‘Barmen?’
‘You know, the suspension monorail. It’s called Wuppertal now.’
‘I know.’
Rath’s mind was awash with thoughts he couldn’t quite grasp. A flat in Elberfeld, the rumble of the suspension monorail outside the window, people sitting on board and looking inside the flat. The face of Friedrich Grimberg as he recounted his story.
‘Anyway,’ Gräf continued, ‘the Alberich file is closed. This morning was my last time in front of Gennat and the rest.’
Though relieved at no longer having to explain why their friendship had waned, a melancholy feeling rose when Rath remembered the years they had spent in this office, when things between them were good. Gräf’s departure meant the start of a new era here in the Castle too. Still, Homicide would be Homicide for as long as coffee and cake were served on the worn green of Gennat’s upholstered suite. Even without Gräf. Even without Böhm. Even without Charly.
‘The Politicals,’ Rath said. ‘I’d never have thought . . .’
‘Gereon, it’s not like it used to be. There are more opportunities now. We can really achieve something.’
‘In 1A? The only place police work could be less meaningful is Women’s CID.’
‘We’re helping to build a new Germany. Don’t you see? A country you can be proud of. A country worth living for.’
‘Worth dying for, too?’
‘Let’s not talk politics, Gereon. It never leads anywhere.’
‘Which is precisely why I wouldn’t want to work for your new colleagues. One week with Detective Zientek was enough.’
‘Each to their own.’ Gräf closed the cardboard box which he had by now filled.
‘Where are you going? Back to Bülowplatz, or are you staying in the Castle?’
‘The Castle is too small for the State Police. We’re moving into new offices. They’ve cleared the School of Applied Arts for us.’
‘The School of Applied Arts?’
‘On Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse.’ Gräf had stopped at the outer office. ‘What were you doing in the Dreieck last week?’
It seemed like Reinhold was a perfect fit for the Politicals. ‘I was in the neighbourhood,’ Rath said, ‘and I thought, why not pop in on Schorsch. I was in a bit of a rush, otherwise I might have come past.’
‘You were through the door as soon as I arrived. Who were you speaking to?’
‘Someone I know from before. I forget the name. It was just a quick beer.’ Rath looked at Gräf. ‘How about you? You seem to be out with your neighbour an awful lot these days.’
Gräf looked as if he might turn red, but he was no Andreas Lange. ‘If you’re not going to stop by . . .’ he said at length. ‘I have to drink with someone.’
Even if it’s a queer Nazi, Rath thought.
‘What would you have done,’ he asked his former colleague, in a final, weary attempt, ‘if the dead man from the Spree hadn’t been Engel?’
‘Thank God it was,’ Gräf said with a shrug, and heaved his box out the door.
101
They didn’t meet in one of the usual places by Alex, but in the Tietz department store restaurant.
‘A few weeks ago we’d have been threatened by the SA for setting foot in here,’ Rath said.
‘Everything’s back to normal,’ said Weinert. ‘You don’t seriously think Berliners will let their department stores be taken away, no matter how much the Nazis might rail against . . .’ Weinert broke off as the waiter approached.
‘My shout,’ Rath said.
‘Which means you want something from me,’ said Weinert.
‘What I really want is information.’
‘There’s a turn up for the books.’
‘What’s the latest on your article?’
‘What article?’
‘What article? The Alberich case.’
‘I see. I thought you were doing me a favour, when really it’s the other way round.’
‘Wasn’t it ever thus?’ The waiter arrived, and they ordered. ‘Anyway, I hope you can make something of the information I gave you.’
‘It isn’t as easy as all that, Gereon, not these days.’ Weinert lowered his voice. ‘Once upon a time an article like that might have forced the commissioner to resign. Now it creates life-threatening problems for its author.’
‘I don’t care about the commissioner if it creates problems for Achim von Roddeck.’
‘The commissioner is still going to look foolish. Even if I don’t have any evidence, just you as my source.’
‘You keep me out of it. I thought that was clear. We’re talking about confidential information!’
‘Then who do I credit as my source?’
‘What about “well-informed circles”?’
‘Believe me, Gereon, if your commissioner wants to know my source he’ll find out. A troop of SA auxiliaries will take me into custody and won’t stop until I tell them what they want to hear.’
The waiter came with the drinks, and they were silent for a time.
‘Give them Gräf,’ Rath said, when the waiter was out of earshot. ‘He was in the Dreieck that night.’
‘So were you. We were standing together at the bar.’
‘So what? How am I supposed to know anything? It’s far more likely that Gräf does. He was there at the beginning, when Böhm was still investigating. It’s more his case than mine.’
Weinert looked wary. ‘You’re quick to shop your colleagues.’
‘I want the truth to come out.’
‘Then you should vouch for it yourself.’
‘You still owe me one!’
‘That business with Charly and the pigeon shit? That’s done and dusted, or have you forgotten my article on the murdering Jewish captain? The one that got you re-assigned to the case in the first place? It isn’t my fault the commissioner took you off it again.’
‘That stuff about a wicked, murdering Jew was a pack of lies. Don’t you want to set things straight?’
‘You’ve some nerve, Gereon. First you tell me a pack of lies, then you blame me for believing it!’
‘I believed it myself then,’ Rath lied, ‘but things have changed, and it’s for us to set the record straight.’
‘It’s not that I don’t want to write it. It’s just that the story will die a death before the public get anywhere near it.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Hefner wants me to pin the blame on Isidor Weiss, which I could do, at a pinch, if Weiss hadn’t been out for almost a year. So, what’s my angle?’
The waiter served the food. Rath had chosen not to follow Weinert’s lead, and ordered rump steak with chips and a glass of white wine. Straight away he ordered another glass. Returning to his office three glasses of wine and forty-five minutes later, he found Erika Voss already seated behind her desk.
‘Someone to see you, Sir,’ she said, nodding to the side.
A man sat on the visitor’s chair in the outer office, head bowed and folding his hat. Rath couldn’t hide his surprise. ‘Ede!’ he said. ‘What are you doing in Berlin?’
‘A promise is a promise, Inspector.’
Erika Voss watched with curiosity as Rath guided Eduard Schürmann into his office and shut the door.
‘Nice view you’ve got here, Inspector,’ Ede said, looking out of the window.
‘The court building?’
Ede rummaged in his coat pocket. ‘You shouldn’t have said that stuff about the SA in my shop. I can understand a man being suspicious, but the SA . . . Inspector, that lot are no joke.’ He fished a crumpled note out of his pocket. ‘You can trust old Ede. No need for threats, or the SA and their auxiliary police.’ He unfolded the note and handed it to Rath. ‘Fifty marks! Here they are.’
Rath hadn’t taken Ede’s promise seriously, putting it down to the man’s chronic fear of the SA. Yet it was precisely this fear that had compelled the notorious pickpocket to visit Berlin Police Headquarters of his own accord. Rath examined the note. The watermark looked genuine.
‘What about interest?’ Rath asked. ‘This was months ago.’
Ede’s eyes opened wide. ‘Inspector, it’s a lot of money as it is.’
‘All right. It was good of you to stop by.’
‘Cologners have to stick together.’
‘Right.’ Rath stowed the money. ‘Just promise no relapses, even if you get an itch.’
‘Course, Inspector, course. You think a man like me acts the whiz of his own accord? These days your jack can be long gone and the fuzz still bring you in. They don’t need evidence anymore.’
Ede Schürmann was outraged. Once upon a time it had been tricky to move against a pickpocket. Experts like Ede would operate as part of a trio. The jostler distracted the victim by shoving or colliding into him, before, quick as a flash, the whiz worked his sleight of hand and passed the spoils to the jack, who carried them away. Even if the victim realised their wallet was missing straight away, nothing could be done. Neither the jostler nor the whiz would be carrying the stolen item, and the police would be forced to release them. These days the need for evidence was lost on the police, and the SA most of all.
Rath felt uneasy thinking about it and, for the second time that day, the suspension monorail flashed through his mind. Grimberg. Wosniak. Roddeck. Jostler, whiz, and jack. Before he could finish the thought, however, there was a knock and Erika Voss poked her head through the crack in the door.
‘Apologies for interrupting, Sir, but we have another visitor. Or rather, an addition.’
She opened the door to reveal Andreas Lange wearing an embarrassed smile. In his hand was a cardboard box identical to the one Gräf had filled that morning. Only, Lange’s was chock full with papers and other junk.
‘Lange!’
Andreas Lange had worked in Homicide before putting himself up for inspector. ‘Sorry, Sir. I thought someone would have told you.’
‘Someone did, after a fashion,’ Rath said. ‘Come in, Lange. My guest was just leaving.’
Ede took the hint. ‘If there’s anything else, I’ll be at the Hotel Alhambra.’
‘What was all that about, Sir?’ Lange asked after Ede had bowed backwards through the door.
‘An old acquaintance, from Cologne.’
So, this was his new partner. A good man. An ambitious man. More ambitious than Gräf. Hopefully not too ambitious. ‘Do you know what a whiz is, Lange?’
‘Should I?’
‘Not in Homicide.’ Rath pointed to Gräf’s old desk. ‘Welcome back to A Division. Word is you came to regret your political sojourn.’
‘Like you, Sir. Am I right?’ Lange tried to sound flippant but his eyes told a different story.
‘Just like me. No politics here. In this office we work unexplained deaths.’ He stretched out a hand. ‘Here’s to a successful partnership!’
Lange cleared his things into Gräf’s old desk while Rath returned to his pencil, and gazed out of the window. The greyness over the court building was slightly brighter. The sky still seemed leaden and immovable, but it wasn’t. It was moving, as it always had, and always would. Everything was in a state of flux. Everything, and suddenly Rath finished the thought he had started that morning.
The jostler, the whiz, the jack. You just had to know which one was which, then it was obvious . . .
102
The sky was almost cloudless, the weather ideal. Grimberg’s gaze wandered beyond man-made cliffs carved out of limestone to the narrow stacks of the Dornap ring oven. It was time to sound the warning horn. Most workers had already sought cover, but he could make out three stragglers including the shift supervisor.
How gratifying to see battle-hardened men flee, just as they had in the war, and the same man in control of them. Himself, Friedrich Grimberg.
Without him no one would have dared to bury the gold. Roddeck would have transported it behind the Siegfried Line next morning as Captain Engel had instructed. Grimberg despised the lieutenant as a pretty boy utterly unworthy of being his superior officer. In the years he had known him, never once had Achim von Roddeck proved to be what he claimed, neither soldier, officer, nor socialite. What he understood best was how to inhabit a role. He was an actor, and his latest persona of author was no different. It was scarcely credible that his so-called writings had struck gold.
It was a panicked Roddeck who had called him in Elberfeld nine months earlier and harangued him almost every day since, his noble heart in his mouth because a man had risen from the grave. He had received a letter from Benjamin Engel, and there was no doubting it was genuine. Engel, the captain whom the world and his wife thought was dead, hinted that he knew what they had done all those years ago. It had taken a lot of words to calm Roddeck; to make him see the letter as their final chance at the gold.
Grimberg looked again at the quarry. The danger zone was clear. He sounded the horn for a second time, and only then connected the ignition wires to the blasting machine. Misfires could be fatal, and in the course of his long career Friedrich Grimberg could honestly say he had never been responsible for one. Not even during the war.
It had almost physically pained him to read the word misfire in the official investigation notes, even if it was only one possible explanation for Captain Engel’s failure to return from his inspection rounds. British artillery fire, or a stray animal, a rat perhaps or a pigeon, were the others. Wilful destruction didn’t figure anywhere in the report. Even so, as many as half the unit suspected a ruse to get rid of an unpopular captain, including the men present at the gold strike, most of whom would die in action before the year was out.
Lieutenant von Roddeck had been hard on his troops in the remaining eighteen months of war. As Grimberg hammered home to his eternally dithering superior: the fewer men that survive, the more there will be for us. The scattered band of soldiers who, after years in jail, or in the service of some volunteer corps or other, had come together in the former Alberich territory to collect their spoils, had amounted to just five men. Of these five, only three remained. Roddeck, Wosniak and Grimberg himself.
He and Heinrich had lost touch following the abortive recovery mission, and God knows his friend had suffered in the intervening years. Having failed to find his fortune in Berlin, Heinrich had been forced to eke out his existence as a beggar and almost burned to death in a dilapidated old shack before deciding to return home.
At first Grimberg didn’t recognise the tramp on the suspension monorail, from whose face the other passengers turned away. When this poor man in the soldier’s coat, a painful reminder of Germany’s collective misfortune, staggered towards him, he assumed it was for money, but moments later they reunited under the wary gaze of their fellow passengers.
Heinrich found accommodation in Barmen, where he fared much better than in Berlin. Grimberg offered him the odd shift in the quarry, where working as a day labourer helped him keep his head above water. Though nothing permanent could come of it they would discuss old times, and the dreams which had vanished with the French gold. Then, out of nowhere, Achim von Roddeck had called and, kitted out with new clothes and spending money, Heinrich Wosniak set forth for the imperial capital once more.
With everything wired, Grimberg gazed for a final time at the solid limestone wall, pressed down the lever and began counting slowly backwards to the explosion. Some blasters put cotton wool in their ears, but not him. He wanted to hear and see everything. The moment it all came crashing down was the moment he spent his days working towards and that he loved. For the tiniest fraction of a second it looked as if the solid mass of rock face were about to topple forward in its immensity, only for it to crumble into the valley, leaving a trail of dust.
Grimberg sounded three short beeps for the all-clear, and watched the men emerging from the hut or from behind a dump truck, where they had gathered to watch. He pulled out the cable and wound it up. Paid by the cubic metre, he could finish as soon as he had packed.
He dragged the machine down the slope. From the quarry to the suspension monor
ail in Vohwinkel was about twenty minutes’ walk. He could be home in an hour, but had barely been able to stand living with Käthe since his dreams had risen from the ashes. Even less since they had diminished again. Nearing the hut he was met by his excitable assistant, Jüppchen. ‘Come quickly, boss. Telephone for you. Trunk call from Berlin.’
At last! When had he last taken a call from the capital? It must have been when Roddeck got himself worked up about this police inspector, thinking he was suspected of murder because he had been asked for his alibi.
Wosniak had furnished the Herr Lieutenant with the perfect alibi. As far as Grimberg recalled, the taciturn report, ‘the Huguenot is gone’, was the last sign of life he had from his faithful Heinrich, in a brief telephone call weeks earlier from Magdeburg train station. And so, when two police officers had informed him that Engel, the murdering Jew, had been found dead, and he need no longer be concerned for his safety, he wondered what might have happened. Roddeck, for his part, appeared to be avoiding him.
He set down the blasting machine, took the dusty receiver from Jüppchen’s hand, and casually announced himself. ‘Grimberg.’
‘Rath here. Detective Inspector Rath. You remember?’
There was no concealing his disappointment. ‘I remember. The dead homeless man.’
‘The dead homeless man who wasn’t Heinrich Wosniak. I wasn’t certain you’d been informed.’
‘It was in the paper.’ What did the man want from him? He wondered as Jüppchen left.
‘That’s just it, the whole thing is a little . . . delicate. I wouldn’t have called if you hadn’t made such a good impression when we spoke last time. Can I assume you’ll keep what I’m about to say between us?’
‘If that’s how it has to be.’
‘It concerns the reliability of your former lieutenant, Achim von Roddeck.’
‘I’m not sure I follow, Inspector.’
‘Then let me explain.’ The inspector cleared his throat. ‘The thing is . . . Herr Grimberg, it was Achim von Roddeck who mistakenly identified the corpse of a homeless man as Heinrich Wosniak.’
The March Fallen Page 42