Babylon Berlin, page 34
‘Yes, yes!’ Couldn’t he just come out and say it? ‘Out with it, man!’
‘The bullet that killed Assistant Detective Stephan Jänicke came from the same weapon as the bullet found in Josef Wilczek’s body.’
Rath said nothing as Kronberg looked on triumphantly, like a Roman commander on victory parade.
‘That’s foxed you, hasn’t it?’
It had indeed. The revelation had left him flabbergasted.
‘That’s me finished,’ a voice interrupted his thoughts.
‘Sorry?’
‘Finished.’ The sign writer stood in the door and gestured towards the name he had painted. ‘Still not dry though. Be careful.’
‘Thanks. Can you close the door behind you?’
The sign writer nodded and closed the door so carefully it might have been made of sugar.
Rath sat at his desk and stared at the door, his name emblazoned on it. However, it wasn’t the door that was bothering him, but the brown envelope. Was it really possible? He opened it. He needed to see it in black and white, it couldn’t be true!
But deep down a voice was telling him that it had to be.
No matter how much he turned it over in his mind, there was simply no other solution: Bruno Wolter had shot Stephan Jänicke.
Part III
The Whole Truth
21st May – 21st June 1929
26
He rang three times without a response, turned the key in the lock, entered the flat and closed the door gently. The clock at the end of the hall showed half past three. It felt strange to be here in broad daylight. What if Emmi Wolter suddenly appeared? What if she had been taking a nap and hadn’t been able to make it to the door in time? He could tell her he had forgotten something, she might still believe him. But once he started raking through her things? How would he explain that? Perhaps it had been a silly idea to drive out here, but Rath had to know for sure.
Gennat had pinched the report, along with the Wilczek file. The chief of homicide was now certain that Wilczek’s killer had Jänicke on his conscience too. According to his theory, the assistant detective had most likely rumbled the Wilczek killer during his investigations into the city’s criminal underworld.
Under normal circumstances, Rath would have been delighted about having his own desk in A Division, about belonging to the legendary Buddha’s team, and about the fact that Gennat would have to assign the Wilczek case to the wet fish.
Under normal circumstances he would have been delighted, but nothing seemed normal anymore.
He had pretended to get on with his work, but his mind was on other things. Realising that he was actually looking for explanations that exonerated Bruno, he wondered if Uncle had perhaps returned the Lignose to Krajewski? Or simply flogged it?
And why would he shoot Jänicke?
Unable to think of anything else, he had got hold of a car and driven to Friedenau and now, here he was, loitering in the Wolters’s flat, not even knowing where to look. If Bruno still had the pistol, then he must be hiding it somewhere. Rath didn’t think Uncle told Emmi all his secrets, and certainly not secrets like this.
It therefore made little sense to look downstairs, where the Wolters had their kitchen, as well as their dining and living rooms. He went upstairs, which was where the guestroom was situated. He didn’t need to look there, nor in the Wolters’s bedroom, even if it did contain an enormous wardrobe where loads of things could be stored. Where then?
Rath tried to imagine he was married to Emmi Wolter and wanted to hide something from her.
Bruno had a study, a realm in which Emmi never set foot. When she wanted to clean, she had to ask permission. Rath had only been inside once, when he had been looking for Bruno a few days before. He’d barely had time to poke his head round the door before his host rose from his desk and ushered him outside. Downstairs in the living room they had enjoyed a beer together, as so often in the last few days.
At first glance, the room seemed like a normal study: a desk, a few roll-front cabinets, framed photos on the wall. No gun cabinet. Rath gazed at the photos. There were uniforms in almost every one: soldiers’ uniforms, police uniforms. In one he thought he recognised Major General Seegers, albeit in captain’s uniform, shaking the hand of a still relatively slim Lance Corporal Bruno Wolter. A second picture showed Wolter wearing his sergeant’s stripes and staring proudly into the camera beside another sergeant whom Rath didn’t recognise, but guessed was Helmut Behnke. Another picture that must have been taken just after the start of the war showed three lance corporals in the trenches, marked by dirt and the strain of slaughter, but smiling nevertheless. Rath recognised Wolter and the man from the previous picture straightaway. The third soldier was Rudi Scheer, the Wolters’s guest over Whitsun, in his younger days. A rectangular patch on the wallpaper showed where another picture must have hung until recently.
He tore his gaze away from the pictures and began to examine the cabinets. Typical roll-front cabinets, just like those at the Castle. He slipped on a pair of gloves and examined the first. Locked, as were the rest. He rummaged through the desk drawers for a key. They weren’t exactly tidy. In the top drawer there was some change, a few ten pfenning coins, the odd Reichsmark, a rubber, a few pens, a letter opener, and paperclips everywhere, clinging to the rest of the junk like ticks. The next drawer down was a muddle of all sorts of papers: bills, taxes, letters, postcards, a few newspapers. Die Standarte, Der Stahlhelm. The chaos in the lower drawer was even greater, with all kinds of odds and ends packed into a wooden box. Rath removed it and tipped its contents out. Ammunition packs fell onto the parquet flooring and different calibre cartridges rolled out, little Stahlhelm badges, a pair of pincers, a little hammer and all sorts of rubbish. The ammunition had given him hope, but there was no pistol to be found.
If Wolter really was Jänicke’s killer, then he’d have disposed of the weapon long ago. Perhaps he had returned it to the unsuspecting informant Krajewski? That would be plausible. Assistant Detective Jänicke had located the missing member (a fitting description, Rath thought) of König’s porn troupe, Franz Krajewski, who had killed the rookie for fear of being discovered. All Wolter would have to do was leave an anonymous tip-off and send a team of uniformed officers to the porn Kaiser’s to find the weapon. The weight of evidence against poor old Krajewski would be overwhelming, enough for any public prosecutor.
Rath began to pack everything away, including the small black book he was holding in his hand. Wait a minute, a black notebook!
It didn’t necessarily mean anything, there were any number of books like it. But when he opened it and read the name on the first page, he knew for sure. He had found the notebook belonging to the late Stephan Jänicke.
The missing notebook Gennat was looking for.
All of a sudden, Rath didn’t care about the pistol, the book amounted to the same evidence.
Bruno Wolter was a murderer!
Still, that didn’t answer the decisive question. Why had he killed a colleague who had never done anyone any harm, an innocent lad fresh from police academy?
Rath leafed feverishly through the thin pages. There were no entries at the back, but a few pages had been ripped out. Jänicke had probably needed a few scraps of paper and plundered the book. At the front were his notes on the Wilczek case, revealing nothing that Jänicke hadn’t already mentioned in his reports. Nevertheless, the book was more than a simple notebook; Jänicke had also used it as a diary. Not that Rath could make much sense of the entries. Apart from the date and time, Jänicke had used abbreviations that were open to all kinds of interpretations.
1505/900/I at B
The date of his death, but what did the letters mean? Was Jänicke intending to give information to a B at nine? To Bruno? What kind of information? Or did it stand for something completely different?
He had heard a key turning in the lock, the jangling of a bunch of keys, followed by the resounding thud of the Wolters’s heavy front door snapping shut.
Shit!
He put the junk back in the box, before instinctively pocketing the book, crept over to the stairs and looked down. A red ladies’ hat was hanging on the coat stand and Rath recognised Emmi Wolter’s blonde locks. He jerked his head back as she turned round. She didn’t appear to have seen him; he heard her hang her coat up and disappear into the flat.
Rath listened, hoping she would go into the kitchen to prepare the evening meal, but no such luck. He had already started to descend the stairs when the living room door opened and Emmi Wolter stepped into the hallway, a shopping bag in her hand and a popular song on her lips. Rath quickly disappeared into the guestroom. If she caught him, at least let it be there.
He closed the door quietly and listened. She came up the stairs and went into the bathroom. Perhaps this was his chance. Quickly, but without making a noise, he opened the door, slipped outside and closed it once again. In the bathroom he could still hear her singing and whistling.
He had just reached the stairs when the bathroom door opened and Emmi Wolter emerged singing into the corridor, in the one hand a half-full toothbrush glass, in the other a bottle of vodka. Her face froze in the middle of the song. She stared at him.
‘Oh,’ she said inadvertently.
Rath said nothing. He thought about what he should tell her. In the meantime, he hid his hands behind his back and discreetly removed his gloves.
‘Well, this is a surprise, Herr Rath,’ she said, her voice trembling slightly. ‘Finishing so early!’
Only then did he realise it was she who felt as if she had been caught. Emmi Wolter drank in secret and he had caught her in the act!
‘Good afternoon, Frau Wolter,’ he said. ‘A bit of thought would save a lot of legwork…’ he patted the breast pocket of his jacket. ‘Important notes.’
‘Ah, yes.’ She was frozen to the spot, looking like a rabbit before a fox.
‘Having a little drink?’ Rath asked, gesturing towards the bottle.
‘My God, Herr Rath…’ she stammered. ‘It’s just… You mustn’t…’ She swallowed. ‘Bruno can never hear of this!’
For a moment he gave her a stern look, as if he was considering whether his conscience would allow him not to tell his friend about his wife’s secret.
‘Hmmm…’ he said, ‘everyone has their little secrets, I guess.’ He gave her a conspiratorial look. ‘Then please don’t tell Bruno how forgetful I am. No-one at the station can find out I was here in broad daylight.’
He placed an index finger to his lips and she nodded zealously. He left her standing and descended the stairs.
‘Then… see you tonight, Herr Rath,’ she cried after him, her voice still trembling.
He was dreading the evening when he arrived at the Castle. He would probably be able to avoid running into Bruno at the station, but it was inevitable that their paths would soon cross. At the very latest, it would happen tonight in the Wolter household.
Rath also avoided Gennat, as well as his other colleagues. After dropping the car off at the motor pool, he withdrew to his solitary office and pretended to continue on the Wilczek/Jänicke case.
Which he did, after a fashion, trying to make sense of Jänicke’s notes. Most of the diary-like abbreviations concerned an ominous-sounding W, whom Jänicke had met a total of five times from the middle of April, long before the Wilczek investigation. The phrase SG! was heavily underlined after the first entry.
Who was W? It could hardly be Wilczek. Wolter? At any rate there was no meeting with W on May 15th, only the entry Rath already knew about: 1505/900/I at B. Whatever that meant. Did B stand for Bülowplatz?
A sixth meeting with W was obviously still to take place: 2405/830/W in P, a meeting on May 24th, in three days, at eight thirty. In P, wherever that might be. Potsdam perhaps, where Jänicke had been at police academy? Did W know that Jänicke was dead? Probably, given how widely it had been reported in the press.
Rath spent the rest of the afternoon brooding over the entries, always ready to shove the black book into the open top drawer of his desk if he received an unsolicited visitor. One of Gennat’s people for instance, or perhaps even Bruno Wolter. Rath had taken the precaution of closing both doors, the one leading to the outer office and the one leading into the corridor.
He scanned the whole book for further entries containing the letter W. Jänicke had met this person so often that he must have noted more than the simple time of their appointment. Then again perhaps not. What if W was a woman? What if this ominous-sounding W was simply a Wilhelmine or a Waltraud whom the shy East Prussian idolised?
Rath continued leafing through the book. In the first part, Stephan Jänicke had entered a series of telephone numbers: the service numbers of E Division, just below them Bruno’s private number, and a little further down Gereon Rath’s former extension in Nürnberger Strasse also made an appearance. Elisabeth Behnke would answer the phone now. He mustn’t forget to have it disconnected. He didn’t want old Behnke using his private line.
The numbers were arranged neither alphabetically nor by any other discernible system. Suddenly Rath came across an entry that made him wonder. There was no name next to it, just a telephone number, one of many, barely noticeable in the mass of numbers and letters: Westend 2531.
Perhaps it was a lead. He reached for the receiver.
‘Fräulein? Berlin-Westend please. Extension two-five-three-one. Thank you, I’ll wait.’
It took a moment for someone to pick up at the other end. A woman’s voice answered.
‘Wündisch,’ she said.
Rath was so confused he forgot to hang up.
‘Hello?’ he heard the woman ask, ‘who’s there please?’
Rath decided not to hang up after all.
‘Böhm,’ he barked into the receiver. ‘Your husband, please!’
‘My husband? Sorry, he’s not at home. You’ll still be able to reach him at the station.’
Rath muttered something incomprehensible and hung up.
Well now! Jänicke’s notebook contained the private number of Deputy Wündisch! The head of Section 1A, the political police.
Not all division chiefs had his private number, such was the man’s secrecy, but a simple assistant detective, who had only just finished his training, kept the number in his notebook as if it were a matter of course.
Now Rath knew what W stood for. He also knew the meaning of SG: streng geheim. Top secret.
The politicals had recruited the rookie for their own inscrutable purposes, Wündisch enlisting him, probably at police academy. Rath leafed through Jänicke’s notebook and saw his suspicions confirmed. The first meeting with W must have taken place as far back as February: 1102/1700/W in P.
The political police had recruited Stephan Jänicke before he worked for E Division. That could only mean one thing. They had selected a dedicated and eager police trainee and deliberately placed him in E Division.
Whom he had been spying on was obvious, his boss and future killer. Rath couldn’t help thinking back to that Sunday when he had unexpectedly come across Jänicke in their office at E Division. Jänicke had been snooping around Wolter’s desk.
That still left one question. What had Bruno Wolter done that made him so interesting?
As far as Rath knew, Uncle didn’t have any political leanings, at least none that went so far as to make him a person of interest for 1A. He certainly wasn’t the only member of the police corps to have a soft spot for his wartime comrades. Or perhaps it wasn’t about politics, but corruption? The snoops from 1A were deployed by the commissioner for internal investigations of all kinds, but why should Wündisch have been personally responsible for Jänicke if it was simply a question of a corrupt vice cop?
There had to be more to it, and Rath wanted to know what. He wanted to know why Stephan Jänicke had to die, and what had made a murderer of Bruno Wolter.
Before he left the station, he considered what he should do with the little black book. Initially he had toyed with the idea of copying the most important entries and placing the original back in Bruno’s desk, only to think better of it. He had to play safe.
If Jänicke’s book turning up on Wolter’s private desk was simply a coincidence – which Rath doubted – then he wouldn’t miss it, since he didn’t know it was there. If, however, Bruno Wolter did have something to do with Jänicke’s death, then he would have drawn his own conclusions by now, particularly after the ballistics report. Rath had to keep the book as security. He would have handed it over to Gennat long ago if chance had allowed, but he was too deeply involved for that now. He had destroyed evidence when he exchanged the bullets.
Rath didn’t drop by E Division when he left the station. Although he couldn’t avoid meeting Wolter, he wanted to put it off for as long as possible. Besides, Fregestrasse was accessible by public transport too. Before taking his place in the Wannsee train, he deposited the book in a locker at Potsdamer station, placing the key in a Prussian police envelope which he then carefully sealed and franked. Next he looked for a letter box amongst the evening throng. He found one right by the station exit, a dark-blue mailbox belonging to the Reichspost, and dropped the letter inside. When he stepped onto the platform a quarter of an hour later at Friedenau, he took a deep breath, as if he were about to dive through a long underwater cave. He had to close his eyes and swim through or, better still, keep them open.
Bruno had appeared to dinner strangely on edge, while Emmi seemed conspicuously nervous on account of their shared secret. Rath himself had lost his appetite but was choking down the sauté potatoes and fried eggs as best he could.
His conversation was limited to isolated compliments regarding the food, which he nevertheless picked away at fussily. On one occasion he asked Emmi Wolter for the salt. She passed him the sugar and was inconsolable over her error.
‘Don’t worry about it, Emmi,’ Bruno said, ‘it happens. Even CID officers get things mixed up from time to time, don’t they Gereon?’
