Goldstein

1

The place smelled of wood and glue and fresh paint. She was alone with the darkness and the silence, with only her breathing and the faint tick of the watch in her jacket pocket for company. The man seemed to have disappeared again, yet she decided to wait a little longer, stretching to get the blood flowing through her arms and legs. At least there were no coat hangers on the rail; she could see a chink of light through the crack in the door. She took the watch from her jacket pocket. It was just gone nine. The night watchman would soon be completing his rounds on the sixth floor.

Confirmation came with the grinding of the lift, echoing so loudly through the darkness that she gave a start. It was time. He was on his way back down, and in the next few hours would only be concerned with the roller grilles in front of the doors and display windows, with making sure that everything was locked and no one could break in.

Alex carefully opened the wardrobe and peered out. Better safe than sorry, Benny always said. The neon signs on Tauentzienstrasse shone so much colour through the windows there was no need for a torch. She could see everything: the luxurious show bedroom, with a bed wide enough for a whole family and a carpet so soft her feet sank into it. When she thought back to the scratchy coconut matting in front of the bed she had shared with her little brother, Karl, when she was still living with her parents, in digs that were as murky as they were cramped… What had become of Karl? She didn’t even know if the cops had gone looking for him after Beckmann’s death. She didn’t miss her family, but she’d have liked to see him again.

Alex spun around at a movement on the edge of her vision. The big mirror on the dressing table reflected an eighteen-year-old girl staring defiantly back, legs in baggy trousers and hair held in place by a coarsely woven linen cap. She gave herself a wry grin.

Pausing at the end of the elegantly decorated plywood panel that served as a makeshift bedroom wall, she peered around the corner. It was hardly necessary. The night watchman wouldn’t make another round of the shop floor before morning, towards the end of his shift. She knew that from Kalli. There wasn’t a soul around and it was a nice feeling, knowing that all this belonged to her for the next few hours. Her and Benny.

Alex found her way without difficulty. The restless, dappled light from outside, flickering constantly between one colour and the next, was more than enough. She had committed the most important things to memory a few hours before when the place was full of people. Behind her were the doors leading to the southern stairwell and, to the left, past the wall of curtain fabrics, was the access to the escalators.

Everything was calm. Traffic noise was muffled, almost unreal, a dull murmur from a different world that had nothing to do with its magical counterpart inside. She entered the deserted curtain section that seemed like a fairy-tale castle, long drapes hanging from ceiling to floor in silk, satin and net. As a little girl, she had often stood here in astonishment, clasping her mother’s hand. Young Alexandra soon understood that her mother never came to buy, only to dream. Take it all in, she had said, we proles may not be able to afford anything here, but they can’t stop us from looking.

They had never had enough money to buy things in the west, not even when Father was still in work and Mother had her cleaning job. In fact it had been rare for them to venture outside of Boxhagener Kiez. The Ku’damm, KaDeWe and Tauentzienstrasse – for her father these places were a symbol of wasteful capitalism, the west of the city a hotbed of vice to be avoided like the devil avoided holy water. If not for Mother the stubborn old man would never have allowed himself to be talked into those occasional summer visits to the zoo, but even Emil Reinhold understood that you shouldn’t deprive working-class children of the wonders of nature. Alex had never cared to see creatures suffering behind bars, however, and by the polar bears she would already be thinking of the return journey. The Reinhold family was accustomed to strolling the length of Tauentzienstrasse before boarding the U-Bahn at Wittenbergplatz and heading back to the east. At the first shop windows Emil Reinhold would begin his recurring sermon about the excesses of capitalism, even if Alex and her mother had their eyes fixed on the displays. The KaDeWe displays held a kind of magic for Alex. In Mother’s eyes, too, was the sparkle of long-forgotten dreams of a better life, a life which the dictatorship of the proletariat could never hope to provide. Father never noticed, or never wanted to notice. He continued his sermon to the captive audience of his sons, above all to Karl, who took everything so seriously. Karl, the prince of the proletariat, the staunch Communist, who was now in hiding from the cops just like his thieving sister.

Alex had almost reached the escalators when a noise brought her back to the present, a hard clack, more immediate than the padded roar of traffic. She crouched behind two giant rolls of cloth and listened: something was banging against the glass, clattering and scratching against one of the windows. She tried to place the sounds. A fluttering, then a cooing. Venturing from her hiding place, behind the neon-lit pane of glass she saw the silhouettes of two pigeons resting on the window ledge.

She took a deep breath to still her beating heart. First the mirror and now this! Benny would kill himself laughing if he could see her. When had she become so easily startled? When she realised her messed-up life was more important than she cared to admit?

With a loud flap of wings, the pigeons swooped back into the night and Alex continued on her way, the nervous tension accumulated during those long hours in the wardrobe all but evaporated. She enjoyed her night-time stroll through the silent department store more with each passing step. It was as if everything had fallen into a hundred-year sleep, and she was the only person awake in this enchanted kingdom. KaDeWe outstripped all the other department stores they had shut themselves in until now; Tietz for sure, but even the enormity of Karstadt on Hermannplatz paled against the magnificence of Tauentzienstrasse.

She left the curtain section and reached the escalators. The metal steps stood deserted and motionless as if an evil fairy had turned everything to ice. It was five storeys down to their agreed meeting point on the ground floor: the tobacco section, as always. It had become a kind of ritual, to stock up on brands they could never otherwise afford. Benny had a nose for the stuff.

She had met him on a freezing cold day in February, quarrelling over a cigarette butt that some snotty-nosed, rich little upstart had thrown half-smoked onto the pavement in front of Bahnhof Zoo, a few weeks after all that crap with Beckmann. Alex had already spent the money she had stolen from that fatso at the Christmas market. She was hungry and hadn’t had a cigarette in two days.

They pounced on the butt in the same instant, she and this slender, almost dainty blond boy, who, despite his awkward appearance, wasn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty. He moved quickly, but not as quickly as Alex. He glared at her, a look she had returned with interest, so much did her body crave the nicotine. It was a miracle they had managed to make peace and share the fag-end. No doubt it was his eyes that did it.

Right from the start Alex felt she had to look after this skinny boy with the melancholy gaze, and soon developed almost maternal feelings towards Benny, who was still not yet sixteen. At the very least, she felt like an older sister to him, yet it was Benny who, in the weeks that followed, showed her how to survive on the streets; Benny who taught her how to steal wallets, open doors without a key and drive cars belonging to other people. Useful knowledge for a girl who, when night fell, was never sure where her next meal was coming from.

For the whole of spring they made ends meet with pickpocketing, small-scale burglaries and a few assignments they took care of for Kalli while they survived from hand to mouth. Until they discovered department stores.

The first time at Tietz, on Dönhoffplatz, was pure chance. Alex and Benny were in the store just before closing to shelter from the rain. The idea came to them of its own accord as customers were politely ushered towards the exits. They only needed to exchange glances before spending the next few hours huddled tightly together in an enormous wardrobe trunk. When everything around them fell silent they ventured out, every bone in their bodies aching, to empty the jewellery cabinets, and whatever else they could lay their hands on. They filled two small cases from the leather goods section, just enough to carry comfortably without drawing attention to themselves. No one stopped them when they were back outside on Krausenstrasse or had any idea what they were carrying in their cases. They boarded the next train at Spittelmarkt, calm as you like, and passed unnoticed there too, a couple of youths with suitcases, who looked like exhausted street traders returning home after a long and fruitless day.

The next morning Kalli was astonished, and only too happy to cough up. They had never scored so much before, at most a pocket watch taken from a drunk, or a few odds and ends stolen from a car. After Tietz they stopped dealing in bits and pieces. Pinching wallets on the U-Bahn or fleecing drunks was scarcely worth it, being risky and always a matter of chance. The department store ruse was more lucrative; easier too. All they had to do was shut themselves in, raid the display cabinets and get the hell out. By the time the night watchmen noticed the empty displays, Alex and Benny were long gone.

They had worked over four department stores by now, and last time, at Karstadt, had made away with some really nifty pieces. It was Kalli who had suggested Berlin’s finest establishment. Alex and Benny would never have thought of it themselves, out of sheer respect. In KaDeWe, they could really make hay, Kalli said, why not try their luck there? The place would be no better guarded than Tietz or Karstadt, guaranteed. He knew someone who worked there.

Now she was teetering over escalators making her way down floor by floor. The feeling of having KaDeWe all to herself suddenly overwhelmed her. She couldn’t help thinking back to Tietz, where together with Benny she had moved from section to section, savouring the fact that they were alone with such treasures. They had tested any number of things, even paying the toy section a visit, a little coyly at first since, in spite of their friendship, they mostly concealed their childish sides from one another. In the second department store, however – Tietz again, this time at Alexanderplatz – they had got straight down to work.

The great hall on the ground floor opened out in front of her. To get to the tobacco products she had to go through gentlemen’s fashion, where a line of mannequins with wax faces looked down on her rigidly, arrogantly, just like the snotty little upstarts who wore these clothes on the outside and could scarcely move for their conceit. Alex hated their kind and took pleasure that it was exactly these types who stood here now, condemned to spend the rest of their days as KaDeWe fossils. At the end of the army of mannequins she could already sense the wood panelling and shelves of the tobacco section.

Benny didn’t seem to be here, but there was something in the weak light flickering outside. She froze, rooted to the spot. Had one of the mannequins at the end of the row moved? She took a closer look but everything was as before. A red neon sign flashing outside was making the shadows in here dance. There was no night watchman among the mannequins, not a single peaked cap in the line, just casual fedoras, bourgeois bowlers and elegant top hats. She continued with her heart still pounding; it seemed as if every beat must be audible in the silence.

The mannequin that had so startled her stood right at the end of the line, just before the entrance to the tobacco section. She stuck her tongue out and it tilted its upper body slightly forwards. Terror coursed through her like an electric shock.

‘Come right in, my lady,’ said the dummy in an operatic Hungarian accent, ‘don’t be shy!’

‘Are you trying to give me a heart attack?’ Alex punched the snow-white dickey.

Benny took a bow, removing his top hat and waving her through the door like a fairground barker. ‘Come in, my lady! And don’t be cowed by the prices. There’s something here for everyone!’

‘You’re a right one, you are,’ Alex grinned. ‘You look like a trainee ringmaster!’ She immediately regretted her choice of words when she saw his face. He had expected amazement, wonder, applause – anything but a joke at his expense.

‘I thought since we were here, why not get all dressed up,’ he said, trying not to let his disappointment show.

‘Looks damn elegant,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen you in anything like it.’

‘Why would you have? This isn’t made for the likes of us. Yet here I am!’ He opened a canvas bag. ‘I got you something from ladies’ fashion,’ he said, lifting out a red silk dress. ‘What do you think?’

‘We should stick with jewellery. Kalli can’t get rid of clothes.’

‘Just try it on.’ He waved the red silk.

‘Now?’

‘It’s an evening dress, isn’t it?’ He held out the shimmering, dark-red dress.

‘Isn’t it a bit too… classy?’

‘The question is whether you like it.’

She held the dress against herself and looked in one of the mirrors. The size was right, and she really liked it. She wouldn’t have thought Benny had such an eye for fashion. He’d never bought himself anything to wear, nothing, not even with the money that Kalli gave them last time, enough for half a dozen new suits. He had only noticed that she had bought herself a new coat some days later.

Benny fetched a silver tin from his inside pocket and took out a Manoli Privat, a six-pfennig brand. He didn’t look so ridiculous in that get-up at all, she thought, it was just a little unfamiliar; she had only ever seen him in coarse linen trousers and his faded leather jacket.

‘Do you want one?’ he asked.

‘Just a drag.’

Benny lit the cigarette and passed it on. Alex took two deep drags and returned it.

‘It looks good,’ he said, pulling gloves and a little hat out of the bag. ‘You should put it on.’

Alex stepped behind a pilaster and changed into the dress, donning the gloves and placing the hat on her head, heart pounding. She’d never worn anything so elegant before, and felt good yet insecure at the same time. It was a strange sensation, but Benny must be feeling the same way. She could have spared him that stupid remark.

‘Da-da-da-daa,’ she trumpeted as she emerged. The boy who usually couldn’t keep his mouth shut didn’t say a word, and she knew immediately he was impressed. He looked so elegant, especially now, bowed ever so slightly before her.

‘Will you dance with me?’ he asked.

Alex laughed. ‘Do you hear music?’

‘Yes.’ He took her right hand and clasped her left shoulder. ‘Don’t you?’ He hummed a little melody and swayed her slowly back and forth in three-quarters time.

‘I don’t know how to dance.’

‘Leave that to me.’ He began to waltz, sweeping her along with him. His grip was firm and she abandoned herself to his movement and the rhythm of his song. They reeled past the mannequins with their arrogant faces, past the shelves and clothes stands, past the dappled light gleaming in from Tauentzienstrasse. Only when they came to a halt did she realise that they had danced halfway across the floor. She felt a little dizzy and out of breath, but happy nevertheless.

‘Where did you learn that?’ He never ceased to amaze her, this skinny boy with the child’s face that sometimes appeared so terrifyingly serious and grown-up.

‘In the home. The kitchen girls used to dance when the nuns weren’t looking. They showed me – do you like it?’

She nodded, and he grabbed her again, spinning in the opposite direction this time. Alex was overjoyed. If her father knew that she took pleasure in such bourgeois frippery as the Viennese Waltz, he’d no doubt have condemned his wayward daughter even more than usual.

When they arrived back at the tobacco section she was unable to stand on her own. ‘That was great,’ she said, out of breath. ‘We should have done it sooner. I could use the practice.’

‘Maybe we should go dancing properly sometime. Somewhere real swish, I mean, like a dance hall on the Ku’damm…’

Alex laughed. ‘They’d turf us out!’

‘We’d just need to be dressed like we are now.’ Benny paused, as if finding it hard to utter his next sentence, as if the words had to overcome a few hurdles first. ‘You’re beautiful, Alex,’ he said, and it sounded as if he’d been meaning to say it for a long time. He stroked her cheek with his fingertips, startling her with his unexpected tenderness. She gave a little start, but he didn’t notice, simply closed his eyes and drew nearer. Only when his lips brushed against her mouth did she react, pushing him away gently but firmly.

‘Benny! You can’t…’

He didn’t seem to understand, or want to understand.

‘I don’t know. You’re only fifteen.’ Shit, Alex, be nice to him! ‘Don’t get me wrong, I like you. You’re my friend.’

‘Why can’t I kiss you?’

He looked so sad and awkward she couldn’t help taking him in her arms and stroking his head. ‘I like you, Benny. But… we can’t. Especially not now. We’ve got work to do.’

‘True,’ he said. ‘Enough of this nonsense.’

He let go and unpacked the second canvas bag, into which he had stuffed his old clothes, but she could see she had hurt him for the second time that evening, only this time it had gone deeper. He was trying not to let it show, and she pretended she hadn’t realised, but the atmosphere between them was soured. Moments before they had soared across the KaDeWe floor; now, in evening dress, they looked like two children who had been rummaging secretly through their parents’ wardrobe. At least, that was how Alex felt, and Benny too by the look of him. He rushed to get back into his old clothes, and Alex returned behind the pilaster to change.

‘Let’s get to work,’ he said, passing her the second bag. Silently they went on their way.

The jewellery section was also on the ground floor, the glass of the display cabinets shimmering in the half-dark. Alex felt her nerves jangle again. The most expensive items would be stored in the vault, and, since the display cabinets contained only replicas, Alex and Benny could ignore the swanky rocks and concentrate on simple items that were bound to be genuine: plain rings, bangles and earrings, but mostly watches, any number of them, golden pocket watches and elegant wrist watches. Kalli always paid good money for watches.

Benny took off his leather jacket and wrapped it around his arm. ‘Alex,’ he said, ‘I promise you, in two, maybe three years, I won’t need to do this anymore. I’ll spend the day wearing expensive suits, drive a car, and live in a nice house with servants. And then I’ll ask you again if you want to go dancing with me.’

Before she could reply, he drew back his elbow and shattered the glass with a clatter that was loud enough to wake the whole city.

They moved quickly, not exchanging a word, Alex collecting wristwatches from the shattered display cabinet and stuffing them into her bag, while Benny shook shards of glass from the leather of his jacket and prepared for the next assault. The second time, the clatter didn’t seem quite so loud. She took care not to stuff too many glass fragments into the bag with the watches, which proved trickier with the next display cabinet, where a number of low carat diamond rings rested on the velvet between the splinters. Alex was concentrating so hard on these little splinters that she overlooked the sharp edge of glass in the brass frame and cut the back of her hand.

The wound bled profusely. Without saying a word Benny tore a strip of fabric from his shirt to bind it before emptying the third display cabinet. With her bandaged hand, Alex wasn’t much use.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It doesn’t matter. We…’ Benny broke off, turning to stone mid-sentence. ‘Did you hear that?’

Alex shrugged, but then heard the noise too. Somewhere in the building a door had slammed shut.

‘He’s on the move again,’ she whispered. ‘That can’t be right. He must still be doing his rounds outside; he won’t be going over the shop floor a second time.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’ Benny grabbed another handful of rings. ‘Maybe we were too noisy. Let’s get out of here.’

He closed the two canvas bags, taking the heavier of the pair, and they started to run, with Alex, who was more familiar with the layout, leading the way. In the meantime, there were scores of night owls out and about on Tauentzienstrasse, its windows and doors barred to keep late-night window shoppers from temptation.

They had to find a rear storeroom or office window so that they could reach the access yard and get onto Ansbacher Strasse, before joining the crowds and taking the next U-Bahn train east. Same as always, except something happened that threw their plans into disarray.

The door to the southern stairwell opened, and a wedge of light fell on the shop floor. Alex jumped for cover, dragging Benny behind a wall draped with silk neckties. She thought she had seen a uniform in the door. Not the red-brown of the KaDeWe watchmen, but the dark blue of the Prussian Police.

Judging by the noise, it must be a whole squad of uniformed officers. Benny silently mouthed a word she’d have preferred to scream from the rooftops. Shit!

They would have to go via Tauentzienstrasse after all. They had no other choice. What the hell were the cops doing here anyway? Alex gave Benny a nod and led the way. Hunching slightly, using the shelves and clothes stands for cover, they worked their way through the half-dark, stretching the distance between them and the cops.

‘Police!’ someone cried. ‘We know you’re in here. Give yourselves up. You’re surrounded on all sides!’

For a few moments a light flashed, then it was bright as day. Alex ducked behind the shelf they were passing and peered around the corner. It didn’t look good. The officers had divided themselves into several groups and were systematically combing the entire floor.

She looked at Benny, who gave a helpless shrug. Not much time left. They had to do something. The lifts! The middle one was on the ground floor. Alex gestured towards the lift doors a few metres to their left and Benny nodded. It was their one chance to gain a head start; a little more time to hatch a new plan. They bent low, crawling past a long rack of plus fours. The lifts were now almost within touching distance. All they had to do was break cover.

Alex heard a male voice close by. ‘Look at that mess. Let’s hope they haven’t escaped.’

‘They’re still in the building somewhere,’ said another. ‘I can feel it.’

The cops had discovered the display cabinets, distracting them for a moment. She took a deep breath before stretching an arm towards the button.

The door slid open with a soft pling. Not soft enough.

‘Stop, police!’ someone shouted. ‘Put your hands in the air and show yourselves!’

Alex pulled Benny into the open lift and pressed one of the top buttons. At least she knew how these things worked, thanks to Wertheim. The cops were already coming around the corner, shouting something like ‘stay where you are’, when the door finally closed and the lift began its ascent.

Thank God!

First things first, get onto a higher floor, distance themselves from their pursuers. It would take time for the police to get another lift down to the ground floor. She looked at Benny. At last they could talk again.

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘What are the pigs doing here?’

‘Maybe we set off an alarm.’

‘More likely they were expecting us. Waiting to catch us red-handed.’

‘They’ll have to find us first.’

‘True,’ Benny grinned. ‘I always knew you were a dab hand at escaping, Alex, but where did you learn how to use a lift?’

‘There was a lift boy at Wertheim who had the hots for me.’

He nudged her in the side and laughed, even though it hadn’t been a joke. She had almost paid for that episode with the job she had lost half a year later anyway.

The lift came to a halt and the doors opened. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we have reached the fifth floor,’ she said.

‘Shouldn’t we go up one?’

‘Yes, but via the stairs. Then the pigs will start looking on the wrong floor.’

Benny nodded. ‘It’s best we split up. You go up one, I’ll go down one.’

‘Split up?’

‘We don’t know how many there are. To have any chance, we need to separate.’

He sounded like a general before battle. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, she would have laughed.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘And then what?’

‘No idea. Get out of here somehow. There must be a few options in a place like this.’

‘OK. When shall we meet?’

‘Not till we’re outside. The Märchenbrunnen. At the top of every hour.’

‘Good luck, then,’ she said. ‘See you on the outside.’ She looked at him for a final time before running upstairs to the sixth floor. Their footsteps sounded further and further apart.

At the top of the stairs she paused in front of the lift door. It was only a matter of time before the night watchman switched on the sixth floor lights but, for now, it was still dark. For the first time that evening she made use of her torch, shining a light on the numbered displays above the doors. The lift on the far right was already on the way up, now passing the second floor. They were on the move. No time to lose.

Alex burst onto the shop floor in search of another escape route or, at the very least, a place to hide. Her torch beam passed over red-white floor tiles and empty glass counters: the KaDeWe snack bar, heart of the new grocery section. She crossed the floor, moving past shelves full of jam jars until, suddenly, there was nowhere else to go. She looked for an opening in the whitewashed plywood wall whose flimsiness was disguised by rows of shelves. Finally, behind a sales counter, she found an inconspicuous little door with a simple ward lock that was easy to open. She slipped inside and found a stack of planks. The place looked like a building site. She crossed the room and found a door behind which was a staircase leading upwards.

She didn’t know which way to turn, only that she couldn’t fall into the hands of her pursuers. That had been her number one rule since living on the streets: never let the cops get you! For half a year she had been scared stiff they might pick her up and hold her responsible for Beckmann’s death. Or, worse still, give her a good grilling and, in the process, discover it was her brother Karl who had shot that fucking Nazi dead; that she had just stood by and watched. Sometimes she thought it was all her fault: that she had turned her brother into a murderer, only to feel every fibre in her being protest. Because if it wasn’t for all that Red Front bullshit, Karl would never have owned a gun in the first place.

But he did own a gun, and he had fired it.

Alex switched off the torch and listened. Voices, no doubt about it, and they were growing louder. They were combing the sixth floor. Of course: they weren’t so stupid as to be deceived by the lift below. There was a flicker and then the light came on here too. Instinctively Alex eschewed the cover of the building materials and retreated inside the dark stairwell. What must the pedestrians on the street below be thinking, seeing all the floors in KaDeWe lit up just before midnight?

She put her bag over her shoulders and climbed the narrow, dark staircase, desperate to get away before the cops discovered the plywood wall and decided to look behind it.

Climbing through two attic floors she came upon a locked door that posed no problem for her skeleton key. A cold wind blew in her face. She was outside again, on a roof garden above the city. The Gedächtniskirche rose dark out of a sea of houses, and lights flashed in all colours from the urban canyons below. Traffic noise was no longer muffled by the walls of the store. The beep of a horn reminded her that life was waiting below, freedom too. How to get there? The wind was still blowing in her face, letting her know that she had ventured onto foreign terrain, and the cut on her hand was throbbing. She leaned over the parapet and looked down. The KaDeWe logo lit up the darkness, casting neon light on a steep roof with dormer windows. No chance of getting down that way. She prayed that the cops wouldn’t get it into their heads to look up here. Who would be stupid enough to escape onto the roof? Well, Alexandra Reinhold, for one, but the cops couldn’t know that.

Somehow she had to get past them, go down, right down to the bottom and out. She returned to the stairwell, closed the door behind her and stayed still for a moment, listening. Nothing. Everything was still dark. Only when she was certain that the coast was clear did she slowly descend the stairs, step by step and, having arrived below, open the door leading back into the light. The voices could no longer be heard. Had they left? There was no one by the stack of planks, but it was strange that they weren’t looking here. They had left the light on. Alex crept towards the plywood wall and peered through a narrow crack.

There was someone by the lifts. The cops didn’t even have to search the whole building, it was enough to monitor the exits.

She retreated towards the rear of the construction area. Carefully she opened one of the windows on the western side and was startled by how loud the noise suddenly was. Hopefully it wouldn’t reach the lifts. She stretched her head out into the night air, which smelled of petrol and rainclouds, and looked around. Four metres below she could see the balcony that extended around nearly the entire fifth floor of the building, and beyond it the gaping chasm of Passauer Strasse. She could hang on to the window ledge, lower herself down as far as possible and then jump. She could make it. As she was assessing the risks, she saw a figure huddled in a window recess on the balcony. Benny.

The cops had driven the poor boy outside too. He didn’t see her, simply crouched in his hiding place, keeping the door in view. Alex closed the window. How were they going to get out of here in one piece?

The cut on her hand was still throbbing. She opened a door on the south side. Again, it was dark. Only when she was certain that she couldn’t hear footsteps or voices did she switch her torch back on and enter a long corridor. An office wing, everything new, the walls smelling of fresh plaster. Slowly she made her way along the corridor, ignoring doors on both sides, before reaching a turn to the left, perhaps leading to another stairwell. She switched off her torch after noticing a faint gleam of light from a window at the end of the corridor. Outside she caught sight of a firewall, which must have looked out onto the access yard.

Excellent work Fräulein Reinhold, just like you planned. Only a few floors too high!

It had started to rain, but Alex longed for nothing more than to stand outside in the middle of it. She stared through the window and said a quick prayer.

Dear Lord, if you should be out there somewhere listening, please get me out of here, I don’t care how, just get me out, and I’ll pay any price, even if it means going to church.

She closed her eyes and listened to the drumming of the rain. Something about the sound made her hesitate and open the window. It was making an unspeakable noise, as if someone were striking a hammer against an anvil again and again. Alex poked her head outside and thought she must be dreaming. At that moment, she believed she had her prayer to thank for it. A fire escape! Iron steps led down floor by floor to the yard.

She packed her torch, shouldered her bag, stepped onto the grating and looked down. A fleet of lorries and delivery trucks was parked in perfect formation, otherwise the courtyard was empty – not a blue uniform in sight. The cops had overlooked the fire escape.

Alex gripped the damp, cold handrail and descended the wobbly steel staircase step by step, keeping the windows and yard in view. The wind blew rain in her face and the steel structure swayed and squealed under her feet, but she inched ever closer to the ground. She was dripping wet, with her bandage soaked through and her bag growing heavier by the minute until, at last, she reached the bottom.

If only she could tell Benny about the fire exit, but hopefully his luck would be in too. Using the delivery trucks as cover, she made her way to the entrance onto Passauer Strasse. The great iron gate was locked, but she’d been expecting that. She took out her picklock and, though she was shivering slightly and needed a little longer than usual, soon had it cracked.

The gate squeaked as she opened it just enough to slip through. And then she was outside. Free at last!

Never had she enjoyed listening to traffic quite so much. She sucked in the air greedily, as if only now could she breathe again after surfacing from a long dive. The rain had stopped. There wasn’t much happening on Passauer Strasse, just a few hurried pedestrians snapping shut their umbrellas, and two or three cars splashing through puddles. No one paid her any attention. She tilted her head back and looked at the department store front, the crowning feature of which was the giant neon sign here on Passauer Strasse. Lit up at night like this, the store had a festive, almost Christmassy feel. She thought of Benny and, in the same moment, saw him clambering on the balcony’s steel railings. What on earth was he doing there? He didn’t seem to have moved very far from his previous hiding place, where she had caught sight of him moments before.

He stood on the balcony ledge, outside the railings. Alex caught her breath. The ledge could only be a foot wide. Surely he wasn’t thinking of climbing down, not with the heavy bag on his shoulders. But that’s what it looked like. Quick as a flash Benny crouched, facing inwards as he gripped the ledge with both hands, gradually lowering his body until he hung, legs dangling, a dark shadow against the narrow, illuminated windows. His feet were too far from the next ledge; he’d never make it down. A gasp of horror made her turn. Behind her stood a thin man with metal-rimmed spectacles and bowler hat, craning his neck.

A police officer appeared in silhouette above the railings, the star on his shako flashing briefly in the light. Benny was hanging from the balcony to hide, not to escape. The building’s front was his final resort, but the cop must have seen him. He was leaning over the railings as if he knew someone was there.

Alex ought to have fled, but couldn’t, and stood on Passauer Strasse as if rooted to the spot.

‘The cops are there already,’ Alex heard the man in metal-rimmed spectacles say. ‘Why on earth would you jump from KaDeWe?’

Alex couldn’t see exactly what was happening, only that the officer was now next to Benny, having also climbed over the railing. Did he mean to help him up? It seemed not. He tilted his head forwards as if speaking. Benny seemed to be saying something too, though Alex couldn’t make out what.

Benny gave a cry, making her start. Was his strength deserting him? Surely not! Give yourself up, she thought. Climb back up and turn yourself in.

The cop’s head was still tilted forwards and, for a brief moment, Alex made out his face in the glow of the sign. He was grimacing furiously. What on earth was going on? Had Benny shot his mouth off again? For a second time she heard him cry, more drawn out now, and desperate. He sounded like the boy he was, rather than the man he wanted to be.

She was holding her head at such an angle that her neck hurt, but, still, she couldn’t look away. Why had he let go with his right hand? How was he supposed to hold on, with just one hand plus the heavy bag on his shoulders? She stared and stared and couldn’t believe what she saw. Until at last she understood.

No scream, no cry. He fell silently through the night.

There was a thud like a sack of potatoes falling from a truck and, at the same time, a mighty crack. Then everything was quiet.

She snapped out of her trance to see Benny not ten metres away, painfully contorted and motionless on the ground. She rushed to his side. Hardly any blood, strangely. Benny’s eyes were closed. There was someone wheezing behind her. The man with the metal-rimmed spectacles was staring goggle-eyed.

‘Call an ambulance!’ she hissed, but the man shrugged his shoulders helplessly and made himself scarce.

Alex leaned towards Benny and heard him rasping. He was still alive!

She kneeled on the pavement, laid his head on her knees and stroked his hair. He opened his eyes; his breathing became quicker and quicker.

‘Alex,’ he said.

‘Try not to talk. There’s an ambulance on its way.’

‘I’m sorry, Alex, I messed up.’

‘No!’

‘I couldn’t… I couldn’t hold on any longer. He was standing on my fingers.’ There was a wheezing sound as Benny tried to catch his breath. He was finding it hard to speak.

‘Don’t talk so much, Benny, don’t talk so much.’

‘Get out of here… or they’ll catch you. These are bad people…’

She looked skywards to where the cop was staring down. He said something to his colleague and gestured towards her, towards Alex and Benny on Passauer Strasse below. The other cop began speaking animatedly, seeming to curse his partner. That wouldn’t do any good now.

Benny took another breath and, again, there was a wheezing in his lungs. Dark blood suddenly streamed from his mouth.

‘Benny!’ she cried. ‘Hold on. Hold on!’

He tried to smile. ‘Promise you’ll go dancing with me sometime.’

‘I promise.’

The interval between his breaths became shorter and shorter. Alex wiped at the blood with her sleeve. Benny gazed at her wistfully the whole time, as if preparing to say goodbye. He closed his eyes.

‘Don’t give up, do you hear me, don’t give up! The ambulance will be here soon.’ Benny’s wheezing became more and more frenetic until suddenly it stopped, as if someone had switched off a machine. ‘No,’ Alex screamed. ‘No! You can’t just die! I won’t let you!’

She let his head sink slowly onto the pavement and looked around. A few rubberneckers had made their way over from Tauentzienstrasse. The man with the metal-rimmed spectacles hadn’t reappeared, nor was there any sign of an ambulance, but a group of uniformed officers emerged from a discreet side door of KaDeWe.

She swallowed her tears and ran.

‘Stop that boy! He’s one of them!’

Alex didn’t turn around. She knew she was being chased. She had to steer clear of pedestrians, screaming at an elegant lady to move aside and forcing her into the window grilles, before running towards the throng of people surging down Tauentzienstrasse. Find cover there and disappear. A whistle sounded behind her, and someone shouted.

‘Stop! Police!’

She kept running, straight across the pavement onto Tauentzienstrasse past tooting cars. A taxi screeched to a halt, but Alex paid no heed. After what had happened to Benny, she feared for her life. She threw herself sideways in front of a tram, whose driver sounded the warning bell, crossed the central reservation, and followed the electric train as it juddered eastwards. Her gaze fell on the warning sign, which strictly forbade passengers from jumping aboard while the train was in motion. She leapt onto the moving platform and squeezed herself into the car. The windows on the other side were more or less obscured by her fellow passengers, but not quite completely. There they were, her two pursuers, waiting for the tram to go past as it took the bend on the Wittenbergplatz approach.

Alex jostled her way inside and looked at the sign: the number six, going towards Schöneberg. Not ideal, but if she got out again at Wittenbergplatz there was a good chance they’d spot her. The tram stopped, with more people getting off than on, and her cover grew thinner. She kept glancing out of the window, but could no longer see any blue uniforms. The last passenger to board was a fat man, whom she moved towards straightaway, taking cover behind him, keeping the doors in view.

A bell sounded and the train moved off. As it picked up speed, metre by metre, Alex felt her tension dissolve. She had shaken them off!

Suddenly she felt the cut on her hand throbbing again. The blood had already seeped through the temporary bandage Benny had tied an hour or so ago, and grief came over her like a wild animal. Tears streamed down her face and soon she was crying uncontrollably for the first time in years.

Only when she wiped the tears on her sleeve did she realise that everyone in the car was staring at her. ‘What are you looking at?’ she shouted, and the people, who had been gazing at her in sympathy, returned to whatever it was they were doing before.

2

That’s what you got for being punctual: a wait. Rath’s gaze flitted between his fingernails and the pictures on the wall. He spotted a grease stain on his jacket. He had been wearing the grey suit for too long. If he had known he was being summoned he’d have chosen the brown one, since it had been freshly laundered. At least his fingernails were clean.

Renate Greulich hammered at her typewriter as if she were the only person in the room.

‘Dr Weiss is still in a meeting. Please take a seat,’ was all she had said. So Rath had taken a seat, feeling as if he were in a doctor’s waiting room about to receive bad news. He didn’t know what exactly, only that it was sure to be bad.

When the bosses sent for him, it was usually trouble, although Rath couldn’t remember a single occasion in the last few weeks when he had flouted the rules. He had only been back on duty for a week, after a fortnight’s summer holiday. A few days in Cologne, then a week on the Baltic Sea with Charly. He – they – could have saved themselves the bother.

The telephone rang and Renate Greulich picked up. ‘Yes, Herr Doktor,’ she said, reaching for the file on her desk. She disappeared with it behind the padded door.

Rath gazed after the secretary and picked up a newspaper from the makeshift table. He leafed indifferently through the day’s political issues, reparations disputes, austerity measures, until alighting on a headline in the regional section.

Late-night police chase in KaDeWe. Young intruder plunges to his death.

This was the case Gennat had mentioned at briefing: two jewel thieves caught red-handed in KaDeWe at the weekend, one of whom had launched an unsuccessful bid for freedom via the façade. The young lad, no more than sixteen or seventeen, was still to be identified. His accomplice had escaped with a portion of the spoils.

The way the article read, you’d think the police had hounded the boy to his death. That the pair had shut themselves in a department store to empty the jewellery displays didn’t seem to concern the paper.

The door opened once more, only it wasn’t Greulich who emerged, but a police officer, picture perfect in his freshly ironed and spotlessly clean blue uniform, shako wedged under his arm. The man knew how to appear before a deputy commissioner. Rath laid the newspaper over the grease stain on his suit as the officer nodded his head in greeting.

‘What’s the atmosphere like in there?’ Rath asked.

‘OK.’ The officer gestured towards the paper. ‘Have you seen the news?’

‘Just looking now.’

‘Then you can picture Dr Weiss’s mood.’ The officer appeared at a loss. ‘I was in charge of the KaDeWe operation the night before last.’

‘Nasty,’ Rath said.

‘A nightmare.’

‘Don’t take it to heart. Things like that happen every day.’

‘Thanks, but I still need to go to Homicide.’ The officer put on his shako. ‘Why have you been summoned?’

‘If only I knew.’

The officer tipped the peak of his shako by way of goodbye and disappeared into the corridor. Moments later, Renate Greulich reappeared and bade Rath enter. The deputy commissioner sat behind his desk, noting something down. His expression gave nothing away.

‘Please take a seat,’ he said, without looking up.

Rath sat and looked out of the window while Weiss calmly finished his notes. The crane in front of Alexanderhaus gleamed in the sunlight, leaving a cluster of reinforcing bars hanging weightless in the sky. Weiss snapped his notebook shut and gazed at Rath through thick lenses, like a senior teacher surveying an exam candidate.

‘Inspector, am I right in thinking you have a brother in the United States?’

Rath had reckoned with all sorts of possibilities, but not this. ‘Pardon me, Sir?’

‘If my information is correct, your brother Severin Rath lives in America…’

‘That’s true, but…’

‘…and you visited him there once…’

How had Weiss come by this information? No one knew about that trip, not even Rath’s father, Engelbert, the police director, and he wasn’t a man you kept secrets from. In the spring of 1923 Gereon had spent three months in the USA looking for his brother; his parents had thought he was on an exchange semester in Prague, thanks to the letters his friend Paul had posted from there. ‘You’re well informed,’ Rath said.

‘It’s what I’m paid to be,’ Weiss replied, without a trace of irony. ‘You’ve heard of the Bureau of Investigation?’

‘The American Federal Police…’

Weiss nodded almost imperceptibly and opened a thin file. ‘I have a job for you, Inspector. A special assignment in which knowledge of American customs could be a distinct advantage. How’s your English?’

Rath shrugged. ‘OK, I think. The Yanks understood me anyway, and I understood them.’ What the hell was Weiss driving at?

The deputy commissioner pushed the file across the table. ‘This came through the ticker a few days ago,’ he said.

Rath skimmed the first page. Abraham Goldstein, place of birth: Brooklyn, NY. A profile. Weiss continued: ‘Our American colleagues have warned us about this man. The Bureau believes he is a member of a New York gangster syndicate.’

‘OK, but how does this concern us?’

Weiss raised his eyebrows before responding. ‘Abraham Goldstein, nickname Handsome Abe, is on his way to Berlin. He went through customs at Bremerhaven yesterday evening.’

‘If he’s so dangerous, why did the Yanks let him leave in the first place?’

‘Because they don’t have a case against him. Goldstein was put on file a few times in his youth: larceny, criminal damage, grievous bodily harm, but since then nothing, not even a parking ticket. He’s thought to be responsible for a number of underworld killings. Our American colleagues believe that he kills on behalf of Italian and Jewish gangster syndicates. The one thing no one disputes is that he has links to underworld heavyweights. Only, that isn’t a crime.’

‘Goldstein’s Jewish?’

‘Yes.’ Weiss didn’t bat an eyelid. As if it were unimportant – though of course it was anything but. A Jewish gangster in Berlin, that fact alone would be grist to the mill of the anti-Semites. Newspaper reports about the Sklarek Brothers’ fraud had been full of anti-Semitic undertones. Suddenly Rath understood why Weiss himself had intervened.

‘What’s Goldstein doing in Berlin?’ he asked. ‘Any ideas?’

‘None. The one thing we know for sure is that he is coming, on a tourist visa. Perhaps it’s only to visit the Wintergarten or the Sportpalast, or he means to throw himself into the local nightlife, like the other tourists who come here because it’s so cheap. Anything’s possible.’

‘Could he be taking care of a contract in Berlin? Eliminating someone who’s making problems for the New Yorkers?’

Weiss adopted a sceptical expression. ‘Links between local criminal circles and American gangster syndicates are not particularly well developed. Mostly drug-smuggling or alcohol. I can’t believe that an American underworld feud would reach Europe.’

‘Things aren’t exactly peaceful here at the moment,’ Rath said. ‘If you think back to the last few weeks. Maybe one of our lot sent for him, to carry out a job…’

‘There is tension in the city,’ Weiss agreed. ‘The Ringvereine know about Goldstein. Even before the Bureau got in contact, our underworld informants heard rumours that an American was expected in Berlin.’

‘What are we supposed to do if the Yanks don’t have anything on him?’

‘Round the clock surveillance, and we want him to know it too. Make it clear he is being watched, that he can’t so much as move without our knowledge. If he really has come to Berlin to kill someone, we have to show him that the best thing he can do is return straight home. Empty-handed.’

‘With all due respect, Sir, isn’t this a job for Warrants?’

‘I’m certainly not about to discuss whose jurisdiction it falls under with you.’ Weiss’s voice took on a shrill, piercing tone like something from the parade ground. The man had served as an officer in the war and would brook no arguments.

‘As you yourself have just observed,’ he continued, ‘we are talking about preventing a potential homicide. That alone ought to underline the importance of this assignment.’ Rath nodded like a schoolboy. ‘You’re in charge of this operation. Round up a few men and get on your way. Goldstein has reserved a suite in the Excelsior. I understand you’re familiar with it.’

Rath had stayed in the Excelsior for a time after arriving from Berlin two years before, but in the cheapest available single room. Weiss appeared to have done his research there too.

‘Do you want me to greet him off the train with a bunch of flowers?’

‘I don’t care whether it’s on the platform or at the hotel, so long as you make it clear that he is to behave himself in our city. He should…’

The telephone rang. Weiss picked up. ‘What is it,’ he said, annoyed.

Rath wasn’t sure whether his audience with the deputy was over. He remained seated.

Weiss adopted a serious expression. ‘I’ll come out myself,’ he said. ‘Send for a car and let Heimannsberg know.’ He hung up. ‘I think we’re finished here, Inspector. Now, get to work, and report to me tomorrow morning in person. I have to go to the university.’ Clearly Weiss had been intending to leave it at that, but he must have registered Rath’s quizzical expression. ‘Student riot,’ he said. ‘The rector has requested police assistance.’

3

The Germans were strange, he decided. Everywhere he went, they wanted to see his passport: on the boat, in the harbour, on the train, and now in the hotel too. The head porter carefully entered his name, address and passport number into the big, black-leather guest register.

‘We didn’t expect you so early, Mister Goldstein,’ the man said in English. His parting was so straight it might have been made with a ruler. ‘But suite three-o-one is now ready for you.’ He pronounced the name Gollt-schtein, like everyone in this country.

Goldstein pocketed his passport. ‘Very kind, thank you.’

‘You speak German!’ The head porter raised his eyebrows as he waved a page boy over.

‘Sure.’

The head porter handed the page the keys to the room. ‘Three-o-one,’ he said, and the boy stowed the suitcases onto a trolley.

‘If you would care to follow me, Sir,’ said the page, setting off for the lift. In his ill-fitting gold-braided livery, he looked like a monkey escaped from his organ grinder. Goldstein wondered why they hadn’t given the boy, who wore a golden number thirty-seven on his cap, anything in his size.

It reminded him of his mother, Rahel Goldstein, who had made her only son wear his trousers for so long even the tramps would realise they were too small. The same Rahel Goldstein who left her dingy flat only to go to the synagogue or the market, and refused to learn the language of her adoptive country. Abe never understood why his parents had gone to America in the first place. Their existence had played out over such a tiny area that he wondered why they had chosen so big a country, so big a city, in which to live. He could never stand the confinement and, even as a little boy, had left the flat as often as possible until his mother’s illness drove him onto the streets for good.

While Mother battled typhus and Father prayed for her salvation, Abe started hanging around with Moe and his gang by Williamsburg Bridge. They respected him, even if he was a few years younger. After Mother died, his father tried to pass him into the care of friends, then into a home, but Abe had resisted. Moe’s gang was his family, and he didn’t need anyone else. At fourteen Abe Goldstein earned his first paycheck, more in a single day than his father could scrape together in weeks. People in the neighbourhood had already started talking about him after Mother’s funeral, which was the last time he had been to synagogue, and all the more when, on the occasion of Father’s funeral, he had appeared drunk at the cemetery. They were still talking about him, too, though these days with respect, which was the only thing that mattered.

The lift sped upwards, barely making a sound. They made two stops, but only when the liftboy announced the third floor did number 37 turn his attention to the luggage trolley. Suite 301 wasn’t too far from the lifts, just around the corner. The page opened the door and Goldstein stepped inside. Everything seemed to be in order. Exactly the level of comfort one would expect from the price category. A spacious, bright living room, big windows pointing towards the enormous station roof, immediately in front of them a large desk, and a comfortable, upholstered corner sofa against the wall. On the table was a fruit bowl, and, to the right, a double leaf door that led into the bedroom. The page had set the luggage down and was now waiting expectantly in the door, the flat of his hand facing discreetly upwards. Goldstein pressed a dollar note into the boy’s hand – he still hadn’t got around to trading his dollars for German money – and waited until the page had wished him a pleasant stay and departed.

At the window he lit a Camel cigarette. Clouds were building over the station roof, but the sun had fought its way through and was shining on the crowds in front of the round brick arches. People were streaming outside, with and without suitcases, waving taxis over or heading for the bus stop and tram. So, this was Berlin. He blew smoke against the glass and gazed across the city. Not knowing exactly what awaited him filled him with unease. Had he really made the long journey just to see a man about whom the only thing he knew was his name?

Hearing a noise from the bedroom he pressed the cigarette into the ashtray and reached for his waistband, still not accustomed to being unarmed. He took the paperweight from the desk and tiptoed towards the connecting door, bronze bird ready to strike. It seemed unlikely that it was one of Fat Moe’s boys. The man’s influence didn’t stretch this far, but Abe Goldstein had never lost anything by exercising caution when the situation demanded. He looked through the half-open door. Against the end wall was an enormous bed, covered with a champagne-coloured satin duvet and flanked by two night-tables. To the right, next to the dressing table, a door led to the bathroom. It was open, and in the frame he could make out a nicely rounded ass belonging to a stooped figure in a black dress and white apron. A chambermaid, running behind schedule, was draping white hand-towels over a stand. He savoured the view for a few seconds before audibly clearing his throat. The maid wheeled around, but Goldstein could see from her eyes that she had wanted to be caught. She was out for a tip.

‘My apologies, Sir.’ She curtseyed and gazed at the floor, but there was a cheeky glint in her eyes when she looked up again. ‘Excuse me, Sir. I’m Marion, your chambermaid,’ she said in English. ‘Ihr Zimmermädchen.’

She clearly knew that this latest guest was American, and her English wasn’t bad.

‘I appreciate chambermaids who go about their duties conscientiously,’ he said in German. ‘Don’t let me keep you from your work.’

‘Actually, I’m finished here.’ She gave him another of her perfectly innocent glances. ‘If my services are no longer required.’

He fetched his wad of dollar bills and handed her three notes. ‘I’m sure I’ll call on you again.’

‘Ask for Marion. I have to go now.’

She pocketed the notes as if a tip of that size were the most natural thing in the world, and wedged a stack of hand-towels under her arm. Her profile wasn’t bad either. She brushed casually against him as she squeezed past, and Goldstein felt the blood pulsing between his legs. He followed her into the drawing room, but she had already opened the door to the corridor.

‘Marion!’ he said. She came to a halt in the doorframe and waited. An elderly gentleman passed behind her along the corridor and squinted over curiously. To be on the safe side, Goldstein switched to English. ‘May I see you again, Marion?’ he said. ‘You know, I could use some company in this town…’

She stood in the door and gazed up at him with her big blue eyes, in such a way that he was suddenly very aware of his erection. No doubt she could see it too. Not that he minded.

‘I have to go, but I finish at four.’

‘I’ll be here. Just give me a knock.’

4

Rigaer Strasse was not a pretty street, but this was its ugliest point, right here. It was as if Kalli had deliberately chosen the lousiest spot in a district not famed for its charm. Alex had taken the 9 to Baltenplatz and walked the rest of the way; now she put down the heavy bag and stood in front of the display window. Eberhard Kallweit Bought and Sold was painted in white across the glass. All manner of junk was gathering dust behind the windowpane: a gramophone, a typewriter, an electric vacuum cleaner, a telephone, four chairs that weren’t part of a set, and a rubber plant. None of it had been sold in the months Alex had been coming here. Kalli made his money from items that weren’t on display, and didn’t show up in the accounts.

There were no customers inside. She picked up her bag and climbed the stairs.

A rasping, high-pitched ring announced her as she pressed down on the door handle and entered. Kalli was lurking behind the counter in his grey overalls. His best shopkeeper’s grin froze when he recognised her. For a fraction of a second, he seemed paralysed by the shock, but then he said quietly, as if afraid somebody might hear. ‘Are you mad, coming here like this? What if I have customers?’

‘You weren’t at Krehmann’s yesterday.’

‘You’ve got some nerve! You went to Krehmann’s after everything that’s happened? After that monumental cock-up of yours! The police are after you. You realise that, don’t you?’

‘Cock-up?’ Alex couldn’t believe it. Kalli was an arsehole. ‘A cock-up, that’s what you’re calling it? Benny’s dead for fuck’s sake.’

‘What’s he doing scrambling about on department store fronts?’

‘Trying not to get caught. If that pig hadn’t kicked him off, he’d still be alive.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘There was a cop after him. He stepped on Benny’s fingers until he couldn’t hold on anymore. That’s why he fell. That pig killed him, and I had to stand by and watch.’

Kalli shook his head. ‘I should never have let myself get involved with you kids.’ He seemed to be speaking to the cash register. ‘I ought to have known it would go belly-up.’

‘You’re the one who sent us to KaDeWe,’ she shouted. ‘We’ve never had any trouble otherwise. There were no cops in Tietz or Karstadt. It was you who insisted we turn over KaDeWe.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘That you sent us in because you wanted the goods.’ She placed the bag on the counter. ‘And we got them for you.’

Kalli snatched the bag from the counter. ‘Are you crazy, walking around here with that? Coming into my shop?’

‘Since you weren’t at Krehmann’s, I thought I’d bring it round. Jewellery and watches, as agreed.’

‘The agreement was you wouldn’t get caught.’

‘They caught Benny. They didn’t catch me.’

Kalli gave a rueful shrug. ‘What am I supposed to do with all this? It’s worthless after all the commotion. No one can shift it, not even me.’

‘Commotion?’ Alex shouted louder. ‘Benny died for this and you’re telling me you don’t want it? Am I hearing you right?’

‘Don’t get so worked up, Alex. Let’s take a look, but not here, out back.’

The little room behind the shop smelled of onions and beer. Kalli cleared away a plate and two bottles and laid the bag on the table. From the breast pocket of his jacket he fetched a battered leather case, opened it and fumbled out a pair of glasses. In his overalls and crooked wire-rimmed spectacles he looked like a mad chemistry professor. He sat at the table and held each watch in front of his lenses.

‘Only watches,’ he said after a while, sounding disappointed. ‘No jewellery?’

‘The cops have it. It was in Benny’s bag.’

Kalli shook his head. ‘That stuff about the cops killing Benny. Is it really true?’

‘I saw it myself. And… he told me before he died. Benny told me the man trampled on his fingers until he couldn’t hold on.’

Kalli considered a moment. ‘Better keep it to yourself. You shouldn’t spread that sort of story around; the cops won’t stand for it.’ He stood up so unexpectedly that Alex gave a start. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I don’t want things to be awkward between us.’

She followed him back into the shop where he pulled a lever on the cash register. The drawer sprang open with a loud pling. He fumbled a brown note out and passed it across the counter. ‘Here! Because it’s you, and because of the business with Benny.’

‘A twenty?’ she said. Werner von Siemens was staring back at her. ‘You can’t be serious. You gave us more for the junk from Tietz!’

‘I’m doing you a favour. No one else will take it off you. Not after everything that’s happened. Do you know how hot it is? It’ll probably get me into trouble, but since it’s you…’ He waved the twenty. ‘Come on, take the money and that’ll be that.’

Twenty marks. Kalli would probably get that much for a single watch when he sold it on, and there were at least fifty in the bag. On the other hand, he was right. If he didn’t take the watches she’d have to sit on them. She swallowed her rage, took the twenty and sneaked a peek inside Kalli’s cash register. It was full. Maybe she could get the money due to her by other means. She stuffed the note into her jacket, and saw Kalli looking on in satisfaction. She wasn’t finished with him yet.

‘One more thing,’ Kalli said, grinning like a hyena as Alex reached the door. ‘I really don’t need any more trouble with the police. So… do me favour and don’t show your face around here for a while.’

We’ll see about that you arsehole, Alex thought and nodded, we’ll see about that.

5

Rath stood before a half-naked man, which so confused him he was no longer certain he was in the right place, although reception had given him exactly this room number. The man had an extremely muscular upper body which he seemed to enjoy showing off. Naked save for a hotel towel wrapped around his waist, he looked at least as surprised as Rath himself. He had clearly been expecting someone else, someone whom it was OK to meet clad only in a towel and with hair still wet from the shower. Had he already been accosted by one of the whores at Friedrichstrasse station, or did he have a girlfriend in Berlin?

Hand in front of his mouth, Rath gave a slight cough, an irritating habit in embarrassing or unpleasant situations that had been drummed into him as a child. Somehow he couldn’t rid himself of it, even if it made him feel like a butler who has surprised his master in the throes of lovemaking.

‘Abraham Goldstein?’

‘Gold-sstiehn.’

The man in the towel didn’t look dangerous exactly. He appeared athletic, and there was an ironic glint in his eyes, as if he didn’t take life entirely seriously.

Rath flashed his badge. ‘German police. May I come in, Sir?’

Goldstein stepped to one side and opened the door fully. Rath entered and looked around. The suite was elegantly arranged: damask wallpaper, mahogany furniture, soft carpets, and roughly four or five times bigger than the four-mark-fifty room Rath had taken some two years before. Probably five times as expensive too. At least.

Rath cleared his throat, continuing in English: ‘Well, Mister Goldstein, I have to inform you that the German police are legitimated to…’

Goldstein, lifting a packet of cigarettes from the table, interrupted. ‘I was hoping you were room service.’

Rath was surprised. The man spoke almost accent-free German, sounding nothing like the American tourists who seemed to chew, rather than speak, the language. ‘I’m afraid I must disappoint you there,’ he said. ‘I come bearing neither food nor drink.’

Goldstein placed a cigarette between his lips and offered the carton to Rath. Was this bribery or could he accept? Camel read the inscription, and Rath was too curious about American cigarettes to turn him down. Goldstein gave him a light.

‘So, Officer,’ the American said, ‘what brings you to me?’

‘Inspector,’ Rath corrected. ‘Inspector Rath.’ He almost added Homicide, as was his custom, but realised, just in time, that he was here in a different capacity. ‘You speak German?’

‘Thanks to my mother.’ Goldstein shrugged. ‘So, please explain what the Berlin Police wants from me.’

‘Fundamentally it wants the same from you as it does from anyone else: that you behave yourself accordingly in our city.’

Goldstein exhaled smoke through his nostrils, the smile at the corner of his mouth having suddenly disappeared. ‘Do you make this request of everyone, or is it just Americans?’

‘You are one of the chosen few. I hope you appreciate the honour.’

‘Speaking of behavioural codes, I’m just out of the shower. You’ll permit me to get dressed? Take a seat.’ Goldstein disappeared into the adjoining room.

Rath remained standing, keeping an eye on the bedroom window through the half-open door. He wasn’t expecting a bolt for freedom, and he certainly wasn’t expecting Goldstein to shoot his way out of trouble, but he decided, nevertheless, to unfasten his shoulder holster and take out his service weapon, a Walther PP, issued as a replacement for his Mauser the year before. He released the safety catch and placed it, together with his right hand, in his coat pocket. Just in case. Smoking with his left hand felt a little unusual, but it was fine.

He had just stubbed out the Camel when Goldstein reappeared in a thin, light-grey summer suit. Rath kept his hand tight on the pistol, finger poised over the trigger, but the American seemed determined to keep things peaceful.

‘So, here I am. Won’t you have a seat? You haven’t even taken off your hat.’

‘I prefer to stand.’

‘I don’t know what you’ve heard about me or my country, but rest assured you can take your hand out of your pocket. I’m unarmed.’ Rath felt like a schoolboy who hadn’t concealed his crib sheet properly. ‘You still haven’t told me the purpose of your visit,’ Goldstein said, lighting a cigarette. This time Rath declined.

‘I’d like to ask a few questions, that’s all.’

‘You do like keeping people in suspense. Ask away.’

‘You are Abraham Goldstein from New York?’

‘Williamsburg. It’s part of Brooklyn.’

‘Why are you in Berlin, Mister Goldstein?’

‘Why don’t you look in the guest register at reception?’

‘I want to hear it from you.’

‘I’m a tourist, exploring Germany’s beautiful capital city.’

‘There are no other reasons for your visit?’

‘Such as?’

‘Perhaps you’ve been hired to kill someone.’

Goldstein, who had just taken a drag on his cigarette, looked as if he had misheard. ‘I beg your pardon? You have too much imagination, Officer.’

‘You’ve been implicated in five separate murder investigations in your home country.’

‘Yet I’m standing here before you now. What does that tell you?’

‘That you have a good lawyer.’ Rath opened the brown briefcase and removed an ink pad and fingerprinting sheet.

Goldstein stared at the form with the ten consecutively numbered boxes. ‘What the hell is that?’ he asked, switching to English.

Well, my arrogant friend, Rath thought, it seems as if we’ve thrown you after all. ‘Herr Abraham Goldstein,’ he said, formal as a bailiff, ‘the Berlin police commissioner has invested in me the power to take your fingerprints. Perhaps we should sit down…’

‘Do you behave like this with every foreigner?’

Rath opened the ink pad’s metal lid. ‘No.’

‘To what do I owe the honour then?’

‘Mister Goldstein, if I may speak openly, Berlin is not exactly thrilled at the prospect of your visit…’

‘You shouldn’t believe everything Hoover’s men tell you. Do you think I’m a gangster?’

‘It doesn’t matter what I think. Your convictions justify police measures of this kind. I came here to spare you any unpleasantness. If you like I can pack everything up and order you to appear at the station tomorrow. The waiting times in ED are notorious. You’ll want to take a few puzzle books with you.’

Goldstein grinned. ‘I see you know all the tricks.’ He took off his jacket, rolled up his shirtsleeves and sat at the table. ‘OK, let’s get it over with. But if you’re planning to do this sort of thing in future, come a little earlier. Then I won’t have to shower twice.’

‘Cleanliness is a virtue,’ Rath said, taking the American’s right hand and pressing the thumb first on the ink pad and then inside the appropriate box on the form. A good, clean print. ED, the police identification service, would be pleased, even if Rath hoped they’d never have to use it. The fingerprint business was meant to show Goldstein who was in charge, not that he seemed greatly impressed.

‘What happens to that sheet when we’re finished?’ he asked, sounding like a patient who wants to know his blood pressure.

‘It’s added to our collection,’ Rath said, taking the next print. ‘And if your prints turn up on anything even halfway suspicious, you’ll be behind bars. Simple as that.’

‘As I said, I’m a tourist, here to explore your city.’

‘Then you’ll have no objection to police observing you as you go about it.’

‘Pardon me?’ Goldstein pulled his hand away before Rath could press his already blackened pinkie onto the page.

‘No need to get worked up. We’re keeping an eye on you for your own safety. It shouldn’t put you out in the slightest, so long as you’ve nothing to hide.’

‘What if it does put me out?! Fucking unbelievable! Is this some sort of police state? I thought you’d driven your Kaiser out and founded a democracy!’

‘The safety of our… tourists matters a great deal to us.’

Goldstein gazed at Rath as if sizing him up. ‘So, I have my own babysitter, is that right? One with a piece, to boot.’

‘If you like.’

Goldstein shook his head. ‘What happens if I give you the slip? Will you shoot me?’

‘You won’t.’

A smile reappeared on Goldstein’s face. ‘Finally, an offer I can work with,’ he said, stretching out a blackened right hand.

6

The number of people passing through these revolving doors! Just looking made you dizzy. For a while Rath had counted bald men, then moustachioed men. When that became boring he counted women with bandy legs. You had to do something to pass the time – and he had already read all the papers. He still had to keep an eye on the hallway, of course, in case the Yank took a stroll, but it seemed as if Abe Goldstein was happy as Larry in his suite.

Every few minutes some helpful soul would change the ashtrays, so Rath lost track of how many cigarettes he had smoked. His supplies, at any rate, were dwindling. Only two were left in the packet, but the Excelsior housed a good range of tobacco products.

His attempt to intimidate the show-off Yank had failed spectacularly, and he was annoyed. Goldstein had made fun of him instead, by proposing a wager. As if they were playing chase, hide-and-seek or – more appropriately – cops and robbers.

Things weren’t looking good. Rath lit his second to last Overstolz. The coffee in the gold-rimmed cup had long since grown cold. He took a sip and leafed through the Vossische Zeitung without reading it, until he grew tired even of that and placed the paper next to the cup. A boy immediately sprang forth, smoothing and folding the crumpled newspaper so that it looked as good as new, and replacing it beside the others. Rath stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. The porter gazed at him expectantly.

‘Ah, Inspector.’ His voice dripped with kindness turned sour. ‘What can I do for you? Would you like to take another glance at the guest register? Or might I reserve you a room, since you are clearly intent on staying a little longer?’

‘Don’t put yourself out. Your hallway is perfectly agreeable. Very comfy chairs.’

‘Where the comfort of our guests is concerned we spare neither trouble nor expense.’

‘I should hope not.’

The porter leaned in a little and lowered his voice. ‘Inspector, won’t you please tell me what Mister Goldstein has done to attract the attention of the police?’

Rath leaned in too. ‘I’m afraid that isn’t any of your concern.’

‘If one of our guests is suspected of a crime, we ought to know about it. I shall have to inform our in-house detective. We’re talking about the safety of our hotel here!’

Rath nodded. ‘Quite right. Fetch your detective here but, first, I’ll make a telephone call.’

‘Should I put it on your account?’

‘If you would be so kind,’ Rath smiled pleasantly. Four coffees, a sandwich and a telephone call. Driving up his expenses bill was about the only pleasure left to him, and there was still a big carton of Overstolz to be added.

A short time later, he stood in one of the telephone booths, staring through the glass door, listening for the connection. He still had the lifts in his sights, as well as the great revolving door leading onto Stresemannstrasse. No one was home at Spenerstrasse, so he asked to be put through to Lichtenberg District Court and Fräulein Ritter.

‘Good thing you called,’ Charly said. ‘There’s trouble.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘Weber’s just back from holiday…’

Special Counsel Albrecht Weber was Charly’s superior at the District Court.

‘So?’

‘Weber isn’t quite so taken with your dog’s charms as the rest of them here… Gereon, I can’t take Kirie into work anymore. From tomorrow you’ll have to start taking her to Alex again.’ That was all he needed. ‘Let’s talk about it at dinner. There’s something I need to speak to you about anyway. Will you be home on time?’

‘That’s why I’m calling,’ he said. ‘I’ll be about an hour late. Weiss has lumped this surveillance on me.’

‘The deputy himself? Go on, I’m all ears.’

Charly couldn’t hide her curiosity. Once upon a time she had worked in Homicide too. As a stenographer, nominally, but Gennat and Böhm had been only too happy to rely on her investigative acumen, and had deployed the prospective lawyer accordingly.

Rath told her about Goldstein and his assignment.

‘Sounds like a punishment,’ she said.

‘I didn’t do anything, honest.’

‘Perhaps Weiss wants to make you atone for your youthful misdeeds.’

‘I thought I’d already paid my dues.’

About a year before, Rath had been subjected to disciplinary proceedings. He had got off lightly, mainly because Gennat had put in a good word, but his scheduled promotion to chief inspector had been temporarily put on hold. Not even political support from the Prussian Interior Ministry, prompted by Konrad Adenauer, a personal friend of his father, had been able to change that.

‘I have to hang up now, Charly. I’m wanted here. See you tonight.’

There was a man at reception, whose appearance didn’t quite match the elegance of his light-brown summer suit. Although the suit looked tailor-made, it flapped at the edges whenever its bearer moved. He didn’t look anything like the veteran cop Rath had been expecting, more like a starving, unemployed bookkeeper. The porter pointed with his chin towards the telephone booth. Rath left the booth and went over. The man’s handshake was firmer than expected.

‘I’m the hotel detective,’ said the hotel detective. ‘Grunert. And you’re from the… CID?’ He spoke the last word quietly, as if it were something to be ashamed of. ‘Could I see your identification?’

‘Certainly.’ Rath fumbled the document out of his bag.

The hotel detective unfolded it with nimble fingers and compared the photograph with the man, declaring himself satisfied and returning it to Rath. ‘You understand that we have a legitimate interest in knowing why the police are here. Herr Teubner tells me that your attention is reserved for a particular guest. The American in 301?’

‘That’s right. Abraham Goldstein. But don’t worry, the man knows that the police…’

‘Herr Rath?’ Teubner, the porter, interrupted them. He stood behind his counter, holding the receiver in his hand. ‘My apologies. Telephone for you, Herr Rath. It seems to be rather urgent. A Herr Gräf…’

Rath took the receiver. ‘Reinhold?’ he said into the mouthpiece.

‘Gereon, you were right!’ The detective sounded a little harried. ‘Goldstein has taken the lift downstairs and is heading for the tunnel.’

7

It took Kalli a moment to realise what had happened. The pain in his skull was resounding, like the noise of the S-Bahn if you stood directly under the bridge. Then he noticed that someone was singing. He recognised the voice, but couldn’t see who it was and, when he opened his eyes, saw nothing but a blurry, undefined, dirty grey. He had to force himself to focus, at last making out the familiar grey overalls he wore in the shop, covered in blood. He was staring at his own lap. A record was playing, and now he recognised the song thundering from the loudspeakers, much louder than he was accustomed to.

A blue figure was sitting on the sofa next to the record player, where he usually took his nap. With the face, the memory came flooding back.

A cop had appeared in his shop, someone he had never seen before, neither here nor in the neighbourhood – and Kalli knew all the cops who walked the beat. A newbie, he thought at first, who would learn in time that it was best not to sniff around in here if you didn’t want to make trouble with Berolina. He had taken a wristwatch from the shelf, a cheap piece of rubbish, nothing like as elegant as the pieces Alex had lifted from KaDeWe. The cop hadn’t responded to his friendly greeting, merely held the watch in his hand, gripping the strap so that the dial now faced him, and gaping at the inert clock-hand as if this piece of crap, whose provenance Kalli knew absolutely nothing about, was the most valuable item under the sun, before drawing closer to the counter.

‘Bet this is stolen,’ were his precise words as he arrived, nothing more, and Kalli felt his hunch confirmed: a greenhorn who needed to be taught some manners. One phone call to Lenz, and the matter would be resolved. Berolina would cut this big mouth down to size, no need to feel intimidated, but then something unexpected happened.

The cop, now standing right in front of the counter with an indefinable grin on his face, struck him without warning with his right hand, using the watch as a kind of knuckleduster. The first blow landed in the middle of Kalli’s face, and the shopkeeper heard his nose break and felt blood streaming out of him. He tumbled against the shelves, still not sure what had happened. The cop pulled him up brutally by his overalls and struck him again on the point of the chin. After a brief flash of pain, everything went black.

He couldn’t say how long he had been unconscious. Light spilled in from the shop through the crack in the door, so it must still be daytime. He lifted his head slowly, carefully, to avoid exacerbating the pain. The cop had made himself comfortable on the sofa, having removed the shako from his head and placed it beside him. This man sitting on his sofa, in his back room, listening to his music, did he have any idea what Berolina would do to him when they found out?

Kalli couldn’t believe he had let himself be caught unawares like this. He thought he knew all the tricks, thought himself better than all the ne’er-do-wells here in the Samariterviertel. No one would dare rob his little shop. It was no secret that he kept a loaded war pistol underneath the counter. This cop either didn’t know or didn’t care.

Kalli tried to speak, but his tongue stuck to his gums. He could only utter a squelching sort of groan.

‘Well, you bent Jews’ sow,’ the cop said. ‘Awake at last?’

Kalli had to gather enough spit to get his tongue moving again. ‘I’m not a Jew,’ he protested, as if that was the most pressing issue to clarify. He was still thinking about the stupidity of his response when the cop planted himself in front of him.

‘Then what are you doing in a goddamned Jew shop?’ Kalli could smell the sweat in the fabric of his uniform.

Again, the blow came without warning, this time to the solar plexus. Kalli felt like he was going to choke, and instinctively tried to protect his stomach with his hands, but couldn’t move. The man must have bound him.

‘What’s the big idea?’ he gasped. ‘What the hell is going on?’

The next blow struck him in exactly the same location. The gag reflex turned Kalli’s stomach upside down and a part of its contents landed in his mouth. He swallowed the sour-tasting gruel and suppressed a fresh urge to choke. What kind of arsehole was he dealing with here?

‘First rule: only speak when spoken to,’ the cop said.

Kalli waited to be spoken to, but the man moved silently to the record player, removing the needle so that a violent scratch echoed through the loudspeaker.

Then a question did come, but not from the cop who had retaken his seat next to the shako. It came from a man who must have been standing at the door leading out back.

‘Why do you think we’re here, Kalli?’ said a familiar voice.

Kalli turned as far as he could, but it wasn’t enough to see his interrogator. The thing that startled him most was that they knew his name, even his nickname. All at once, Eberhard Kallweit knew he was in serious trouble. He had misread the situation. The cop was just muscle. Kalli’s real problem was the other man, the owner of the voice. The nameless man, whom Kalli had always called Stephan, after the telephone exchange through which he contacted him. How the hell had he found his shop?

Lenz or Berolina must have played him false, otherwise he’d never have been listening to that voice within his own four walls, unless through a telephone cable. He didn’t know anything about Stephan, didn’t know what he looked like or what he was called, but he had to be a cop, a cop that Berolina trusted and probably even paid.

Lenz had given him the number to get rid of Alex and Benny, and Kalli had called it. Stephan hadn’t identified himself on the line, and Kalli hadn’t divulged anything, not even just now, when, after Alex’s surprise visit, he had gone straight over to the S-Bahn station, and asked to be put through again: STEPHAN 1701. It was the only link to Stephan he had. He almost gave a start when the man picked up after the first ring. Then, drawing courage from the fact that he couldn’t be seen, he proceeded to kick up a fuss. He had been shocked by the news of Benny’s death, putting two and two together that morning as he leafed through the paper. Alex had merely confirmed his suspicions with her version of events later that day. He hadn’t wanted the boy to die; nor, surely, had Berolina. No, it was the fault of the cops alone. It was they who would have to pay!

Stephan had been angry from the start, but seeing as he was invisible, Kalli didn’t care. ‘Why the hell are you calling me?’ he had said. ‘It’s over. You don’t know this number anymore.’

‘That wasn’t what we agreed! They were supposed to end up behind bars. No one said anything about killing them.’

‘What was supposed to happen is none of your concern. The boy died. It was an accident.’

‘It was no accident, it was murder. I’ve got witnesses. I know reporters who’d pay a pretty penny for a story like that. Police officer murders minor!’

The momentary silence at the end of the line confirmed what Kalli knew already. Alex must have been telling the truth.

‘You’ve had your money, now you’re out.’

‘Maybe it wasn’t enough.’

The voice was silent for a moment. ‘Let’s talk about that,’ it said meekly, as if assailed by a guilty conscience. ‘Where shall we meet?’

‘Meet? You must be joking. I’ll call you.’ With that, Kalli hung up. There was still time to decide how much to ask for, and how it should be delivered.

If he had known the consequences of that brief telephone conversation, he’d have closed his shop for a few weeks and driven to his brother’s place in the country. Instead, he was tightly bound in the backroom of his own shop, cursing the day he had ratted on Alex and Benny for a few measly pennies. All because they had become a nuisance to Berolina: two street urchins who had grown too big for their boots, cleaning out the city’s department stores, making the fuzz jumpy and forcing prices down. Berolina was a more important business partner than Alex and Benny. A few years in the can wouldn’t do them any harm, Kalli had thought.

‘I’ve never known you so quiet, Kalli. Normally you’d talk the hind leg off a donkey. Or do you need a telephone to speak? You should have bought yourself one, then you wouldn’t have to traipse all the way to the S-Bahn station.’

The voice was now directly behind him, just as calm as it had been on the telephone but a thousand times more threatening.

‘Your friend here smashes my face in if I say anything. Is this a new police tactic?’

‘The police are experimenting with new tactics, but I’m not about to discuss them with you. I assume you know why I’m here.’

‘My telephone call just now?’ Kalli shook his head indignantly, as if in denial of this whole scene, this whole situation. ‘It was just a little fun.’

‘I didn’t hear you laughing.’

‘I’m not about to rat anyone out. I’ve never blabbed. Ask anyone in the neighbourhood.’

‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Should I be laughing?’

‘Those two brats. That was different. They were criminals. I’ve got no intention of talking, believe me. I’d be getting myself into all kinds of trouble.’

It took a moment for the voice to respond. ‘Do you know what?’ it said. ‘I actually believe you. You won’t go to the papers, I’m one hundred percent sure of that.’

Kalli felt almost euphoric. ‘No, I won’t. Absolutely not. I don’t even know anyone there.’

Stephan fell silent again, and Kalli felt as uneasy as he had at the start of the conversation. ‘What else do you want from me?’ he asked. ‘Untie me. I’m thirsty.’

‘One last thing, then you can have something to drink.’ By the sound of his voice, Stephan must have been back by the door. ‘You mentioned a witness. Give me a name, and you’ll be rid of me. My friend here too.’

Kalli gazed confused at the cop, who had got up from the sofa again and started looking at the photos on the wall.

‘You meant the other boy, didn’t you?’ the man at the door continued. ‘The one who escaped. Did he come here? Try to make some money? Is he the one who’s been spreading these tall tales?’

They didn’t know Alex was a girl. Stupid cops, so full of their own importance! Kalli would’ve liked nothing more than to laugh out loud, but was prevented by the feeling of helplessness growing inside of him. Why didn’t they untie him? It wasn’t as if he was going to scarper!

‘The other boy?’ he said, shrugging his shoulders – so far as he could with his hands tied. ‘No, he hasn’t been here. He probably knows not to show his face.’

‘Why is it I don’t believe you?’ Though Kalli couldn’t see him, he was certain that Stephan was shaking his head. ‘Not that it matters. Just tell me where I can find the boy. That’s all I need to know.’

‘No idea. I don’t know the brats myself. They only sold me stuff that one time. It’s not as if they left a forwarding address.’

The man behind him said nothing more. The cop, however, ceased looking at the photo and moved towards the record player, dropping the tone arm on the record so that it made a hideous sound as it jumped up and down, before locating the groove. The bastard! Destroying his records! And so damn loud! Finally the cop found the volume control. Only, he didn’t turn it down, as Kalli had expected, but up, until it couldn’t go any higher. Adieu, mein kleiner Gardeoffizier, adieu, adieu… Kalli had never heard Richard Tauber sing so loud. The cop drew nearer and grinned.

8

With its tooting cars and rumbling buses, the cacophony on Stresemannstrasse was a thousand times preferable than the soporific murmur in the hotel hall. Behind the trees on Askanischer Platz the brick colossus of Anhalter Bahnhof rose into the grey-blue sky.

Rath crossed over, keeping the two stairways that led onto the street in view. One of them was right outside the hotel, the second by the southeast corner of the station. They weren’t steps down to the U-Bahn station, but exits from the pedestrian tunnel, which connected the Excelsior with Anhalter Bahnhof. The tunnel was the hotel’s pride and joy. No brochure omitted it, and Goldstein had discovered it on his very first day… well, good for him, but luckily Rath had stationed Gräf there.

He was wondering where Goldstein might have got to, when he emerged from the ground on Möckernstrasse, right by the station. The Yank was wearing the same outfit as before, a light, sand-coloured suit, matching hat and pale trenchcoat. Having reached the top of the stairs, he came to a halt and looked around. Rath made no attempt to conceal himself. If Goldstein saw him he would perhaps give up and return to the hotel.

The American was already making for the taxi stand outside the station when Gräf emerged, a little out of breath, searching for his target. Rath intercepted him.

‘Looks like our man’s about to take a taxi,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay on him, you go back to the hotel. Plisch and Plum will take over in just under an hour.’

Gräf nodded and made an about-turn.

When Rath turned to face the taxi stand, Goldstein was gone. At the same moment, a premium-class taxi detached itself from the line and rolled towards Stresemannstrasse, where a number of cabs were filtering into the moving traffic. Rath made out a sand-coloured hat in the backseat; indeed, thought for a moment that Goldstein had briefly raised his hand, as if waving.

He made a note of the taxi number and sprinted for his car, which was parked by the station. By the time he’d started it, Goldstein’s taxi was turning onto Stresemannstrasse, going towards Potsdamer Platz. Rath overtook an Opel looking for a parking spot and followed the taxi. He had a vehicle in his sights without quite knowing if it was Goldstein’s taxi or not and, metre by metre, was drawing nearer. At Potsdamer Platz they stopped at a red light. Rath was so close he could read the number: 7685.

The light jumped to green, and on they went down Bellevuestrasse, across Kemperplatz and into Tiergartenstrasse. Rath stayed with them until, just as he decided that the American must be heading for the west, the taxi turned right, without indicating, towards the Grosse Stern. Goldstein had seen him.

They tried to lose him at the roundabout, first going all the way round several times, only to turn suddenly onto Charlottenburger Allee. Rath stayed with them, and caught them again by the Brandenburger Tor. How much was Goldstein paying the driver, he wondered. Refusing to be shaken off, he followed the crazed taxi further east, both drivers flouting every traffic regulation under the sun.

After three-quarters of an hour and an odyssey through Weissensee and Pankow, the wild chase was suddenly over. Having just turned onto a side street in deepest Wedding, the taxi came to a halt so abruptly on the kerbstone that Rath almost kept driving. He parked on the other side of the road, keeping the taxi in view. The meter must have clocked up an astronomical sum. Goldstein got out, and looked around, as if checking he was in the right place, before putting on his hat and marching purposefully towards a pub on the corner. He opened the door and disappeared inside. The taxi stayed where it was, engine running.

Rath got out and crossed the street, keeping the pub door in view, and held his badge against the taxi window. The driver wound down the window.

‘Yes, Inspector?’

‘Did your passenger say how long you had to wait?’

‘He did.’

‘So, when’s he coming back?’

The man shrugged. ‘No idea.’

‘Did he or didn’t he tell you how long you had to wait?’

‘Take it easy, man. He said I should wait until the meter shows twenty.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘Beats me. Only thing I know is it’s at twelve fifty. He’s already paid, so here I am waiting, and that’s that.’ Rath slammed the roof in rage and turned away.

The name of the pub hardly inspired confidence: Rote Laterne. The Red Lantern. A fug of beer met him as he entered the half-darkness, making out a lounge that stretched into infinity, a dark tunnel in which the bar shone like a promise. A few male guests sat in silence. One of them was barely capable of keeping himself upright, but even he turned his head to look. Rath couldn’t see the Yank anywhere. The woman behind the bar continued to tap beer without looking up.

‘A man must have come through this way,’ he said. It wasn’t a good idea to show his badge here. He turned to the barmaid. ‘Did a man come through here?’

The woman, who seemed a little fragile, gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod. ‘A while ago.’ She gestured towards the back. ‘Asked for the toilets.’

The narrow, dark corridor reeked of piss. Rath held his breath and flung open the toilet door, not expecting to find Goldstein by the urinal. He quickly made sure the cubicle was also empty and continued on his way to the courtyard. No trace. He hurried through a large archway leading onto Reinickendorfer Strasse, a wide street with lots of pedestrians, and spotted him there. The light-coloured hat was too elegant for a neighbourhood like this, where most people wore plain caps. Goldstein was making for Nettelbeckplatz, crossing the carriageway just before the railway bridge. For a moment, Rath thought he was headed for the S-Bahn station, but he turned into Lindower Strasse, which looked just as run-down as the street where the taxi was waiting. Had he taken a wrong turn?

Yet Goldstein didn’t seem like a lost tourist. He strode purposefully towards Müllerstrasse and descended the steps to the U-Bahn. Rath had to increase his pace to keep up, and saw him again on the platform, just as a train was approaching.

Goldstein grinned without, however, making any attempt to climb aboard. Rath stayed close to a door, ready to jump in if he had to. The stationmaster’s ‘Keep back!’ came through the loudspeakers and had the effect of a starting pistol on Goldstein. He dived into the train, and Rath did likewise, just making it into third-class as the train started and the doors engaged.

‘Are you daft or something?’ grumbled an ill-tempered worker, whose foot Rath had trampled. ‘Pay attention, can’t you?’

‘Sorry,’ Rath mumbled. The next station was Schwartzkopffstrasse; they were heading south. Rath poked his head out of the door, but Goldstein didn’t get off. There was no other way of keeping the Yank in view. He was sitting in second-class and there was no connecting door. He still hadn’t got off when the ‘Keep back’ sounded. Only at the last moment did Rath pull his head in.

‘You’re a strange one,’ the worker said. ‘Don’t know whether you’re coming or going.’

The man got out at Stettiner Bahnhof, leaving Rath in peace. The rest of the passengers looked at him quizzically when, with each new station, he moved to the door, blocking the path of those boarding and alighting and earning himself a few shoves. Goldstein didn’t dismount until Kochstrasse.

Goldstein waited for him at the foot of the steps. ‘Well, Inspector,’ he said. ‘This Berlin of yours is a lovely city.’

They climbed the stairs, gangster and police inspector together.

‘If you want a guided tour,’ Rath said, ‘I’d recommend one of Käse’s travel buses. You’ll see more for less money.’

‘I’ll remember that. Will you be joining me?’

Rath gave a sour smile.

They reached Friedrichstrasse. Dusk was falling and the first shops had switched on their neon signs.

‘Will you escort me back to the hotel?’ Goldstein asked. ‘It shouldn’t be too far from here, the taxi driver said.’

‘I’ll do anything I can to make your stay in our city as unpleasant as possible.’

Goldstein shook his head. ‘Is that the famous Berlin hospitality?’

‘We don’t like your sort here. This isn’t Chicago.’

‘So I’m a bogeyman and this is a city full of angels. Is that it?’

‘All I want is for you not to get away. As long as I manage that, I’m happy.’

At Wilhelmstrasse, Goldstein stopped at the corner outside the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais. He tapped a Camel out of the carton and lit it before replying. ‘Who says I’m trying to get away, Officer?’

9

The sun disappeared behind the roofs and sent a final glimmer over the horizon. How peaceful the city seemed from here, how spectacular the view. The palace dome, the cathedral and the tower of City Hall seemed within touching distance, though not quite as close as the dark roofs and brick walls of the women’s prison. To the right, the Friedrichshain treetops towered over the roof ridges and swayed gently in the breeze.

Alex sat next to the skylight, smoking a Manoli, drawing so deep it was as if she wanted to absorb everything; to keep all the fumes inside. She was smoking to quell her anger, but it wasn’t working.

They had shared the first cigarette from that tin only two days before, but already it seemed like an image from another life: Benny standing before her smiling, so uncertain and so in love. His shy overtures, the failed kiss… And she had turned him down. Damn it!

Every evening they spent in Flat B they would sit here on the roof and share a cigarette before going to bed. They had to smoke it outside as cold cigarette smoke could give them away.

Flat B was really nothing more than an abandoned hovel in a Büschingstrasse attic, located in a rear building in which the majority of flats stood deserted. A perfect hideaway, perhaps a little too warm on hot days, but otherwise ideal. Benny had found it, God knows how, but he’d always had a good nose for a bolt-hole, and only very seldom in the last few months had they actually been forced to sleep outside. Whenever they had, there’d always been something to smoke, even if it was rolled together from the stubs of other cigarettes.

The last of the daylight shone over the roofs in the west. In the courtyard below it was already dark. Most people were in their beds. Alex flicked away the cigarette butt and watched it descend like a drunken firefly. Its embers corkscrewed into the night.

Yes, they had been damn lucky these last few weeks, but somehow she had sensed that fate would make them pay. With so much luck, something was bound to go wrong and, indeed, something had. Benny had died. It was as if all their luck was merely borrowed, and the repayments were far too high.

Kalli, that rat, had fobbed her off with a twenty, a measly twenty! Well, the skinflint would be sorry. Her mind was made up. It had to be tonight. In an hour’s time it would be dark enough and she could get on the tram and head back out. Without cigarettes, there was no reason to sit on the roof any longer.

Their alarm system was a few tins on a washing line that Benny had connected to the door at the foot of the attic stairs. She was about to climb back through the window when there was a high-pitched, hollow clatter and footsteps on the stairs. Shit! Who was trying to get into the attic at this hour? She pulled her legs back and moved away from the window opening. Not a moment too soon. The door to the attic opened, and she heard a man’s voice, so loud it was as if he was standing right next to her.

‘What is it this time, Frau Karsunke? Everything here’s dark.’

‘Little brat, coming up here like that. She doesn’t even live in the building.’

Alex scarcely dared breathe. The attic’s forty-watt bulbs came on and cast a yellowy shimmer on the roof tiles.

‘Are you sure? Doesn’t look like there’s anyone here to me.’

‘I saw her. Not for the first time either. Something’s not right.’

Alex had never heard the caretaker say a word, but knew it was him; she could picture his red face. He began to shout: ‘Hello? Is there anyone there?’

‘She must be hiding. You need to take a look-see, Herr Ebers.’

The abandoned hovel with the number fourteen was situated right at the end of the corridor. During the day, they would stand the mattresses against the wall, pack their sleeping bags away, and pile all their junk in front so that it looked like the last tenant hadn’t cleared the flat when they left. One by one Alex heard the doors creak open.

‘Guard the stairs, Frau Karsunke, so that no one can get away.’

The thought of escaping down the stairs past the two of them disappeared no sooner than it arrived. She stood stock-still on the roof, right next to the dormer window. Just stay calm. In half an hour they’d be asleep in their beds, and she could exit the building.

A few days ago she had asked Benny if it wasn’t time to look for a new hideout. He had played it down, saying that this one still had a few days in it. Soon they’d rent a proper flat with the KaDeWe money Kalli had promised. She had let herself be convinced, but still had a funny feeling about Flat B. If only she had listened to her instincts.

‘I told you, there’s no one here,’ the caretaker said. ‘Perhaps she really is with the Grünbergs, like she said.’

‘They’re all asleep. She went upstairs two hours ago and never came back.’

‘There’s no one here, anyway.’

‘Then maybe she’s in one of the empty flats.’

‘They’re all locked. Listen, Frau Karsunke. You got me out of bed. I’ve come up to take a look, but that’s it now. There’s nothing here.’

‘What about the window?’

‘What about it?’

‘The skylight. It’s ajar.’

‘Someone’ll have opened it while hanging the washing.’

Alex heard footsteps approaching. Hopefully he wouldn’t come onto the roof. She stood rigid. If he wanted to see her, he’d have to climb out. She heard the window hinge creaking but, from the sound of the bolt, it was being closed rather than opened. The idiot caretaker had locked her out and she could scarcely hear their voices.

A few minutes later the light in the attic went off. They were gone. She poked her head around the corner. Darkness everywhere. Perhaps it was a trap? Perhaps the caretaker was still there, waiting for her to show herself. Whatever, the main thing was that she had no idea how to get down.

In the meantime, what light remained had been swallowed by the night.

10

The red-black Horch parked next to the silo seemed out of place. The corner of Stralauer Allee was chock full of lorries and small delivery trucks. Hugo Lenz got out of the car and stretched his considerable frame into the night, feeling the blood course through his body. He liked the air here by the harbour, the smell of the river, mingled with the smell of petrol from the nearby tank. He didn’t lock up. This was his kingdom; no one would think of stealing Red Hugo’s car, not here. He had worked at the Osthafen many years ago prior to the war, before he started earning money by more dangerous, though far more profitable, means. The two and a half years in prison seemed a fair price, all things considered.

Things weren’t running so smoothly at the moment, however. The Nordpiraten had been making serious trouble ever since Rudi the Rat had returned from the clink. Only this morning some hooligan had smashed up Fritze Hansen’s kiosk, one of the most reliable earners Berolina had on their lists. It was a brazen insult. Well, what do you know, it said, Berolina can no longer protect their own. What are you still paying them for?

If Marlow didn’t react soon, things would get out of control. Until now he had preferred to sit back, reluctant to do anything that might bring the cops into play and disrupt business.

Dr M. was perhaps not entirely wrong, but doing nothing wasn’t the answer. The Pirates were becoming bolder by the day, and it was only a matter of time before somebody snuffed it. They had thrown Kettler out of the window, leaving him in a wheelchair, but it could have been worse. Lenz had wanted to strike there and then, but Marlow kept him in check. They had been allowed to torch a Pirate betting office on Greifswalder Strasse, but that was his only concession to his men’s desire for revenge.

The good doctor had no idea that feelings were running so high. If he allowed this to continue, people would start jumping ship. Something had to give. The Pirates had to be taken out of circulation in a way that was sanctioned by the cops, and Hugo Lenz knew how to make it happen. His new allies would help him; they’d even pay for it.

He could already tell they were serious. The department store brats had been neutralised at the weekend. One of the little bastards had even been killed, not that Hugo had wanted that. All he wanted was to give those urchins, who had been making the cops nervous for weeks and ruining Berolina’s business, a little warning. He hadn’t wanted anyone to die, although a dead body was a damn good warning. The other brats would keep away from the city’s department stores for a while, and Kalli knew that Berolina were better business partners than a couple of snotty-nosed street urchins. If there should be further deaths Hugo wouldn’t complain. After all, Berolina wouldn’t have anything to do with it.

He crossed the railway tracks that ran parallel to Stralauer Allee and connected the Osthafen with the wider world. He had suggested the meeting point himself. One of the warehouses next to the big cold-storage depot belonged to Berolina. Not officially, of course, no one rented a warehouse to a Ringverein. Officially, it was the firm Marlow Imports who used the almost two thousand square metre space, as the sign above the loading bay indicated. Lenz had seen to it that none of his men were present. Who the boss was meeting was none of their concern.

He moved along the quay, past the cranes that shifted goods by the ton, and the ships moored on the Spree, waiting to be loaded. There wasn’t much happening. The crews were asleep, and the few workers he met had tired faces.

There were two men waiting at the loading bay. They were a little too well dressed for the neighbourhood, even if their suits were off the peg. Typical cop suits, Hugo Lenz thought. So, they were serious. Satisfied, he breathed in a gust of Spree air and grinned. He didn’t need Johann Marlow to keep those Nordpiraten rats at bay. Things would be different now, and Johann Marlow, the arrogant prick, could go hang once and for all.

11

The house lay in darkness as Rath opened the main door. Everyone was asleep and no wonder: it was almost midnight. He felt as if he should have been in bed hours ago. Yet the rage in his stomach would make sleep hard to come by. He switched on the light in the stairwell and climbed the stairs, past Brettschneider’s door. She looked at him in a funny way whenever their paths crossed, couldn’t get it into her bourgeois little head that a man came and went in a flat shared by two young women. The landlord accepted that while Fräulein Overbeck was in Uppsala for two semesters, Rath sometimes spent whole nights and even had his own key. Frau Brettschneider, a single, retired teacher, did not. It simply didn’t fit into her worldview.

He was tempted to ring her doorbell before disappearing into Charly’s flat but, in the interests of domestic peace, resisted. It was Charly who’d bear the brunt, not him.

As quietly as possible, he opened the door and groped his way into the kitchen without switching on the light, only doing so once he had closed the door behind him. There was a note on the table. He removed his hat and read as he shrugged off his coat.

He opened the cupboard door. The bottle was more than half full. Charly must have drunk two glasses on her own. He imagined her sitting there, some legal book or other open on the table, wine glass at hand, growing more and more weary as she waited for him. He would have liked nothing more than to take her in his arms, but she wasn’t there, she was in bed sleeping and he couldn’t wake her.

Next to the wine stood the bottle of cognac he had brought from Luisenufer. He only had to think for a moment, before leaving the wine untouched. It was a long time since he had drunk cognac before going to bed, and not just because Charly complained about the smell. He no longer needed it; sleeping by her side was enough to banish those nightmares that, for a time, had haunted his dreams. The smell of her body was enough to keep the demons at bay.

There was a pitter-patter across the hallway floor, and a scratching at the door. Rath opened it and a black dog looked up at him. ‘Did I wake you, Kirie?’ he asked, letting her in.

By the time he fetched the glass from the cupboard, she had curled up under the table as if she knew exactly where her master was going to sit.

Kirie was the living reminder of a murder investigation. She had belonged to a victim, and no one wanted to take her, not even the parents of the deceased. Rath had adopted the sweet little neglected pup who had been trapped in the flat of her dead mistress and, since then, had turned into a rowdy chit of a hound.

‘We’ll need to think of something for you,’ he said. ‘Your mistress can’t keep you anymore, so you’ll have to be a police dog again.’ Kirie pricked her ears up, and tilted her black, canine head to one side.

Rath opened the bottle of cognac and sniffed its neck before pouring. The familiar smell recalled the times he had sat alone in his Kreuzberg flat wrestling with the day’s problems before taking himself off to bed. Charly could grumble all she liked, today had been hard, damn it, and cognac alone offered the solution.

He felt his anger rise, rapid as a thermometer in boiling water. He cursed Abraham Goldstein, and he cursed Bernhard Weiss for foisting the assignment on him in the first place.

Czerwinski and Henning had been waiting an hour and a half when he and Goldstein finally reappeared in the Excelsior. However, Rath didn’t know the extent to which Goldstein had ruined his evening until later, after he had left the Yank with Plisch and Plum and gone back out to Wedding to retrieve his car. He had travelled by taxi, determined to drive his expenses higher still, so furious he couldn’t even look out of the window. The Buick was parked where he had left it: Kösliner Strasse, a notorious Communist area, and a neighbourhood in which sports cars were seldom left on street corners. Someone seemed to have guessed that the car belonged to a cop, or had taken it for a capitalist’s plaything. Either way, they had serviced it good and proper.

Despite the flat tyres and smashed headlights, Rath was most annoyed about the scratches in the paintwork. Sheer vandalism and envy, nothing more. That jobless rabble! Rath had gone to the Rote Laterne on the corner, the same bar he had visited or, rather, passed through, hours before. It was already closed, even though it wasn’t yet ten o’clock. He felt sure that Goldstein had recruited the people who had wrecked his car here. How, he wasn’t sure, but money seemed the likely answer.

Then came the problem with the tow truck. He had had to run to the S-Bahn, to Senefelder Platz, to find a public telephone, which of course was out of use. After hailing a taxi on Reinickendorfer Strasse he found a late-night garage which could tow the defective Buick. By that point, however, the hands of his wristwatch already showed half past ten, and the garage was somewhere out in Reinickendorf.

He poured himself another cognac, then a third. He would charge the repairs to the Free State of Prussia, that much he had already decided in the taxi to Charly’s place.

Meantime, Kirie had fallen asleep. Listening to her snore quietly, he rinsed his glass and placed it in the sink. In the bathroom he brushed his teeth extra carefully and downed two large glasses of water. The last thing he needed was trouble at breakfast. Charly mumbled something as he lay beside her, turning to place an arm around his shoulder, and he nestled close to her warm body, carefully, so as not to wake her. As the scent of her skin reached his nostrils, that scent which belonged to Charly alone, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

12

The shop lay quiet and dark, the gas lamps on Rigaer Strasse were switched off, and moonlight shone dimly through the clouds. There wasn’t a single light on in the building. Alex had been watching the street for almost an hour, but since the last S-Bahn spat out its half a dozen or so passengers she hadn’t seen a soul.

It was late by the time she reached Rigaer Strasse, much later than anticipated. She ought to have been exhausted, but her rage kept her awake: rage at Kalli, rage at the cops, rage at that stupid caretaker who had forced her to climb over all those roofs until she finally located a skylight in the front building.

After today’s incident, Flat B was too dicey. Alex would return for a final time, but only to pick up her stuff. She hadn’t wanted to run the risk earlier. First, she had to take care of business in Kalli’s shop.

Although certain that the street was deserted and no one was watching from the window, she took a final, precautionary, glance in all directions before emerging from the dark entrance, crossing the street and heading towards the shop. The carefully drawn letters on the sign told her it was closed. As she set about the door with her skeleton key she realised it wasn’t locked. She pushed it open as slowly as possible, to avoid triggering the bell which announced new customers. A shy pling, then everything was still. She listened into the darkness. The open door made her suspicious. Better safe than sorry!

Alex couldn’t help thinking of Benny, and the memory pained her. She saw his laughing face, then the grimace of the cop who killed him, his boots stamping on Benny’s fingers as if he were treading out a cigarette, and her rage rose once more.

She was surprised that Kalli had forgotten to lock up. True, he was prone to getting drunk, and sometimes slept on the sofa in the back, which was why she had brought the knife. She wasn’t scared of him, having dealt with far worse in the past. If need be she would extract the money by force.

The thought of a snoring Kalli in the backroom made her proceed as quietly as possible. Not daring to switch on the light, she groped her way forwards until she found the counter, following its contours with her fingertips to the cash register. She didn’t know how much he left in the till overnight, but her plan was to take whatever money she could lay her hands on. There had been quite a sum in the drawer when she visited at lunchtime.

Thinking of how to unlock it without making too much noise, she hesitated. It was already wide open, the big cash drawer pulled out as far as it would go. And it was empty.

A strange feeling took root in her stomach. Even if he had been drinking, which seemed more than likely, a schlockmeister like Eberhard Kallweit would hardly forget to close the cash drawer. Or had he already taken the money out and locked it in the cash box, which he took with him every morning to the bank? She knew where he hid the box: on the bookshelf in the backroom. She had seen him once heading out back to fetch his cash, not realising that the display cases in his shop, dirty as they were, made for perfect mirrors.

Alex opened the door slowly and carefully, straining as she listened. No sound, not a snore, not a breath, just the ticking of the wall clock. Inside, she closed the door behind her. It was darker here than in the shop, pitch black in fact, without a window in sight. She searched for the light switch but, after a while, gave up, getting down on her knees and groping her way forward on all fours.

Here was the edge of the carpet, so that must be the table, and behind it the sofa. The bookshelf hung above the sofa. Alex continued crawling across the carpet, which hadn’t been beaten in a long time and had crumbs and dirt everywhere, until she felt something sticky, instinctively pulling her hand away. What a pigsty! At first she thought Kalli, the messy bastard, had knocked over a bottle of spirits and failed to clean up, but then she recognised the faintly metallic smell.

She had waded into a pool of blood!

God damnit! She needed light to see what had happened.

She crawled back and edged open the door. In the meantime her eyes had grown so used to the darkness that the little light entering from the shop was enough to get her bearings. There was something big on the floor under the table: a body, a human body. Stay calm, she told herself. Finally she located the light switch on the other side of the door. Suddenly she felt curiosity and fear in equal measure. Her right hand gripped the handle of the knife, as her bandaged left hand stood poised over the switch, but there was no one else there.

Eberhard Kallweit lay in his own blood, which by now was seeping into the carpet. His body was in a horrific state, worse than Alex had ever seen, the face a crusty, bloody mess. She had to look twice to recognise him at all, but the grey overalls left her in no doubt. Her knees grew weak as she threw up the little she had eaten that evening against the wall.

13

Rudolf Höller trudged through the Brandenburg March sand. He was in good spirits, even if early morning wasn’t his best time. He could have remained in the car, but wanted to see what had become of the dump. He stepped on a branch by the entrance and a flight of crows fluttered into the early morning mist. Apart from the beating of their wings, their cawing, and the rustle of the wind in the pines, there wasn’t a sound. At this hour the garbage trucks were still out and about; they wouldn’t roll up with their load for a while yet, but, when they did, there would be a continuous stream of rubbish flowing into the former clay quarry until late evening.

The wood on the other side of the hollow was part of Greater Berlin, but the dump lay beyond the four-million-strong city. Berliners didn’t like to bury their rubbish within the city walls, and Schöneiche was an excellent place to dispose of things that had outlived their purpose. No one knew that better than Rudi Höller.

The fact that they had designated the dump, of all places, as the meeting point, seemed like a sign. He knew his way around here. It was, so to speak, his home patch. A few years ago, Rudi had worked as a garbage man and discharged his load here every day. Increasingly, however, he had used his rounds to nose out properties for a break-in, and ultimately to deliver packages of drugs. At some point he had ended up with the Nordpiraten, eventually elbowing his way to the top of the organisation, and not just in a figurative sense. Now he had reasserted his leadership claim after spending two years in the can at Tegel with Hermann.

The Pirates were crying out for strong leadership. Since the catastrophe at Reichskanzlerplatz, where half the Ringverein had fallen into the hands of the police, the organisation was fighting for survival. In the meantime, those bastards at Berolina had grown stronger.

It was time to put a stop to it. Soon the Pirates would no longer be limiting themselves to regaining lost ground. Today’s meeting could change everything. He had managed to get to someone who, though still loyal to Red Hugo, had long been a thorn in Johann Marlow’s side. And, make no mistake, Berolina were headed by Marlow, not Hugo Lenz. Without Dr M., Berolina would crumble like a dry leaf.

Yes, this was his chance to finally get even with Dr M., to show that arrogant upstart who was in charge of this city. Rudi Höller knew who he had to thank for his prison years. They had been shopped. The pigs had been waiting for them in the vault when he and Lapke and a few others broke into the bank on Reichskanzlerplatz. When Berolina worked in conjunction with the police, you could be sure Johann Marlow had a hand in it. He had half of police headquarters in his pocket, although they wouldn’t be much use when he was in the ground.

Rudi the Rat had no qualms when it came to bumping people off. That was how he had earned his nickname, but with a nod to his former profession. There were thousands of rats at the dump, many more than there were crows. Only, you couldn’t see the rats. They didn’t caw like the birds, but kept themselves hidden, striking mercilessly, quick as a flash – when the situation demanded.

Surveying the dump’s expansion as if it were his own work, Rudi turned around. When he returned to his car, he saw a black sedan parked on the edge of the wood. Behind the windscreen were two men. He ran his hands over the old war pistol in his waistband as the first garbage truck rumbled slowly towards the entrance. The truck was early, he thought. On the one hand it was disrupting their meeting, but on the other it made him feel safer. He turned his face towards the wood in case the driver recognised him.

They hadn’t mentioned there would be two of them. The caller had explicitly said it would be a private meeting.

The garbage truck had now passed, and was rolling slowly onwards. The doors of the black sedan opened and two well-dressed men got out. Rudi moved towards them. He’d give them a piece of his mind! He didn’t like it when people broke arrangements.

Then he heard the air brakes of the garbage truck hiss, and turned around. It had halted a few metres behind him, and the driver had climbed out of his cabin. Rudi turned back to face the dark sedan and the two men, feeling calmer now, more secure. They would hardly gun him down in front of a witness.

Something rustled behind him. He turned again and realised his mistake. He had been concentrating too hard on the men in the sedan and ignored the truck driver. Now he understood what had so confused him about the man. He was wearing neither an elegant suit like the other two, nor the BEMAG uniform. Strangely, what most confused him was that the pistol in the man’s hand was a make he had never seen before – and Rudi Höller knew his pistols. Without much time to think, he suspected the model into the barrel of which he was staring would be his last. Possibly American, he thought, then the muzzle flashed. He didn’t hear the bang.

14

Andreas Lange had slept badly. He was still shaken by yesterday’s events, even though things had turned out better than expected. Interrogating your colleagues was a thankless task, no matter the subject. No doubt that was why Gennat had lumped it on him, the new man from Hannover, whom no one at Alex took seriously anyway. True, he had been on duty at the weekend and was among the first CID officers at the corpse, but that also applied to Reinhold Gräf and he had been given some special assignment for Rath. Requested, it was said, from on high. Meanwhile Assistant Detective Lange had worked his first case as lead investigator.

It was little more than a show for Gennat, a case in which the worst you could do was make yourself unpopular at Alex. Buddha didn’t have to alienate any of his favourites, but could observe how the assistant detective from Hannover had developed this past year.

The interrogations hadn’t been nearly as bad as Lange feared. Even uniform knew what details were essential for the purposes of a statement. You didn’t have to squeeze it out of them. Everyone had cooperated. No stalling, wisecracks or protests, so that Lange already had more or less everything he needed. It just had to be written out neatly and filed away. In a few days, he’d hand over the file to the public prosecutor, who would draw things to a predictable close.

It looked like there was no blame attached to the operation command. The KaDeWe intruder had recklessly tried to escape down the store front and fallen in the process. These things happened.

‘One less for us to worry about,’ a few colleagues had said in the canteen. Lange saw things differently.

A human life was a human life, and the deceased from KaDeWe looked like he was still a child. They still hadn’t identified him. The operation commander, a young police lieutenant, regretted the fatal incident more than anything and had been so full of remorse that Lange almost had to comfort him. No wonder: it was a lot of responsibility for someone so young. Lieutenant Tornow wasn’t even two years older than Lange, and the assistant detective had no idea how he would have coped in the circumstances.

Then, yesterday evening – Lange had already packed his things and was about to leave the office – Dr Schwartz had telephoned. It was this call that would haunt his dreams. ‘I need to show you something,’ the pathologist said. ‘Could you come to Hannoversche Strasse early tomorrow morning? Best before the start of your shift.’

So here he was standing on the steps of the yellow-brick building with a queasy feeling in his stomach and an increasing sense of regret that he had eaten breakfast. At the top of the stairs, just outside the entrance to the morgue, he hesitated. Until now he had always visited the building with a companion, usually an investigating officer, which gave him the opportunity to stand to one side and not look too closely. Now, however, he had to go in and face whatever awaited him behind these walls, aside from a cynical doctor and dissected corpses.

The porter nodded as he showed his identification and entered the tiled surrounds of the morgue.

Lange had been racking his brains over why Schwartz had asked for him in person, rather than simply delivering the forensic report through internal mail. By now he could have been at his desk in the Castle, reading it over quietly with a cup of coffee before pinning it to the files. The boy had fallen from the fourth floor and died. Did it make any difference what bones he had broken, which internal organs he had damaged? Wasn’t it enough for the information to be in the files? Why did the investigating officer need to look himself? Perhaps Schwartz just wanted to show him his own little tunnel of horror, to shock the green assistant detective. A number of colleagues had said the pathologist enjoyed playing such tricks on young officers.

Lange pushed the swing doors of the autopsy room, eyes fixed on the floor and mentally preparing himself to see some freshly severed limbs or heads, a dissected abdomen or, at the very least, an open thorax. The worst thing he had ever seen in the morgue was a head whose skull-pan had been neatly detached, making the deceased seem like one of those clay beer steins displaying Bismarck’s countenance, the lid made up of a spiked helmet you could lift when you drank. Lange had managed to look away, but this time he was the investigating officer.

At last he dared to look up and was surprised. No chamber of horrors. There was a corpse on the autopsy table, but it was covered by a sheet. The pathologist hadn’t even fetched any disgusting samples from his selection – his canning jars, colleagues called them – to put on display. Dr Schwartz sat at his desk making notes. When he saw Lange, he stood up and stretched out a hand.

‘Ah, there you are. Also an early riser?’

‘Out of necessity.’

‘My assistant has just made coffee. Would you like some?’

‘Thank you.’

‘Thank you no, or thank you yes.’

‘Thank you no.’

‘Shame. You’re missing out on the best coffee in Berlin. Strong enough to wake the dead, they say. Pity they can’t drink it.’

Lange met the pathologist’s tired quip with a shy smile. Schwartz, who hadn’t batted an eyelid, pushed him towards the corpse. ‘I wanted to show you… how can I put it?… something a little odd. I can’t mention it in the report without having spoken to you first.’

‘It wasn’t the fall that caused his death?’

Schwartz shook his head. ‘No, there’s no doubt about that. He sustained such serious injuries upon impact that the internal bleeding filled the thorax. The poor boy choked on his own blood. Or more precisely: drowned.’

Lange swallowed.

‘How old was he then?’

‘Very young. Somewhere between fourteen and seventeen at a guess. But that isn’t why I summoned you.’ Schwartz grabbed a corner of the sheet, and Lange feared the worst, but the pathologist exposed only the deceased’s right hand. ‘That,’ he said, pointing towards it, ‘is the big surprise.’

Lange glanced down. No one finger seemed normal; instead each was unnaturally contorted, swollen and displaying all the colours of the rainbow.

‘Breaks to the index, middle and ring fingers,’ Schwartz said. ‘The whole hand covered in haematomas and contusions.’

‘So? He fell onto the pavement from the fourth floor.’

‘He didn’t sustain these injuries in the fall. The left hand is similar, but not nearly as bad.’

‘If it wasn’t the fall, then what?’

‘That is precisely the question, and I’m afraid it isn’t so easy to answer. Or, put another way: if you accept the most obvious answer, you could be in serious trouble.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t follow, Doctor.’

‘In my opinion, and I have been doing this job a long time, the nature of these injuries leads me to conclude that they were sustained shortly before the boy fell. Since discovering them yesterday afternoon, I’ve been trying to imagine what could have happened, and…’

‘Fortunately, it isn’t your job to draw conclusions,’ Lange said, realising straightaway that he had made an error. The pathologist seemed mildly peeved as he continued.

‘Take my words as a discreet attempt to spare you the use of medical terminology that would mean nothing to you,’ he said, looking at Lange like a professor eyeing his most unworthy student. ‘Anyway, assuming the boy’s fingers weren’t beaten by a hammer shortly before his death, which, I must say, seems unlikely…’

‘…then someone else must have broken his fingers,’ Lange finished the sentence. All of a sudden he was wide awake, the fear of macabre jokes or unpleasant sights a distant memory.

‘As you said. It isn’t my job to draw conclusions,’ Schwartz replied, ‘but it looks like someone stamped on his fingers pretty hard. Perhaps even struck them with a blunt instrument. The poor boy lost his grip. With breaks like that, no one could have held on, it’s just not physically possible.’ Lange began to understand why the pathologist hadn’t wanted to put it in writing.

‘You’re saying that in all likelihood we’re not dealing with an accidental death…’

‘…but with a murder. Correct.’ Schwartz cleared his throat. ‘That’s what I’d call it when someone is sent flying from the fourth floor.’

‘And it looks like the perpetrator is a policeman…’

‘That’s your conclusion, not mine.’

15

‘Anyone else without a ticket?’

Charly showed the walrus-moustached conductor her monthly pass as the house fronts of Warschauer Strasse flitted by outside. The tram was squeezed tight with people on their way to work.

As usual, she had packed a book for the journey. Heymann’s Principles of Criminal Law lay open on her lap, but she had too much on her mind to read. She preferred to look out of the window and think. Gereon’s mood at breakfast!

She had only half listened to his story. His car had been wrecked by vandals in Wedding, and then he had had to get it towed to a garage in the middle of the night. She hadn’t understood a great deal, only that it was his excuse for coming home so late without calling, and for being unable to drive her to work. She’d had to leave early as a result. Though the S-Bahn took barely twenty minutes to reach Warschauer Bridge, she had to take the tram the rest of the way, the 90, which stopped at every letterbox.

The secret still burned inside of her, even now when she was alone again. She had thought he would notice something in her expression at breakfast, that something in her eyes would give her away, but he was consumed by anger over the car. She hadn’t even said anything about the riots at the university, so wary had she been of straying anywhere near the subject. Her plan had been to talk things through over a glass of wine, but he had kept her waiting so long she’d ended up going to bed. Now she was almost glad. What could she say to him when she wasn’t even sure what she wanted herself?

Yesterday, Heymann had asked to speak to her in person, had even sent a car, and she had travelled to the university full of nervous anticipation. What could be so important that her former professor would send a chauffeur to pick her up?

The atmosphere was hostile when she stepped out of the car onto Dorotheenstrasse. People were demonstrating again, loudly and in the form of songs: Die Fahne hoch, the Nazi party anthem. A few Communists tried to combat it with The Internationale and the result was a dreadful cacophony. She managed to make it to the building’s north entrance unscathed, but the demonstrators had spread here too. Students in brown shirts tore messages and signs from the noticeboard and the few who tried to intervene, by no means all Communists, had been clubbed to the ground. The Nazis had brought batons.

By the time she reached her favourite professor’s office, fighting had broken out below too. Heymann had stood at the window, shaking his head in disbelief. Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität as the scene of such political vulgarity was simply too much for the old Prussian. Things were getting worse, especially in the legal faculty. You could almost assume that any first semester student would be a Hitler acolyte, and the younger they were, the more fervent. The brownshirted students didn’t shy away from violence, they thrived on it. Student unrest was how the papers described it.

She had been so unsettled by the commotion that she didn’t understand the professor’s request at first. Half a year, and he wanted her? She had asked for a few days’ thinking time, and still had Heymann’s reaction echoing in her ears. ‘Don’t take too long, Fräulein Ritter, opportunities like this don’t come around often.’

She couldn’t keep Heymann waiting long, she knew that, but nor could she agree without speaking to Gereon, and thinking it over some more herself. The truth was, she had other plans. Her goal had always been a senior role in the Prussian Criminal Police. That was the reason she had taken up her legal studies, and why she had knuckled down and crammed like anything after flunking the state examination. Failed was the terse judgement of the exclusively male board of examiners, no further explanation given. Half a year later she had overcome that hurdle, albeit without distinction. Satisfactory. The main thing was that she had passed.

The electric train crawled out of the shadows of the Ringbahn Bridge onto Möllendorfstrasse and overtook a swarm of cyclists pedalling uphill; the army of workers on its way to the Lichtenberg factories. Seeing them she remembered how much she enjoyed holding down a regular job. She had felt the same way at Alex, where she had worked as a stenographer in Homicide and earned money to pursue her studies. Against that was the year she had spent almost exclusively at university, hunched over her books… Suddenly she wasn’t sure whether Heymann’s offer was quite as attractive as it sounded. On the other hand, it would provide her with opportunities she could never dream of otherwise, certainly not as a woman, if she were to continue stubbornly with her legal preparatory service.

Make your mind up time, Fräulein Ritter.

Meanwhile, the tram had reached Normannenstrasse. She snapped Heymann’s book shut. Why was she so scared of discussing all this with Gereon? Because she knew it was about more than just these six months? It was about what would happen to them. That was it. Not that it made her feel any better.

16

Her eyes blinked and searched for him, as they had almost every morning since they met. His face was the first thing she saw, sitting fag in mouth, gazing into the new day. It felt all the more painful knowing he was gone, that he would never again smile and ask ‘Breakfast?’ and hand her a cigarette.

Suddenly, daylight filtered through the clouded windowpanes and made them seem dirty and grey. The day before her felt as bitter as the taste of night lingering on her tongue.

Alex sat and pulled her jacket tighter around her shoulders. In Flat A there was no blanket or sleeping bag to wrap herself in, and there was a strong draught besides. They had only used it in emergencies, or when they couldn’t find anywhere better, but she didn’t like sleeping here. There was far too much rubbish, shards of glass crackled underfoot, to say nothing of the rats, who were becoming more brazen. Barely a windowpane was intact and, on some nights, depending on which way the wind was blowing, you could hear the cries of the animals from the stockyard, their one final act of rebellion before death.

Flat A was a decommissioned axle factory, abandoned over a year before, and still standing only because the owner couldn’t afford to have it torn down. Unfortunately, it was no longer much of a secret, and people came from all around in search of a free place to stay. She didn’t like being here, certainly not without Benny, but after last night she had needed a refuge from the nightmare her life had become.

She wouldn’t forget the sight of Kalli’s corpse in a hurry. She’d never been able to stand the man, but now she felt something akin to guilt for intending to rob his till. Who on earth had made such a mess of him, and why? Wasn’t the money in the cash register enough, or had he tried to hoodwink Berolina and found himself on the receiving end of Red Hugo’s revenge? She had considered these questions on her long, night-time journey to Roederstrasse. At some point she had grown too tired to think and all she wanted to do was sleep.

She hadn’t encountered a soul on her way to the flat, not even Kralle, the rat. The dirtbag had his eye on her and, on one occasion, she had only managed to fend him off with the help of her knife.

Only a few rooms were taken. It must have been well after midnight when she arrived, and everyone was asleep. She had sought out one of her usual places, as far away as possible from the stairs, covered herself with her jacket and pulled her cap over her head. Despite everything going on in her mind, she had briefly fallen asleep. And danced with Benny.

Stretching her arms towards the ceiling she yawned, still exhausted. She couldn’t have been asleep for long, the floor wasn’t exactly soft. She had to go back to Flat B one final time to pick up her sleeping bag and a few other things before finding a new place to stay. How, she wasn’t sure. Benny had always known where, but she had no idea where he picked up his information. Somehow, he had just always known. If it came down to it, there was always the factory. Despite having so many things to take care of, she couldn’t get up. Her body felt so stiff and heavy it was as if it were made of lead.

What a shitty day! What a shitty month! What a shitty time to be alive!

Something scraped over the floor and the door creaked on its hinges, pushing forward a mountain of junk. Suddenly wide awake, she fumbled for the switchblade in her pocket, feeling immediately more secure when she had it in her grasp. If it was Kralle, that stupid, puffed-up bastard, then he’d be in for a nasty surprise.

At the crack in the door appeared a dishevelled, dark-haired creature, her face crumpled with sleep. ‘Morning, Alex. Do you have a cig for me?’

Alex let go of the knife and sank back. ‘Vicky! You gave me a real fright creeping in here like that. I thought you were Kralle, or some other arsehole.’

‘I heard something and thought I’d take a look. I didn’t see you last night with the others.’ Vicky came towards her. She had a pretty face under her unkempt locks, and big eyes that made it seem as if she were permanently gawping at something, even when she was as sleepy as she was now.

‘I didn’t get here until the middle of the night,’ Alex said. ‘Who’s all here?’

‘Oh, Fanny, Kotze, Felix and a few others. Not many. Most of them are gone already. Where’s Benny?’

Alex was speechless. She had assumed the whole world must know about Benny’s death, at the very least her friends – if you could call the people in Roederstrasse friends. But, of course, Vicky didn’t know. How could she? Alex hadn’t told anyone and, since Benny’s death, hadn’t spoken to a soul except Kalli. It was perfectly natural that Vicky was asking after him. Alex had always appeared with him in tow, every goddamn day these last few months.

‘Didn’t you hear? The thing in KaDeWe? Benny’s dead.’

‘That was you?’ The news took all the strength from Vicky’s legs. Her knees gave way, and she slid down the wall beside Alex. ‘Fuck,’ she said. ‘Benny of all people. He was always so careful.’ She slammed her fist against the wall and then again a second time, and started to cry softly, hardly making a sound.

Alex took the quivering girl in her arms. How could she comfort her? By saying what she scarcely believed herself? That the cops had killed Benny as if he were a rat, a parasite, vermin. She could imagine there were any number of people, and not just cops, who would be only too glad to treat her and Benny and Vicky the same way. Just do away with the dirty little brats who were ruining Berlin’s streets with their begging and stealing, who shot off their mouths when a respectable citizen told them they should be at work instead of loitering around town.

If only they knew what real life was like. There were far too many people in this city, and far too few jobs. More than enough to eat, but far too little money to pay for it. People had to live somehow. The idea of going on the game, as Vicky and others she knew had sometimes done, repelled her. That someone like Kralle could do whatever he wanted with her body, for money, made her furious. The only thing a guy like him would see was her knife. You could earn your money that way too, Alex had discovered, thinking of the fatso at the Christmas market whose trousers she had pierced before robbing his purse. She hadn’t known then that the money would be her start-up capital for a life on the streets.

Vicky stopped sobbing, and wiped the tears away with her sleeve. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But Benny… I liked him, you know?’

‘Of course. I liked him too.’

‘It was you in KaDeWe!’ Vicky’s eyes grew even larger. ‘But then the cops are looking for you. You know that, right?’

‘They’re looking for a boy.’

‘You’re injured as well,’ Vicky said, pointing towards Alex’s bandaged wrist.

‘A memento, nothing serious. Benny bound it.’

Vicky didn’t ask any more questions. She seemed to recognise the rag from Benny’s shirt. ‘I could really use one now,’ she said.

‘One what?’

‘A cig. Do you have a cig?’

Alex fetched the Manoli tin from her jacket. There was only one left.

Vicky whistled through her teeth. ‘Nice,’ she said. ‘Where did you get that?’

‘Benny.’

‘Oh, I didn’t know!’ Vicky looked horrified. ‘I don’t want it.’

‘They need to be smoked. I don’t want to look at them anymore.’ Alex turned the tin on its head, and let the last Manoli drop out. ‘Come on, we’ll share it,’ she said. Share it like she always did with Benny. A fitting end for the last cigarette he had ever stolen.

Vicky produced a carton of matches and lit the cigarette for her. Alex took two drags and passed it on. The two girls smoked in silence. Gradually, Alex started feeling better, less alone. The desolation that had threatened to overwhelm her on waking had vanished.

‘When’s he being buried?’ Vicky asked.

Alex hadn’t thought about that. Benny was dead. His corpse was lying somewhere, most likely a police station, and at some point would need to be buried. ‘How should I know when he’s going to be buried? I can’t exactly stroll into the police station and ask. They probably don’t know his name. The paper didn’t even get his age right.’

‘Will they bury him with no name?’

Alex shrugged her shoulders. ‘They’ll get hold of it somehow. They’re cops.’

‘The cops I know are pretty fucking stupid. Besides, they don’t give a shit if they have to bury one of us without a name or a gravestone.’

‘You mean, Benny won’t even get a proper grave?’

‘What do I know, but wouldn’t it be better if they knew his name?’

‘Wouldn’t that be like… grassing?’

Vicky suddenly seemed very certain. ‘Someone has to tell the cops who he is. As a favour. It’s the last time we’ll be able to help him.’

‘I don’t know… I can’t…’

‘If you give me ten pfennigs for the telephone booth, I’ll do it. I’ll call the cops and tell them who Benny is. So that he at least gets a proper grave with his name on it.’

Alex felt tears welling in her eyes and had to pull herself together to continue. ‘I don’t even know his surname,’ she said.

Vicky comforted her. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll find out. I think he and Kotze were in the same home.’

17

It was impressive, the desk in the corridor, more imposing even than that of Police Commissioner Grzesinski. A real whopper. Rath had noticed it yesterday by the lifts on his way to Goldstein’s room. He spread his things across its spacious, intarsia-decorated top. Alongside his cigarette case – this time he had come prepared with a dozen Overstolz – lay two well-thumbed newspapers, a cup of coffee, a glass of water and a half-full ashtray.

After yesterday, he had changed tactics. Weiss, to whom he had reported that morning, wasn’t prepared to assign more men, despite what had happened. Thus, a new plan was required.

If it no longer mattered whether they were seen or not, there was no reason why they couldn’t station themselves outside their target’s door, and the desk made a perfect observation post. The service might not be quite as good as in the lobby – the ashtrays weren’t emptied every three minutes – but Rath had managed to order a coffee along with copies of Tageblatt and the Vossische Zeitung, and he felt perfectly content. Especially since he could take turns with Gräf, and no longer had to spend the whole day in the same place.

The lift door opened with a soft pling. An elegant lady, who had linked arms with a smallish man, glanced at his desk curiously as she passed. Rath gazed after her; any distraction was welcome, especially one with such a nice rear end. The sound of someone clearing his throat made him spin around. Next to him stood the hotel detective, who must also have emerged from the lift.

‘Good morning,’ Rath said, and stood up.

Grunert gave a sour smile and shook his hand. ‘Our conversation yesterday was interrupted,’ he said. ‘I looked for you in the lobby, but your colleagues said you were up here.’

Rath nodded. ‘It’s the best view of room 301.’

‘If not exactly inconspicuous.’

‘It isn’t about being inconspicuous, it’s about being effective.’

Grunert smiled his pickled smile. ‘I would be most grateful if you finally explained why you are here.’

‘You’re aware that any information I do give must remain between us, and is subject to the utmost discretion?’

Grunert nodded.

‘Good. The matter is quite simple: Abraham Goldstein, your esteemed guest, is strongly suspected of being a member of an American criminal cartel, and for this reason has been placed under surveillance by the Prussian Police. We don’t want Berlin turning into Chicago, do we?’

Rath had hoped to lighten the mood a little with his final remark, but Grunert continued to look as though he had a bad stomach ulcer. Perhaps he did, too.

‘And what is this… strong suspicion based on?’

‘You’ll understand that I can’t tell you that. It’s confidential CID material.’

‘I just hope your suspicions aren’t based purely on the fact that Mister Goldstein is of Mosaic faith.’

‘Rest assured,’ Rath said. ‘The order to place Mister Goldstein under surveillance comes from Deputy Commissioner Weiss himself.’

Grunert gave a satisfied nod. Accusing Bernhard Weiss of anti-Semitism would be laughable.

They took such things seriously in the Excelsior. The hotel was thought to have once ejected Adolf Hitler out of consideration for its Jewish guests who, it was said, could not be expected to share the same roof as such a crude anti-Semite.

‘Inspector, we have no objection to your monitoring Mister Goldstein, although I doubt your suspicions are warranted. Nevertheless, while I fully understand the need for this operation, I must also ask for your discretion…’

‘Of course.’

‘…and viewed in such light, your surveillance post is a little too conspicuous. At least for the remainder of our paying guests, who must be asking themselves why you need to spend the entire day seated at this desk.’

‘We’ll have to give them a story then. I certainly don’t intend on leaving my post for the sake of a few guests.’

‘A story,’ said Grunert. ‘Exactly what I was going to suggest. I’ll have a few books brought to you from the library, along with a pen and paper. You’ll be an author staying at our hotel, drawing inspiration from his surroundings…’

‘An author?’ Rath looked sceptical. ‘Who’s going to believe that?’

‘I’ll put the rumour about in the lobby, and soon the whole hotel will know. Old Teubner can be relied on there.’

‘I don’t know the first thing about writing. I hunt criminals!’

‘Then you’re a crime writer. That fits. And your new novel is set in our hotel.’

When Reinhold Gräf exited the lift half an hour later, accompanied by a black dog wagging its tail, he was a little taken aback by the pile of books and notepad.

‘Are you keeping a record of everyone who emerges from the lift, or just copying the wallpaper pattern?’

‘Don’t you see? I’m a famous author, setting down his latest work. Incognito, naturally.’

Gräf glanced over Rath’s shoulder. ‘Looks more like wall-paper to me.’

The only things on the page were stick men and abstract patterns.

‘I’m seeking inspiration,’ said Rath. ‘How did it go outside?’

‘Kirie was a good girl and did a wee-wee, if that’s what you mean. And Goldstein hasn’t tried to climb down the façade, though I did see him at the window, I think. I’m not sure he recognised me though. What about you? Has our friend put in an appearance?’

Rath shook his head. ‘So far just the hotel detective. This was his brainwave. But Goldstein must be awake; he let in the chambermaid.’

‘Has he had breakfast?’

‘He’s had the chambermaid. Nothing’s been brought to his room otherwise.’

As if on cue, the door to room 301 opened and the chambermaid emerged, throwing the two officers a brief glance and vanishing into the corridor. No sooner had she disappeared than the lift doors parted and the room service waiter rolled out a trolley, which he then wheeled into room 301.

‘Maybe he really did have the chambermaid for breakfast,’ Gräf whispered.

Rath shrugged. ‘He’s certainly enjoying himself.’ He looked at Gräf. ‘You shouldn’t stand here the whole time. People will think you’re my secretary. Leave the dog here and go and stretch your legs. Keep the hotel front in view. The last thing we need is for Goldstein to start climbing hand-over-hand across the balconies.’

Gräf nodded. ‘When should I relieve you?’

‘Let’s say at one. I’ll need to go walkies with Kirie then anyway.’

The detective had been gone perhaps quarter of an hour when Abraham Goldstein appeared in the doorframe of room 301 and carefully locked up. He hesitated when he saw Rath sitting at the desk, then burst out laughing.

‘Good morning, Detective, have you transferred offices?’

‘To be close to you,’ Rath said, snapping shut his notepad of doodles. ‘Sleep well?’

‘Very well, thank you.’ Goldstein pressed the button for the lift. ‘Looks like it’s going to be a nice day. Shall we then? I say we, since I assume you’ll be joining me.’

Rath grabbed the dog lead.

‘Police dog?’ Goldstein asked, gesturing towards Kirie.

The lift door opened and both men stepped in.

‘More dangerous than she looks,’ Rath said. ‘Trained to go for New Yorkers.’

‘Didn’t I say I was from Brooklyn?’

‘The dog doesn’t care.’

A lady inside looked the pair up and down; the lift boy gazed stoically into the distance.

‘What’s the latest on your car?’ Goldstein asked. ‘Repaired already?’

That hit home. Rath swallowed his rage and fell silent. Don’t let the arsehole provoke you.

‘Ground floor,’ said the boy and opened the door for the woman passenger. Rath and Goldstein continued down to the basement, where Goldstein made a beeline for the tunnel.

‘What have you got against daylight?’ Rath asked.

‘I prefer the underworld.’

Kirie, however, was not so keen, and Rath had to pull on her lead to keep up. Only when they began climbing the stairs, back up towards the daylight, did her pace quicken.

Goldstein headed for the taxi stand.

‘I hope you won’t mind if I don’t invite you to travel with me,’ Goldstein said as he waved over the first taxi from the rank. ‘That would be breaking the rules.’

Rath took the second taxi, the driver reluctantly interrupting his reading of the paper.

‘Where to, then?’ he asked, as Rath manoeuvred the dog onto the back seat with some difficulty. Kirie had never willingly got into a car yet.

‘Follow that taxi,’ Rath said.

‘Seriously?’ The driver gazed disbelievingly into the rear mirror.

‘Do I look like I’m kidding?’ Rath showed his identification.

‘Alright, alright.’

At the same moment, Goldstein’s taxi moved from the verge onto the carriageway, and Rath’s driver accelerated. The inspector looked to the side, towards the pavement, where a baggage handler was struggling with several large items. At the last second he saw a familiar-looking coat. Shit! The Yank! Goldstein had either never got in or had got out straightaway! At any rate, he had sent the taxi on its way without a passenger.

‘Stop,’ he said.

‘Pardon me?’

‘Stop, damn it!’

‘After three metres? I thought I was supposed to tail my colleague?’

‘You did. Now stop the car!’

It took half an eternity for the taxi driver to pull over and accept a mark as payment – ‘Now I have to start again from the back! You won’t be getting a receipt!’ – before Rath and Kirie could finally get out. There was no sign of Goldstein. He must have disappeared inside the station.

Rath cursed, and dragged Kirie into the great entrance hall of Anhalter Bahnhof. Countless heads, countless hats. He gazed around and, at last, caught sight of a light-coloured fedora in the throng. He breathed a sigh of relief; Goldstein was in the queue at the ticket counter. Before he could disappear again Rath fetched up beside him.

‘You really aren’t so easy to shake off,’ Goldstein said.

‘I did warn you.’ Rath was trying hard to hide the fact that he was gasping for breath.

‘Is that why you’ve got the dog? So that it picks up my scent if I manage to give you the slip?’

‘You didn’t give me the slip.’

‘Do you know something? You’re starting to get on my nerves.’

‘Then I’m doing my job.’

‘I can think of better things to do than traipse around this city with you in tow. I’d rather stay here.’

‘You do that.’

Goldstein exited the queue and made for the main entrance. A short time later, they were back on Askanischer Platz. Gräf, who was sitting on a bench under the trees, spotted them and adopted a quizzical expression. Rath gave a discreet hand signal to let him know the situation was under control.

‘Your colleague?’ Goldstein asked. ‘I noticed him yesterday.’

‘Then I’m sorry I didn’t introduce you.’

Goldstein strolled across the square, taking a look at the neighbourhood. Rath followed. The workers were busy again at Europahaus, having erected a giant scaffolding around the entrance to the multi-storey building. Over the next few days they would install one of the largest neon signs in the city. Curious passersby kept stopping to look upwards, where workers were scrambling about on the scaffolding and screwing in the neon strips. Goldstein gazed open-mouthed towards the sky.

‘I must say, the building sites in Manhattan are more imposing. You’d need a good head for heights to work on those.’

‘These will do me just fine,’ Rath said, annoyed at himself. Why was he so talkative around the Yank? Especially when no detail escaped the man. He registered his surroundings with razor-like precision, and paid heed to even the most trivial detail.

‘Vertigo?’ Goldstein asked, quick as a flash, and Rath said nothing more, didn’t even look up at the workers. When would Weiss take him off this damn assignment? When would he get to investigate a real murder again?

‘Fancy a cup of coffee?’ Goldstein asked. ‘It’s on me.’

‘No, thank you. I can’t possibly accept.’

Goldstein grinned. ‘But if I were to have a cup somewhere,’ he said, ‘then you’d sit with me. If you’re absolutely set on paying for your own, that’s fine.’

A short while later they sat in Café Europa, where Rath had spent his first evening with Charly. There was no dancing at this hour, but a great deal of commotion on the roof garden. Two pots of coffee stood on the table in front of them, and Rath was secretly pleased that the American had fallen foul of the infuriating German custom of serving watery coffee in leaky pots. You either scalded yourself on the first cup, or drank the second cold, usually both.

Goldstein left the pot unremarked. ‘I don’t have anything against you personally,’ he said, after serving himself, ‘but it would be better for us both if you left me in peace. Perhaps if you had, you wouldn’t have needed to take your car to the garage.’

‘What do you know about that?’

‘Only that I wouldn’t be leaving my car unattended in a neighbourhood like that, particularly not such a nice model.’

‘I’m forbidden to leave you in peace. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices.’

‘You know, I’m an American.’ Goldstein stirred his coffee, which was still far too hot. ‘Perhaps, as a German, you won’t understand this, but for me the most important thing is freedom. My freedom. If it’s taken away from me, I can get pretty nasty. Just so you know.’

‘Are you threatening me? We’re not in America now. You can’t just gun police officers down.’

‘I think you have the wrong idea about our country. You ought to go there.’

‘I know your country.’ Rath was annoyed. He kept allowing himself to be provoked into making comments that were none of the Yank’s business. He fumbled an Overstolz out of his case.

‘Interesting brand,’ Goldstein said. ‘May I?’ Rath hesitated. ‘Come on. Just because I take something from you doesn’t make it bribery. Besides, you cadged a Camel off me yesterday.’

‘Help yourself.’

The men smoked in silence for a moment and drank their coffee.

‘I still don’t understand what I’ve done to warrant this kind of treatment.’

‘Wrong tense. It isn’t about what you’ve done, but what you might do.’

‘Strange working methods, the German police. So, there’s nothing I can do to get rid of you?’

‘On the contrary. You can leave town.’

‘Do you know what? I have a better idea. I’ll wait until your bosses realise how ridiculous this operation is, and call you in.’

18

Alex stood in Büschingstrasse, checking the lie of the land. She had left her pocket watch in Flat B with the rest of her things, but the smell of onions and cabbage and bratwurst told her it must be about half past twelve. Time for lunch. A few scruffy figures gathered outside the entrance to the male Salvation Army hostel, but otherwise Büschingstrasse was deserted. Hopefully the same was true of the courtyard leading to Flat B.

She had used the last of her money to buy Vicky a coffee at the Grossmarkt, before treating herself to a six-pack of Juno and taking the number 66 out to Büschingplatz. In by night, out at lunch was the best way of avoiding the caretaker and that old snitch Karsunke, especially if you didn’t want to field any stupid questions. Like the time he had asked her where she was going. She had given the answer Benny had drummed into her: to the Grünbergs in the rear building. They had the name from the mailboxes.

That wouldn’t work now the caretaker was keeping a close eye on her. So: in for a final time to collect her things, and that would be it for Flat B. The caretaker could turn the place inside out for all she cared. He wouldn’t find her.

From the opposite side of the road she peered through the entrance to the courtyard. It wasn’t just her sleeping bag up there, but also the personal items she kept in a little tin, as well as Benny’s pictures, which he had guarded like treasure. The yard seemed deserted, even the children who had been playing under the carpet hanger had vanished. Time was getting on. The queue outside the Salvation Army hostel had dwindled to three, reminding her that lunchtime didn’t last forever. She took a deep breath, wished the caretaker and his informant Karsunke bon appétit and crossed the road. She had just reached the archway when the door from the neighbouring house opened and a cop stepped out.

The blue uniform, and the face, seemed like a bad dream. What was he doing in Friedrichshain, damn it? KaDeWe was in the west.

Flat B was too risky now, that much was clear, but she wasn’t sure if the cop had recognised her. Thinking quickly, she switched directions, to make it seem as if she had come from the yard, then veered sharply, turning her back on him and making her way down the road as inconspicuously as possible. This wasn’t anywhere near his precinct.

‘Hey, wait!’

She turned only a little so that he couldn’t see her face. ‘Who, me?’

‘You’ve just come from the building, haven’t you? I’d like to ask you a few questions.’

Even if he had only seen her in boy’s clothing three days ago, he’d recognise her. ‘Sorry, I’m in a rush,’ she said. ‘My boss hates it when I’m late.’

‘Hang on a minute there, little Miss.’

As he drew nearer she accelerated without turning around, not daring simply to run off. His hand fell on her shoulder. Instinctively, her fingers clasped the switchblade in her coat pocket.

‘I just want some information,’ he said. ‘It’s about a boy from the neighbourhood. Two boys, actually.’

She kept her eyes fixed to the ground, as if she were a shy, country innocent, and turned towards him. ‘I don’t know any boys here,’ she said. ‘Mother doesn’t allow it.’

He grasped her chin and turned her face upwards. ‘Don’t I know you, little Miss?’

Now she saw his face, close as never before, and watched the penny begin to drop. ‘Oh, my shoe,’ she said, and bent down.

He’d recognised her, hadn’t he, or would at any moment, the arsehole, the murderer! She fiddled with her shoe with her left hand, using the right to spring open the knife in her coat pocket.

Show no mercy now, she thought, this is the bastard with Benny on his conscience!

Again she felt his hand on her shoulder and knew there was no going back. She had one chance. Shooting up from her squatting position, she slashed him once across the face, and broke loose. The cop cried out, more in surprise than pain, she thought, and for a fraction of a second she stood rooted to the spot as he passed both hands across his face, gazing in disbelief at his blood-smeared palms.

He’s let go of you, now run! But she couldn’t, she kept staring at him.

Blood ran down his right cheek, and the bridge of his nose. He looked at her with the same furious grimace she had seen at KaDeWe until, finally, she ran.

She didn’t know if she had any chance against him, but she ran, ran, ran as fast as she could.

‘Stop! Police!’

Fuck you, she thought, if you want to catch me, you’ll have to work for it, fatso!

He called after her, but the distance between them had grown. Had he stopped running? Then she understood what he was saying.

‘Police. Stop or I’ll shoot!’

She carried on running, ducking instinctively as a shot flew across the road. The sound of a ricochet roared through the air. The cop had only hit a lamppost – but he had fired, he had actually fired, in the middle of the city, in broad daylight.

There wasn’t a soul around.

No witnesses, not even anyone outside the Salvation Army. They were all eating inside.

Come to the windows, damn it, Alex thought, untie your napkins and come to the windows. Come outside, so that he can’t just spray bullets everywhere. But, no one came, and if anyone had still been outside, they’d have scarpered after the shot. The city had painful memories of gun-toting cops.

Alex darted from side to side, zigzagging towards the traffic on Landsberger Strasse. Crossing Barnimstrasse, she looked around. The cop had come to a halt, a hundred metres behind her perhaps, and was taking aim for a second time. She threw herself to the ground as a shot rang out. She thought she heard the bullet whistle past her, but it was probably just the wind. She rolled over and got straight back to her feet. Her injured left hand was aching. She must have landed awkwardly, but it didn’t matter now. He was trying to gun her down.

At last she reached Büschingplatz, and people. Jostling her way through the pedestrians, she hurried across Landsberger Strasse, dodging the cars as best she could. A man with an imperial beard, whom she almost knocked over, shook his head and made some stupid remark about road safety education.

She ran down Landsberger Strasse in the direction of Alexanderplatz, and heard her pursuer again, now shouting, ‘Stop that girl!’

She glanced back to see him in his blue uniform, with his bloodied face. He seemed to have his anger under control, and surely wouldn’t dare open fire here. People stared at him, but no one reacted. The man with the imperial beard made as if he hadn’t seen a girl all day, let alone one trying to flee, and gazed studiously in the opposite direction.

She kept running down the street, further and further. The cop was still on the other side of the traffic. You haven’t given him the slip yet, she told herself. Keep going!

Her strength started to leave her, but she ignored the stitch, turning as she fled, and catching sight of him as he crossed the road. He had put his weapon away again.

Damn it! How could she shake him off? After endless terrace fronts, she came on a sidestreet and darted to the left where he couldn’t see her. Where now? Breathless, looking around as she ran, she saw no courtyard, no open front door. Kleine Frankfurter Strasse, the sign said, and at the other end she saw the swathe of traffic on Frankfurter Strasse. Soon she reached the next street corner. There was still no sign of the cop. Now she darted to the right: Elisabethstrasse, but no hiding place in sight here either. No matter, the main thing was that the shitface cop was nowhere to be seen. ‘Slow down, girl,’ someone said. ‘You’ll make that bus.’

On Frankfurter Strasse, on the other side of the road, she recognised the blue sign with the big, white ‘U’, shining like a promise. The U-Bahn!

First, though, she had to cross the carriageway. This time she did it nice and easy to avoid attracting attention. Her breathing started to settle down, but her stitch remained. She turned around discreetly, as if keeping an eye on the traffic – no sign of the cop. Had she shaken him off? When she reached the stairs leading down from the corner house, she cast a final glance over Frankfurter Strasse and saw him. Around a hundred metres to the east a blue uniform emerged from a side street.

She bent low and stumbled down the steps. The platforms were another floor down and, now she was here, there was no going back. Best to assume he had seen her. No time to make considered choices now, she had to take advantage of her head start. She rushed down the next set of stairs onto the platform. Schillingstrasse said the letters on the pink-tiled wall.

Any number of passengers stood here, but no one paid her any attention. She hesitated for a moment before continuing as calmly as possible along the platform to another set of steps and the second exit. This was where she had seen him, albeit above ground. If he took that route she’d run straight into his path. She strolled back along the platform, beginning to think she had walked into a trap.

There was a deep rumbling noise from the western tunnel. At the top of the platform she turned around. There was no one descending the eastern stairs, but a train roared out of the dark. The doors of a smoking carriage opened invitingly in front of her. A few people got off, a few got on, the door continued to stand open. With no police blue on the stairs she stepped into the nicotine haze of a car populated exclusively by men, at least half of whom had interpreted the Smoking sign as an order.

Waiting for the stationmaster to issue the all clear, she looked outside. The platform plotted a wide curve so that she could clearly make out the other end. The cop descended the stairs and stepped onto the platform in the same instant the stationmaster uttered his ‘Keep back’.

All Alex could think of was: come on, come on, but the train didn’t budge.

The cop sprinted forward, throwing himself into the car at the last moment; someone must have opened the doors for him. Shit, she still hadn’t shaken him off, but at least he was in the front car, which meant he couldn’t catch her on the train, only in a station. And that was where she would have to give him the slip, this stubborn cop, this killer, this pig, this fucking arsehole!

She felt her rage swell, an impotent rage that made her beat the steel bars of the train in frustration. Outside the windows it grew dark as the train entered the tunnel. She had the feeling that people were watching her, but pulled herself together, battling against her rage and despair, and prepared for the next stop.

Strausberger Platz. Now or never. The train stopped, the doors opened and a number of passengers got out. Alex stepped onto the platform with the crowd of smokers, but remained by the door, so that those boarding had to push past her as she looked towards the front of the train.

Damn it! The cop had got off too, and he’d seen her. He was pointing towards her and shouting, ‘Stop that girl, she’s a thief!’

Most passengers didn’t react, or pretended not to have heard, but a fat man with a walrus moustache decided to intervene. ‘Calm down now, lass,’ he said. ‘You won’t be slipping through my fingers.’

‘Don’t touch me, fat ass!’

The fat ass grinned. ‘Would you look at that. You’re a cheeky one, aren’t you. Claws and all.’

‘Keep back!’

The stationmaster’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker. The fat man stuck out a chubby finger and blocked her path, while the cop approached from the other side of the platform. She had to do something, and she knew what.

‘Didn’t you hear? Keep back!’ she said, kicking the man as hard as she could between the legs. He doubled in pain, turned dark violet and sat on the platform facing backwards.

Someone tried to shut the door but she jammed it with her foot, squeezing her body into the sliding door and prising it open. No sooner was she on board with the door closed behind her, than the train began to move. This time the cop hadn’t managed to follow.

All around her, passengers smoked as if what had happened was none of their concern. She pushed her way into a corner where no one could have witnessed the incident, feeling relieved but furious at the same time. The arsehole had tried to gun her down.

At least the train was heading east. She could get out at Petersburger Strasse and walk back to Flat A, where perhaps she’d run into Vicky or Kotze. She needed to feel as though she still had some friends in this city.

When the man in uniform spoke to her, a kindly sort with a white moustache, at first she merely shrugged her shoulders. She was so lost in thought that she didn’t understand what he wanted until he repeated his request.

‘Tickets please!’

19

It had worked, Goldstein had given them the slip. For a moment he thought he was being followed, but the man who emerged from a telephone booth on Kochstrasse and took the same route to the U-Bahn remained on the platform when he boarded. Through the whole journey he studied his fellow passengers to make sure there were no police among them. Only now, climbing the steps at Schönhauser Tor and stepping back into the light, was he certain the coast was clear. He took a deep breath, as if savouring a gentle sea breeze, when all he could smell was the city air with its lime-tree blossom, petrol and fresh asphalt.

How he enjoyed moving without that stubborn detective breathing down his neck. Rath was still sitting by the hotel lifts, convinced that Abraham Goldstein was inside reading the papers and twiddling his thumbs. All you had to do to shake off the cops was let them think they had everything under control.

He glanced at the piece of paper in his hand: Grenadierstrasse. If he had understood her correctly, it had to be here somewhere. He looked around at workers laying steaming asphalt on a patch of road, newspaper boys shouting headlines outside a corner bar, a horse and cart turning the corner, carrying vegetables under a dirty-grey canopy. He crossed the carriageway and followed. This had to be the way. He knew he was in the right place when he read the sign.

The street was busy, but a little run-down, the stucco on the fronts dirty-brown and starting to crumble. Washing hung from some of the windows. Almost everywhere, goods were being sold, even on pavements. Some traders sold directly from their carts. Everywhere he looked, he saw Hebrew letters and Stars of David, either on shop signs or painted on the display windows themselves. Apart from on the Lower East Side, he’d never seen so many Jewish shops in one place, not even in Williamsburg, or so many caftan wearers.

He wasn’t sure whether he felt contempt or revulsion, he only knew that he didn’t want anything to do with these men in their sombre, black uniforms, and that he liked the young men with dark sidelocks even less than their white-bearded elders. Their world seemed to embody everything he had left behind: the cramp of his parents’ two-room flat, his sickly mother and his eternally praying, yammering father. He had hated all of it. Abe, Fat Moe had once said, you’re a goddamn anti-Semite, a Jewish anti-Semite, and laughed his cackling laugh. Neither part was true of course, he wasn’t an anti-Semite, but neither was he a real Jew. At least not the kind his father would have wished for.

The doubts had started after his Bar Mitzvah, when he ought to have felt a sense of belonging but instead turned his back more and more on the God of his fathers. Perhaps it was his mother’s illness that drove him under the bridge to Moe? Or perhaps it was only her death? He could no longer say. All he knew was that, since that day he felt only revulsion for his father’s world, and for those devout self-righteous men with whom Nathan Goldstein spent more and more time now that his wife was gone. The old man and his yammering… He called it praying but it was really no more than self-pity – and at some point Abe had no longer been able to stand it. Shunning the family home more and more, one day shortly after he turned fourteen he stopped going back. Better to live an unsettled life than to be sent to Aunt Esther, who wasn’t even his aunt, or indeed to a home, for that was what his father wanted when he realised he could no longer issue orders to his son.

Back then Abraham Goldstein didn’t know much about life, but he did know one thing: that he never wanted to be like his father.

He wanted to be an American, not a Yid who bemoaned his fate every day and railed at Yahweh; who knew nothing, and didn’t want to know anything but his Mishnah and Gemara; who couldn’t speak English properly and was afraid of Americans, as though every Goy was a Russian cossack, even in the middle of Williamsburg. No, Abraham Goldstein, whom everyone in the neighbourhood called Abe – another grievance of his father’s – had decided not to be afraid of the Goyim, of the Jewish people or of God.

He had already been hanging around with Fat Moe’s boys before he left his father and their claustrophobic little flat. In time, Moe’s boys would become the family he never had, American through and through. Every one of them was Jewish, but they were American Jews, the sort who didn’t bemoan their fate, but bent it to their will when it took an expected turn.

Even if he and his father walked the same streets, in the same Williamsburg, under the same grey American skies, they inhabited different worlds. So different, in fact, that they never saw one another anymore, even though Nathan Goldstein walked over Williamsburg Bridge every day on his way to work at Greenberg’s clothes factory on the Lower East Side, every day there and back, too tight or too poor for the journey on the Jamaica Line. Abe wouldn’t see him again until the day his mortal remains were installed in their last resting place at Linden Hill Cemetery. Abe was so drunk he could scarcely remember it, only that his father’s bearded caftan-wearing friends were already saying Kaddish when the drunken, beardless son of the deceased descended upon the ceremony. Since Abraham Goldstein was no longer capable of praying alongside them, indeed, could scarcely stand on his own two feet, the men in black had bundled him into a taxi and sent him away.

That was the last time he’d had anything to do with the black hats, but here he was among them again, in Berlin of all places.

The man whose stairs he descended didn’t look like a Jew. At least, he wasn’t wearing a black hat. He was a craftsman in grey overalls, a scrawny man with a receding hairline and a braid of thick locks around his bald skull. When Goldstein entered the shop, which was more of a studio, the man ceased filing an unidentified tool and peered over his wire-rimmed spectacles. He didn’t say anything, no ‘What can I do for you?’, no ‘Good morning’; he just looked up, before going back to his filing.

Richard Eisenschmidt, Werkzeuge, a discreet wooden sign over the entrance said, and Goldstein suspected that the taciturn man was the owner. If so, he was appropriately named. Goldstein continued into the dark room, observing the items on the shelves around him. He saw greasy metal parts as well as various drills and cutter heads, but had no idea about most of the tools. Eisenschmidt watched him the whole time over his file and workpiece. Only when the long shadow of his customer fell upon the lathe did he finally look up. Goldstein gazed into fearless eyes.

‘You come highly recommended,’ he said.

20

The operation commander sat across from him. Just like yesterday, Police Lieutenant Sebastian Tornow’s uniform was immaculate, and, just like yesterday, they were in Interview Room B drinking coffee Lange had had brought up specially. Everything else was different. The uniformed officer made no secret of his impatience, bobbing up and down on his chair and constantly looking at his watch. Even the stenographer, whose pencil stood at the ready, was infected with his restlessness.

Lange knew he wouldn’t be making any friends by re-commencing interrogations instead of passing the file onto the public prosecutor, but Gennat had given him this assignment and he wanted to treat it as he would any other. He went through the notes he had made after his conversation with the superintendent that morning.

‘It’s a serious accusation you’re making,’ Buddha had said. ‘Sergeant Major Kuschke has discharged his duties with the Prussian Police for a number of years. It is imperative that you rule out all other possibilities before accusing him of anything. You have my full support, but proceed with care.’

Lange snapped the file shut and lit a Muratti. Sometimes they helped with his nerves.

‘You didn’t smoke yesterday, Detective,’ said Tornow. ‘Can you refrain from it today? I can’t stand the fumes.’

‘Assistant detective,’ Lange corrected, going red. ‘If you insist,’ he said and stubbed the cigarette out, without taking another drag. The stenographer, evidently a non-smoker too, looked gratefully at the uniformed officer.

‘What are we waiting for?’ Tornow asked.

‘For the officer present at the time of death. I did request that you inform the man his presence is…’

‘You won’t be able to speak to Sergeant Major Kuschke until tomorrow. He’s taking part in an operation.’

‘And why are you telling me this now?’

‘Because you didn’t ask before.’

Lange cleared his throat. Although only a few years older, the man was several ranks higher than him.

‘Where, if I might ask?’

‘On the streets. Where people like me risk our necks every day so that you paper-pushers from CID can sit around on your fat arses.’

The stenographer blushed and gave an embarrassed little cough. Christel Temme, who normally sat in on Lange’s interrogations, would have noted that last sentence stoically, without batting an eyelash, but her temporary replacement, Hilda Steffens, was obviously too busy listening. Only now did she appear to be considering whether she should commit the shorthand for arses to paper.

Tornow seemed to be enjoying himself. Flash fucking Harry, Lange thought! You don’t look as if you’d risk your neck for anyone. ‘You can spare yourself the rude remarks, Lieutenant,’ he said, realising that his tone was sharper than intended. ‘A police officer ought to remain objective.’

His words had the desired effect. Tornow yielded. ‘Please excuse my ill temper,’ he said, ‘but you’ll understand if I have more pressing things to do than appear before you every day. I thought you had asked all your questions yesterday. So, let’s keep this as brief as possible.’

‘That will depend entirely on you.’

‘And on you – if you don’t ask any questions, I can’t give any answers.’

Lange ignored this fresh dig, and cast Steffens a glance as if to say: now you can start.

‘The operation in KaDeWe,’ he said, and listened as the pencil scratched across the page. ‘There are a few… discrepancies.’ Tornow said nothing, waiting for a definite question. ‘Which officers,’ Lange continued, ‘were on the fourth floor at the time of the fatal incident?’

‘You asked me that yesterday.’

‘It’s an extremely important question. Now, please answer.’

‘As I said yesterday, I positioned two officers on each floor after the intruders sought refuge in the lift. Sergeants Kuschke and Hansen were on the fourth floor.’

‘Where, exactly?’

‘Hansen was monitoring the lifts and stairwell. Kuschke was combing the floor. In the process he discovered one of the intruders outside on the railings. The boy made a foolhardy attempt to escape down the front and plunged to his death. End of story.’

‘You haven’t answered my question. Where exactly was Kuschke when the boy fell?’

‘You’ll have to ask him yourself.’

‘I will, but you were in charge of the operation and wrote the report, so I’d like to hear your assessment.’

‘Kuschke was outside on the balcony when the boy fell. You know that already. He tried to help him, but… Well, he arrived too late.’

‘How would you describe Sergeant Major Kuschke? The officer and the man?’

‘For me, those categories are inseparable,’ Tornow said. ‘Sergeant Kuschke is an experienced officer. A man who keeps his nerve, even when things get dicey.’

‘You’d say he had strong nerves?’

‘What do you think? Kuschke has courage. Balls, if you like.’

Hilda Steffens stifled a giggle.

‘Not the sort of man who disappears when the going gets tough?’

‘No.’

‘And the other possibility?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘In the face of danger, there are two possible reactions: fight or flight.’

‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’

‘Does Sergeant Major Kuschke have a tendency to lose his temper and – how shall I put it? – act in an unnecessarily violent way?’

‘Not in the least. Kuschke is one of the most level-headed members of my team.’

Lange opened a file. ‘Then you don’t know anything about…’ he began reading from it. ‘Ah, I see that was long before your time.’

‘What was?’

‘Doesn’t matter. Back to our current case.’ Lange snapped the file shut. ‘Did anyone witness the boy’s fall aside from the sergeant major?’

If Tornow was unsettled by Lange’s manoeuvre, he showed no sign of it. ‘I’ve mentioned that already, too,’ he said. ‘No one else from my team witnessed the fall. The same goes for the pedestrians we interviewed on Passauer Strasse.’

‘And the other intruder?’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Several officers have stated that the other boy was crouched by the corpse of his friend before taking flight. Perhaps he saw something.’

‘Perhaps, but you’ll have to catch him first.’

Lange nodded. ‘The balcony again. You said Kuschke climbed over the railings to help the boy. Did the boy refuse?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Could the boy have tried to fend off the sergeant major? Might he even have punched him?’

Tornow was silent for a moment, a good sign. ‘Not that I’m aware of,’ he said. ‘But you’ll have to ask him yourself. I’m not sure how it’d be possible to hit someone when you’re hanging from the edge of a precipice. What made you think of it?’

Lange pretended to make a note in the file. In fact he was doodling underneath one of yesterday’s statements, but the scratch of his pencil achieved its effect. Suddenly the police lieutenant didn’t seem quite so sure of himself.

It was only natural for a superior officer to back his men when something went wrong – and there was no doubt something had happened up there that didn’t tally with the officers’ statements, perhaps even a murder. Did Tornow know, or at least suspect? Was he trying to cover for one of his men, the indispensable Sergeant Major Kuschke? The main thing was Lange had unsettled the man, and that, for the moment, was enough.

He put his pencil to one side and stood up. ‘So, that’s it,’ he said.

‘That’s it? That’s the reason you summoned me here?’

‘You requested that I keep it brief.’ Lange stretched out a hand. ‘If you would please tell Sergeant Major Kuschke to come and see me at eleven o’clock tomorrow.’

Tornow looked him in the eye, as if he could read the assistant detective’s thoughts, and nodded. ‘Of course. Tomorrow at eleven.’

No sooner was the man outside than Lange relit the stubbed-out Muratti.

‘Should I type up the statement now?’ the stenographer asked as she stood up.

‘Not necessary, Fräulein Steffens. As you’ll have no doubt heard, we already have the statements on file. Throw your notes away and finish there for the day. It’s such lovely weather outside.’

Hilda Steffens looked at the assistant detective as if he wasn’t quite right in the head before packing her things and leaving the room. Lange drew deeply on his cigarette and leaned back. Perhaps he was imagining things, or simply reading too much into the operation commander’s behaviour, but he was certain that Lieutenant Tornow suspected something untoward had happened on his watch. Tornow was on the verge of starting a career in CID, and it would be most unfortunate if a black mark appearing so soon against his name were to compromise his future. Lange just had to convince the lieutenant that cooperating would be more beneficial to his career than stalling. Once he had the operation commander on side, he’d have Kuschke on a plate.

21

By the time he escaped the darkness and returned to Grenadierstrasse, Abraham Goldstein was a good pound heavier and felt like a different person. His fingers searched for the cold metal under the cover of his coat pocket, played with the weight, clasped the ribbed handle. It felt good in his hand. Though he hadn’t been able to test the weapon in the shop, he was certain he had made the right choice. A Remington Model 51: small, easy to use, effective.

He hadn’t thought he’d be able to get one in this country, so far from home. The taciturn toolmaker had surveyed him briefly when Abe asked for a firearm, then continued with his filing, before making for a cupboard in a dark corner of the studio. From its depths he had taken three pistols, a German model, a Belgian model, and the Remington. Even if the other pistols had been in better condition – the Belgian model was rusted, the German model had a slightly warped barrel – he’d still have gone for this. The Remington 51 felt as if it had been made for him, and the price was good. The toolmaker hadn’t been able to give him much ammunition, but it would be enough for his purposes. It wasn’t as if he was planning a session at the range.

He could still remember how it felt the first time he had fired a gun, when he was twelve or thirteen. It had been under Williamsburg Bridge, just before his Bar Mitzvah, at a time when he was anxious to shake off the God of his fathers.

He remembered the weight of the pistol in his hand, a Browning-Colt, almost twice as heavy as the Remington, with Moe’s boys looking on expectantly. They told him how he should breathe, how he should aim over his outstretched arm, but the feeling of the weapon in his hand overrode all else. The Browning-Colt gave him more power and strength than a gaunt twelve-year-old boy had any right to possess. It fit his hand perfectly, and made him feel big and strong, like one of them. The trigger was so light; he just had to move his fingertips gently back until he located the slack. The elevated train approached the bridge and, just as it thundered directly above him, Abe squeezed. He knew how loud a shot was, but was still surprised at how it rang in his ears, and even more surprised by the recoil which almost took his hand off. The laughter of the others drowned out the iron thunder of the Jamaica Line. He hadn’t even hit the car, a rusty old Ford which somebody had left under the bridge and on whose door they had drawn the target. It was said that one of O’Flannagan’s men had been shot in it, but it was so riddled with bullet holes from shooting practice that it was impossible to know.

The train hadn’t yet crossed the bridge and the laughter was still ringing in his ears when Abe took aim again. This time he was ready for the recoil, this time he was ready for anything. Imposing his will on the heavy pistol, he subjugated it to his desires. Then, calmly, he aimed, felt himself becoming one with the Browning. It was just like an extension of his arm, and he fired, again and again. Twice he struck the inner part of the target circle, once the outer part. Every shot hit home.

Nobody laughed now, just gazed at him in astonishment. Later they would let him shoot at rats on the bank of the East River, his first live targets. Red clouds of blood spattered everywhere, accompanied by hoots of delight. He had never understood their glee at seeing creatures suffer. When it came to killing a person for the first time, he was surprised at his own cold-bloodedness. He had screwed up a delivery (later he believed they had set him up to fail) and Moe had given him the chance to make good on a quivering wretch of a man they took from the boot of the car and threw onto the asphalt in the middle of the night. Moe looked at Abe and, without saying anything, pressed a Remington into his hand. Abe saw the shackled form in front of him, his ravaged face, and knew that one way or another this man was going to die. He also knew that he would win the respect of the entire gang if he took care of this whimpering fool as casually as possible.

He fired so quickly that even Moe was taken aback, a single shot to the back of the head, and returned the Remington to his boss. Moe couldn’t help breaking out into a grin, and then roared with laughter. ‘You’re a handsome son of a bitch,’ he said, and that had been Abe’s nickname ever since. He was just sixteen.

That night he had realised, to his surprise, that he had no fear of death, neither of his own nor other people’s. As soon as you accepted death, it lost its terror, simple as that. Perhaps that was what had estranged him from the religion of his forebears. If you didn’t fear death, how could you fear God?

What was death anyway? It could catch you at any moment: your heart, a car, a bullet. If you wanted to live, you had to accept it, and Abe had understood that death was a necessary condition of life. The fact that we’re alive is pure chance, he had once heard Moe say, the only certainty is death. And he was right. Most people saw it the other way around. They regarded their miserable existences as preordained and their death as chance, and that was their mistake.

Fat Moe’s rise in the last few years was due, not least, to the sure hand and discretion of Abe Goldstein. If it became inevitable that someone must die, then Handsome Abe was the man you called. Goldstein had never known any of the people on his list; most of the time he was over in Manhattan, rarely in Brooklyn, and never in Williamsburg. He never knew why they had to die, only that their death was a necessity. He took care of his work scrupulously, quickly and without emotion, using a different Remington 51 for each new contract, which he got rid of as soon as the job was complete. The police would never find a weapon on him, nor could they prove anything against him.

He walked back to the U-Bahn station, slower than on the way out, an oasis of calm in the midst of the busy throng. Reaching a wagon he came to a halt and tasted the sour cherries, spitting the stones onto the pavement before nodding contentedly and buying a bag from the trader. People hurrying by couldn’t realise, but the man crossing Grenadierstrasse was different from the one who had passed half an hour before. Only now did Abraham Goldstein feel complete, armed and ready to visit the address he had come to this city to find. Hopefully he wasn’t too late.

The money he had spent on Rath’s car had been worth it. The same went for Marion’s dress. He mustn’t forget their arrangement. Kurfürstendamm sounded like an expensive neighbourhood, but she had earned it. Without her he’d still be sitting trapped in that lousy hotel. It was only thanks to her help, thanks to her keys, that he could move about as freely as back home. No, more freely. He could do anything he wished here, absolutely anything. The police themselves would testify that Abraham Goldstein had spent the whole day inside his hotel room. The only thing he couldn’t leave was fingerprints.

22

Leafing through the papers on his desk, it was clear that Special Counsel Weber thought the whole thing a damned nuisance. ‘There’s nothing we can use here,’ he said finally. ‘Not a single statement from the accused, not even her personal particulars.’

‘If she doesn’t say anything, how am I supposed to take down her personal particulars?’ the officer facing him said. He had a strong Berlin accent. The girl handcuffed to him stared vacantly into space.

Had Charly imagined it, or was the poor creature shivering?

A representative from the Friedrichshain Youth Welfare Office stood like a lost soul. ‘Perhaps she’s deaf-mute, Officer.’

‘No, I can guarantee you that. She knows how to curse, this one, but she buttoned it as soon as we tried to interview her.’

Weber looked at his watch. ‘Fräulein Ritter, would you take care of the girl? I’ll return for the warrant after my appointment with Dr Keller. Getting her name and address shouldn’t be too difficult. The rest is just routine.’

While he was still speaking he reached for his coat and disappeared with a brief tip of the hat, leaving an embarrassed silence behind him.

So there she was: this taciturn girl who seemed rather shy to Charly, and who was alleged to have attacked a group of police officers on the underground. Routine. Nothing in this job was ever routine.

‘Let’s get started,’ she said, sitting on Weber’s chair, behind Weber’s desk. Judging by the look on the stenographer’s face she was already complicit in the fraudulent exercise of public office. The cop, the girl and the woman from Welfare waited expectantly. ‘Please, take a seat,’ Charly said, gesturing towards the row of chairs.

She skimmed the statement from the 81st precinct, which Weber had criticised moments before. According to it, the girl became violent after the conductor caught her riding the U-Bahn without a ticket. With the help of several passengers he overpowered her and transferred her to police custody at Petersburger Strasse U-Bahn station where, after some resistance, officers had placed her in handcuffs. They had found a knife on her person, a switchblade with traces of blood on it. At the same time they found a cut on her left hand, bandaged in makeshift fashion. These facts were enough to justify her temporary arrest, but witnesses also described a police officer with a bloodied face who had chased the girl in Strausberger Platz U-Bahn station. So far, this was unconfirmed. No wounded officer had come forward to make a statement, nor had the girl made any comment. If the statement was to be believed, apart from cursing and swearing wildly, the unidentified girl hadn’t uttered a word, at least not to the police. The whole thing was a mystery, but the fact that the assailant had punched and kicked officers repeatedly was enough for both a detention order and a charge. In Prussia, resisting law enforcement officers was no petty offence.

Charly looked up from the file. The stenographer waited with sharpened pencil. The lady from Welfare and the cop had sat down, but the girl remained standing.

‘You can take a seat too,’ Charly said.

She didn’t move, but her eyes flickered restlessly.

‘It would be good if I knew your first name. How old are you? Don’t you want to sit down?’

The girl stared out of the window at the building fronts on Magdalenenstrasse.

‘Spare yourself the effort,’ the cop said. ‘You can talk until you’re blue in the face, she won’t say a word.’

Charly ignored him. ‘The very least we need is your name,’ she repeated. ‘And where you live.’

Silence.

‘Should I be taking this down?’ the stenographer asked.

Charly shook her head.

‘If you want my opinion,’ the cop said, ‘she’s one of those brats who hangs around the old axle factory, over by the slaughterhouse. I don’t have to question her to know that.’

‘You’re well informed, Officer.’

‘I know my patch, and I recognise a runaway when I see one.’

‘But you can’t give me a name either.’

‘Scum like that, who cares about her name?’

The woman from Welfare gave a start, but said nothing. Still unsure whether she should be writing anything down, the stenographer looked indecisively from one person to the next.

‘With that sort of attitude it doesn’t surprise me that you were unable to supply the accused’s personal particulars. As an officer of the Prussian Police, you should display greater objectivity.’

‘I’d like to see how objective you are, when you’re trying to question a brat like that.’

‘Perhaps you didn’t go gently enough. The way you’re acting now…’

‘The way I’m acting now? Who is it who has to put up with these antisocial brats abusing him day in day out? Who is it they might gang up on and beat to a pulp? Who is it who’s putting his life on the line every day, you or me?’

Charly’s tone became sharper. ‘Remove her handcuffs, Officer.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘You are to remove the girl’s handcuffs before I begin the interrogation. We’re not dealing with a hardened criminal here.’

The officer shrugged and rummaged around for the key. ‘You’re the boss.’

It didn’t sound much like he meant it, but he unfastened the handcuffs without complaint. Nothing happened.

‘You see,’ Charly said.

‘You weren’t there this afternoon.’

The officer clipped the handcuffs back onto his belt.

‘I’d like to question the girl in your absence,’ Charly said.

‘Pardon me?’

‘I think she’s afraid of you. You, or your uniform. If you would be so kind…’

The officer shrugged again and stood up. ‘If you think so. You’re the boss.’

Charly looked at the stenographer, who had made no move to get up. ‘I think it’s better if this stays off the record for now,’ she said.

The woman from Welfare also stood up and moved towards the door. ‘You’re right. She doesn’t trust any of us. She probably thinks I want to stick her in a home. Why not try your luck alone?’

‘But you need at least one witness,’ the cop said.

‘This isn’t to conduct an official interview. It’s about regaining trust, so that an interview is possible. I’ll call you back in when we’re ready.’

Charly waited a moment for the door to close.

‘Now, take a seat,’ she said, ‘or do you really want to stand the whole time?’ The girl hesitated but sat in the chair. Charly pushed a carton of Juno across the table. ‘Do you smoke?’ she asked. Another hesitation, but she took a cigarette.

‘Don’t like talking much, do you?’ Charly said, after she had given her a light. ‘Afraid of saying the wrong thing…’ Charly lit a Juno for herself too. ‘You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. You can just nod or shake your head. No one’s writing down anything you say, anyway. It’s between us.’

The girl drew greedily on the cigarette, avoiding Charly’s gaze.

‘Does it hurt?’ Charly gestured towards the fresh bandage. According to the statement, several officers had to hold the girl still to inspect and re-bandage the wound. The panic in those eyes! No wonder. ‘How did it happen?’

The girl tensed on her chair, and Charly realised she had asked the wrong question.

‘There’s no need to be scared. No one’s going to be angry with you for defending yourself. We want to help you.’

The girl looked out of the window in silence.

‘You didn’t have money for a ticket, is that it?’

Silence.

‘You know, I got caught by a conductor once too. I must have been about the same age as you. My parents weren’t too pleased, but it wasn’t the end of the world.’

The girl remained silent, and it didn’t look as if that were about to change. Charly could imagine a simple cop losing his patience when confronted with this sort of obstinate behaviour.

‘We can’t help you if you don’t help us,’ she said. ‘If you tell us your name and where you live we can send you home. Otherwise we’ll have to keep you locked up until we find out.’

This was the first time she had issued a threat, but it had just as little effect as everything else. ‘I don’t want to lock you up, and I’m sure you don’t want that either. But you have to give us something.’

The girl seemed to be thinking. That was progress at least. Just when Charly hoped she might say something, there was a commotion in the corridor outside. A babble of voices, a loud cry, worse than a band of hooligans being brought before the magistrate. She tried to ignore the din, but it wouldn’t let up.

Finally she placed the Juno in the ashtray and stood up. ‘Just a moment,’ she said, opening the door to the corridor and total chaos. Most of the offices stood wide open, and everyone had gathered in little groups in the corridor. Handcuffed figures were being led in by uniformed officers. Their clothes were ragged and most of them had scratches to their faces or arms. One held a gauze bandage to a gash on his forehead. Everyone was talking and shouting. The boorish sergeant from the 81st precinct whom Charly had just scolded sat hunched on a wooden bench normally reserved for felons, face buried in his hands, with the woman from Welfare trying in vain to comfort him.

‘What’s going on?’ Charly asked.

The woman shrugged. ‘A group of unemployed who banded together on Frankfurter Allee. They shot a police officer, someone just said.’ She looked towards the distraught officer. ‘I didn’t catch his name, but he seems to have been a friend of the sergeant here.’

‘They killed Emil, the bastards!’ The cop screamed, his face a deep shade of red. ‘They should kill ’em all, Communist swine!’

He sprang to his feet and tried to collar a gaunt-looking man who was being led through in handcuffs. Two colleagues had to wrestle him to the floor.

What in God’s name is happening here today, Charly thought.

Whether or not the sergeant was fit for duty was something she could decide upon later. First, she had to take care of the runaway, but when she returned to the room she found the chair the girl had been sitting on empty; two cigarettes burned in the ashtray, and the window to Magdalenenstrasse stood open. She rushed to the windowsill and looked onto the street, feeling her knees give way. The girl had disappeared.

23

Alex gripped her ankle. Only now did she feel the throbbing pain.

When the woman from the court or whatever she was, had stood up and gone to the door, she had sniffed her chance. With all the noise outside, no one heard her climb onto the windowsill and lower herself onto the wide ledge above the ground floor window. It was still a good two metres down to the pavement, but she had to move quickly before they noticed she was missing.

The drop was too great, but what choice had there been? She had dangled from the ledge, legs frozen for a moment in mid-air, before letting go. An intense pain shot through her left leg upon impact, but she got straight back to her feet and limped behind a car parked a few metres away. A little boy on a scooter gazed curiously at her. She put a finger to her lips, and the little boy nodded.

She looked up at the window as the court lady gazed out and then was gone. Someone else could look out at any moment, but she couldn’t stay here forever. She had to move before the cops gave chase. It didn’t matter if every step hurt like hell. She put as little weight as possible on her left leg, but a piercing pain shot up from her ankle. It felt as if it were about to snap. She gritted her teeth and limped onwards, keeping her eyes ahead. Making it to the U-Bahn station was her only chance. As long as there wasn’t some idiot conductor… but don’t think about that now!

Almost at Frankfurter Allee she turned around again. There was no one behind her, neither in uniform nor in plainclothes. Was she actually going to get out of this in one piece? Traffic noise spurred her on, the staccato, stabbing pain becoming more and more rapid, her breathing too. Damn it, first her injured hand and now her ankle.

At the steps to the U-Bahn, she looked back again. There was some commotion taking place further down Frankfurter Allee, probably the unemployed taking their anger out on the cops; the furious cries of the proletariat could be heard from almost a kilometre away. Police uniforms were like blue dots in the milling mass. From somewhere she heard the wail of police sirens and began to realise why her escape had been so easy. The cops had more pressing concerns than an eighteen-year-old guttersnipe who had done a runner.

She made her way down the steps unnoticed. No one on the platform paid her the slightest bit of attention. A girl with a limp – so what? She hauled herself a few metres along the platform, leaned her head against a cool steel beam, closed her eyes and yielded to exhaustion. Someone pressed something cold into her uninjured right hand. She opened her eyes and looked at a one-mark coin.

She wasn’t a beggar. Her first thought was to return the money, but to whom? There was no sign of her benefactor, and people here seemed as distracted as ever, focused on their own concerns. Not knowing who to thank, she pocketed the coin. At least she’d have some money if she ran into a conductor again. They had taken her knife along with everything else in her bag, even the six-pack of Juno she had just opened.

A train arrived through the eastern tunnel. Where should she go? Flat B was too risky, Flat A too dangerous. Benny was dead, Kalli was dead. There was no one in this vast city who could help her, not a single place where she felt safe.

But wait, there was one. She hadn’t been there in over a year and it wouldn’t be easy to turn up and ask for help. There was no way of knowing how he’d react when he saw her. He wouldn’t call the cops, but he might chase her away. She had to be prepared for that but, if he didn’t help, everything would be over anyway. Exhausted by pain and stress, she flopped onto a seat.

The hopelessness of her situation, the fact of having no other choice, almost calmed her until, suddenly, she was overcome by a strange feeling of happiness. A smile crept onto her face. She was so tired, so at the end of her tether, that things could scarcely get any worse. Her mind was made up. She would throw herself on his mercy and hope he didn’t let her down. In spite of everything that had happened.

24

Glass crunched beneath her feet, each step echoing in the empty room. Charly stopped and listened. The rush of traffic noise from Landsberger Allee was interrupted only by the rhythmical clatter of the nearby Ringbahn station. Every little scrape sounded louder and harsher than the muffled noise from outside.

The old axle factory, the cop had said, but there was no sign of the youths. A deserted ruin, perhaps they only came here to sleep?

There was a loud crash, as if something in the hall had been knocked to the floor. A jerky, scuttling noise followed in the chamber of echoes and a rat paused in the middle of the room, gazing insolently at the human intruder. There were people living in this hovel? Children even? Sharing a roof with rats? She shook involuntarily.

At the end of the workshop she found a stairwell and climbed upwards.

The rooms on the first floor were in better condition. Some of the windowpanes were still intact and there wasn’t nearly as much broken glass on the floor. It was conceivable that the odd person slept here at night – even with rats present.

Did she really expect to find the girl and, if she didn’t, why was she here? It wasn’t as if Weber had asked her to spend the evening searching, quite the opposite. ‘That’s for the police,’ he had said. ‘Don’t make things any worse by getting involved.’

Any worse. As if that were possible! She couldn’t stop thinking about the empty chair, the cigarettes in the ashtray, then staring out of the window and onto the street; how she had sounded the alarm but no one was interested. No one paid much attention to a street urchin on a day when shots had been fired on Frankfurter Allee, and a police officer had lost his life. Even the woman from Welfare had shrugged, as if the girl’s escape gave her one thing less to worry about. Charly had dashed out onto Wagnerplatz herself, and continued down Magdalenenstrasse. In vain; the girl was long gone.

Now, Weber, he had been interested, at least enough to shout at her on his return from the public prosecutor. Must be out of your mind, flouted basic security precautions, completely unsuitable for this job were some of the milder accusations. Imagine giving an arsehole like Weber such an easy platform! He had sent her home and told her to take the rest of the week off.

‘This incident will be subject to an investigation,’ he said, ‘and the result will find its way into your personal file.’ Still, by far the most hurtful thing was his hypocritical attempt to comfort her after he had raged for a full quarter of an hour. ‘If I could give you one piece of advice,’ he had said, his voice dripping with paternal sympathy. ‘Don’t torture yourself. You’re a woman! Find a nice man and get married!’

Suddenly Charly found herself transported back to a Cologne cafe, listening to another sympathetic voice. Once you’re married you won’t have to work anymore. Now as then, she had been unable to speak.

She could still act though, and she wasn’t about to follow Weber’s instructions. She had climbed aboard the tram and made her way to Frankfurter Allee, travelling another two stops with the Ringbahn train. Reaching Roederstrasse she headed towards the old axle factory and climbed into the abandoned site through a gap in the rusty fence. She had to try, even if she could scarcely believe the girl would have fled here of all places.

She combed the first floor and the second, making a few discoveries along the way: wax residue, empty bottles, a battered old spoon, traces of trodden-out cigarettes. Search complete, she returned to the concrete stairs with the worn steel edges and descended them one by one. She felt a little uneasy alone in a place like this. The afternoon was simply the wrong time. Perhaps she should come back at dawn with Gereon.

Out of nowhere a boy appeared at the base of the steps, a broad-shouldered type with an angular skull and blackened fingernails, who couldn’t have been more than seventeen. At first he seemed as surprised as she was, gawping idiotically before bringing his expression under control. He did at least seem aware of how terrifying he looked. He puffed out his chest and crossed his arms to make them look even more muscular.

‘Can’t you read?’ he said. ‘Entry’s forbidden.’

‘I was just going.’

Charly tried to remain unfazed but was surprised at how wispy her voice sounded. C’mon now, she thought, can’t you think of anything better than that?

‘Shame. I prefer my women to come.’ His grin left her in no doubt that he was being deliberately suggestive.

Damn it, she thought, why did you have to go traipsing around here all by yourself?

‘I’m looking for someone,’ she said. ‘A girl. About five foot seven, dark-blonde, slim, bandage on her…’

‘What the hell is this, are you a dyke?’ The boy planted himself in front of her. ‘Or is it your daughter who’s run away? Give me a better description. Maybe I’ve fucked her.’

Charly wanted to punch his ugly face. You don’t scare me, she thought, you’re still just a kid, a cheeky brat with no manners. ‘Looks like someone forgot to bring you up properly.’

‘You can always start now. Shall I show you where I’d like to be brought up?’

This potty-mouthed chatter was too much. Charly tried to push her way past, but the boy took her by the arm and flung her backwards. She stumbled but managed to grab hold of the rail before landing on the steel edge of the concrete steps, earning herself a few bruises.

She was wrong. This was no child she was dealing with, and no one knew she was here, not even Weber. She picked herself up and was about to say something when she heard a voice, sharp as a knife. ‘Leave the woman alone, Kralle!’

She looked around at a girl in a thin coat, her black hair covered by a beret. Although her snub nose and massive brown eyes made her look sweet, Kralle seemed to respect her – or maybe it was the large knife in her hand.

‘If it isn’t little Vicky,’ he said. ‘What’s this, have you founded a new club? Women helping women?’

‘I don’t want the cops breathing down our neck because you can’t keep it in your pants. So apologise and let her go.’ She pointed towards the exit with the tip of the blade.

‘Naughty little Vicky has a knife. I’m so scared.’

‘I would be too in your shoes, arsehole, or have you forgotten what girls with knives can do? I’m just as handy as Alex.’

‘Alex, the stupid dyke.’

Vicky had touched a nerve.

‘Alex,’ Charly asked, ‘is a girl?’

She could see Vicky thinking quickly. She had said more than she intended.

‘Is she the one you’re looking for?’ Kralle said, almost politely now. ‘Alexandra Reinhold? The description fits. Well, I’m afraid our Alex isn’t home at the moment, otherwise I’d be only too glad to introduce the little tramp…’ Stupid as he looked, he had an instinct for hurting people.

‘Kralle, shut up!’

‘The fuck I will! Who brought you up? When grown-ups ask you something, you answer.’

Charly tried to allay Vicky’s fears. ‘You needn’t be afraid,’ she said. ‘I want to help your friend.’

‘If you’re from Welfare, you can piss off,’ Vicky hissed. ‘We know your kind of help!’

‘Maybe the cops sent her on ahead,’ Kralle said. ‘Is Alex involved in this KaDeWe business? I thought she and her little Jewish friend had something to do with it.’

The girl with the knife suddenly lost her temper. ‘Do you have any idea what you’re saying,’ she shouted. ‘Do you have any idea what happened, you stupid, fat bastard? Now piss off before I cut you a second arsehole!’

Kralle hunched his shoulders and left.

‘You’d better go too,’ Vicky said to Charly, ‘and forget what that idiot just said.’

‘I want to help Alexandra. Do you know where I can find her? She’s injured her hand and I think…’

‘Didn’t you hear me? Piss off!’

The knife in Vicky’s hand shook, and she looked as if she could lose control at any moment. Charly decided not to take that chance. The knife looked sharp.

‘OK,’ she said, ‘but if you change your mind, call me. Like I said, I want to help. I know that Alexandra is afraid of something; perhaps she should talk to me about it. I’m not from the police or Welfare.’ From her handbag she produced the notebook she had carried since her time in Homicide, wrote down her Moabit number and tore out the page. She placed the paper on the stairs and picked her way across the shards of glass, back into the open air.

Her heart was pounding as she emerged onto the street. Walking quickly towards Landsberger Allee, she opened her handbag and counted her change as she went. At the Ringbahn station she made straight for the nearest telephone booth.

25

Dressed in a dark suit with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, Goldstein stood outside the door, stared at the brass number, and withdrew the hand that was about to knock. Seized by a sudden nervousness, he paced back and forth like a tiger in a cage. No one paid him any attention; only a child being dragged through the ward in his parents’ wake looked at him for any length of time. He decided to go in, despite his reservations, just as the door unexpectedly opened. A man wearing a black hat came out, looked at him and his bouquet with a serious expression and walked past.

Beard and sidelocks made him seem older than he was, possibly about thirty, more likely mid-twenties. The brief moment the door was open had been enough for Goldstein to see the numerous visitors inside the room. It looked as if the entire family was gathered round the sickbed, including a second man in a black caftan. Everyone else was dressed in normal clothes.

He took a deep breath when the door closed again and the young man had disappeared inside the stairwell at the end of the corridor.

Arriving during visiting hours had been a bad idea. He couldn’t go in, not with all those people there, and suddenly felt out of place with his bouquet of flowers.

Yet, until that point everything had gone so smoothly. No one had asked any questions, and the porter had provided the room number without hesitation. Dressed in his plain, dark, single-breasted suit and carrying his bouquet of flowers, Abraham Goldstein looked like an ordinary visitor, blending in with the many others moving about with flowers during visiting hours.

Everything had seemed so easy, except that it wasn’t.

Goldstein paced up and down outside the door, unsure what to do. No one in there would recognise him, but he wondered whether he shouldn’t wait until the family had gone. With that, he made up his mind. Pressing the flowers into the hands of a puzzled nurse, he exited the ward the same way he had come.

26

At the public entrance, Charly had said, but she wasn’t there when Rath turned the corner past Alexanderhaus. The entrance to police headquarters on Grunerstrasse, right by the arches of the suburban railway, might have been the only one with an eye-catching perron, but that didn’t stop the rest of the colossal brick structure from inspiring awe. Purpose-built and bigger, even, than the City Palace, Berliners referred to it as Red Castle. Most police officers, however, simply called their workplace Castle; others, somewhat less awe-struck, dubbed it Factory.

He was to wait on the steps outside, rather than at the porter’s lodge or in his office. She hadn’t said why, but he sensed she would have no great desire to run into her former colleagues. Well, there was little chance of that happening here. Although a great many people used the public entrance, those who worked at police headquarters tended to avoid it. She hadn’t said a great deal on the telephone, only that they should meet at Alex and that she needed his help.

Kirie was sniffing at every corner and gazing at strange dogs as they passed. Already Rath had been forced to ward off the attentions of a pushy male pug during their lunchtime stroll, but that was as exciting as it got. His shift in the Excelsior had passed without event. Evidently Goldstein had given up trying to escape his minders and disappeared into his suite. He hadn’t shown himself since, even choosing to have his lunch brought to the room.

Rath was so preoccupied with Kirie that only now did he register the eye-catching vehicle parked beside the railway arches. A slender man climbed out of the driver’s door, and his appearance caused something of a stir, partly on account of his straight, black hair, which was bound in a long ponytail, and partly on account of his high cheekbones and impenetrable, dark, narrow eyes. Rath recognised him instantly… Liang Kuen-Yao, Johann Marlow’s shadow, in a tailored suit as always.

What the hell was Marlow’s Chinaman doing at police headquarters? Liang strode purposefully to the entrance, but only when he tipped his hat in greeting did Rath realise that he himself was the target.

‘Inspector,’ Liang said. ‘Please come with me. Your presence is requested.’ Without waiting for an answer, he turned and headed back to the car.

Rath looked around. When he was certain there was no one here who knew him, he followed. The freshly washed car was parked between a dusty Opel and a new Ford. The colour of a fine red wine, it looked as if it had arrived straight from Holly-wood. Not even Hindenburg’s Mercedes could have attracted more attention. Several youths gazed in wonder while maintaining a respectful distance. They were discussing what make it was.

‘It’s a Chevy.’ – ‘Nonsense, a Buick Master Six.’ – ‘American at any rate.’

It was indeed an American vehicle, but a Duesenberg, as uncommon on Berlin’s roads as penguins in the Sahara. Liang opened the door and, to Rath’s great surprise, Kirie sprang into the back. Before following, he took one last look to check Charly wasn’t coming around the corner. Kirie crouched in the spacious footwell in front of the backseat, and allowed herself to be stroked by a man inside.

‘Good dog,’ said Johann Marlow.

‘That must be a Boulette from Aschinger,’ Rath said. ‘Kirie would eat one of those out of the devil’s hand.’

‘I hope that’s not a reference to me.’ Marlow looked just as Rath remembered him: a little stocky but powerfully built, his linen summer suit tailored to perfection. ‘Good to see you again, Inspector,’ he said.

‘I didn’t know I had a choice?’

‘I’m pleased to see you’re as realistic as ever.’

Rath felt as if he’d stepped into his own nightmare. He had been expecting Marlow to show up again, but had pushed the knowledge aside, almost daring to hope that his dealings with the man were over.

Johann Marlow was known as Dr Mabuse or simply Dr M. At the start of his time in Berlin, Rath had become involved with him in the course of a case. Its resolution had brought a series of consequences.

At first everything had been fine. Rath had his killer, and Marlow had the gold he was after. Then a few months later an envelope containing five thousand marks appeared in Rath’s mailbox. No letter, no sender, not even Rath’s address – but he knew straightaway who it was from.

He hadn’t asked for the money, but neither had he given it back. Several months later, he ignored the fact that it was dirty and bought a car. Perhaps to this day he wouldn’t have touched it if his friend, Weinert, hadn’t needed to sell his old Buick when he was in a financial jam. The money meant that Rath could help him, though the stubbornness with which the Free State of Prussia refused him promotion and, with it, a decent salary, were contributory factors too. What was left had lain untouched in an account ever since.

Among all this he had neglected one crucial detail: the five thousand marks weren’t just a thank you and reward for his part in locating the Sorokin gold, they sealed a bond which Rath would sooner have dissolved – only, he didn’t know how.

He looked at Marlow. What did the man want from him? ‘I’m realistic enough to know that heading me off outside police headquarters is lunacy, especially in a flashy crate like that.’

‘If you don’t like it, then make sure you can be reached by telephone in future. Or, at the very least, that you spend your nights at home.’

‘You were at Luisenufer?’

‘If you had been there at four this morning we’d have had this conversation long ago. Poor Kuen-Yao had to wait in your flat for nothing. As for the flashy crate, the vehicle is a present from a girlfriend overseas, which I’m currently test driving.’

‘There was I thinking it was you who sent your girlfriends cars.’

Marlow laughed. ‘In this case, it concerns a female business associate, whom I helped gain a foothold in the States. She’s doing rather well now, as you can see.’

‘It’s still a typical American show-off machine,’ Rath said. Right now anything American could go hang. Except for their music.

‘I must say I’m surprised. I thought you drove American vehicles too?’

‘Singular,’ Rath said. ‘I drive an American vehicle, a used one at that. It’s no match for your fleet.’

‘You should work with me more often. You’d be able to afford something better.’

‘Who says I want to?’

‘Have I been misinformed about Prussian Police pay grades? Weren’t your salaries cut again?’

Rath was tired of the subject. ‘What’s so important that you need to interrupt your test drive to speak to me?’

‘I need your help.’ Marlow made it sound like a request. ‘Hugo Lenz,’ he continued. ‘Does the name mean anything to you?’

Rath shook his head. ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

‘Head of the Berolina Ringverein…’

‘Red Hugo!’

Marlow nodded. ‘You’ve come across him then?’

‘No, but I know the name.’

Operating under his nickname, Hugo Lenz was a known figure in the Berlin underworld. Red Hugo, an experienced safebreaker, was head of Berolina, the Ringverein Marlow used for his shady deals – without ever having been a member himself. It was a profitable collaboration for both sides. Berolina did the best business out of all the Berlin underworld syndicates, and Marlow always had enough men at his disposal – and not just when there was work to be carried out. The men from Berolina were Marlow’s muscle, a small army loyal to his illegitimate business empire. Nevertheless, he was careful to avoid anything that gave the impression he might have links with the Ringverein. He didn’t even go to their receptions – in contrast to a number of police officers, who maintained good relationships with Berlin’s criminal organisations. Even Superintendent Gennat had been known to attend the odd founder’s day celebration.

‘You’re aware that Lapke and Höller were released from Tegel two weeks ago?’

Rath nodded. The heads of the Nordpiraten had been caught red-handed two years ago breaking into a vault at Reichskanzlerplatz. Their temporary incarceration in Tegel had decisively weakened the Pirates, with Berolina the main beneficiaries. With Lapke and Höller back on the streets they seemed determined to re-establish the old status quo, and incidents were stacking up. A week ago, unidentified men had thrown one of Marlow’s drug-dealers through the closed window of a dance hall along with his goods, the victim sustaining not only cuts but paralysis to his legs and lower body. Shortly afterwards, a newly established Pirate betting office had been raided and destroyed. A gangland war seemed to be in the offing, a development many police officers observed with satisfaction, content to let the city’s criminal elements take care of one another.

‘I’ve heard about your trouble,’ Rath said.

‘Trouble’s the wrong word. We have our first fatality. A… how shall I put it? Business associate of Berolina was found murdered in his shop.’

Rath was surprised. Murder was against the Ringverein code of honour. That said, the Nordpiraten weren’t thought to take matters such as honour and tradition particularly seriously. ‘You believe the Pirates are behind it?’

Marlow shrugged. ‘Let’s just say I no longer believe in coincidence.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Hugo Lenz has been missing since yesterday.’

Rath pricked up his ears. ‘And you think the Pirates are behind that too?’

‘That’s what I want you to find out.’

Rath thought he saw a familiar face in the polished rear mirror of the Duesenberg. He turned his head to make sure. It was her! She was coming down Dircksenstrasse, gazing searchingly at police headquarters. Rath ducked.

‘What is it?’ Marlow asked. ‘Are you playing hide-and-seek?’

‘There’s someone outside,’ Rath whispered, ‘who must not see me in your car under any circumstances.’

‘Oh, let’s not be coy now. You’re talking about a woman. The cute dark-haired thing with the green hat?’ Marlow laughed and signalled to Liang. The engine gave off a low, steady rumble and started. ‘The same woman you took to Plaza back in the day, am I right?’

Rath didn’t respond. Slowly he lifted his head over the seat and looked through the rear windscreen. Charly was still gazing at the public entrance, looking at her wristwatch.

‘I like monogamous men,’ Marlow said. ‘It shows loyalty.’

‘I’m a bachelor,’ Rath said. He had no intention of speaking to Johann Marlow about Charly; it was bad enough the man recognised her.

Marlow laughed. ‘But a loyal bachelor, evidently. Got a date, have you? Well, don’t worry. We’ll take a turn around the block and deliver you on time.’

Where on earth was Gereon? Charly took a crumpled packet out of her handbag and lit a Juno. In the same instant a bus came down Grunerstrasse, its upper deck plastered with images of the brand. She inhaled hurriedly and took another look at her watch. He was already more than ten minutes late. True, she had been running five minutes behind schedule herself, but what was the world coming to when even the men no longer appeared on time.

She was furious with him, even though she had no real reason to be; furious with his lateness, and with the fact that he hadn’t even asked what it was about. She was furious with herself, too, furious with the passing time, as she stood there helplessly, driven almost to the brink of madness. Each minute she had to wait she felt her fury rise, and the last five went on Gereon Rath’s account. She drew deeply on her cigarette, inhaling the smoke with the full force of her wrath. It helped a little, but didn’t really calm her down, until there he was at last, standing on the other side of Grunerstrasse in front of the construction hoardings.

He didn’t seem to have noticed her yet, but Kirie wagged her tail and pulled on the lead, as her master looked right and left before crossing the carriageway behind a flashy American sedan. Finally, he saw her and smiled, and immediately she felt better. No longer alone, she stubbed out her cigarette, rage expunged.

Kirie was the first to reach her, jumping up to lick her face. She defended herself as best she could, and stroked the dog’s black fur. ‘Kirie, settle down,’ she said.

‘I should have taken a taxi,’ he said.

She attempted to smile in return, but made a complete hash of it.

Gereon’s smile vanished as he drew a step nearer and took her in his arms. Gratefully she allowed her head to sink onto his shoulders, felt his warm hands stroking the nape of her neck. She had to be careful she didn’t start bawling her eyes out, like a child expelled from school.

‘What is it, my love?’ he asked, and she forgave him for every minute he had been late. She felt a lump in her throat, and it was a moment before she could speak.

‘Oh Gereon,’ she said. ‘I’ve made such a mess of things. You have to help me.’

‘You’re shaking, what on earth’s the matter?’

She hadn’t realised, but he was right, she was shaking all over. She started to cry, which had never happened before in his presence, then turned her face away, but he only held her tighter. She could picture his face filled with consternation, but couldn’t make it out through her tears.

Ten minutes later they were in Aschinger. Charly had wanted to go straight to the Castle, to Records; not to waste a second, but Gereon had insisted that she tell him what happened first, and give her tears a chance to dry. When she saw her face in the mirror of the ladies toilet, she realised it was a good idea. She needed a few minutes to redo her make-up, and when she returned their drinks were on the table: tea with lemon for her, coffee, black as always, for him. Gereon drank coffee at all times of day, even in the evening. For Kirie there were two Bouletten. No sooner had her master set the plate down than she pounced, demolishing the meatballs in record time and devoting herself all the more intensely to licking the plate clean. At least the greedy dog succeeded in coaxing a smile out of her.

Charly took a sip of tea and told Gereon the whole story: the frightened girl in her office, Weber’s assignment, the boor of a sergeant, the commotion in the corridor on account of the dead policeman – and, finally, her catastrophic error.

His reaction wasn’t quite what she had expected. ‘You left a guttersnipe unattended in your office?’

‘I couldn’t know what would happen. I just went to the door…’

‘You didn’t even have her in sight. What if she’d taken a paper knife from the desk and attacked you…’

‘Weber doesn’t have a paper knife on his desk.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Gereon, don’t you start. I know I’ve messed up. But this girl… there was something about her. She was scared stiff. Of the cop, I thought, but maybe it was just the uniform.’

‘No wonder! Attacking a police officer is no petty offence. Even if it sometimes feels like it in this city.’

‘I don’t believe she really attacked him. The witness could have invented it. No cop’s come forward to report it.’

‘Charly, open your eyes! She’s dangerous. When I think about what the little brute could have done to you…’

‘She’s not a brute. Who knows what she’s been through? She’s got a gash on her hand herself. When I think of those kids in that old factory…’

‘Charly, Charly!’ Gereon sighed. ‘You can’t afford to have compassion in our job. Even less as a judge or public prosecutor.’

Instinctively she reached for her cigarettes. ‘Define compassion. I just want to know what happened. Now, are you going to help me look for her or not?’

Charly lit a Juno and took a deep drag, feeling her fury rise again. Gereon made a conciliatory gesture with his hands.

‘Of course I’ll help you.’ He took a notebook and pencil from his jacket. ‘So, her last name is Reinhold…’

‘Alexandra Reinhold. I don’t think they were having me on in the factory. The guy seemed to get a kick out of annoying this girl, Vicky, by snitching on Alex. He seems to really hate the pair of them.’

‘It must be possible to find out where she’s from.’

‘That’s why I asked you to help. Let’s go to Records and get the addresses of all Reinholds in Berlin.’

‘We don’t even know that she’s from Berlin…’

‘Gereon, I’m already at my wits’ end. I don’t know if I’m ever going to track this girl down. So, please, do me a favour and stop quibbling. Let’s just try. I might not get another chance.’

‘You’re right, but do you really think you can impress Weber by delivering this Alex?’

‘At least I’ll have made good on my mistake. Besides, the girl needs help.’

‘An arsehole like Weber is just waiting for you to mess up so he can write something negative in your file. He wants to destroy your career, that’s been his aim from the start.’

‘There are lawyers who hold me in higher regard.’

‘But they’re not the ones making decisions about your career.’

Perhaps they are, Charly thought. She stubbed out her cigarette.

‘Let’s see what happens,’ Gereon continued. ‘The way I see it, Weber won’t want to make too much of a scene. He should never have left you alone like that. You’re a judicial clerk. You can’t be playing magistrate in your preparatory year!’

‘I wasn’t. Weber just didn’t want his meeting with the public prosecutor to fall through. I was meant to get the girl’s personal particulars, that’s all.’

‘He must have a guilty conscience.’

‘He didn’t appear to just now.’

‘Maybe,’ Gereon said, ‘but have you thought about everything that’s happened? The dead policeman, the shoot-out on Frankfurter Allee. Who’s going to care about some tramp jumping out of the court window? I can’t imagine Weber’s going to be shouting his mouth off about this. He’s trying to scare you because he wants to hound you out of his court, and the profession too. Don’t let him intimidate you.’

‘Maybe you’re right.’ She took a sip of tea and attempted a smile.

‘Of course I’m right,’ Gereon said, looking at her encouragingly. ‘Now drink up, we’ve got work to do.’

27

The corridor lay empty ahead, with only the dim light of dusk reflecting from the polished floor. So far, no one. Most people had gone home long ago, and the patients were asleep. Goldstein had to wait for a moment outside, until two ambulances arrived one after the other, delivering the victims of a fight. At the same time a flood of relatives, friends, and others affected by the incident had rolled up and, within seconds, created an almighty stir in Accident and Emergency. Evidently, a wedding party had gone wrong.

He slipped onto the premises as the quarrelling started again, then through a door into a dim corridor, locating the stairwell and taking his bearings. This afternoon had been worthwhile after all.

The hospital wasn’t especially big, not in comparison with the Jewish Hospital on Prospect Place where they had removed his appendix, but there were many wards, doors and long corridors. It was better to know your way around.

He stood before the brass-numbered door again, and though aware that all he would encounter was an old man wandering through dreams, he hesitated as before. This time he hadn’t brought flowers, only the Remington in his inside pocket.

His hand pressed down on the handle and the door moved without a sound. He gazed once more across the corridor – the door to the nurses’ office was still closed – and crept into the unlit room. The curtains were drawn, but a glimmer of light outlined its contours. The bed stood against the end wall, and in it lay an old man with a wrinkled face. The sign at the foot of the bed confirmed what Goldstein knew already. The only sound was the rattling in his chest, but his eyes sparkled. He was awake. He sat up as Goldstein drew closer.

He hadn’t expected recognition, but the eyes in that lined face were alert.

The old man opened his mouth and his lips moved. His voice was scarcely audible, but each of the three syllables was plain to hear in the silence of the room. Abraham. They had never met, but the old man recognised him. The eyes that looked at him were already awaiting death.

28

Rath and Charly entered the Castle through the public entrance and made straight for Records. It reminded him of class trips where he and schoolfriends had roved the girls’ dormitories of youth hostels. Charly was a civilian now, and here he was helping her procure information that ought to have been off-limits. It was easier than he thought.

When he showed his identification, nobody was interested in the woman at his side except the clerk with responsibility for the letters L to R. ‘I know you, don’t I?’ he asked. ‘Are you working in Homicide again?’

Charly had to think on her feet. ‘Temporarily! I have to help the inspector here track down an address. Reinhold is the name.’

The clerk nodded and made for an enormous card index cabinet. ‘D or dt?’

‘Both.’

The man took a huge drawer out of the cupboard and hauled it onto the table. ‘They should all be in here, both ‘d’ and ‘dt’. What’s the good fellow’s name?’

‘We’re looking for a woman,’ Rath said. ‘More precisely: a girl.’

‘A minor? That makes things trickier. Do you see? At the top of the cards you have the names of the heads of household. Wives and children aren’t shown separately, and I’d be willing to bet some of them aren’t registered.’

Rath sighed. Charly, on the other hand, got straight to work.

There were ninety-seven Reinhold families in Berlin. If you counted those that spelled their name with a ‘dt’, over a hundred.

‘And we’re supposed to find a girl called Alex among that lot,’ Rath said, but Charly was already looking through the first card.

They found five Reinholds and one Reinholdt who had registered either an Alexa, an Alexandra or an Alexia. ‘There’s no way you can be sure that’s all of them,’ Rath said. ‘Do you want to visit every Reinhold family in Berlin?’

Charly was now leafing through index cards, and beginning to sort them in piles.

‘What are you doing?’ Rath asked.

‘I think she’s from the East, Friedrichshain or Lichtenberg. We should start with those addresses.’

There were still around a dozen. Rath thought she was joking when Charly suggested visiting them all today. ‘It’s already half past six,’ he protested. ‘People are eating their dinner, and in a few hours they’ll be in their beds.’

Charly’s frosty gaze nipped his opposition in the bud. Rath sighed, pulled out his pencil and began transferring the first addresses from the card to his notebook. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘but let’s split up. We’ll be quicker that way.’

Charly smiled at him, and Rath realised, not for the first time, that he’d do anything for that smile. Canvassing addresses was a cinch.

29

Outside the hospital Goldstein faced an unexpectedly fierce wind that cut through to his core, but decided against a taxi. Too restless to let himself flop onto the cushion of a vehicle, he walked. Walking always helped. He took out a Camel and lit it from behind his upturned collar.

The old man had the eyes of someone who knew he was about to die, but refused to let it affect him. How many people failed to recognise when their time had come and, if they did, couldn’t accept it, clinging to their lives until the end? Most people simply didn’t bargain on death, and when, inevitably, it came, their only response was surprise at the shocking revelation that it was all over.

At Badstrasse, behind the restaurant he had sat in earlier, the road led down to a perfectly straight little stream. He paused on the bridge, took a few drags on his cigarette and flung it into the dirty water. There was still a lot of activity on the street. He put his hands in his pockets and followed the flow of pedestrians.

A welcoming white ‘U’ shone in the night, above an elegant, modern brick building. Looking at the route map he saw that the next train was heading south. There was no queue and an escalator led below the ground. He allowed it to carry him down before checking behind. A figure in a black hat stepped on at the top and, for a moment, he thought his mind was playing tricks. The man stood on the stairs, gliding down at the same, monotonous pace as everyone else, an old Jew who reminded him of his father, whose hair was also white by the end. It wasn’t so unusual a sight, what with a Jewish hospital nearby, but the man looked like a spectre, a dybbuk, the ghost of Nathan Goldstein returned to haunt his son.

On the platform, he lost sight of him and was tempted to put the experience down to his imagination, when the figure appeared again, floating down the escalator to fall into a short, mincing tread that bore an eerie resemblance to Nathan Goldstein’s gait. His father had walked just like that over Williamsburg Bridge to Greenberg’s clothing factory on the Lower East Side. The old man was reminiscent of his dead father in many ways except one: Nathan Goldstein would never have taken the train. He was too tight, or simply too poor.

In the middle of the platform the black hat came to a halt and to Goldstein he seemed like a man out of time among the advertising signs, electric lights and people waiting for their trains.

Four men in brown were laughing and talking far too loudly, their faces reddened with alcohol. They had followed the old man down the escalator. A passenger with a bandage on his face who must also have come from the hospital pointedly turned his back on them.

They wore uniform shirts the colour of an unhealthy bout of diarrhoea, military style caps, also in brown, with red brassards on their left arms. At first Goldstein thought they were Communists, until he saw the black cross against the white circle, a cross with hooks, a symbol Goldstein had seen a few times in Berlin without remembering where. The old man seemed to recognise the symbol and the uniforms. Discreetly he distanced himself from the four men, moving slowly and inconspicuously – no mincing now – to the opposite end of the platform. Others waiting had also registered the newcomers, but no one wanted to let it show. Instead they remained as unobtrusive and indifferent as possible.

The brownshirts, oblivious to the change in atmosphere, pushed their way past. You could smell the drink on them even in the stale underground air. ‘Well now, what have we here?’

Their laughter trickled out like the last drop of rainwater in a gully; as did all conversation on the platform. ‘Is someone lost? I thought this was an Aryan platform!’

The rest of the passengers stared either at their newspapers or their feet. The old man gave up trying to be invisible.

‘Should we show the poor man the way?’

It didn’t sound like the brownshirt was being a good Boy Scout. The old man lapsed into his mincing walk, back towards the escalator at the other end of the platform.

‘Hey, old timer! We mean you, stay where you are!’ He didn’t turn around. ‘Hey Jew! Stand still when Germans speak to you.’

The old man reached the escalator, climbing the moving steps one by one until he disappeared from Goldstein’s field of vision. The brownshirts followed.

He seemed to be the only one who had seen the incident; everyone else continued looking at their newspapers or staring at the ground. Only when the train arrived did they raise their eyes. The doors opened, and they climbed aboard. No one got out. The train wouldn’t depart for another few minutes. He looked at the open doors and then at the escalator, which continued to roll upwards.

30

Rath had taken the east. While Charly spoke to the five families who had registered girls called Alex, he would work his way through the list of Reinholds based in Friedrichshain. He strode to the top of the escalator and lit a cigarette. Before emerging from the U-Bahn station at Strausberger Platz, he took another look in his notebook. The first address was in Andreasstrasse, not far from here.

In her determination to make amends, Charly had reminded him of the year before, when she had flunked her exam. Clearly, failure was not a concept that existed in her world. Her only source of comfort was to act, which she had done by tackling the exam for a second time. She’s a tough one, my girl, he had thought, as she started over again, studying long into the night. He felt an immense love for Charly in those hours he observed her unnoticed. At the same time her dogged grimness almost scared him.

He walked down Andreasstrasse, looking at the house numbers. The neighbourhood didn’t bring back good memories. Not far from here, at a construction site on Koppenstrasse, which had long since been replaced by a new building, Rath had clashed fatally with Josef Wilczek, a small-time crook, and then disposed of the corpse. Later he had consigned the man’s file to the Wet Fish, the Castle’s store of unsolved cases, after sabotaging the investigation. At least that’s what he thought, until Johann Marlow quite casually dropped the name Wilczek into a conversation. It was one of the reasons he couldn’t refuse any of the gangster’s requests, and that included searching for Red Hugo. At least – and this was to the man’s credit – it was the first time in almost two and a half years that Marlow had tried to use him. Until now it had been the other way around, which only exacerbated Rath’s debt.

He looked around. The pub where Dr M. had waited in vain for Hugo Lenz on Monday evening must be close. Not the sort of neighbourhood Charly should be walking around in at night.

On Langen Strasse, a flickering neon sign was engaged in battle with the oncoming dusk. Amor-Diele. That was the place. For an underworld meeting point it looked pretty respectable. Perhaps it had to be for Johann Marlow to frequent it.

Rath came to a halt. He looked at his list of addresses and then the sign outside the pub. Damn it, he thought as he pocketed his notebook. Charly’s Reinholds could wait. He flicked his cigarette into the gutter and went over.

31

The old man didn’t make it out of the station building. The brownshirts caught up with him and pushed him into a corner. Two or three passersby looked across, and suddenly rushed to get down to the platform. The man at the ticket counter leaned over his till to count his change. Goldstein entered the foyer from the top of the escalator and saw the lips under the white beard moving as if in prayer. ‘Could you please to step aside so that I go back down the underground?’ he asked politely.

‘It’s for Germans only,’ said the red-faced man who had started the whole thing off. He tapped the old man’s chest with his fingers. ‘Who said you could take the train?’

‘But I have ticket.’

‘Didn’t you hear? For Germans only, you’ll have to walk!’ One of the brownshirts struck the old man a hefty blow so that he stumbled into the arms of the ringleader.

‘Hey, Jew, watch where you’re going!’

‘Well,’ said a third, giving the old man, who was still holding his ticket, a sharp rap on the arm. ‘Aren’t you going to apologise to the Scharführer?’

The old man’s eyes flitted this way and that, from one man to the next. Enough was enough.

‘Why don’t you just let the man go home?’ Goldstein said.

Four pairs of eyes turned to face him.

As calmly as possible, Goldstein lit a Camel, and, for a moment, they were speechless, looking at each other before returning to the man with the cigarette. ‘What do we have here?’

Goldstein would have liked to tear a strip off them, but he didn’t want to start a fight. He just wanted them to leave the old man in peace.

While the eyes of his tormentors were on Goldstein, the old man lunged to the right, darting sideways and out of the building with surprising speed. The four men gazed after him in confusion.

‘We haven’t finished with you yet!’ the Scharführer waved his fist at Goldstein, a gesture that seemed laughable, and followed his three cronies outside.

‘You’re welcome, asshole,’ Goldstein snarled in English. He was part of this now. By the time he stepped onto the street the old man had crossed the carriageway. His pursuers waited for their Scharführer to catch up, then bore down on the old man from both sides. He looked to the left and right, before turning towards the park, which rose dark and threatening in the night sky, a wall of leaves illuminated by streetlights.

They had forced him into a corner.

Goldstein who, as a child, had been told never to walk through McCarren Park after dark, had no idea what the man was thinking. Perhaps the trees reminded him of the Galician forests, or he hoped simply to hide among the bushes. He disappeared between two box trees and, for a brief moment, the brownshirts looked around idiotically, before stalking after him.

Goldstein had to let three or four cars pass before he could cross too. The old man had struck out for the undergrowth, and his pursuers had followed. He decided on a gravel path. At least the way here was lit.

32

The man was smoking behind the wheel of his car.

Rath hadn’t learned much in the pub, but at least they had stood him a beer. The landlord, obviously briefed by Marlow, showed him to a spacious room behind the lounge and toilets, with three tables that could be pushed together for conferences or large dinners, but would better suit games of skat. The most noticeable thing was the desk with the telephone, by which Rath knew straightaway that he was in one of Johann Marlow’s many offices. This was where Red Hugo Lenz should have appeared yesterday evening, having last been seen at lunchtime. According to the landlord Lenz didn’t have any quirks, only a passion for the horses, and regularly visited the racetrack at Karlshorst. Rath’s theory that the Nordpiraten had taken him from outside Amor-Diele was rejected out of hand. The landlord claimed the Pirates were too cowardly to set foot in Friedrichshain, but it looked like he might be mistaken there.

Rath crossed the street, opened the passenger door and sat inside. The man stared at him wide-eyed. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘This isn’t a taxi.’

Rath pulled out his identification. The man made to open the door but froze when he felt the barrel of Rath’s Walther against his temple.

‘Stay where you are, and close the door.’ The man obeyed. ‘Back on the streets, Johnny?’

‘Do we know each other?’

‘It was a long time ago. Vice squad. Bruno Wolter.’ A light came on in Johnny’s head. ‘You were a doorman, weren’t you? You’ve risen in the world.’

‘Is this allowed?’

‘Does it matter?’ Rath pressed the Walther a little harder against the man’s temple. ‘You’re from the Nordpiraten, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘And you’re a cop coming out of a Berolina dive. What am I supposed to make of that?’

‘Nothing. You’re here to answer questions, not me. Hugo Lenz has disappeared, and the majority of people in there think the Nordpiraten had something to do with it. How many evenings have you been sitting here now? Was it you who kept an eye on Red Hugo before giving him up?’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘Why break a drug-dealer’s spine? Why make a bonfire out of a newspaper kiosk?’

‘We’re taking back what’s rightfully ours.’

‘No matter how many people are killed in the process?’

‘That’s rich. Do you know why I’m sitting here, Inspector? It’s because Rudi Höller has disappeared. Lapke thinks Berolina bumped him off.’

‘Rudi the Rat?’

‘We deal with these things ourselves. No cops.’

‘What makes you think Berolina are behind it? They don’t go about killing people. They stick to the code of honour.’

‘Well, maybe Red Hugo and his men don’t get their own hands dirty, but if you knew who just landed in Berlin…’

‘Explain!’

‘Don’t you know anything? You haven’t heard there’s an American killer in town? Now, who has the money to send for someone like that? Not the Pirates! You should spend some time probing the good men of Berolina.’

‘What do you think I’ve been doing?’ Rath gestured towards the pub. ‘The things they’re saying about your lot, you’d want to be careful hanging around like this.’ He opened the door. ‘Tell your boss that we don’t want a gangland war here in Berlin. Tell him to keep the peace, or he’ll be straight back in the can.’

33

Away from the streetlamps it was pitch black. Wind rattled the trees and gravel crunched underfoot. Goldstein had started to believe he was the only person in this nocturnal wilderness when he heard a cry, but the juddering of a passing train drowned all other sound, even the rustle of leaves in the trees.

He moved in the direction of the cry until he saw the four brownshirts gathered in a little clearing around the old man. Silhouetted by the light of a streetlamp, their long shadows were thrown across the grass. The black hat was pulling himself up from the ground. ‘You Shkotzim, why don’t you let an old man go about his business in peace?’

‘Speak German. This is Germany!’

One of the brownshirts launched a kick at the old man’s solar plexus, and he fell to his knees, gasping for breath. A second kick struck him under the chin and he toppled forward, his hat rolling across the grass.

Goldstein stepped silently onto the soft grass, but they were too preoccupied to notice. The fat one fumbled around with his fly. ‘Make a bit of room. I’m desperate here.’

The others laughed and stepped aside. The old man groaned but didn’t move. The fat man had his dick in his hands when Goldstein shouted. ‘Who shat on your uniforms?’

All four turned, and the one holding his dick said: ‘I don’t believe it. Someone must have a death wish.’

‘It’s the big mouth from just now!’

‘Must be a foreigner who doesn’t know who he’s dealing with. Needs teaching a lesson.’

‘I’ll tell you who I’m dealing with,’ said Goldstein. ‘A group of cowardly mamzerim going at an old man, one with a fat belly and a tiny schmock. Put that thing away before it drops off. You won’t find it in the dark.’

The fat brownshirt stuffed his penis back in his fly and fumbled frantically at the buttons. The other three turned their attentions to Abraham Goldstein.

‘The way you’re talking you must be a Jew too?’

‘It doesn’t fucking matter what he is, Stefan,’ the ringleader said, still buttoning his fly, ‘either way he needs a good slap.’

Stefan planted himself in front of Goldstein and looked him over. ‘You don’t look Jewish to me, so don’t butt in. You’ll regret it.’

Goldstein flung his cigarette onto the grass. ‘Fuck you,’ he said in English, putting his hands in his coat pocket.

‘We’re in Germany,’ Stefan said, ‘and in Germany we speak German. Time for your first lesson.’

He lifted his right hand but Goldstein rammed his forehead against the bridge of his nose before he could move. Stefan’s eyes rolled and he fell to the floor, blood streaming from his nose. One down, three to go.

‘Did you understand that?’ Goldstein asked. ‘Or do you need me to translate?’

The fat ringleader found his voice. ‘Now you’re talking,’ he said. ‘Show him, Gerd!’

Gerd put on a knuckleduster. ‘You won’t get me like that,’ he said. ‘Not so much as a warning, you cowardly piece of shit.’

‘Consider yourself forewarned.’ Goldstein pulled the Remington out of his coat pocket. ‘One more step, and there’ll be a hole in that nice uniform.’

Gerd stared uncertainly into the barrel and looked to his leader. ‘He’s got a piece, Günter. He must think we haven’t seen it all before.’

‘Put that away,’ said Günter. ‘You think the SA would venture into a Communist area unarmed?’

‘I repeat. Reach for a pocket and you’ll find yourself with a hole in your shirt.’

Abe must have been concentrating too hard on the ringleader and Gerd’s knuckleduster. He lost sight of the third man. By the time he registered movement, his arms were gripped from behind. He lost his balance and, together with his attacker, fell to the ground. A shot went off and someone screamed.

‘Aargh, my foot!’

His attacker loosened his grip for a moment and Goldstein slammed the Remington against his temple, knocking him out. He wasn’t the only one rendered out of commission. Gerd was sitting on the lawn next to the unconscious Stefan, clasping his right foot with both hands. On his right hand he still wore the knuckleduster. Dark, shiny lines of blood seeped through his fingers and dripped on the floor.

‘Damn it, my foot!’ he yelled. ‘What have you done, you arsehole?’

Goldstein looked over at the fat man, who stood off, making no move to approach. He picked himself up, ready for the next attack, but the man stayed where he was. ‘So,’ the man said, ‘things look a little different now, don’t they. Drop your weapon!’

At first Goldstein thought he must have misheard, but then he saw the Luger cocked in the man’s hand.

‘I’m warning you,’ Günter said. ‘I’m a good marksman. Pistol on the floor.’

Goldstein shrugged. ‘You know, in situations like this, it doesn’t really come down to who’s the best shot.’

‘Oh?’

‘It comes down to who can hold their nerve.’

‘Drop your weapon!’

‘That’s what I’m talking about. You’re too nervy. Your voice is too loud. Any moment now your hand will start shaking.’

‘An arsehole like you, I’d hit every time.’

‘The problem is you don’t want to shoot me. You can’t. You’re not capable. Otherwise you’d have done it already.’

The Luger began to shake.

‘Shoot him!’ cried Gerd. ‘Do him! The bastard shot my foot! It’s self-defence!’

Günter was already moving backwards.

‘I think it’s about time I issued another warning,’ Goldstein said, nodding towards the Luger. ‘Drop your weapon before I shoot it out of your hand. Have you ever thought how awkward life can be without a right hand?’

The panic in the fat man’s eyes grew. Fight or flight? He dropped the Luger, turned on his heels and ran.

‘Some Scharführer,’ Goldstein said to the whimpering Gerd, who was still mourning the loss of his toes. ‘Leaving you in the lurch.’

Stefan groaned and put his hands to his bloody nose. Reaching it, he gave a yawp and immediately regained consciousness. The third man was also coming round. All three looked at Goldstein. In the meantime Gerd had tears in his eyes, and was making an increasingly strained face.

‘This isn’t a picnic, you know,’ Goldstein said. ‘So far, you’ve managed to escape with a few bruises…’

‘Bruises?’ Gerd wailed. ‘My foot!’

‘…but I warn you. It’s time to get the hell out of here before I change my mind.’

Stefan and the other man cast a final glance at their lame colleague, before taking flight in different directions.

Goldstein planted himself in front of Gerd.

‘Stop dragging your feet, that means you too.’

‘How am I supposed to walk?’

‘Try hopping or crawling. Your whining is getting on my nerves.’

Moments ago, Little Gerd here had been prepared to smash his face in with a knuckleduster. Now he was behaving like he’d just realised that life was unfair. He pointed the Remington at him. ‘I’d get out of here, unless you want to lose the other foot.’

Gerd gave a cry of pain as he tried putting weight on his left foot for the first time. When he shifted the load to his heel it appeared to work. Slowly he limped towards the beam of light and the gravel path, and hobbled out of sight.

Goldstein went over to the old man and handed him his black hat. He was a little worse for wear, and there was a bruise under his white beard. All in all, though, he wasn’t doing too badly. ‘Up you get, old timer,’ he said, helping the astonishingly light man onto his feet. The Jew dusted the dirt and blades of grass from his caftan, and looked at him as if he were the Messiah.

‘Just so we understand each other,’ Goldstein said. ‘I don’t exist. You never saw me!’

‘But I do see you. You stand here now.’

‘But really, I am somewhere else.’

‘I don’t understand. Who are you?’

‘I could be the Archangel Michael for all it matters. Just to be clear again: this never happened. I’ll take you home to your family, and then you’ll forget about the whole thing, yes?’

‘Many times, thank you,’ the old man said. ‘But you shouldn’t have fired shot.’ He shook his head. ‘Shooting is wrong.’

Arguing with pig-headed old Jews of this kind was a waste of time, as Goldstein knew from experience. He gave the man his arm and led him towards the gravel path.

‘Let me tell you the story of old Rabbi Zanowitsch from Lubowitz,’ the old man said. Goldstein rolled his eyes. He had heard it many, many years before.

34

The new month began in a crush as Weiss summoned all senior CID officers, from inspector upwards, to the large meeting room.

For once Rath didn’t mind. He pressed Kirie’s lead into Gräf’s hands, dispatched the detective to the Excelsior and treated himself to a coffee. In the cluster of people that formed outside the room were a few familiar faces from A Division, among them Wilhelm Böhm sporting a holiday tan. Rath wouldn’t have begrudged Bulldog Böhm a few more days off, or, indeed, early retirement on full pay. He kept his distance, shuffling forward beside Narcotics, who were bitching about Nebe, their former boss, whom Weiss had made head of Robbery Division a few weeks before. Nebe was ambitious, unpopular, and seen as Bernhard Weiss’s protégé. Those who enjoyed the protection of superiors at the Castle didn’t have an easy time, as Rath knew from experience, having been seen as the darling of the former commissioner, Zörgiebel, when he started in Berlin.

The crowd pushed through the double leaf doors and into the room. Rath found a space at the back and sat down. The air was already sticky. Most officers were smoking, and no one thought to open a window. He yielded to the herd mentality and opened a packet of Overstolz, sniffing the fresh tobacco before lighting up.

Yesterday evening had ended with him and Charly smoking in his flat on Luisenufer, exhausted and resigned after many hours of fruitless door-to-door canvassing. Rath had waited over an hour for her, and was starting to worry when he heard the key turn. Moments later, her disappointed face appeared in the door. She hadn’t found the girl, of course, although she had worked through her entire list. He consoled her with the prospect of tomorrow, and received a tired, battle-weary nod in return.

His telephone call to the Welfare Office had done nothing to assuage his guilty conscience, and the fact that Charly, tired and resigned as she was, had actually believed his threadbare excuses, almost shamed him more than the excuses themselves. He had visited only one Reinhold family and was met by an indignant woman who said she had no daughter by the name of Alex or Alexandra. At the other four addresses, he had claimed – and Charly believed him – no one had been home.

This morning, that same abandoned list had morphed into her final hope. She tore the evidence of his neglect from the notebook almost gratefully, and he said nothing more on the subject. Certainly not his true opinion, which was that the situation was hopeless.

The whispering that filled the large meeting room grew quieter and finally stopped. Rath looked up as the deputy commissioner stepped onto the podium with a grave expression. He threw his cigarette on the stone floor and trod it out with the tip of his shoe. Dr Weiss gripped the lectern and waited. Only when all was quiet in the room did he speak.

‘I have gathered you here today,’ he began, looking around, ‘in light of recent, tragic events. I am sure most of you have heard already.’

His account of the clash on Frankfurter Allee sounded altogether more grave than it had coming from Charly. As expected, the deputy didn’t mention anything about a guttersnipe who had escaped from Lichtenberg District Court. He simply listed the facts: a workers’ demonstration in the middle of a Communist area; sudden escalation, and advancing police officers find themselves in a hail of bullets; a sergeant who storms demonstrators on the front line is hit in the chest, collapses, and dies shortly afterwards.

‘You are no doubt aware, gentlemen,’ Weiss said solemnly, ‘that Sergeant Emil Kuhfeld is not the first police officer to lose his life in the line of duty. Nor, I fear, will he be the last. I know I speak for us all when I say that we, his colleagues, will not forget him.’ He gazed around the room. ‘Gentlemen,’ he continued, ‘Please rise and observe a minute’s silence for our dead colleague.’

Hundreds of chair legs scraped across the floor and the room became eerily quiet. Everybody knew this minute’s silence was no hollow, meaningless gesture, but affected each one of them personally. The much-invoked superiority of CID over Uniform had no place in this room. When it was a question of the mood outside, of the increasingly brutal hostility officers faced every day on the streets, they were all in the same boat, whether in uniform or plainclothes. The only difference was that Uniform had to risk their necks far more often. Out there were people who looked on police officers as fair game.

Rath had never felt drawn to life on the beat; now it seemed less attractive than ever.

‘Thank you, gentlemen.’ Weiss drew the minute’s silence to a close, and the room filled with noise again.

Only now did he mention the state of the investigation. Initial enquiries from Section 1A, the political police, had revealed that the shooting was coordinated by Communist headquarters, and, for this reason, Weiss had ordered a series of searches. The ban on the Spartakiad was now to be implemented in all its force. Weiss had already forbidden the Communist sports event a few days ago, as well as an SA event scheduled for the same day. In his campaign against the violent, so-called politicians who had brought Germany to the brink of civil war, Bernhard Weiss, himself a former chief of the political police, was consistent like no other Prussian officer.

‘Now let us move on to something altogether more agreeable,’ he said, smiling for the first time. ‘There is another reason I have gathered you here. In fact there are several reasons; specifically, the men sitting directly in front of me today.’

Weiss paused, and the atmosphere grew restless as everyone tried to see who was in the front row. Rath craned his neck, but couldn’t see past the bulky Ernst Gennat, who was sitting in the third or fourth row.

‘These are your new colleagues,’ Weiss continued. ‘CID is being supplemented by a number of cadets. Despite the compulsory saving measures imposed by the government, we are doing everything in our power to avoid police numbers being cut.’

‘And what are you doing to avoid police salaries being cut?’ a heckler shouted. Everyone turned, but the man was nowhere to be seen. No one dared laugh and Weiss remained calm.

‘I see many well-nourished faces before me. To my knowledge, no CID officer has died of starvation this year. Should you genuinely be living in want and find yourself unable to afford the canteen, come and see me in my office. Just make sure you don’t go nosing about Superintendent Gennat’s cake selection.’ A few colleagues laughed, but not many. ‘Back to our cadets,’ Weiss said. ‘Allow me to invite the men onto the stage.’

Rath heard chairs shifting as half a dozen young men lined up in front of them.

‘Messrs Start, Tornow, Schütz, Weisshaupt, Marx and Kluge begin their service as cadets today. Initially, they are assigned to J Division, as Warrants are currently suffering the greatest shortages. However, they can be assigned to other divisions on a case-by-case basis, at the discretion of Chief Scholz.’

Second from the left was the police lieutenant Rath had encountered outside Weiss’s office. He cut an immaculate figure in a suit. Tornow, the deputy said his name was.

‘I ask that you remain on hand with help and advice for these men,’ Weiss continued. ‘Most of you were in Uniform not so long ago, exposing yourselves to great danger in the service of our democratic state. If you are teamed with one of our cadets, please exercise patience as you show them the ropes. Remember, in time, one of these gentlemen could be your superior.’ He paused until the laughter died. ‘All joking aside, yesterday’s events remind us how important it is to work together, with rather than against one another.’

Rath couldn’t be sure through Weiss’s thick reading glasses, but he felt as if the deputy had his eyes trained on him. It was probably just his imagination, an inherent sense of guilt exacerbated by his rigorous Catholic upbringing. Appeal over, Weiss brought the meeting to an end. The officers stood up and gradually filtered out of the room. In their midst moved a man whose vast frame made him impossible to overlook.

Rath considered whether he should speak to Gennat. Perhaps the chief of Homicide could exert a little pressure, even if it was clear that Bernhard Weiss had no intention of withdrawing Rath and his men from the Goldstein operation. Why the whole thing couldn’t be transferred to Warrants, Rath didn’t know, especially now that they had a few extra hands. After all, what better job was there for a cadet than a stake-out? Rath headed towards Buddha, before hesitating. Wilhelm Böhm stood alongside the superintendent. It would have to be Böhm! Approaching the two detectives he overheard the Bulldog mention something about a robbery homicide that wasn’t.

‘Good morning, Superintendent.’ Rath tipped his hat. ‘Detective Chief Inspector.’

‘Ah, Inspector Rath,’ Gennat said. Böhm broke off mid-sentence and cast the troublemaker an angry glance. ‘I see you’re back,’ Gennat continued. ‘How is everything going?’

‘Fine, thank you for asking. I just wanted to check what was happening in A Division. We don’t hear much out in the field. Looks like the number of cases is on the rise again.’

‘Yes, a real tragedy, this business with our colleague. We’ll touch on it in briefing later.’

‘And DCI Böhm is investigating a death as well, I hear?’

Böhm shot him a second, angrier glance, which Rath chalked up as a minor victory.

‘We found a corpse yesterday in Friedrichshain,’ Gennat said. ‘A second-hand dealer in a pretty bad way at the back of his shop. Everything points towards robbery homicide, except the man was a known fence with links to the Berolina Ringverein.’

‘Which is why I suspect a different motive,’ Böhm butted in. ‘Berolina and the Nordpiraten are at loggerheads and it wouldn’t surprise me if the robbery homicide was staged. There are, at any rate, a few discrepancies.’

Rath’s ears pricked up. ‘You think there’s someone out there settling underworld scores? What do you think?’ he asked Gennat. ‘Would it be possible for me to take part in today’s Homicide briefing? Just to keep up to date, in case my men report back for duty in the next few days.’

Gennat looked at him as if trying to establish the real reasons for Rath’s interest. Buddha might appear a little sleepy, but his eyes were so alert and his gaze so intense that Rath couldn’t help but blink. ‘Any time,’ he said. ‘As long as you can make it work with your other commitments.’

That didn’t sound as if Gennat was about to ask Weiss for his men back. Rath hid his disappointment and nodded.

A short time later, he sat with his old colleagues in the small meeting room, with everything just as before, except that Gräf was missing. Henning and Czerwinski were catching up on sleep after finishing the nightshift. Rath half listened as Assistant Detective Lange spoke blandly about the dead boy from KaDeWe, whom they had now identified, and Assistant Detective Mertens recapped yesterday’s shooting in the east. The investigation was being headed by Section 1A, with Homicide operating in a purely ancillary capacity.

For a CID detective, there was nothing worse than acting as dogsbody to the political police. Even so, Mertens couldn’t hide his satisfaction that 1A had been unable to trace the gunman. Reading between the lines, it was clear he considered it wishful thinking not only that the shot had been intentionally fired, but that it had come from a Communist source.

Next up was Böhm, who received Rath’s undivided attention. Evidently he still hadn’t heard anything about Red Hugo’s disappearance, mentioning only that Hugo Lenz, who was on his list of interviewees, was to be found neither at home nor at his regular haunt. Apparently that wasn’t Mulackritze, as Rath had always assumed, but Amor-Diele in Friedrichshain, where he had been only last night. To think he could have run into one of Böhm’s men!

Whether he was a victim of the Nordpiraten or not, Böhm’s dead fence, whose name was Eberhard Kallweit, had been found in his shop yesterday, and probably been there for several days. The till was empty, but the perpetrators had left a surprising number of valuable items, high-quality wristwatches among them. That was one of the reasons Böhm thought the robbery homicide was staged, especially since the victim had been brutally tortured before death. So brutally, in fact, that it was all too much for one of his tormentors. Next to the dead man, Forensics had found a pool of vomit that definitely hadn’t issued from Kallweit, a fact confirmed in Dr Schwartz’s post autopsy report. Aside from the vomit the pathologist had found numerous breaks and lacerations, as well as the source of the internal bleeding that was responsible for the victim’s death.

Böhm then reported on the background to the current gangland feud. It wasn’t open warfare, he said, and there still hadn’t been any fatalities, or, at least, no obvious executions, but, in the past two weeks clashes between the Nordpiraten and members of Berolina had grown more frequent.

‘We believe it to be connected to the release of Rudolf Höller and Hermann Lapke, both of whom have just served two years in Tegel for attempted bank robbery. Clearly they hope to restore the Nordpiraten to their former glory.’

The incidents were stacking up. Berolina drug-dealers had been beaten in broad daylight; bars that stood under the official protection of the Ringverein had been destroyed, their guests insulted. The attacks had culminated with the unfortunate drug-dealer who landed spine first on a set of basement steps. The torching of a new Pirate betting office on Greifswalder Strasse was seen as Berolina’s response, even if neither police nor the Pirates could prove it. Had the fence been killed in retaliation?

‘If Kallweit should prove to be the first victim in a gangland war,’ Böhm said, ‘things will soon escalate.’

‘Lock ‘em up,’ someone cried. ‘That’s how you avoid your escalation right there.’ The heckler received a murmur of approval. ‘That’s right,’ said another. ‘We know almost all the members of these Ringvereine. Why can’t we just put them all behind bars?’

‘Why not do the same with the Communists,’ a third cried. ‘Wouldn’t be able to gun our men down from inside.’

‘Quiet, gentlemen!’ Gennat, who had been silent until now, stood and made a conciliatory gesture with his hands. ‘Quiet, please!’ The superintendent could be astonishingly loud.

The murmuring subsided.

‘You are well aware why we can’t do that. Locking people up just because we think they might commit a crime. In Prussia only those found guilty and convicted can be put in jail. There is no preventative custody, and rightly so. Otherwise the way is paved for misuse and despotism. Gentlemen, we live in a constitutional state…’ He paused, seeming to look every single officer in the eye. ‘…and you are a part of its executive power, no more, but equally – and I stress this – no less.’

He had the room back under control. ‘If it is as Böhm here suspects and we are dealing with the first casualty of a gangland war, then we will do everything in our power to prevent further loss of life. Using the means afforded to us by our constitutional state.’

‘As far as I’m concerned, a single casualty isn’t enough,’ the officer next to Rath hissed. He didn’t dare say it out loud; that much at least Gennat’s sermon had achieved. ‘Let the bastards take care of each other.’

There was a knock on the door and Assistant Detective Grabowski poked his head inside.

‘Superintendent,’ he said. ‘Please excuse the interruption, but we’ve found a corpse, in Humboldthain.’

35

The murder wagon pulled up on Brunnenstrasse, outside the Himmelfahrtkirche, whose pointed spire towered in the sky, drawing a crowd of rubberneckers. Wilhelm Böhm shouted at the first cop he saw to clear the path in front of the church. ‘Kindly ask people to use the other side of the road!’

‘But… the corpse is behind the church…’

An angry glance was enough. The officer did as bidden, rounding up a few other cops and cordoning off the path. Böhm emitted a satisfied growl and waved Christel Temme, the stenographer, over. Together they proceeded around the back of the church. ED, the police identification service, was already in action, looking like a group of grown men hunting for Easter eggs, the biggest of which was apparently lying hidden behind a bush, with two ED officers and a cop standing by.

The cop gave a smart salute. ‘First Sergeant Rometsch, 50th precinct, at your service, Sir.’

Böhm nodded and looked at the shrubs that had been planted in front of the chancel to denote the beginning of the park. Behind a thick gorse bush lay the dead man, wearing a uniform with a swastika brassard. Another victim of what too many people confused with politics.

‘Who found the corpse?’ he asked, and Christel Temme, who had already pulled out her notepad, started scribbling. The stenographer wrote down absolutely everything, even when someone asked the time.

The cop shrugged his heavy shoulders. ‘Someone called in anonymously.’

‘What precinct are you again?’

‘I beg to report, Sir: the 50th precinct, Detective Chief Inspector, Sir.’

Böhm looked at the corpse. ‘So. What do you think?’

Sergeant Rometsch was visibly thrown by the question. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I would say the Red Front’s a possibility.’

Böhm nodded. ‘Even though it’s banned.’

‘Yes, Sir, even though it’s banned. We know that hasn’t stopped them.’

‘Cut out the constant standing to attention. You’re not on the parade ground here.’

‘Yes, Sir!’ First Sergeant Rometsch from the 50th precinct stood with his back even straighter.

Böhm shook his head.

Assistant Detective Grabowski came around the corner, carrying the camera from the murder wagon. He unfolded the tripod. ‘Tricky perspective,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t the killer have left him by the church?’

Only now did Böhm see the pool of blood by the church wall, in the dark corner where the nave met the transept. The assistant detective was observant, he thought, and gave a grunt of appreciation. It didn’t pay to praise these young men too much, or they took on airs and graces. He gestured towards the dead man’s right foot. The shoe was split open by a gunshot, and out of the bullet hole swelled an unseemly, red-brown mass. The blood had spread to his gaiters. ‘Don’t forget to take a few close-ups of the foot.’

Grabowski got down to work.

‘Ah, Böhm, there you are!’ Kronberg approached, waving identification with a swastika on the front. An SA membership card, whose passport photo displayed the face of the deceased. ‘The man’s name was Gerhard Kubicki.’

‘And he was a brownshirt?’

The Forensics chief nodded. ‘To be exact: an SA-Rottenführer.’

‘I can never get my head around these Nazi ranks – does that make him a big fish?’

‘Relatively.’

‘So, a mid-ranking Nazi.’ Böhm gestured towards the pool of blood in the shadow of the church. ‘Seems to have been dragged here, wouldn’t you say?’

Kronberg nodded. ‘Possibly to hide the body, but that’s not the only stretch the man covered. Come with me!’

Böhm followed Kronberg to a footprint that a forensics technician was filling in with freshly mixed plaster.

‘Footprints,’ Kronberg said superfluously, ‘one of which we have matched to the victim. He dragged his leg behind him.’

‘No wonder, with an injury like that.’

‘It looks like he made it to the church by himself. We found a trail which we were able to trace back to a meadow in the park.’ Kronberg pulled a tin from his overalls and opened it. ‘And this…’ he said, ‘is what we discovered there.’

In the police evidence tin was a bullet smeared with blood and dirt.

Böhm gave a nod of acknowledgement. ‘Before you give it to Ballistics, you should take it to Pathology and have the blood group checked. We have to be sure it’s from the murder weapon.’

Kronberg shook his head. ‘The murder weapon wasn’t a pistol,’ he said, enjoying keeping Homicide on tenterhooks. He paused again, for slightly longer this time, and Böhm almost lost patience. He must have shot him an angry glance; Kronberg at any rate gave an apologetic shrug. ‘I don’t want to anticipate your pathologist, but if I’ve assessed his injuries correctly, we’re looking for a knife or a dagger. A stabbing weapon at least.’

‘Did you find one?’

‘We’re still looking. Most likely the perpetrator took it with them. Or threw it somewhere in the Panke or wherever else. But…’ Again he made his clever-clever face.

Böhm rolled his eyes. ‘What? Get to the point!’

‘I can tell you what kind of stabbing weapon it was,’ Kronberg said, looking triumphant. ‘In all probability it was a trench dagger from the War.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’

They returned to the bushes where the corpse lay. Böhm took a closer look at the blood-soaked shirtfront. It did indeed display stab and slash wounds. Kronberg gestured towards the dead man’s belt, and an empty knife sheath dangling from it. ‘More or less every front soldier had one,’ he said. ‘Normally a trench dagger goes inside. Lots of SA men still carry their weapons from the War.’

‘This man’s too young to have served.’

‘Perhaps he inherited it from his father. At any rate this sheath goes with a trench dagger, I’m one hundred percent positive.’

‘Which means…’

‘In all probability, the man was stabbed to death with his own weapon.’

‘So, I’d say it was a fight that spiralled out of control,’ Grabowski said. He was just about to photograph the man’s injured foot. ‘Did you see?’ He pointed towards the deceased’s right hand, which was clasping a knuckleduster.

Böhm gave another grunt of appreciation.

‘But if I’ve understood correctly,’ he said, ‘the fight didn’t take place here.’

Kronberg nodded and led the DCI to the meadow where they had found the bullet. Here, too, forensics officers were looking everywhere for clues. Early walkers strolling through the park watched them curiously, but at least stayed on the path.

‘We should cordon this area off too,’ Böhm said. Moments later two uniformed officers were forcing passersby to make a detour.

Most of the clues were to be found in the middle of a clearing surrounded by bushes and trees. The gravel path only passed directly by the meadow on one side.

‘A struggle seems to have taken place here.’ Kronberg pointed towards the spot in question. ‘There are a number of footprints and a few people also seem to have fallen. We found blood in the grass. A trail of blood leading from here to the church.’

‘Sir!’

Kronberg looked around. One of his men had found something. Böhm and Kronberg went over to see what.

A cigarette butt, in a pair of tweezers, still damp from the morning dew. CAMEL the stub said in big letters.

‘Who smokes those?’ Böhm asked.

‘Not too many people, I hope. I wouldn’t have called you over if it was a Juno.’

They went back to the church where Böhm checked his watch. Barely a minute was needed to cover the distance. With a shot-up foot, perhaps a little longer.

In the meantime Dr Schwartz, the pathologist, appeared.

‘Finished taking photographs?’ Böhm asked Grabowski, who had already folded away the tripod.

‘Making way for the doctor.’

‘Good, then I have something else for you. Could you check which tobacconists in Berlin sell the brand… Camel, was it?’

‘It’s pronounced Cämmel,’ Grabowski said. ‘It’s American.’

‘Spare me the linguistics lecture and get down to work. Put the camera back in the car and take the next train to Alex. I don’t need you here for the time being.’

Grabowski swallowed whatever he was about to say and turned back to the camera. Böhm left him and went over to Dr Schwartz, for whom they had already pulled the corpse a little out from the bushes.

‘They cut him like a wild sow,’ Schwartz said, displaying his customary empathy. ‘Must have damaged a few internal organs in the process.’

‘How long has he been dead?’

Schwartz shrugged.

‘I’m not going to hold you to it.’

‘Less than ten hours, I would say.’ The doctor looked at the corpse unwaveringly, as if trying to bring it back to life. ‘Though that isn’t to say he didn’t sustain his injuries much earlier. It probably took him a while to bleed to death. Judging by the amount of blood he lost, his heart must have kept beating for some time.’

‘And the shot to the foot?’

‘Harmless.’ Schwartz sounded as if he were talking about a sniffle. ‘Would hurt a bit, and there’s a good chance you’d walk with a limp for the rest of your life, but otherwise… the man could have hobbled to the nearest hospital and got treatment. However…’

‘What do you mean, however?’

‘I don’t know that they’d have been happy to take him in.’

‘What are you saying?’

Schwartz gestured towards the swastika. ‘The nearest hospital,’ he said, ‘is the Jewish Hospital.’

Böhm nodded. Just then it started to rain. The doctor gave the undertakers, who were waiting impatiently, a wave, and the mortal remains of Gerhard Kubicki disappeared inside a zinc coffin.

36

The garage was somewhere in the north, but the thought of being able to drive again made the long train journey more bearable. Second-class wasn’t especially full; most people travelling on this line were content with third.

Rath took his cigarette case from his coat, lit an Overstolz and thought about Böhm’s report at briefing. So, Kallweit was tortured before his death. Did Berolina have a secret the Nordpiraten were trying to extract? If so, it could mean than Hugo Lenz was sitting in a cellar in north Berlin being strong-armed by the Pirates. He was suddenly grateful to Johann Marlow for giving him a little investigative work. At least with Red Hugo’s mysterious disappearance he had something to think about while he twiddled his thumbs in the Excelsior.

For a moment he actually thought Gennat would give him the corpse in Humboldthain, but Böhm got it after all, in addition to his dead fence. Weiss seemed to have issued Buddha with a clear brief: on no account is Inspector Rath to be handed a homicide case. This, despite all the deaths A Division was currently investigating. Charly was probably right: the Goldstein operation was a punishment Weiss had meted out personally.

He displayed his police identification to the conductor instead of a ticket. He was already at Wedding, and would continue to the final stop at Seestrasse. From there it was another two kilometres by tram. Jotwede, as the Berliners said. Bloody miles.

Rath didn’t reach his destination for another half hour. In the light of day, the garage looked dirtier than he remembered. He crossed the courtyard and entered through a wide-open steel door. No one paid any notice. A Mercedes stood on the hoist. Below was a mechanic with a screwdriver. Another four men were gathered around an engine block discussing some technical problem. Rath gave a polite cough but, again, no one paid any attention. He took a large spanner from an oil-smeared table and tossed it on the concrete floor. Now the men turned around.

‘What do you want? Orders are next door in the office.’

‘I don’t want to put in an order, I want to pick up my car.’

‘Next door for that too.’

The office was deserted. Rath looked at his watch. Time was getting on and he couldn’t leave Gräf in the Excelsior for ever. He rang the bell on the desk and, after what felt like an eternity, heard a toilet flushing. A bored-looking man with a car magazine in his hand emerged from the back. ‘Steady on,’ he said.

‘I’m here to pick up my car.’

‘Order number?’

‘No idea. The Buick I brought to you the night before last. An emergency. It was supposed to be ready this morning, your colleague said.’

‘What colleague?’

‘Blond type. Clean-shaven. It doesn’t matter.’

‘A Buick, you say?’

‘Model 26 ES, sand-coloured.’

The man leafed leisurely through the mound of papers on the desk. ‘No Buick here.’

‘The car’s outside. I saw it myself.’

‘Then it hasn’t been repaired.’ The man reached for the telephone. ‘Heinz, can you come here?’ he said into the mouthpiece.

‘This can’t be right,’ Rath said. ‘The car was supposed to be ready by today. Your colleague promised. I need it professionally.’

The man shrugged his shoulders and Rath had to fight the urge to give him the hurry-up with his Walther. The same boiler-suited man who had hounded him out of the shop appeared, chewing a sausage sandwich.

‘The Buick?’ Heinz asked himself, looking through a second mound of papers. ‘That’s right,’ he said, as if only now had it occurred to him. ‘The carburettor!’

‘What do you mean, the carburettor? I needed four new tyres, new headlights and a few spots of paint. Nothing more!’

‘We had your car on the hoist. The carburettor needs replacing, nothing we can do there. Didn’t you notice anything while you were driving?’

Rath shook his head. The carburettor! Bloody hell. Well, the Free State of Prussia could foot the bill. ‘When will you have it fixed?’

‘We’ll need to order replacement parts,’ said Heinz, taking another bite from his sandwich and scratching his head. ‘That’ll take time as it’s an American model.’

‘I’m glad you’ve noticed. So, when can I have my car back?’

‘Thursday could work.’

‘Woe betide you if I come out here tomorrow and…’

‘Tomorrow? Heinz put on his most idiotic face. ‘Not tomorrow, Thursday week.’

‘You’re pulling my leg? I need my car professionally!’

‘We can offer you a replacement vehicle,’ the man at the desk said. ‘Heinz, will you provide the customer with a car please.’

Heinz shoved the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and led Rath into the courtyard, past the damaged Buick. All four tyres were still flat.

‘Did you really have the car on the hoist?’ Rath asked, but Heinz wasn’t listening. He moved past all the vehicles Rath could have pictured driving away in, essayed a sharp turn by the shop floor and came to a halt. ‘Here she is, the Hanomag,’ he said.

Rath thought he was dreaming. A cyclops was staring back at him, a cyclops that had been shrunk to the size of dwarf. ‘What on earth is that?’

‘A lick of paint and she’ll be good to go.’

The one-eyed car standing in the corner, all shy and reserved, was the polar opposite of Marlow’s Duesenberg. It wasn’t just the paltry ten horsepower, but the fact that its designer had only given it one headlight and a single door.

‘You’re not serious!’

‘It’s a reliable car,’ Heinz replied indignantly. ‘German craftsmanship.’

‘Do you have any others?’

‘It’s this one or the BVG. Your choice.’

With a heavy heart Rath opted against making the return journey by public transport.

37

The uniformed officer was barely recognisable. A bandage ran across his face from below his eyes, held in place by sticking plasters. Lange calmly arranged his files, scribbling notes and making ticks in the margin. He and the man hadn’t exchanged a word after a brief greeting. Hilda Steffens looked forlorn with her notepad and pencil.

None of his colleagues were interested in the case, making his presentation at morning briefing a resounding success. He had reeled off a series of platitudes, agreed in advance with Gennat, and no one had asked any questions. No one in the Castle could guess that Assistant Detective Andreas Lange suspected a police officer of murder. Before any information leaked out, the public prosecutor had to have all the evidence, and it needed to be watertight.

First he had to be sure he was on the right track. It wouldn’t do any harm to keep the man in suspense. He was already on edge, that much was clear from his face, even if he was making every effort to hide it.

‘Looks pretty nasty, that injury of yours,’ Lange began finally, out of the blue, gaze still directed on his files. ‘How did it come about?’

Kuschke started as if he had been awoken, and Hilda Steffens’ pencil began scratching across the page. Kuschke looked at her in irritation. ‘Is this an interrogation?’ he asked.

‘Witness examination,’ Lange said, fixing the man with a stare.

This observation seemed to displease Kuschke, who was here for the second time. Recovering himself he decided to fight back.

‘In the line of duty.’ He leaned back provocatively. ‘The sort of thing that wouldn’t happen to you. Unless little Miss here’s ever pricked you with her pencil?’

The scratch of the pencil ceased for a moment. Lange ignored the attempt to provoke him. ‘What duty, exactly?’ he asked.

‘I thought this was about KaDeWe.’

‘Don’t think, just answer.’

Lange had found the right tone. Evidently a man like Jochen Kuschke needed to be treated with the arrogance of a Prussian officer.

‘Some coked-up little fag boy from Nolle who got a little edgy when I tried to ID him. I couldn’t know he was packing a knife.’

‘Then I’ll be able to read all about it in your report.’

‘There isn’t one yet.’

‘Then please submit it,’ Lange said, making a little note to himself. ‘What did you do with the assailant?’

‘Nothing! He was long gone, but if I see him again, he’s finished.’

‘Meaning?’

‘That he needs to be held to account. Can’t go around stabbing officers.’

‘But you won’t be overseeing the punishment personally…’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Well.’ Lange opened the folder and looked through the file. ‘There are colleagues among us who occasionally… anticipate judicial proceedings.’

‘How do you mean?’

Lange read from the file: ‘April 14th 1927, violent infringement whilst on duty. Grievous bodily harm proceedings discontinued in September of the same year, but internal warning, noted in your personal file.’

‘As you say: proceedings discontinued.’

Lange read the next entry: ‘May 3rd 1929.’ He paused and checked to see that Hilda Steffens was noting everything down. ‘On that day you beat a passerby, later identified as a journalist, unconscious with your baton…’

‘I’m not someone who shirks his duty when things get hot,’ Kuschke said. ‘There are no prizes in this job. Either you’re shot by the fucking Commies – like we’ve just seen – or some arsehole dobs you in.’

‘The complaint in ’29 came from one of your colleagues. You had to be restrained in order to prevent further injury.’

‘I didn’t say that some of my colleagues weren’t arseholes. They wanted to land me in the shit.’

The man had a gift for provocation, that much was clear.

‘What I’m trying to say, Sergeant Major,’ Lange said, ‘is that you have a tendency towards violence. I’m starting to wonder what really happened on that balcony in KaDeWe.’

Kuschke jumped to his feet, his face under the snow-white bandage somewhere between bright red and violet. Hilda Steffens’ grip tensed, the notepad sagged under the weight and became scored.

‘What are you trying to say?’

Lange looked at the sergeant as an entomologist might regard a newly discovered species. Kuschke sat down again.

‘Do you know how it feels to put your arse on the line for this system, and then be treated like this?’

‘What system are you talking about? Do you mean our state? Our democracy?’

‘Draw your own conclusions.’

‘We’ve established the identity of the dead boy,’ Lange said. ‘He was just fifteen.’

There was no trace of remorse, guilt or sadness in Kuschke’s face, not even consternation.

‘Benjamin Singer. Does the name mean anything to you?’ Kuschke shook his head. ‘He ran away from the Maria Schutz orphanage about a year ago to live on the streets. A difficult boy, apparently, but he wasn’t known to police.’

No reaction from Kuschke.

‘We were only able to identify the deceased thanks to an anonymous telephone call. A girl gave us the name and demanded a proper burial. That’s how we stumbled on the orphanage. One of the nuns came to the morgue. Sister Agathe identified him straightaway.’

Lange paused and gazed at Kuschke as he sat on the condemned man’s chair. It made him look like a hardened criminal.

‘This girl who telephoned could have been the second KaDeWe intruder, don’t you think?’ Kuschke didn’t think anything. ‘I’ve spoken to our colleagues in Robbery. They now assume the deceased’s accomplice was female.’

Kuschke feigned indifference. ‘Looked like a boy though.’

‘You saw the second intruder? You’ve never mentioned this before.’

‘You only asked me what happened on the balcony. The little brat was on the street below.’

Lange made a further note in the folder, realising how much it unsettled Kuschke. It looked like there really was a female witness to the incident at KaDeWe. The anonymous caller hadn’t been lying.

‘This girl said something else,’ Lange continued, paying close attention to Kuschke’s reaction. ‘“It was murder,” she said, “you cops killed Benny.”’

38

‘Gereon, here you are at last!’ Gräf vacated the desk. ‘I’ve been sitting here like a cat on a hot tin roof. Can you imagine the fuss Kirie’s been making? Fortunately, a boy took him out. In exchange for a hefty tip.’

‘Lucky for the dog.’

‘But not for me.’ Gräf’s voice was unexpectedly strained. ‘Sorry, no time for a proper handover. I have to pee!’

With these words, Gräf made his exit. Rath shook his head and looked at Kirie, who had made herself comfortable under the desk again. ‘Can you understand it?’ he asked the dog. ‘How can anyone be so frantic?’

Rath sat at the table and opened the notebook he had filled with abstract patterns the day before. Gräf, who suppressed even the urge to pee while on duty, had been more conscientious. Judging by the date and times, he had made notes yesterday afternoon and this morning. He had written down everything that happened in the vicinity of room 301, even timing the appearances of the chambermaid and floor waiter down to the last minute. According to Gräf, Goldstein had only left his suite once since yesterday morning. It looked as if they had managed to spoil the Yank’s stay in Berlin.

Gräf returned from the toilet. ‘I needed that,’ he said. ‘Just going to pick up the car, were you?’

Rath nodded. The Hanomag hadn’t even managed the journey from Reinickendorf to Kreuzberg without incident. When the lights on Invalidenstrasse switched to green, the engine flooded and resisted all attempts to restart. Cursing, Rath left the crate by the side of the road, walked the few metres to Stettiner Bahnhof and telephoned the garage. It took a while to get hold of the right man.

‘Ah, the fuel line,’ Heinz said. Even on the telephone it sounded like he was eating a sandwich. ‘I thought I’d explained it to you?’ He hadn’t, so only now did Rath learn the whole truth. The Hanomag had a tendency to take on too much fuel and stall, but the driver could reduce the diameter of the fuel line with a clamp stored in the glove compartment. Rath did as bidden, and, after a moment or two of stubbornness, the car sprang back into life. Not that it was any more fun to drive. In neutral, the crate shook from side to side to such an extent that Rath came to fear every red light.

‘Goldstein doesn’t seem to be enjoying his time here,’ he said, gesturing towards the notebook. ‘A real stay-at-home, it looks like.’

Gräf nodded. ‘Probably spends the whole day telephoning overseas, home-sick.’

‘Or looking for a crafty lawyer to get him out of this. To be honest, I’m not sure what else we can do. On paper, he’s a respectable American citizen.’

‘I’ve kept less dangerous men under surveillance,’ Gräf said. ‘I think he’s just fed up. I bet we’ll see a boy wheeling his luggage trolley out of suite 301 before the week is out.’

‘You really want to bet?’

‘A crate of Engelhardt. He’ll be gone by the weekend. At the latest.’

Rath considered a moment before shaking on it.

At that moment, the chambermaid emerged from suite 301 and cast the two officers a curious glance before disappearing down the corridor. ‘Somehow that girl seems familiar,’ Rath said.

‘Of course she does. It’s the same one as yesterday and the day before.’

‘No, I’ve seen her somewhere else, I think. I just don’t know where. How long was she in with him?’

‘No idea.’ Gräf looked in the notebook. ‘I didn’t see her go in. Was it when I was in the toilet?’

Rath shook his head. ‘I didn’t see anything. She must have spent the night with him.’

‘Come off it! Your imagination’s running wild.’

‘You said it yesterday yourself. He had the chambermaid for breakfast.’

‘That was a joke.’ Gräf was outraged. ‘She’ll be out on her ear if this gets out!’

Rath shrugged.

Gräf took his hat and coat. ‘So,’ he said, ‘I’m off to stretch my legs. See you later.’

‘No you won’t. I’ve got an assignment for you – from Gennat himself. You’re to head back to the Castle and report to Böhm. They’ve got a new case. A corpse has been found in Humboldthain.’

He said it as casually as possible, but Gräf froze in mid-motion, his coat only half on.

‘What about you?’ Gräf looked like a scarecrow with his dangling coat sleeves.

‘I’m staying put. Someone’s got to look after the important jobs.’

39

Charly had already visited three of the Reinhold families in Friedrichshain. At the first door no one opened; the second family, the Reinholds in Romintener Strasse, had only been blessed with sons; and at the third address a woman of at least seventy answered. It transpired that she was unmarried and took the very question of a daughter or granddaughter named Alexandra as an insult.

Here in Grünberger Strasse, the fourth address on the list, Charly was having difficulties even finding the name Reinhold. She compared Gereon’s note with the house number again: Grünberger Strasse 64. The address was right, but there were no Reinholds here, either with a ‘d’ or a ‘dt’.

A man in grey overalls was sweeping the yard, shouting at a few boys playing football. He kept on until they finally picked up their homemade ball and pushed off. Charly went across.

‘The Reinholds haven’t lived here for a long time. They were given the boot around Christmas.’ He had a Berlin accent.

‘The Reinhold family is on the streets?’

Charly was so excited she didn’t realise she was thinking out loud. She had a good feeling about this: family on the streets, daughter neglected. Everything seemed to fit.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ the man said. ‘I didn’t turf them out! I just keep things tidy, but that’s how it goes when you don’t pay your rent.’

‘But a family… with children?’

‘Are you from Welfare or something?’ Charly looked at him steadily as the words sputtered out. ‘You couldn’t call them a family anymore. They do have one respectable son, Helmut, but he won’t have anything to do with them. If he’s sensible, that is. The younger brother, Karl, is almost certainly in Moscow by now, or wherever it is the Reds are hiding him. He’s a wanted man. Didn’t you know? The Beckmann murder.’

The name didn’t mean anything to Charly, but she hadn’t worked in Homicide for a long time. She shook her head as the man continued.

‘Heinrich Beckmann was the buildings manager here. It was in all the papers. Karl Reinhold’s meant to have shot him dead, that’s what people say. About the rent, maybe, but maybe also because Beckmann was in the SA, and little Kalle was in the RFB, the Red Front. Like father like son and, well… since the murder he’s vanished. His sister as well, maybe she’s involved too, a right little devil, she was. The cops were asking after both of them anyway. And now they’re gone. Strange wouldn’t you say?’

Charly was overwhelmed by the torrent of words, but remembered the story. It had made the headlines around Christmas. The Nazis had made a meal of it at the time but decided that SA-Führer Heinrich Beckmann didn’t have it in him to be a second Horst Wessel. At some point the matter had ceased to interest people. ‘You’re well informed,’ she said.

‘You’ve got to keep a close eye on those Reds, best to know who’s living in your building.’

‘I take it you’re not a Communist then…’

‘Do I look like one?’

‘The sister, you don’t happen to know what she’s called?’

‘Alex. Well, Alexandra, actually. You must have that in your files.’

He still thought she was from Welfare. ‘Of course,’ she said, and smiled, ‘but do I look as if I’ve brought my filing cabinet?’

Kopernikusstrasse was lined with tenements, and the mouldings were crumbling on the fronts. The building where Helmut Reinhold lived was the only one to have been given a lick of paint since the war. Charly had come by a few hours ago but no one had been home; now the door opened first time. A woman looked at her out of tired eyes amid the smell of fried onions.

‘Good afternoon, I’d like to see Helmut Reinhold, please. Am I in the right place?’

The woman nodded. ‘My husband’s eating at the moment. What do you want from him?’

‘Just a few questions about his sister. It won’t take long.’

The caretaker didn’t know where the rest of the Reinhold family were staying, but he’d given her the older brother’s address, so Charly had returned to the flat where she’d stood in vain that morning. Beforehand she had sat in a little cafe at Boxhagener Platz and treated herself to a cup of tea and a read of the papers. The headlines of the regional section were dominated by the fatal shooting on Frankfurter Allee. There was no mention of a girl who had escaped from Lichtenberg District Court.

‘You wanted to speak to me?’

A powerfully built man in his mid-twenties stood at the door. Helmut Reinhold was just as reluctant to ask her in as his wife.

‘You’re Alexandra Reinhold’s brother?’

The man nodded. ‘That’s the reason you’re here, Martha says.’ He eyed Charly suspiciously. ‘From the Welfare Office, are you? Well, you could have saved yourself the bother. I haven’t seen Alex in almost a year.’

‘Apparently she’s living on the streets…’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘Could she be staying with your parents?’

‘Typical Welfare, no idea about anything!’ Helmut Reinhold was another who associated a woman asking questions at his doorstep with the Welfare Office. He shook his head. ‘Do you know why Alex has been living on the streets all this time? Because my dear old father kicked her out a few days before Christmas.’

‘Then why don’t you take her in?’

‘If only I knew where she was. But she won’t come to me, she’s too proud for that.’

‘You sound as if you don’t care much for your parents.’

‘I can’t see how that’s any of your concern.’

‘In as much as it concerns your sister.’

‘My father hasn’t spoken a single word to me since my wedding. I invited my parents but they didn’t come. Mother sent a card, that was all. His signature wasn’t on it.’

‘Your parents are homeless. Isn’t it time to bury the hatchet?’

‘I went out to see them,’ he said bitterly, ‘to this camp on the Müggelsee, and was about to offer them a bed with me and Martha, but…’ He fell silent. ‘He can go hang for all I care.’

‘Is it possible that Alexandra is there?’

‘What do I know? Listen, I thought this was supposed to be a brief chat. I’d like to finish eating. I need to go back on shift soon.’ He slammed the door in her face.

There were many more questions Charly could have asked, about the missing brother, the Beckmann murder, about Alex’s friends and acquaintances, places where she might have found shelter, but the closing of the front door left her in no doubt that it would be pointless coming back. At least she knew where to find Alex’s parents.

She took the U-Bahn to Magdalenenstrasse. The way to Wagnerplatz seemed steeper than usual, the walk more arduous. Everything had changed since yesterday. The District Court building appeared strange and forbidding. The window on the first floor was open, and, for a moment, she thought it hadn’t been closed since yesterday.

It felt almost as if she was entering for the first time. Like that day six months ago when, heart pounding, she had stepped through the doors and her gaze had fallen on the marble slab in the lobby that had survived even the revolution: Wipe your feet/No smoking/Use a spittoon. Three commands, etched in stone, that told visitors in no uncertain terms what was expected of them in this building. Charly had never felt comfortable here thanks to Weber, who was the living embodiment of those expectations.

She jostled past a few people and climbed the stairs, needing to get the news off her chest, to rehabilitate herself in front of her boss. Now that she was back on Alex Reinhold’s tail, she felt hope again.

Weber looked surprised as she entered. ‘Fräulein Ritter? I thought I had relieved you of your duties.’

‘Some good news, Sir. I wanted to let you know.’

He eyed her suspiciously, none too pleased that she was back just one day after the incident. ‘You have something to tell me? When I’ve been trying to contact you for hours.’

‘I was out the whole morning.’

‘Yes, I noticed.’

‘That doesn’t matter now.’ Charly pulled herself together, trying not to sound too euphoric. ‘I’ve managed to identify the girl; I think it’s only a matter of time before I… before we track her down. Her name is Alexandra Reinhold and…’

Weber interrupted her. ‘Great news. So, you know the girl’s name.’ Charly’s euphoria disintegrated like a dry leaf. ‘Since you’ve taken the trouble to come here, allow me to confide something in you: I know what she’s been up to.’

‘Pardon me?’

Weber shook his head, as if unable to comprehend her dim-wittedness. ‘My dear Fräulein Ritter…’ she hated it when he spoke to her like this, mixing false sympathy and contempt. He shook his head as he spoke, and repeated his opening line in the tone of a psychiatrist dealing with a patient. ‘My dear Fräulein Ritter… It seems the girl who escaped your custody yesterday is the second member of the KaDeWe duo. You remember, of course? Sonnabend. The dead boy.’

Charly felt the blood rising to her face as Weber continued. Though it had since been replaced by a new dressing, it was now apparent that the girl’s bandage was in fact a rag torn from the dead intruder’s shirt. The original had been retrieved from the 81st precinct’s ash can, where suspicions had subsequently been confirmed. CID had launched a further investigation and discovered that the girl’s blood group matched that of the sample left by the KaDeWe duo at the display cases. Everything pointed to the fact that an unidentified girl who was being sought citywide had fallen into police hands by chance. This same girl had then managed to escape from the Lichtenberg District Court, of all places, which, of course, hardly showed the authority in a positive light. Charly listened, but felt all at sea, as if Weber were speaking to another person.

‘At any rate,’ he concluded, ‘Inspector Nebe from Robbery Division wishes to speak with you urgently. After which you are to contact Homicide…’

‘Homicide?’ It was the first word Charly managed to get out. What did her old colleagues in A Division want?

‘An Assistant Detective… Lange,’ Weber continued. ‘I’d advise you to be on your way as soon as possible. Best before they finish for the day.’

He no longer attempted to conceal his grin.

40

Reinhold Gräf brooded over the file Böhm had left him. It was from Section 1A, the political police: the politicals hadn’t kept a file on Gerhard Kubicki, but had been monitoring the storm unit he had joined several months ago, detailing a few fights with Communists, but nothing more serious until now.

He snapped the file shut, pushed it away and gazed at Gereon Rath’s abandoned desk. Was this really more exciting than surveillance work at the Excelsior? At least over there he breathed fresh air once in a while. It appeared Wilhelm Böhm didn’t want him to leave the office. New files kept arriving as the DCI was driven around town. It seemed to Gräf that he was suffering Böhm’s mood swings on Gereon’s behalf. To think, they had been a good team when he was still an assistant detective, but that was a distant memory now.

There was a knock. Erika Voss entered and placed another file on Gräf’s desk. ‘Just in on the Kubicki case,’ she said. ‘From E Division this time.’

He looked at it curiously. ‘An SA man who’s attracted the attention of Vice? Was he a pimp?’

‘No idea. I didn’t look inside.’

Gräf opened the file and whistled through his teeth. ‘A 175er. He was caught in a fairly notorious establishment.’

‘A gay Nazi? I thought they were against that sort of thing.’

‘They are in theory. In practice, things are a little different. Haven’t you heard? Apparently, the new SA chief of staff is a homosexual.’

‘If only the Führer knew,’ Erika Voss said, and disappeared back inside the outer office.

Gräf gazed after her. Was she being ironic? He worked his way through the file in astonishment. The kind of places Kubicki frequented were exactly the sort the Nazis would close down, given half the chance. When he had finished reading the file he asked to be put through to the political police. ‘Detective Gräf, Homicide. Could you send me everything connected with the Berlin SA and homosexuality?’

Half an hour later there was a mountain of files on his desk. He opened the first just as the telephone rang.

‘Gräf, Homicide.’

‘I read your appeal in the BZ. You’re seeking witnesses?’

The lunchtime papers had run the article. ‘That’s right. Did you see something?’

‘I know exactly what happened in Humboldthain.’

Gräf took out a pencil. ‘Go on.’

‘A brown arsehole got what was coming to him. That’s what happened!’

‘Who am I speaking to, please?’

‘My name has fuck all to do with you. You pigs are in cahoots with the Nazis. Social fascists!’

Gräf was speechless. He tried to think of an appropriate response, but nothing came.

The caller hung up.

41

Charly knew Arthur Nebe from her time in A Division. The head of Robbery was in Narcotics then, but had been brought in by Gennat to help Homicide on a number of occasions. Recently, he had solved the sensational murder of a chauffeur and been showered with praise by the press. He was an experienced, if slightly aloof, criminal investigator with a distinctive nose, whose eyes sparkled with thwarted ambition.

Although he was pushing forty, he hadn’t progressed beyond the rank of inspector, despite being seen as one of Bernhard Weiss’s favourites. In this he was in good company. The Castle’s moratorium on promotions applied to everyone, whether top brass liked you or not. Gereon, whose special relationship with Zörgiebel had brought him little more than envy, had learned that the hard way.

Nebe seemed surprised when he saw Charly. ‘It’s you?’ he said.

‘You know me?’

‘Charlotte Ritter, Gennat’s stenographer.’

He had a good memory for people, she thought. ‘I haven’t worked for Gennat in a long time. State examination. Nine months ago now. I’m currently completing my legal preparatory service…’

‘…and evidently at Lichtenberg District Court.’

Charly nodded. ‘Of course, you know already. It’s me you have to thank for all this.’

‘Let’s not go blaming ourselves. This sort of thing can happen to anyone.’

‘If I’d known what she’d done… I just thought she was some jumped-up fare-dodger who’d bust out of reform.’

‘You couldn’t have guessed who you were dealing with. We only made the connection ourselves this morning.’ He was trying to comfort her, and doing a better job than Gereon yesterday.

‘Well, at least I’ve been able to discover her name,’ Charly said.

‘You have?’ Nebe raised his eyebrows in surprise.

‘Alexandra Reinhold: no fixed abode, from Friedrichshain.’

‘Reinhold with a ‘d’ or ‘dt’’?

‘With a ‘d’’.

Nebe’s pencil scratched across the page as he noted the name. Charly felt like a traitor, but it was the least she could do to atone.

‘That’s more than I dared hope for, Fräulein Ritter. It’s something your superior at Lichtenberg was unable to provide.’ Nebe snapped his notebook shut. ‘But that’s not why I summoned you here. We need a personal description.’

‘Wasn’t Special Counsel Weber able to do that?’

‘If I understood him correctly, he has absolutely nothing to do with the case.’

Weber, you coward, Charly thought, trying to wash your hands of this, are you? Perhaps Gereon was right, perhaps she shouldn’t conceal Weber’s complicity. That the man was trying to sweep the matter under the carpet was testament to his guilty conscience.

‘Be that as it may,’ Nebe continued. ‘You, at least, saw the girl… Alexandra Reinhold… yesterday, and can provide a description. I’ve called for a sketch artist.’

A short time later Charly sat in front of a man with a sketch pad, describing Alexandra Reinhold. When the sketch was finished the face that stared out from the pad was exactly as she remembered it. Only the gaze was different; not quite as anxious. On paper Alex looked defiant and provocative, almost intimidating.

She didn’t want to nitpick, perhaps that’s how wanted posters had to look. The sketch artist tore off the page and passed it to Nebe.

‘Many thanks, Fräulein Ritter,’ he said. ‘You’ve been a great help. At last, something we can give to Warrants.’ He handed the sheet to a colleague. ‘Have duplicates made right away and pass it onto J Division along with our appeal. And here…’ He tore a page from his notebook. ‘…is the girl’s name. That ought to make things easier.’

Warrants. Once the department’s machinery was set in motion, it would be tricky for Alexandra Reinhold to go underground. For some reason the thought of Alex falling into the hands of Warrant Officers made Charly uncomfortable. She couldn’t help thinking of the distraught girl sitting in her office with fear in her eyes, and then of the merciless apparatus of the Prussian Police’s Warrants Department.

As she paced the corridors of Homicide shortly afterwards, breathing in that strange but familiar smell of sweat and dusty files, ink and paper, she briefly considered paying Gennat a visit or, at least, Wilhelm Böhm. In the end she simply knocked on the door she had been assigned, not far from Gereon’s little office at the end of the corridor. Today wasn’t a day for chatting with ex-colleagues.

She had never worked directly with Andreas Lange, although she had met him before. Most of what she knew came from Gereon. A conscientious type, he had moved to Berlin from Hannover.

Charly knocked on the door and entered to a reedy ‘Come in’, to find Lange on his own, seated behind his desk, making notes in a file. He wore a serious expression. When he looked up he recognised her straightaway.

‘Fräulein Ritter!’ he said, and promptly turned red. That didn’t seem to have changed.

‘You asked to speak to me?’ Charly gave him a helping hand. ‘Lichtenberg District Court.’

‘You’re working for the District Court?’

‘Legal preparatory service.’

His colour slowly returned to normal. ‘Special Counsel Weber told me he could send someone over who had seen the KaDeWe fugitive.’

‘I’ve spoken with Nebe already. No doubt I’m being passed around the whole Castle.’

‘Inspector Nebe and I are working closely on this. I’m investigating the death in connection with the KaDeWe break-in.’ He sounded almost apologetic.

The boy who had plunged to his death while fleeing police. The headlines from a few days ago. Charly suddenly realised where the fear and horror in Alexandra’s eyes came from. ‘Could it be that the girl was a witness?’ she asked.

‘Just what I was about to ask you, Fräulein Ritter. You spoke to her after all. Before she escaped, I mean.’ There was a hint of red in his face again. He seemed embarrassed to mention her error.

‘That’s true, but she was totally distraught.’

‘Based on my findings, she did, indeed, see the boy fall. He had just turned fifteen.’

‘Dear God,’ Charly said.

‘The girl…’

‘Alexandra,’ Charly interrupted, and this time it didn’t feel like a betrayal. ‘Her name is Alexandra.’

‘…Alexandra is an important witness. She…’

There was a knock so loud it felt as if someone was trying to kick the door down. Wilhelm Böhm stepped into the room. He looked at her in surprise. ‘Charly, what are you doing here?’ He sounded a little offended. As if reproaching her for calling on the assistant detective rather than him.

‘Fräulein Ritter is here on duty, so to speak,’ Lange explained, turning red again. ‘The KaDeWe case. In her role at Lichtenberg District Court she questioned a wit…’

‘The KaDeWe case…’ Böhm blustered, incapable of speaking quietly, ‘…is the reason I’m here. I have an important…’

‘Could you please wait outside, Fräulein Ritter?’ Lange asked.

Wilhelm Böhm looked at him in irritation. He wasn’t used to being interrupted.

Charly stood up.

‘Stay where you are, Charly,’ Böhm said. ‘You’re involved in this case?’

‘If you say so, Sir.’

‘Lichtenberg District Court. Preparatory service, is it? You’ll have to tell me sometime over coffee.’

‘How about I buy you one afterwards in the canteen, and you tell me what you know about the Beckmann case. It was you who dealt with it at the time, wasn’t it?’

Böhm nodded. ‘It’s a cold case. We have a suspect, but he’s probably slipped off to Moscow – still a minor, but already a staunch Communist. Why are you interested?’

‘From a purely legal point of view.’

Böhm turned back to Lange. ‘I have a piece of news that will surprise you,’ he said. ‘As you know, I’m working on the murdered fence from Friedrichshain: Kallweit, Eberhard. The robbery homicide that wasn’t.’

Lange nodded. ‘I’m familiar with it, Sir. I was at briefing this morning.’

‘It looks as if we ought to coordinate our investigations – amalgamate them, even. It concerns the stolen goods found in the deceased’s stockroom.’ Böhm looked pleased with himself. ‘Among other things, our colleagues found a load of high-quality wristwatches. They’re from the KaDeWe break-in at the weekend.’

42

Gräf slammed the phone into the cradle. He’d had enough, sitting here with this crap! Böhm was gadding about with Grabowski, God knows where, while he, Reinhold Gräf, was left to do the dirty work. Fighting running battles with idiots who called the station at minute intervals. Since the abusive Communist almost an hour ago, he hadn’t had a moment’s peace.

The appeal in the lunchtime papers had yielded the same dubious results as ever. Until now, the only calls had been from busybodies: masochists who’d confess to any crime so long as it brought them attention; or whistleblowers pointing the finger at their own neighbours. Worst was the third group: the self-appointed world saviours who, in the absence of a world that would listen, had resolved to make their opinions known to the Prussian Police. On the one hand they were Communists who wished death on all Nazi bastards; on the other, Party members, or at least Nazi sympathisers, who asked why police weren’t in a position to protect respectable citizens (evidently referring to the SA man with the knuckleduster) from these red hooligans.

The telephone kept ringing, almost without pause. Gräf looked at the black device, picked up, dialled 1 and placed the receiver next to the cradle.

Peace at last!

The important calls would land somewhere. The main thing was that he could devote himself to the files. He sensed that Kubicki’s homosexuality could be a lead.

Erika Voss poked her head around the door. ‘Sorry,’ she said, stealing a glance at the telephone. ‘But the porter just called. A woman downstairs says she wants to make a statement about the death in Humboldthain.’

‘A woman?’ At least it wouldn’t be one of the masochists, Gräf thought. They were all men. ‘Send her up.’

‘She’s on her way.’

The detective nodded. ‘Fine.’

Erika Voss remained at the door.

‘Was there something else?’

‘Well… it’s almost six, and Inspector Rath usually…’

‘Of course, finish there for the evening. As soon as you’ve shown the witness in.’

Moments later, a slim, prematurely grey woman in her mid-forties stood in her place. She was a little uncertain, but in no way shy, and introduced herself as Renate Schobeck. Gräf motioned for her to sit in the visitor’s chair in front of Rath’s desk.

‘This business in Humboldthain,’ she said. ‘I’m not here to report anyone. But… my lodger… Leo Fleming his name is.’

One of the whistleblowers, then. Gräf sighed inwardly, but noted down the name and looked at her. ‘Yes?’

Renate Schobeck seemed a little helpless. ‘I don’t know if it means anything, but he came home very early this morning. He’s unemployed, if you must know, but leaves the house at half past five every morning and stays out until the afternoon. Looking for work, he says, though he’s never missed a rental payment.’

Gräf gave a little cough, making a point of not writing anything down. Instead he looked at his wristwatch. ‘Please get to the point. It’s already late.’

She looked mildly peeved. ‘I know that he waits at the Himmelfahrtkirche every morning for his bride-to-be. I’ve seen them there together. A lovely couple if you ask me, and he’s never tried to bring her back to his room. He knows what’s right and proper.’

Gräf rolled his eyes. ‘What exactly are you trying to tell me?’

She looked around, as if afraid someone might be listening. ‘Yesterday I didn’t hear Herr Fleming leave the house, but I did hear him come back. Just after six. I asked if he was sick, if I should make him a cup of tea, but he said he just wanted to be left in peace. Well…’ there was a pregnant pause ‘…that was when I saw it.’

‘What, Frau Schobeck?’

She leaned in closer and lowered her voice.

‘Blood,’ she said. ‘His jacket was smeared with blood. Not much, but I saw it. He was so strange; wanted to go straight up to his room. I didn’t think anything of it, but then I read the appeal in the BZ…’

Gräf pricked up his ears. ‘You’re certain it was blood?’

‘Of course! I used to work in a butcher’s, and…’

He cut her off. ‘Many thanks, Frau Schobeck, this could be very helpful. Now, where can we find this Herr Fleming?’

‘At mine, of course,’ she said. ‘Putbusser Strasse 28, rear building, third floor.’

43

Lange had spoken more in the last few days to Superintendent Gennat than ever before. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but clearly Buddha was keeping an eye on him. He couldn’t afford any mistakes.

Trudchen Steiner, Gennat’s secretary, placed the cake tray on the table and Gennat served his guest. Discussions like this were more akin to a coffee morning than an official briefing. Lange thanked him for the slice of poppy seed cake that had landed on his plate, and took a bite.

‘How long have you been with us now, Assistant Detective?’

Lange replied with his mouth full, feeling ambushed. ‘Almothst two yearsth,’ he said. ‘Thinthe Dethember thwenty nine.’

‘Before that you did two years at Robbery Division in Hannover?’ Lange was glad that a nod of the head would suffice. His mouth was still full of poppy seed cake. Buddha seemed to have studied his personal file. ‘We’ve just taken on a number of cadets.’

‘Dr Weiss has introduced them already, Sir.’

‘Have you thought about applying?’

‘With respect, Sir, it seemed a little premature. I haven’t been at the Cas… ah, in Berlin, two years yet.’

Lange realised he had turned red, and felt annoyed, but Gennat didn’t seem to have noticed.

‘You’ve made a very good job of the KaDeWe case so far. Officers Nebe and Böhm are full of praise.’ Gennat shovelled a slice of gooseberry tart into his mouth, his favourite. ‘At the same time, you were disciplined enough not to mention our own suspicions.’

‘Well, Sir, I thought…’

‘And you thought right.’ Gennat leaned a little closer. ‘You’re aware that without a witness statement, you can’t give the public prosecutor anything.’

‘Yes, unfortunately. I still don’t know how I’m going to get hold of her. I suppose it’ll come down to Warrants.’

Gennat nodded. ‘I’d like you to take over the Kallweit case from Böhm. You’ve been working together on it anyway.’

‘DCI Böhm mentioned that this might happen. Does it mean I can close the KaDeWe file?’

‘For Goodness sake, no! Don’t be so hasty. Keep it simmering. Let’s bide our time for this witness.’

‘But the Commissioner is pushing for a swift resolution.’

‘He always does, but don’t let him bring you to heel. You can’t close the file until you’ve heard what the witness has to say.’ Lange nodded. ‘And this dead fence,’ Gennat continued. ‘There are enough links to the KaDeWe case. It might yield the odd insight.’

‘It could do, Sir. I just hope the KaDeWe witness doesn’t have the dead fence on her conscience. That would be a link I could do without.’

‘You’ll get support from Officer Mertens. But… as far as our suspicions go: not a word to anybody!’

Lange took another bite of poppy seed cake.

‘And,’ Gennat said, ‘if I don’t see an application for inspector on my desk during the next round of recruitments, there’ll be trouble.’

44

They were late. Dusk was already falling. Kirie pulled hard on her lead. Some scent or other was enticing her onwards, and it was all Rath could do to hold on.

‘To heel,’ he scolded for the umpteenth time. Kirie kept pulling. Rath wasn’t in the best of moods after his nerve-shredding journey home with the Hanomag. He had been looking forward to a quiet evening but, instead, was traipsing around the banks of the Müggelsee.

‘For God’s sake, Kirie, to heel!’ He pulled furiously on the lead. The dog gave a brief yelp and looked back in surprise, but at least she stopped. Charly too.

‘What on earth’s the matter with you?’ she said. ‘Pull yourself together.’

‘We should have left the dog at home.’

‘So she can keep the whole building awake? You know she doesn’t like being on her own.’

‘Maybe all three of us should have stayed at home.’

‘If it’s too much for you then you should have said.’

‘It’s fine. I just had a lousy day, that’s all. Sorry.’

Rath was still annoyed that he’d let himself be talked into it. God knows, he could imagine better things than searching for a homeless camp on the Müggelsee. If he was right, then this business with Charly’s fugitive had come to a head, and Alex Reinhold was no mere fare-dodger. She was also involved in one of the most spectacular break-ins of recent times, as well as two possible murders.

First Beckmann, one of Böhm’s cold cases. Heinrich Beckmann was shot dead in his flat on the evening of December 20th. There was no sign of the killer, but witnesses attested that they had seen Karl Reinhold emerge from the house. Others claimed to have seen his sister Alexandra entering the building around ten minutes beforehand. Both had been missing until yesterday afternoon, when Alexandra had done a bunk from Lichtenberg District Court. Her parents had been thrown out of the flat just two days after the murder, a forced eviction which Beckmann, the buildings manager, had set in motion on the morning of his death.

The second murder had to do with the KaDeWe break-in. Some of the spoils had been found with the dead Berolina fence. Whatever Alex’s role in these cases, Charly’s error had taken on a new significance, and could no longer be brushed aside.

Although needing to find the girl as quickly as possible, Rath still couldn’t see the use in visiting her homeless parents, especially when questioning them had been a dead end six months before. ‘You have her name, you’ve tracked down her family and you’ve even dug up an old case, so why don’t you just leave the rest to Warrants,’ he said once Charly had told him everything. It was meant to be comforting, but she had looked at him with that blank gaze he so hated, that ever so slightly contemptuous gaze which seemed to say: how can you still not understand me?

The settlement, a strange mix of campsite and shanty town, was clean and tidy, almost as if it were regularly swept. The smell of fried potatoes hung in the air. They reached a kind of square where wood was neatly stacked in the middle. A woman was hanging out washing and two children were playing tag, otherwise there was no one to be seen. The woman eyed the two well-dressed visitors suspiciously. The last rays of the setting sun made the scene appear almost idyllic.

The hairs on the back of Kirie’s neck stood up and she growled.

The woman took the wash basket and disappeared inside one of the shacks and a dog started barking fiercely.

‘Hold Kirie tight,’ Charly said.

Rath had already wrapped the lead several times around his wrist, but Kirie made no attempt to break free. She stood stock-still, growling to herself and quivering like an electric motor with fur. She gazed at the lane which led into the middle of the settlement. The barking grew louder, and at last they saw a big dog the colour of a cockroach, an unhealthy mix of Dobermann, Rottweiler and Werewolf rolled into one.

Rath realised to his horror that the monster wasn’t on a lead. For a moment it stayed where it was and looked at the newcomers curiously, before breaking into a trot and making straight for them. Now Kirie started barking too, yapping at the onrushing jumble of muscles, hide and teeth, but she sounded like she always did: harmless. She certainly didn’t scare the charging brute. Rath stood stiff as a board, feeling as if his heart had stopped. The dog was only a few metres away when there was a shrill whistle and it threw itself to the ground.

A man of perhaps thirty was sitting in the shadow of a corrugated iron wall. He stood and went over to the dog. ‘Good boy,’ he said, patting the dog on the back of the head. ‘Good boy,Stalin.’

The dog looked at Rath and Charly as if he wasn’t finished with them yet.

Rath stood close to Charly, whose face was slowly regaining its colour. Stalin’s master left the dog where it was and approached.

‘If you’re from the public order office, I advise you not to show up here without the police.’

Rath was about to pull out his identification when Charly nudged him in the side.

‘We’re looking for Emil Reinhold,’ she said. ‘Apparently he lives here with his wife.’

‘What do you want from him?’

‘We’re friends of Helmut’s,’ Charly said. ‘The son of…’

‘I know who Helmut Reinhold is, but I don’t know if Emil will have much time for him. Or his Social Democrat friends.’

‘That’s why he sent us.’ Charly lied. Rath was astonished at how convincing she was. ‘He knows his father resents him, and he’d like to make peace.’

‘So you’re his envoys, are you?’ The man laughed. ‘There I was thinking you were cops.’ He ran both hands over the dog’s neck fur. ‘Stalin has an allergic reaction to cops. But…’ He lifted his hat towards Charly, ‘then I saw there was a lady present.’

‘So where can we find Herr Reinhold?’ the lady asked.

The man pointed in the direction of the shore. ‘Down there by the lake. See the trail of smoke?’

Charly nodded and pulled Rath away. Stalin followed them with his eyes, but stayed where he was even when Kirie issued a brief, spirited bark. Rath pulled the lead and she followed obediently.

Emil Reinhold’s hut was a former Christmas market stall. Rath had difficulty imagining it had ever been so badly put together as here on the banks of the Müggelsee. The roof looked as if it were built solely for the purpose of gathering rainwater, before transmitting it inside, drop by drop. The side wall didn’t appear to have a single right angle. Clearly, Emil Reinhold was no carpenter. In front of the entrance he had constructed a little lean-to, which was covered with what might have been a grey flysheet, or perhaps a discarded lorry tarpaulin.

Rath gave Charly a nod, positioned himself by the fitted door and knocked. An ill-tempered man of about fifty appeared. ‘Emil Reinhold?’ The man nodded. ‘My name is Ritter, and this is Herr Rath. We’re looking for your daughter Alexandra.’

‘Well, you’re in the wrong place.’ Reinhold tried to shut the door, but Charly had wedged her foot in the crack.

‘Perhaps you have some idea where we might find her. Your son, Helmut…’

The mention of his son acted like a trigger on him. ‘So, that’s the way the wind is blowing. Is Helmut sending his Sozi friends, because he no longer dares come here himself?’ He gestured towards the settlement. ‘Take a look around. This is the mess you Social Democrats have landed us in. Class traitors!’ He spat, and Charly had to move her feet to avoid being hit.

‘Herr Reinhold, we’re not Social Democrats; this isn’t about Helmut, it’s about your daughter!’

‘I don’t know where she is, and I don’t want to know. Maybe she’s started at Wertheim again. If he’s so keen to see her he can go looking for her himself.’

‘We’re looking,’ Charly said. ‘Because we’re afraid something bad has happened. We want to help her.’

‘And who is we?’ Charly gave Rath a nudge and he pulled out his identification. Reinhold stared at the metal badge. ‘I thought you wanted to help her?’

‘We do,’ said Rath.

‘Always nice to hear from your local police department.’ The man gave a jerky laugh. ‘Go on, you have my blessing. Give that brat what for. If you find her that is!’

Charly struggled to keep cool. ‘We don’t want to give her what for. We want to help her,’ she said, ‘even if that’s hard for you to understand. Alexandra is suspected of having broken into a department store…’

‘Do what you want. Just leave me in peace.’

Finally, Charly’s patience ended. ‘You need to learn how to listen! Is this how you treated your son? I’m not surprised your family wants nothing more to do with you.’

‘We proles don’t need help, especially not from Social Democrats. We look after our own!’

‘You’re too proud to accept the help of your son, just because he’s a Social Democrat?’

‘A social Fascist! Complicit in the exploitation of labour by capital!’ Reinhold’s face turned red. ‘It won’t be long before the hour strikes and the proletariat rises in arms!’

Rath understood why the Reinhold family had fallen apart. ‘I think the hour has struck already,’ he said. ‘Many thanks for the information, Herr Reinhold.’

He linked arms with Charly and pulled her away from the hut. Emil Reinhold closed the door as soon as their backs were turned.

‘Why did you do that?’ she asked. ‘I had more questions.’

‘That he wouldn’t have answered. You heard the nonsense he was spouting!’

‘Perhaps he’d have given us something.’

‘Perhaps if you’d been a little friendlier. And besides…’ Rath gazed skywards. ‘Take a look up there. It’s getting dark, and I don’t know how old the batteries in my torch are. We need to make sure we get back to the car. It was hard enough in the light.’

Charly said nothing, but Rath could see she was angry. They reached the square in silence, where Stalin’s master was sparking the bonfire. ‘Is the Sozi-delegation leaving our workers’ paradise so soon?’ he asked.

The dog lay dutifully next to the blazing fire, which had already started to crackle. Kirie began to growl once more, cautiously this time, so that no one could hear, especially not the other dog.

‘I don’t know what everyone here has against the SPD,’ Rath said.

‘Well, take a look around: unemployed, homeless people everywhere. Families with barely anything to eat thanks to Social Democrat policies. At the expense of us workers!’

‘Looks rather idyllic to me,’ Rath gestured towards the bonfire, which had drawn the first people from the settlement. ‘Almost like a gypsy camp. All you need now is a guitar.’

‘Why don’t you come back in February when the lake’s frozen over and you can barely get any water; when the cold saps all the warmth from your body. Then you’ll rethink your gypsy romanticism. This is no operetta. This is real life.’

They left the camp, returning through the wood, and with every step visibility grew poorer. Rath switched on his torch. The beam of light flashed along the tree stems, making anything it didn’t illuminate seem darker. The torch was no use here. They couldn’t find the trail.

‘Maybe we should let Kirie go on ahead,’ Charly said. ‘She relies more on her nose than her eyes.’

Rath nodded and, unable to think of anything better, gave the dog the car key to sniff. It seemed to work. She fixed her nose to the ground and took up the scent. Rath loosened the lead and followed through undergrowth that became thicker and thicker.

‘Are you sure this is the way we came?’ Charly asked after a while.

‘No idea. At least the dog has a scent.’

‘Yes, but what?’

Five minutes later Kirie accelerated when they reached the edge of the wood. She pounced on something that lay on the ground, taking it in her mouth and swinging it back and forth.

‘Drop!’ cried Rath who, despite the torchlight, wasn’t sure what she had picked up. Only at the third ‘drop’ did Kirie let her prey fall to the ground. Rath shone the light on a bundle of fur that had been ripped to pieces, a soggy red sludge pouring out of it like a burst plush cushion.

A dead squirrel.

Kirie looked guilty. Charly couldn’t help but laugh.

‘Don’t laugh,’ Rath said. ‘We have to be strict with her.’

She pulled herself together, but when Rath said ‘Bad dog’ in all seriousness, she burst out laughing again.

‘We’re never going to be able to train her,’ he sighed.

‘Now that both your torch and your dog have come up short, how about we rely on my sense of direction.’

Rath switched off the torch, and Charly gazed into the night sky. She seemed to go by the moon, or perhaps the stars. Either way they were soon on the right path, though it still took them half an hour to reach the car. They found themselves in marshy terrain along the way, a detour that left Rath with only one shoe. All their searching with the torch, temporarily switched back on, proved futile; the marsh had swallowed the shoe and wasn’t about to give it back.

Rath sat with the car door open and wrung out his socks. Charly’s feet didn’t look much better, but at least she still had both shoes. They couldn’t wring out Kirie’s wet paws. The dog made a huge mess of the car and Charly’s coat when she placed her head on her lap. Rath stuffed his socks and shoe into the footwell and started the engine.

‘Can you drive without shoes?’ Charly asked.

‘Mit bläcke Fööß jeht alles. You can do anything barefoot.’

They jolted slowly across Köpenicker Landstrasse back into town. Naturally the Hanomag didn’t make the journey without letting them down, this time at Schlesisicher Tor, right in the heart of the city. Passersby looked on with a mixture of interest and amusement as a barefooted but otherwise impeccably dressed man climbed out of the car, opened the bonnet, fixed something, closed the bonnet, got back inside and started the engine.

Charly grinned when he reclaimed his place alongside her.

‘Sorry,’ he growled, putting the car in gear. ‘Normally I’d have a replacement pair of shoes.’

Charly’s grin disappeared. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘What’s the matter? Only that we haven’t made any progress. Unless you count wet feet, dirty clothes and a missing shoe. Oh, and a few hours’ less sleep.’

‘So what? I’ll sleep at the end of the month. Isn’t that what you always say?’

‘We could have had a nice evening at home with a bottle of red wine, instead of wasting our time out here.’

‘Wasting our time?’ Charly feigned indignation. ‘Please! I’ve never been more emphatically warned about the dangers of social democracy.’

‘True. The rubbish that Reinhold and his comrades were spouting makes more sense than anything else this evening!’ He looked at her. ‘Now, won’t you please admit that this was a crackpot idea.’

Charly said nothing, as he observed her out of the corner of his eye. When her features became hard like that, it was better to seek cover. She needed almost a minute to compose herself.

‘What is this?’ she said, her voice as chilly as it had been in a long time. ‘Are you really just upset about your stupid shoe? Or do you regret helping me with my crackpot idea?’

‘That’s not how I meant it!’

‘Then how did you mean it?’

‘You have to admit I’m right: we should have given this to Warrants right away.’

‘But that’s exactly what I don’t want. Can’t you understand that? I want to find Alex before Warrants do!’

‘Why? It’s no longer your concern. You’ve made good on your error, now let other people take care of the rest.’

‘Why don’t you understand? She saw her friend plunge to his death. She’s terrified of blue uniforms. Something happened up there.’

‘It’ll all come out when Warrants bring her in.’

‘I can’t shake the feeling that’s exactly when something terrible will happen.’

Rath looked at her in disbelief. ‘Have you been reading tea leaves again?’

‘You’re such an ignoramus!’

‘I’m just realistic. I’m starting to feel you’re getting carried away by all this. You’re not her mother. Believe me, she’s a shrewd customer. She doesn’t need your help.’

Charly fell silent, but it was a baleful silence.

The lights of night-time Berlin flitted past. Only when they were labouring through the construction site bottleneck on Jannowitz Bridge did she open her mouth again.

‘Pull over there,’ she said.

‘Pardon me?’

‘Let me out past the bridge.’

‘What’s the matter?’ Rath switched on the indicator and did as bidden. He turned the engine off.

‘Nothing’s the matter. I just can’t talk to you about this. You’re not taking me seriously, and I can’t stomach it right now. I want to be alone!’

Rath sighed. ‘Charly, of course I’m taking you seriously. But you’re a lawyer, not a Samaritan.’

‘If you don’t want to help, I’ll do it myself. Now, please let me out.’

Rath could see from her face that she meant it. She had put her wet shoes back on. He opened the door and climbed out of her way. Kirie was surprised to find herself placed on the wooden seat, only to watch both master and mistress exit the vehicle.

‘If that’s really what you want,’ Rath said, suddenly realising how furious he was. ‘Then it’s the perfect end to a lousy evening!’

‘Just what I was thinking,’ she said, buttoning her coat. ‘At last we agree on something.’

‘Can I at least drive you to Spenerstrasse?’

‘No, thank you. I’ll take the S-Bahn.’

She hesitated a moment before heading to the station, and he didn’t know whether to give her a goodbye kiss or not. While he was still umming and ahhing, she made up her mind. ‘Good night, Gereon,’ she said.

That was something, at least, but her back was already turned by the time she said it. She pressed her handbag in front of her chest and moved quickly towards the S-Bahn station. It, too, was a massive construction site, like so much in this city.

Rath stayed where he was but gazed after her. It all seemed unreal. He wanted to chase after her, but pride paralysed him. Let her go! Hopefully she’d miss her train. Someone as pig-headed as Charlotte Ritter had to suffer the consequences.

Kirie gave a bark. The dog didn’t seem to understand what was happening either.

Rath slid across the wooden seat towards her. ‘Looks like we’re back in Luisenufer for the time being. Alone.’

It wasn’t far to his flat from Jannowitz Bridge, and the Hanomag made it without breaking down again. He couldn’t help thinking of Charly as he drove, the way she disappeared inside the train station and how he had stared after her, unable to move. He should have shouted something: ‘Please don’t go!’ or ‘Piss off then!’

Either would have been honest.

What was wrong with her? What was wrong with them? It wasn’t just tonight that had been ruined; it was the last few weeks, ever since Cologne. Yes, things had gone badly there, but not badly enough to poison the atmosphere for weeks on end.

At Luisenufer he stayed in the car, staring through the windscreen into the night. That stubborn, fucking woman! He slammed his fist against the steering wheel, so hard that Kirie, who was crouched quietly on the passenger seat, gave a start.

He got out and took the dog by the lead, getting rid of his solitary, wet shoe in one of the metal rubbish bins. The clatter of the lid echoed in the inner courtyard. He climbed the steps quietly, bare feet sticking to the wood. In the rear building all was still; he didn’t seem to have wakened anyone. He was all the more startled, therefore, when the telephone rang as he opened the door.

Could it be Charly hoping to make peace? Admitting what a stupid quarrel it had been? His mood brightened immediately. Leaving Kirie in the kitchen he hung up his coat, pitter-pattered over the cold floor to the telephone, and took up position on the warm living room carpet. He let it ring one more time before picking up.

‘OK, you’re right. It wasn’t a crackpot idea,’ he said, charmingly. ‘Can I still come over?’

‘That won’t be necessary.’ It was Johann Marlow.

‘Do you realise what time it is? Most people are asleep.’

‘If you had got in touch, I wouldn’t feel obliged to disturb you.’

‘I’ve only just got home. I was on the job until now.’

‘You were in Amor-Diele yesterday, Krehmann said.’

‘That’s right. I learned a few interesting things there too. I’m surprised you didn’t tell me.’

‘You were in a rush to leave my car.’

‘You already knew that Rudi the Rat had disappeared…’

‘He’s probably sleeping it off somewhere with one of his girls.’

‘And who’s to say Hugo Lenz isn’t doing exactly the same thing?’

‘I know he isn’t.’

‘Did you send for Goldstein?’

‘Who?’

‘An American contract killer. The Pirates seem to think he was engaged by Berolina. And that Rudi Höller was his first victim.’

‘Inspector, if that was the case I’d have told you long ago. I don’t know this Goldstein of yours.’

‘I wish I could believe you.’

‘Why shouldn’t I play with an open hand? I’d only be hindering you in your work. You do work for me after all.’

‘Supposing someone else hired the Yank? Someone out for Berolina and the Pirates at the same time?’

‘I can’t think who that might be. Who would be delusional enough to take on two Ringvereine at once?’

‘Perhaps you should have a little think about that,’ Rath said. ‘One more thing: Krehmann said Hugo Lenz had a girl.’

‘Come to Venuskeller, and I’ll introduce you to Hugo’s little friend myself.’

‘Now?’

‘The evening’s only just begun.’

‘It’s a little tricky. My Buick’s in the garage.’

‘Which garage?’

‘In Reinickendorf, the arse-end of nowhere. Arse-end’s about right for its employees too.’

‘Then come tomorrow, let’s say at twelve. Leave the car to me.’

Marlow hung up. That was no suggestion. It was an order.

45

She was still furious. For half the night she had lain awake wishing him to hell, while at the same time longing for his presence beside her. She went to the window and looked out at the day’s first dismal rays of sunlight as they groped their way timidly towards Spenerstrasse.

It was quarter past seven according to Gereon’s alarm clock on the bedside table. She swept it aside, and it landed with a clatter on the wooden floor. That was no good either.

Her rage had surfaced again in the S-Bahn, gnawing away at her on the journey home, and continuing into the night.

The worst thing was that she didn’t even know why she was so angry, or at whom. Gereon, possibly, but just as likely herself. Ultimately, it was the silence of the last few weeks that had fuelled it, and this silence wasn’t just Gereon’s, but her own.

She no longer trusted him, no longer knew what he thought about her and her work. Did he take her seriously, or acquiesce just to keep her onside? What did he want from her, damn it?

Once you’re married, you won’t have to work anymore. Those were his mother’s words, but Gereon had said nothing in response. Was it because he felt the same way?

Charly had only wanted to tell Erika Rath about her work at Lichtenberg District Court, to get their faltering conversation in that stuffy cafe off the ground. Then came the offending sentence, and an even more embarrassed silence. Gereon looked at his shoes and sipped his coffee; Mother Rath didn’t seem to realise what she had done.

In all the months they had been together, they had never once spoken about marriage, not even jokingly, but that hadn’t stopped him from brazenly introducing her as my fiancée when they ran into Mother Rath by chance outside a large department store. For simplicity’s sake, he had whispered in her ear.

Cologne had been a total disaster, yet she had been so looking forward to getting out of Berlin, to seeing Gereon’s old friend Paul, and visiting his home city for the first time. Things had started so promisingly too.

It was the football that had sealed the deal. She had seen Hertha Berlin play a few times at the Plumpe, their home stadium, but never away, and certainly not in a final to decide the German championship. What a game it was! At halftime, Hertha were unlucky to be behind München, but had turned the game thanks to Hanne Sobek. When the winning goal was struck, shortly before the final whistle, she flung her arms around Gereon, then around Paul, and the two men joked that she was the only woman to be interested in football. They celebrated the win in Cologne’s old town, together with the visiting Hertha fans and a few sympathetic Rhineland Prussians until, at some point, Paul discreetly took his leave. Gereon had booked a room with a Rhine view, and later, as she stood by the window in her nightshirt and gazed onto the lights reflected in the river, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her on the nape of the neck. She felt as happy as she had done in a long time.

She wouldn’t discover how illusory this feeling was until the next day when, wandering through Cologne’s shopping district, they were caught unawares by a woman whom Gereon introduced as my mother, before gesturing towards Charly and saying: ‘Fräulein Ritter. My… fiancée.’

Erika Rath’s eyes widened in a mixture of curiosity and suspicion as she dragged them into the nearest cafe. ‘I’d have invited you to our home, of course,’ she said to Charly. ‘But Gereon never tells me anything.’

She had never seen him so subdued. ‘I… we were going to visit you, of course,’ he said. ‘But it was meant to be a surprise. We only arrived yesterday.’

Mother and son looked at each other in silence. Charly spoke a little about the District Court, until Erika Rath voiced her opinion about work and marriage, whereupon they lapsed back into a suddenly icy silence.

‘We’ll be round tomorrow,’ Gereon said. ‘Don’t tell Father, it’s meant to be a surprise.’

In the evening, Gereon took her to an exclusive restaurant on the banks of the Rhine, a modern building with windows all around, which offered a spellbinding view of the cathedral and river, but the evening was ruined before it began. Erika Rath was still present. It would have been better to talk about it, but Gereon preferred to remain silent.

The next day they paid the Raths a formal visit as promised. Charly was still his fiancée, for simplicity’s sake, and it became clear that Gereon had never breathed a word about her to his parents. The Raths felt ambushed by their presence and, for Charly, that second afternoon was even worse than the first.

Afterwards they left, as planned, by overnight train for a week on the Baltic Sea. The holiday flat in a captain’s cottage was tiny and wonderfully pretty, the weather in Prerow superb, but the atmosphere between them was soured. The blue skies over the Darss couldn’t salvage things, and their first holiday together was a disaster. Even if they had never spoken about it.

In fact they hadn’t spoken about anything, had simply returned to their daily lives upon arriving back in Berlin. Of course, she could have made the running, but she didn’t see why she should. It was his silence that had got them into this situation, and so it was up to him now to break it.

She just didn’t know where she was with him anymore, and the more she thought about it, the more she realised she never had. What did Gereon Rath want? To marry her? Then he should damn well go ahead and ask! But if he thought she would abandon her career, he’d better think again.

Charly went into the kitchen and put on water for coffee. The place still smelled of dog. Kirie’s guest basket stood outside in the hall under the coat stand. She gazed at the rims of her eyes in the bathroom mirror and decided for once to follow Weber’s orders and stay home.

She had a slice of bread with honey and two cups of coffee, and gradually her mind felt clear enough to reach for the telephone. She knew the number by heart. A secretary answered.

‘Good morning, Ritter here,’ she said. ‘Could I speak to Assessor Scherer please?’

46

Rath had a strange dream. Dancing with Charly through the lobby of the Excelsior, she kept standing on his bare toes with her pointed high heels. The music was bizarre and out of time. Behind reception, he thought he could make out the face of Johann Marlow above a gold-embroidered Excelsior uniform. Abe Goldstein sat at the bar, drinking one enormous glass of whisky after another and, with each new glass, toasting Rath and smiling cynically. Suddenly, he slid from the barstool, pulled a pistol from his jacket and pointed it at Rath, at Charly, at Marlow. Three times he pulled the trigger and the barrel spewed fire, but there was no bang, just an ear-splitting DRRRRRNNNG, DRRRRRNNNG, DRRRRRNNNG.

Rath sat up with a start. His hands groped for Charly, but couldn’t find her. Gradually he recovered his bearings, but only when the fourth DRRRRRNNNG sounded did he realise it was the doorbell. Damn, what time was it? Where was his wristwatch? His alarm clock was still in Moabit. He must have overslept.

It rang for a fifth time. Whoever it was they were damn stubborn. Rath got up and looked for his dressing gown, but it was in Spenerstrasse too. He fished fresh underwear and socks out of the wardrobe, threw on yesterday evening’s suit, which hung damp and mud-splattered over the chair, and went to the door. Kirie gazed at the door as curiously as her master. It couldn’t be Charly; the dog would have greeted her differently.

When Rath opened the door, a man in dirty blue overalls was crouched on the floor, trying to slip something through the letterbox. There were dark circles under his eyes, suggesting a lack of sleep. He gave a start and sprang to his feet. In his hand he held a familiar-looking key.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, ‘I didn’t think there was anyone home, so I…’ He held the key under Rath’s nose. A car key. ‘Your vehicle. You’re a busy man, and we thought why don’t we drop the car round, seeing as it’s ready.’

Rath was speechless. He took the car key and nodded thanks.

The man marked time for a moment, then gave a little cough. ‘Ehm, the replacement – could I take it back with me?’

Rath needed a moment to work out that the replacement was the Hanomag. He nodded, still not sure if he was really awake. ‘Of course,’ he muttered, searching in his coat pocket for the Hanomag key. The man took it and disappeared with a tip of his oil-stained cap.

‘The bill?’ he called after the mechanic, who had already reached the bottom of the stairs.

‘We’ll send it on,’ it echoed from below.

Rath went back inside. The kitchen clock showed just after half past eight. No need to panic, he wasn’t that late. Through the window he saw the mechanic crossing the courtyard with quick steps. He seemed to be in a hurry. Rath looked at the car key, then at Kirie.

‘Bark, so I know I’m awake,’ he said. ‘Or talk, so that I know I’m still asleep.’

He went into the bathroom, switched on the stove, gave the dog something to eat and returned to a lukewarm shower, washing away the previous evening’s disappointment. Only one suit hung in the wardrobe. He had to get the grey one to the dry cleaner’s. He bagged it up, deciding against a coffee in his rush to leave the house. Kirie looked bewildered. Usually they didn’t set off in such a hurry, but usually they didn’t sleep so long either.

A sand-coloured Buick was parked outside the house, its paint so shiny that at first Rath didn’t recognise his old car. It wasn’t until he saw the little scratch on the steering wheel that he was sure. He checked the paintwork, couldn’t find a scrape, and then the wheels: four new tyres fitted. At least three people must have pulled a nightshift to get this done.

Rath was continually astonished at how much influence Johann Marlow wielded. Anyone who could give a garage the hurry-up – literally overnight – must really have a lot of power. Nothing had impressed him more than the remoulded Buick standing outside his front door: not the luxury Marlow could afford, nor the private army, nor even the many connections to the police and municipal authorities.

‘Well, Kirie,’ he said to the dog. ‘Perhaps it was no bad thing Charly didn’t spend the night.’

If anything it was better. She’d have smelled a rat. Charly didn’t know anything about the five thousand marks, or the mutual favours linking him to Dr M., nor could she ever find out.

Rath put the key in the lock and turned – a perfect fit. ‘Looks like we’re all here now,’ he said as he opened the door. ‘You, me and the car.’ Kirie sprang onto the passenger seat, panting expectantly.

47

The man cut a forlorn and hostile figure, sitting uncomfortably on the wooden chair in Interview Room B. Gräf knew they had scored a bullseye yesterday, when he oversaw Leo Fleming’s arrest with a troop of uniformed officers. Renate Schobeck’s lodger had briefly eyed potential escape routes when Gräf pulled his badge but, in the end, come peaceably.

In the absence of Böhm and Grabowski, Gräf had taken matters into his own hands. There was no doubting it was the correct decision, but the Bulldog had still given him an earful this morning, before downgrading him to the role of spectator. The DCI wanted to lead the interview himself.

Böhm said nothing initially, a trick he must have learned from Gennat. Cheap as it was, it seemed to work. Fleming grew visibly nervous, and began polishing the chair with the seat of his trousers.

‘So, tell us what you were doing the night before last in Humboldthain,’ Böhm said.

Fleming gave a start. ‘In Humboldthain? What makes you think I was doing anything there?’

Böhm opened the file in front of him. ‘You were a member of the RFB,’ he read. ‘Got into a few scraps with the Nazis down the years, haven’t you?’

‘What if I have?’

‘After the RFB was banned too. In theory, anyway.’

‘The SA hasn’t been banned. They’re allowed to fight with impunity.’

‘No one in this country is allowed to fight with impunity.’

‘There’s the odd knuckle sandwich when the brownshirts take things too far. Have you seen how they carry on? You shouldn’t go thinking it’s always us Reds who start it.’

‘You don’t go out of your way to avoid it.’

‘We’re not cowards.’

Böhm nodded sympathetically. ‘In the small hours of Wednesday morning one of these fights spiralled out of control, isn’t that so?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I cut myself peeling potatoes. Didn’t Frau Schobeck tell you? Ask her!’

‘We’ve already spoken to Frau Schobeck,’ Gräf said.

Fleming looked at him in confusion. ‘Didn’t she confirm it? I gave her my things to wash.’

‘In the meantime we’ve run a blood test on them,’ Böhm said. ‘Blood type B.’

‘So what?’

‘You’re blood type O, Herr Fleming.’ He turned white as a sheet. ‘Take a guess who else has blood type B.’ Fleming was silent; no doubt he could imagine. ‘Exactly. Gerhard Kubicki, the dead man from Humboldthain.’

‘That’s a coincidence.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ Böhm shouted. ‘Why are you feeding me this crap about peeling potatoes? Do you really expect me to believe you’ve never seen Kubicki in your life?’

Fleming sat ramrod straight on his chair and fell silent.

Böhm tossed a pin onto the table. A hand held a weapon, upon which flew a flag bearing the inscription 4. Reichstreffen Berlin Pfingsten 1928. Underneath were the letters R.F.B.

Fleming stared at the pin. ‘You have no right to go rummaging through my flat,’ he said. ‘You need a search warrant for that.’

Böhm leaned back. ‘We didn’t search your flat. It was the coroner who found it, underneath Gerhard Kubicki’s corpse. It’s safe to say he wasn’t in the Red Front.’

Fleming flung his head this way and that, before positively screaming his response. ‘Alright, for God’s sake. Yes, I dragged the dead Nazi into the bushes.’

‘So you admit it.’

‘Only that I hid him! I didn’t kill him.’

‘You really expect me to believe that?’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘If you didn’t kill him, then why did you hide the corpse?’

Leo Fleming calmed down a little. ‘I meet my girl by the church there every morning. I didn’t want either of us to get in trouble.’

‘Well I must commend you there.’

‘Should I tell you what happened or not?’

‘Go on.’

48

Dark patches on the paving slabs were all that remained of the morning’s rain. Sitting here drinking coffee and cognac definitely had something. The drinks warmed from inside, the sun from outside, and a waiter appeared at regular intervals with fresh coffee, fresh cognac, and anything else you might wish for, even a copy of the Evening Post. Café Reimann had an international flavour.

Goldstein had heard English, French and Russian spoken in the hour and a half he had been here. He liked the European custom of placing tables and chairs outside, and here on the Kurfürstendamm the pavements were especially wide. Meanwhile, the passersby, who were mostly elegantly dressed and counted many pretty women among them, made for a spectacle he never grew tired of.

There was no news from Brooklyn in the Evening Post, or at least none that interested him. Not a single line about Fat Moe, and nothing about the war of the New York Gangs. The paper was six days old, but it was impossible to get a more recent edition. Nevertheless, he was glad to read anything that kept him up to date on events at home, and might inform him of Moe’s untimely demise.

The fat man’s days were numbered, that much was certain. Moe Berkowicz had rubbed too many people up the wrong way, starting with the Italians. He had an inkling he was on the way out, of course, which was why he had grown more suspicious in the last few months, eliminating more and more people, enemies both real and imagined, and weakening his position with every corpse. By now, his bloodlust had accounted for a number of his closest confidants. When even Skinny Sally, Moe’s old companion Salomon Epstein, the walking adding machine, whose precision brain had contributed more to the fat man’s rise than all his gang’s guns and muscle put together, stood on the blacklist, nobody was safe. For the first time in his life Abe Goldstein had failed to complete a contract.

Skinny Sally’s heart jumped when he saw the lights on in his flat and his boss’s killer sitting inside on the sofa. His gaze said simply: make it quick.

Abe had reassured him. ‘Don’t worry, Sally. If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.’

Salomon Epstein understood Goldstein’s visit meant it would be wise to disappear for a few weeks, as far away as possible from Moe Berkowicz and his men. He packed a suitcase and, ever since that evening, Abe Goldstein had a new friend.

On that momentous day, when he let Skinny Sally go free, Goldstein’s passage was already booked. The letter from Berlin a few days before had made the decision easy. He spent the four days prior to his departure in a cheap hotel with his suitcases packed, venturing outside only to buy papers and cigarettes. The day before leaving he read that there had been a gunfight in the Congo Club on Amsterdam Avenue, a bloodbath, in which five people had lost their lives. The Congo was one of Moses Berkowicz’s Speakeasies. Fat Moe ought to have been dead, but had broken his routine and left the club at ten. After that he had gone to ground. The incident finally brought home to Abe how important it was that he skip town. A wounded Moses Berkowicz was more dangerous than ever.

A day later, Goldstein stood on the upper deck of the Europa. Leaning against the rail he saw two young men in light-grey summer coats on the pier below. He had never seen them before, but was in no doubt they were sharing board and lodging with Fat Moe in some lice-ridden apartment out in the Bronx. The fat man’s last reserves: two amateurs picked off the street, who looked as though they had never worn suits before in their lives. When one of them spotted him and pointed up, he gave them a friendly wave, knowing he was safe. The steamer had already cast off, and the foghorn issued its deafening farewell to Manhattan. Nevertheless, one of the two – perhaps thinking no one would be able to hear over the noise – drew his weapon and took aim. His partner stopped him pulling the trigger. A cop had seen them, and Moe’s kindergarten killers made themselves scarce.

After searching in vain for Moses Berkowicz’s obituary notice, Goldstein leafed through the sports section. The Dodgers had lost again.

‘Anything else, Sir?’ the waiter said in English. His tone was polite and worldly, in anticipation of a hefty dollar tip.

‘Schwarzwälder Kirsch, please.’

The waiter gave a nod of acknowledgement hearing Goldstein’s impeccable pronunciation. He had probably never taken an order like that from an American tourist before.

Goldstein leaned back, lit a Camel and surveyed a girl in a light summer dress. She seemed to notice; at any rate, she gave him an enchanting smile. He smiled back and crumpled the empty cigarette packet. He only had one pack of twenty left in his suite, and still hadn’t located an alternative source. Despite an otherwise excellent selection, the hotel tobacconist’s didn’t have any Camel, nor, surprisingly, did the big train station opposite. Maybe he should write to the American embassy. Or try here in this neighbourhood. The rich west was where most American tourists seemed to spend their time.

Someone had left a Berlin paper on the neighbouring table. Goldstein’s gaze fixed on a familiar portrait. He reached over and grabbed it. B.Z. am Mittag the title page said, and on the first page of the regional section stood the headline: SA man murdered. Below it was the photo. The man wore a neat parting, but aside from that bore a fatal resemblance to Knuckleduster Gerd from Humboldthain. The image line also carried his name: Victim of a political brawl? Gerhard Kubicki (27).

‘One Schwarzwälder Kirsch. Would the gentleman like anything else?’

The waiter placed a plate containing a large slice of cake on the table and discreetly removed the crumpled cigarette packet. Goldstein continued reading the paper.

Goldstein pushed the cake plate aside. His appetite was gone. The police were making a real fuss over this. Damn it! He stubbed out the Camel and pushed five dollars under the saucer. Instinctively he smelled trouble. He had to do something.

49

Dull as it might be playing Abraham Goldstein’s minder, Rath was satisfied with his working day as he got into the Buick at Anhalter Bahnhof. Soon they’d have the Yank worn down. How must it feel to spend the whole day trapped in your hotel room? Lunch was the only meal Goldstein had left his suite for. Breakfast had been taken to his room, likewise dinner the night before. As Czerwinski had painstakingly noted: a platter of cold roast beef and a bottle of chilled champagne. The man had to console himself somehow.

The garage had done a good job; the Buick felt good as new. Marlow would expect a favour in return, but Rath would supply. His investigation for Dr M. was a hundred times more interesting than being on shift at the Excelsior. Or searching for Charly’s guttersnipe, a task that was as ridiculous as it was futile.

Those endless hours in the hotel had given him too much time to think about his quarrel with Charly. Again and again, he saw the image of her green hat as it disappeared between the S-Bahn scaffolding poles. A few times he had been on the verge of calling her; the telephone he had brought up to the desk kept urging him on. Once he even dialled the operator, only to hang up before he could give Charly’s number.

He was furious at her pig-headedness, but couldn’t stop thinking about her. At the same time he would have liked nothing more than to take her in his arms, and not just because they usually landed in bed when they made up after quarrelling. But yesterday was different, he could feel it.

He should have proposed like he planned, but the timing in the last few months had never been right. He wanted it to be special, which was why he had organised the trip to Cologne, even got hold of football tickets. Everything had been planned down to the final detail, including booking a table in the Bastei for the day after the game. After that he’d have performed his filial duty by officially introducing Charly as his fiancée, making it clear once and for all that he was determined to marry a Protestant. Then he’d have disappeared back to Berlin and finally been rid of his parents and their advice.

The Bastei was one of the classiest restaurants in the city, a generously proportioned, modern build with spectacular views of the cathedral and the Rhine. The waiter had been in on it: rings in the champagne. But then they had run into his mother. How could he forget that she shopped at Leonhard Tietz every Monday?

They had gone out to eat that night as planned. The table was booked, but the timing wasn’t right. He managed to catch the waiter at the last moment, and had the rings taken out of the glasses. They were now hidden in his living room cabinet, waiting to be deployed again.

He cursed his indecision. He should have asked her long ago, or left it once and for all.

Should he really propose to a woman whose career was evidently more important to her than marriage and children? Rath no longer knew what was right and what was wrong. Sometimes he wished he belonged to his parents’ generation; things were easier for them. Or, at least, so he thought.

He had been engaged before, but Doris had dropped him after he hit the headlines following the shoot-out in Cologne’s Agnesviertel. At best, their marriage would have resembled that of his parents, and that was something he could do without.

He wanted Charly and no one else. So, why hadn’t he told her that long ago?

‘Damn it!’ he shouted, and Kirie, who had been dozing peacefully on the passenger seat, woke with a start and stared at him.

He wanted her, damn it! Why shouldn’t he just tell her, right now? Then she could decide one way or another. There was no other way, no more waiting, no more half measures. He needed to know! He would accept her answer, whichever way it came out. He couldn’t bear the uncertainty anymore. It was now or never.

He felt a sudden surge of optimism, like a suicide candidate who, at long last, had summoned the courage to enter the lift at the Funkturm in preparation for one final jump.

Essaying a U-turn under the steel bars of the elevated train, he drove the Buick back up Stresemannstrasse, past the Excelsior, heading further and further north until finally he reached Moabit.

Arriving at Spenerstrasse, he sat in the car for a moment. Should he get out or not? Give in to impulse or come to his senses? He tapped a cigarette out of the case, and Kirie looked on in surprise. Why was no one getting out of the car?

She hadn’t expected his advice to be so clear, but his clarity did her good; the whole conversation did her good. She should have called him ages ago; the only reason she hadn’t was Gereon’s stupid jealousy. Guido’s presence was like a red rag to a bull. Well, so what? Whose problem was that? Not hers anyway.

Now Guido, with whom she had studied – and suffered – together for most of her university years, was back in her kitchen, and it was just like old times, like when he advised her to resit the state examination. She couldn’t have wished for a better guide when it came to her dilemma. Court Assessor Guido Scherer was a man who knew a thing or two about making a career in law.

‘You have to take up Heymann’s offer,’ he said. ‘Do you know what an honour that is?’

‘Of course I do, but what good is it?’

‘You’d have a name in the academic world.’

‘I don’t want a name in the academic world. I want more justice in this one.’

Guido smiled. He smiled often. That was another thing Gereon hated about him, but he had never been able to stand her old classmate anyway. She had explained to him countless times that he had no cause for jealousy, but he never seemed to believe her.

‘He’s still pursuing you, you realise that?’

‘Don’t exaggerate. He knows he won’t get anywhere with me, and he’s fine with that.’

‘But the way he looks at you, like… like… And that stupid grin!’

‘Oh, cut it out with your jealousy, and stop trying to dictate who I see!’

Gereon had eased back on his criticism, but somehow she met Guido less often.

Suddenly Charly was furious again. Gereon had succeeded in putting her off one of her best friends. It was only now, more than a year since she last saw him, as they spoke about the law and everything else under the sun, that she realised how much she had missed these conversations. Conversations that weren’t possible with Gereon Rath were exactly what she needed now, after her trouble at Lichtenberg. It did her good to speak with someone who knew about these things; who valued her ability when it came to questions of the law. Despite everything, with Gereon, she still wasn’t sure.

‘Another drop?’

Guido nodded and Charly poured a little more of the red wine she had intended to share with Gereon. So that they could discuss the same subject: Heymann’s offer.

She stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me. I have to go to the little girls’ room.’

Charly disappeared and, just as her guest raised the glass to his mouth, the doorbell rang.

Rath unwrapped the flowers nervously. His brio on the journey, his determination, his certainty that he was doing the right thing, all shrivelled as he stood in front of the door. On the street he had needed to take a little walk to calm himself down, and had bought a bunch of roses before returning to her flat. Kirie, who was used to going straight into the drawing room from the car, looked at her master patiently, knowing that humans are fickle.

She wagged her tail; she must be able to smell Charly already. Even so, there was nothing doing in her flat. Rath rang a second time. He was starting to think he had made the trip for nothing, that she must be back in Friedrichshain, at the Müggelsee or somewhere else looking for the escaped girl, when he heard steps. His heart pounded, they were going to make up, he knew it, but whether she would accept his proposal… he wasn’t at all sure. He’d need more than simple charm. Damn it, he thought, you have to see this through. Do it right, or not at all!

The door opened and Rath’s boyishly cheeky smile froze.

‘Herr Rath!’ said Guido, grinning.

It couldn’t be! He had been through this exact situation once before, managing, on that occasion, to vent his fury elsewhere. This time he stood rooted to the spot. Rage consumed him. The knowledge that he had nothing to counter it with seemed, finally, to release him. He drew back and, just as Guido was saying something like ‘Won’t you come in?’, slashed the roses to the left and right across his face, long-stemmed flowers, with big, sharp thorns.

Kirie barked, because she barked at anyone her master fought, and it was this barking that returned Rath to his senses, and prevented him from wiping the stupid grin off the man’s face with a straight left. For the grinning man was, of course, still grinning, even though his face was streaked with blood. Flinging the shredded roses at the man’s feet, Rath took Kirie by the lead and returned to the car.

50

The landlord placed two beers on the table, with two schnapps glasses alongside. Rath and Gräf clinked glasses, downed the schnapps and cleansed their palates with beer.

‘So?’ Rath asked. ‘How’s it going?’

‘I arrested a suspect yesterday evening, but Böhm’s the one conducting the interview.’

‘What are you going to do? He’s leading the investigation. Just be glad if your name turns up somewhere in the file.’

‘Well, I suppose it’s better than hanging around the Excelsior. Goldstein still hasn’t left town?’

Rath shook his head. ‘Looks like you’re going to lose your bet.’

‘It isn’t the weekend yet. Where’s your dog by the way?’

‘In bed.’ Rath fumbled an Overstolz out of his case and lit it. ‘What case are you investigating? The dead fence?’

Gräf shook his head. ‘Böhm passed that one to Lange. It’s connected with the KaDeWe break-in somehow. No,’ he said. ‘I get to deal with gay Nazis.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Gerhard Kubicki. The dead SA man from Humboldthain. He was a fairy.’

Rath couldn’t help but laugh. ‘So that’s why Goebbels hasn’t made him into a second Wessel.’

‘You wouldn’t believe how many homosexuals there are in the SA. Especially in the new SA. The gay clique heading them are like a red rag to Stennes’ old guard.’

The SA war had kept Berlin on tenterhooks for months. Oberführer Walther Stennes, the highest-ranking SA chief in Berlin, Brandenburg, East Prussia and Pommern, had rebelled against Hitler and Gauleiter Goebbels, on one occasion occupying Berlin party headquarters in Hedemannstrasse. With Hitler’s backing, Goebbels had managed to apply the brakes: Stennes was relieved of office, over five hundred of his supporters were expelled from the SA, and a clean sweep was made of Berlin members. Rival SA factions had clashed with increasing frequency ever since.

‘Do you have any leads?’ Rath asked.

‘We picked up a Communist with Kubicki’s blood on his clothes.’

‘There you are then. Business as usual. Red on Brown.’

Gräf looked sceptical. ‘The man admitted to hiding the corpse, but denies killing the SA man. He says he was propped against the church wall, dead as a doornail. He just hid the corpse to avoid getting into trouble.’

‘When does he say he found the body?’

‘In the early hours. He meets his girl in front of the Himmelfahrtkirche every day before work. Before her work, that is. He’s unemployed.’

‘Handy. Is she providing his alibi?’

‘No, that’s just it. She didn’t see him at all on the morning in question. He says he noticed the blood on his jacket and went straight home.’

‘Strange story.’

‘Which is why I’m inclined to believe it.’

‘Who killed the dead Nazi then?’

‘I don’t know.’

Gräf lifted his empty beer glass, which caught Schorsch’s attention. The Nasse Dreieck landlord brought a fresh beer, exchanging it for Gräf’s empty glass and glancing disapprovingly at Rath’s, which was still half full.

‘It could be,’ Gräf said, ‘that the victim’s homosexuality is relevant somehow.’

‘A gay Nazi the victim of a homophobic murderer? Doesn’t sound right to me. Always leaves a funny taste when these Nazis or Commies style themselves as victims.’

‘The man isn’t styling himself. He is a victim. He was killed after all.’

‘You’re right. It’s just that since Goebbels made a hero out of that pimp Wessel…’

‘Wessel was no pimp. That’s Communist propaganda!’

‘Well, he was no martyr either. I know the case pretty well.’

Rath decided to back down. He had no desire to quarrel with his friend over politics. They usually avoided such topics, just as they avoided talking about Charlotte Ritter. ‘You’re saying this Kubicki died because he was a homosexual.’

‘It’s a possibility. I found something interesting in the files. About a week ago Stennes’ men threatened one of the leaders of the new Berlin SA. Karl Ernst, the local Gau’s aide-de-camp, was sitting with a few fellow officers in a bar in Halensee when a group of Stennes’ supporters tried to lay into them. Before it could go too far a riot squad took them in.’

‘So?’

‘One of Stennes’ men said some pretty nasty things to Ernst and his pal Paul Röhrbein. It’s the first time I’ve ever read the phrase arse-fuckers in a police statement. There was talk of gay boys and faggy bastards too.’

‘Sounds pretty homophobic.’

‘Right. Ernst and Röhrbein are both homosexual.’

Rath nodded pensively.

‘But the most interesting thing about the file was something else,’ Gräf said. ‘Among the brownshirts in the bar was a certain Gerhard Kubicki.’

‘Let me guess: he was one of the arse-fuckers.’

‘Got it in one.’ Gräf took a few more sips of beer and drained his glass. ‘I’ve suggested to Böhm that we canvass the names on the Halensee list, but he won’t have it. Thinks we’d be better off softening up a few Communists.’

‘I never knew Böhm was such a Commie-basher.’

‘He doesn’t care if they’re Communists, Nazis or small children.’

‘But he saves his best for CID officers.’

Gräf laughed. ‘At least I have permission to question our dead Rottenführer’s superior officer tomorrow. Let’s see what comes of that.’ His gaze fell on the two glasses again. ‘What’s up with you?’ he asked. ‘You’re a beer down already.’

The detective made a move to order a fresh round, but Rath waved him away. ‘Not tonight,’ he said, stubbing out his cigarette and reaching for his hat. ‘I’ve made other plans.’

Gräf looked at his watch. ‘At quarter past eleven?’

‘Sorry,’ he said and placed five marks on the counter. ‘Let me take care of this.’

The detective grinned. ‘So, what’s her name?’

Rath shrugged. ‘Not sure,’ he said, pleased at the look of bafflement on Gräf’s face.

51

Rath parked the Buick a walking distance from the door. If his former colleagues at Vice were on surveillance and took down his number plate, he could have a lot of explaining to do. He left the car by the Weberwiese and walked down Memeler Strasse. The fresh air did him good. He had packed his Walther, as he didn’t fancy his chances here unarmed, especially at night. When he reached the junction at Posener Strasse a dim memory surfaced.

Venuskeller was an illegal cellar bar near the former Ostbahnhof, concealed in the rear courtyard of an unprepossessing tenement house. Dim was the word. This was where his first meeting with Johann Marlow had been contrived during a visit more than two years before. Marlow’s men had led Rath, the coked-up policeman, to a warehouse on the site of the Ostbahnhof, where the gangster received him. The evening had marked the start of their fateful relationship. Well, Rath thought, at least this time he was invited.

Guards stood watch on the street, but let him approach the building and the stairs that led down to the cellar bar. A man stepped out of the shadows.

‘Herr Rath, I presume,’ he said. Rath nodded. The man tipped his hat. ‘You’re expected. Please follow me.’

The guard didn’t take him to the entrance at the foot of the stairs, but further towards the back where a staircase led directly to the office and back rooms. He would be spared the noise and scandal of Venuskeller. He wasn’t in the mood for an illegal nightclub, not after Charly and the grinning man had put paid to his evening. In fact, he was just happy to have something to do, even sleuthing for an underworld heavyweight. The guard gave two brief knocks and Liang opened.

Marlow’s Chinaman frisked him, fishing the Walther out of its holster and taking his coat. Johann Marlow sat behind Sebald’s desk. There was no sign of the bar’s owner, however. Apart from Marlow, Rath and Liang, there wasn’t a soul in the room. Sebald’s office appeared to be one of the many Marlow had dotted across the city, to be used as and when required. Through the door came the muffled sound of music aimed at getting patrons in the mood. Marlow offered a friendly greeting as usual, even standing to proffer a hand.

‘Do take a seat,’ he said, pointing to a leather chair that Liang was already straightening. The silent Chinese always seemed to be in several places at once. Rath sank onto the cushion, and Liang set down a whisky glass and poured.

‘I thought I remembered you having a taste for my malt,’ Marlow said, and raised his glass.

Rath lit an Overstolz. His supplies were dwindling again. He was smoking more than was good for him, especially in the five hours since the grinning man had opened Charly’s door.

‘You were going to introduce me to Red Hugo’s girl,’ he said, realising he sounded a little unfriendly.

‘Later.’ Marlow said. ‘I’ve been asking around. You have this Goldstein under surveillance?’

‘Since Monday.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because I don’t think he has anything to do with the disappearance of some Berlin gangster. He hasn’t left his hotel in days.’

‘So he couldn’t have killed anybody…’

‘That’s why we have him under surveillance.’

‘As if it makes any difference to you if a man like Red Hugo is taken out of circulation…’

‘Or Rudi the Rat…’

‘Leave that idiot out of this. Now, what have you found?’

Rath told Marlow what he knew. As far as possible, he had pieced together Red Hugo’s movements on the day of his disappearance. It appeared that after leaving his house, Hugo Lenz had eaten lunch in Amor-Diele, where he had received a number of fresh complaints about the Nordpiraten. They had destroyed a kiosk whose owner paid protection to Berolina since time immemorial; thrown a cocaine dealer out of a nightclub on Berolina’s patch; and put two bookkeepers in hospital. Rath had made contact with all four men. Apparently Red Hugo had assured each one in turn that the Pirates would soon be eating humble pie, and that all wrongs would be set right in a matter of days. Then he had given his driver and bodyguard the rest of the day off and headed to a meeting alone. Marlow’s people had found Lenz’s red-black Horch on Stralauer Allee, just by the Osthafen.

‘Do you have any idea what he might have been doing there?’ Rath asked. Marlow shook his head. ‘When did you last see him yourself?’

Marlow took a cigar from a case on his desk and snipped off its end, a gesture that appeared threatening somehow. ‘Last week,’ he said, exhaling little clouds of cigar smoke into the room. ‘At the hospital. We were visiting one of our men. Kettler. You know, the one the Pirates crippled.’

‘You visited a minor drug-dealer in person?’

‘People need to know they’re being looked after. Otherwise they succumb to the promises of the Prussian Police.’

‘Which hospital and when?’

‘Last Friday. In Friedrichshain. We don’t see each other too often. Mostly we talk on the telephone.’

‘So when was the last time you spoke to him?’

‘Monday morning. Before he left.’

‘Did you know of his plans for the day?’

‘Only that we were due to meet in Amor-Diele that evening. Krehmann’s back room is Hugo’s study, so to speak. Mine too sometimes.’

‘What was the meeting about?’

‘Is that relevant?’

Rath shrugged. ‘I won’t know until I find him.’

‘It was about the Nordpiraten. Countermeasures we could take without triggering all-out war. To regain respect for Berolina, and yours truly as well.’ Marlow balanced the ash of his cigar, and let it drop into the tray. ‘Lenz was optimistic that morning. He seemed to have a plan. Unfortunately he vanished before he could tell me what it was.’

‘Could this plan have something to do with Rudi Höller’s disappearance? Could Lenz have eliminated him before going underground?’

Marlow shook his head. ‘I’d know about that. I’m afraid Hugo’s plan had something to do with his own disappearance.’

‘Because the Pirates got wind of it, and got to him first…’

‘That would be the most obvious explanation, but I don’t buy it. It would mean the Pirates declaring war on Berolina.’

‘Is that so unlikely?’

‘It would suggest that either the Pirates are unbelievably stupid or…’ Marlow paused thoughtfully, ‘…that they have an ace up their sleeve which I know nothing about.’

‘What kind of ace?’

‘It’s your job to find out. Perhaps it’s this American gangster, or someone in uniform.’

‘A police officer? What makes you think that?’

Marlow pushed a button under the desk and a door opened, granting Rath a fleeting glimpse into the artists’ dressing room – or whatever it was called in Venuskeller. At any rate it was the room where the girls got changed, which, in most cases, meant getting undressed. The blonde who emerged wore only a white bathrobe and glittering tiara. She seemed to have been waiting for this moment, and made quite an entrance, her light bathrobe fluttering elegantly to reveal tantalising glimpses of her body. Rath was stunned into silence.

‘Christine, this is the inspector I was telling you about.’ He gestured towards the leather chair.

Christine’s cheeky Berlin-girl face gazed at Rath so provocatively that he felt a tingling sensation between his legs. Perhaps it was also because leaning over to stretch out her hand, she just happened to display her breasts. Rath tried to think of something else, before finally alighting on the flabby arms of Frau Lennartz, the caretaker’s wife at Luisenufer, as she wrung out a cleaning rag over a metal bucket filled with dirty water.

‘A pleasure,’ he said, standing up and taking her hand.

‘So I see,’ Christine replied.

Rath sank back in his chair.

The girl sat on the desk and crossed her legs so that the bathrobe no longer concealed any part of them. Without asking she fiddled a cigarette out of the case on the desk and lit up.

‘You haven’t been here for a long time, Inspector,’ Marlow said, clearly amused. ‘Christine has been our main attraction for half a year now.’

Rath reached for his whisky. Liang had topped him up again. ‘How well do you know Hugo Lenz?’ he asked.

The main attraction drew on her cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke into the room. ‘Better than you could stand, believe me.’

‘Oh, I do. When did you last see him?’

‘Sunday evening. In Amor-Diele. In his office.’

‘You mean the back room…’

‘His office.’

‘What did you do there?’

‘Any number of things. Stay for a moment and I’ll give you a taste on stage.’

‘No need to go into detail.’ Rath cleared his throat. Christine seemed to enjoy discovering how Catholic he was. ‘What I would like to know is, did you notice anything about him? Did you talk about anything that could be linked to his disappearance?’

‘He always talked a blue streak. Afterwards.’ She cast him a glance that ought to have been made illegal. ‘There is something that might interest you – he didn’t talk about it explicitly, but he was pretty euphoric. He thought he’d found a way of sewing the Pirates crosswise.’

‘Go on.’

‘That was all he was prepared to say while he still hadn’t discussed it with his boss.’ She glanced at Marlow.

‘Do you have any idea what it could have been?’

‘Maybe what I’ve already told the boss: that Hugo had met a police officer of whom he expected certain things.’

Marlow shook his head gruffly. ‘I always told the idiot to leave that sort of thing to me.’

‘Was Lenz planning to meet this police officer on Monday?’ Rath asked.

‘I’ve no idea what he had planned that day.’

Rath turned back to Marlow, a move Christine met with an insulted expression. ‘Have you already been to his flat?’ he asked.

‘Of course, but if we’d found him, you wouldn’t be here.’

‘Clearly you didn’t find him, but perhaps some leads, a few clues…’

‘Inspector, we’re not police officers.’ Marlow’s gaze was almost reproachful. He gave the girl a nod and she disappeared back into the dressing room. Marlow waited until the door was closed. ‘I can give you the keys. As long as you promise to forget that you’re a policeman.’

‘I can be very forgetful.’

‘You seem tired,’ Marlow said.

‘I have a lot on my plate.’

Dr M. must have given Liang a sign. The Chinese stood next to Rath’s chair, and opened a silver jar containing white powder.

‘Might I offer your something?’ Marlow asked. ‘Guaranteed to perk you up.’

Rath shook his head.

‘I’ve never known you so reticent.’

‘Never between meals.’ It was meant to be an offhand remark, casual, indifferent, but the sight of the cocaine gave him cravings. He hadn’t taken any for a long time, above all for Charly’s sake, but he had liked it, back then. He stood up. ‘I just need a little sleep and I’ll be fine.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Marlow said. He opened a drawer and pulled out a set of keys, which he handed to Rath. ‘A few men from Berolina are keeping watch on the building. Show them your identification. I’ll let them know you’re coming.’

Hugo Lenz’s house was better guarded than Venuskeller, and more discreetly. Rath locked the car and crossed the street feeling watched, but there was no one to be seen. A man stepped from behind a tree.

‘What are you doing here?’

Rath showed his identification, remembering him as one of those guarding the Sorokin gold two years before. The man returned the papers.

Hugo Lenz had moved into a nice little house in the Prinzenviertel of Karlshorst, close to his beloved racetrack. You had to be more than just a head of a Ringverein to afford a place like this. Working with Marlow had clearly paid for the former safebreaker.

Three men playing cards spun around as he entered the kitchen. One drew his gun. Rath showed his identification and they relaxed.

‘Take as long as you need,’ the man with the weapon said.

Rath’s heart was pounding. It was a good thing Marlow had warned them in advance.

‘What were you about to play?’ another asked. No one paid the late-night visitor any more attention.

‘Grand Hand.’ The man placed his gun on the table. ‘Woe betide any of you shitbags if you’ve looked at my cards!’

Rath exited the kitchen. Why was Marlow guarding the flat so closely if Hugo Lenz wasn’t here? Perhaps they were guarding something else, or just preventing the Nordpiraten from torching the property?

The drawing room was conservatively furnished to the petit bourgeois tastes of a safebreaker who had come into money. Everywhere you looked, the carpets were plush and plump. Hugo Lenz was still trapped in 1890. Missing was the portrait of the Kaiser above the piano, although the obligatory Beethoven bust glowered from its rightful place on the piano. Rath doubted that Hugo Lenz could play, but its shiny black presence would correspond to his ideas of refinement. Likewise the books on the shelves were sorted according to colour. None appeared as though it had been read. Rath looked around, finding nothing valuable or noteworthy in the cupboards. He didn’t know what he was looking for, though that wasn’t always important; often it was precisely when you weren’t looking that you hit upon something of value.

It didn’t seem as if Hugo Lenz spent much time here; no doubt his real living room was the Amor-Diele. Things were different in the bedroom, however, a room of formidable size. The bed wasn’t made and worn trousers were draped across a chair, with old socks and underwear strewn across the floor. Hugo Lenz hadn’t planned on disappearing. A quick glance inside his wardrobe confirmed no empty hangers, and apparently nothing was missing. If Lenz had taken to his heels, for whatever reason, then he hadn’t had time to pack. Rath was starting to rule out the possibility that Red Hugo was a turncoat, gone over to either the police or the Pirates to sound the death knell for Johann Marlow.

He even had a kind of study – or at least a room that was dominated by a large desk. Rath rummaged through the drawers, finding neither an appointments diary nor a notebook, nor, indeed, any papers. Only a dozen sachets of cocaine. He did as Marlow asked and forgot he was a police officer.

The lower drawer also contained a number of forbidden items: pornographic photos. Not for sale, it appeared, but private use. They weren’t staged, like the ones Rath knew from his time in Vice, but snapshots, albeit of rare quality. Some gifted photographer had taken pictures of the Venuskeller sets down the years, and the results were for adults only. Right at the top of the pile Rath recognised Christine, only this time sans bathrobe and cavorting with a muscular gymnast. The picture left him strangely cold.

He leafed through the pile of photos and Venuskeller bills from previous years, at length finding one he had marvelled at two years before. The photographs showed a fake Indian working over a white woman tied to a stake – and not in the way old Karl May would have it.

He looked through the pictures, trying to recognise himself in the audience, but saw only unfamiliar faces. He couldn’t help thinking back to that night, when all this had started. Then, suddenly, he hesitated when he saw the face of the woman at the stake, a face he had long since forgotten, but which now seemed very familiar. Feverishly he searched for a better photograph. The photographer had fixed the lens on his subjects’ body parts, rarely their faces. Nevertheless, Rath managed to find a picture of such portrait-like quality it could have been used for a passport – at least, if you edited out the sexual characteristics. Suddenly he was wide awake. It took a moment for the penny to drop, but now he knew where he had last seen her, and it wasn’t all that long ago.

52

The 50th precinct was on Zingster Strasse, a stone’s throw from the Ringbahnhof and the new U-Bahn station at Gesundbrunnen. First Sergeant Rometsch hadn’t exaggerated. The station was mobbed. He received the visitors from Alex at the gate and led them into his office.

‘I place my office at your disposal, Detective.’ The sergeant stood up straight, as solemn as an army soldier about to lay down his life for the Fatherland. Gräf managed not to laugh.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘How many witnesses is it?’

‘Around a dozen.’

‘And they’re all here?’

‘Yes, Sir. I didn’t let anyone go before giving a statement.’

‘What about those who made their reports by telephone?’

‘I’ve summoned them too. They should be here by now.’

Gräf was no longer surprised by the crush in the corridor. ‘Send the most important witnesses in first.’

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.

‘Gone,’ Grunert said. ‘Your guest’s done a runner.’

It took Rath a moment to realise that he had a problem. A missing Goldstein was worse than a dead Goldstein.

Now you know how Charly must have felt, he thought, and sank into the nearest chair.