Babylon Berlin, page 20
No sooner was the man outside than Liang closed the door again. He didn’t bother to accompany him back into the house. He went straight to the driver’s door, threw the umbrella onto the floor space in front of the passenger seat and reclaimed his place behind the wheel. There was barely a drop of rain on his coat, as if he had never been outside.
‘To Peters?’ he asked simply.
Marlow shook his head. ‘That’ll do, Kuen-Yao. We’re going home.’
The Chinese man started the engine, and the brand new, gleaming, jet-black Standard 8 rolled onto the carriageway.
The streets were filling with cyclists as the first workers pedalled towards the factories. Liang steered the big Adler Limousine calmly and safely through the dawning city. The night-time storm clouds had dispersed as suddenly as they had arrived. Only on the eastern horizon did they continue to paint the morning sky in strips of red. It promised to be a beautiful day. In the rear-view mirror Marlow gazed into the eyes of the Chinese man. They were inscrutable.
Bruno Wolter was a morning person. Getting up at six didn’t bother him, but today he gazed pensively out of the window, and not just because he knew it was going to be a long day. A beautiful morning. It must have rained in the night, as there were puddles glistening on the asphalt. In Fregestrasse the birds chirruped in the trees, doing all they could to mark the start of a sunny spring day, but he wasn’t listening. He scraped shaving cream from his face as if blindfolded, and mulled things over. The calls yesterday evening had pursued him into his dreams and were still whirring around his head. He didn’t think there was any reason to worry. They had planned everything carefully, but you never knew.
One thing, at any rate, was clear: he would soon be rid of the new detective inspector. And yet he had grown accustomed to the lanky figure. He was a little too ambitious for someone who had no idea what was going on in this city but, still, he would most likely get his wish and be transferred to Homicide. Well, enjoy, my friend! The half-shaved face grinned in the mirror.
‘Bruno,’ he heard Emmi call from below. ‘Coffee’s ready.’
After breakfast, he felt better. Emmi carried his brown briefcase to the door and passed it to him as he stepped out of the house. He gave her a quick, dry kiss and went to the black Ford that was parked in front of the house and drove away. He watched her disappearing in the rear-view mirror.
Emmi was the kind of woman he had always wished for. She admired him, she was attentive – and she didn’t ask any questions. He could do no wrong by her. She trusted him completely. Until now he hadn’t disappointed her, and they had been married for over fourteen years. When war broke out and he was called to arms, he had made his proposal. Emilie von Bülow was much sought-after but he won the race for her hand and they used his first leave to get married. It was good to have someone to write to in the field, and that’s what he had done, regularly and in detail. She had sent him at least one letter a week. As the war tightened its grip, and the soldiers were no longer granted leave of their trenches, things continued to take shape in Berlin. Little by little, Emmi furnished the house her parents had bought for them, while he defended the Fatherland for a paltry sum, with which they could never have afforded such a place. But they weren’t fighting for the pay, none of his companions were. They were fighting for the future of Germany, a position that his father-in-law fully supported.
The longer the war continued, the more sordid it became and, for many of his companions, it became a question of returning home in one piece. Not for him, he had hope until the end. They had been in the heart of enemy territory for four years, but Germany’s future was up the spout when the Reds sent the Kaiser packing and signed the surrender – and this despite the fact that his unit hadn’t retreated a millimetre for three years. They held their position in the middle of France without yielding, in the heart of enemy territory, but suddenly everything disintegrated and the country they had fought for no longer existed. It was still called Germany but it was no longer their country.
Nevertheless, he had remained with the police, whom he had already served under the Kaiser. Even with the social democrats in power, someone was required to maintain law and order, and he had never given up hope of the Germany he had fought for and wanted to serve further. He retained contact with his old comrades who had survived.
He parked the Ford in front of the Josty branch on Kaiserallee and looked for a sunny spot on the terrace. Shortly afterwards a waiter brought his coffee, and Wolter leafed through the papers. They were all reporting on the Young Plan. Idiotic prattle, these negotiations in Geneva. He rustled the paper impatiently, gazing up from his reading to take in the entrance to the café terrace and the wide pavement on Kaiserallee. His mood was deteriorating rapidly. He didn’t have forever.
After waiting three quarters of an hour and ordering a second coffee, he had had enough. The man was usually reliable, but today of all days he was blowing him off. As if Wolter didn’t have enough on his plate. He placed the exact change angrily on the table. As he stepped back down from the sunlit terrace onto Kaiserallee, he tried to calm himself. Don’t get nervous, he thought. He had been in this game long enough. The best thing he could do was to wait for the evening, when he would learn more. Until then he had more than enough to do.
The silhouette of a man emerged from the shadow of the newspaper kiosk on the other side of the road. As Wolter slumped onto the driver’s seat of his car, the man hailed a taxi.
17
Rath couldn’t have been asleep for long when the sound of the telephone interrupted his dreams. He blinked out of gummy eyes and groped for the receiver.
‘Hello,’ he mumbled.
‘Gereon?’
All at once the voice made him feel wide awake.
Charly!
He sat up.
‘Good…’ he looked at the alarm clock. Half past ten. ‘Good morning.’
‘Good morning, late sleeper!’ She sounded cheerful. ‘I thought if we’re not going to see each other at the Castle today, then we should at least speak on the telephone.’
‘Yes,’ he said simply. His thoughts were caught in the tangled dreams of the all-too-short night, and a few scraps were hanging there still. Her call had wrenched him from a deep sleep into which he had only just fallen. When he tried to clear his thoughts, he suddenly became aware that the one-eyed man from his dreams was real. The events of the previous night were catching up with him like a scraggy dog pursuing its master: unloved but faithful nevertheless. In his head a film projector began to whir, showing the pictures that had hounded him in his sleep: the stranger’s attack, the shot, the blood in the empty eye socket, a dead man disappearing in concrete. Silent. Pictures without sound, but still needle sharp.
‘You sound as if I’ve woken you up?’
Her voice stopped the silent film, and Rath felt as if he had been found out. Felt as if the projector had also been running for Charly, and that she had caught a glimpse into the furthest reaches of his soul. He hadn’t even told her anything about Cologne yet. How the hell was he supposed to tell her about what had happened last night? He waved his hand in the air as if he could banish these thoughts like a pesky fly. One day he would tell her everything, all this nonsense too. Just not now.
‘I’m actually still in bed,’ he said. Good God, he felt lousy! Why did she have to call?
‘Alone, I hope.’
‘You know I always smuggle ladies out of the house at the crack of dawn.’
At least she laughed. He heard a noise that sounded like the beep of a horn. She would never call him from the office, not with so many keen-eared cops around. Probably a public telephone somewhere at Alex. Her voice grew quieter. ‘A shame you didn’t have to smuggle me out this morning,’ she whispered.
Her voice! He yearned for Charly more than he cared to admit, and above all more than he could allow. He had other things on his mind. ‘Maybe a good thing too,’ he said, more sharply than he had intended. ‘I had a lot of sleep to catch up on.’
‘You didn’t arouse the impression of needing much sleep yesterday morning.’
Her innuendos were making him crazy. Why couldn’t she just leave it? ‘Well, I can be a real show-off sometimes.’
‘Not today. You sound more like someone who doesn’t want to be disturbed.’
‘Nonsense,’ he said, although he knew she was right. ‘I’m just a little tired. I’ve got a lot on my plate.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘the meeting yesterday, your raid today. I’ve got a lot to do as well. I’d still like to be with you though.’
‘And I with you,’ he echoed her answer, knowing it wasn’t true. As much as he longed to be near her, he could scarcely be with her now. How he would have liked to take her in his arms, smell her, feel her body, but in another universe, another world in which the events of the previous night had never taken place. He had lied to her about some meeting or other the day before. Instead, he had met with a criminal and buried a dead man: a harmless white lie that had suddenly taken on a meaning all of its own. How was he supposed to show himself to Charly now?
‘With me?’ she laughed. ‘That’s not such a good idea at the moment. I’m in a telephone box. It would be a little tight. And I need to get back to the Castle, but perhaps Böhm will let me out early enough for us to see each other before it kicks off tonight. When do you start?’
‘This afternoon. We still need to prepare a few things.’
‘I think I get out around two. Time for a coffee in the Letzte Instanz?’
Not such a bad idea actually. The Letzte Instanz – Last Resort – was situated in Klosterstrasse near the police station, and, despite the name, was hardly frequented by police officers. Still, Rath fobbed her off. He hoped he didn’t sound as cold as he felt at this moment.
‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ he said, ‘I’ve still got loads to do.’ Like covering my tracks, by burning bloody, concrete-smeared items, for example. And buying a new suit; and preferably a new pair of shoes while I’m at it. ‘And I need a little more sleep.’
‘Sleep? I’ll sleep at the end of the month!’
He noticed that his laughter sounded forced. She had caught him off guard.
‘What’s wrong with you? Is something the matter?’
‘Should there be?’
‘I’m feeling pretty stupid at the moment. Shouldn’t I have called?’
‘Of course not!’ He knew it didn’t sound the way he had intended it to. ‘I’m just a little tired, that’s all.’
‘Well, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to sleep it off in the next few days. I won’t be bothering you at any rate, not if you don’t want me to. You have my number. At work and at home.’
The receiver in his right hand fell like a sandbag used to test the gallows before an execution. He kept hold of it, lost in thought. Outside the window, the sun was shining, banishing all traces of the night-time thunderstorm. He felt wretched. The sound of her receiver slamming into the cradle had cut him to the quick. At the same time, he was relieved. He couldn’t have endured speaking to her for another second.
Far too many tangled thoughts were racing through his mind. He had to bring order to this chaos, recall what had happened. What he had done, and what he still needed to do.
No-one had seen him as he had pedalled back through the thunderstorm to Charlottenburg. He had thrown the bicycle into the Landwehr canal at Lützowufer and completed the journey by foot. The birds had been chirruping as he finally stood in front of the door at Nürnberger Strasse. Nevertheless, he had acted as if by clockwork, mechanically, without thinking about what he was doing. Because he knew what had to be done. First get out of the clothes as quickly as possible. Jacket and suit were ruined, the concrete, dirt and blood stains a giveaway, and he had left the print of his brown box calves umpteen times in the construction site sludge. A shame about the shoes, but they had to go. Everything had to be disposed of. That was what he had wanted to take care of this morning. Before he had sunk into a brief sleep, he had packed everything away into the smaller of the two cases that had accompanied him to Berlin, and shoved it back under the bed.
He stood up and looked himself in the mirror on the small dressing table. Quite presentable really, if you ignored the stubble and dark circles under his eyes. A bath would do him good. He threw on his dressing gown and went across into the dining room. The breakfast table had been cleared, there was only a single place still laid for him. The coffee in the pot was cold. He poured himself a cup and drank it in one gulp. It didn’t have to taste good, it just needed to work. He didn’t have any appetite and left the bread-basket untouched. He knocked on the door that led to his landlady’s rooms. No reaction. Was she out or just offended?
‘Elisabeth, I’m taking a bath,’ he called through the door as a precaution. The last thing he wanted was for old Behnke to hit on the idea of cleaning her tenants’ bathroom at this precise moment.
In truth he didn’t think she would get any ideas, but upon withdrawing to the bathroom with a towel and fresh items of clothing, he locked the door nevertheless. He opened the fire flap in the boiler, lit a little newspaper and made up the fire with a briquette. While the boiler slowly heated, he got undressed. Next he unrolled the towel and allowed his dirty things to fall on the floor tiles. He removed a pair of scissors from his wash bag and cut the damp, rain-scented material into strips. First the jacket then the suit. Rag after rag went into the boiler, until finally everything had disappeared in the flames.
A little later he was sitting in the warm water, deep in thought. He still didn’t know how he was going to get rid of his shoes, but the best thing was probably to throw them into the canal like the bicycle, at a different location of course, a few kilometres away. He had to go to Kreuzberg today anyway, and the house on Luisenufer was located close to Urbanhafen. Before E Division took up their duties once more, he wanted to have another look at Countess Svetlana Sorokina’s flat.
He had to solve this damned case now more than ever. All this snooping had put someone’s nose out of joint. The terrier they had put on him had only confirmed that he was on the right track. Marlow had a hand in it, he had probably sent the little man after him, the one who was now lying dead in the concrete. Dr M. had something to do with Boris’s death and Gereon Rath would figure out what. At any rate Marlow knew about the Sorokin gold. Alexej Kardakov had worked for him, and was a friend of Countess Sorokina. The pretty couple had disappeared, while a third Russian was dead.
When he emerged from the cooling bathwater, he felt a good deal better. The old thirst for action was returning. Before he left he took another look inside the boiler. He could no longer make out any textile remains, only ash. His favourite suit didn’t exist anymore. Now all he had to do was get rid of the shoes and hope that the construction work in the Stralau quarter was making good progress.
‘Do you come by every Sonnabend now? Because you know my Hermann’s out of the house, is that it?’
She had recognised him straightaway. The stairwell smelt of cleaning agent, just as it had the week before, and he was interrupting her housework again. The pail was still standing in the stairwell.
‘I need to ask you a few more questions, Frau Schäffner.’ Rath neglected to show his ID this time. She let him in all the same. He avoided sitting and remained where he was. She waved a duster pointedly over the shelf.
‘This time I’m looking for a woman…’
‘I’m already spoken for!’
‘…a single woman who lives in this house.’ He wouldn’t be put off by her lewd sense of humour. ‘A woman who has been away quite a while.’
‘Well, why didn’t you say so last week? Bombarding me with questions about some Russian! You must mean that Steinrück. Thinks she’s quite the elegant lady that one, yet she can barely afford that little room in the attic. But she’s no Russian, I’d know if she was.’
He decided not to rely on Frau Schäffner’s judgement of character. He hadn’t told her he was looking for a Russian woman, and it was none of her business anyway. He had her open up the flat. She fetched the key from a wooden shed in the courtyard and panted theatrically as she struggled up the stairs in front of him. Ingeborg Steinrück lived at the top of the first rear building. The caretaker’s wife stood behind Rath curiously as he switched on the light in the windowless hall.
‘I’m sorry I interrupted your cleaning,’ he said. ‘Please feel free to continue.’
She gazed at him uncomprehendingly.
‘I’ll bring the key back when I’m finished,’ Rath said. ‘Or should I just hang it in the shed?’
For a brief moment her eyes flared with suspicion. He thought there might be a hint of frustrated curiosity too, but she turned without a word and went down the stairs, leaving the keys in the lock. At least she had sufficient respect for authority not to ask for a search warrant. Rath went in.
It looked tidier than he had expected. Probably the work of Ilja Tretschkov. Even the flowers under the little skylights, the only natural source of light, seemed to have been watered. The flat consisted of an attic room, in which there was just room for a bed, a wardrobe and a small table, as well as a small kitchen and an even smaller bathroom. At all events, it didn’t look like the residence of a Countess, whose family owned a legendary fortune. The only hint of luxury was the electric hairdryer, which lay under the mirror in the spotlessly clean bathroom.
Rath’s gaze wandered through the room, looking for some sort of clue, something that might tell him which way to steer the investigation. Above the bed there was a bookshelf. Everything in German. Not a single Russian title, not even Russian authors. Rath leafed through the books. Nothing unusual, no notes, nothing. This woman had made every effort to conceal her Russian and aristocratic roots. The paper basket under the table was empty. If she had really fled, then she must have been careful not to leave any clues. If there was anything she had overlooked, Tretschkov would have found it long ago. It looked as if the man had swept the place thoroughly.
