The Fatherland Files

by volker Kutscher

  ‘Sadly,’ he continued, ‘the new government’s policies seem to have emboldened the National Socialists to carry out such initiatives. For two weeks now, since – not to put too fine a point on it – the lifting of the SA ban, the safety on our streets has been severely compromised.’

  ‘I always thought the police were apolitical,’ grumbled an officer in front of Rath. ‘He’s sticking his neck out a little too far for my liking. We do work for the government after all.’

  ‘We answer to the Free State of Prussia, not the German Reich,’ the man behind him hissed. ‘And no one would deny this government’s missing a few screws.’

  ‘At least it is a government. Prussia doesn’t have one any more, at least not a functional one.’

  ‘Oh, shut your mouth, would you!’

  ‘Shut my mouth!’

  Before the dispute could escalate, two colleagues pulled the men apart, at which stage the noise and grumbling reached Weiss’s ears. He gazed sternly into the room and it ceased. The two officers who had nearly come to blows contented themselves with exchanging angry glances.

  When all was silent again, Weiss continued. ‘Now let us move on to the real purpose of our meeting. Please welcome the new cadets, who will henceforth be serving as your colleagues in CID.’

  He reached for a list and read the names of the new recruits, each one dutifully approaching the stage as they were called, until all stood in line at the front. Most grinned nervously. Lange blushed, but Charly, who stood next to a blonde woman, smiled self-assuredly into the horde of male officers. Rath thought her smile a little over-friendly.

  The deputy preached the usual sermon, stressing the importance of treating the novices with consideration and offering assistance when it was required, before closing with the same joke he always made: ‘Remember that, in years to come, one of these men could be your superior.’

  The officers laughed obediently, even if most of them had heard it all before. No one expressed surprise that Weiss had chosen to exclude the two women. The fact was that, even if Charly and her colleague did make a career for themselves, they would never get out of G Division; nor, irrespective of their capabilities as police officers, would they ever issue orders to men, at least not in the Castle. ‘On this occasion it gives me particular pleasure,’ Weiss said, when the polite laughter died, ‘to introduce two female cadets, who will be augmenting the ranks of G Division.’

  So, that was what Charly’s future with the Berlin Police had in store: G Division, the women’s branch of CID, who dealt mainly with youth crime and female offenders. There was no doubt she’d have been better deployed in complex murder investigations, but they wouldn’t be seeing her in Homicide, unless she started working as a stenographer again.

  ‘I’d like to teach those honeys a thing or two,’ Rath heard someone mumble, recognising the voice. ‘That brunette’s a sight for sore eyes, isn’t she, eh, boys?’

  Rath craned his neck but couldn’t make out the man’s face. He felt the same helpless rage as before, especially since the remark was greeted with subdued laugher. Couldn’t the bastards keep their mouths shut? But, of course not. The police was a boys’ club; women had no place here. Rath was suddenly glad Charly would be working with other women, rather than troublemakers like this.

  He had stopped listening, but by the ever louder murmuring the meeting had been adjourned. He joined the throng of colleagues drifting slowly towards the exit. Reaching the door, he realised that Kirie had started pulling on her lead. ‘To heel,’ Rath hissed, but she whimpered and pulled even harder.

  Seeing a mouse-grey ladies’ hat a few metres ahead he realised what was up: the bloody dog had recognised Charly’s scent. Now she was wagging her tail like crazy, pulling harder and harder on her lead so that Rath could barely keep hold. Suddenly she issued a brief woof, as loud as it was reproachful, as if to say: let me at her!

  All eyes turned to Kirie and her master, Charly’s included. Rath saw how she grinned, only for her grin first to freeze and then disappear altogether when she realised what was happening. Kirie was almost upon her, there was no holding her back. She was full-grown now, no longer the sweet, little furball she’d once been. Charly couldn’t bear to see her suffer any longer. She stepped towards her, stroked her and let her lick her hands.

  After an extensive greeting Kirie settled down again, allowing Rath to regain control. ‘Tut, tut,’ he said, wagging his index finger and ordering her to sit. He now stood directly opposite Charly, hardly daring to look in her eyes. He saw her dimple, then the curious glances of those standing by. Half of CID had witnessed Kirie’s passionate greeting. This wasn’t how he and Charly had envisaged their first meeting at the Castle.

  ‘Apologies,’ Rath mumbled, now fixing her in the eyes. ‘It won’t happen again.’

  ‘Didn’t she lead us to the cinema killer back in the day?’

  Rath nodded, grateful for her presence of mind. Charly had worked on the case herself. The fact that the pair had known each other at least since then was common knowledge, in A Division anyway. ‘You’ve a good memory, Fräulein Ritter,’ he said, lifting his hat. ‘Delighted to have you back on board, though it’s a shame Homicide must do without you.’

  With that he made his way towards the door, fighting the temptation to turn around. He couldn’t have looked Charly in the eye a moment longer, forced to pretend like this. Kirie made no more trouble, following her master dutifully outside.

  ‘You’ve got that one well-trained,’ a colleague said, giving Rath a poke in the side as they left the room. ‘You should give us a loan some time.’

  Rath forced a smile, and proceeded down the long corridor quicker than in all his years of service. The way was lined with doors, and he was glad to reach his office at last. Once inside Kirie made a beeline for the two bowls Erika Voss kept ready. It was she who had persuaded him to adopt Kirie, whose previous owner had been murdered. ‘Detective Gräf has already left to provide the weekend summary,’ she said. ‘He asked about a report: Haus Vaterland. Do you have any idea where it could be?’

  Morning briefing was a ritual first established by Detective Chief Inspector Böhm. CID officers exchanged notes on current investigations, breaking free of the confines of their individual teams. An outside view could kick-start cases that had become stalled, and on several occasions links had been made between apparently isolated fatalities. Of the senior homicide officers, Rath was the only one not to make it to the small conference room on time. All eyes turned as he entered.

  Detective Gräf was in the middle of listing all deaths that local CID forces had reported to headquarters over the weekend. He had a fatigued air about him. Though there was little of note, Ernst Gennat, the chief of Homicide, listened spellbound. The superintendent never missed a detail, and often he had resolved homicide cases by recalling seemingly irrelevant items. Other times, he made connections that escaped everyone else.

  Rath was only half listening to what Gräf said. There had been a fatal shooting at Stuttgarter Platz in Charlottenburg, probably politically motivated, which Section 1A had already taken on, to go with the dead Nazi in Wedding Weiss had mentioned earlier. The political police dealt with such cases on an almost daily basis. A corpse in Grunewald had turned out to be suicide, and been passed over to the local precinct. In Schlosspark Bellevue a man had killed his wife with a shaving knife. The 21st precinct had initially assumed the case, but now it had landed at Alex. Detective Chief Inspector Wilhelm Böhm had commandeered Henning and Czerwinski, two officers Rath often worked alongside, who had originally belonged to the Phantom troop. He was considering how he could reclaim the pair when he heard his name.

  ‘Since Inspector Rath is now here,’ Gräf said, ‘perhaps he should tell you about the Haus Vaterland corpse from the early hours of Saturday morning.’

  Rath moved towards the front with a small file wedged under his arm. He didn’t look inside; most of what he had to say wasn’t in there anyway. He briefly summa
rised their findings in Haus Vaterland, before moving onto Dr Karthaus’s discovery. ‘It looks as though we are dealing with a violent death, even if there are no outward signs of force save for the injection to the jugular vein, which was most likely administered by a third party. An extremely peculiar case, not least because of the circumstances surrounding the death itself.’

  Ernst Gennat, who had earned the nickname Buddha in part because of his impressive physique, now spoke. ‘If I’ve understood you correctly, the body displays all the hallmarks of drowning, yet there is some doubt as to whether this is the actual cause of death.’

  ‘Correct, Sir. Assuming I have understood Dr Karthaus correctly.’ A few officers laughed. Most of those present had experienced the pathologist’s use of latinate terms. Lange and Gräf were unsmiling. ‘The written report is still pending but we hope for a more concrete indication of the cause of death from the blood analysis. For all that, it’s strange enough already. What we have here is a simulated drowning that took place in a freight elevator.’

  Gennat nodded thoughtfully. Something seemed to be bothering him, but he said nothing more, leaving Rath to continue with his report. He mentioned his discovery by the third-floor elevator, and his suspicion that the perpetrator most likely stemmed from the Haus Vaterland workforce. ‘I’m assuming the offending party was still inside when police arrived. Security pays close attention that no one unauthorised enters or leaves the building. According to the duty guard, no one was seen leaving after the murder. We have a list of around fifty people present on Saturday morning, all of whom will be subjected to a detailed interrogation. Perhaps we’ll find a motive.’

  ‘What about the thousand marks?’ Böhm asked. ‘That’s your motive right there.’

  ‘If that were true, then surely they’d have been taken,’ Rath replied, winning another few laughs. He savoured Böhm’s sour expression.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Gennat said. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Böhm is right. Carrying so much cash in a blank envelope is highly unusual. Money can always be a motive, not just in a robbery homicide.’

  ‘Of course, Superintendent. Sir.’ Rath cleared his throat. ‘Needless to say, I also looked into this anomaly. The widow Lamkau can’t explain the money in her husband’s pocket, although admittedly she has little knowledge of company affairs. We’ll be going through the paperwork today to see if there’s an explanation.’

  ‘If that’s the case, you could have spared us a needless joke at your colleague’s expense.’

  Gennat concluded the meeting. Moments later chair legs began scraping over the stone floor. Despite knowing it would be futile, Rath approached to try and reclaim Henning and Czerwinski, who had been withdrawn from the Phantom troop.

  ‘You haven’t made any progress there for weeks,’ Buddha said. ‘Leave it for the time being. Take Gräf and Lange, and focus your attentions on the dead man in Haus Vaterland. Perhaps you’ll have more success there.’

  ‘With respect, Sir, I could use some more men.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t spare you any. Homicide is up to its ears at the moment.’

  ‘What about the cadets?’

  Gennat considered for a moment. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  His team was already waiting when he returned to the office. Erika Voss had made coffee, and both Lange and Gräf held steaming mugs in their hands. The pair had dark circles under their eyes.

  ‘Coffee for you too, Inspector?’ Erika Voss asked.

  ‘Thank you,’ Rath said, as she set it down, heading into the back room with the two officers.

  ‘One more thing, Erika,’ he said, before closing the connecting door. ‘Put a call through to Pathology and ask Dr Karthaus if he’s completed the Lamkau blood analysis. Then ask ED if our colleagues from Forensics have found any hypodermic needles in Haus Vaterland.’

  ‘Good of you to share what you did yesterday,’ Gräf said, no sooner than Rath had closed the door.

  ‘I stopped by. You weren’t home.’

  ‘Then you ought to have at least left a message in the office. If you’re going to go about pinching files.’

  ‘Surely you’re not annoyed that I acted on new information from Pathology?’ Rath placed the file on the table. ‘Well, from now on, we’ll be working alongside each other. As a three.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Gräf asked.

  ‘The Phantom case has been temporarily shelved, and Gennat can’t spare us any men for the corpse in Haus Vaterland.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how many interrogations we need to get through today?’

  ‘We’ll just have to share them out between the three of us.’

  Gräf sighed. ‘Christ, Gereon! You know sometimes you’re a real pain in the arse.’

  7

  No matter how hard Charly tried, no matter how determined she was to commit herself fully to her first day on the job, she couldn’t concentrate. Gereon’s look just now as Kirie jumped on her . . .she couldn’t get it out of her mind. There was sadness there, a strange uncertainty which couldn’t just be from Kirie forcing them into an unexpectedly public meeting. They desperately needed to speak to one another, that much was clear. Their weekend, indeed their whole reunion, had been a disaster. She had spent all Sunday trying to reach him, but his number still wasn’t in the telephone book, and there was no one at the Castle she could have asked without arousing suspicion. She’d had no choice but to take Greta’s bicycle out to Steinplatz where the friendly porter told her that Herr Rath had left the building moments before. The first time, she believed him; the second time she began to suspect that Gereon was feigning absence. She left him a letter, the second one since her return, hoping he would call her at least, but he had done no such thing, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to speak to her in the conference room this morning . . .and what on earth had he been thinking, bringing Kirie?

  ‘What do you think? They could be from Wedding?’

  ‘Hm?’

  Charly looked up into the face of her blonde colleague. Karin van Almsick had no experience of police work, having come to Alex from the youth welfare department, which was as much information as they had managed to exchange between the conference room and the offices of female CID, where Superintendent Friederike Wieking gave them a stern welcome. Ernst Gennat led the Homicide division with considerably more warmth. After the briefest of introductions, Superintendent Wieking tasked them with the first item of drudge work: a band of girls had been robbing passengers on deserted underground trains, keeping police guessing for weeks. There was nothing to go on but for a few vague witness statements. Seven hold-ups, each following the same pattern, had already been placed on file, though the descriptions of the perpetrators diverged wildly. The only thing witnesses could agree on was that there were two or three girls involved, and that they used knives to threaten their victims.

  ‘From Wedding?’ Charly parroted unthinkingly.

  Karin van Almsick didn’t seem to notice. ‘The attacks all occurred on the C Line,’ she said. ‘Most of them in the north. That’s something, isn’t it?’

  Charly shrugged.

  ‘What do you think? Should we mention it to Wieking?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Issuing a warrant for these girls up in Wedding. Wieking will want to hear from us, won’t she?’

  Her colleague’s zeal was starting to get on Charly’s nerves. On the other hand, she could sympathise. She ought to have been capable of the same. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got that far yet. Maybe we should exchange ideas after lunch.’

  ‘Or during.’

  ‘Or during.’

  Karin clearly hoped to make friends, and Charly didn’t want to seem cold, especially since, as a trained lawyer, it could easily be construed as arrogance.

  She made a renewed attempt to concentrate on the file in front of her, but, even on the first page, realised she wasn’t processing any of its content. She tried again, but all she co
uld see were Gereon’s sad eyes; his face two days ago, as he tried to hide his disappointment. She should have guessed. After all, she had known he was planning to propose at some point, but the timing had thrown her. Ever since last summer, she’d known he had bought a ring. To think, she could have spent all those months in Paris imagining being married to Gereon Rath, and to some extent, at least at the start, she had – but work and life in a new city had taken over, and before long any such notions had vanished.

  Travelling back to Berlin, her thoughts had mostly concerned her new career in CID. Marriage was the last thing on her mind. Couldn’t the stupid bastard have waited a day or two before ambushing her like that?

  Realising what was happening, she couldn’t help but grin. She had finally achieved her aim of joining CID, not as a stenographer this time, but as a candidate for inspector. And what had she spent her first day doing? Thinking about Gereon Rath, instead of concentrating on the case she had been assigned. She snapped the file shut. ‘I need to make a quick telephone call,’ she said to Karin.

  Her colleague shrugged. ‘Of course.’

  ‘In private, if that’s OK?’

  A broad grin spread across her colleague’s features. ‘What’s his name?’

  Charly couldn’t help but smile too, even if she was in no mood to share confidences. She raised a finger in warning. ‘Curiosity killed the cat.’

  Her colleague stood up. ‘I wanted to go across to Robbery Division anyway, and ask if they had any similar cases on file.’ She gave a brief wink.

  Charly smiled back, despite being irritated by the suggestive wink. She waited a moment for the door to click shut – Karin van Almsick seemed just the type to eavesdrop – and plucked up the courage to dial the extension she knew all too well.

  ‘Voss, Homicide. Inspector Rath’s office.’

  Shit.

  ‘Ritter, G Division. Inspector Rath, please,’ she said, trying to sound as businesslike as possible.

  ‘The inspector isn’t here, I’m afraid. Can I take a message?’