Goldstein, page 16
His telephone call to the Welfare Office had done nothing to assuage his guilty conscience, and the fact that Charly, tired and resigned as she was, had actually believed his threadbare excuses, almost shamed him more than the excuses themselves. He had visited only one Reinhold family and was met by an indignant woman who said she had no daughter by the name of Alex or Alexandra. At the other four addresses, he had claimed – and Charly believed him – no one had been home.
This morning, that same abandoned list had morphed into her final hope. She tore the evidence of his neglect from the notebook almost gratefully, and he said nothing more on the subject. Certainly not his true opinion, which was that the situation was hopeless.
The whispering that filled the large meeting room grew quieter and finally stopped. Rath looked up as the deputy commissioner stepped onto the podium with a grave expression. He threw his cigarette on the stone floor and trod it out with the tip of his shoe. Dr Weiss gripped the lectern and waited. Only when all was quiet in the room did he speak.
‘I have gathered you here today,’ he began, looking around, ‘in light of recent, tragic events. I am sure most of you have heard already.’
His account of the clash on Frankfurter Allee sounded altogether more grave than it had coming from Charly. As expected, the deputy didn’t mention anything about a guttersnipe who had escaped from Lichtenberg District Court. He simply listed the facts: a workers’ demonstration in the middle of a Communist area; sudden escalation, and advancing police officers find themselves in a hail of bullets; a sergeant who storms demonstrators on the front line is hit in the chest, collapses, and dies shortly afterwards.
‘You are no doubt aware, gentlemen,’ Weiss said solemnly, ‘that Sergeant Emil Kuhfeld is not the first police officer to lose his life in the line of duty. Nor, I fear, will he be the last. I know I speak for us all when I say that we, his colleagues, will not forget him.’ He gazed around the room. ‘Gentlemen,’ he continued, ‘Please rise and observe a minute’s silence for our dead colleague.’
Hundreds of chair legs scraped across the floor and the room became eerily quiet. Everybody knew this minute’s silence was no hollow, meaningless gesture, but affected each one of them personally. The much-invoked superiority of CID over Uniform had no place in this room. When it was a question of the mood outside, of the increasingly brutal hostility officers faced every day on the streets, they were all in the same boat, whether in uniform or plainclothes. The only difference was that Uniform had to risk their necks far more often. Out there were people who looked on police officers as fair game.
Rath had never felt drawn to life on the beat; now it seemed less attractive than ever.
‘Thank you, gentlemen.’ Weiss drew the minute’s silence to a close, and the room filled with noise again.
Only now did he mention the state of the investigation. Initial enquiries from Section 1A, the political police, had revealed that the shooting was coordinated by Communist headquarters, and, for this reason, Weiss had ordered a series of searches. The ban on the Spartakiad was now to be implemented in all its force. Weiss had already forbidden the Communist sports event a few days ago, as well as an SA event scheduled for the same day. In his campaign against the violent, so-called politicians who had brought Germany to the brink of civil war, Bernhard Weiss, himself a former chief of the political police, was consistent like no other Prussian officer.
‘Now let us move on to something altogether more agreeable,’ he said, smiling for the first time. ‘There is another reason I have gathered you here. In fact there are several reasons; specifically, the men sitting directly in front of me today.’
Weiss paused, and the atmosphere grew restless as everyone tried to see who was in the front row. Rath craned his neck, but couldn’t see past the bulky Ernst Gennat, who was sitting in the third or fourth row.
‘These are your new colleagues,’ Weiss continued. ‘CID is being supplemented by a number of cadets. Despite the compulsory saving measures imposed by the government, we are doing everything in our power to avoid police numbers being cut.’
‘And what are you doing to avoid police salaries being cut?’ a heckler shouted. Everyone turned, but the man was nowhere to be seen. No one dared laugh and Weiss remained calm.
‘I see many well-nourished faces before me. To my knowledge, no CID officer has died of starvation this year. Should you genuinely be living in want and find yourself unable to afford the canteen, come and see me in my office. Just make sure you don’t go nosing about Superintendent Gennat’s cake selection.’ A few colleagues laughed, but not many. ‘Back to our cadets,’ Weiss said. ‘Allow me to invite the men onto the stage.’
Rath heard chairs shifting as half a dozen young men lined up in front of them.
‘Messrs Start, Tornow, Schütz, Weisshaupt, Marx and Kluge begin their service as cadets today. Initially, they are assigned to J Division, as Warrants are currently suffering the greatest shortages. However, they can be assigned to other divisions on a case-by-case basis, at the discretion of Chief Scholz.’
Second from the left was the police lieutenant Rath had encountered outside Weiss’s office. He cut an immaculate figure in a suit. Tornow, the deputy said his name was.
‘I ask that you remain on hand with help and advice for these men,’ Weiss continued. ‘Most of you were in Uniform not so long ago, exposing yourselves to great danger in the service of our democratic state. If you are teamed with one of our cadets, please exercise patience as you show them the ropes. Remember, in time, one of these gentlemen could be your superior.’ He paused until the laughter died. ‘All joking aside, yesterday’s events remind us how important it is to work together, with rather than against one another.’
Rath couldn’t be sure through Weiss’s thick reading glasses, but he felt as if the deputy had his eyes trained on him. It was probably just his imagination, an inherent sense of guilt exacerbated by his rigorous Catholic upbringing. Appeal over, Weiss brought the meeting to an end. The officers stood up and gradually filtered out of the room. In their midst moved a man whose vast frame made him impossible to overlook.
Rath considered whether he should speak to Gennat. Perhaps the chief of Homicide could exert a little pressure, even if it was clear that Bernhard Weiss had no intention of withdrawing Rath and his men from the Goldstein operation. Why the whole thing couldn’t be transferred to Warrants, Rath didn’t know, especially now that they had a few extra hands. After all, what better job was there for a cadet than a stake-out? Rath headed towards Buddha, before hesitating. Wilhelm Böhm stood alongside the superintendent. It would have to be Böhm! Approaching the two detectives he overheard the Bulldog mention something about a robbery homicide that wasn’t.
‘Good morning, Superintendent.’ Rath tipped his hat. ‘Detective Chief Inspector.’
‘Ah, Inspector Rath,’ Gennat said. Böhm broke off mid-sentence and cast the troublemaker an angry glance. ‘I see you’re back,’ Gennat continued. ‘How is everything going?’
‘Fine, thank you for asking. I just wanted to check what was happening in A Division. We don’t hear much out in the field. Looks like the number of cases is on the rise again.’
‘Yes, a real tragedy, this business with our colleague. We’ll touch on it in briefing later.’
‘And DCI Böhm is investigating a death as well, I hear?’
Böhm shot him a second, angrier glance, which Rath chalked up as a minor victory.
‘We found a corpse yesterday in Friedrichshain,’ Gennat said. ‘A second-hand dealer in a pretty bad way at the back of his shop. Everything points towards robbery homicide, except the man was a known fence with links to the Berolina Ringverein.’
‘Which is why I suspect a different motive,’ Böhm butted in. ‘Berolina and the Nordpiraten are at loggerheads and it wouldn’t surprise me if the robbery homicide was staged. There are, at any rate, a few discrepancies.’
Rath’s ears pricked up. ‘You think there’s someone out there settling underworld scores? What do you think?’ he asked Gennat. ‘Would it be possible for me to take part in today’s Homicide briefing? Just to keep up to date, in case my men report back for duty in the next few days.’
Gennat looked at him as if trying to establish the real reasons for Rath’s interest. Buddha might appear a little sleepy, but his eyes were so alert and his gaze so intense that Rath couldn’t help but blink. ‘Any time,’ he said. ‘As long as you can make it work with your other commitments.’
That didn’t sound as if Gennat was about to ask Weiss for his men back. Rath hid his disappointment and nodded.
A short time later, he sat with his old colleagues in the small meeting room, with everything just as before, except that Gräf was missing. Henning and Czerwinski were catching up on sleep after finishing the nightshift. Rath half listened as Assistant Detective Lange spoke blandly about the dead boy from KaDeWe, whom they had now identified, and Assistant Detective Mertens recapped yesterday’s shooting in the east. The investigation was being headed by Section 1A, with Homicide operating in a purely ancillary capacity.
For a CID detective, there was nothing worse than acting as dogsbody to the political police. Even so, Mertens couldn’t hide his satisfaction that 1A had been unable to trace the gunman. Reading between the lines, it was clear he considered it wishful thinking not only that the shot had been intentionally fired, but that it had come from a Communist source.
Next up was Böhm, who received Rath’s undivided attention. Evidently he still hadn’t heard anything about Red Hugo’s disappearance, mentioning only that Hugo Lenz, who was on his list of interviewees, was to be found neither at home nor at his regular haunt. Apparently that wasn’t Mulackritze, as Rath had always assumed, but Amor-Diele in Friedrichshain, where he had been only last night. To think he could have run into one of Böhm’s men!
Whether he was a victim of the Nordpiraten or not, Böhm’s dead fence, whose name was Eberhard Kallweit, had been found in his shop yesterday, and probably been there for several days. The till was empty, but the perpetrators had left a surprising number of valuable items, high-quality wristwatches among them. That was one of the reasons Böhm thought the robbery homicide was staged, especially since the victim had been brutally tortured before death. So brutally, in fact, that it was all too much for one of his tormentors. Next to the dead man, Forensics had found a pool of vomit that definitely hadn’t issued from Kallweit, a fact confirmed in Dr Schwartz’s post autopsy report. Aside from the vomit the pathologist had found numerous breaks and lacerations, as well as the source of the internal bleeding that was responsible for the victim’s death.
Böhm then reported on the background to the current gangland feud. It wasn’t open warfare, he said, and there still hadn’t been any fatalities, or, at least, no obvious executions, but, in the past two weeks clashes between the Nordpiraten and members of Berolina had grown more frequent.
‘We believe it to be connected to the release of Rudolf Höller and Hermann Lapke, both of whom have just served two years in Tegel for attempted bank robbery. Clearly they hope to restore the Nordpiraten to their former glory.’
The incidents were stacking up. Berolina drug-dealers had been beaten in broad daylight; bars that stood under the official protection of the Ringverein had been destroyed, their guests insulted. The attacks had culminated with the unfortunate drug-dealer who landed spine first on a set of basement steps. The torching of a new Pirate betting office on Greifswalder Strasse was seen as Berolina’s response, even if neither police nor the Pirates could prove it. Had the fence been killed in retaliation?
‘If Kallweit should prove to be the first victim in a gangland war,’ Böhm said, ‘things will soon escalate.’
‘Lock ‘em up,’ someone cried. ‘That’s how you avoid your escalation right there.’ The heckler received a murmur of approval. ‘That’s right,’ said another. ‘We know almost all the members of these Ringvereine. Why can’t we just put them all behind bars?’
‘Why not do the same with the Communists,’ a third cried. ‘Wouldn’t be able to gun our men down from inside.’
‘Quiet, gentlemen!’ Gennat, who had been silent until now, stood and made a conciliatory gesture with his hands. ‘Quiet, please!’ The superintendent could be astonishingly loud.
The murmuring subsided.
‘You are well aware why we can’t do that. Locking people up just because we think they might commit a crime. In Prussia only those found guilty and convicted can be put in jail. There is no preventative custody, and rightly so. Otherwise the way is paved for misuse and despotism. Gentlemen, we live in a constitutional state . . .’ He paused, seeming to look every single officer in the eye. ‘ . . .and you are a part of its executive power, no more, but equally – and I stress this – no less.’
He had the room back under control. ‘If it is as Böhm here suspects and we are dealing with the first casualty of a gangland war, then we will do everything in our power to prevent further loss of life. Using the means afforded to us by our constitutional state.’
‘As far as I’m concerned, a single casualty isn’t enough,’ the officer next to Rath hissed. He didn’t dare say it out loud; that much at least Gennat’s sermon had achieved. ‘Let the bastards take care of each other.’
There was a knock on the door and Assistant Detective Grabowski poked his head inside.
‘Superintendent,’ he said. ‘Please excuse the interruption, but we’ve found a corpse, in Humboldthain.’
35
The murder wagon pulled up on Brunnenstrasse, outside the Himmelfahrtkirche, whose pointed spire towered in the sky, drawing a crowd of rubberneckers. Wilhelm Böhm shouted at the first cop he saw to clear the path in front of the church. ‘Kindly ask people to use the other side of the road!’
‘But . . . the corpse is behind the church . . .’
An angry glance was enough. The officer did as bidden, rounding up a few other cops and cordoning off the path. Böhm emitted a satisfied growl and waved Christel Temme, the stenographer, over. Together they proceeded around the back of the church. ED, the police identification service, was already in action, looking like a group of grown men hunting for Easter eggs, the biggest of which was apparently lying hidden behind a bush, with two ED officers and a cop standing by.
The cop gave a smart salute. ‘First Sergeant Rometsch, 50th precinct, at your service, Sir.’
Böhm nodded and looked at the shrubs that had been planted in front of the chancel to denote the beginning of the park. Behind a thick gorse bush lay the dead man, wearing a uniform with a swastika brassard. Another victim of what too many people confused with politics.
‘Who found the corpse?’ he asked, and Christel Temme, who had already pulled out her notepad, started scribbling. The stenographer wrote down absolutely everything, even when someone asked the time.
The cop shrugged his heavy shoulders. ‘Someone called in anonymously.’
‘What precinct are you again?’
‘I beg to report, Sir: the 50th precinct, Detective Chief Inspector, Sir.’
Böhm looked at the corpse. ‘So. What do you think?’
Sergeant Rometsch was visibly thrown by the question. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I would say the Red Front’s a possibility.’
Böhm nodded. ‘Even though it’s banned.’
‘Yes, Sir, even though it’s banned. We know that hasn’t stopped them.’
‘Cut out the constant standing to attention. You’re not on the parade ground here.’
‘Yes, Sir!’ First Sergeant Rometsch from the 50th precinct stood with his back even straighter.
Böhm shook his head.
Assistant Detective Grabowski came around the corner, carrying the camera from the murder wagon. He unfolded the tripod. ‘Tricky perspective,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t the killer have left him by the church?’
Only now did Böhm see the pool of blood by the church wall, in the dark corner where the nave met the transept. The assistant detective was observant, he thought, and gave a grunt of appreciation. It didn’t pay to praise these young men too much, or they took on airs and graces. He gestured towards the dead man’s right foot. The shoe was split open by a gunshot, and out of the bullet hole swelled an unseemly, red-brown mass. The blood had spread to his gaiters. ‘Don’t forget to take a few close-ups of the foot.’
Grabowski got down to work.
‘Ah, Böhm, there you are!’ Kronberg approached, waving identification with a swastika on the front. An SA membership card, whose passport photo displayed the face of the deceased. ‘The man’s name was Gerhard Kubicki.’
‘And he was a brownshirt?’
The Forensics chief nodded. ‘To be exact: an SA-Rottenführer.’
‘I can never get my head around these Nazi ranks – does that make him a big fish?’
‘Relatively.’
‘So, a mid-ranking Nazi.’ Böhm gestured towards the pool of blood in the shadow of the church. ‘Seems to have been dragged here, wouldn’t you say?’
Kronberg nodded. ‘Possibly to hide the body, but that’s not the only stretch the man covered. Come with me!’
Böhm followed Kronberg to a footprint that a forensics technician was filling in with freshly mixed plaster.
‘Footprints,’ Kronberg said superfluously, ‘one of which we have matched to the victim. He dragged his leg behind him.’
‘No wonder, with an injury like that.’
‘It looks like he made it to the church by himself. We found a trail which we were able to trace back to a meadow in the park.’ Kronberg pulled a tin from his overalls and opened it. ‘And this . . .’ he said, ‘is what we discovered there.’
