The Fatherland Files

by volker Kutscher

  He’d finished his list around twenty past eleven, but chose not to return to Alex. Instead he’d lied to Charly, on the day they’d made their engagement public in the Castle. Gennat had announced it that morning in briefing, and Harald Dettmann gazed stonily in Rath’s direction as others joined the applause.

  They could have been in the canteen toasting the fact that everyone knew. Instead, he was moving through Friedrichshain towards the banks of the Spree. Walking down Mühlenstrasse, cigarette dangling and hands in his coat pockets, he proceeded towards the Oberbaum Bridge and the Osthafen where, this time last year, Red Hugo, head of the Berolina Ringverein, had vanished without trace.

  The black Adler sedan that rolled past and stopped on the street corner looked out of place in a neighbourhood like this, characterised as it was by industry, poverty and petty crime. Even so, its paintwork didn’t have so much as a scratch. Everyone here knew who the vehicle belonged to, as, of course, did Rath.

  The driver’s door opened, and a well-dressed Chinese emerged. The man wore a long, black ponytail under his hat, and nodded briefly at Rath as he opened the rear door.

  ‘Thank you, Liang,’ Rath said, taking his place on the back seat, next to a powerfully built man who put the papers he’d been reading to one side.

  ‘Long time, no see, Inspector,’ said Johann Marlow.

  ‘I’ve been out of town.’

  ‘Might I invite you for lunch? There’s a Chinese restaurant close by.’

  ‘Thank you, I already have plans.’

  ‘Let’s take a little drive.’ Marlow gave Liang a signal and the sedan started rolling. They turned onto Warschauer Strasse.

  ‘Thank you for meeting me like this,’ Rath said, though it went against the grain to express gratitude to such a man. He needed his help though, so had grasped the nettle once more. As time passed he grew increasingly inured to its sting.

  Marlow had always behaved honourably towards him, which was more than could be said for some of his so-called colleagues. Arseholes like Harald Dettmann and Frank Brenner, or traitors like Bruno Wolter and Sebastian Tornow. Even a man like Andreas Lange didn’t always play with an open hand; the same went for Böhm and Gennat, of course, to say nothing of the various police commissioners he had served under.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  Rath lit a fresh cigarette. ‘Where would I go if I was looking for a contract killer, here in Berlin?’

  Marlow laughed. ‘You mean to dispose of your superiors? You won’t get any help from me or Berolina for that kind of service.’

  ‘What about Concordia?’

  ‘Same code. Murder is off limits.’

  The Ringvereine controlled organised crime in the city, but nearly all of them shied away from murder, at least those who could afford the luxury of a code of honour.

  Marlow looked at him sceptically. ‘What would you like to know, Inspector?’

  ‘A witness was killed in police custody last week. By a professional.’ He didn’t want to reveal any more. Neither that the killer had posed as a police officer, nor, this went without saying, whose name he had used.

  ‘Do you think Concordia are behind it?’

  ‘I think a man named Gustav Wengler is behind it. A suspected bootlegger, who does business with Concordia. I believe that, with the help of Concordia, Wengler has neutralised a troublesome witness.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree, Inspector!’ Marlow tapped a cigarette against the lid of his case.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Concordia no longer have any dealings with Wengler.’

  ‘Only last week Concordia men were involved in loading Wengler’s moonshine onto a boat at the Westhafen.’

  ‘Also the moment that their long-standing arrangement came to an end.’

  ‘Wait a minute. You’re saying Concordia deal directly with the Luisenhöhe distillery?’

  ‘Dealt. Like I said. How else do you think they get their hands on so many original bottles? And they’re important; the Yanks pay top dollar for market products, take it from someone who knows.’ Rath thought of the two thousand dollars in his mailbox. ‘What’s actually inside isn’t important. You have to assume our associates over there dilute the product even further. With water and medicinal alcohol, or worse. Poor Yanks.’ Marlow shook his head and laughed.

  ‘But this arrangement is now over?’

  ‘The Pirates drove Concordia out of business, if you ask me with the express approval of Gustav Wengler.’ Marlow took a drag on his cigarette. ‘If a witness needed eliminating, it’d be Hermann Lapke who ordered it, the head of the Nordpiraten.’ The gangster grinned. ‘If I were you, Inspector, I’d be asking around at police headquarters. Who knows, perhaps you’ll find your killer there.’

  Rath was astonished. He was certain he hadn’t mentioned the police impersonator and his fake badge. Charly’s words flashed through his mind – but surely Dettmann had even less to do with a Ringverein than Gustav Wengler?

  ‘What do the Pirates have against Concordia? I thought it was Berolina they had it in for?’

  ‘Lapke’s decided to leave us in peace for the time being.’ Marlow inhaled appreciatively. ‘Though he’s leaning on Concordia pretty hard. Five of their members have now been killed and, according to the papers, you were the investigating officer.’

  ‘The Phantom.’ Rath nodded thoughtfully. ‘The victims were all linked to Concordia . . .’

  ‘No doubt some of them wouldn’t want it inscribed on their gravestones, Riemann, the Charlottenburg lawyer, for instance . . .but, yes, the Phantom’s victims have all been necessary in some way for Marczewski’s business deals.’

  ‘Polish-Paule?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call him that, unless you want to get yourself shot. Though he’s a perfectly charming fellow otherwise.’

  ‘He’s Masurian?’

  ‘Prussian, at any rate. Came to Berlin a few years ago from Königsberg.’

  ‘Then Wengler knows him from the old days.’

  ‘Possibly, though they’re no longer friends. Marczewski’s afraid he’s next on the Phantom’s list, and went to ground several days ago.’

  ‘So the Pirates are behind all the Phantom murders?’

  ‘Lapke’s behind them. Ever since he was released from Tegel a year ago, he seems to be on astonishingly good terms with the police.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘That it’s no coincidence he was spared by the Weisse Hand, unlike his friend Höller.’

  ‘You’re saying Lapke was in cahoots with the Weisse Hand?’

  ‘Perhaps he still is.’

  ‘The Weisse Hand no longer exists. We broke it last year.’

  ‘The man who kills on Lapke’s behalf is one of your colleagues, Inspector, believe me. Whatever name you give him.’

  ‘The Phantom’s a sniper; the victim from police custody had his neck broken.’

  ‘I’d be surprised if Lapke gave the job to someone new.’

  ‘So who is it?’

  ‘If I knew that, he’d have been exposed by now. Or killed.’

  ‘You’re well informed.’

  ‘In my line, information is the alpha and omega,’ Marlow said, and Rath remembered his father’s saying. Knowledge is power.

  He fell silent and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. It was about the same size as the Buick’s glove compartment. ‘Do you think that Paul Marczewski would be willing to testify against Gustav Wengler?’

  ‘You really want to get this Wengler, don’t you?’ Marlow said. ‘If it hurts the Pirates, you have my support. That said, I can’t imagine Marczewski will make the greatest impression in court, and he’ll hardly be crazy on the idea either. But . . .’ – he threw his cigarette out the window. – ‘ . . .I’ll see what I can do.’

  94

  Charly hadn’t been at her desk half a day and already felt she was in a rut. At the weekend she had laboured under the illusion that she still worked
for Homicide, discussing the dead man in the cells with Gereon and mentioning Dettmann by name on several more occasions. In the meantime her colleagues in G had picked up the girl gang from Wedding. Questioning had taken place while she’d been seconded to the Vaterland team, and now she had to sift through the transcripts with Karin van Almsick, looking for contradictions or inconsistencies.

  Somehow she couldn’t help sympathising with these girls who threatened their fellow U-Bahn passengers with switchblades, which they took great pleasure in opening in front of their victims’ faces.

  The youngest was fourteen, the oldest seventeen. All were homeless, orphaned girls trying to make ends meet. Charly couldn’t help thinking of Alex, whom she’d met a year ago. Where might she be now? Initially she’d feared she might stumble on the name Alexandra Reinhold in the transcripts, and was glad to be proved wrong. Alex, too, had stolen, and used a knife from time to time, but Charly liked her all the same. Hopefully, one way or another, she’d soon have her life back on track, along with her friend Vicky.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts.’ Karin van Almsick was a very nosy colleague. ‘Let me guess, you’re thinking about him?’

  News of their engagement had been made public that morning in G as well as A Division. She’d received the congratulations of her colleagues, and promised to bring a cake the next day. ‘Actually, no,’ she said. ‘If I’m honest, I don’t think of Gereon much at all.’

  She tried to focus on the transcripts, but her colleague wouldn’t allow it. ‘How long have you known one another? Pfeiffer from Juvenile Crime says you worked in Homicide three years ago as a stenographer.’

  ‘That is indeed where I met Gereon Rath. It’s plain you’re a CID officer.’

  Her colleague smiled blissfully, not realising that Charly was being sarcastic. ‘How long have you been together?’

  ‘We were together and then we weren’t – but we got there in the end.’

  Karin van Almsick gazed sympathetically. ‘How awful!’

  ‘There are other men out there.’

  The throwaway remark was astonishing to her colleague. ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘About there being other men. You haven’t actually . . .’ She seemed fit to burst.

  ‘Yes, there have been other men in my life. Some serious, some not so. You’ve got to be able to compare. You do it while shopping, so why not when it actually matters?’

  Karin van Almsick needed a few moments to close her mouth. She was a country girl, from Wriezen or somewhere, shocked by Berlin morals, or Berlin moral depravity, as she’d no doubt have it. ‘Why don’t I make us a tea,’ she said, and smiled, obviously glad to be escaping temporarily. Charly gazed after her. Better to come out with it now than spend the next God knows how long beating about the bush.

  Karin van Almsick returned from the tea-kitchen sooner than expected. The door flew open and she stood in the office, minus the teapot but short of breath and white as a sheet. ‘There’s someone outside,’ she said.

  ‘So?’

  She took a deep breath, looking as though she’d just encountered the Devil himself. ‘A Negro,’ she said at length. ‘Charly . . .there’s a Negro outside who wants to speak with you.’

  95

  Rath couldn’t bear the waiting, but what choice did he have? What a crackpot idea, going to Gennat now! Did he really think he’d be waved straight through? But that was just it, he wasn’t thinking, or at least, he wasn’t thinking straight. He had knocked, and Trudchen Steiner had motioned for him to take a seat, and so now here he was, and there was nothing he could do.

  The mood he was in, it was torture. There were a thousand things he’d rather be doing than waiting for an audience with Gennat, but perhaps it was better he couldn’t do them now. Better he couldn’t storm into her office and ask who the hell she ate lunch with whenever he turned her down.

  Finishing with Marlow, he had wanted a quick snack before returning to the Castle. He’d never have gone near Aschinger if he thought she’d be there. Instinctively he sought cover behind a fat woman in the queue, his guilty conscience at work, as ever, following his latest rendezvous with the gangster.

  That was when he saw she wasn’t alone. In Aschinger of all places, where half the station went for their lunch, she sat in full view: Fräulein Charlotte Ritter, newly engaged to Herr Gereon Rath, as most colleagues knew since this morning, eating her lunch without her fiancé. Only, she wasn’t alone.

  Alongside at her window table was a black man. A black man who displayed his dazzling white teeth just as Rath looked over. Charly was laughing about whatever it was he’d said, so fixed on her companion that she failed to notice her fiancé in the queue. Rath resisted the temptation to give the man a good smack, choosing, instead, to beat a retreat.

  If he hadn’t just come from meeting Johann Marlow he’d have taken her to task, and hounded the black out of the restaurant, but if there was one thing Charly must not know it was Marlow’s excellent relationship with the Berlin Police, viz. Gereon Rath. So, perhaps it was wise that he hadn’t. Even if it’d have made him feel better. Perhaps.

  What kind of man was this? Why was she meeting him, and why had she never mentioned a black acquaintance? One thing was for certain: this was no lawyer.

  He stared at the Hindenburg portrait in Gennat’s outer office and tried to think of something else, but the same images kept flitting through his mind. Charly, sitting with a black man, laughing. Trudchen Steiner finally stopped the merry-go-round in his head. ‘The superintendent will see you now.’

  Ernst Gennat sat at his desk. ‘What is it that’s so important?’ he asked.

  My fiancée is having secret meetings with a Negro.

  ‘How is Officer Dettmann getting on with the Phantom case?’

  It wasn’t the most poised opening. Gennat eyed him suspiciously. ‘Do you want your old case back, Inspector?’

  Of course he did, and if he could take Gustav Wengler down at the same time, so much the better. ‘Of course not, Sir, it’s . . .’ He lit a cigarette. Rarely had he felt so nervous in this office. Perhaps it was because his thoughts kept turning to Charly. ‘I might have some fresh insight regarding the case . . .’

  ‘I thought the Vaterland team was focusing on the search for Jakub Polakowski?’

  ‘Precisely how I came upon the information, Sir, or rather, in connection with our investigation into Gustav Wengler.’

  ‘Your primary concern should be Polakowski,’ Gennat said. ‘He’s our suspect. Wengler is the victim, or potential victim. We are keeping him under surveillance to protect him.’

  ‘With respect, Sir, Gustav Wengler is a killer, and bootlegger, who had his long-time operations manager murdered to conceal his shady deals.’

  ‘That’s little more than a theory at this stage.’

  ‘I have evidence to substantiate it. Wengler has played two Ringvereine against each other, by switching allegiance from Concordia to the Nordpiraten.’

  ‘What are you driving at?’

  ‘The murder in police custody could be the work of the Phantom. The man kills on Hermann Lapke’s behalf – who was doing his new business associate Wengler a good turn.’

  Gennat’s expression grew serious, even startled, as he reached for the telephone. ‘Fräulein Steiner, under no circumstances am I to be disturbed in the next ten minutes. Not even by you.’ He hung up. ‘Who have you already spoken to about this?’

  Charly’s meeting a Negro.

  ‘Spoken to?’

  ‘About your suspicion.’

  ‘No one, Sir. You’re the first.’

  ‘Then let it stay that way.’ Gennat furrowed his brow. ‘Tell me how your suspicion came about. The Phantom is a sniper, and Assmann had his neck broken.’

  ‘It had to be done quickly, and police custody is the worst possible place for a sniper.’

  ‘Where do you have your information?’

  ‘An informant from the Berolina
Ringverein told me the Phantom is Lapke’s personal hit man.’

  ‘Berolina . . .’

  ‘Yes. A Ringverein on good terms with Concordia, in whose orbit most, if not all, of the Phantom’s victims moved.’

  ‘You think the Pirates are stirring things up again?’

  ‘Perhaps even Lapke himself.’ Rath lowered his voice. ‘There are whispers that Lapke was in league with the Weisse Hand last year, and that this Phantom is a remnant, so to speak, of that time. Which would mean . . .’

  ‘ . . .the Phantom’s a police officer,’ Gennat said.

  ‘Which also explains how he gained access to the cells. All we have to do now is show the guard from Wednesday evening pictures of all CID offic . . .’

  ‘I fear that could be tricky. Herr Studer has been missing for three days.’ Gennat adopted a conspiratorial expression. ‘What I’m about to tell you, Inspector, must stay in this room. Can I rely on you?’

  ‘Of course, Sir.’

  Gennat threw him another searching glance before continuing. ‘The Phantom killings actually began in autumn ’31, shortly after the Weisse Hand was broken. We suspect someone slipped through our fingers at the time, who has since made a career of his hobby. A lucrative one, at that.’

  ‘Murdering criminals or their accomplices, and earning money on the side.’ Rath stubbed out his cigarette. ‘So it really is a police officer?’

  ‘Not a word to anyone, do you hear.’ Gennat gave him a piercing look, and Rath nodded as if hypnotised. ‘We are not only certain it’s a police colleague. We know which one.’

  96

  A further four days passed, and still Jakub Polakowski hadn’t been found. By now all major police stations in Prussia had a photo, and Warrants had scoured the whole of Berlin, along with every town Polakowski had visited during his vendetta.

  The Danzig Criminal Police had also been issued with photos, but Polakowski hadn’t appeared outside Wengler’s hotel, the Eden, where the distillery owner occasionally met with lawyers or family members. Clearly he wanted to put his dead brother’s affairs in order, and perhaps do a little bootlegging on the side.