Goldstein, page 24
Rometsch saluted and disappeared.
While Böhm had another word with the unfortunate Leo Fleming at Alex, Gräf had been dispatched to the 50th precinct. ‘You wanted to pay that SA type a visit,’ Böhm had said. ‘Well, you can take care of this at the same time.’
Gräf made himself comfortable behind a desk that was so tidy it must belong to First Sergeant Rometsch himself. Christel Temme stood with her pad, unsure where to sit. Gräf pointed to a second desk in the office, which was far less tidy. She sat down, pushing a file, a half-eaten apple and some greaseproof paper to one side and, with a disgusted expression, placed her notepad on the newly cleared surface.
After a minute Rometsch sent in the first witness, a small man with a pointed nose. The man held a hat in his hands and was clearly very proud at being called first. He let fly before Gräf could ask him anything.
‘It wasn’t a fight with Communists, I can tell you that much. You’re barking up the wrong tree.’
The witness’s brazen manner, the way he sat complacently, straddle-legged on the chair, drove Gräf up the wall. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘And how do you know? Did you see the killer?’
‘No.’
‘Then perhaps it was you?’
The man gave a visible start. ‘For God’s sake, of course not!’
‘Then just tell me what you actually saw before you draw any hasty conclusions. From the beginning.’
‘It wasn’t a Communist the Nazis picked a fight with that night. It was a Jew.’
‘A Jew?’ Gräf looked up. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Who else goes around in black with a beard and sidelocks? It isn’t Carnival yet.’
‘From the beginning, I said. What exactly did you see?’
‘I was in the U-Bahn station, and . . .’
‘Which U-Bahn station?’
‘The one here, of course. Gesundbrunnen. Where else? I was waiting for my train.’
The comforting scratch of Christel Temme’s pencil made Gräf feel as if he were sitting behind his own desk at the Castle. ‘OK, go on.’
‘Well, a Jew was waiting there too. Then the Nazis came. The man from the paper was there, the murder victim. I recognised him straightaway from the photo.’
‘What happened on the platform?’ This might be the first witness they could take seriously.
‘Not much. At some point the Jew went up the stairs. And the SA followed.’
‘Just like that?’
‘They made fun of him a little first. Nothing serious.’
‘Nothing serious . . .’
‘I don’t know why he scarpered. The train had just arrived.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I got on the train.’
‘See anything else?’
The man shook his head. ‘I was already on the train. They all went upstairs.’
‘How many were there?’
‘Four or five.’
Gräf took out the photo of Scharführer Günter Sieger he had found in the political files, and pushed it across the table. ‘Was this man one of them?’ he asked.
The witness only needed a brief glance. He looked at Gräf and nodded.
53
Rath fought against sleep by sketching meaningless patterns in his notebook. He had already had five cups of coffee with no discernible effect. Last night had been late, but he still hadn’t got any sleep when he finally crept into bed. He began to miss the cognac in Moabit. He could have done with it at Luisenufer, and urgently needed to get hold of a bottle today. Three more nights without sleep and he’d be on his last legs.
It would have to be the grinning man! Rath had wished that idiot to hell the moment he first clapped eyes on him. He clearly had designs on Charly, even if she always denied it. Rath had actually thought he was rid of him, but old perma-smile had just been waiting for his chance. Well, now it had arrived. The widow chaser! He should have socked him one on the nose, damn it!
The lift opened and a boy placed a cup of coffee on the antique desk, clearing away the empty cup at the same time. Rath could no longer stand the table surface with its intarsia-decorated top, the lift, even the doors. He was sick of the whole hotel, except, perhaps, for the service.
He had been glad to see Goldstein crawl into his suite like a bear entering hibernation, chalking up a victory in their little contest, which had begun with the car chase on the first day. Now, he longed for their next encounter. Rath couldn’t understand why the Yank didn’t just skip town. What business did he still have here? Was he lulling his minders into a false sense of security, all the better to strike? Or perhaps he was taking care of his affairs from the comfort of his hotel room, and they had been watching him in vain the whole time?
Well, Rath thought, so long as he isn’t out on the streets spraying bullets and creating anti-Semitic headlines, we’re doing our job.
Someone appeared in the corridor and all of a sudden he sprung awake. She hadn’t come out of room 301, but was pushing a laundry cart down the corridor. He intercepted her before she could disappear.
‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ he asked.
‘Assuming you’re not blind. You’ve been here a few days now, haven’t you? In front of the lifts?’ She pointed with her chin towards the desk.
‘I don’t mean from here.’ She shot him a questioning look. ‘Two words. Venus. And Keller.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘The Venuskeller? You’ve never heard of it? It’s a nightclub, an illegal nightclub.’
‘Do I look like the sort of person who hangs around illegal nightclubs?’
‘I’d be willing to bet I’ve seen you onstage at the Venuskeller.’
She eyed him suspiciously. ‘And if you had? Are you trying to blackmail me?’
‘I just think it’s strange I should see you here again, of all places.’
She looked him up and down. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were the type.’
‘I used to work in Vice.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘So, you are a police officer!’
‘Word’s got around then.’
‘Do you really think anyone believes that author rubbish Teubner’s been putting about?’ She looked at him with contempt. ‘A bit strange for an author to have four different faces, don’t you think?’
‘Your hotel detective insisted on the story in order not to unsettle the guests. I hope I can count on your discretion.’
She tried to push the cart onwards, past the lifts and into the next corridor. Rath blocked her path.
‘What is this? Let me get on with my work!’
‘Just a few words on the guest in three-o-one.’
‘The American?’
‘The very same. Have you noticed anything suspicious in the past few days?’
‘Depends on what you mean by suspicious. That he rarely goes out, perhaps. He seems to have a lot to do, anyway. He’s almost always in his room when I bring in fresh towels or make up the bed.’
‘What makes you think he has a lot to do?’
‘The fact that he spends the whole day in his room, on the telephone.’
‘Have you managed to listen in on any of his conversations?’
‘I don’t speak English.’
Rath gave her his card. ‘If you should think of anything, let me know. What was your name again?’
‘Marion.’ She put the card in her pocket. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I really have to be getting on.’
There was a pling and the left-hand lift opened. Rath gave an imaginary tip of the hat and returned to his desk. Marion wheeled the laundry cart on past.
54
In his day-to-day life Günter Sieger, who occupied the rank of SA-Scharführer, was caretaker of a run-down tenement on Bernauer Strasse. Gräf caught him eating lunch. The smell of sauerkraut and smoked pork loins reminded him how empty his own stomach was. Apart from half a bread roll and a cup of coffee, he hadn’t eaten anything all day.
The interviews in the 50th precinct had dragged. A further four witnesses had confirmed the story that, led by Scharführer Sieger and dressed in full regalia in spite of the uniform ban, Kubicki’s SA troop had abused an old Jew at Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn station. A witness reported that the abuse had continued upstairs until the man fled the station building. ‘That was when the other man became involved,’ he said. ‘He can count his lucky stars the Nazis went after the Jew, otherwise they’d have given him a good thrashing.’
Gräf had sent Christel Temme back to Alex. He had no need of a stenographer out here. His joint operations with Charly had been very different. More than just a stenographer, Charly thought like a CID officer. Christel Temme, on the other hand, didn’t think at all, she just took notes. Her reward was to sit down for lunch at the same time each day in the canteen while Gräf stared hungrily at the other man’s food.
‘You don’t have anything against me eating?’ Sieger said. No sign of a wife, perhaps the Scharführer was gay too. No hasty conclusions now, Gräf thought. You eat alone too. If you eat at all.
He sat at the table. ‘Looks delicious,’ he said, but Sieger didn’t think to offer him any.
‘Frau Ruland from number two cooks for me,’ he said, hacking off a large slice of pork. ‘In exchange I take care of whatever repairs need doing.’
Gräf waited with rumbling stomach until Sieger finished.
‘So what can I do for you, Detective Inspector?’ Sieger asked, wiping his mouth with a white napkin. Probably Frau Ruland did his washing too.
‘It’s just detective,’ Gräf corrected. ‘As I said, it’s about Gerhard Kubicki.’
‘I read about it in the paper. Poor Gerd.’
‘You’re his direct superior in the SA?’
Sieger nodded.
‘When did you last see him?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? Am I a suspect?’
‘You were seen with Kubicki on the evening of 30th June. Apparently you were in uniform.’
‘Says who?’
‘Kubicki’s corpse was still in uniform when they found it.’
‘A man has been murdered, and the Prussian Police have nothing better to do than accuse the victim of wearing a banned uniform?’
‘I’m not accusing anyone, I’m just trying to find out what happened. Is the uniform ban the reason you haven’t made a witness statement until now?’
‘You never know how the police’ll treat you. When old Isidor Weiss releases his bloodhounds, a man of my political beliefs is easily cast as villain.’
‘You should choose your words more carefully. Before I charge you with insulting a public official.’ Sieger fell silent. ‘I’m not interested in the uniform ban,’ Gräf went on. ‘I want you to tell me what happened on Tuesday night. I already know that you and your comrades hounded an old man out of the U-Bahn station after harassing him on the platform.’
‘But, Inspector!’
‘Detective.’
‘Detective, then. It was nothing serious. An old Yid. We just made a little fun of him.’
Scharführer Sieger looked as innocent as a young boy trying to justify concealing his sister’s doll. ‘It can hardly come as a surprise when someone goes around dressed like that.’
‘Why did you pursue the man? You could have let him go. Wasn’t it enough to drive him out of the station?’
‘What do you mean “drive him out”? The lads went upstairs, and I followed. They can be a little over-exuberant at times.’
‘How exuberant were they on Tuesday night?’
‘Nothing would’ve happened if he hadn’t been there.’
‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Gerd’s killer, of course. It’s a disgrace you still haven’t caught him. He accosted us upstairs in the station building, and we walked away. We weren’t looking for a fight, but he wouldn’t let go.’
‘You weren’t looking for a fight? Is that why you marched through a workers’ district in your banned uniforms?’
‘I thought this wasn’t about the uniforms.’
‘So tell me what happened.’
‘He insulted us. Said someone had shat on our uniforms, and worse. I don’t want to repeat it here. We went to the park to be rid of him.’
‘But he came after you.’
‘We couldn’t have known he had a pistol.’
‘Otherwise you’d just have beaten him up, four on one. That was your plan?’
Sieger looked outraged. ‘I won’t have the SA’s honour being insulted in this way.’
‘The SA’s honour! No doubt your mysterious pursuer besmirched it too?’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘That I’m surprised four SA men should raise the white flag as soon as someone insults them.’
‘Well, the man seemed a little off his head. Drink, drugs, what do I know? Someone like that, you try to avoid.’
‘But he followed you anyway.’
‘Caught up with us by some meadow. Then started abusing us again. We thought this guy must be off his hinges. Until he pulled the gun.’
‘So, who was he? A Communist?’
‘He was too well dressed.’
‘A drawing room Communist then.’
‘A foreigner, I’d say. Spoke good German, but used some strange words.’
‘Russian?’
‘A Bolshevik in a suit like that? Come off it. He was a Yank.’
Gräf remembered the American cigarette butt, whose origin Grabowski was trying to trace. An SA troop that’s insulted before beating a peaceful retreat . . . arcane as it might sound, there was a grain of truth in Sieger’s tale somewhere. ‘A Yank, and he soft-soaped you on his own, did he?’
‘That’s not how I’d put it.’ Sieger was offended. ‘He broke Comrade Schlüter’s nose, and sent Comrade Mohnert to the floor. As for Comrade Kubicki . . .’ the Scharführer broke off, apparently overcome with grief.
‘That’s what I’d be most interested in hearing.’
‘But you’ve seen for yourself.’
‘Tell me!’
‘He shot him, the bastard.’
‘I need a little more detail.’
‘He shot him in the foot. Said if we didn’t scram right away, he’d finish us all off.’
‘So you scrammed.’
Sieger nodded.
‘And left your injured . . . comrade where he was?’
‘Gerd scarpered too. How were we to know the bastard would follow him and stab him to death?’
Gräf looked in Sieger’s eyes, as if the truth were to be found there. ‘Would you be able to describe the man? So he can be sketched by a police artist, I mean?’
Sieger nodded and Gräf handed him his card. ‘Come to Alex tomorrow morning, A Division. Ten o’clock. I’ll have a sketch artist by then.’
55
Rath leafed through one of the Tom Shark crime novels Czerwinski had left for him. They were idiotic, but still beat the hell out of boredom. Das Hotelgespenst. The Hotel Ghost. The title was apt. Sometimes Rath thought they really were keeping tabs on a ghost, so seldom had Abraham Goldstein been seen in these last few days. He yawned. Only an hour to go, and Czerwinski would take over for the nightshift.
There was nothing doing in suite 301. The man hadn’t even had breakfast taken up. Rath leafed back through the notebook. Czerwinski had last seen him about seven yesterday evening. Goldstein had greeted him politely, gone down to the lobby, drunk a whisky at the bar, smoked a cigarette and returned to his suite. An excursion totalling half an hour, the detective had painstakingly noted.
It looked like Marion had finished for the day. A different chambermaid approached from the corridor. She was noticeably older and less attractive than her pretty colleague, if not to say profoundly ugly. Rath couldn’t help but grin. Served the Yank right! He had almost envied him Marion’s presence, even if he didn’t think Goldstein had actually started anything with her. But the sight of her alone . . . Rath pictured Marion making the bed; she would definitely make it easier to stay in your room.
The chambermaid who was about to knock on Goldstein’s door, however . . . well, perhaps she’d scare him to death. Or manage to achieve what the Berlin Police had singularly failed to do and hound him out of town.
Rath watched out of the corner of his eye while he leafed through Czerwinski’s penny dreadful. What a sour face. So, she was ugly and ill-tempered. Rath couldn’t have been happier for the Yank.
Only, he didn’t open.
The chambermaid knocked again, and Rath began to wonder. Was the man asleep, or had he sensed what awaited him? The woman jangled a set of keys, opened the door and went inside. Rath put the novel down. Tom Shark had lost his attention once and for all.
What followed was an interesting insight into the hotel’s hierarchy. First it was a slightly older boy who emerged from the lift and headed for 301, knocking and entering as soon as the door opened. Not a minute later came Teubner, the porter, stepping hurriedly into the corridor and following suit, without so much as a glance at Rath.
Then, suddenly, all hell was loose; people swarming this way and that across the floor. Among all the official and important-seeming people, Rath recognised Grunert, the hotel detective.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘I’d never have thought something like this could happen,’ Grunert said. ‘Not with the police themselves watching him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come and see for yourself.’
Rath feared the worst when he stepped inside. Could Goldstein be lying dead? Of boredom? Or had he taken his own life? Perhaps some rival gangster had managed to kill him? Someone who had scaled the hotel front? Or a sniper who had lain in wait on the roof of Anhalter Bahnhof?
No one was lying dead, neither on the bed nor in the bathtub. Any number of people stood inside the luxurious suite and yet it seemed lifeless. Sterile. Even if the bed wasn’t made, and the bins hadn’t been emptied. Rath followed Grunert into the bedroom. The hotel detective moved over to the wardrobe and opened the doors, where he was confronted by the clatter of empty rails, and a void of empty shelves.
While Böhm had another word with the unfortunate Leo Fleming at Alex, Gräf had been dispatched to the 50th precinct. ‘You wanted to pay that SA type a visit,’ Böhm had said. ‘Well, you can take care of this at the same time.’
Gräf made himself comfortable behind a desk that was so tidy it must belong to First Sergeant Rometsch himself. Christel Temme stood with her pad, unsure where to sit. Gräf pointed to a second desk in the office, which was far less tidy. She sat down, pushing a file, a half-eaten apple and some greaseproof paper to one side and, with a disgusted expression, placed her notepad on the newly cleared surface.
After a minute Rometsch sent in the first witness, a small man with a pointed nose. The man held a hat in his hands and was clearly very proud at being called first. He let fly before Gräf could ask him anything.
‘It wasn’t a fight with Communists, I can tell you that much. You’re barking up the wrong tree.’
The witness’s brazen manner, the way he sat complacently, straddle-legged on the chair, drove Gräf up the wall. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘And how do you know? Did you see the killer?’
‘No.’
‘Then perhaps it was you?’
The man gave a visible start. ‘For God’s sake, of course not!’
‘Then just tell me what you actually saw before you draw any hasty conclusions. From the beginning.’
‘It wasn’t a Communist the Nazis picked a fight with that night. It was a Jew.’
‘A Jew?’ Gräf looked up. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Who else goes around in black with a beard and sidelocks? It isn’t Carnival yet.’
‘From the beginning, I said. What exactly did you see?’
‘I was in the U-Bahn station, and . . .’
‘Which U-Bahn station?’
‘The one here, of course. Gesundbrunnen. Where else? I was waiting for my train.’
The comforting scratch of Christel Temme’s pencil made Gräf feel as if he were sitting behind his own desk at the Castle. ‘OK, go on.’
‘Well, a Jew was waiting there too. Then the Nazis came. The man from the paper was there, the murder victim. I recognised him straightaway from the photo.’
‘What happened on the platform?’ This might be the first witness they could take seriously.
‘Not much. At some point the Jew went up the stairs. And the SA followed.’
‘Just like that?’
‘They made fun of him a little first. Nothing serious.’
‘Nothing serious . . .’
‘I don’t know why he scarpered. The train had just arrived.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I got on the train.’
‘See anything else?’
The man shook his head. ‘I was already on the train. They all went upstairs.’
‘How many were there?’
‘Four or five.’
Gräf took out the photo of Scharführer Günter Sieger he had found in the political files, and pushed it across the table. ‘Was this man one of them?’ he asked.
The witness only needed a brief glance. He looked at Gräf and nodded.
53
Rath fought against sleep by sketching meaningless patterns in his notebook. He had already had five cups of coffee with no discernible effect. Last night had been late, but he still hadn’t got any sleep when he finally crept into bed. He began to miss the cognac in Moabit. He could have done with it at Luisenufer, and urgently needed to get hold of a bottle today. Three more nights without sleep and he’d be on his last legs.
It would have to be the grinning man! Rath had wished that idiot to hell the moment he first clapped eyes on him. He clearly had designs on Charly, even if she always denied it. Rath had actually thought he was rid of him, but old perma-smile had just been waiting for his chance. Well, now it had arrived. The widow chaser! He should have socked him one on the nose, damn it!
The lift opened and a boy placed a cup of coffee on the antique desk, clearing away the empty cup at the same time. Rath could no longer stand the table surface with its intarsia-decorated top, the lift, even the doors. He was sick of the whole hotel, except, perhaps, for the service.
He had been glad to see Goldstein crawl into his suite like a bear entering hibernation, chalking up a victory in their little contest, which had begun with the car chase on the first day. Now, he longed for their next encounter. Rath couldn’t understand why the Yank didn’t just skip town. What business did he still have here? Was he lulling his minders into a false sense of security, all the better to strike? Or perhaps he was taking care of his affairs from the comfort of his hotel room, and they had been watching him in vain the whole time?
Well, Rath thought, so long as he isn’t out on the streets spraying bullets and creating anti-Semitic headlines, we’re doing our job.
Someone appeared in the corridor and all of a sudden he sprung awake. She hadn’t come out of room 301, but was pushing a laundry cart down the corridor. He intercepted her before she could disappear.
‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ he asked.
‘Assuming you’re not blind. You’ve been here a few days now, haven’t you? In front of the lifts?’ She pointed with her chin towards the desk.
‘I don’t mean from here.’ She shot him a questioning look. ‘Two words. Venus. And Keller.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘The Venuskeller? You’ve never heard of it? It’s a nightclub, an illegal nightclub.’
‘Do I look like the sort of person who hangs around illegal nightclubs?’
‘I’d be willing to bet I’ve seen you onstage at the Venuskeller.’
She eyed him suspiciously. ‘And if you had? Are you trying to blackmail me?’
‘I just think it’s strange I should see you here again, of all places.’
She looked him up and down. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were the type.’
‘I used to work in Vice.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘So, you are a police officer!’
‘Word’s got around then.’
‘Do you really think anyone believes that author rubbish Teubner’s been putting about?’ She looked at him with contempt. ‘A bit strange for an author to have four different faces, don’t you think?’
‘Your hotel detective insisted on the story in order not to unsettle the guests. I hope I can count on your discretion.’
She tried to push the cart onwards, past the lifts and into the next corridor. Rath blocked her path.
‘What is this? Let me get on with my work!’
‘Just a few words on the guest in three-o-one.’
‘The American?’
‘The very same. Have you noticed anything suspicious in the past few days?’
‘Depends on what you mean by suspicious. That he rarely goes out, perhaps. He seems to have a lot to do, anyway. He’s almost always in his room when I bring in fresh towels or make up the bed.’
‘What makes you think he has a lot to do?’
‘The fact that he spends the whole day in his room, on the telephone.’
‘Have you managed to listen in on any of his conversations?’
‘I don’t speak English.’
Rath gave her his card. ‘If you should think of anything, let me know. What was your name again?’
‘Marion.’ She put the card in her pocket. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I really have to be getting on.’
There was a pling and the left-hand lift opened. Rath gave an imaginary tip of the hat and returned to his desk. Marion wheeled the laundry cart on past.
54
In his day-to-day life Günter Sieger, who occupied the rank of SA-Scharführer, was caretaker of a run-down tenement on Bernauer Strasse. Gräf caught him eating lunch. The smell of sauerkraut and smoked pork loins reminded him how empty his own stomach was. Apart from half a bread roll and a cup of coffee, he hadn’t eaten anything all day.
The interviews in the 50th precinct had dragged. A further four witnesses had confirmed the story that, led by Scharführer Sieger and dressed in full regalia in spite of the uniform ban, Kubicki’s SA troop had abused an old Jew at Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn station. A witness reported that the abuse had continued upstairs until the man fled the station building. ‘That was when the other man became involved,’ he said. ‘He can count his lucky stars the Nazis went after the Jew, otherwise they’d have given him a good thrashing.’
Gräf had sent Christel Temme back to Alex. He had no need of a stenographer out here. His joint operations with Charly had been very different. More than just a stenographer, Charly thought like a CID officer. Christel Temme, on the other hand, didn’t think at all, she just took notes. Her reward was to sit down for lunch at the same time each day in the canteen while Gräf stared hungrily at the other man’s food.
‘You don’t have anything against me eating?’ Sieger said. No sign of a wife, perhaps the Scharführer was gay too. No hasty conclusions now, Gräf thought. You eat alone too. If you eat at all.
He sat at the table. ‘Looks delicious,’ he said, but Sieger didn’t think to offer him any.
‘Frau Ruland from number two cooks for me,’ he said, hacking off a large slice of pork. ‘In exchange I take care of whatever repairs need doing.’
Gräf waited with rumbling stomach until Sieger finished.
‘So what can I do for you, Detective Inspector?’ Sieger asked, wiping his mouth with a white napkin. Probably Frau Ruland did his washing too.
‘It’s just detective,’ Gräf corrected. ‘As I said, it’s about Gerhard Kubicki.’
‘I read about it in the paper. Poor Gerd.’
‘You’re his direct superior in the SA?’
Sieger nodded.
‘When did you last see him?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? Am I a suspect?’
‘You were seen with Kubicki on the evening of 30th June. Apparently you were in uniform.’
‘Says who?’
‘Kubicki’s corpse was still in uniform when they found it.’
‘A man has been murdered, and the Prussian Police have nothing better to do than accuse the victim of wearing a banned uniform?’
‘I’m not accusing anyone, I’m just trying to find out what happened. Is the uniform ban the reason you haven’t made a witness statement until now?’
‘You never know how the police’ll treat you. When old Isidor Weiss releases his bloodhounds, a man of my political beliefs is easily cast as villain.’
‘You should choose your words more carefully. Before I charge you with insulting a public official.’ Sieger fell silent. ‘I’m not interested in the uniform ban,’ Gräf went on. ‘I want you to tell me what happened on Tuesday night. I already know that you and your comrades hounded an old man out of the U-Bahn station after harassing him on the platform.’
‘But, Inspector!’
‘Detective.’
‘Detective, then. It was nothing serious. An old Yid. We just made a little fun of him.’
Scharführer Sieger looked as innocent as a young boy trying to justify concealing his sister’s doll. ‘It can hardly come as a surprise when someone goes around dressed like that.’
‘Why did you pursue the man? You could have let him go. Wasn’t it enough to drive him out of the station?’
‘What do you mean “drive him out”? The lads went upstairs, and I followed. They can be a little over-exuberant at times.’
‘How exuberant were they on Tuesday night?’
‘Nothing would’ve happened if he hadn’t been there.’
‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Gerd’s killer, of course. It’s a disgrace you still haven’t caught him. He accosted us upstairs in the station building, and we walked away. We weren’t looking for a fight, but he wouldn’t let go.’
‘You weren’t looking for a fight? Is that why you marched through a workers’ district in your banned uniforms?’
‘I thought this wasn’t about the uniforms.’
‘So tell me what happened.’
‘He insulted us. Said someone had shat on our uniforms, and worse. I don’t want to repeat it here. We went to the park to be rid of him.’
‘But he came after you.’
‘We couldn’t have known he had a pistol.’
‘Otherwise you’d just have beaten him up, four on one. That was your plan?’
Sieger looked outraged. ‘I won’t have the SA’s honour being insulted in this way.’
‘The SA’s honour! No doubt your mysterious pursuer besmirched it too?’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘That I’m surprised four SA men should raise the white flag as soon as someone insults them.’
‘Well, the man seemed a little off his head. Drink, drugs, what do I know? Someone like that, you try to avoid.’
‘But he followed you anyway.’
‘Caught up with us by some meadow. Then started abusing us again. We thought this guy must be off his hinges. Until he pulled the gun.’
‘So, who was he? A Communist?’
‘He was too well dressed.’
‘A drawing room Communist then.’
‘A foreigner, I’d say. Spoke good German, but used some strange words.’
‘Russian?’
‘A Bolshevik in a suit like that? Come off it. He was a Yank.’
Gräf remembered the American cigarette butt, whose origin Grabowski was trying to trace. An SA troop that’s insulted before beating a peaceful retreat . . . arcane as it might sound, there was a grain of truth in Sieger’s tale somewhere. ‘A Yank, and he soft-soaped you on his own, did he?’
‘That’s not how I’d put it.’ Sieger was offended. ‘He broke Comrade Schlüter’s nose, and sent Comrade Mohnert to the floor. As for Comrade Kubicki . . .’ the Scharführer broke off, apparently overcome with grief.
‘That’s what I’d be most interested in hearing.’
‘But you’ve seen for yourself.’
‘Tell me!’
‘He shot him, the bastard.’
‘I need a little more detail.’
‘He shot him in the foot. Said if we didn’t scram right away, he’d finish us all off.’
‘So you scrammed.’
Sieger nodded.
‘And left your injured . . . comrade where he was?’
‘Gerd scarpered too. How were we to know the bastard would follow him and stab him to death?’
Gräf looked in Sieger’s eyes, as if the truth were to be found there. ‘Would you be able to describe the man? So he can be sketched by a police artist, I mean?’
Sieger nodded and Gräf handed him his card. ‘Come to Alex tomorrow morning, A Division. Ten o’clock. I’ll have a sketch artist by then.’
55
Rath leafed through one of the Tom Shark crime novels Czerwinski had left for him. They were idiotic, but still beat the hell out of boredom. Das Hotelgespenst. The Hotel Ghost. The title was apt. Sometimes Rath thought they really were keeping tabs on a ghost, so seldom had Abraham Goldstein been seen in these last few days. He yawned. Only an hour to go, and Czerwinski would take over for the nightshift.
There was nothing doing in suite 301. The man hadn’t even had breakfast taken up. Rath leafed back through the notebook. Czerwinski had last seen him about seven yesterday evening. Goldstein had greeted him politely, gone down to the lobby, drunk a whisky at the bar, smoked a cigarette and returned to his suite. An excursion totalling half an hour, the detective had painstakingly noted.
It looked like Marion had finished for the day. A different chambermaid approached from the corridor. She was noticeably older and less attractive than her pretty colleague, if not to say profoundly ugly. Rath couldn’t help but grin. Served the Yank right! He had almost envied him Marion’s presence, even if he didn’t think Goldstein had actually started anything with her. But the sight of her alone . . . Rath pictured Marion making the bed; she would definitely make it easier to stay in your room.
The chambermaid who was about to knock on Goldstein’s door, however . . . well, perhaps she’d scare him to death. Or manage to achieve what the Berlin Police had singularly failed to do and hound him out of town.
Rath watched out of the corner of his eye while he leafed through Czerwinski’s penny dreadful. What a sour face. So, she was ugly and ill-tempered. Rath couldn’t have been happier for the Yank.
Only, he didn’t open.
The chambermaid knocked again, and Rath began to wonder. Was the man asleep, or had he sensed what awaited him? The woman jangled a set of keys, opened the door and went inside. Rath put the novel down. Tom Shark had lost his attention once and for all.
What followed was an interesting insight into the hotel’s hierarchy. First it was a slightly older boy who emerged from the lift and headed for 301, knocking and entering as soon as the door opened. Not a minute later came Teubner, the porter, stepping hurriedly into the corridor and following suit, without so much as a glance at Rath.
Then, suddenly, all hell was loose; people swarming this way and that across the floor. Among all the official and important-seeming people, Rath recognised Grunert, the hotel detective.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘I’d never have thought something like this could happen,’ Grunert said. ‘Not with the police themselves watching him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come and see for yourself.’
Rath feared the worst when he stepped inside. Could Goldstein be lying dead? Of boredom? Or had he taken his own life? Perhaps some rival gangster had managed to kill him? Someone who had scaled the hotel front? Or a sniper who had lain in wait on the roof of Anhalter Bahnhof?
No one was lying dead, neither on the bed nor in the bathtub. Any number of people stood inside the luxurious suite and yet it seemed lifeless. Sterile. Even if the bed wasn’t made, and the bins hadn’t been emptied. Rath followed Grunert into the bedroom. The hotel detective moved over to the wardrobe and opened the doors, where he was confronted by the clatter of empty rails, and a void of empty shelves.
