The Fatherland Files

by volker Kutscher

  ‘Unlikely. He was just as surprised as me when he heard about the arrow poison.’

  ‘Would Artur Radlewski be capable of making such a thing?’

  ‘All I know is he’s supposed to live like an Indian. I’ve never seen him myself.’

  ‘Is there someone who could tell me more?’

  ‘My uncle perhaps. Or we could ask in Wielitzken, which, to my knowledge, is where the Radlewskis lived. Perhaps there’s someone who knew him as a child.’

  ‘Let’s head to your uncle’s now.’

  Kowalski had just steered the Wanderer onto the Treuburg marketplace when Rath’s gaze alighted on the advertising pillar. Above the sorry-looking remains of the Communist placards, someone had scrawled Rotfront verrecke in red ink. Red Front Die. Most likely someone dressed in brown, thought Rath, cheered on by the good citizens of Treuburg.

  Kowalski parked the car on Goldaper Strasse and the two of them got out. F. Kowalski, Shoemaker the sign on the house front said.

  ‘On you go and ask,’ Rath said.

  ‘You’re not coming in?’

  Rath shook his head. ‘You question your uncle; I’ll try my luck in Wielitzken.’ He gestured towards the front door. ‘Find out what he has to say about the Kaubuk, and submit your report in the morning. And, please, not a word to Grigat. I don’t know how far we can trust him. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

  Kowalski nodded, proud to have been taken into Rath’s confidence. ‘Yes, Sir. You know, it’s strange . . .’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Whenever I misbehaved as a child I was afraid the Kaubuk might come and get me . . .’ Kowalski grinned. ‘Well, now it’s the Kaubuk’s turn to be afraid.’

  38

  Rath pulled over by a gas station on Lindenallee, just behind the town mill, and skimmed through Robert Naujoks’s files while the attendant checked the oil level and tyre pressure. The ex-chief constable might not have been entirely honest with them, but he’d gladly parted with both documents he’d swiped on the day of his retirement, the second of which, previously housed at Lyck District Court, concerned the Radlewski investigation, a lead they might otherwise have missed.

  At first glance the files were of little use. The pathology report mitigated against Naujoks’s theory that the cases were linked. It was true that he had arranged a chemical analysis of the confiscated hooch, which had yielded potentially fatal levels of methanol, but despite the various bottles in circulation, Martha Radlewski’s death in 1924 was an isolated incident. Perhaps Naujoks had been gripped by an obsession, but if Artur Radlewski had drawn the same conclusions there was no question he’d have motive.

  Kowalski’s story about the Kaubuk who lived like an Indian in the forest seemed outlandish – it wasn’t even clear if the man was still alive – but it was something like a lead. They had found someone with a plausible motive for killing the three moonshiners. Rath wondered if the tainted booze might not have claimed other victims whom neither Naujoks nor the deceased trio knew anything about.

  Either way, at some point proceedings against Lamkau, Simoneit and Wawerka had been discontinued. Had Gustav Wengler smuggled his employees out west because he feared they could be avenged? By Radlewski? Had he, Radlewski, gone unsighted for so long because he’d been killing people in Berlin, Dortmund and Wittenberge? Or was the Kaubuk long dead himself?

  He had to learn more about this strange Masurian Indian. He waited for the attendant to finish cleaning his windscreen, then paid and asked for a receipt. Heading south, signposts informed him that the Polish border was only sixteen kilometres away.

  He reached Wielitzken after a few minutes via a ramrod-straight road that took a sharp curve just before the village. The schoolhouse was a low, elongated building near an ancient wooden church that was set back from the road in a slightly elevated position and hidden behind a few old trees.

  After first trying his flat, he found the schoolmaster in his spacious classroom. On his desk in front of the blackboard was a fragile mini-laboratory of tubes and bottles. In a large glass vessel a cloudy-brown liquid boiled and bubbled away, while a second, smaller glass vessel collected drop after drop of a glassy distillate.

  Rammoser was sniffing at a test tube when Rath entered. He looked up in surprise. ‘Inspector! Good of you to stop by. Finished for the day already?’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt. Are you preparing a lesson?’

  ‘More of a hobby. During the holidays I have the run of the classroom.’

  ‘Looks like you’d have made a good chemist.’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Rammoser laughed and waved the test tube. ‘Fancy a sniff?’

  The scent was extremely familiar.

  ‘You’re . . .distilling schnapps.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘That’s illegal!’

  ‘Come off it,’ Rammoser said. ‘Where there’s no complaint, there can be no redress. Lots of people are at it around here.’

  ‘Some of them have died.’

  ‘Do you think I’m making some cheap rotgut? The recipe is from my father.’

  ‘Your father was a master distiller?’

  ‘My father, God rest his soul, was a village schoolmaster, like me. In the same village, in this very school. A man with a thirst for righteousness.’

  ‘All right. I’ve no intention of impugning your father’s good name, or of locking you up . . .’

  ‘That would be a thing, after I saved your skin yesterday.’

  ‘ . . .although I am here on duty.’

  ‘Shame. I was about to offer you a taste. You won’t find schnapps like this anywhere on the market.’ Rammoser held the glass towards him. ‘Go on, have a sip. Then you’ll see why I bother.’

  ‘As long as you guarantee I won’t go blind.’

  ‘You won’t go blind, that much I can guarantee.’ The teacher grinned. ‘But after that, you’re on your own.’

  ‘Then perhaps I will take a glass.’

  ‘I thought you were on duty?’

  ‘I’ve done too much overtime already. This can just as easily be a private conversation.’

  Rammoser switched off the flame and turned a few valves. ‘Come on, let’s go next door. Erna can make us a little something for supper. We can have a drink while we wait.’ He went over to the naughty corner and picked out a bottle from the line of corks.

  Moments later they sat in the cosy lounge of the teacher’s apartment, a bottle and two glasses arranged in front of them on the table. Rammoser hadn’t been exaggerating. The pear schnapps was unbelievably mild, imbuing Rath’s body with a pleasant warmth.

  ‘You need it sometimes,’ Rammoser said. ‘The winters here are long. This is the coldest region in Germany.’

  ‘Didn’t feel that way today.’

  ‘It isn’t always so humid. There’s a storm brewing. When it breaks, things will be cooler again, but you didn’t come here to discuss the weather.’

  ‘I came to discuss Artur Radlewski. Apparently, he’s from here?’

  Rammoser shot him a glance that held surprise and suspicion in equal measure. ‘What’s Artur got to do with all this?’

  ‘It could be related to the death of his mother. Did you know him?’

  ‘My father taught him, actually, before the war. Highly intelligent, but very reserved.’

  ‘No wonder, given his family history,’ Rath said. ‘Mother an alcoholic . . .’

  ‘His mother wasn’t the issue,’ Rammoser interrupted. ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard, but back when Artur still lived with her, she never touched a drop. It was her husband who drank. Not only that. Friedrich Radlewski was a brutal bastard who beat his wife black and blue whenever the mood took him. Who knows what else he did in front of the child, or how often the boy tried to help his mother and took a beating for his troubles.’

  Rammoser took a sip of schnapps.

  ‘From time to time,’ he went on, ‘my father would appeal to Radlewski senior’s conscience but, next day, little Artur either fai
led to attend school, or had apparently fallen from the hayloft. As time went on, he grew more reserved, and sought refuge in books about Indians. It was all he cared about, and my father supplied him with what titles he could, starting with Karl May, but soon enough Artur wanted to read other things, travelogues, the truth about the North American Indians.’

  ‘Even back then he wanted to be an Indian . . .’

  ‘He needed an escape, and my father helped him find it. I still remember how he once went all the way to Königsberg to source books for him. Since he couldn’t get him away from his father he wanted at least to encourage him. Perhaps he thought little Artur was planning to emigrate to America. I don’t know.’ Rammoser paused to top up their glasses. ‘Do you have any cigarettes?’

  Rath laid his case on the table. ‘Help yourself.’ Rammoser lit an Overstolz, and Rath did likewise.

  ‘Anyway,’ Rammoser continued, ‘the day came when Father cursed himself for having supplied the boy with so many books: the day they found a bare-skulled, bloodied Friedrich Radlewski dead outside his shanty. Someone had scalped him while he was still alive. His wife lay unconscious inside, covered in bruises. At first, they thought that Martha was dead too, but she was still breathing. There was no sign of Artur. Neither of him, nor his books. He must have been fourteen or fifteen at the time.’

  ‘My God, what a tragic story.’

  ‘No one mourned Fritz Radlewski. Most people were glad the bastard was in the ground.’ Rammoser looked at Rath. ‘Old Radlewski was rotten to the core. Some people are pure evil.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell a police officer that.’

  ‘As a teacher, you have a duty to see the good in people but, if I’ve learned one thing in all these years, it is this. Most people are capable of good and evil, but there are some who are evil through and through. It doesn’t matter if they’re ten, fifty or a hundred years old.’

  Rath nodded pensively. ‘Perhaps you’re right, but you can’t lock people up for being evil through and through.’

  ‘Friedrich Radlewski beat his wife half to death,’ Rammoser continued. ‘She couldn’t even leave the hospital for his funeral. She needed months to get back on her feet.’

  ‘And Artur? He became the Kaubuk?’

  ‘You’ve heard his nickname? I think it’s a poor fit.’ Rammoser took a drag on his cigarette. ‘Artur remained missing. He was under suspicion, and the Landgendarmerie spent several days looking for him in vain. At some point, a travelling salesman claimed to have seen a figure in the forest behind Markowsken, flitting through the trees at supernatural speed. Suddenly other people started describing strange encounters in the forest, over by the border.’

  ‘Which is where he lives to this day, terrifying women and children?’

  ‘He doesn’t terrify anyone, he avoids people.’ Rammoser topped them up again. ‘In the beginning, he must’ve slipped into the villages fairly regularly to stock up on essentials. A goose would go missing in Urbanken, the grocer’s in Willkassen might report a paraffin lamp stolen; an entire toolbox vanished from the sawmill. In Markowsken, Kowalski senior had five rabbits pinched from his sheds. The most anyone ever saw was a shadow. That this elusive being could only be a spirit, could only be the Kaubuk, was a given for most people.’

  ‘Turns out it was no more than a common thief.’

  ‘Or someone trying to survive in the wilds.’ Evidently Rammoser felt obliged to defend Radlewski. ‘Most people thought as you did. When the thefts continued they threatened the Landgendarmerie, saying if the police couldn’t find him, they’d start looking themselves, but then war broke out, the Russians rolled in and people had other things to worry about. At some point, the thefts ceased.’

  ‘Perhaps Radlewski didn’t survive the war?’

  ‘The thefts might have ceased, but there were other mysterious goings-on in the forest. On one occasion a cow elk carcass was found with its hide missing, along with the best bits of meat. And there were any number of traps; primitive certainly, but immaculate in their design.’

  ‘Radlewski’s handiwork?’

  ‘No one knows for sure, but there are fewer and fewer who remember the old stories. The last sighting was years ago, and for most people he has become a kind of mythical figure, a ghost. Others claim Radlewski has long since died or emigrated.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s dead. I can see it in your eyes. You think he’s still out there in the forest.’

  Rammoser smiled for the first time since he’d started telling Artur Radlewski’s story. ‘There are no flies on you, Herr Rath.’ He poured another glass of moonshine, and Rath realised he was becoming drunk. A pleasant feeling, it somehow brought him closer to this foreign world. He felt at one with himself, suddenly at home in Masuria, as if he had spent his whole life here.

  ‘You’re right,’ Rammoser continued. ‘I don’t think Artur is dead. I think he’s become so skilled at concealing himself and covering his tracks that no one’s quick enough to see him.’

  ‘Like an Indian.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘Let me tell you a different story . . .’ Rammoser lifted his glass. ‘Here in Treuburg we have a lending library, and every couple of months a few books inexplicably vanish. No one’s ever discovered how, but the fact is they do. Every so often three or four titles will just go missing from the catalogue, as if by magic. Even more strangely, on the same morning these books are marked absent, the librarian will find a different pile on her desk, containing titles stolen in the previous weeks. Books about Indians, every last one.’

  Rath couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Well, it is a lending library. You think a person who has withdrawn from civilisation is capable of reading so many books?’

  Rammoser shrugged. ‘I’d say he must. If he doesn’t want to die of loneliness.’

  39

  Lange wore such a look of consternation that Charly felt duty-bound to ask what was wrong. Until she realised it was her.

  ‘Have you been crying?’ he asked as he stood to greet her.

  She couldn’t help but laugh. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Chopping onions.’

  In fact, she’d started in the salad kitchen today, which was considerably more enjoyable. Just as she struck up a conversation with the girl on the adjoining table Unger drafted her in for more onion chopping. Apparently, he wasn’t too keen on his employees making small talk.

  Lange straightened her chair like a gentleman of the old school, and she sat down. Café Schottenhaml on Kemperplatz was the sort of place they could pass themselves off as an amorous couple if one of her new colleagues should make an unexpected appearance. In truth, it was unlikely: Schottenhaml was modern, tasteful and elegant, no place for kitchen staff.

  ‘I just thought . . .your eyes . . .’

  ‘You’re right. We look like we’re in the middle of a tearful separation.’

  Lange went red. ‘The main thing is that no one thinks we’re police officers.’

  Charly opened her cigarette case. ‘What’s the latest from East Prussia?’ she asked, as casually as possible. ‘Has Inspector Rath been in touch?’

  Lange shook his head. ‘Not yet, but he’s only been there two days.’

  ‘But he’s definitely arrived?’

  ‘The Treuburg Police have confirmed as much. A Chief Constable Grigat seemed curious to know what we were doing. Inspector Rath doesn’t seem to have been especially forthcoming.’

  ‘Isn’t Böhm expecting a report?’

  ‘Poor old Rath still doesn’t know Böhm’s taken over the case.’ Lange grinned. ‘Otherwise he might have been a little more conscientious.’

  Or not, Charly thought, once he knew Böhm had been parachuted in again. ‘Have you made any progress with the tubocurarine lead?’ she asked.

  ‘I’d say by now we’ve looked into all known sources of supply in Berlin. Still no luck.’

  She couldn’t help feeling reassured that her colleagues hadn�
��t made much progress either. It meant the fault didn’t lie with her or this business with Dettmann.

  ‘Perhaps he’s making the tubocurarine himself,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we should ask an expert what you’d need to cook it up.’

  ‘Precisely what Gräf’s doing tomorrow.’

  ‘Of course.’ Charly nodded, ashamed of her wiseacring. The waiter appeared, they ordered and Lange changed the subject. ‘So, what do you have for me? Have you seen anything?’

  ‘Not much. Chopping onions makes it rather tricky.’

  ‘You poor thing.’

  ‘I had more luck the day before yesterday. I managed to look inside a folder full of complaint letters. They were pretty harsh. Some of them sounded more like extortion.’

  ‘You think Rath was onto something?’

  ‘I still haven’t managed to work out if Riedel and Unger know each other, but Unger seems pretty wary. It’s possible that suppliers are being blackmailed.’ She fetched a note from her pocket. ‘I haven’t found any correspondence with the Lamkau firm yet. If there was anything, it would most likely be in Riedel’s office, but how I’m supposed to get in there beats me . . .’ She passed the note across. ‘ . . .I do have two addresses. Perhaps you should try and find out what kind of trouble they had with Haus Vaterland – and how they were able to smooth things over.’

  Lange pocketed the note. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s it. Today I’ve been mostly concentrating on my home-making skills.’

  ‘How long do you think you’ll be able to continue undetected?’

  ‘Not too much longer, I hope, otherwise I’ll need a new pair of eyes.’

  ‘Well, just get through tomorrow, then it’s the weekend.’

  ‘For you maybe.’ Charly forced a smile. ‘Unger’s already asked if I can work overtime on Sunday.’

  Lange nodded as the drinks arrived.

  ‘There was one more thing,’ Charly said, once the waiter had taken his leave. ‘I’ve met someone who seems to know the ropes.’