Goldstein, page 36
The tram rumbled into view, the 3, both cars full to bursting. Kuschke climbed into the first and Charly sprang onto the rear platform.
The tram rattled along, north past Nollendorfplatz and Herkulesbrücke and on through Tiergarten. The rain had stopped; perhaps Kuschke was out for a stroll? But he didn’t get out until Hansaplatz, when they had already left the green of the Tiergarten behind. What was he doing in an upmarket neighbourhood like this? Did their mysterious, bespectacled witness live here somewhere, and Kuschke had discovered his address?
Charly stepped from the platform and pretended to cast her eye over the timetable at the tram stop, playing the country girl while keeping Kuschke in view. Moving down Lessingstrasse, he was heading for the church, the same Kaiser-Friedrich-Gedächtniskirche on the corner of the Tiergarten that she remembered from Sunday outings with her parents and brothers. On the way back they had always stopped at Buchwald on Moabiter Bridge, for Kaffee und Kuchen, cocoa for the children, before returning home. She had loved those family Sundays, at least for a time.
She followed Kuschke at a distance. There wasn’t much going on around them, so she had to take care that he didn’t spot her. She fell back a little. Before the church he turned right onto Händelstrasse. She accelerated again. Lessingstrasse appeared infinitely long, and she hoped that Kuschke wouldn’t vanish before she turned the corner. The houses on Händelstrasse were beautiful, offering an uninterrupted view of the park. Accordingly, they were much in demand: her father had always dreamed of owning one, but had never made it out of Moabit.
She had almost reached the end of Lessingstrasse when a uniform policeman came around the corner and, for a moment, she felt as if she had been caught out, even though she wasn’t doing anything illegal. The cop folded a handkerchief and stowed it in his pocket. By now she had reached Händelstrasse.
She peered around the corner and almost jumped back, so great was the shock. Kuschke hadn’t vanished into one of the houses, or the Charlottenhof, the outdoor restaurant at the edge of the park, whose outside tables were currently rainsoaked and uninviting. No, he stood not ten metres away, leaning against a streetlamp as if needing to take a quick breather.
Luckily he had his back turned and hadn’t seen her. It didn’t look like there was anyone else around. She positioned herself behind the advertising pillar on the corner. As she squinted to the side to keep Kuschke in view, she stole a glance at the posters. The Marriage of Figaro at the Kroll Opera House – hadn’t it been closed in the meantime? She realised she was nervous, waiting for Kuschke to continue walking. He stood, not moving, one hand on the streetlamp and the other holding his stomach. What was wrong? Did he have a sore tummy?
Next to the opera poster was a police appeal from the Castle. Wanted. Abraham Goldstein. Gereon’s fugitive gangster.
She grew more nervous. What was wrong with Kuschke? Should she overtake him, but then what? Use the trick with the make-up mirror? What if it was a trap? What if he was just waiting for her to do that – because he’d already recognised her?
Only now did she realise what it was that so puzzled her: the umbrella. It lay by his feet, and he was making no effort to pick it up.
She decided to abandon her cover and approach him when his bulky figure lurched so suddenly it was as if a puppet’s strings had been cut. He slid down the streetlight and sank to his knees as if in prayer.
She moved as quickly as she could, heard Benjamin Singer’s alleged killer panting, his breathing heavy and frantic, but it was only when she reached him, when she saw his horrified eyes framed between the brim of his hat and the fresh plasters, and his blood-soaked shirt, that she realised what had happened.
She couldn’t understand it, but neither could Kuschke who stared at his blood-smeared hand in disbelief, at the butt of the knife jutting out of his breast, then at her, at Charly. She knew he was a killer, possibly even a sadist, but his dying man’s gaze cut her to the quick. His breathing grew faster so that it seemed as if the air were being pumped out rather than into his lungs. He tried to say something but couldn’t, and then, before she could catch him, he collapsed to the side, striking his head against the pavement.
84
Back at the Castle things were no more than ticking along. Half the officers were either still at the cemetery or out eating lunch. Rath was glad to have disappeared after Kuhfeld’s coffin was lowered into the ground, having slipped away as the police orchestra was still playing, before Böhm could get his hands on him. He had returned to Alex in the Buick.
Vice was almost as deserted as last night. The clattering of a typewriter came from a single room, a lone secretary at work. All was quiet behind the door leading to DCI Krüger’s office, where Lanke had his desk. If Rath was unlucky he would still be in the canteen; if not, he could give the porn lover a good, old-fashioned fright. He reached carefully for the handle, took a deep breath and threw the door open with a jolt, using his full force.
‘Well, hello!’ he yelled into the room, as brazen as Werner Lanke himself. He was in luck.
Gregor Lanke gave a start. This time he didn’t have a chance to clear the photos off his desk but gazed back red-faced, as if his heart had skipped a beat. Another organ was beating in its place, visible in the bulge of his trousers.
‘Have you gone mad, startling people like that?’ Lanke junior groaned. His erection shrunk in record time.
‘What have you got there?’ Rath leaned over the desk to get a better view. The picture on top showed Old Fritz engaged in oral sex. Rath confiscated it before Lanke could react. ‘They’re over two years old, those ones. I didn’t know you were still working on the case?’
‘I . . . we,’ Lanke stammered.
‘I don’t mean to boast, but we were a bit quicker in my time.’
‘What the hell are you up to, damn it?’ Lanke counterattacked.
‘You’re a CID officer, man. Have you no self-respect?’
‘That’s none of your fucking business. What do you want from me?’
Rath threw one of the photos he had taken from Lanke’s desk last night onto the table: a strapping young lady, naked and on all fours, behind her a man toiling single-mindedly away with one hand on her arse cheek and in the other a modern 35mm camera, perhaps a present from Uncle Werner. In the mirrored wardrobe doors, it was possible to make out not just the bored face of Marion Bosetzky, but also that of the photographer.
Gregor Lanke gazed at his own likeness.
‘I take it these aren’t your new passport photos,’ Rath said.
For the second time that day, it took the detective a moment to rediscover his voice. ‘Where did you get that,’ he gasped. ‘Have you been . . .?’
‘This isn’t about me,’ Rath interrupted. ‘It’s about you. You’ve been having sex with a prostitute who’s also on the E Division payroll. Illicit sexual relations with dependants, you could call it. Not that it matters if it constitutes a criminal offence, nor, indeed, what it’s called. It’s enough, I think, for the press to be aware of the sense of duty you evince in your dealings with prostitutes. This sort of field study would certainly have been unusual during my time with the department.’ Rath paused, enjoying Gregor Lanke’s face. ‘Knowing your uncle as I do, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes if this gets out.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I think you already know. I’d like to hear a little more about the young lady you are evidently so fond of. I take it you have your own lab at home, or someone who develops these dirty little snaps for you?’
Lanke said nothing.
‘Where’s Marion Bosetzky?’ Rath asked, his tone so sharp that Lanke started.
‘I don’t know where she is. It’s as if she’s vanished from the face of the earth since the weekend.’
‘How did she end up working in that hotel?’
‘How do you think? She applied for the job, simple as that, or are you one of those who thinks: once a whore, always a whore.’
‘I see. You’re helping a fallen woman reintegrate into society. Who’s going to believe that?’
Lanke squinted at the door, as if hoping his colleagues would soon return from the funeral, or, even better, his uncle Werner, to bring this highly embarrassing line of questioning to an end. No one came.
Rath held the photo under Lanke’s nose. ‘Now, answer me, so that I don’t have to use my contacts in the press. Why did you smuggle Marion Bosetzky into the Excelsior? Did you allow for the fact that she would help Goldstein escape, or was that an occupational hazard?’
Lanke was sweating. He seemed to find it hard to come out with the truth. ‘Occupational hazard,’ he said, finally. ‘We wanted to keep an eye on Goldstein. So that we . . .’
‘Who is we?’
‘Myself and a few colleagues,’ Lanke said at last. ‘We heard about the Yank – one of us knows the lady from the teleprinter’s office that received the news. We wanted to catch him doing something red-handed and take the credit.’ He looked up at Rath like a wounded deer. ‘Do you think it’s easy to get promoted when you’re the division chief’s nephew? Not with this commissioner, anyway.’
‘Don’t make me cry. The officers you arranged this with, are they similar poor souls who have been hit by the moratorium?’
‘Make as much fun as you like. It’s how it is.’
‘Give me names.’
‘I can’t do that.’
Rath waved the photograph.
Lanke shook his head. ‘I can’t! It’s all gone south anyway. What do you want the names of the others for? I won’t grass on my fellow officers. I’ll take the fall for this.’ He adopted the expression of a man of honour or, at least, his interpretation thereof.
Rath left it there for the time being. Young Lanke had deviated from the straight and narrow, launching investigations of his own so that he could climb a few steps on the career ladder . . . It was familiar enough to Rath, but he’d never have thought the apathetic Lanke capable of such ambition. Perhaps he had been talked into it by one of his more zealous colleagues who knew about Goldstein and needed Lanke’s informant to keep an eye on him. It hadn’t worked, and if anyone was to be brought to account for Goldstein’s disappearance, Rath swore it would be Lanke junior’s head on the block. For now though, he would watch how things developed. As long as he feared exposure, Lanke could still prove useful.
Which was why Rath issued a little threat by way of goodbye.
‘If I should discover that you do know where Marion is, I promise the big city press will do such a job on you that your uncle will have to return to the beat with you.’
‘Believe me,’ Lanke said. ‘I really don’t know.’
Rath left the office after giving a sinister final look, but in the corridor had to suppress a smile. He left Vice in the best of spirits and started towards Homicide. His expression didn’t match his mourning suit, but it didn’t matter. The funeral was over.
The door to Homicide opened and Assistant Detective Lange emerged. Rath gave a polite greeting, and the man from Hannover said ‘hello’ in return. He was another Rath would have liked in his team in exchange for Czerwinski. Behind Lange, another face appeared in the door. Rath’s smile froze.
‘Cha . . . Fräulein Ritter!’ He gave a slight cough. ‘What are you doing here? After such a long time.’
Charly looked even more startled than him, although she must have guessed this might happen. It was his workplace after all. Perhaps it was the mourning suit and unfamiliar top hat that made her look at him the way she did.
‘Good day, Inspector,’ she said, smiling. ‘Nice to see you again.’
She was quickly back under control. Her strength of nerve really was a thing of wonder. Rath felt a tingling sensation, triggered by her last sentence. Perhaps it was because he’d have liked nothing more than to touch her, but couldn’t, not here at the Castle in the presence of colleagues. He gazed at her face and knew that the sentence wasn’t intended to sound erotic. When he looked closer, he saw that she was actually upset. Something must have happened.
Hopefully it wasn’t Alex. Money gone. Jewellery gone. Alex gone. Something like that. Perhaps it was a good thing she still didn’t have her ring.
He realised that Lange was looking at him expectantly, while Charly gazed at him in confusion. They were waiting for him to say something. Rath gestured towards his top hat and black suit. ‘Just back from a funeral, didn’t have any time to change,’ he said, and continued on his way. When he reached the door to his office he turned around again. Charly had disappeared with Lange into one of the interview rooms.
What on earth was going on?
85
The man gazed up at Charly, just as indifferently from under his shako as all the others. ‘No, it’s not him either.’ The man disappeared, and another took his place.
She shook her head.
Lange leafed patiently through the photographs and placed the next image before her. Another unidentified shako-wearer.
‘How many police lieutenants are there in Berlin?’ she asked, having shaken her head for the umpteenth time.
‘We’ll be finished in a moment.’ Lange attempted a smile. ‘At least with Tiergarten and Moabit.’
She had been sitting in this interview room for an hour, poring over images. Not the police mugshots that witnesses were shown, but the personal files of uniform cops.
‘Are you certain it’s a cop you saw?’ Lange asked.
‘I didn’t imagine him. He was there, and he emerged from the street where Kuschke was killed. He must have seen something. If not the murder itself, then the murderer.’
‘But you didn’t realise straightaway. That Kuschke had a knife in his stomach, I mean. He didn’t cry out or behave suspiciously in any way. Why shouldn’t it be the same for this officer?’
‘I only saw Kuschke from behind, and was so busy making sure I wouldn’t be spotted that I noticed everything else far too late.’
‘You’re implying that this officer must have seen everything you missed . . .’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, and let her shoulders droop. ‘It’s just that . . . sometimes I get the impression you don’t believe me, and I can’t stand it. At least, not right now.’
‘Well, you’re just going to have to,’ Lange said, his voice sounding strangely cold. ‘Right now I don’t know that I can believe you.’
‘Pardon me?’
Lange stood and leaned with both hands on the desk. ‘Does this police officer actually exist, or did you invent him to distract from your protégé, and keep me occupied?’
Charly’s blood ran hot through her veins. The kind, harmless-seeming Andreas Lange had grown unexpectedly aggressive, and she pitied the men he grilled in these rooms. The stupid thing was, she was the one now being grilled.
‘I haven’t invented anything. I thought we were working together.’
‘That’s what I thought too. Why didn’t you tell me what happened at the slaughterhouse?’
‘I didn’t think it was relevant to our case.’
‘A person was seriously injured, evidently by Alexandra Reinhold, and you conceal it from me! How much further are you prepared to go to protect her?’
‘She didn’t injure anyone!’ Charly shouted back. ‘I wanted to gain her trust, that’s why I didn’t call the police. I made sure that the injured party received medical attention.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me anything?’
‘Because it would have been a breach of trust!’
‘What about my trust? Superintendent Gennat’s trust?’
‘She was raped, for God’s sake! Do you have any idea how hard it is for a girl to talk about that? In front of a police officer into the bargain?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’ Lange lowered his voice again.
‘That bastard, who is, clearly, now trying to do the dirty on her, raped her; him and his whole crew. Someone else slashed his stomach. Defending her.’
‘Did you see it?’
‘No.’
‘What’s his name then, this knight in shining armour?’
‘I’m not going to tell you.’ She was furious. ‘Sometimes I wonder who it is we’re protecting in this country. Criminals, or those who show civic courage.’
‘You call cutting someone’s stomach civic courage?’
‘The way you’re behaving confirms that I was right not to tell you anything.’
‘You made a mistake and don’t want to admit it. You should have let us arrest the little brat.’
‘So Alex would be at the mercy of Kuschke and his accomplices?’
‘Right now it looks like Kuschke was the one at the mercy of Alex and her accomplices!’
‘You don’t really believe that?’
‘I know she injured him pretty badly, perhaps even slashed a boy’s abdominal wall.’
‘She didn’t do that.’
‘You didn’t see anything, remember.’ Lange gazed at her with a look she couldn’t bear. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘perhaps Alex enjoyed cutting the boy up so much that she wanted to do the same to Kuschke, only her knife slipped.’
‘That’s speculation.’
‘There’s a lot more evidence for it than for your mysterious police lieutenant, of whom there isn’t a trace in the files.’
‘Have you considered that it might not even have been a police officer, but Kuschke’s killer? Someone dressed in uniform to get closer to Kuschke without drawing suspicion. To make it easier to flee the crime scene. Now that I remember, the man stowed a handkerchief in his pocket, with red spots on it. If he’d been a civilian I might have thought it was strange, but not a uniform cop.’
Lange waved her away. ‘I don’t want to hear any more of your theories. Bring this Alex in now, whether it suits you or not. The girl’s a murder suspect. It’s time you thought about that.’
