He could see a glimmer at the end of the tunnel, on the other side of Unter den Linden, where the electric trains emerged by the Singakademie and continued above ground. In the daytime he might have been able to switch off his torch, but now, a quarter of an hour before midnight, the only light came from the gas lamps.
To his left was a row of steel columns and, beyond, another tram line. He must have missed the turnout that led into the decommissioned, western branch of the tunnel, where Engel had suggested they meet. He shone his torch back in the direction he had come. The columns extended to a solid wall where the tracks diverged. To the left, arrow-straight, the eastern tunnel, the route he had taken; to the right and describing a westward curve, the western tunnel, leading to the Opera Square, directly beneath the fire.
Climbing over a low wall between two steel columns, he began tracing the redundant line back into the darkness, his flashlight beam dancing above rusty metal, puddles, and a scurrying rat. Noises from outside were strangely unreal down here, the echo merging them into one. Strains of the brass band accompanied by intermittent jeering and the sounds of traffic, his own footsteps and drops of water splashing out of sight had a dreamlike quality.
He listened. Was there something else?
Switching off his flashlight he was enveloped by impenetrable darkness, but . . . was that the quiet rhythm of footsteps? Heels on concrete, reinforced by the echo, a slow but continuous staccato growing ever louder? It wasn’t coming from the street. Someone was descending the northern ramp.
He felt panic rising, but remembered his Luger and felt more secure.
What did you expect? Of course he’s coming down. Be glad he wasn’t waiting for you in the dark.
When his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he made out a glimmer of light filtering into the tunnel from the turnout, giving the puddles and concrete floor a yellow shimmer.
The footsteps drew nearer until a shadow made the reflections on the puddles dance. Standing stock-still, pressed against the tunnel wall, he scarcely dared breathe. Taking the torch in his left hand he fetched the pistol from his coat pocket as the figure slowed. He heard a clicking sound, and a lighter flared up, illuminating the face of a man gazing fixedly on the ground as he drew closer. ‘You?’ he said, and started at the sound of his own voice echoing from the walls of the tunnel.
106
Berthold Weinert didn’t want to cover yet another torchlight procession, or listen to still more braying cries of Germany awake! More flags and dimwit speeches. To cap it all, they were burning books, among them some of his favourite authors. He didn’t want to be here, but Hefner had sent him.
Every few days the Nazis found some new pretext for mass marches and torchlight processions. Hitler’s birthday, the first of May, book-burning and, whatever it was, Der Tag and its roving reporter Weinert would be somewhere in the midst.
Against the un-German spirit. What did it mean? The books were written in German, not some strange, other language. He couldn’t help thinking of his own three-quarters-finished novel. Would any publisher take it on? ‘Asphalt-literature’ they would say, no one buys that sort of thing anymore.
His story detailed the exploits of an unsuccessful but optimistic screenplay writer who seeks his fortune in Berlin. Turning it into a tale of Nazi awakening was impossible, but he’d hardly spent any time on it now that his temporary role might become permanent. Perhaps he should just stick it back in its drawer.
The truth was, Weinert was afraid to jeopardise his prospects with a ‘politically dubious’ novel. Better to bide his time and wait for things to change. Finish it then. Nothing stayed the same forever. Besides, the longer a manuscript lay untouched the more it matured. At least he had ceased to rue his slow progress. Indeed, he was happy that his novel – working title, Fade-out – hadn’t been published. In today’s climate, his literary debut – the product of many lonely, torturous night-time hours – would be kindling for the fire.
He could hardly bear to look as the blaze devoured millions of hours of arduous, creative labour, and still more books careered towards the flames, their pages flapping like lost, dying birds. The students delved into the mounds of books at their feet, emerging with their hands full. Thousands of books were being destroyed and, the worst thing, by students who ought to appreciate them.
Moments before, Weinert thought he had seen Erich Kästner in the crowd, whose books were destined for the pyre. He must surely be mistaken. Kästner, a fully paid-up member of the ‘asphalt’ literati, must have got out by now. To Prague, like Weinert’s colleague Kleibert, or some other city where you could still say and write what you wanted.
Gereon had called him yesterday to say that Achim von Roddeck would be speaking, reminding him of the story that stood to make or completely destroy his fledgling career. But Roddeck hadn’t spoken. He had simply vanished, as if sensing that Weinert stood waiting to interrogate him once more.
The way the author had responded to his questions had confirmed that Gereon must be onto something. Achim von Roddeck knew it wasn’t Benjamin Engel who had been fished out of the Spree, so why had he identified the corpse?
Another, more decisive question was whether Gereon’s story would make it to print. By now it was largely written, even if it was based almost exclusively on supposition, but silence, too, could be eloquent. The silence, say, of the forensic pathologist, who had been as open to Weinert’s inquiries as a sealed coffin. The story might be largely written, but Hefner would never print it unless Weinert found an appropriate scapegoat. Wilhelm Böhm was out of favour, but he had relinquished the case before Roddeck came on the scene, and Weinert wasn’t about to do the dirty on Reinhold Gräf, not now he was part of the State Police. Chances were the story would go unpublished unless Roddeck could be duped into some ill-considered remark.
He was considering how long he should wait when the crowd broke out in thunderous applause. At first he thought Roddeck was taking to the podium after all, but then he spotted the sedan, and the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda waving to the crowd like a crown prince.
Achim von Roddeck wouldn’t be speaking now. The only man allowed to address a crowd after Goebbels was Hitler himself. The minister, dressed in a raincoat and surrounded by adoring, brown-uniformed students, was in high spirits. He had a doctorate in German Studies, but delighted in burning books? Like so many things about the Nazis, Weinert struggled to understand, but he had to admit they knew how to exploit their power.
‘Fellow students!’ Goebbels began, emphasising that he, too, was an academic. ‘German men and women! The age of extreme Jewish intellectualism is at an end!’
107
Wearing a lost expression while waving his gun around, Achim von Roddeck looked overwhelmed. During the war, this had all too frequently been the case. Without Friedrich Grimberg to cajole or beat decisions out of him, his ineptitude would have been exposed in the first year. For the son of a military family it would have been a disgrace, but Grimberg had shielded him through four and a half miserable years of war. Roddeck switched on his flashlight and stammered, ‘Friedrich, what are you doing here?’
Couldn’t he work it out for himself? At least now Grimberg knew that Roddeck hadn’t been trying to swindle him. If anyone had, it was Engel, who had brought them to this place. ‘Are you going to shoot me?’ he asked.
Roddeck smiled nervously and lowered his weapon. ‘Sorry, I thought . . . you never know who might be down here.’
‘On the contrary. You know very well.’ Grimberg looked at his watch. ‘In five minutes, Benjamin Engel will be here. If he intends to meet us at all.’
‘He’ll be here,’ Roddeck said. ‘I saw him at the book-burning. He’s in the crowd somewhere.’
‘Perhaps he wanted us to gun each other down.’
‘My God, Friedrich, I’m not going to shoot you! We’re comrades.’
‘That didn’t stop you from killing Wegener.’
‘Wegener,
a comrade? He’d have betrayed us in a flash.’
‘And Heinrich? Why did he have to die?’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Don’t play the innocent! You saw his corpse. It was clever of you to pass him off as Engel, but you should have told me. Now I can’t shake the feeling you mean to go behind my back, just like you went behind poor Heinrich’s back and stabbed him with his own dagger.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because you want it all for yourself. You’ve tasted blood. Of the original fifteen, only two remain. You and me.’
‘I didn’t kill Wosniak! That was Engel.’
‘Why should I believe you, and why didn’t you tell me straight away?’
‘I’m sorry, Friedrich, but right now . . . the book’s just come out, and you wouldn’t believe how draining it’s all been.’
‘You’re so drained you have to pretend not to be there when an old comrade calls.’
Roddeck smiled his uncertain, false smile. ‘We’re both here, so why don’t we talk now?’
‘First we need to work out what to do with Engel. When he appears in . . .’ He looked at his watch. ‘ . . . three minutes’ time. Any thoughts?’
Roddeck shrugged. ‘I thought I’d do the same with him as . . . with you.’
Grimberg saw the flash and felt himself swept backwards off his feet, heard the deafening bang, amplified a hundred times and accompanied by an echo louder than any of the explosions he had triggered and with a stronger shock wave. It was stronger even than the one from the trench all those years ago, which had likewise knocked him off his feet. Back then he had landed on soft, muddy ground, but now he found himself lying on his back on hard concrete, in a cold puddle, legs straddling the tram rails. He felt no pain, registering only how badly he was struggling for air. Try as he might, he couldn’t get enough oxygen in his lungs.
For a moment he thought there had been a stray explosion, but then saw Achim von Roddeck above him, a smoking Luger in his hand. He wanted to say something but all that came from his lungs was a torrent of blood.
Roddeck wasn’t smiling anymore. ‘Something on your mind, Grimberg? Save your breath.’
Friedrich Grimberg wanted to speak but couldn’t. Achim von Roddeck raised his pistol and he gazed into the dark barrel. There was another flash, then everything went black.
108
Roddeck had hated the man from his first posting to the front, almost twenty years ago, when Staff Sergeant Friedrich Grimberg saw him piss his pants in a shell crater. Another barrage began and he panicked. At first he hadn’t noticed anything. Only when the shooting ended did he feel the wetness between his legs, along with a bottomless shame.
Grimberg and he crawled across the muddy ground and returned to camp looking like a pair of pigs. They had no choice but to clean their uniforms, and no one else noticed, but from that day Grimberg, two ranks his junior, had him over a barrel, later even managing to wangle his best friend Heinrich Wosniak a job as Roddeck’s orderly. Roddeck had caught himself marvelling at Grimberg’s vigour, growing ever more dependent on the man, and hating himself for it at the same time, and there was no respite after March 1917, thanks to the secret that bound them and many others.
Most were killed before the conflict ended, Grimberg’s idea to send them on a series of suicide missions. Only Meifert and Wibeau had survived, and Wosniak, of course, but he was untouchable and they planned to share the gold with him. The others would be eliminated as soon as it was recovered.
The gold! When in 1924 they returned from France empty-handed, Roddeck had truly believed it was cursed. Grimberg had laughed, but he wasn’t laughing now. He would never again be dependent on Grimberg or his sinister friend, Wosniak. If his ‘faithful Heinrich’ hadn’t killed those two French children in cold blood, Wegener wouldn’t have lost his nerve and Roddeck wouldn’t have shot him. Or Grimberg. They would never humiliate him again.
Had it really been Engel’s intention that they kill each other? Well, with Grimberg down the next on the list would be Benjamin Engel himself. Perhaps Grimberg was right, and Engel wouldn’t show. Even so he remained watchful, listening for sounds from the tunnel entrance. The captain wouldn’t expect trouble, assuming the gold held the importance it always had, but he would be mistaken. Grimberg had wanted the gold, yes, as Roddeck had until a few weeks ago, but with his novel’s growing popularity it had become less important. A place in the new Germany beckoned, and money couldn’t buy it. The new Reich was waiting for his voice, his work, and no way was he going to risk that for something as base as French gold.
‘Hands in the air!’
A voice he hadn’t heard in sixteen years came from behind him. He turned, and from the darkness of the decommissioned tunnel a man carrying a pistol stepped into the light. Not a world-war pistol, but a modern Walther PP. He had been here the whole time, and wore a captain’s uniform which couldn’t be the one he’d been buried in. His face was divided in two. One half was doll-like somehow, too perfect, while the other was covered in scars. Both, unmistakably, had the features of Benjamin Engel.
He went weak at the knees, felt panic rising, just like in the crater where his dreams of a noble war, and a return home as an admired and decorated military hero, had been shattered. Was he going to die here, in this hole?
‘Hands in the air!’ Engel barked.
Slowly Achim von Roddeck raised his hands, Luger in the right, flashlight in the left.
109
Rath’s thinking had allowed for a corpse, so he felt no remorse. Grimberg killing Roddeck would have thrown a spanner in the works, but it had happened the other way around. Achim von Roddeck had murdered his old comrade just as ruthlessly as he had gunned down Wegener. It was fear that drove him, plain and simple, the same fear now showing in his eyes.
Achim von Roddeck was petrified, facing a Walther PP and an army captain apparently risen from the dead. ‘It’s not what you think, Sir. I had nothing to do with the attempt on your life.’ He sounded as if he were about to cry. ‘It was Grimberg’s idea, all of it. He hated you from the start.’
Rath would have liked to see Roddeck squirm for longer but that would be asking too much of his accomplice. Before he could break cover, darkness descended. Roddeck must have switched off his flashlight. There was a muzzle flash and a shot, the sound of running feet. He didn’t know which man had fired, but it didn’t matter. He had to move and set off at pace.
‘Don’t shoot, Engel,’ he shouted, almost tripping over Grimberg’s body. He had to keep further to the left, away from the wall. ‘Stay where you are, Roddeck. CID! There’s no escape.’
There was another flash. Roddeck fired two rounds, missing both times. He couldn’t be far away. A silhouette appeared in the dim light at the end of the tunnel. Now or never!
Accelerating, Rath made a full-length dive, grabbing Roddeck’s ankles and taking him to ground. Roddeck’s head crashed against a tram rail where he lay dazed. Rath snatched away his pistol, pulled his hands behind his back and cuffed him. The flashlight must have slipped out of Roddeck’s hand as he fell. Rath found it in a puddle and switched it on.
Roddeck looked up at him. ‘You?’ he said.
Rath pulled him up and pushed him back inside the decommissioned tunnel. ‘Where’s Engel? I hope for your sake he isn’t injured.’
They walked in silence back to Grimberg’s corpse. There was no sign of the captain. ‘I’d have settled for a confession, but now you’ve shown what you’re capable of, things should be a lot easier.’
‘I can’t imagine this operation was approved by the commissioner.’ Roddeck’s voice was steady again, almost as arrogant as before.
‘Of course not. You think the commissioner’s capable of blackmail?’
‘What are you up to, Rath? Are you threatening me?’
‘I want to make you an offer. That’s what blackmail is, after all, an exchange.’
‘What do you have?’
‘Your freedom.
I’ll let you go, and no one will ever know who shot Friedrich Grimberg. As far as the other murders are concerned . . .’
‘You can’t prove a thing. I’ve nothing to do with them.’
‘Of course you have. Wosniak might have done the dirty work, but you pulled the strings. Still, let’s not quibble over details. You killed Grimberg, and that I can prove.’
‘You lured me into a trap with the help of Captain Engel, a man subject to a nationwide murder hunt, knowing it might end in death. Perhaps I should be the one offering you an exchange, Inspector. Aren’t you concerned for your career?’
‘Not as much as you ought to be concerned for your life and reputation. Both of which will go on the scaffold.’
Roddeck fell silent, a wretched figure with bloody forehead, tangled hair and water-stained raincoat.
‘Engel came to me in confidence and told me the whole sorry tale,’ Rath lied.
‘Who’s going to believe a Jew? Or you, for that matter.’
‘But they’ll believe you.’
He seized Roddeck by the arm and led him further along the tunnel until the curve became a straight. They were now standing beneath Unter den Linden, looking at a box on the wall. On the front was a large rotary control and a jet-black cassette in the form of a sideways figure-of-eight. A cable extended up the tunnel wall and along the ceiling towards the exit, almost reaching back to where Friedrich Grimberg’s corpse lay. There, fixed to an old, out-of-service tunnel lamp, was a microphone.
The device whirred quietly. Rath switched it off.
‘A friend of mine is a film producer,’ he said. ‘It’s a Klangfilm camera, model X, a reportage camera for portable use.’
The March Fallen Page 44