard has been dead for a long time. Just like Dr Schlüter.’

  ‘Did your son…?’

  ‘No, what are you thinking of?’

  Speaking had tired her. She fell silent and gazed out of the window.

  Rath was finding it increasingly difficult to form coherent thoughts. He had to look for an escape route, and went through the open door into the next room of their luxury prison. ‘Room’ was the wrong expression; these were chambers. A bedchamber with a four-poster bed, in which he would never have been able to get to sleep, then a small library and a spacious drawing room. There was dark wood panelling on every wall.

  He tried the windows but they were all sealed. Finally, he reached the dining room; here too the windows were sealed. He tried to go through the second door into the adjoining room, to continue his reconnaissance expedition, but it was locked.

  He had reached the end of the prison.

  Rath threw himself against the heavy door with all his might, but it wouldn’t give. All it brought him was a painful shoulder. He tried again, and again in vain. It tired him out more than it should have. Finally, sweating and gasping for air, he let himself sink to the floor.