‘Kreuzberg.’
‘You said something terrible has happened. Is she hurt?’
Fritze looked at him despairingly. ‘She’s bleeding. I think she needs a doctor, but she won’t see one, or go near a hospital, so I thought I’d get Charly.’ He was on the verge of tears again.
‘What happened?’
‘It was him again . . . he had Hannah . . . and then . . .’ The boy shrugged. Helplessly. ‘What was I supposed to do?’
‘What is it? What did you do?’ Wrong question. The boy was racked with sobs once more. ‘All right. It’s all right. Can you take me to her?’
Less than five minutes later they were in the car racing east across Budapester Strasse. Fritze couldn’t say exactly where they were headed, only that he had boarded a train at Schlesisches Tor.
Rath hurtled along the Landwehr Canal and Gitschiner Strasse, as if racing the elevated train. Time was of the essence. Hannah had stab wounds, and if Rath understood correctly the man with the scars was responsible. He wondered if Hannah Singer might hold the key to their mystery killer after all. The girl had got herself to safety, and Fritze had gone in search of help.
As they approached Schlesisches Tor Rath took his foot off the gas. ‘Where now?’
‘Take the next street. It’s on the right.’
Fritze led him to an old, decommissioned cinema that had fallen victim to either the financial crisis or the advent of sound, perhaps both. The entrance was sealed with chains and padlocks.
‘In there? It looks like a fortress. How do you get in?’
‘Follow me.’
They went around the building into a rear courtyard where the back entrance was also sealed. Fritze cleared a few crates, and pointed to an air shaft. He might pass through, and Hannah too, but it was too narrow for a grown man.
‘We can’t go that way,’ Rath said, rummaging in his coat pocket for his picklocks, whereupon he began fiddling with one of the padlocks. Fritze looked on in admiration. Rath opened the door, which must have been an emergency exit at one time, and they slipped straight into the theatre. What daylight filtered through the crack revealed row upon row of dusty, moth-eaten seats.
‘She’s in there,’ Fritze said, pointing in the direction of the screen, and the contours of an enormous cinema organ. ‘It’s us. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.’
No response. Fritze climbed up the organ pipes. Rath sighed and followed him up the small ladder.
Based on the police photos alone he wouldn’t have recognised Hannah Singer. Her hair was different, and her face too. Definitely not crazy. She looked as if she were sleeping. He crouched beside her and felt her pulse.
‘Is she . . .’ Fritze didn’t dare finish his question.
‘She’s alive,’ Rath said, ‘but she urgently needs a doctor. She’s lost a lot of blood.’
‘No doctor.’ A quiet, reedy voice.
‘Hannah,’ Rath said. ‘Try to stay awake. We’re here to help you.’
‘No doctor . . .’ was all she said.
‘Talk to her,’ Rath was already descending the ladder. ‘Make sure she stays conscious.’ The boy crouched beside her. ‘I know someone who can help. Tell her I’m getting help. She needn’t worry. No doctor, no hospital. Everything will be all right. Tell her, talk to her!’
78
Charly called back, but he wasn’t picking up. Greta had meant well, and she had a gift for fobbing people off. ‘You have to keep them on tenterhooks,’ she had said. ‘Believe me, it helps.’
‘What did he want?’
‘What do you think? He wanted you back. “I need to speak with her,” he said. Swore at me too.’
‘He did?’
‘Called me a stupid cow.’
‘Just like that?’
‘What do you mean, just like that? He insisted I go and fetch you because of this boy, and . . .’
‘This boy? Fritze?’
Before Greta confirmed the name Charly knew she had to call Carmerstrasse, and when Gereon didn’t answer her mind was made up. ‘I’m going back.’
So here she was sitting in the empty flat, edgy as a cat on a hot tin roof, drinking her second coffee and wondering what to do next. The porter, Bergner, confirmed that Gereon had left the house with Kirie and a boy in tow, ‘your nephew, Fräulein Ritter.’ He didn’t know where they were headed, of course, only that they were in a rush.
She racked her brains over what could have happened, but there was nothing to do now but wait, drink coffee, and smoke.
Her guilty conscience stirred. She shouldn’t have slapped him yesterday, or run away, she’d realised that almost as soon as her anger subsided. Why did he have to talk such nonsense? Female suffrage had brought Hitler to power? When it came to politics Gereon was a fool, and he wasn’t the only one in this country.
She didn’t know how long she’d been waiting, but at some point she heard footsteps in the stairwell, several people, the pitter-patter of a dog . . . She stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. The door opened, and Kirie ran to greet her. Then came Fritze, throwing his thin arms around her as if he never wanted to let go. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
Gereon took the key from the lock and shrugged. Fritze was more forthcoming after she’d made him a few sandwiches in the kitchen. Scarface man had appeared again, and injured Hannah, but thanks to Gereon she was now safe because this Chinese had come and . . .
‘Chinese?’ she said, looking at Gereon.
‘Hannah didn’t want to see a doctor or go to the hospital. She was right, too. They’d have sent her straight back to Dalldorf. Is that what you would have wanted?’
‘Who was this Chinese?’
‘A man who owed me a favour.’
‘And he’s a doctor.’
‘Let’s say he knows his way around a scalpel.’ He glared as if in preparation for another fight. ‘She was bleeding to death. Damn it, Charly, where would you have sent her? To your doctor friend? An arsonist, a mass murderer?’
Fritze’s eyes opened wide at the word ‘murderer’ and Charly could have kicked Gereon for being so crude. Too late.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ the boy said, looking as if he might burst into tears at any moment. ‘Really I didn’t, but what was I s’posed to do? The bastard would have strangled her otherwise!’
She looked at Gereon. ‘What is he talking about?’ she asked.
‘It was self-defence, Aunt Charly!’ Fritze looked at her as if she might send him back into care. ‘This strange, pointy thing was just lying there and I . . . All of a sudden he wasn’t moving anymore.’
79
Charly sat on the passenger seat in silence, barely deigning to look at him, and then only to make it known that all this was his doing. For the second time that day Rath drove eastwards, this time watching his speed so as to avoid being pulled over by a colleague. This was not now a matter of life and death, but death alone.
It was approaching dusk when they arrived. Fritze’s description had been good, a dilapidated factory site off Köpenicker Strasse. A weathered sign directed them towards Ohligs cabinetmakers. Rath drove past the yard entrance and parked the Buick a little further down. Returning on foot Charly put her arm in his, whether because she wanted to or to avoid attention, he couldn’t say. There weren’t many people about, the buildings were mostly abandoned and, it being Sunday, those that were still occupied were empty. But what if A Division were waiting somewhere in the wings?
He hadn’t told her where Hannah had been taken. It was pure chance he’d got hold of Liang in Marlow’s office at the old Ostbahnhof, as Dr M. had temporarily struck camp, gone to ground like his loyal henchman Leo Juretzka. Clearly the SA had the Berlin underworld running scared. Liang hadn’t asked many questions, just looked at the bandage, which in the meantime Fritze had replaced, and nodded his agreement. Together they carried the girl out of the cinema and laid her gently on the rear seat of the black Adler sedan, otherwise used to wheel Johann Ma
rlow around town.
‘Will they be able to help her?’ Fritze had asked, as the vehicle rolled out of the yard.
‘If anyone can, it’s them.’
Rath prayed to God he was right. That would be the only justification in the inevitable reckoning with Charly.
‘He just happened to run into her?’ she asked, disbelievingly. ‘Who goes around a place like this voluntarily?’
Rath shrugged. ‘He must have known Hannah was here. Why else would he head straight over from Görlitzer Bahnhof?’
‘Without realising a certain someone was following close behind.’
They had reached an uninviting-looking cobbled path that took them beyond the road.
‘This is where Fritze must have lost him,’ said Rath. ‘Until he heard Hannah cry out.’
The boy had told them what happened before they set out: how, reaching the yard, he had seen scarface man crouched over Hannah, choking her; how he had taken the dagger and stabbed, again and again, until the man simply keeled over and ceased to move.
They followed the winding path. Everywhere around, piles of junk obstructed their view. A God-forsaken place, brick buildings falling to ruin, most of the windows shattered by stray or well-aimed stones. The path led to a rear courtyard, which couldn’t be seen from the road.
The building Fritze had described was unmistakable. A pool of blood had formed on the pavement; a trail of blood led up the ramp to a door that was slightly ajar.
‘We couldn’t just leave the corpse in the yard, so we hauled it inside. Wasn’t easy, I tell you.’ Fritze was certain no one had seen them. ‘Everything around there’s empty. The most you’ll find is a few stray tramps.’
The buildings lining the yard looked as if they were waiting to be torn down. No one had worked here for years. Charly looked around. ‘Doesn’t seem like A Division have been here.’
‘Or else Gennat’s already waiting inside for us with the corpse.’
For a brief moment she looked horrified. Was there no end to Buddha’s talents, her gaze seemed to ask. Rath knew better. If the corpse had been discovered a uniformed cop would be stationed outside. ‘There’s no one here,’ he said. ‘I’ll go first if you like. If the worst comes to the worst, you can say you just drove me.’
‘Rubbish. We go together.’
Inside was pitch-black. Rath turned his flashlight on an abandoned workshop which smelled of rotting wood. In the far corner was a dead man among sawdust coloured red by blood. He shone his light on the corpse. The face was hideously scarred, and there was no denying the resemblance to the wanted poster from Magdeburg. Any resemblance to the pre-war photo of the dapper Captain Benjamin Engel was less pronounced. Rath struggled to imagine how such damage could be done to a face.
As Charly stared at the corpse he realised that, despite all her previous work for Homicide, she had seldom seen a dead body. ‘It could be Krumbiegel,’ she said.
Rath searched the dead man’s coat pockets, but found only a half-empty wallet, a used handkerchief and a blood-stained, pointed weapon. ‘No service record, nothing,’ he said, holding the dagger to the light. The blade, if that’s what this tapered skewer was, was triangular. ‘But this is the murder weapon. My money’s on Engel.’
‘What’s he got against Hannah?’
‘No idea, but what could your Krumbiegel, supposing he killed Wosniak, have against Hermann Wibeau, and Linus Meifert?’
‘What if they’re one and the same? Perhaps Engel assumed Krumbiegel’s identity. Maybe he stumbled on Krumbiegel’s service record fleecing some corpse on the battlefield. It’s possible.’
‘That’s pure speculation!’
The man’s eyes staring out of the network of scars were devoid of life. Rath turned him over. The back of his dark winter coat was covered in sawdust, the blood-soaked fabric glistening damp in the light of the torch. No doubt about it, he was dead.
‘Well, that’s just great,’ Charly said. ‘What now? Another case for your Chinese friend?’
‘Certainly not.’ What might the consequences be of sharing another deadly secret with Johann Marlow? ‘The obvious thing for Prussian officers such as ourselves would be to alert the Castle and await the arrival of Forensics.’
‘The obvious thing . . . but how do we explain to Gennat what we’re doing here? Not to mention the fact that I’m supposed to be laid up in bed.’
‘Then go home, and leave the rest to me.’
‘This isn’t just about me. Or you.’ She glared at him. ‘Fritze trusts us. You want to drag him into this?’
‘It was self-defence.’
‘Oh yeah, and who’s going to corroborate that?’
‘Hannah Singer, for one.’
‘Hannah Singer is Fritze’s only witness, and if she pulls through, I don’t intend to let the state anywhere near her.’
‘Charly, the girl is a fugitive from the asylum. A mass murderer!’
‘Hannah Singer is a girl who was forced into a slave’s existence by bastards like that . . .’ she gestured towards the dead man. ‘ . . . who liberated herself in an act of desperation. Precisely because the state authorities were in no position to help.’
‘Charly, Charly. What are you saying?’ Rath shook his head. ‘The deceased is a mass murderer. The man I’ve been hunting for weeks.’
‘Then he has his just deserts,’ she said.
‘You’re not serious, are you? What do you suggest we do?’
‘I suggest we don’t argue about it, for a start.’
‘Let’s call it in, and I take responsibility for the corpse. That way we keep the kids out of it.’ And get some decent press into the bargain. Detective Inspector Rath Bags Dangerous Serial Killer, he could use a headline like that.
‘What will you say to Gennat?’
‘Self-defence. He tried to stab me, I defended myself.’
‘Apart from the fact that you’d have to explain why you cornered him here of all places . . . Why didn’t you use your service weapon? Why did you cut him with his own trench dagger? Like a pig.’ She pointed to the corpse. ‘There are at least half a dozen stab wounds, maybe more.’
‘I’ll think of something.’
‘Why did you drag his corpse into the workshop? And notify Homicide . . .’ she looked at her watch. ‘ . . . six and a half hours later?’
Rath gave up. Charly was right. Gennat would unravel his lies before they were through the first slice of cake. Then she explained her plan.
From the very first, Rath knew it was a crackpot idea, but since he could think of nothing better, he agreed. Taking the rain barrel that stood brim-full under a downpipe they tipped most of its contents onto the pool of blood, saving the rest for the trail on the ramp. Then they returned to the car and drove back to Charlottenburg.
PART III
ASH
Monday 27th March to
Friday 26th May 1933
These days journalists look on such harmless professions as tightrope-walking or roofing with envy.
DIE WELTBÜHNE,
21st FEBRUARY 1933
Ash, non-combustible residue left after the burning of plant or animal substances.
MEYERS GROSSES KONVERSATIONS-LEXICON,
1905
80
It was the kind of Monday morning that Rath could do without. Having barely slept, he was looking forward to a quiet start when Erika Voss told him that the police commissioner wanted a word urgently. For the third time in the space of a month. No commissioner had wished to see him as often as Magnus von Levetzow.
Urgently, yet already Rath had waited a full half an hour outside his office. Dagmar Kling, who had outlasted Kurt Melcher, Albert Grzesinski and Karl Zörgiebel, went about her work unperturbed, having witnessed many things including the arrest of a serving commissioner by the Reichswehr. Poor sinners such as Gereon Rath were the least of her concerns.
He had no idea what the summons was about, only that it meant missing morning briefing and his sole
remaining link with day-to-day case work. More manhunt than murder inquiry, the search for Benjamin Engel was anything other than a classic Homicide investigation. By this point Rath’s task of reconstructing the circumstances around the deaths of the three former soldiers had been superseded by the order to look for a man who left no trace, and wasn’t about to start.
On his way to Alex, he had taken a detour via the Brommy Bridge, but couldn’t approach the shore without stopping and getting out of the car. Was that why Levetzow wished to speak with him, because they had found the corpse? But then, wouldn’t it be Gennat who summoned him? Perhaps they had been seen. Someone might have spotted the Buick on Köpenicker Strasse and noted the registration. If so, he’d have some explaining to do.
Last night, the first of the new moon, had been ideal. They had returned to Köpenicker Strasse around midnight, dressed in black and wearing gloves, to find the thread Rath had attached to the door still intact, and the dead man exactly where they had left him. They had brought a clothes line, and a sheet for the corpse. Though the blood had already coagulated, it still left red streaks on the white cotton. Charly was about to start wrapping when Rath gestured to wait, and vanished into the yard to fetch cobblestones.
‘We need weight,’ he whispered, before venturing outside three more times. Satisfied that the bundle was heavy enough, they tied it and exited through one of the rear doors that led onto the river.
A cold wind was blowing, and a veil of mist had settled on the Spree. When they switched off their flashlights, the only light came from the gas lamps on the Brommy Bridge. They wouldn’t be the first to pass a dead man into the care of these waters, Rath thought. The bundle was impossibly heavy, an impossible carry, but somehow they managed to haul it across the threshold and drag it to the water where they gave it one last shove. Watching the blood-stained bundle slowly tip forward and slide into the murky depths, they understood there was no going back and that this secret would bind them closer than any marriage ceremony.
The March Fallen Page 32