Babylon Berlin, page 5
‘The Reds mean business,’ said Wolter. ‘Things are really kicking off at Alex. At least that’s what Schultes said in the canteen just now. Both of his windows look out onto the square. Should we go and take a look?’
They weren’t the only ones to find their way to Schultes’s office. There was barely any space left by the two windows. Jänicke was there too.
‘I wouldn’t be going to Aschinger’s today if I were you,’ he greeted his colleagues.
A big crowd had gathered amidst the building-site chaos at Alexanderplatz, several thousand people tightly packed around the entrance to Tietz department store. A shawm band in marching order had turned the corner at Alexanderstrasse and was heading towards the square, followed by the grey uniforms of the RFB. Now and then a banner was raised and Rath recognised the faces that also adorned the front of Communist Party headquarters on nearby Bülowplatz: Lenin, Liebknecht, Luxemburg. A holy trinity of Ls.
Since arriving in Berlin, he had grown increasingly infuriated by the audacity of the communists, the way they decorated their party headquarters with the portraits and slogans of these enemies of the state. Hail the world revolution! The sheer nerve of it, and now they were carrying these slogans in front of police headquarters. Down with the demonstration ban. Keep the streets free on the 1st of May! On an enormous piece of red fabric they had written: Long live the Soviet Union, fight for a Soviet Germany! To the left was a resplendent Soviet star; to the right a hammer and sickle. More and more red flags were fluttering above the heads of those marching. An underground worker had planted a red flag on one of the steam hammers at Alex. High up in the offices of the Castle they could hear the crowd chanting: ‘Down with the dem-on-stration ban!’
The grey and brown of the workers’ caps was surrounded by the black of the shakos and the blue of the uniforms. Another police van emerged from Königstrasse and a troop of officers sprang from the platform, chin straps tightly fastened. The cops on the square formed a line of blue, drew their batons and stormed forth in unison. The chorus of voices quietened and ceased and a murmur went through the crowd. Batons began their whistling descent.
Those demonstrating on the front line ducked under the blows. Some fell and some were bundled into a Black Maria, amongst them a man with a red standard. Still the throng would not be deterred. A short step back and they were pressing forward once more. A wooden banner knocked the shako off an officer’s head. The first stones were launched. The crowd had resumed their chant: ‘Down with the dem-on-stration ban!’
‘Have we taken on fire brigade duties as well?’ Rath asked. At the tram stop in front of the UFA cinema down below, two officers were attaching a fire hose to a hydrant.
‘New tactic,’ Wolter replied. ‘Water instead of batons. The demonstrators are about to get wet.’
Scarcely had the two officers connected the hose when the command sounded: charge the line! The officer with the hose waded into the middle of the crowd, which scattered in surprise. Some were knocked to the ground by the force of the jet, and sent rolling on the wet asphalt.
‘Nice work. Watering the communists,’ Wolter said.
‘The commissioner’s got the whole force on high alert for this?’ asked Schultes. ‘Socialist hysteria, that’s what I call it. Later this afternoon these communists will be sitting back at home by the fire, drying their wet things. Enough revolution for one day. People will have had their fun and order will be restored.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said Wolter. ‘The RFB are getting weapons and training from Moscow. They’re not just playing.’
‘We’ve always managed to bring the Reds into the line,’ said Schultes. ‘They tried to stage a revolution ten years ago and what became of it? The minute things get serious, they throw in the towel.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Wolter and made a concerned face. ‘At any rate, we can’t allow this rabble to take over the streets.’
‘No,’ Schultes replied, ‘but the Nazis with their brownshirts aren’t much better. Better marchers perhaps.’
‘They don’t shoot police officers.’
Schultes fixed his gaze on Uncle. ‘Law and order must be maintained at all times. You’re right there, DCI Wolter.’
‘That’s the job of uniform, not CID,’ said Rath. ‘I for one am happy that we have nothing to do with politics, only criminals.’
‘Politicians, criminals – who said they aren’t one and the same?’ Schultes replied and everyone laughed.
Rath gazed thoughtfully out of the window. Ten years ago the streets had also been turned upside down, but he hadn’t seen anything like it since. His colleagues on the square were going about their business bravely, and not just with fire hoses. At this precise moment Rath wouldn’t have liked to have been out there in his civvies.
5
The car hung from the hook of the salvage crane like an overgrown fish as dirty brown water poured back into the Landwehr canal. In the dark night, the crane’s spotlight bathed the vehicle in bright, eerie light.
Detective Chief Inspector Wilhelm Böhm emerged from a large black Mercedes on Tempelhofer Ufer and put on his bowler hat. A few curious night owls turned from the salvage operation to admire the car, out of which there followed a slim, elegantly dressed woman carrying a shorthand pad, followed by a young man.
The black murder wagon was famous in Berlin. Equipped with numbered markers to secure evidence, camera, spotlights, an inch rule and tape measure, ordnance maps, gloves, tweezers, a transportable police laboratory, and all sorts of paraphernalia for the recording of evidence, it even housed a mobile office of folding table, chairs and a travel typewriter.
The car being lowered onto the wet asphalt of Möckern Bridge was a cream-coloured Horch 350. The soft top was down and there was a man at the wheel. DCI Böhm marched towards the police officer directing the operation.
‘Have I just walked into Lunapark? What the hell are all these people doing? And why couldn’t you have waited until Homicide arrived before starting the recovery? Did you at least manage to check the exact location with the divers?’
Without waiting for an answer, the DCI approached the vehicle. Pointless, he thought, trying to teach these idiots in uniform about modern-day police work. They still thought that restoring order to a crime scene was more important than securing evidence from it. Böhm glanced at the dead man behind the wheel.
‘Gräf,’ Böhm barked through the night. ‘Make sure you get a photo before the doctor messes everything up.’
Assistant Detective Reinhold Gräf started lugging the heavy camera from the murder wagon. In the meantime the officer had recovered from being shouted at, and approached the DCI.
‘Kemmerling, First Sergeant,’ he said, pointing towards a gap in the canal fencing, right next to the bridge. ‘That’s where he went through. He must have hightailed it across Tempelhofer Ufer and come off the road.’
Böhm looked the corpse up and down and shook his head. ‘How’s he supposed to have driven with hands like that?’
Kemmerling winced as he caught sight of the dead man’s hands. Individual fingers could barely be distinguished. Some of the joints were held together by skin alone; others were so contorted that simply looking at them was agony.
‘How many people do you have here, Kemmerling?’ Böhm asked.
‘Five, sir. Most of my men have been withdrawn because of communist unrest.’
Böhm nodded sympathetically, he didn’t have enough people either. The May disturbances had gone on for two days now. After slipping out of police control the confrontations had quickly escalated. There had been shootings and fatalities and communist strongholds around Bülowplatz, Wedding and Neukölln had been officially declared as trouble spots. All three were under siege and it seemed like civil war was about to break out.
‘Four of you can get rid of the onlookers and seal off the crime scene; the fifth can help secure the evidence until ED get here. If they get here at all, that is.’
‘Ahem…’ it seemed Kemmerling didn’t quite understand. ‘Secure the evidence?’
‘Don’t touch anything or go inside anywhere. Just do whatever Homicide tells you,’ Böhm said. ‘Ritter,’ he called into the darkness.
The stenographer stepped into the glare of the salvage crane.
‘Put your pad away, Charly,’ said the DCI. ‘First, kindly show this gentleman how to secure evidence.’
In the meantime, Assistant Detective Gräf had assembled the camera and, for a split second, the crime scene was lit by the flash. It seemed almost as if the dead man was smiling for the camera.
Charly felt the officer staring at her dress, even though she was walking ahead of him. She had made the green dance dress only a few days before and knew that it accentuated her figure as well as revealing a not inconsiderable length of leg. She was wearing it today for the first time and, on the dance floor at Moka Efti, it had felt great. She had enjoyed attracting the attention of the men, which was never a bad thing on a first date. Jakob shouldn’t go thinking she was a sure thing. That her heart started thumping whenever he so much as smiled at her was something she hoped he hadn’t noticed.
The truth was everything had gone pretty well until a liveried valet held a sign up with her name. Telephone for Fräulein Ritter. She had guessed the call was from Homicide: Böhm was the only one who knew she was in Moka Efti – apart from Greta, of course, but she’d never have disturbed Charly tonight. Jakob was standing at the bar when she returned from the telephone booth. He had accepted that she would have to leave and, after accompanying her to the cloakroom, had even ventured out onto Friedrichstrasse.
When the murder wagon drew to a halt in Leipziger Strasse, with Böhm already ensconced inside and urging her to hurry, she couldn’t have said if their taciturn exchange was a parting or a quarrel. Before the vehicle had gone far he had returned to the escalator. Yet another man incapable of dealing with her job?
She felt a little chilly. The short coat she was wearing over her dress wasn’t particularly warm. Even at the start of May, the nights in Berlin could still be cold.
‘Are you a gentleman?’ she asked the officer as they reached the murder wagon.
‘How do you mean?’ he asked.
‘Are you or are you not?’
‘Of course…’
‘In that case you can lend me your coat.’
He looked at her as though he had misheard.
‘Don’t worry, you’re not going to have to lay it over a puddle. It’s for me. It belongs to the Prussian police anyway. Or perhaps you’d rather not lend Homicide your support?’
She had to turn up the sleeves of the heavy blue coat twice, but immediately felt warmer. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
She passed the officer a pair of fabric gloves and slipped a couple of metal evidence markers into his hands. They trudged onwards. In his coat she no longer felt like she was being watched as she pressed on to the canal bank. The vehicle seemed to have burst through the wrought-iron canal fencing without braking. The posts had been bent downwards, and some had been ripped from their foundations.
The officer followed Charly’s instructions and placed the first evidence marker at the point of impact. There was no trace of skid marks. In fact, it was hard to see what route the Horch had taken. One of the trees by the shore had a strip of bark missing. The car must have scraped past before colliding with the fencing. At most this had caused a change in direction. If the car had crashed head-on into the tree, they wouldn’t have had to pull it out of the canal, although the man at the wheel would scarcely have fared any better. And his face wouldn’t have looked nearly so good. Between the tree and the canal bank was only a few metres. If the gap in the fence was anything to go by, then the car must almost have hit it at right angles. But where had the vehicle come from before that? The case was beginning to interest her.
After she had given the officer further instructions she took a few steps down Möckernstrasse, which led from the canal to Yorckstrasse. Only the left side had been developed. The right side was dominated by a high brick wall that stretched along the pavement. Behind the wall was the site of the Anhalter goods station, with a few cars parked underneath the roadside trees. She had to strain her eyes in the dark, but found it eventually: on the wing of a jet-black BMW was a light-coloured paint stain, cream-coloured to be exact. Now she was sure. She called the officer over.
Out of the corner of his eye he had watched First Sergeant Kemmerling traipsing dutifully behind Charly, evidence markers in hand. He had given up his coat for her, another thing he hadn’t thought of, even though it was his fault she was trailing through the cold in her skimpy dance dress. DCI Wilhelm Böhm was just an ill-mannered chump, and there was nothing to be done about it. Nonsense, he thought and looked over towards the Horch, which was illuminated again and again by the light of the flash. It’s not my fault. It’s his fault and his fault alone. The unidentified man we’ve just fished out of the canal is the one who’s ruined our evening.
He watched the first sergeant move towards her, obviously finding it difficult to follow instructions from a woman. Had Kemmerling known that Charlotte Ritter didn’t even hold the rank of detective he wouldn’t have lifted a finger, which was why Böhm hadn’t told him. He knew he could rely on Charly and that, on nights like this when he could barely muster enough troops, was particularly important. However, since she was out there securing evidence, he was now missing a stenographer and Böhm was no longer used to taking notes. The paper he held had been loaned by Gräf.
The DCI had made himself comfortable on the heavily padded bench seat of the murder wagon, the rear of which could be transformed into an office in next to no time, and was interviewing the only witnesses: a man and a young woman who had been sitting in a parked car on Tempelhofer Ufer when the Horch had crashed through the canal fencing.
The couple had been rather preoccupied and barely seen a thing. The vehicle must have come out of the darkness with no lights on. A loud noise had startled the pair. Fräulein Wegener had just had time to take in the roar of the motor and the spinning of the wheels before the vehicle hit the water. The man didn’t appear to have seen anything. The pair of them climbed out of the car and ran towards the shore. There was nothing they could do except look on helplessly as the Horch overturned and sank. When they realised that their assistance would already be too late, they notified the police.
‘Did you see or hear anything else?’ Böhm asked. ‘The noise of the brakes, or the driver calling for help? Were there other people in the car with him?’
Fräulein Wegener answered in the negative. ‘If you ask me, he was completely out of it. Didn’t react at all when the car went under. Maybe he was drunk.’
Or already dead, Böhm thought. He looked down at his notes. There wasn’t a great deal there, and the few things he had written could scarcely be deciphered.
‘Hmm,’ he said and rose to his feet. ‘I think that will be all for now. We have your details.’ They climbed out of the murder wagon. Böhm left them standing where they were. He had caught sight of a familiar silhouette on the bridge.
‘Mankind’s progress is undeniable,’ he heard the man on the bridge say. ‘Floaters are driving cars now.’
Wilhelm Böhm had known Dr Magnus Schwartz for years. The doctor’s cynicism was an occupational hazard which detective inspectors were not immune to. Maybe that was why Böhm had such a good relationship with the coroner, who was also a respected professor at the university.
‘Good evening, Doctor! Did they tear you away from the opera?’
Schwartz turned from the dead man at the wheel. Under his coat, he was still in evening dress.
‘Böhm! I should have known you were behind this!’ the doctor shook his hand. ‘No, I don’t go to the opera. It’s too loud for me. Reception at the dean’s. Pretty dull conversation when you consider it was attended by the cream of the German intelligentsia.’
‘You can be grateful that we dragged you away.’
‘Just don’t tell my wife!’
‘So?’ Böhm gestured towards the corpse.
‘You’ll scarcely believe it, my dear Böhm, but this man is dead.’
‘Seriously?’ Böhm feigned surprise. ‘There’s nothing quite like the word of an expert.’
The doctor undid the buttons on the dead man’s double-breasted jacket and shirt. Then he inspected the inside of his mouth. ‘Cause of death still unknown,’ he said after a pause, ‘but most likely he was already dead before he fell in the water. Would you like to hear any more guesses or can you wait until noon tomorrow? I’ll know by then whether he had water in his lungs.’
Böhm didn’t say anything.
‘I thought as much,’ said the doctor. ‘Well now, these are all approximations and remain subject to change until we have the official result tomorrow. Male corpse, height over one seventy, weight around 65 kilograms, age mid-thirties, poor teeth, cause of death still…’
‘Poor teeth?’
‘That’s a fact, not an approximation.’
‘Then he must have been afraid of the dentist.’
‘I don’t think so. Judging by the ruined landscape of his mouth, he’s been to a dentist. A bad one. Seems more likely he was unable to afford decent treatment.’
‘And yet he drives a new car and wears an elegant dinner jacket. He’s almost more stylish than you are, Doctor!’
‘Maybe he preferred to spend his money on cars and clothes than on the dentist. You know how it is, fine feathers make fine birds. And wheels too! Nice car, that Horch. My colleague Karthaus drives one. Not that I’m jealous – what are you supposed to do with a crate like that when it goes off road and lands in the canal…’
