The March Fallen

27

Needing a break from Roddeck’s stuffy prose, Rath laid down the manuscript and lit a cigarette. Charly had been asleep when he got home, much later than expected, to a bottle of wine with two glasses, one of which was unused. He had poured the rest of the wine, and begun leafing through the novel. Thankfully, Hildebrandt’s markings had spared him the first one hundred and thirty pages.

Perhaps it was just that this particular type of literature, the ubiquitous, mass-produced military novels, even a book like Ernst Jünger’s Stahlgewittern which his father had gifted him for Christmas years before, left him cold. He went to the cupboard, fetched the bottle of cognac and poured himself a large glass before continuing.

This was the great revelation. A crime that had been suppressed in the turmoil of war was now on the brink of being exposed. The story went on and on, but he couldn’t read any longer. His eyes were closing and the bottle was empty. He stubbed out the cigarette and made his way to bed, snuggling up to Charly, who mumbled something and smelled so good that he fell straight to sleep.

28

Something roused Hannah from sleep. When she opened her eyes, everything was dark. She sat up, banging her head. ‘Shhh!’ someone whispered. Gradually, memory returned. The Jonass Department Store. The trunk. The boy she had finally allowed in. It was tight but they had snuggled together and fallen asleep. She hadn’t felt so rested in ages.

The boy lifted the lid and light streamed in so she could see his face more clearly: freckles, shaggy hair that was somewhere between blond and brown. He was twelve at most, surviving on the streets. ‘We have to go,’ he said, stretching. ‘If they catch us crawling out of here we’re finished.’

Hannah followed him out of the basket and trotted behind him through the still-dark department store. In the textiles department the boy swept clothes indiscriminately from the rails and under his arm.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Kitting myself out. Wouldn’t be worth it otherwise.’

Hannah, in nightshirt and three cleaner’s overalls under the stolen coat, made for the Ladies’ section. She lifted thick, warm knitted tights, a winter dress, a scarf and underwear, and went to the fitting room to change, dropping her old clothes in the wastepaper basket. The coat was still in decent shape, but the gumboots rubbed her calves. She worked through several boxes of shoes. It wasn’t easy finding a pair to fit. They heard the jangling of keys. She felt panic rising but the boy refused to be perturbed. He laced up new half-boots and gestured for her to be quiet.

As if she hadn’t thought of that herself! He was the one who’d started on the clothes.

‘If they catch us and we never see each other again,’ he whispered, stretching out a hand. ‘My name is Fritze.’

‘Hannah,’ she said.

They crawled along the sales floor until they heard the night watchman’s footsteps. How were they supposed to get out of here? She took a leaf out of Fritze’s book and remained calm as he hurled a large brass ashtray from one of the display cabinets through the half-light. It landed with a loud clang somewhere on the other side of the floor.

‘Who’s there?’ the night watchman shouted, moving to where the ashtray had struck against something metal.

‘Go,’ Fritze hissed.

With barely time to catch their breath, let alone think, they ran through a door into the large office wing, descended a flight of stairs and climbed out of a window into an access yard with countless Aschinger trucks. They charged up Prenzlauer Allee, sprinting until their lungs gave out, and used their last ounce of strength to vault a wall.

Never again, she thought, gasping for breath. Never again would she spend the night in a stupid department store. Leave that to those tattle-tales over by the Märchenbrunnen, but… gravestones. They had landed in a cemetery. It was some time before she had enough air in her lungs to speak. ‘So, you’re Fritze?’

Fritze had sticky-out ears that glistened red in the rising sun, and freckles on his nose.

‘Then good luck, Fritze, and thank you.’

She marched off in the direction of the Volkspark and the Märchenbrunnen, but realised after a few metres that he was following her. ‘What do you want?’

He tilted his head like a dog. ‘Breakfast?’

Now she thought of it, she hadn’t eaten for two days. ‘You’re a funny one, aren’t you? Where shall we go? Kranzler or Josty?’

‘Bolle!’

She didn’t realise what he meant until they were strolling along a deserted Winsstrasse, scooping up freshly delivered milk bottles. They could still see the Bolle truck at the end of the street, over by the gasworks.

‘The early bird drinks the milk,’ Fritze grinned under his milk moustache, after they’d drained the bottles in a bush by the Immanuelkirche.

Not so daft after all, the little squirt. You couldn’t eat milk, but it filled you up. She decided to take him to the Märchenbrunnen after all. There was hardly a soul around at this hour, certainly no young people.

‘Do you know Fanny?’ she asked. ‘Or Kotze?’

‘Who?’

‘They meet here sometimes, along with the rest.’

‘Nah.’

They sat by Puss-in-Boots and the miller’s son on the perimeter wall and waited. Fritze kicked stones against the wall and occasionally into the water beyond. She was finding him increasingly irritating, but said nothing. Her bad temper had more to do with waiting in vain for the Märchenbrunnen posse.

After a while he said, ‘I don’t think your friends are coming.’ He tilted his head like a dog again. ‘What are we going to do now?’

‘How should I know. I’m not your mother.’

Fritze winced as if he had been dealt a blow.

29

Rath wakened to the scent of coffee wafting through the apartment. The bed beside him lay empty, but from the kitchen he heard pots and pans clattering. He didn’t need long in the bathroom, and less than ten minutes later was fixing his tie in front of the mirror. ‘Good morning,’ he said as he entered the dining room, planting a kiss on Charly’s cheek and taking his place at the breakfast table. She poured coffee. ‘Thank you.’

‘Late one yesterday,’ she said.

‘Overtime.’

‘What kind of overtime?’

The type that involved chatting to Johann Marlow in the back of his Adler sedan while Liang chauffeured them across town?

‘Are you moonlighting as a reader now?’ she asked. ‘Or publishing your war memoirs under a pseudonym?’

He had left the proofs on the living room table. ‘New development in the Wosniak case. A man’s appeared, and I don’t know if he’s crazy, or holds the key to the whole thing.’ He told her about Roddeck and, as always when they discussed police work, she listened with interest.

‘Sounds like Böhm’s lumped you with a pretty thankless task.’

‘Actually, Böhm knows nothing about it.’

Charly saw red. ‘Don’t you ever learn? Going it alone, again. You need to…’

‘How can I tell him when he’s nowhere to be found? He was summoned by the commissioner yesterday morning. I haven’t seen him since.’

‘That doesn’t sound good.’

‘You can say that again. It’s never a good sign when the commissioner’s involved.’

‘Well, you’d know.’

‘All it takes is one bad decision. Böhm’s no saint. He doesn’t always play by the rules.’

‘I never said he did.’

‘At least I’ve never been escorted to make my report by two auxiliary officers.’

‘Come again?’

‘Two SA officers took him away. It was almost like they were arresting him.’

‘You never thought he might have been summoned for political reasons?’

Rath laughed out loud.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing. It’s just… Political reasons? Böhm’s no Communist. Breaches of duty, they said. Multiple breaches of duty. He’s done something wrong, and now he has to take the rap. You just can’t bear to see your hero knocked off his pedestal.’

Charly shook her head in that arrogant way he couldn’t stand. ‘Haven’t you noticed that things have changed in the last few weeks? Even at police headquarters?’

‘Our commissioner’s a Nazi. So what? When the Social Democrats were in charge, the commissioners were Social Democrats. As far as that role’s concerned, being a good police officer has always taken a back seat to party membership.’

‘Grzesinski was a good commissioner. Even if he had his SPD membership to thank for his appointment.’

‘Friederike Wieking is a good police officer too, despite what you might think about her politics.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘Nazi, Social Democrat, it doesn’t matter. The main thing is to be a good police officer.’

She looked at him wide-eyed. ‘How can you be so blinkered?’

‘What?’

‘Blinkered! Have you ever thought there might be a difference between the Nazis and the Social Democrats?’

‘Of course there’s a difference, but from a politically neutral perspective it doesn’t matter.’

‘Gereon, stop talking before I get seriously annoyed.’

‘Goddamn politics! Now I remember why I hate it so much. It only causes arguments.’

‘Maybe you should take a little time to think before you say anything else on the matter.’ She placed her napkin on the table. ‘Despising politics while spouting such nonsense shows an unhealthy mix of arrogance and ignorance!’

‘Well, thank you for the masterclass on arrogance, Fräulein Doktor! That’s the way to show a college drop-out!’

‘Just because you dropped out doesn’t mean you’re barred from thinking!’

‘And just because you finished your degree doesn’t give you the right to treat me like an idiot!’

‘Then stop acting like one. Where are you going?’

Rath grabbed Kirie by the collar and yanked her into the corridor, took lead, hat and coat from the hook, and slammed the door behind him. Allowing Kirie to jump into the Buick ahead of him, he pulled out of his space with squealing tyres.

Driving to work alone was getting to be a habit. Alone with Kirie, who seemed content now that she had reclaimed the passenger seat. As they reached the Landwehr canal, Rath realised he’d forgotten the manuscript, which must still be on the living room table, but resisted the impulse to turn around. He couldn’t have her thinking he was backing down.

‘Stupid woman!’ Kirie turned her head in astonishment. ‘I wasn’t talking about you,’ he said, ruffling her fur. ‘You understand me.’

Couldn’t they all just leave him in peace: Charly with her political problems, Roddeck with his meddling demands for police protection, the press with their articles, Böhm with his trench dagger, Gräf with his queer Nazi, and not least Marlow with his latest incitement to ruin.

‘SA auxiliary officers have arrested one of my men,’ Dr M. had said in the back of the sedan, ‘and no one knows where he’s been taken.’

‘Auxiliary forces are only authorised to make an arrest in the company of a regular police officer.’

‘I’m afraid the SA couldn’t care less. The fact is, Long Leo was arrested, and it’s been three days since anyone saw him.’ Marlow pressed a sheet of paper into Rath’s hand.

‘Leopold Juretzka. One of Berolina’s?’

‘The new head, as a matter of fact. Smart guy.’

‘Not smart enough to evade capture.’

‘The SA had no grounds for bringing him in. Dr Kohn hasn’t even established where they’re holding him.’

‘You’re certain it was the SA?’

‘They dragged him out of his flat in the middle of the night and beat him while his girlfriend looked on.’

‘There isn’t a great deal I can do.’

‘The SA calls itself auxiliary police, and it is precisely in this capacity that they are making our lives difficult.’

‘Even the Nazis have their plus points.’

‘Have you any idea what happens in these SA basements? They make my men look like choir boys! Find Juretzka before they beat him to death!’

Find Juretzka! As if it were that easy. The peremptory tone Johann Marlow used was getting on Rath’s nerves, but the man had him by the balls. Still, at least he showed gratitude, unlike the police, who had been stalling his promotion for years. The most he could hope for from Böhm was a misanthropic grunt.

Rath wondered if Charly might be right. Perhaps this business with Böhm was political. After the purge of the police executive last year, he’d heard that Social Democrats in mid-level positions were having a tough time. Even so: Böhm, a Social Democrat? No, there must be other reasons. Weinert’s article, Böhm’s refusal to cooperate fully with the Reichstag task force… Whatever, it was hardly his problem.

Too early for work, he parked in Dircksenstrasse. He took Kirie for a turn around the block but, even so, they were first in the office. He fetched a bowl of water for Kirie, and hung his things on the stand before taking Roddeck’s statement and the list of names from the desk and going through to his room. It was a shame Erika Voss wasn’t there; he could have used a cup of coffee. Instead, he lit an Overstolz and skimmed through the transcript. He wanted to be prepared for briefing; wanted to show Gennat he could work well in Böhm’s absence.

He was trying to recall the complicated series of events that had led to the murder of two civilians and a German recruit, when he gave a start. Reinhold Gräf was standing in the doorway, looking as surprised as Rath was himself. Unpleasantly surprised. ‘Gereon, you’re early.’

‘Looks that way.’

It felt strange to be alone in a room with Reinhold Gräf. He hadn’t given what had happened much thought, but now the images returned with a vengeance: the blond Nazi, freshly showered, the strange looks, the breakfast table, the second toothbrush.

‘Is it true about Böhm?’ Gräf asked, as he hung his coat and hat. ‘Erika says it’s as if he’s disappeared from the face of the Earth.’

‘He was summoned by the commissioner yesterday. Seems serious, two auxiliary officers came to fetch him.’

‘What?’

‘SA types with white brassards. Our new colleagues.’

‘Don’t be so disparaging, Gereon. The SA and Stahlhelm help out as best they can. You can’t expect fully-trained police officers. I’m just happy we have their support against the Reds.’

As well you might, Rath thought, all those pretty SA youths. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘right now we’re hunting a killer.’

‘Without the auxiliary police, even more of our colleagues would be forced to help out against the Communists.’

Why was everyone so interested in politics these days? ‘Anyway, Böhm hasn’t been seen since.’

‘We’ll catch up with him soon enough, in twenty minutes at the latest.’

‘I fear you could be right.’

But there was no sign of him in the conference room, and it wasn’t until briefing was underway that Rath learned why. Ernst Gennat hadn’t finished his introductions when an unannounced guest burst in and requested the floor. Erich Liebermann von Sonnenberg had been one of CID’s clandestine Nazis, and was now a personnel officer in the Interior Ministry.

‘I am here to inform you,’ he began, looking around the room, ‘that Detective Chief Inspector Böhm has left A Division, and will be discharging his duties from Köpenick until further notice.’

A murmur passed through the room as Liebermann continued. He spoke of Böhm’s transfer as if it were a kind of decoration, even though it was abundantly clear he was being put out to pasture. Köpenick was the Siberia of the Berlin Police and this was a form of banishment. Liebermann said nothing about how long Böhm would be gone.

All sorts of emotions could be read on the faces of Rath’s colleagues, from indifference and dismay to undisguised schadenfreude. About his own feelings, he was unsure. Yesterday schadenfreude had been uppermost, but today he felt something more akin to pain or shock. The man must have fallen seriously out of favour to suffer a fate like this.

Buddha, too, had been shocked, even if he wore his usual stoical face. Liebermann whispered something in his ear before leaving, at which point the murmuring started again.

‘Gentlemen, you have heard the news,’ Buddha began. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Böhm will be unavailable for the foreseeable future. The Nollendorfplatz team will be dissolved, and its remaining members, Detective Inspector Rath and Detective Gräf, assigned to the Reichstag task force…’

‘With respect, Sir.’

Gennat furrowed his brow. His gaze fell on Rath, who had stood to speak even though he knew Gennat couldn’t abide being interrupted. For a moment the small conference room was eerily quiet.

‘My apologies for interrupting, Sir, but with respect, there have been new developments since yesterday in the Wosniak investigation, and I think I should have the chance to present them before the case is shelved.’

‘Have you found the trench dagger?’

‘No, but as a result of the press coverage a witness has come forward, who identified the dead man and advanced a motive for his murder.’

‘Go on.’

Rath related the strange tale of Lieutenant von Roddeck with fluency, having practised it earlier on Charly. He was greeted by sceptical faces. ‘It sounds pretty far-fetched,’ Gennat said.

‘True, Sir, but we’ve checked a number of his claims, and so far they’ve all been borne out. Though this Captain Engel was in fact declared dead by his wife, his body was never found.’

‘The witness requested police protection?’

‘Indirectly. He takes himself rather seriously.’

‘A stuffed shirt then? A busybody?’

‘Hard to say.’

‘This is something we need to decide here and now,’ Gennat said sternly. ‘If we are to pursue this case against the instructions of the Interior Ministry, I need to say why. So, I would ask again: is this lieutenant a serious witness, or simply vying for attention?’

‘Possibly both.’

‘You decide, Inspector. You’ve seen and spoken with the man.’

Rath wasn’t so much concerned about Achim von Roddeck’s character as the circumstances of the case. Pursuing an investigation that had already seen off Böhm, with only Gräf as back-up… Was that something he wanted? To go against the instructions of the Interior Ministry and engage in the potentially futile search for a trench dagger, a phantom, a dead man who might not have fallen after all? For what? To get summoned by the police commissioner and exiled to Köpenick?

It seemed more sensible to join the hunt for Communists. To put his career first and make a good impression on the new commissioner. To avoid attracting the suspicions of the Daluege Bureau.

‘He does seem a little paranoid, Sir, and he’s certainly a busybody.’

‘Thank you,’ Gennat said. ‘Then for the time being, the case is shelved. Collate and file everything you have. After that you and Detective Gräf are to report to Section 1A. Dr Braschwitz is expecting you.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

Another murder investigation placed on the back burner. These days the only cases being worked were political. Take a Nazi murdered by a Communist, and the manpower was guaranteed, but as far as regular cases went, suicides, crimes of passion, quarrels ending in death, Gennat was operating with a skeleton staff. Even Buddha, respected though he was, could do little about it. The new commissioner and his fellow party members in the Interior Ministry held the whip hand.

So, shortly after two o’clock, Rath climbed the stairs to Section 1A. The Political Police and CID were separated by a single floor, but it was rare for Rath’s colleagues to stray up here. CID didn’t think much of the Politicals, and the Politicals didn’t think much of CID. The two departments had been locked in mutual antipathy for as long as anyone could remember.

He knocked on the door assigned him by Gennat, not knowing if Gräf had already reported for duty since, after ducking out of lunch together, he had driven back to Charlottenburg to collect Roddeck’s manuscript. That, too, was part of the Wosniak file being compiled by Erika Voss. Reaching Carmerstrasse he had considered calling Charly in G, but thought better of it. It was strange being alone in the flat after this morning. Soon his guilty conscience would steal a march on his pride – but not yet. Rudolf Braschwitz was in charge of the task force established by Göring on the night of the fire.

‘In essence the Reichstag task force comprises only four officers,’ Braschwitz said, ‘and that’s how it will stay. Nonetheless, your support will be vital in carrying out accompanying measures.’

‘Accompanying measures?’

‘The question of whether there is a Communist conspiracy underlying the attack and, if so, how far does it reach.’ Braschwitz leaned over a handwritten duty roster. ‘I’ll be assigning you to Detective Zientek. He’ll fill you in. I see you have plenty of interrogation experience. That’s good.’ He wrote down the name and office number.

Paper in hand, Rath scoured around for the correct office, feeling like Kaspar Hauser searching for home. At least working for the Political Police he wouldn’t have to do any overtime, or so he thought.

‘Gear yourself up for duty on Sunday,’ Detective Zientek said, no sooner than Rath introduced himself.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Braschwitz didn’t mention anything about that.’

‘I’d be glad to make things more formal if you wish. Take Saturday night off. It isn’t so important.’

Erwin Zientek struck Rath as unpleasant, confirming all his preconceptions about the Political Police. Even his face, with its thin moustache and balding head, was apt somehow. The man was as smarmy as an insurance agent.

‘We have hundreds of Communists in custody, if not thousands,’ Zientek continued. ‘They all need to be interrogated. As a CID officer you’ll know how an interrogation works.’

Of course I fucking do. ‘But Sunday’s polling day!’ It was also Rath’s birthday, but he wasn’t about to get started on that.

‘Precisely.’ Zientek winked as if letting him in on a secret. ‘The polling stations open at eight. Cast your vote and get yourself down to Alex. No use in complaining, everyone else is on duty too. Braschwitz won’t be making any exceptions and, believe me, we’ll need every man. You’ll see.’

30

They had been interrogating these youths for days, directing the full force of the state on a bunch of kids for – what? An isolated piece of graffiti. On two occasions now Charly had sat facing boys, one seventeen, the other nineteen, apparently members of the Red Rats, who’d found their way to police headquarters via some SA basement. Charly had left the questioning to Karin van Almsick, preferring to transcribe, but even that was too much. Was she, Charly, too soft for police work? Was this even police work? She couldn’t get them out of her mind. Worse than the bruises and blood-encrusted wounds were the empty eyes gazing back.

After each interrogation, Karin van Almsick would make for the tea kitchen as if nothing had happened, gossiping about her latest admirer, a dashing SA auxiliary officer, and salivating over the new Germany. Charly had to be careful not to send her cup flying…

‘What do you think?’ Karin asked. ‘Is it an administrative headache? How long would it take?’

‘How long would what take?’

‘Changing my surname.’

‘You just have to say ‘yes’ in front of the registrar and bang: your husband’s name will be yours.’

‘That’s one way, I suppose, though Rudi hasn’t asked me yet. I just want to get rid of this van as soon as possible.’

‘Come again?’

‘The van in my name. It’s what I’ve been saying this whole time. I want to be Almsick, not van Almsick.’

‘Why? You’ve nothing to be ashamed about. Dutch settlers have contributed just as much to Prussia’s rise as the Huguenots, Jews, Poles, Salzburgers, and all the rest.’

‘I don’t have anything against the Dutch.’ She gawped at Charly. ‘Still, I’d prefer if you… Look, if you need to use my surname, just call me Karin Almsick, all right?’

‘But why?’ Charly was losing patience.

‘Why do you think? Because of van der Lubbe, of course.’

Charly couldn’t believe it. Karin was actually being serious. She lifted her eyes to the ceiling. Why, oh Lord, must you punish me with this woman? With that she reached a decision. The Ritter family had provided generations of loyal service to the Kingdom and Free State of Prussia, never once missing a day of work. As for feigning illness to do so… Her father would be turning in his grave, but this was no longer his Prussia or hers. The land of her forebears was being transformed into something she couldn’t abide.

‘I don’t feel good. Must have caught something on the night of the fire.’

‘It can happen at this time of year. I have a sore throat myself.’

‘We can’t both succumb…’

‘I’ll be OK. Tea helps, but if you don’t feel well, you should rest. It’s no good you giving us all the lurgy.’

‘Can you can manage the rest of the day without me?’

Karin nodded. ‘I’ll ask Wieking for a stenographer.’

There, you’ve sunk so low that a stenographer can take your place.

She’d have been better off staying with Gennat in Homicide. Even as a stenographer she’d been able to perform meaningful work there. More meaningful than anything she’d done since. She took her leave.

Emerging onto Grunerstrasse, in front of the vast brick building that was police headquarters, she lit a Juno and took a deep breath. Weekend! She wouldn’t have to set foot here again until Monday. Sunday was polling day. She was pinning her hopes on the Nazis haemorrhaging more votes, and this farcical episode with Hitler as Chancellor drawing to a close. The prospect of a working majority in the new parliament might be a distant dream, but if the brownshirts continued their downward spiral, Hindenburg would surely withdraw his confidence in the loudmouth ‘Bohemian private’. Better to have a man like Papen or Schleicher installed as Chancellor; but best of all someone who might put the brakes on the SA, who now behaved as if they owned the city.

The world might seem more normal on Monday, and she could enjoy her job again. She might even be able to put up with Karin, with or without the van.

The S-Bahn was more or less deserted as she took her seat. She gazed out of the window as the train rolled out of Alexanderplatz, thinking back to the morning and realising she had gone too far. She had more or less called Gereon an idiot, but how could he be so naive? Granted, she shouldn’t have said certain things, but he shouldn’t have flounced out of the flat like a petulant child. She couldn’t help but smile. They were each as pig-headed as the other, which made any reconciliation needlessly fraught. She’d hoped he might call to apologise, but he hadn’t been in touch.

The last few days were for the rubbish bin. Chuck ’em and forget they ever happened. It was high time they embraced and went to bed together, which they hadn’t managed since his return from Cologne. The day before yesterday she’d slept at Greta’s, yesterday he was back late. Perhaps he was just tired this morning – and she was in her usual bad mood, the source of which was the Castle, police headquarters, a place that had once been like a second home.

Someone had left a newspaper on the wooden seat opposite: Der Tag. Not exactly her preferred choice, and it was yesterday’s edition, but the first paper she’d seen in a while.

There was a twenty thousand mark reward for anyone with information about the Reichstag fire. She doubted the appeal would be of much use to the task force but, all at once, her eyes fell on a different article. Though it was the byline that grabbed her attention, she soon stumbled upon the words homeless man and Nollendorfplatz in the title. She read on, and by the end, realised that she, Charlotte Ritter, was the biggest fool ever to have carried a police badge.

31

She was smiling again, she was even smiling at him, and that was worth whatever the evening might cost. Rath knew it wouldn’t be cheap. Horcher, small but perfectly formed, was one of the most atmospheric restaurants in the city, and one of the most expensive. If your luck was in, you could rub shoulders with the great and the good. Charlie Chaplin had called in during his Berlin visit, and more than one UFA star was known to dine regularly here on Lutherstrasse, as well as political notables of every persuasion. It hadn’t been easy switching their table reservation from Sunday to Saturday, but Rath knew just the man to call.

He opened the passenger door and held out his hand, earning himself another smile. Twenty-four hours ago the smart money was on their weekend passing in silence; forget about going out, or eliciting a smile. In point of fact he hadn’t even reckoned on seeing her, thinking he’d driven her back to her mother, or at the very least to Greta. Yet here he was helping her out of the car on Lutherstrasse, and delighting in that smile.

He hadn’t told her where they were going, only that she would need to dress for dinner, and so he enjoyed her wide-eyed stare all the more when she realised where they were. No doubt she was wondering whether a place like this wasn’t too expensive for a police couple. He hoped his inheritance from Uncle Joseph might still serve as an explanation. Once they were married, things would be trickier. Charly might not be the perfect housewife, but in financial matters she was by far the more careful, and had even started a housekeeping book.

The head waiter, initially so blasé, bowed and scraped on hearing the name Rath. ‘But of course, Herr Rath, if you would be so kind as to follow me. We have a fabulous table for you.’

The staff in Horcher was as numerous as it was discreet. He needn’t have worried about Marlow’s name being mentioned. A man in tails took their coats as a colleague led them through the dining room into a smaller lounge, where a bottle of champagne stood in a cooler on a freshly laid table. No sooner had Charly taken her place than a third man slid a footstool under her seat and they felt as if they were the most important people in the world. Horcher had made an impression on Charly, and Rath was pleased as Punch.

They sat by the window and looked out onto Lutherstrasse. Diagonally opposite, a building front displayed an old sign for Eldorado, a transvestite bar Rath had visited during his first days in Berlin. On duty, when he was still working for Vice. It had been forced to close in summer, one of the first official acts of the staunchly conservative police commissioner Melcher, who had been appointed last year by Papen. Around a hundred queer bars in Berlin had been closed. The Nazis didn’t stand for any of that nonsense, even though half the SA were… Suddenly Rath remembered the blond youth standing half-naked in Gräf’s kitchen, in his old kitchen, and shuddered. For all he tried to erase it from his mind, the image refused to budge.

‘What’s wrong?’ Charly asked. ‘Are you cold?’

‘I get it whenever I come into the warmth from outside.’

A waiter filled their champagne glasses, while the maitre d’ distributed the menus and recommended the house speciality, Faisan de Presse, pheasant bones, minced to give the sauce its special flavour. Charly looked at the menu and checked there were no waiters close by. ‘Gereon,’ she said. ‘Isn’t this a little expensive for us?’

‘You only live once.’ They clinked glasses. ‘Luckily, we don’t have to get by on a single salary.’

‘On two salaries,’ she corrected.

‘There’s also Uncle Joseph’s inheritance. God rest his soul.’

Charly fell silent. Rath knew she came from poorer circumstances, and expected little by way of inheritance. She couldn’t know that Uncle Joseph hadn’t left him much, or that the money in his account was from Marlow’s handouts.

‘Thank you for this,’ she said. ‘What are we celebrating? Your final night as a thirty-three year old?’

‘Why not?’ Rath raised his glass a second time. ‘Here’s to tonight.’

He thought back to their reconciliation yesterday evening in Carmerstrasse. On returning home he had discovered her in the kitchen in a frenzy of activity. He stood speechless as she greeted Kirie. ‘You like Bouletten, don’t you?’

‘Are you talking to me or the dog?’

She advanced cautiously, taking him in her arms. ‘I’m sorry about this morning, Gereon. I’m such a clot.’

She had actually apologised! Something must have happened, and he’d soon find out what. After tentatively conceding that there might be political reasons for Böhm’s exile after all, he was met with a shake of the head.

‘No. Böhm was summoned because the press made a mockery of his case, and that’s my fault.’

‘Weinert wrote the article, not you.’

‘Where do you think he got his information?’

‘Come again?’

‘I met him at the Reichstag on the night of the fire. He had already filed his story and, frozen as we were, we wound up in an automat on Friedrichstrasse.’

‘And…’

‘And I mentioned Böhm’s case, Wosniak and the set-up at Nollendorfplatz, which you’ll remember was partly my idea. I couldn’t have known he’d make a story out of it.’

‘What do you mean, you couldn’t have known? Weinert’s a journalist, he makes his living turning information into stories. Especially information no one else has.’

‘I thought he was your friend.’

‘Someone like that can never be your friend.’

‘Someone like that?’

‘A hack like Weinert.’

‘Either way I’m going to apologise to Böhm. I owe him that much.’

‘Do whatever you think is necessary, but don’t blame yourself. Above all, don’t get mixed up in this. You are not responsible for Böhm’s fate. His card was already marked.’

He took her in his arms, and she nestled close. The crabbiness of the previous days was gone, and he kissed her properly for the first time since returning from Cologne. The news that he had to work on Sunday sobered Charly up somewhat, but by that stage they were lying next to each other sharing a cigarette, one of his as always. Never enthusiastic about his birthday, Rath wasn’t in the least put out by having weekend duty foisted on him by the Politicals. Even so, he put on a disappointed face, and said: ‘What can you do? There’s a time for work…’

‘And a time for play… but why Sunday, when they’re giving you Saturday evening off?’

‘You know what the Politicals are like. Always making a huge secret of everything.’ Which was when he realised they could just as well go out on Saturday, and Johann Marlow had made it possible.

What made Horcher unique was that the dishes were prepared at your table. Charly chose steak tartare and pheasant, Rath smoked salmon and chicken kiev. They watched as the chicken was braised and the pheasant flambéd. It all tasted wonderful. Though it wasn’t necessary he added a pinch of salt, just as he had with Charly’s Sauerbraten and yesterday’s Bouletten.

‘So, what exactly are you doing tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘Interrogation’s the name of the game. That’s all CID are good for, according to my new colleague.’

‘Interrogation. To what end?’

‘To uncover links between van der Lubbe and our Berlin Communists.’

‘You actually think they exist?’

‘We’ll find out soon enough.’

‘According to canteen gossip, even Diels thinks van der Lubbe was acting alone.’

‘Diels? The head of 1A?’

‘Your new boss,’ she said. ‘It’s all Göring’s doing. He wants evidence that points to multiple perpetrators and a Communist conspiracy. By hook or by crook.’

‘Still, it’s not like you’re doing anything different, implicating a harmless gang of youths in a political conspiracy.’

‘Which is exactly why I reported sick yesterday. I hope things ease off again after the vote. If they don’t, I’m not sure I can continue to work in G Division.’

‘Where would you go?’

‘Maybe I can get a pass back to A if Gennat puts the case strongly enough. I’ve been part of homicide teams before.’

‘Not even Buddha can help you there. The only women in A Division are stenographers.’

She looked at him angrily. ‘In the meantime we’re working for Göring more than Levetzow,’ she said at length. ‘Things can’t go on like this.’

‘Göring or Levetzow – what’s the difference? They’re both Nazis.’

‘Yes, but Göring is deploying police officers specifically to hunt Communists. All police officers, not just Diels and the Politicals.’

‘Maybe that isn’t as daft as you think. The Communists want to destroy our Republic.’

‘And what do the Nazis want?’

‘Things aren’t nearly as bad as people make out. The election’s tomorrow, which means we must still live in a democracy.’

‘We’ll see about that. I hope the Germans haven’t gone completely mad, but, honestly, I don’t know anymore.’

An unearthly quiet passed through the restaurant. The maître d’ was speaking insistently to the head waiter, who kept looking over at Rath and Charly’s table. The waiters tried hard to conceal it, but they had been seized by temporary panic.

At length the maître d’ approached. ‘I’m very sorry about this, but if I could ask you to take your dessert in the main lounge?’

Rath was tempted to make a fuss, knowing he had Marlow’s influence to call on but, seeing Charly’s face, decided not to ruin their night. He wondered what on earth could have happened for a restaurant to be so foolish as to undo a table reservation made by Johann Marlow. Was Charlie Chaplin back in town, or Max Schmeling?

Two waiters led them to their new table, which, though no longer next to a window, was even more secluded. Rath looked on as two diners took their old seats, a fat man in evening dress accompanied by a considerably slimmer woman. Until now Rath had only seen his face in photos: Hermann Göring, Reich Commissar for the Prussian Interior Ministry, their supreme commander and head of the Prussian Police. A widower of two years, he was on the hunt for a bride. Or perhaps he was out canvassing for his party?

So, Göring was more powerful than Johann Marlow. To Rath that was more impressive than the Pour le Mérite he wore – evidently medals were a feature even of the minister’s evening dress – and all the various offices he held besides. Horcher would never have altered a table reservation made by Johann Marlow for Severing, or any of the other Social Democrats who’d headed the Prussian Interior Ministry.

This wasn’t how he’d imagined their special night. He decided to leave as quickly as possible and see in his birthday at the Kakadu-Bar. They’d take their digestif there, knowing it was a guaranteed Nazi-free zone. The brownshirts didn’t like the place; at Kakadu, they even allowed Negros on stage.

32

Although they arrived early, a long queue had already formed outside the polling station. Rath looked at his watch. ‘I need to be at the Castle by ten,’ he said.

‘They’re not going to bite your head off for fulfilling your civic duty.’

He wasn’t sure if Charly was being ironic. It was only the second time they had voted together, despite many opportunities in recent years.

As the queue moved slowly, he imagined himself at home, listening to Duke Ellington with coffee and a cigarette. At least it was getting warmer, not long now until spring. He put an Overstolz to his lips and offered one to Charly, who declined. He shrugged and struck a match. Hopefully they’d be inside by the time he finished.

Men in uniform stood on the perron outside the entrance: SA officers minus the auxiliary police brassards. He breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing they needed was polling stations supervised by party loyalists. Instead that task fell to a lone cop who bobbed up and down on his bootheels looking stern, as if that would be enough to ward off Communist insurgents. The truth was, any Reds planning to disrupt voting in upmarket Charlottenburg would be more likely dissuaded by the SA than a single uniformed cop.

Three SA officers were in attendance, along with two members of the Stahlhelm. Rath couldn’t see any representatives from the Reichsbanner. The Democrats appeared reluctant to provoke their nationalist counterparts.

The SA men wore campaign posters over their brown shirts. When times were hard Hindenburg voted for Hitler, now it’s your turn. Vote List 1. Above the slogan was a picture of the Reich President and his Chancellor. Hitler looked at the old field marshall with such reverence they might have been father and son. The Führer’s gaze was more hypnotic on the second poster, which also showed him next to Hindenburg. The Reich will never be destroyed – if we are loyal and as one. The third SA man was positioned next to the main entrance. His poster showed President and Chancellor looking down on a sea of people waving swastika flags – almost as if Hindenburg had joined the Nazis. Did the old man realise how much he was being exploited?

The Stahlhelm campaign appeared staid in comparison. Vote List 5: Hugenberg, Papen, Seldte. Kampffront Schwarz-Weiss-Rot. The men who had helped bring Hitler to power. A man in a fur coat with a bowler hat and thick glasses descended the stairs.

‘Good morning, Herr Doktor,’ Charly said. Dr Bernhard Weiss was the former deputy commissioner of the Berlin Police, and their old boss. Rath tipped his hat.

Weiss’s face brightened. ‘Good morning. Let’s hope it’s a good evening too, eh?’

‘And that the early editions give us reason for cheer,’ Charly said. ‘Maybe by this time tomorrow the police guard outside your house can be stood down.’

‘We’ll see,’ Weiss smiled.

The three SA officers began whispering. The second man pointed at Weiss. ‘It’s Isidor,’ he cried. ‘What does he want here? I thought he’d be in Palestine by now.’

The other brownshirts guffawed. Before Weiss could respond, Charly broke the line and planted herself in front of them. ‘This man is Dr Bernhard Weiss, and he is the best police officer Berlin has ever known.’

The brownshirts stared blankly and a smile formed on Weiss’s mouth.

‘And you lot call yourself auxiliary police?’

‘Easy does it, Fräulein. It was only a joke.’

‘Then I’m glad you’re not a comedian.’

The man turned red as the whole queue burst out laughing, even the Stahlhelm officers and one of his SA colleagues. Charly reclaimed her place in the queue as Rath waited for the brownshirts to launch their attack, but none came. The comedian poked his colleague in the ribs and tried to stop him laughing.

Rath turned to speak to Weiss, but he had gone. He made a point of taking Charly by the hand. The brownshirts would have him to deal with if they tried anything, but he and Charly passed without further incident. The SA men gazed to the side or down at their puttees.

Standing in the booth, Rath hesitated for a moment as he skimmed the long list of parties. As a good Cologner he’d always voted for the Centre Party. The only time he’d voted in Berlin was last November when Charly had compelled him.

He hesitated another moment before placing his cross next to the SPD. The Social Democrats. Never again, he told himself. God knows he didn’t have much time for the workers’ party, but he thought them most likely to defy the Nazis. More likely than the Centre Party, which was yet to take a stance on the new government. Perhaps it was a little thank-you to Grzesinski, whom Rath had rated highly as police commissioner. Even so, he felt a little ashamed as he cast his ballot. Gereon Rath votes SPD! If his father learned of it, he’d be disinherited.

He smiled to himself as they left the polling station. Only one of the SA men risked an angry glance, but now it held respect. Charly refused to look at the brownshirts, but when she linked arms with him he felt proud. Perhaps she was right. Tomorrow it would be over, and the Nazis would creep back inside whatever hole they’d emerged from. If the election didn’t see to it, then at some point Hindenburg must put an end to this brown-shirted farce.

Outside Bernhard Weiss’s Steinplatz residence a dozen uniformed cops stood guard. He had lived here since being evicted from his police apartment in Charlottenburg, and Rath was relieved the Berlin Police hadn’t simply hung him out to dry.

He accompanied Charly to Carmerstrasse, where the Buick was parked, handed her Kirie’s lead, kissed her and made his way to the Castle. There were voting queues all over the city, each one accompanied by SA officers holding posters and shooting angry glances. Detective Zientek waited inside for him.

‘Haven’t you voted?’ Rath asked as he hung his coat.

‘Of course,’ Zientek said. He seemed to be in an excellent mood. ‘Zap, zap, job done. Doesn’t take much, does it?’ He rummaged in his in-tray and handed Rath a list. ‘These are ours.’

‘What is it we’re doing exactly? I’ll need more than just a list of names.’

‘They’re all Communists, I can guarantee you that.’

‘So?’

‘So, get going. Show me what you can do.’

‘What am I meant to extract from them?’

‘Whatever you like, Inspector. In the best case, evidence of a Communist revolt. If they should confess to a murder, a break-in, or even to being queer, that’s equally good. The main thing is to keep ’em here until six o’clock.’

Rath needed a moment. ‘Six? That’s when the polling stations close.’

‘Correct.’

‘We’re preventing them from voting?’

‘No flies on you CID officers.’ Zientek extended a hand. ‘Welcome to the Political Police.’

33

It seemed almost as if the entire SA had found its way to Steinplatz shortly before polling closed. All Charly wanted was to take Kirie for a walk before dusk, but the Nazis had turned the square’s green spaces brown. SA officers continued to appear in droves, and Charly’s evening stroll with Kirie was transformed into an obstacle course.

Men in brown shirts looked up at the apartment on the second floor of number 3, Steinplatz. ‘Isidor!’ they chanted. ‘Come out, or we’ll come in!’

A cordon of uniformed cops blocked Weiss’s apartment building on all three sides, preventing the brownshirts making good their threat. So, it wasn’t just the SA that had increased its presence here, Charly noted with relief. At least these officers were still on the right side.

She held Kirie at a distance from the mob. No one paid her any attention, but all these angry, red faces gave her the creeps. The SA were always unpredictable, especially in numbers. What if her friend from this morning spotted her and alerted his mates? Or one of them got it into his head that she looked Jewish? It wouldn’t be the first time; the fact that Charly had no Jewish blood didn’t matter. Her short, dark hair made her suspicious; SA men went wild for blonde pigtails. She crossed Hardenbergstrasse and walked north-west towards the ‘Knee’ and the green spaces of the technical college, where there were no brownshirts, just normal pedestrians enjoying a Sunday stroll. Berlin as it had always been.

She completed the short circuit back to Hardenbergstrasse, but something was happening over on Steinplatz. Quickening her step, she saw the mob surge towards the cordon.

‘Move to the side!’ the brownshirts cried, all the time chanting: ‘Jew filth! Jew filth!’

A uniformed cop raised his arm and shouted something. Not the command to attack, as she’d initially thought, quite the opposite: the police cordon dispersed, and the SA men stormed inside. By the time she finally made it through, Steinplatz was as good as deserted. Only a few brownshirts remained along with the cops, who suddenly looked strangely out-of-place.

She didn’t like to think what the brown mob might do with Bernhard Weiss and his family. ‘How can you just stand there?’ she asked.

‘Did you see how many there were? How can two dozen cops face down a hundred or more SA officers? It was only reasonable to withdraw. We couldn’t have held position another five minutes. People would have died.’

‘And now?’ Charly almost screamed. ‘What do you think’s going to happen when they get their hands on Dr Weiss?’

‘He should have gone before.’

She was about to head inside when she felt an authoritative hand on her shoulder. ‘I can’t let you go in there, Fräulein.’

‘You let that lot in, but not me?’

‘Too dangerous for a woman.’

‘Then you go in before it’s too late.’

‘I have my orders.’

‘What orders? To guard the lawn or the lives of those inside?’

Charly looked at the cop, who avoided her eyes, then towards the elegant front door she was forbidden from entering, and inside to the brightly lit stairwell. The first brown uniforms appeared by the windows on the second floor. What would happen? Would they start throwing out furniture, then people?

34

It started at a quarter past six, when Berthold Weinert took the first call from the municipal district of Brieg. Either it was a tiny ward or they were speedy counters up in Silesia. The phone hadn’t stopped ringing since.

He telephoned and jotted down election results as if he were working on a factory line. In fact, he was sitting in a well-heated editorial office high above Kochstrasse, savouring the warmth and view of the winter street below. Finally he could trade his freezing garret for the bustle of activity Voting Sunday had triggered in news desks across the land.

The election dictated editorial proceedings, everything else was secondary. Proofs for the morning edition were postponed until the small hours. It would be a long night for everyone, not that Berthold Weinert minded. After more than three years he was glad to experience the chaos of day-to-day news production again.

His Reichstag fire story had returned him to the fold, though he’d been careful to omit his encounter with Göring. The last thing he needed was for the fat minister to link him with the journalist from the burning Reichstag, and place him in the dock with van der Lubbe and the rest.

He had to go carefully. The Berliner Tageblatt, for which he had written before being shown the door in the bitter cold of January 1930, was Jewish-owned and regarded as left-wing by the Nazis. In Theodor Wolff it had a Jewish editor-in-chief, or used to have. After writing an article that was critical of the Nazis in the days following the fire, Wolff had fled abroad, and been summarily dismissed by his – also Jewish – publisher on Friday. With him, more than a quarter of a century of experience had vanished overnight.

Weinert knew from experience how swiftly the Mosse-Verlag could wield the axe. He hadn’t criticised anyone in his story, nor had he written up the rumours that the Nazis themselves were responsible for the fire. Clearly he wasn’t alone in finding it odd that the brownshirts should be so up in arms about the blaze when they’d spent years referring to the building as a talking shop. Knowing the Scherl-Verlag would remove such things from his copy, he had concentrated on making his story as exciting as possible, and his vivid, sensationalist portrayal had drawn praise from all sides.

And resulted in his own desk.

It had been a holiday cover at first, but now that he had his foot in the door, he had a chance to show what he could do, and there was no point grumbling about gathering election results. He had been assigned Electoral District 7, which roughly corresponded to the administrative region of Breslau. The Scherl-Verlag had people everywhere to carry the preliminary results back to the editorial office in Berlin. Meanwhile the office was staffed with people like Weinert, who noted everything that came over the wires and used it to compile a series of tables, which were then made available to political editors.

It was vital he didn’t get above his station. He had already shown that he could not only write stories, but break them himself. The business with the dead homeless man and the pigeons had caused quite a stir. A number of papers, some of them more respectable than Der Tag, had picked up the scoop.

The telephone rang for a fourth time. His pre-printed form was gradually filling with numbers. No sooner had he hung up than it rang again. ‘Ward name?’ he said. Four down, twenty to go; it would be a long night. Perhaps when it was over he’d have a drink with colleagues. It couldn’t hurt. ‘Weinert here, ward name please,’ he repeated.

‘Berlin Alexanderplatz,’ said the man on the other end.

‘Gereon!’ Weinert said, barely concealing his astonishment. ‘How did you get this number?’

‘I’m a police officer.’

‘We’ll have to chat another time. Right now, counting is in full swing and…’

‘I didn’t realise you had a permanent position again.’

‘An editor went to take the waters in Karlsbad.’

‘Some people are better off abroad.’

‘It’s good of you to call, but the timing’s all wrong. We’re blocking a line here.’

‘Speaking of right and wrong. How about using someone as an informant without their prior knowledge?’

‘You mean her prior knowledge.’

‘Then you know what I’m talking about.’

‘We ran into one another at the Reichstag and went on to a bar in Friedrichstrasse. We hadn’t seen each other in a long time. It’s normal to say what you’re up to.’

‘Is it normal to do the dirty afterwards?’

‘I didn’t do the dirty on Charly, just on Böhm. I thought you couldn’t stand the man.’

‘He’s a demigod as far as Charly’s concerned. She’s inconsolable and blames herself for everything.’

‘For what?’

‘Böhm was transferred.’

‘You’re not serious.’

‘The investigation you made fun of was shelved by the powers-that-be. Thing is, it was my investigation too.’

‘What can I say? The power of the press. Sometimes it surprises even me.’

‘You could have told Charly you were going to write about the dead tramp.’

‘I didn’t know I was. It wasn’t until I mentioned Böhm’s name that my boss’s ears pricked up. Gereon, I was forced to write that article!’ That was a slight exaggeration, but Weinert didn’t want to risk losing Gereon Rath as a contact. ‘Besides, I couldn’t have been that far off, or the other papers wouldn’t have followed suit.’

‘Well, they all had a great time. You know the canvasses were partly Charly’s idea?’

‘The pigeon business?’

‘It might sound stupid, but in the end it worked.’

‘I’m sorry, Gereon. I really didn’t mean…’

‘You should be sorry. You owe me one.’

‘Any time. Give me the information and I’ll write your story, just like old times…’

Weinert heard someone clearing their throat and turned around. Harald Hefner, the tall senior duty editor, stood behind him with furrowed brow. ‘Are you engaging in private conversations?’

‘An informant.’ Weinert placed his hand over the mouthpiece.

‘Put them off. You’re here for the election results. Don’t get above yourself!’

‘Of course not.’ Weinert hung up. He was about to say something else, when the telephone rang again, announcing the results from the rural district of Strehlen. He sighed and reached for his pencil.

35

‘Shhh,’ Charly hissed, as Gereon entered the living room. She waved her arms, hoping he’d understand, and he did. Or rather, he grinned, placed his fingers to his lips and tiptoed exaggeratedly towards his armchair. Couldn’t he take her seriously, just this once? The ten o’clock news was being broadcast on the Berliner Funkstunde, and Charly’s ears were glued to the radiogramophone. Kirie sat beside her, tilting her head as if interested in what the loudspeaker had to say, but now Gereon arrived she pitter-pattered over to greet him.

Charly seldom listened to the radio, though more often than Gereon, who only used it to play his records. Switching it on, she had pushed the transmit button until the rustling and buzzing became a voice holding forth on the subject of Academics and Unemployment. After that it had been music, famous operetta melodies. No word on the election until the news, but they were making up for it now. Typical Gereon, to burst in at precisely the wrong moment.

Voting in Berlin had gone off peacefully for the most part, the speaker announced, something Charly had difficulty believing – unless they meant the kind of deathly peacefulness associated with a graveyard. Then came the preliminary results.

‘The National Socialists,’ the announcer said, ‘seventeen point two million votes. Two hundred-and-eighty-eight seats.’

Charly started at the figure, though she felt relieved at the same time. ‘At least it’s not an absolute majority,’ she said. ‘Hitler still needs Papen and company to govern.’ Despite everything, Hitler’s coalition partners from the Kampfbund Schwarz-Weiss-Rot hadn’t achieved more than three million votes.

Even so, the Nazi defeat that many had hoped for failed to materialise. On the contrary, they had gained almost six million votes. The Social Democrats remained on seven point something million, while the Centre Party had also improved slightly, their share now standing at almost four and a half. As for the Communists, though their newspapers were banned and they had been forbidden from holding campaign rallies, they’d still collected almost five million votes.

That was something. When she thought of all the threats outside polling stations, the Communists who had been arrested in the preceding weeks… The news moved onto the weather, and she rose from in front of the radiogramophone.

‘Aren’t you going to say hello to the birthday boy?’ Gereon grinned from his armchair. He had fetched a glass and poured from the bottle Charly had opened.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I had to listen to that.’

It was polling day in the Prussian state parliament too. The results followed the Reichstag vote, but they didn’t interest her as much. The only thing she cared about was whether the Hitler government would have parliamentary support in future, and it would.

‘At least the Nazis can’t just do whatever they want,’ Gereon said. ‘They have to govern with Papen.’

‘Papen does whatever they want.’

‘To think the man used to be a Centrist. In the same party as my father and Adenauer!’

‘At some point Papen and his gang are going to have to wake up. Or Hindenburg, at least. It’s about time he put a stop to this madness.’

‘He will, for sure.’ Gereon glanced at the wristwatch Charly had gifted him that morning. ‘Let’s say in… four hundred and thirty-seven hours and five minutes. Starting… now!’

He smiled at her. He was such a child, but at least he liked his new watch. She had saved half a year for it. ‘No offence, Gereon, but right now I don’t feel much like joking.’ Even so, she couldn’t help but smile as he danced towards her like a gigolo manqué. In the meantime the radio was playing music again, dance music from the Femina-Bar.

He took her by the hand and led her in a dance across the carpet while Kirie looked on curiously. ‘Life goes on! At some point the Nazi government will collapse, and a new one will take its place.’

‘If there’s anyone in the country still worth voting for.’

‘Personally I can do without the Communists. Moscow’s welcome to them. Do you really want to be governed by that lot? They’d have our likes up against a wall.’

‘The Nazis aren’t just striking at the Communists. Do you have even the faintest notion of what is happening in this city?’

Their little dance was over. ‘More than the faintest notion, and I’m telling you all this will blow over.’

Not for the first time she was bewildered by his naiveté. She told him what had happened little more than four hours ago, hoping it might open his eyes. He listened in silence, until the part where the uniformed cop lifted the police cordon.

‘The SA stormed Dr Weiss’s apartment?’ he asked in disbelief.

‘Yes and, God knows, he’s no Communist.’

‘What happened?’

‘Thank God they didn’t get him. They had to vent their anger on the furniture.’

‘How do you know? Were you inside?’

She shook her head and told him how she had paced up and down Uhlandstrasse with Kirie because she couldn’t go home or face spending another minute with her idle colleagues. How suddenly she’d seen a familiar face emerge from a doorway. The relief she had felt on seeing him there, unharmed and with his wife. Bernhard Weiss gestured discreetly for her to keep walking. There were still SA officers a few metres away on Steinplatz. Only when they reached Pension Teske did the Weisses finally stop. ‘Fräulein Ritter,’ Charly’s one-time boss had said, ‘tell my brother that we are safe for the time being.’

‘What about your daughter?’

‘Hilde too. Tell my brother not to worry.’

Charly shook him and his wife by the hand. ‘I wish you all the best, Sir. See that you don’t fall into the hands of the brown mob.’

Then she made towards Adolf Weiss’s apartment, a few doors further down, and redeemed her pledge.

‘Weiss only escaped,’ she concluded her report, ‘because the SA were too stupid to station a guard outside the service entrance.’ She nodded towards the radio. ‘Yet the whole hideous episode doesn’t receive so much as a mention. According to the Funkstunde, the vote passed off peacefully.’

‘Well, nothing happened,’ Gereon said, in another clumsy attempt to pacify her.

‘Nothing happened?’ she said, careful not to shout. ‘Only because Weiss escaped in time, or he might be dead by now!’

‘It’s all right,’ he said and took her in his arms. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. You’re right.’

Suddenly she was just glad he was home, and that she wasn’t alone anymore. The radio played jazz music from the Femina-Bar, as if it were an evening like any other.

36

Erwin Zientek was at his desk when Rath arrived on Monday morning.

‘Not exactly quick off the mark, are you?’

‘I had to drop off my dog. In A Division.’

‘Police dog, is it?’

‘My secretary’s looking after her. I thought she’d get in the way here.’ He hung his hat on the hook. ‘So what is it today?’

‘What do you think? We pick up where we left off. Find a free interrogation room and start grilling Communists.’

‘The election’s over,’ Rath said, sitting at the desk Zientek had assigned him. ‘Why carry on?’

‘The election might be over, but the SA are still dredging up Communists – must be a nest somewhere.’ Zientek laughed at his joke. ‘Why do you think Dr Braschwitz requested so many CID officers? Because we love you boys so much? No, it’s because there are so many of you and so few of us.’

The detective’s lack of respect was starting to grate.

‘There are more Reds in this city than you might think,’ Zientek continued. ‘Did you see how many votes they got?’ He inhaled deeply, revealing yellowed teeth as he breathed out. ‘We’re interrogating every Communist going, in the hope of finding something Dr Braschwitz and the public prosecutor can use in court against van der Lubbe, Torgler and their co-conspirators.’

‘So it is a conspiracy?’

‘You think this Dutchman was out to grill a sausage?’

What the hell had he got himself into? He’d been careful not to breathe a word of how he’d spent his Sunday to Charly. Though she moaned about the Communists just as much as she did about the Nazis, there was no way she’d condone what he was doing with Zientek.

Communist threat or not, he was starting to feel uneasy about it himself. In his long years of service he had never been part of an interrogation marathon like this. The SA had actually been fetching people from outside polling stations – before they had a chance to vote. Time and again auxiliary police officers brought in people who weren’t even on Zientek’s list.

Mind you, the Communists had lost a good million votes since November. Within weeks, the new government had gained control of the Commune, nullifying the threat of a Red putsch. Germany was as far from civil war as it had been in a long time, but equally far from a functional democracy.

Rath thought of Charly and her vanishing hopes that the Republic might be saved. She had been in a strange mood this morning as she stepped out of the car and entered headquarters, head awhirl with dark thoughts. If he hadn’t called her back in the stairwell she’d have forgotten to kiss him as they went their separate ways. Which in his case meant the Political Police, Section 1A.

‘Let’s get on,’ he said, making no effort to conceal his temper. ‘Who’s next?’

‘We’re still waiting for the list.’

It wasn’t long before it arrived. To Rath’s surprise he knew the man who brought it in.

‘Lange, what are you doing here?’

Andreas Lange had previously worked as an assistant detective in Homicide before starting his inspector training in the same intake as Charly.

‘Inspector!’ Lange placed the list on Rath’s desk. He, too, seemed pleased to see a familiar face. ‘I’ve been with the Political Police since December. Didn’t you know?’

‘Right. Of course.’ Gennat had almost certainly announced the news while Rath’s mind had been elsewhere. ‘How do you like it on the upstairs floor?’

‘Better view for sure,’ Lange said, and went on his way.

‘You can always tell CID officers,’ Zientek said. ‘Comedians…’ He had made a disappointed face as Lange set down the list on Rath’s desk, but couldn’t say anything given Rath’s status as superior officer. ‘Let’s go and find an interrogation room,’ he said, snatching the list gruffly and making for the door. Rath followed, smiling inwardly but hurrying to keep up.

‘These lists,’ he asked. ‘Where are they compiled?’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Is there a central list containing the names of all prisoners being held by the police and auxiliary forces?’

‘There might be, if the SA weren’t so damn sloppy, but every so often a prisoner slips through, never to be found. Their prisons are a mess.’

‘The SA have their own prisons? Since when?’

‘Where do you think all this lot are kept? Berlin doesn’t have that many free cells.’

‘But the SA does?’

‘You can be sure of it.’

‘What kind of prisons are these?’

‘For the most part they’re normal basements, though sometimes they cart Thälmann’s boys off to the nearest Sturmlokal to teach them some manners. Which means their record-keeping isn’t quite what it could be. Still, Commies can be dealt with off the books too.’ Zientek laughed, sounding like a goat with pneumonia.

‘Say you’re looking for someone specific, how would you find them?’

‘The men on our list are all brought in from elsewhere. Shouldn’t be much looking involved.’

‘What if they haven’t been brought in yet?’

Zientek halted outside the interrogation room. He seemed wary. ‘If you’re looking for someone specific we can submit a request to SA leadership. Usually they’re delivered the next day. Free of charge.’ He laughed his bleating laugh. ‘Occasionally they can be a little worse for wear. Which is hardly the worst thing for our purposes.’

37

He still didn’t know why he had been locked up or what they intended to do with him.

They weren’t going to beat him to death. They had kicked him and thrashed him with an iron bar, but always stopped just in time. Luckily for Leo, he could take a lot of punishment. He wouldn’t break any time soon, and that, he now believed, was their purpose. They wanted to cut him down a peg, make an example of a head of a Ringverein. To deter other career criminals in the city.

The rest of the inmates were nobodies. Communists mainly, as well as a few Social Democrats who had been taken out of circulation. Also, doctors, authors and lawyers who were united, besides their high school diplomas and university degrees, above all, by being Jewish. Some of them had long forgotten this fact until the SA reminded them.

In the meantime Leo also knew where he was being held, albeit this information was of little use as he had no contact with the outside world. The SA must have only just moved into the former barracks on General-Pape-Strasse since the whole thing retained an improvised feel. The prisoners were herded together in the basement. Thirty or forty men in the one room with only a single steel trough for their toilet, emptied all too infrequently given their captors’ fondness for the castor oil treatment.

Upstairs, the offices and interrogation rooms were a world apart from this basement hell. There were beatings upstairs, too, but the really sadistic torture was carried out by the SA men downstairs, almost all of them in their early or mid-twenties.

Other buildings were also in use, though they housed normal enterprises. From time to time Leo would hear the screeching of a saw, the pounding of hammer on metal alongside footsteps, cries, laughter and the murmur of voices. Berlin workers going about their business as the SA tortured their most vocal supporters in the basement next door.

The Communists, who made up the majority of prisoners, managed to smuggle out the odd message. They were well organised, but didn’t trust Leo, the Ringverein man, which meant he hadn’t got word to Marlow. Whether someone like Dr Kohn, Marlow’s go-to weapon in such cases, would be much help in a situation like this remained to be seen. What happened down here had nothing to do with the rule of law. Besides, wasn’t Kohn Jewish himself? There was more chance of him joining Leo than bailing him out.

A key turned in the lock. ‘Juretzka, follow me!’

Leo stood up. His bones ached, he had bumps and bruises everywhere, and in some places the skin had burst open. His wounds had only just started to heal, and now the bastards would open them again. Since encountering Katsche on the first day, he had begun memorising his torturers’ faces, storing names whenever they were mentioned, as well as any other information he could lay his hands on. If he should ever get out, he’d find them all, no matter where they lived or where they were hiding. Katsche above all, the piece of shit.

He’d only seen him on the first day, but he was almost certain that Horst Kaczmarek had denounced him, perhaps on behalf of the Nordpiraten. Apparently Marczewski had seen Lapke, the head of the Pirates, taking part in an SA rally in Wedding sometime in November. He’d been right in the midst of it, dressed in brown.

Leo blinked as they stepped into the light. They were taking him upstairs. That was good. There would be no messing around with castor oil, or anything that involved severe blood loss. They saved that for the basement.

It was the first time they’d taken him upstairs in daylight. For the first time he could see something on the other side of the windows, a gravel yard where a few cars were stationed. Two men in workers’ overalls leaned by the wall of a brick building and smoked. Outside a large gate a truck waited to be loaded. It really was business as usual. Did the workers realise who had moved in next door?

Behind the desk was a man whom the two guards addressed as Sturmführer Sperling. It was the first time Leo had seen him, but he noted his face, and his name. He was less concerned about the man’s rank, though evidently he was a big fish.

‘Prisoner Juretzka,’ Sperling said. ‘You will be pleased to know that we are preparing your release.’

‘Then you’ve finally realised I’m not a Communist. Congratulations. It only took you six days, or was it seven?’

‘There are plenty of reasons to hold you a little longer. You have one man, and one man alone, to thank for your release. Scharführer Lapke put in…’

‘Come again?’ Leo interrupted the Sturmführer, paying for it with a truncheon blow to the ribs.

‘No need to thank me,’ a voice said from the door. Leo turned around and couldn’t believe his eyes. Hermann Lapke, the head of the Nordpiraten, stood in the doorway, but even in SA uniform the man looked more like a grey, middle-class bore than a gangster. The whole world underestimated him, the underworld above all.

‘That sort of thing goes without saying, doesn’t it, Leo?’ Lapke said. ‘What’s a good word between friends?’

Leo spat. ‘I can do without you.’

Lapke leaned casually on the desk, downgrading Sturmführer Sperling, his superior, to a bit-part role.

‘I don’t think you can. If you really want to get out of here, I’m the only who can save you.’

‘Why would you want to save me, Lapke?’

‘It isn’t out of the goodness of my heart.’ He looked Leo in the eye. ‘Think of it as a small token for disbanding Berolina and transferring your men to me. I promise I’ll look after them.’

‘Berolina has existed for more than thirty years, and you want me to disband it?’

‘The Ringvereine are history anyway. Wake up, Leo! There’s no place for them in the new Germany.’

‘But there is a place for the Pirates? Are you trying to tell me you’re not a Ringverein?’

‘The Nordpiraten have recognised the mood of the times. They’ll continue to do business long after Berolina has disappeared.’

‘That’s what you dream of each night? I always wanted to know what you jerked yourself off to.’

Lapke turned to Sperling, who sat behind the desk as before. ‘I thought you’d softened him up. Still has a pretty big mouth on him.’

‘We haven’t released him yet,’ Sperling said, examining his fingernails. ‘We can always soften him up a little more.’

Damn it, Leo thought. For once in your life, just keep it shut.

Lapke continued. ‘Mark my words, Leo. Soon you’ll do exactly as I say.’

Leo said nothing. They wouldn’t get to Vera. If she was smart, she’d have skipped town already – as he’d told her to if there was ever trouble with the Pirates or the cops. Were they planning on beating him to death? Then someone else would take his place. Berolina wouldn’t let itself be crushed like that. They had managed just fine after Red Hugo’s death.

Lapke gave Sperling a wave and reached for the telephone. ‘Round up the prisoners. Tell SA officer Kaczmarek we need him after all.’

So that was their secret weapon, Leo thought. Thugs like Katsche had never bothered him in the past. The two SA men who had led him upstairs yanked him from the chair and dragged him back down into the basement. Leo told himself things might get bloody, but he was just as sure they wouldn’t kill him.

‘Phew! It stinks down here,’ he heard Lapke say, a few steps behind. ‘Did you shit yourself already, Leo?’

‘Maybe if you shut your mouth, the smell wouldn’t be so bad.’ He felt a truncheon in his side, but he didn’t care anymore.

Down in the basement Horst Kaczmarek waited with a morbid grin. Behind him the prisoners stood in rank and file. They had even fetched the women from their cells. Everyone looked anxiously towards Leo and company. A good dozen SA officers stood alongside, arms folded, gazing out of curious, sceptical eyes.

‘Hello Katsche,’ Leo said. ‘I hear you want to dance. Didn’t realise it was ladies’ choice.’

‘Very funny. Shall I land him one, chief?’

Lapke shook his head and lit a cigarette. ‘No, no, Katsche. It’s time for your party trick. You have your audience, and a volunteer.’

Katsche took off his uniform cap and handed it to one of his comrades. ‘Hold him,’ he said, and the grip of the SA officers on either side grew tighter.

Katsche swept a strand of hair from his forehead and approached, mouth almost at eye level. Then he seized Leo’s head with both hands, so suddenly and unexpectedly that Leo barely knew what was happening. Katsche pressed his fleshy lips on Leo’s right eye, as if leaning in for a kind of warped kiss. Instinctively Leo had closed his eyes, but even so he felt the suction, an unbelievable force that triggered a searing pain in his head, directly behind his eye. Katsche sucked with all his might, and the pain grew. Leo’s eyelid began to flutter. He tried to escape the awful suction, but Katsche held his head for all he was worth, the brownshirts held his arms and legs, and then everything happened impossibly fast. There was a kind of plop, and Leo’s eye slid out of its socket. Katsche clenched his teeth, and a sharp pain shot through Leo’s head, worse than anything he’d experienced before. He screamed, but it was no good.

Katsche detached himself and spat. Leo heard a few men jeer and applaud. Most were speechless.

He screamed and turned into the arms of his captors, but they held him fast. Warm blood ran from his right eye socket down his cheek; the left eye, still intact, was weeping, and through the blur of tears and pain Leo caught sight of something on the concrete floor. A little ball streaked with blood. He needed a moment to understand what it was that lay there like a bloody marble. The optic nerve hung from its blood-smeared eyeball like an umbilical cord. Only after this realisation, which shot through him like dark lightning, did the pain die enough for him to faint.

38

Rath never thought he would see the man again, but here he was. A gaunt figure slumped on the chair opposite with vomit in his goatee beard, and the cheekbone under his left eye swollen. But it was him, no doubt about it.

‘Dr Völcker, Peter, Neukölln,’ the guard announced, as he led the Communist doctor in from the cells.

Völcker hört die Signale. So comrades, come rally. For some reason Rath remembered this sentence from years before. Dr Peter Völcker, Communist and member of Neukölln district council, was an arrogant trouble-maker who never stopped insisting on ‘rights’, and had thus driven many an officer to the brink of despair.

Nothing remained of that man. The only despair came from Völcker himself. Rath felt ashamed, and was relieved that the Communist doctor, with whom he had quarrelled in a mortuary car during the May riots of 1929, didn’t recognise him.

This was his fourth day working alongside Erwin Zientek and already his new partner was driving him up the wall. With each Communist interrogated Rath felt more alienated. They had to be finished soon. He was starting to feel as if he knew every KPD member in Berlin. Couldn’t Gennat take on a homicide that demanded the recall of his men? Rath was almost willing to commit it himself!

He still stopped by A Division every morning to leave Kirie with Erika Voss, before making his way upstairs. On one occasion Erika mentioned a message from Warrants, and he’d prayed it was something important, a response from the Reichswehr perhaps, or some witness that necessitated his immediate return from 1A, but all they had done was pick up the trail of the fugitive girl. If he understood correctly, a nightshirt had been found in a wastepaper basket belonging to the Jonass Department store. The girl had nothing to do with the Wosniak investigation.

As if that wasn’t enough, his work with the Political Police still hadn’t helped him establish the whereabouts of Long Leo Juretzka.

Right now, however, that was the least of his concerns. His problem was that he felt so utterly ashamed in front of the broken Communist doctor. He felt caught out, almost as if Charly were looking on with disapproval. He still hadn’t told her how he was spending his days. ‘Interrogations,’ he had said, the one time she’d attempted to probe. ‘I’ll be glad to get back to Gennat at last.’

Like the many others who had sat before him on this chair, Dr Völcker’s only crime was to be a member of the KPD. It was becoming increasingly clear to Rath that there was no Communist conspiracy. If, as Charly claimed, even Rudolf Diels, the head of the Political Police, thought the Dutchman had acted alone, then why all the games? For the sake of Göring, who needed additional suspects for the trial, or simply to further intimidate the Communists? Most of them seemed pretty intimidated already. Peter Völcker, whom Rath remembered as a serious pain in the arse, perched on his chair with all resistance beaten out of him. Even then he wasn’t about to admit to a conspiracy that didn’t exist.

The interrogation – during which Rath held back as usual and handed the floor to Zientek – had just finished when the telephone rang. To Rath’s surprise it was his secretary. ‘Erika? Is something the matter with Kirie?’

‘Please excuse the interruption, Sir. I have someone on the line who simply won’t let go. It’s at least the fifth time he’s called. He’s even threatened to stop by in person if you refuse to speak to him.’

‘Please tell me it isn’t our Baron von Roddeck.’

‘No.’ Rath was relieved, if only for a fraction of a second. ‘A Herr Frank,’ Erika Voss continued. ‘Neue Preussische Zeitung. I don’t know what more I can say to him.’

‘I hope you didn’t tell him I’ve been seconded to the Politicals.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Patch him through to Detective Zientek’s office, extension…’

‘I have the number.’

‘Great. There in ten seconds.’

‘Important call,’ he said to Zientek, shrugging his shoulders apologetically. ‘Back in a moment.’

Zientek scowled, but said nothing.

The telephone was already ringing by the time Rath entered the detective’s office. ‘Rath, CID,’ he said.

‘Frank, Neue Preussische Zeitung. You’re a hard man to get hold of, Inspector.’

‘I’ve been busy.’

‘That’s why I’m calling. I wondered if you had anything new to report?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Serialisation of Märzgefallene begins next week. We’ve been promoting it daily, as perhaps you’ve seen. I wanted to ask how things were progressing with the investigation, on behalf of Lieutenant von Roddeck.’

‘Why doesn’t Roddeck get in touch himself?’

‘Like I say, you’re a hard man to reach. Lieutenant von Roddeck is surprised not to have been summoned for a second interview.’

‘I have his novel, don’t I? The details are all inside.’

‘You have a lead on Captain Engel?’

‘I’m afraid it isn’t that simple. The man will almost certainly have assumed a new identity. If, that is, Herr Roddeck’s suspicions are correct, and he survived the war.’

‘You’re casting doubt on the word of a Prussian lieutenant?’

‘Lieutenant Roddeck has merely voiced a suspicion, and so long as we have nothing concrete to go on, we will continue to pursue all avenues. Your mysterious phantom, a man who was actually declared dead, isn’t top of our list.’

‘Inspector, I must say this is most unsatisfactory.’

‘I’m sorry I can’t provide more detail,’ Rath lied. ‘Give Herr Roddeck my regards, and tell him I will be in touch as soon as I have more to go on.’

He hung up and lit a cigarette. Returning to the interrogation room and the latest Communist held little appeal. He stayed where he was behind Zientek’s desk, looking out of the window at the grey winter sky, smoking and thinking about the last few days. In the meantime he understood all too well why Charly had lost her sense of motivation. Not that they spoke about it. In all the years they had known one another, they had probably never exchanged fewer words about work. They finished on time, met for lunch in the canteen, drove together to and from Alex. In short: they did the same as millions of others who regarded their jobs as a means of earning money, and nothing more.

Work aside, things between them were great. Since clearing the air last week, they had spent every night together, taken Kirie for walks, listened to music, drank and talked, sometimes even danced, and at the end of it all they wound up in bed, more often than not on the tipsy side. It was almost as if they wished to sever their ties with the world outside, and escape the drabness of routine.

He was about to stub out his cigarette when there was a knock on the door. A guard looked in. ‘Inspector Rath?’

‘Yes?’

‘There’s an SA commando here from Papestrasse. Apparently you requested a prisoner Juretzka?’

The man who was led in moments later by two brownshirts made a pitiful impression. There were blood-encrusted wounds above his left cheekbone and on his forehead, flanked by bruises. A huge bandage was draped over his right eye. The left eye was even worse, its gaze so dead it was as if the man’s soul had already departed.

The papers submitted by the higher-ranking SA man, a Scharführer, left Rath in no doubt that the poor bastard in front of him was Leopold Juretzka, nicknamed Long Leo, Red Hugo’s successor as head of the Berolina Ringverein, or what was left of it.

He soon abandoned any hope that he might be able to speak to Juretzka in private, let alone secure his release and have him returned to Marlow. ‘We have orders to transport the prisoner back to Papestrasse immediately on completion of the interrogation,’ the Scharführer said.

‘Looks like he’d be better off in the sick bay. What on earth happened?’

‘Lost his right eye. An unfortunate fall.’

Onto what? An SA dagger?

The door opened, and Detective Zientek poked his head inside. ‘I was starting to worry, Inspector.’

‘The SA have brought in another prisoner.’

‘Prisoner Juretzka, Leopold,’ the Scharführer said, looking at his docket. So the SA did keep records after all. Or, at least, they were starting to… ‘Requested by Inspector Rath, Gereon.’ There went any story he might hatch for Zientek’s benefit.

‘I received a tip-off from one of my informants.’ He hoped this bland explanation might get rid of Zientek, but the detective proved just as stubborn as the two SA officers.

‘Let us know if you need any support, Inspector,’ the Scharführer said, as he and his colleague shunted Juretzka onto the chair and took up position behind it. No doubt where they came from, a well-directed blow was as good as a line of questioning.

Five of them were packed into Zientek’s already cramped office, all eagerly awaiting Rath’s next move. He had no idea what he might ask, only that it wouldn’t be what he was dying to know.

Who did this to you?

What do these bastards want?

Should I put Johann Marlow onto them?

The only person who didn’t seem interested in Rath’s questions was Leopold Juretzka. The man sat on his chair staring blankly ahead with his one remaining eye as if there were no one else in the room. Or, as if he weren’t there himself, merely his body, and his spirit were elsewhere, out of reach of the police, the SA or whoever.

‘You are Leopold Juretzka?’ Rath began. No response. No change in expression. ‘Answer, please! Your name is Juretzka, Leopold Juretzka?’ Silence, dead gaze.

He attempted another two or three questions, which elicited just as little response, then gave up. ‘This man is not fit for questioning,’ he said to the SA officers. ‘What did you do to him?’

‘Like I said. He took an unfortunate tumble. Our steps have iron edges.’

‘And that’s how he lost his sight?’

‘Who’s being interrogated here, Inspector?’

‘Herr Juretzka is an important witness in a homicide inquiry,’ Rath lied. ‘I don’t know the reasons for his arrest, but I must ask that you hand him over to CID, and see that his fitness for questioning be restored.’ Somehow, he had to free this wretch from SA clutches.

The SA men looked crestfallen. They hadn’t realised their prisoner was so important.

‘A homicide inquiry?’ Zientek stood up. ‘Inspector, might I remind you that these are the offices of the Political Police…’

‘No need,’ Rath responded so brusquely that his colleague fell silent. ‘I didn’t ask for Herr Juretzka to be sent here, but A Division. If you wish to complain, I suggest you take it up with the SA!’

Zientek’s gaze flitted between the brownshirts and Rath, as if wondering who to pick a fight with: a CID inspector or auxiliary officers who had powerful backers of their own. At length he resolved to sit down. ‘There is no way this man is fit for questioning. I agree with you there.’

Rath was glad of the support, even if Zientek’s motive clearly lay in being rid of the SA and their prisoner as soon as possible, so that he could continue working through the list of Communists. Erwin Zientek, Rath had observed, was a police officer who liked to finish on time.

‘As I said, this man belongs in a hospital,’ Rath said.

‘We’re under strict orders to return the prisoner to Papestrasse,’ the Scharführer grumbled.

‘You have an infirmary there?’

‘No, but…’

‘Then I order that he be taken to hospital. Under close supervision. I’ll hold you personally responsible if Prisoner Juretzka doesn’t return here fit for questioning within three days.’

The Scharführer stood to attention. ‘Aye, aye, Sir!’

Time and again Rath was astonished at the effect of a few barked instructions. Pretend you were on the parade ground and even the unruly Berliners clicked their heels. The Scharführer stepped forward, unfolded the docket and set it on the desk.

‘What am I supposed to do with that?’ Rath asked.

‘I need a signature, Sir, to certify that we delivered the prisoner to headquarters…’ His finger moved to the second column. ‘… and here to confirm your instruction that he be taken to hospital.’

A quarter of an hour later, Rath sat in Gennat’s outer office and felt his stomach rumble. Trudchen Steiner, Buddha’s long-standing secretary, was heating up sausages. A large pot steamed on the electric stove in the corner of the room.

‘Can you hold the fort for a moment, Zientek?’ Rath had said, after the SA men had departed with the unfortunate Juretzka. ‘I need to inform Superintendent Gennat.’

‘Fine. So long as it doesn’t become a habit.’

A response like that, Rath wondered why he had bothered to ask.

It was almost lunch by the time Gennat could see him. ‘Just a moment of your time, Sir.’

He was invited to sit on the green sofa. There was no cake, and no sausage either. Rath was brief and to the point.

‘You want your old case back?’ Gennat asked, and Rath nodded. Buddha furrowed his brow. ‘Your plan does you credit, Inspector, but it isn’t as simple as that.’

‘I never said it was, Sir, but you should know that this needless interrogation of Communists can continue without our support. Most are either in custody or have been interrogated already. There can no longer be any question of a Red threat.’

‘We are in agreement there, but the commissioner will see things differently.’ Buddha shrugged his heavy shoulders. ‘You’re not the only man I’ve loaned to 1A, and, believe me, you’re not the only one who wants out. I speak with Herr von Levetzow every day to request my men back, but it’s tricky.’

‘I understand that several men have been recalled.’

‘For new investigations. Resurrecting a case that’s been shelved is nigh-on impossible.’

‘Try, at least.’

‘I am trying, Inspector. Every day, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up.’

Rath went to the door and tipped his hat. ‘Please excuse the interruption, Sir.’

At least he hadn’t sacrificed his entire lunchbreak. After a brief turn with Kirie, he went to Aschinger to pick up a few Bouletten and made for a free telephone booth at Alexanderplatz train station. He was in luck: Weinert was still at his desk.

39

It seemed barely credible that Köpenick was part of Berlin. The S-Bahn terminus was in Spindlersfeld, meaning Charly had to cover the remaining distance by foot.

Gereon’s car might have made things easier, but she hadn’t mentioned her trip to him. No one was to know. She had feigned illness again to Karin, and by now it was scarcely a lie. She actually felt sick when she arrived for work in the morning, to be greeted by her colleague’s goggle eyes, her blissful smile and her idotic, naive remarks. As for what lay on her desk…

Köpenick Police Station was in the 241st precinct. Schönlinder Strasse, ten minutes’ walk from the S-Bahn. The man at the gate couldn’t help, or didn’t want to. ‘Böhm, you say?’

‘Detective Chief Inspector Böhm. Probably been here a week now.’

‘Chief inspector? Highest-ranking officer is Detective Brenner.’

‘Brenner? Then take me to him.’

‘Aren’t you easy to beat down? Chief inspector to detective in three seconds.’

He told her where Brenner’s office was and she knocked. The man behind the desk looked familiar. Frank Brenner had worked as a detective inspector at Alex a few years back, before disciplinary proceedings set him on a different path.

‘Detective Brenner,’ she said.

The man looked up and raised his eyebrows. ‘If it isn’t young Ritter. What brings you here?’

‘Cadet Ritter wishes to speak with Officer Böhm.’

‘One of your fellow trainees?’

Charly forced a smile. ‘I only know he works here. I was passing and wanted to pay him a visit.’

‘You were passing Köpenick? It isn’t often you hear that.’

Charly shrugged. ‘A girlfriend.’

She didn’t know a soul in Köpenick; she’d last driven through sometime in summer on her return from the Müggelsee. For some reason she’d never actually stopped here, though it was quite pretty with its waterfront, castle and old town, and its town hall, where a simple shoemaker had once shown the Prussians and the world where blind obedience can lead.

‘A girlfriend, I see. Then Wilhelm Böhm is a boyfriend…’

‘An old colleague. As you know. Don’t you want to tell me where he is?’

‘I do, I do.’ Brenner chewed on his cigar. ‘But I’m afraid he’s no longer here.’

‘Has he been transferred back to Alex?’

‘No, of course he hasn’t.’ Brenner was enjoying stalling her.

‘Then where might I find him?’

‘Police academy,’ Brenner said. ‘We found a new role for him there. In here… how can I put it? He had difficulties accepting who was in charge. I had no choice but to act.’

Charly refused to give Brenner’s remarks the time of day. ‘Police academy… How do I get there?’

Brenner gave her an appraising look. ‘It’s a bit of a trek on foot,’ he said. ‘Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse. A good three kilometres.’

‘I’ll take a taxi,’ Charly said, shouldering her bag.

As she reached the door, Brenner piped up again. ‘Officer Schneider will be heading out shortly. He’ll drive you.’

A little while later Charly sat on the rear seat of a green Police Opel as she was driven through Köpenick in the company of two taciturn men. They crossed the winter-grey Dahme, heading northbound past the town hall to the railway station and eventually turning left. The police academy on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse was a bright new building, as if by dint of its architecture it might produce a generation of bright new officers. The whole site was an expression of hope for an era already in terminal decline. A swastika flag adorned the facade, more out of place here than on any other building in the city.

The Opel parked in the yard. Charly heard a train thundering across the tracks nearby. Her companions stepped silently out of the car. ‘So, where can I find Chief Inspector Böhm?’ she asked.

The elder of the pair, Schneider, replied, breaking out in whinnying laughter. ‘Best ask at the gate.’ He and his colleague were still laughing as they disappeared inside the building.

Reaching the door, Charly realised what was so funny. The man reading a newspaper behind the glass of the porter’s lodge was certainly overqualified. Detective Chief Inspector Wilhelm Böhm, one of the most established and reliable members of Gennat’s Homicide Division, had been assigned porter duties in Köpenick Police Academy. They had even given him oversleeves. Or did he wear them out of choice?

For a moment Charly regretted her decision to visit, Böhm was clearly embarrassed to be seen like this. He cleared his throat as she approached the glass.

‘Sir,’ she said.

‘Charly. What on earth are you doing here?’

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Well, I’m not short of time.’

Uniformed officers were speaking in hushed tones in a corner of the lobby. ‘Preferably in private.’

‘If you can hold on until the end of my shift.’ He gestured outside with his head. ‘There’s a little café down the road towards the train station. I’ll be with you in half an hour.’

Back outside, the first thing Charly did was light a Juno. She had been prepared for anything but this. How was it possible for a chief inspector to be downgraded to porter? Half an hour later she had her answer, when Wilhelm Böhm appeared in the small, slightly overheated cafe, now devoid of oversleeves, and dressed as she remembered him in coat and bowler hat, an imposing figure who instantly commanded respect.

‘Detective Brenner couldn’t bear my presence any longer,’ he explained as he took his place beside her, a mug of coffee before him. ‘Perhaps he felt uneasy giving orders to a chief inspector. Anyway, he arranged this business with the police academy. Clearly he knows someone there.’

‘But they can’t just make you porter! Does Gennat know? Does the police commissioner know?’

‘Certainly not, and I would be grateful if you could keep it that way.’ He stirred his coffee. ‘It’s a chance to prove myself, Daluege said, but in reality they’re phasing me out. Seems my face no longer fits.’

‘I don’t think it’s your face that’s the problem.’ Charly didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m so sorry, Sir. It’s all my fault.’

Böhm furrowed his brow as she told him what was on her mind, her carelessness with Weinert, the whole sorry tale. To her surprise he wasn’t in the least angry.

‘Oh, Charly,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t transferred because of that ridiculous article.’ He shook his head. ‘No, Daluege won’t stand for Social Democrats at headquarters.’

‘You’re a Social Democrat?’ Charly had always assumed that Böhm was above party politics, like Gennat. A democrat to the core, of course, but at the same time non-partisan.

‘Come off it! My only membership is with the Lankwitz Allotment Association. Someone from Alex saw me in the Pharus Halls, at an SPD rally. It would seem that’s enough these days to be classed as politically unreliable.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Someone saw me there and informed the police commissioner, or went straight to Daluege. No doubt they were waiting for an opportunity. It’s no secret I have a low opinion of the Nazis.’

‘That was never an issue in the past.’

‘What can you do?’ Böhm attempted a smile. ‘How’s that fiancé of yours? Made any progress on our case?’

‘Yes and no. He was seconded to the Politicals. Probably interrogating Communists as we speak.’

‘I saw this coming, you know. Soon 1A will have the whole of Homicide working for them. It’s almost a relief to have been transferred out.’ He shook his head. ‘Just when we were starting to get a few leads.’

‘A witness got in touch, Wosniak’s former lieutenant from the war. He thinks he knows who the killer is.’

Charly told Böhm the story, and when she had finished he shook his head. ‘What a lot of cock and bull.’

‘That’s what Gereon thinks too.’

‘Which doesn’t change the fact that Wosniak is dead. Still, what’s one more death these days?’

‘Gereon’s secretary is collating everything that comes in.’

‘What about the request we submitted to the Reichswehr?’

‘Gereon hasn’t mentioned it. He goes through the material with her each night.’

In fact Gereon was mainly picking up the dog when he called in on Erika Voss, but Böhm didn’t have to know that.

‘Do me one last favour, Charly,’ he seized her arm and looked at her beseechingly. ‘Don’t tell anyone about what you’ve seen here. No one, do you understand? I don’t want the bastard who denounced me to have the satisfaction.’

40

Entering the green inner courtyard of St. Hedwig’s Hospital, straight away Rath felt the bustle of the city recede. The complex was bigger than it looked from the outside but that wasn’t why he had chosen it, nor was it the building’s proximity to Alex. No, he had chosen it because it was a Catholic hospital. They wouldn’t cooperate with the SA at St Hedwig’s. Even former Chancellor Brüning had found asylum here after being sacked by Hindenburg.

Not that CID were in the staff’s good books either. The doctor in attendance, who introduced himself as Dr Fabritius, looked at Rath with unmistakable reproach. ‘What happened to this man, Inspector?’

‘An accident, the SA tell me.’

‘An accident? The man has lost his right eye, the entire eyeball. Let’s leave aside the bruises and cuts, and the two broken ribs.’

Rath looked around before responding. ‘The SA is no boys’ choir, Doctor, which is why I requested that the man be transferred here, from Papestrasse.’ He looked around a second time to make sure they really were alone. ‘If I have my way, the SA won’t be getting him back. Will you help me?’ Dr Fabritius nodded. ‘I need the patient as a witness in a murder investigation. Is he fit for questioning?’

‘There’s no reason you shouldn’t try. He’s certainly responsive. A tough customer evidently. Do you want company?’

‘Not necessary. It’s better if I speak to Juretzka out of the public e…’ Rath corrected himself. ‘Alone.’

An aggressive-looking SA man stood guard outside Juretzka’s room. An auxiliary police officer. ‘You can’t go in there,’ he said, as Rath approached.

‘On the contrary. CID had Herr Juretzka transferred here. After a bad… accident in Papestrasse.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘That the poor man had an accident. That’s correct, isn’t it?’ The SA man looked suspicious. ‘I’m going to question him now. See that I am not disturbed. That goes for your superiors too.’ The SA man gazed stupidly. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, Sir.’ The man stood to attention.

Leo Juretzka was alone in his room. It wasn’t just his eye that was bandaged, but his left ear too; there were various sticking plasters attached to his face. He wore a patient gown and looked as if he had been washed. The expression in his remaining eye was still strangely blank.

‘Good day, Herr Juretzka,’ Rath said, approaching the bed. ‘Please don’t say anything until you’ve heard me out.’

Juretzka nodded.

Rath pulled up a chair, and positioned himself so that he could whisper into Juretzka’s un-bandaged ear. ‘I’m from CID. Johann Marlow knows you have been transferred here, but won’t be able to secure your release with the help of his lawyer alone. I had to tell a white lie to get you out of SA prison. If we don’t want to get busted, you’ll have to help corroborate it. I’ve informed the SA that you are a witness in a murder investigation.’

For a moment Juretzka’s left eye seemed to grow larger.

‘I’m going to have you brought into police headquarters for questioning. Here’s what you’re going to say. Make sure you memorise the details.’

As Juretzka listened, life slowly returned to his face. Rath wouldn’t get another chance to speak to him alone like this. At Alex there would a stenographer, perhaps even a colleague present, and his ‘witness’ needed to be in shape.

‘Got it?’ he asked. ‘Nollendorfplatz, you remember?’

‘Yes.’ Juretzka’s voice was scratchy. He seemed not to have spoken in a long time.

‘Good. Then that’s what you say tomorrow at headquarters.’

‘And then?’

‘Then you’re done being an SA prisoner. We’ll let you go, and the boys in Papestrasse won’t notice a thing. Make sure you hole up somewhere no one knows you and where the SA can’t find you. It…’

They were interrupted by shouting in the corridor. Rath looked out. The SA officer was remonstrating angrily with a gaunt, well-dressed man, Marlow’s lawyer, Dr Kohn. Rath had seen him on one previous occasion, during a memorable appearance in court. One of the finest exponents of his craft, even he was powerless against the SA.

‘Prisoner Juretzka is in protective custody. He cannot be released.’

‘Then show me the arrest warrant!’ Kohn appeared to be sizing the man up for a duel.

‘According to a decree issued by the Reich President on 28th February article one hundred and fourteen is no longer valid…’

‘Stop!’ The lawyer waved dismissively. ‘I’ve heard it all before.’ His belligerence returned. ‘But you must grant me the opportunity to speak with my client.’

‘Out of the question,’ Rath interrupted.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘CID,’ Rath showed his identification. ‘I’m satisfied that Prisoner Juretzka is currently unresponsive.’

‘Are you qualified to make such a pronouncement?’

‘Come and see Dr Fabritius yourself, if you don’t believe me, but leave Herr Juretzka in peace.’ The SA man broke into a grin. ‘If you wish to speak with your client, then be at police headquarters tomorrow at eleven. A Division. You can provide legal counsel there.’

Kohn appeared to wrestle with himself before nodding his agreement. ‘Where can I find this Dr Fabritius?’

‘I’ll take you to him.’

Before Rath set off with Marlow’s lawyer he threw a glance at the SA man, who responded with a conspiratorial wink. Rath grinned back. It couldn’t hurt to have the SA think he was on their side.

41

He looked at his watch before starting across the bridge. He had arrived at the train station in good time, but was moving less freely than usual and didn’t want to be late. Another ten minutes would surely be enough. He could already see the bare treetops on the other side of the River Havel.

Meifert had appeared relieved when he’d suggested the meeting point. No doubt the idea of receiving an acquaintance from his previous life, a comrade from the war, within his own four walls or even at school, was awkward. He had sounded uncertain on the telephone. The encounter with his past must have rattled him.

Stone statues of soldiers lined the Kaiser-Wilhelm Bridge, with all the uniforms of Prussia’s glorious past represented save the most recent. Their presence was summoned, not in carved stone, but in the flesh and blood of an ex-serviceman who stood by the balustrade on crutches, gaze lowered and hand outstretched. How many veterans were forced to demean themselves and beg? Not every ex-soldier had such a cushy number as Linus Meifert. Minus, as he was known in those days, and did the mathematician’s students call him the same thing?

Even the old city palace made a wretched impression. Once the seat of Prussia’s power and splendour, today it housed the employment exchange and a few offices of Potsdam Municipal Council. These were strange times.

Minus sat reading a newspaper towards the rear of the deserted pleasure garden. A gravel path ran parallel to the railway line that separated the grounds from the river. Meifert had gained weight and his hair was thinner, but there was no mistaking it was him.

Approaching his quarry, he tried to hide the pain that walking caused, but in the end it proved unnecessary. Meifert didn’t look up until he reached the bench. He put his paper to one side. ‘You?’ he said.

‘Who did you expect?’

He knew very well who Minus had been expecting. He took another step closer to the bench, while his left hand felt for the soft, smooth handle. The soldier’s bride. His ‘bride’ was no rifle, but something far more elegant, and equally deadly.

‘I thought you were dead.’ Meifert folded his newspaper precisely.

‘Do I look dead?’

‘I haven’t said a thing, and nor will I, but I can’t vouch for Roddeck.’

‘You don’t have to.’ Before Meifert could say anything else, he grabbed his head in a choke hold and stabbed. Meifert gave a final gasp before his body went limp. The whole thing lasted less than three seconds. He looked around before removing the blade. Still no one.

‘Who’s dead now?’ He let the corpse slump. ‘I’m sorry, Minus, but there’s no other way. For what it’s worth… I hated you even then.’

He resisted the impulse to spit on the corpse. Leave no trace, he thought, wiping down everything he had touched with a white handkerchief. He gazed on his work like a painter admiring his latest portrait. Minus sat on the park bench, looking as if he had nodded off while reading his paper. An idyllic image, when you ignored the blood that trickled from his left nostril and dripped red on the page.

It had taken days for anyone to notice the dead tramp at Nollendorfplatz, but this was Potsdam, not Berlin. Things would move faster here.

From the tower of the garrison church, the bells chimed the first notes of Üb immer Treu und Redlichkeit, before the fast train rattled across the line from Magdeburg and drowned out all other sounds.

42

It had worked. Weinert had delivered a major story in Der Tag, dripping with all kinds of jingoistic hullabaloo. Wosniak, the faithful orderly, killed because his lieutenant was threatening to reveal the truth about an army captain who had murdered two innocent civilians and one of his own soldiers. At first Weinert had refused to mention that this captain was Jewish. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’ he had asked.

‘It increases the chance of the case being reopened. My commissioner is a Nazi and a Jewish villain always plays well.’

So, now the article read:

Weinert must have acquired a galley proof of Märzgefallene, or perhaps an advance copy, and he quoted freely from Roddeck’s miserable effort. Unfortunately it wasn’t just Der Tag that carried a story on the Wosniak case, but the Kreuzzeitung too. Rath found the paper on his desk as he brought Kirie in to Erika Voss.

‘The police commissioner wants to see you,’ she said, gesturing to the page that lay open. ‘And I think I know why.’

The article went on, taking up almost half a page, but for Rath the byline sufficed. Martin Frank, you piece of shit, he thought.

True, the piece might not have been as sensational as those usually carried in Der Tag or B.Z. am Mittag. Displaying all the hallmarks of the Kreuzzeitung’s old-fashioned, militaristic posturing, its content was nevertheless highly defamatory. Even so, the scurrilous conjecture – garnished with the odd swipe at Jews in the officer corps – was by no means the worst thing about the article. No, the worst thing was the threefold appearance of the name Gereon Rath, on one occasion complete with police rank.

No wonder the commissioner wanted to see him. When he reached the office, however, the wooden bench outside was already occupied. ‘Good morning, Inspector,’ Ernst Gennat said. ‘Do you have any idea how much I hate climbing stairs? Usually I speak to the commissioner on the telephone.’

‘My apologies, Sir. I had no idea the case would create such waves.’

‘You’ve been talking to the press again, I see.’ Gennat held the offending paper in his hand.

‘It was Herr Frank who telephoned me. He didn’t say he was reporting on the case.’

‘You should have told me he called.’ Buddha produced a second newspaper from under the Kreuzzeitung. Der Tag. ‘What about this? You may not be mentioned by name, but this Weinert’s an acquaintance of yours, am I right?’

‘Yes, Sir. He also telephoned me. But only after I spoke with you the other day and…’

‘You might at least have told me about this mysterious new witness.’

‘After our conversation I didn’t hold out much hope of working the case again…’

‘So you fed your friend Weinert with information so that the commissioner would come under public pressure.’

‘To help you, Sir.’

‘Thank you, but in future keep me informed of new developments as they come in. This witness of yours. Is he reliable?’ Rath nodded. ‘And he confirms the suspicion that Wosniak was murdered by a veteran previously assumed dead?’

‘Looks that way.’

‘Not such a busybody after all, your Lieutenant Roddeck.’

‘Perhaps not.’ Rath was contrite. Best get some practice in. The police commissioner was bound to deal out more of the same.

A wiry, scar-faced man emerged from the commissioner’s office. Rudolf Diels, the new head of Section 1A, from the Interior Ministry and appointed personally by Göring. What might he want here, to free up even more CID officers for the Politicals?

Diels issued a brief, polite greeting to Gennat and disappeared. Rath watched him as he went. They were around the same age, and already Diels was head of the Political Police. Rath wondered if he’d ever make it past detective inspector.

‘Please proceed, gentlemen,’ Dagmar Kling said. Levetzow’s secretary had appeared behind Diels in the doorway. Gennat rose from the bench, breathing heavily. For a moment Rath was tempted to offer him an arm, but decided against it.

Magnus von Levetzow looked stern behind his desk. ‘So, gentlemen, there you are.’ Rath und Gennat sat on the uncomfortable chairs the commissioner kept for guests. Nothing had changed since the Zörgiebel years. ‘You know why you are here,’ Levetzow began.

Rath left the talking to Gennat. ‘I believe I have the reason here in my hand.’ Buddha lifted the newspapers.

‘How is it the press are better informed about developments in a murder inquiry than I am?’

‘Might I remind the commissioner that the case was shelved last week on the instructions of the Daluege Bureau.’

‘Since when did the Daluege Bureau adjudicate on such matters?’

‘It was they who transferred Chief Inspector Böhm out of Homicide, and decreed that Officers Gräf and Rath be seconded to the Political Police to help thwart a Communist conspiracy…’

‘Yes, yes, I know all that.’ Levetzow waved dismissively. ‘No one said we should shelve a murder inquiry, especially given such explosive developments.’

‘We haven’t, Sir.’ Rath interjected before Gennat could say anything, ignoring his superior’s angry glance. ‘With respect, I tasked my secretary with collating all fresh evidence, and liaising with me on a daily basis.’

‘Then why haven’t you been liaising with me?’

‘Apologies, Sir,’ Gennat said, ‘but we didn’t want to bother you with details. Might I remind you that in the course of the last few days I have repeatedly requested that my men be reinstated.’

‘I have just spoken with Senior Government Councillor Diels. Starting from next week, we will be reassigning all CID officers currently seconded to the Political Police to their respective departments.’

‘Then Diels’s theory has been vindicated?’ Rath asked, and instantly regretted it.

‘Pardon me?’

‘Well,’ Rath stammered. ‘Word is that Diels doesn’t believe in the conspiracy theory being propagated by Göring. As far as he’s concerned, this van der Lubbe is a lone hand.’

‘Who told you this?’ Levetzow furrowed his brow.

‘I heard it somewhere. In the canteen most likely.’

The commissioner gazed suspiciously at him. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said at length. ‘The police cannot afford such press coverage. Especially now.’ Rath had expected nothing less. ‘Never again,’ Levetzow slapped the newspapers with the flat of his hand, ‘do I wish to read anything like this! We’re not dealing with the usual scandal sheets here.’

On the contrary, Rath thought. Der Tag was a ‘scandal sheet’ at best, but no doubt a Nazi gauged things differently. Certainly as far as anti-Semitism was concerned, the paper left little to be desired.

‘I don’t think I need tell you what must be done,’ Levetzow concluded his lecture. ‘Inspector Rath is to be released from Political Police duty with immediate effect, to devote himself to the Wosniak investigation. I will see to the personal safety of Lieutenant von Roddeck myself.’

‘Thank you, Sir,’ Rath said zealously. Gennat remained silent.

‘I don’t expect thanks,’ Levetzow said. ‘I expect results.’

‘Then you can rest assured, Sir. Progress will be swift. With our new witness…’

‘I’m not interested in the progress of your investigation,’ Magnus von Levetzow thundered. ‘All I want is for you to track down this mass-murdering Jew!’

43

The squirt was becoming a real pain. He clung to her like a limpet. Eleven years old, and already on the streets. There were things he’d experienced in care that he wouldn’t talk about. ‘I’d rather die than go back,’ he had said, and, in the end, it was this sentence that bound them. Hannah recognised her own despair.

There were times when it felt good not to have to wander the streets alone. Occasionally Fritze had won a smile from her, pilfering an apple, or wheedling a mark out of someone in a fur-coat, but in the evenings she realised just how attached he was to her.

Still too innocent to want anything indecent, Hannah thought of him more as a kind of kid brother, but all too often felt like… ‘Fritze, I am not your mother!’

How many times had she said it now, and seen how the statement stung him? He no longer had a mother either… but was that a reason to follow her around like a dog?

Whatever her feelings she knew she had to get rid of him. She was the one on the run. It was just a line for him, that he’d rather die than return to care, but for Hannah it was true. She would die if she was ever picked up. Prison, care, or Dalldorf, Huckebein was sure to find her.

Since their night in the trunk, they hadn’t been apart for a second, and she wondered whether the Märchenbrunnen posse would take her seriously with him in tow. For all that, he was resourceful, and not just when it came to breakfast; he knew the best places to sleep too. Hannah hadn’t had to spend another night in a damp sandpit since Fritze came on the scene, and as for scrounging money there was no one better.

Today at Bahnhof Zoo he was working his little boy charm on rich-looking passers-by, of which there were any number. Hannah didn’t know what he was serving up – her role was to collect the takings – but whatever it was, it did the job. Almost everyone he spoke to parted with a few coins, and no one thought to call the police. There was no shortage of uniformed cops around either.

She didn’t look like a beggar in her new clothes, and certainly not a fugitive from Dalldorf. She didn’t know if the cops had photos to help with their search. They had taken a few after the fire, but she didn’t look like that anymore. Her gaze had been so empty, back when she thought her life was over. It wasn’t until Huckebein tried to kill her that she had been overtaken by an almost demonic will to live.

Yes, she wanted to live, she knew that now, even if she wasn’t sure what she wanted from life. First just survive; don’t get caught. The police, flanked by the odd brownshirt and German Shepherd, didn’t seem to be looking for her, but she stood behind a pillar anyway.

Concentrating hard on them, at first she didn’t notice the man limping down the platform steps. This time he wasn’t dressed in the uniform of an asylum warder, but a fancy coat and equally ill-fitting bowler hat. Berlin wasn’t quite as big as she thought. She made no sudden movements, but Huckebein was heading straight for her and already looking her way. Had he recognised her? She couldn’t be certain. She’d never worn such new clothes in her life, not in the asylum, and certainly not in the Crow’s Nest, and her hair was covered by a red beret.

But he had recognised her, she could tell by his eyes, and his slow, deliberate movements like a tiger trying not to alert its prey. Why here? Why now? She hurried away.

Bursting out of the train station, she rushed down the the steps to the underground, turning to confirm that he was behind her – but with his leg he couldn’t move quickly. Hannah laughed. She realised she was faster; he had no chance on the steps.

‘Stop that girl! She’s a fugitive from the asylum!’ he shouted.

She tried to look as normal as possible so that no one could think he meant her. Briskly, but without running, she climbed the steps to the other side of Hardenbergstrasse, in the shadow of the railway overpass. Stop that mad girl came the cry from below. He didn’t have to be the one to catch her. It was enough to have her sent back to Dalldorf. Once she was there, he could kill her in his own time; finish what he had begun.

She pretended indifference. As long as he didn’t appear up here and start pointing his finger, she’d be fine. Berliners weren’t famous for interfering in other people’s business.

Seeing the tram chug slowly down Joachimsthaler Strasse, she took a running jump and… a young man grabbed her hand and helped her up.

‘You do know you’re not allowed,’ he said sternly, before smiling and throwing her a wink.

Hannah returned his smile and thanked him, pushing towards the rear of the car behind a heavy-set matron. Gazing through a gap in the passengers she spied Huckebein limping up the underground steps and looking around. He threw his hat furiously onto the ground. Too bad, my friend, she thought, looks like I’ve escaped for a second time. The conductor came and she placed a ten pfennig piece in his hand. Luckily Fritze had already given her some of his takings. There would be no trouble on the tram.

She stayed on for a few stops, eventually alighting on Kaiserallee, far away from Bahnhof Zoo. Standing in the shadow of a newspaper kiosk she broke into such hysterical laughter that she wondered if Dalldorf hadn’t made her crazy after all.

44

Juretzka appeared in the Castle at eleven on the dot, escorted by two SA officers and Marlow’s lawyer, Dr Kohn. Kohn was granted entry to the interrogation room; the SA agreed to remain outside.

When everyone was sitting down, including stenographer Christel Temme, Rath took his place behind the desk. Juretzka wore a black eye patch over the gauze bandage covering his empty socket, which lent him a swashbuckling appearance. He still looked the worse for wear, albeit not as listless as in hospital yesterday. He sounded better too, rattling off his statement while Temme diligently noted everything.

Rath leaned back contentedly. Everything was going according to plan. The commissioner had freed a few extra men and Rath had settled on Henning and Czerwinski, nicknamed Plisch and Plum. The pair were unlikely to exceed their brief, or ask too many difficult questions. He had deliberately avoided requesting Gräf, and not just because of his erstwhile colleague’s familiarity with the case.

Plisch and Plum had already been dispatched to Potsdam, after Erika Voss had discovered that one of Wosniak and Roddeck’s former comrades lived there. The unit’s other surviving members were further west, in Magdeburg and Elberfeld. Corporal Meifert, now a senior teacher, was the only one on their list who lived within visiting distance of Alex.

Rath planned to call on the others next week, along with Engel’s widow in Bonn. They had little more to go on than Engel’s name and the results of his medical examination. That and the photo the Reichswehr had enclosed from its archives. Gazing proudly into the lens with his curled moustache, Engel didn’t look any more spiteful than your average Prussian officer. Rath recognised the look from the portrait of his brother, taken shortly before Anno was killed in action. He placed Engel’s photograph on the table in front of Juretzka, who nodded his recognition as agreed.

‘Yes, that’s the man I saw at Nollendorfplatz.’

It sounded almost a little too mechanical, but Christel Temme studiously took it down. Rath had requested her for a reason; there was every chance Erika Voss would see through the swindle.

‘If you could make out a fair copy…’ he said, when she had committed everything to paper.

He waited until she closed the door behind her and he was alone with Kohn and Juretzka. ‘This business with your eye,’ he asked. ‘How did it happen?’

‘That’s none of your concern,’ Juretzka said. ‘Just see that I get out of here.’

Rath nodded.

‘So what happens now?’ Kohn asked. ‘The SA are waiting for my client outside. They don’t care that I have a prisoner release order.’

‘Don’t worry about the SA.’ Rath spoke quietly, not knowing if they could hear behind the door. ‘Come to my office at three o’clock this afternoon.’

‘And how…’

‘Just trust me. Be there at three and you can walk out of here with Herr Juretzka, but right now I need you to leave. Make a little scene as you go.’

‘By all means, Inspector.’ Kohn put on his hat, and took a few frantic breaths until his face turned red.

‘This is an outrage,’ he shouted, flinging the door open. ‘An outrage!’ He turned in the doorway. ‘My client is not a common criminal!’

Rath calmly followed. ‘Your client is a common criminal,’ he said.

‘There will be consequences, Inspector, that much I can guarantee!’

‘Do whatever you see fit, but Prisoner Juretzka’s place is here in custody. And there’s nothing a Jew shyster like you can do about it.’

‘You mean to insult me now?’

‘Please. It must still be possible to call a Jew a Jew.’

Kohn let his gaze flit to the SA officers and back. He waved dismissively, turned on his heels and stormed down the corridor, coat billowing behind him.

The SA men gazed after him in amusement. ‘Let’s have the prisoner then,’ said the higher-ranking of the two, a Scharführer.

‘Pardon me?’

‘We have to get him back to Papestrasse. You’ve finished interrogating him, haven’t you? And he’s seen a doctor. Time to take the gloves off.’

‘Prisoner Juretzka is staying here.’

‘We have strict instructions to return him once the interrogation is complete. He’s a career criminal.’

‘Once the interrogation is complete. It will be continuing after lunch.’ He winked at the Scharführer. ‘Without a lawyer.’

The SA man nodded and grinned.

‘For the time being Juretzka will remain in police custody. I should be through with him by tonight. You can come and fetch him then.’

The SA officers looked uncertainly at each other. ‘Very well,’ the Scharführer said at length, ‘but you could have spared us the waiting around.’

Right on cue the custody officer emerged, whom Rath had requested by telephone. ‘I’m here for a Prisoner Juretzka,’ he said.

The SA officers took their leave with a Hitler salute and the custody officer placed Juretzka in handcuffs. ‘I hope I can rely on you to return the prisoner at three o’clock,’ Rath said, ‘and that he’ll be fit for questioning.’

‘Have no fear, chief. You’re not dealing with the SA here.’ He turned to Juretzka. ‘You have bread and pea soup to look forward to.’

45

The canteen was as chaotic as ever. Rath looked for an out-of-the-way table to read Roddeck’s novel in peace. The story of the murdering army captain was now their official line of investigation. If the police commissioner needed a Jewish villain in order to approve Gereon Rath’s return to Homicide, then he could have one.

Achim von Roddeck had excoriated Benjamin Engel in print, depicting him as a cold-blooded sadist who took pleasure in death, only to die in an explosion himself. Or not, if the lieutenant’s hunch was correct.

‘Afternoon, Gereon. Can I join you?’ Reinhold Gräf stood tray in hand.

‘Reinhold! Sit down!’

Gräf unfolded his napkin and began on his soup. Pea soup. Rath wondered if it was the same as the batch served in custody. It wasn’t for nothing that he’d plumped for pork with sauerkraut and mash.

‘Still working for the Politicals?’ he asked when the silence threatened to become embarrassing.

Gräf nodded and gestured towards the manuscript. ‘I see you’ve got your old case back?’

‘Orders of the police commissioner. After the Wosniak investigation wound up in the papers again.’

‘Through no fault of your own, of course…’ Gräf grinned over his spoon. There was something in his tone that Rath couldn’t abide.

‘You think I enjoy being summoned by the commissioner?’ he barked, regretting it instantly. Goddamn it, he thought, the man’s done nothing to you. Once upon a time you thought of him as a friend. Until you realised he’d been lying all these years…

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean anything. So, there’s something in this lieutenant’s story after all?’

‘Looks that way.’

With that, conversation stalled again and, for a time, there was nothing to be heard save the tinkling of cutlery and murmur of voices from other tables. Gräf placed his spoon to one side.

‘About what happened recently. I have the feeling you might have got the wrong end of the stick.’

Rath was surprised Gräf could broach the subject so directly. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s just, I have the feeling you’ve been avoiding me lately.’

‘I have a lot on my plate. I’m getting married soon.’

‘Fare thee well bachelor days…’

‘If you say so.’

‘Why don’t we have a drink in the Dreieck to mark your final days of freedom?’

‘Let’s.’

Rath was glad when Gräf had cleaned his plate and said his goodbyes. He lit a cigarette and pretended to immerse himself in Roddeck’s manuscript, but couldn’t concentrate any longer. Soon his thoughts turned elsewhere.

Returning from lunch the interview transcript lay on his desk, ready-typed by Christel Temme, quick and reliable as ever. He picked it up, left a note for Erika Voss and went on his way. Gustav Kohn was waiting outside the interrogation room when he arrived. There wasn’t an auxiliary officer in sight as Leo Juretzka was escorted in at three on the dot by the same guard as before.

‘Shall we, then?’ Rath said and opened the door.

‘Should I wait?’ the guard asked.

‘No need, but you can take off his cuffs.’

The guard did as bidden, and pressed the cuffs into Rath’s hand. ‘Your choice,’ he said and went to the door. ‘Shout if you need me.’

Rath waited until he was gone, then unfolded the interview transcript.

‘I’ll read what you need to sign before leaving,’ he said, and began. ‘“On the afternoon of February 20th 1933, I was passing under the elevated railway line at Nollendorfplatz when I saw a man leaning over a homeless person, who then proceeded to walk in my direction. Since he was coming towards me, I got a good look at his face; it was the same man whose image Detective Inspector Gereon Rath later showed me.”’

‘Rolls off the tongue,’ Juretzka interrupted. ‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘It’ll go into the case file. It’s my justification for prising you away from the SA.’

‘You already have. So I don’t need to put my Friedrich Wilhelm on it, am I right?’

‘Your what?’

‘My client prefers not to provide his signature,’ Kohn said. ‘He retracts his statement.’

‘That will make it harder for me to justify Herr Juretzka’s release from SA prison.’

‘You’ll think of something. My client’s incarceration had little to do with the rule of law, so I wouldn’t go overboard on any legal justification.’ Kohn gestured towards Juretzka, who seemed more and more like a swashbuckling pirate the nearer he came to release. ‘Herr Marlow doesn’t want the name Juretzka appearing in any police statements.’

‘Then tell Marlow that I’m risking my career here. Juretzka only got out of SA prison as a result of this statement – and now you’re saying he won’t sign?’

‘Marlow tells me you’re the resourceful type, Inspector. You’ll think of a solution. Why don’t you just tell your superiors what happened: that Leo Juretzka and his Jew shyster played you for a fool.’

‘Thanks for the tip.’

‘Yours for free, and I should tell you, my services usually come at a price.’

Kohn stood up. Juretzka followed.

‘That thing there,’ Rath said, pointing towards Juretzka’s eye patch, ‘will make your client stick out like a sore thumb. Be careful that the SA don’t fetch him back. Ringverein members are about as popular as Communists.’

‘Once we pass through these doors, you won’t be seeing my client for a very long time. Everything’s prepared, there’s no need for you to worry… and yes,’ Kohn said, reaching inside his briefcase. ‘Here. So that you have something in writing.’

He placed the document on the table. A prisoner release order.

Dr Gustav Kohn left the room with his client, a career criminal wanted by the SA, and Rath sat at the table, playing with the handcuffs the guard had left him. When the telephone rang he gave a start. It was Erika Voss. ‘Please excuse the interruption, Sir, but it’s urgent.’

‘You’re not interrupting. What is it?’

‘Detective Czerwinski is on the line. If you wait a moment, I’ll patch him through.’

‘What is it?’ Rath asked, when he could hear Czerwinski wheezing.

‘Boss?’

‘Speaking.’

‘We’re here at this teacher’s house.’

Rath looked at the watch Charly had given him. ‘You’re only there now?’

‘He wasn’t home, so we waited.’

‘And?’

‘Alfons spoke to a neighbour who was coming up the stairs with her shopping. Gereon, I think you’d better get out here.’ Czerwinski paused awkwardly. ‘The woman says Linus Meifert was found yesterday in the park. He’s dead.’

46

Rath dropped Charly and Kirie at home before heading out on the AVUS to Potsdam, where Police Headquarters was a tiny, two-storey building that looked as if it went back to the days of Old Fritz. It was in Priesterstrasse, in the immediate vicinity of an enormous barracks at least twenty times its size. In Potsdam the military had always called the tune, even now when Germany was barely allowed any soldiers. At least, in contrast to Alex, there was plenty of parking outside.

Henning and Czerwinski were waiting under the two old-fashioned streetlamps outside the entrance. Recognising the sand-coloured Buick they threw away their cigarettes.

‘So?’ Rath asked.

‘Meifert was found dead in the park over by the palace.’ Czerwinski pointed towards the end of the street. ‘The pleasure garden. A stone’s throw from here.’

‘How did he die?’

‘It’s better you ask Inspector Lehmann. He’s… how shall I put this? Not especially approachable.’

‘He’s the lead investigator?’

‘Very much so. He insisted on seeing our commanding officer. Seems to be beneath his dignity to speak with a humble detective.’

Detective Inspector Lehmann was a textbook example of a Prussian official. Discreet and dressed in a grey suit, his sense of duty was bursting from his ears. He listened as Rath made his report. ‘And you think the cases go together?’

‘A witness in my investigation has died on your patch.’

‘This isn’t my patch, this is my city. We’re not part of Berlin yet.’

Rath ignored the Potsdam sensitivity. ‘Was it a violent death?’

‘I should say so. Someone thrust a sharp object up his nose. A stiletto or something like it.’

Just as Rath had feared. Evidently there was some truth in Achim von Roddeck’s arcane tale. ‘Then I can more or less guarantee the dead man is part of my case. Let’s get him transferred to Pathology in Berlin.’

‘That won’t be necessary. The corpse has already been examined.’

‘Perhaps so, but I think we’d be better off in Hannoversche Strasse. The pathologist there, Dr Schwartz, has already examined the first corpse and will be able to draw comparisons.’

‘I’m more than happy to have the corpse transferred, provided you supply the appropriate authorisation from your police commissioner. That doesn’t mean I’m relinquishing the case.’

‘Your case, my case, they’re one and the same. Berlin Homicide have been investigating this for two weeks! Maybe if you had reported to Main Branch you’d be better informed.’

‘I haven’t breached any regulations.’

‘Maybe not, but you have shown an unwillingness to cooperate.’ Rath took care not to fly off the handle. ‘Isn’t it customary to look beyond the boundaries of your own precinct when confronted with a death like this and… I don’t know, search for parallels with other investigations?’

‘I’ll tell you what isn’t customary. Putting the blame on your colleagues. I can’t recall hearing anything about an unusual mode of death from Berlin. As I understand it, Inspector, your man was killed first.’

‘We had other things to deal with, like the threat of a Communist uprising. Besides, the story was in all the papers.’

‘Our case was in the papers too. Only you lot aren’t interested in what happens in Potsdam.’

The man was stubborn. ‘I’ll supply the necessary documentation,’ Rath said. ‘So that our offices can work together. In the meantime could I take a look at the corpse?’

Lehmann considered for a moment. ‘Fine. Come with me.’

The earthly remains of Linus Meifert were housed in a cooling cellar belonging to Potsdam Municipal Hospital, by the Berliner Tor. On the authority of Inspector Lehmann, who was well known here, they bypassed various doormen. A man in a white coat, approximately Rath’s age, joined them unbidden.

‘Dr Ehrmanntraut,’ Lehmann said. ‘He opened up the corpse at the behest of the public prosecutor.’

Rath shook the doctor’s hand. ‘We’re here because of a similar case in Berlin.’

‘Is that right?’

‘We suspect it could be the same killer. The deceased served together during the war.’

‘Is that right?’ seemed to be one of Ehrmanntraut’s favourite phrases. He opened a door leading to a cold storage room containing five biers. Cardboard signs dangled from the toes of the covered corpses. The doctor put on his glasses, checked the signs carefully and finally lifted the sheet from the penultimate bier. ‘This is him.’

Linus Meifert’s corpse was significantly less gruesome than that of his disfigured ex-comrade Wosniak, and better nourished. The dead man’s left nostril was one giant scab. ‘Can you tell me about the cross-section of the stab wound?’

‘Come again?’

‘Is the puncture channel unusual in any way?’

‘A long, sharp object, as I’ve already told Inspector Lehmann. You can refer to my report.’

‘I’m only asking because our cross-section was rather atypical.’

‘Who examined the corpse?’

‘Dr Schwartz.’

‘Is he still doing the rounds?’ Clearly Ehrmanntraut was no fan of the long-serving Berlin pathologist. Perhaps he had studied under Schwartz, and that, Rath guessed, would be no picnic. ‘We measured the length of the puncture wound,’ the doctor explained. ‘The shape of the cross-section didn’t seem relevant.’

‘Then please take another look,’ Rath said. ‘I’d stake my month’s salary on it being triangular.’

47

It was obvious now that Lieutenant Achim von Roddeck didn’t have a persecution complex, his fears were well-founded. Someone out there was assassinating members of his old troop. Two men who appeared in his war novel were now dead.

Whether this someone was Captain Benjamin Engel, missing, presumed dead, was a different matter. Previously Rath hadn’t thought so: Juretzka’s statement had been a means of activating the police commissioner’s anti-Semitic reflex so that he might reopen the Wosniak case. So far, so good – only now, it looked as if the whole thing might be real after all.

The corpse in Potsdam had made headlines in Berlin by Saturday morning. The police hadn’t informed the press, but they had informed Roddeck, and the news found its way into the Kreuzzeitung, which could continue beating the drum for its soon-to-be-published serial. A novel, for the sake of which people were being killed… naturally, readers were curious. Nibelungen had brought publication, initially scheduled for May, forward by four weeks and everyone sensed a big payday. Apparently even the lieutenant’s personal protection was being exploited: the Kreuzzeitung had published a picture of von Roddeck jutting his chin forward in the company of two scowling uniformed cops. The midday editions had followed suit, and though they failed to mention the novel’s forthcoming serialisation in the Kreuzzeitung, their copy brimmed with anti-Semitic undertones.

‘I don’t like the way this is going,’ said Dr Schwartz, on whose desk Meifert’s corpse – after a call from the Prussian Interior Ministry – had landed after all. ‘A mysterious Jew, wandering like Ahasver and butchering brave German veterans. It sounds like something from Der Stürmer.’

Rath shrugged as if he felt the need to apologise personally. ‘I don’t like it either, but the Jewish angle is what convinced the police commissioner to reopen the case.’

‘Anti-Semite as he is, I’m not surprised.’

Rath had never heard the long-standing pathologist be so disrespectful about a serving commissioner. For all the scorn he might reserve for weak-stomached CID officers, Dr Schwartz had always been loyal to the Berlin Police. That seemed to have changed.

Rath cleared his throat. ‘But you can confirm it’s the same modus operandi?’

‘The same puncture channel, almost the exact same spot. As if the perpetrator had done it many times, practised it even.’

‘A soldier then?’

‘Do you want his rank and religion?’

‘All right. I was only asking.’

‘What do you want to hear? That only a Jewish captain can kill in such a perfidious manner?’

‘I’m no anti-Semite, I’m just looking for a Jewish captain.’

‘You’re right, I’m sorry.’ Dr Schwartz sounded calmer again. ‘It’s just… in times like these… it can be hard to know what to think of people.’ He covered the corpse and looked at Rath. ‘Do you know what Dr Karthaus said to me yesterday? He told me to take early retirement!’

Gero Karthaus was Schwartz’s younger colleague. A little on the strange side, perhaps, but wiry and ambitious. Above all: not Jewish.

‘I’d be old enough, he said. In times like these, it would be better for all concerned. From one colleague to another, you understand.’ Schwartz shook his head. ‘Karthaus isn’t even a Nazi. It just suits him to swim with the tide.’

Rath wasn’t so sure about that. These days more and more Nazis chose to hide in plain sight.

48

On Sunday afternoon, having cast his vote in the local elections with Charly at his side, Rath sped across the North German Plain on the Fernverkehrstrasse 1. The journey would take approximately ten hours, with a couple of breaks thrown in. He’d sooner have sent Henning and Czerwinski, but Gennat insisted that he make the trip to the Rhineland himself. No doubt Buddha was still smarting at Magnus Levetzow calling him to report.

Charly wasn’t exactly thrilled, but there wasn’t a great deal she could say. Official assignments were sacred to her, especially when the order came from Gennat.

His first port of call was Magdeburg, where, according to Erika Voss’s research, Private Hermann Wibeau now lived. Eventually he found the right street, but no one answered the door. He kept ringing, and finally the front door opposite opened and a woman with small, crafty eyes peered through the crack.

‘Are you looking for Herr Wiebau?’

Rath looked at his note. ‘Hermann Wibeau. He lives here, doesn’t he?’

‘Herr Wiebau is a travelling salesman. He’s rarely at home.’

She made a point of mispronouncing the Huguenot name. Rath displayed equal force of will. ‘What does Herr Wibeau sell?’

The lady blushed. ‘How should I know?’

‘You’re his neighbour, aren’t you?’

‘So?’

‘What time does Herr Wibeau usually get home?’

‘Hard to say. The police were here yesterday, too. Has something happened?’

‘I sent them,’ Rath said, showing his identification. ‘CID, Berlin. Herr Wibeau is an important witness.’

He wrote a note on his card, and pushed it through Wibeau’s letterbox.

What a start. The same story in Elberfeld and Bonn would mean two or three days’ work, and any amount of petrol, for damn all.

He left Magdeburg and continued westwards, always in the direction of the sun. Passing through villages and towns, he was struck by the numbers of swastika flags hanging from windows, sometimes flying outside official buildings. It was polling day, of course, and the Germans loved nailing their colours to the mast, but in the course of the whole journey he didn’t see a single black-red-and-gold flag, let alone a red one. Voting wasn’t even over, and already it looked as if the Nazis had assumed control of Prussia’s town halls. Country dwellers had long since accepted the new powers, while Berlin and other cities resisted still.

Somewhere beyond Hildesheim, he stopped for the second time, parking outside one of the few country inns that hadn’t been converted into a polling station. The front was draped in black-white-and-red, but at least there was no swastika. It was still cold, though with the sun shining all day it felt as if spring were in the air. Rath ordered a cup of coffee, lit a cigarette and fetched Roddeck’s manuscript from his pocket.

Roddeck must have thought Engel was dead when he wrote these lines. Now the fallen captain had murdered two men. Rath paid and went on his way. Shortly before dusk he reached Elberfeld.

Friedrich Grimberg, Roddeck’s former demolition expert, lived on Tannenbergstrasse, on the shores of the Wupper, the suspension monorail rumbling along at eye level outside the windows of his second floor flat. Its passengers could see into his rooms, and most were glad of the distraction.

‘Doesn’t it bother you?’ Rath asked in Grimberg’s living room. Pans clattered in the kitchen. It was supper time.

‘You get used to it. I’ve nothing to hide. If it becomes a nuisance, I just pull the curtains.’

‘I understand my colleagues from Elberfeld have spoken with you already?’

‘One was here last night to check I was still alive. What’s all this about? My wife was beside herself.’ Rath outlined Roddeck’s tale in a few words. ‘Achim von Roddeck has joined the literary fraternity?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘You have to earn your crust.’ Grimberg shrugged. ‘I have remained within my trade, though I now work as a quarry blaster.’

‘Tell me about what happened back then. The murder of the two civilians and the recruit.’

‘I wasn’t there.’

‘Ah…’

‘I stayed on in the village to lay the traps. Everything had to be ready for our withdrawal the next day.’

The traps. The way Grimberg spoke about them you’d think they were jumping jacks, but they had claimed the lives of countless British and French soldiers.

‘It was one of your traps that killed Captain Engel, am I right?’

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘It’s just a question.’

‘They were all mine. It’s why I was there on the morning of the retreat, when the captain carried out the inspection.’

‘And this one trap was faulty…’

‘Inspector, to this day I don’t know how it happened, but it certainly wasn’t faulty.’

‘Then why did it go off?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps a pigeon strayed into the dugout and became caught in the wire. Fluttered around a bit, and then: boom!’

‘What wire?’

‘The fuse was to be activated by a wire in the final dugout. It wasn’t supposed to go off until as many enemies as possible had entered our abandoned trenches.’

‘Sounds brutal.’

‘War is brutal, Inspector. Those were our orders.’

‘What about requisitioning and hiding French gold? How did that square with your orders?’

‘It didn’t.’ Grimberg looked around, as if afraid his wife might hear. ‘I blame myself to this day.’

‘But you said yourself, you weren’t there when it was hidden.’

‘I knew about it, and said nothing.’ He shrugged. ‘Still, why should it matter now? The gold’s gone.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Didn’t Roddeck tell you? That we were in France again, after the war was over?’

‘No.’ Rath didn’t mention that he’d failed to question Roddeck properly because he didn’t believe his story.

‘We crossed the border on different days, and at different checkpoints, to avoid suspicion. It isn’t so easy to get into France. You need a visa, and have to say exactly where you are going and why. Each of us had a different story for the French authorities, and it wasn’t until Cambrai that we met. Roddeck was even more cautious. He only sent his shadow.’

‘Who?’

‘Wosniak, his orderly. He could trust him. Wosniak worshipped Roddeck like a saint.’

‘Yet in recent years the good lieutenant rather neglected his faithful Henrich.’

‘He had enough problems keeping himself above water, our Herr Gigolo.’

‘Roddeck’s a dance host?’

‘An author too, it seems. Whatever: he certainly could have done with the French gold back then. But it wasn’t there.’

‘The French found it before you?’

‘Looks that way, Inspector, and I must say, disappointed as I was, I feel only relief now.’

‘When was this?’

‘Summer ’24.’

‘So late?’

‘We needed time to find our feet again after the war, and it wasn’t easy for a German to travel to France in those first years. Inflation meant our money wasn’t worth anything.’ Grimberg had to pause, as a train rattled past his window. The rumble and squeal was hellishly loud. ‘Anyway, we were too late. No one wanted to believe the gold was gone. Wosniak even accused Meifert of having pinched it.’

‘The maths teacher?’

‘Minus Meifert might not have been the bravest, but he was crafty.’

‘You suspected each other?’

‘Initially perhaps, but little by little it became clear that none of us could have done it. We were too poor. Meifert was the one who said it. Look at us! Do we look rich? And, if one of us were rich, would he be here now?’

‘In that case you must have suspected Roddeck. He wasn’t there.’

‘But his shadow was, and if anyone had said anything against his lieutenant, he’d have gone for their throat.’

‘More of an attack dog than a shadow then.’

‘If you like. No one fancied taking on Wosniak, but the truth is no one suspected Roddeck. He was a classic case of impoverished nobility. You think someone like that willingly goes into hotels and allows rich, fat and, worst of all, bourgeois women to bore him silly?’

‘You seem to know a lot about the German upper classes.’

‘I’ve encountered plenty of noblemen in uniform.’ He gave a scornful look. ‘Without that sort of baggage we might have won the war, and Germany certainly wouldn’t have such a bad reputation.’

‘I thought it was people like Captain Engel who dragged the country’s reputation through the mire. That’s what Roddeck writes, anyway.’

‘I’m in no position to judge.’

‘Did the captain own a trench dagger?’

‘Everyone who fought in the trenches did.’

‘Yes, but Engel’s was unique, wasn’t it?’

‘I don’t remember. All I know is that Engel was one of the few officers who didn’t shy away from trench warfare.’

‘Did he enjoy killing? Is that why he was known as Todesengel?’

‘He was called that because he was responsible for the casualties in Alberich territory. As was I, only I didn’t acquire a nickname.’

‘Because you weren’t an officer?’

‘Perhaps because I wasn’t Jewish either. Engel wasn’t popular in the troop, that’s true. He was too ambitious for a lot of them. Doesn’t take long to get a reputation. There were some who really hated him.’

‘What about you? Did you hate him?’

‘He was my commanding officer. Not best friend material, but hatred?’ Grimberg shook his head. ‘Captain Engel valued my work, and I respected him.’ Again he looked around as if someone might hear. ‘I know what you’re driving at, Inspector. Believe me, I’ve asked myself often enough.’

‘And?’

Grimberg shrugged. ‘A charge can always misfire once it’s primed. But… at that very instant?’ He looked at Rath as if he were expecting a follow-up question, but none came. ‘It happens more often than you might think. Even if it’s never talked about.’

‘What does?’

‘Soldiers killing their commanding officers and presenting it as an accident. It just takes someone unpopular enough, and a few like-minded souls. And an opportunity.’

‘But, killed for being… unpopular?’

‘If it’s someone who sends his men into battle without heed to the consequences, or who’s a brutal slave-driver… yes, at some point, that’s the type of man you’d want to kill.’

‘And Engel? Was he a brutal slave-driver?’

‘Not that I’m aware of. He was strict, arrogant perhaps, but he was hated because he was a Jew, and had dared to become a captain.’

Rath thought of his former boss, Bernhard Weiss, whose safety was no longer guaranteed. Weiss, too, had emerged from the war as a highly decorated captain, a fact which only stoked the anti-Semitism of his opponents. The more patriotic Jews were, and the greater their sense of duty to the Fatherland, the more bitter the hatred became.

‘You have your suspicions?’

‘Like I said, Engel wasn’t held in very high regard.’

‘But someone must have been on hand to detonate the trap?’

‘Or they manipulated it and moved the wire to a different site, right at the entrance to the trenches.’ He looked at Rath. ‘If so, it must have been someone who didn’t care if Thelen and I were killed too. The fact that we were still standing by the car when Engel went in was pure coincidence. I should have been there, inspecting the traps with him.’

‘If it was an attack…’ Rath considered, ‘could you have been a target?’

‘I was a nobody, Inspector. A man like me didn’t attract hatred or envy, but it must have been someone who thought my life was worthless.’

‘What about Thelen? Would he have stayed by the car whatever?’

‘That was how it was with the others we inspected. He was only the driver.’

‘Do you think he might have been capable? How was his relationship with Engel?’

‘You’d have to ask him yourself. I barely knew him. He was transferred to the Eastern Front shortly afterwards.’

‘You looked for Engel together…’

‘Yes, even though it was futile, burrowing through rubble like that. Then the British artillery started firing, and we made sure we got out.’

‘But no one saw the corpse?’

‘No.’

‘Did anyone look for him later?’

‘It wasn’t possible. The enemy was advancing. It was no longer German territory. Leaving an unidentified corpse behind like that, it happened all the time. Plenty more died agonising deaths, because no one could get to them.’

‘Would it be possible to survive one of your booby-traps?’

‘We always packed a lot of scrap metal around the explosive charge. Nails, sheet metal, old screws, things like that. Pretty lethal when it flies through the air.’ Grimberg spoke as if he were explaining the workings of a pressure cooker. ‘With a little luck, you could survive a hailstorm of metal like that,’ he said, adopting a sceptical expression. ‘The question is whether you’d want to. Sometimes, death can be a mercy.’

49

Charly stood at the window and looked at the full moon over Carmerstrasse and the gaslight below. Previously she might have gone out on an evening like this, perhaps met up with Greta or her former classmates, but somehow she didn’t feel like it. What was happening out there made her sick. It was as if a wicked conjuror had cast a spell on her beloved Berlin, and transformed it beyond recognition.

The city she knew still existed; the people, the bars, the streets, but to access it she had to pass at least a dozen swastika flags, and tonight she couldn’t stomach it. Now that the election campaign was over, she hoped they would disappear and Berlin might begin to look normal again, and not like an occupied city. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt an almost bottomless aversion to the swastika, the symbol of the new party of government – and this despite its geometrically perfect form.

These days Nazi flags even flew outside police headquarters; the black-red-and-gold of the Republic had served its time. Systemzeit was the name given to the years of the Republic, making it sound as if democracy were an aberration in German history.

For Kirie’s sake she still left the house, of course. The dog had to be walked no matter what. After a long excursion following Gereon’s departure, tonight a brief stroll would have to suffice.

Waiting for Kirie to perform her business, Charly gazed up at number 3, Steinplatz. The second floor windows were all dark. It was a week now since Bernhard Weiss had fled, but still she was worried.

Late as it was, she decided not to return to Carmerstrasse but to take a detour to Uhlandstrasse. She rang on Adolf Weiss’s door, and it was some time before a maid opened. No doubt she was afraid it might be an SA wrecking crew.

Adolf Weiss might not have said so as he received her, but fear was writ large on his face. The SA had been in Pension Teske already. Somehow, Weiss said, after the maid had brought tea and set a bowl down for Kirie, the brownshirts must have got wind that little Hilde Weiss had been staying there with her grandmother. Luckily Bernhard Weiss had left with his wife after a single night and fled to a friend’s house in Hamburg. Arriving too late, the SA had tried to take Hilde hostage and it was only through the intervention of a courageous lawyer guest that the situation had been resolved. His brother had returned soon after to collect his daughter and mother-in-law.

‘He was here?’ Charly asked, barely able to conceal her horror. ‘When the SA are out for his neck?’

‘He had to get his little girl.’

The family were now on their way out of the country, stopping in a new city each day, never spending more than a single night in the same hotel. Adolf Weiss couldn’t say exactly where they were, or didn’t want to. Charly could understand why. Before taking her leave she asked him to send her best wishes when he could.

Even in the moonlight there was no missing the flags on Steinplatz, and Charly was relieved to arrive home with Kirie. How empty the apartment felt without Gereon! She was missing him after just half a day.

Kirie curled up in her basket and was already dozing when she turned on the radio and opened a bottle of red wine. She flopped onto Gereon’s favourite armchair. Tonight it belonged to her.

There was only music on the radio, nothing on today’s vote. She lit a Juno and tried to read…

…before catching herself staring out of the window, thinking dark thoughts, snapping awake as she gazed into the eyes of the woman reflected in the glass.

My God, she thought. You’re becoming more and more like Gereon Rath. Sitting here drinking yourself to sleep, alone. At least she hadn’t started on the cognac. She had heard that, after a number of years together, spouses began to resemble one another. To think, they weren’t even married yet.

Either way she couldn’t concentrate on the novel she was supposed to be reading, even though it was by no means bad. Her thoughts kept returning to the last few weeks, to all the Nazi spite and brutality. They had caught everyone off guard. Everyone, not just the Communists.

The telephone rang. She lifted herself out of the chair and picked up the receiver, realising she was starting to sway slightly. Best hold off on the wine after this glass. It was Gereon.

‘Charly, how’s it going? How was your day?’

‘Lousy. How about yours? Were you successful?’

‘Define successful.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘Elberfeld. That is, Wuppertal, I should say. Just got to the hotel.’ She sensed there was something on his mind. ‘Charly,’ he began. ‘You like dancing, don’t you…’

Where was he going with this?

‘Perhaps,’ he continued, ‘you could do me a favour?’

50

Rath gazed out of the window. You could see the Rhine from here, and the peaks of the Siebengebirge mountains. Was that the Drachenfels? The so-called Dragon’s Rock? Now the name of the road made sense. Eva Heinen, the widow Engel, lived in the Gronau district of Bonn, in a splendid villa on Drachenfelsstrasse, not far from the banks of the Rhine, but, according to the man-servant who opened the door, was currently indisposed.

‘I don’t know that the mistress can receive you. She’s very busy.’

‘I think she’ll make time. I’d hate to ask the mistress to accompany me to the police station.’

Rath’s words worked like a charm, and soon the man was leading him up to the first floor, to a kind of drawing room, where he was asked to wait. He had been standing here ever since, smoking and gazing into the dawn. Towards the north the view was hampered by a modern building covered in scaffolding, but the Rhine panorama directly in front of the Heinen residence remained unspoiled.

He turned from the window and ambled across the room to a photograph of a man in captain’s uniform, by his side an attractive, serious-looking woman; in front of them two children, a small curly-haired girl, and a boy of perhaps twelve who looked just as serious as his mother despite standing in front of a Christmas tree. Like many Jewish families, the Engels seemed to have celebrated Hanukkah like Christmas. Was this the last time they’d marked it as a family? Benjamin Engel had been missing since March 1917.

December 1916 was also when the war diaries came to an end. Seeing them on the shelf Rath began leafing through them. Benjamin Engel’s estate: less stories of combat than everyday routine, and written in such a way as to be suitable for female readers, devoid of obscenity and the cruelties of war. A sanitised account for the family.

The door opened after he’d finished his second cigarette, and the servant announced that the mistress would be with him presently. He just had time to return the notebooks to the shelf before she appeared.

He recognised her from the photograph; a slender, dark-haired woman in her mid-forties whose natural elegance made him gasp. He almost kissed her hand, settling in the end for a simple ‘Good morning.’

Eva Heinen led him to a suite by the window and invited him to take a seat.

‘Jakobus, would you make some tea,’ she said, and the servant disappeared. ‘I was told you’d be here, Inspector – only, I’m afraid I must have misunderstood your colleagues from Bonn. It concerns my dead husband?’

‘That’s right, yes.’ Rath cleared his throat. He felt as if he had been blindsided. He’d hoped to begin on a more innocuous subject. ‘It’s… Frau Heinen, is it possible that your husband survived the war?’

‘What sort of question is that? Are you trying to mock me?’

‘Absolutely not. It’s just… We believe it’s possible that he wasn’t killed in action, and…’

‘Don’t you think I’d know about it? That Benjamin would have contacted me? His wife, his children?’

‘You have children with him?’ Rath asked, knowing that she did.

‘Two. Walther is studying in Berlin, Edith lives here with me. She’s just turned nineteen.’

‘Then your daughter was nine when you had your husband declared dead. It was ten years ago, am I right?’

‘Nine.’

‘Why did you do it?’

‘Why did I do what?’

‘Rob your children of a father.’

‘That was the war, not me.’

‘You had him declared dead without needing to.’

‘Why do you think I did it?’

‘You tell me.’

‘For seven years I clung to the hope that he might have survived. Can you imagine what that felt like?’

Rath could imagine it all too well. His brother Anno had fallen in the first year of war; his mother had only accepted his death once she had seen her eldest son’s corpse.

‘What about your children? How did they take it?’

‘At some point you have to deal with the fact that reality doesn’t always care about your wishes. That’s why I had Benjamin declared dead. Because I couldn’t spend the rest of my life waiting for a ghost, and I couldn’t expect my children to either.’

Rath was glad to see the maid appear with the tea and an opportunity to change tack. He waited until she had filled their cups and taken her leave.

‘I’d like to get a picture of your husband. How would you characterise him?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Was he a quiet sort? Or more temperamental? Choleric, even?’

‘He was a quiet, gentle man. A little distant, perhaps. Some people thought he was arrogant as a result.’

‘Could he be cold-blooded?’

‘I don’t know what he was like in the war. I imagine he would have been as cold-blooded as any captain in the reserves.’

‘I mean in the sense of unscrupulous. Merciless.’

‘Inspector, I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Why don’t you just tell me what this is about, so I can answer your questions.’

Rath sighed and told her about Achim von Roddeck’s war memoirs and what had been happening in Berlin. Eva Heinen listened without interrupting.

‘He shot three people? You don’t seriously believe that? This author of yours must be delirious.’

‘It’s the first you’ve heard of it?’ She nodded. ‘Soon the story will be available to read in the paper, and that, according to Roddeck, is why these people, these witnesses, are being murdered. Because your husband is alive, and means to hinder publication at any cost.’ Eva Heinen shook her head indignantly. ‘I realise it’s hard for you to conceive of your husband as a murderer, but believe me, if there’s one thing I have learned in all my years as a homicide detective, it is this: anyone can kill. In war, it goes without saying.’

‘This whole story… it can’t be true. Why, in all these years, has no one filed charges against him?’

‘Because the witnesses felt guilty on account of the theft, and when your husband died the following day, in their eyes justice was served.’

‘You believe he’s still alive, don’t you? So, what now?’

‘I believe in facts,’ Rath said. ‘But yes, there are former companions of your husband who believe it, two of whom have been murdered.’

‘Then catch their killer, but don’t chase a phantom. My husband is dead!’

‘I understand it’s hard for you to believe what I’m saying, but there are many clues which corroborate it.’

‘Such as?’

‘Did your husband own a trench dagger?’

‘I was never interested in that sort of thing. And he… he didn’t leave anything behind, no uniform, no weapons. Not even a body. We buried an empty coffin, down at the cemetery.’

‘The Jewish cemetery?’

‘No, why?’

‘Your husband was of the Mosaic faith…’

‘What makes you think that? Benjamin was baptised Roman Catholic before our wedding. My parents insisted on it, and he didn’t mind. He was never especially religious. Do you really think he could have become a reserve officer in the Prussian army as a Jew? It was only possible because he was baptised.’

‘He was still perceived as Jewish, and experienced difficulties because of it.’

‘Once a Jew, always a Jew… Perhaps people resented him for being allowed to serve as an officer.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘My husband wasn’t someone you could get close to.’ Eva Heinen sounded brusque. ‘And that had nothing to do with being Jewish.’

‘Roddeck describes your husband as cold and calculating, with a penchant for sadism. Todesengel, his unit called him.’

‘That doesn’t sound like the Benjamin I knew.’

‘Be that as it may…’ Rath sensed he wasn’t getting anywhere. He stood and handed the woman his card. ‘If your husband should be alive and contact you, please inform me immediately.’

‘Why would I do that? If I’ve understood correctly, you believe he’s a killer.’

‘Perhaps you’d do it to prove his innocence. If you’re so convinced of it.’

‘I’m convinced that a dead man can’t kill, Inspector. I would advise you to pursue other leads.’

He said his goodbyes and made for the door where Jakobus was waiting to see him out. Before Rath got into his car he looked up. Eva Heinen stood at the window watching him. She didn’t flinch as their eyes met, nor did she draw the curtain. She looked as if she meant to hypnotise him, or place him under a curse.

51

Charly’s first port of call on Monday morning was Registry. On the way she ran into Detective Kellermann from H Division, with whom she’d dealt regularly when she was still allowed to work for Gennat. ‘Charly,’ he said. ‘Long time no see. Here to inhale some dust?’

‘Looks that way. I see you’ve had your dose.’ A yellowing batch of files was wedged under his arm.

‘Thanks,’ he said, feigning a sneeze. She had always liked him.

‘What’s new in Warrants?’ she asked.

‘I’ve never chased so many Communists in my life. I’ll be surprised if they have the numbers for a revolution.’

‘Forget the Communists. What about the national revolution?’

Kellermann changed the subject. ‘You’re interested in this fugitive arsonist, aren’t you? The one who escaped from Dalldorf?’ Perhaps he was worried about being overheard. Germany had become a nation of cowards.

‘Hannah Singer. Have you found her?’

‘No, but she was seen last week, on Thursday or Friday I think. At Bahnhof Zoo.’

‘Seen by whom?’

‘A witness recognised her and tried to detain her, but she got away. By the time police officers moved in she was long gone.’

‘What kind of witness?’

‘Take a look at the report.’ He winked. ‘It’s on Inspector Rath’s desk.’

Not for the first time she realised her impending marriage to Gereon was an open secret. ‘Thanks for the heads-up.’

She hadn’t stopped thinking about Hannah Singer since her visit to Dalldorf, and had collected any information she could find on the girl. According to the files, Hannah was nine years old when her mother died, and things had gone downhill soon after. Within six months, she and her father, a rag-and-bone man who had lost the use of his legs during the war, were evicted from their flat. It wasn’t clear when they had wound up in the Crow’s Nest, but Hannah was first arrested for begging on the Weidendammer Bridge in autumn 1929. On that occasion she had been spared being committed to a home because her father appeared at the police station accompanied by Heinrich Wosniak, who pledged that he would look after the helpless father and his half-grown daughter.

Charly had circled the name Wosniak where it appeared in the files. Hannah was starting to take shape. Even if the details were hard to verify, it was increasingly clear that she had endured a slave’s existence in the Crow’s Nest. An eleven-year-old girl living with thirty- to fifty-year-old men! It must have been hell. Selling matches in all weathers was probably the least of it. Setting fire to the shack on Bülowplatz had been a desperate attempt at freedom, but two of her tormentors had survived while her father perished. What must she have felt on seeing the image of the dead Heinrich Wosniak, and that of her father from a time when all this was still ahead? Charly was no psychologist, but the photos must have brought any number of memories to the surface, and triggered Hannah’s episode soon after.

She felt infinitely sympathetic towards this girl with eight lives on her conscience, and certainly didn’t view her as a killer. Perhaps she wasn’t even mad, just damaged at her very core.

The thought stayed with her in Registry as she searched half-heartedly for the files that were next on her and Karin’s list. More gangs of youths… It was almost as if, buoyed by her success with the Red Rats, Friederike Wieking intended to wipe out every wild posse going.

Having joked about it moments before, the odour of dust now made Charly sick for real. Returning to her office with the files, she didn’t even have to put on a show.

‘Charly, what’s wrong?’ Karin van Almsick asked.

‘What do you mean?

‘You look terrible. Do you not feel well?’

‘I just threw up.’

‘Perhaps you’d better go home.’

‘I was off work just recently.’

‘There isn’t much to do right now. The Rats are behind bars. The worst is over.’

Charly set the pile of files on Karin’s desk. ‘But off work, again… what will Wieking say?’

‘Well, I have my suspicions there… but don’t worry, my lips are sealed!’

‘What suspicions?’

Karin grinned. ‘Ever thought you might be… I mean, have you… could you be… ah… in the family way?’

‘God forbid!’ She didn’t mean to sound so appalled.

‘I know you two aren’t married yet, but…’ Karin looked to the side in embarrassment. ‘Well, you’re not that strict, are you?’

‘Pregnant…’ Charly shook her head. ‘That’s all I need.’

‘There’s no point torturing yourself here. Maybe you should go to the doctor.’

A quarter of an hour later, Charly waited for the S-Bahn at Alexanderplatz with Kirie on her lead, a pile of files under her arm, and a satisfied smile on her face. She had struggled to hold it together inside. Pregnant! If only Karin van Almsick knew what measures she was taking to prevent it, that in Paris she’d even had an abortion… which was something Gereon could never know about.

Kirie had wagged her tail when she realised they were heading out again. Usually she didn’t get a walk until lunchtime. Despite looking sceptical when Charly mentioned taking documents home for Inspector Rath, Erika Voss had handed everything over, even the file Gereon hadn’t requested yesterday evening. Either he knew nothing about the recent sighting of Hannah Singer, or he still wasn’t interested.

Leaving the S-Bahn at Savignyplatz Charly made for Carmerstrasse, where she put on coffee and started leafing through the file from Warrants. Right now that was the one that counted, not Gereon’s dossier on Achim von Roddeck.

The name of the witness who had sighted Hannah at Bahnhof Zoo wasn’t noted anywhere. He had disappeared before the cops on the ground could take his particulars. Even so, it seemed clear that it was, indeed, Hannah he had seen. Her clothes were more or less a match for those stolen from the Jonass Department Store, where she’d left behind her nightshirt and cleaning overalls, both of which she’d worn since Dalldorf. The dark blue coat was more of a mystery, and hadn’t been reported missing from either Jonass or the asylum. From Bahnhof Zoo she had apparently taken a tram to Wilmersdorf, where the trail was lost.

Charly wrote the names of the cops in her notebook, along with the description of the witness, helped herself to one of the police photos of Hannah, and went on her way. She felt certain that Wilmersdorf was a red herring; Hannah’s life had centred around northern and eastern Berlin, and the area around Bülowplatz. No, Charly’s starting point would be Bahnhof Zoo. Clearly Hannah had business there, perhaps selling her body to make ends meet.

Kirie seemed to be enjoying her newfound freedom to roam. Before turning down Hardenbergstrasse Charly asked the newspaper vendor at Steinplatz for a copy of the Kreuzzeitung.

‘Sold out. Went like hot cakes this morning. You might get one at the train station.’

‘That’s where I’m headed anyway.’

‘Interested in the new serial?’

‘My husband is.’

Five minutes later she found herself back at Bahnhof Zoo, one of the ugliest but busiest train stations in Berlin. It was an affluent part of town but, if you kept your eyes peeled, you could see any number of street children begging, selling dubious goods, sometimes even themselves, or simply loitering around. She made the rounds with Hannah’s photo. ‘Excuse me, do you know this girl?’

All she received were head shakes and the odd comment. ‘Lady, why don’t you just give me a mark? I don’t need these questions.’

She carried on undeterred, asking not only youths but also war veterans who had sacrificed their health in the trenches and now competed for the sympathy of passers-by. Charly found it increasingly hard not to give these pitiful wretches money. Poor souls… although the youths were just as pitiful, none of them knowing where they would spend the night, only that they preferred this existence to the prospect of life in the protectory. Which is where they would find themselves if arrested.

That was unlikely, however. Unless they felt passers-by were being unduly harassed, the police let the kids do as they pleased, although the SA auxiliary officer next to the two beat cops, German Shepherd on its lead beside him, might have other ideas. The SA was unpredictable, which explained why its men inspired such respect – or such fear.

A red-haired boy who was begging in a cheeky, but charming, way had been watching her out of the corner of his eye. ‘Excuse me, lady,’ he said, ‘but I lost my ticket and mother is waiting for me at home in Bernau. You wouldn’t have ten pfennig for a poor apprentice lad?’

‘You’re an apprentice, are you? What are you doing out here, then?’ The clock by the underpass showed a quarter past twelve.

‘Baker’s apprentice,’ he said cheekily. He had a strong Berlin accent.

Aware that he was lying through his teeth, Charly reached inside her purse for a ten-pfennig coin. Before handing it over, she showed him the photo. ‘Do you know this girl?’

‘Why would I? Does she look like a baker to you?’

‘She spends a lot of time here. Her name is Hannah.’

‘What’s she done?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you’re looking for her, which means you’re either her mother or from Welfare, and you’re not her mother.’

He made the word ‘Welfare’ sound like a contagious disease. His eyes flitted this way and that, ready to make a run at any moment.

‘Wrong on both counts.’ Charly smiled. ‘I’m from the police. I want to help you.’

‘Understood. Your friendly local police department. So, she has done something?’

‘I think there’s someone after her.’

‘Why are you telling me this? I don’t know the girl.’

‘Are you sure?’ She looked him in the eye, certain he was lying. He must care about Hannah, or he’d have bolted by now.

‘Lady, you expect me to remember every face that passes through? That’s a whole lot of people. It’s not like I lose my ticket every day.’

She handed him the coin, along with a piece of paper with her name and address. ‘If you happen to see her, tell her that Charlotte Ritter from the police knows that she’s in danger. She needn’t worry that I’ll have her sent back.’

‘Sent back?’

‘To Dalldorf.’

The boy looked surprised. Hannah obviously hadn’t told him about her past, but who tells someone they’ve escaped from a mental asylum, or that they have eight people on their conscience? He grinned at her and strolled off, slowly increasing his pace until he was almost running. He looked like someone trying to catch a train.

She waited until the SA officer had stubbed out his cigarette and continued on his way before speaking to the two beat cops. The German Shepherd barked at Kirie, but the auxiliary officer tipped his SA cap by way of apology and smiled. So, friendly Nazis did exist, and they had reason to be cheerful since, as of today, they had control of the town halls as well as the Reich Chancellery. She produced her identification.

‘Are you from Warrants?’ the cop said. ‘They pestered the hell out of us the day before yesterday. Not that they found the little brat either.’

‘No, no. Women’s CID.’

‘We have to find her before Welfare get involved.’

‘Welfare’ was all G Division was to her male colleagues. She swallowed her anger. ‘This man who saw her, what was he like?’.

‘He had a lot of facial scars. A war veteran if you ask me.’

‘Like one of them?’ Charly gestured towards the beggars at the station.

‘He was much better dressed, but his face was a sight. He had a limp too.’

‘Yet he managed to get away before you could take down his personal particulars.’

‘We couldn’t have known he’d take off, and we had to report to Alex and our colleagues in Wilmersdorf. There was plenty to do.’

‘Don’t you think it’s strange that a witness should slip away like that? After making such a song and dance about having the girl detained.’

‘He’ll have had his reasons. Maybe didn’t want his old lady to know he’d been hanging around Bahnhof Zoo.’

‘How did he know the girl then? Did he say? There weren’t any pictures of her in the papers.’

‘He was gone before we had the chance to ask.’

52

Rath needed less than half an hour to reach Cologne. Adenauer’s new automobile highway, the Kraftwagenstrasse, made it seem as if Bonn were a suburb of Cologne, rather than a city thirty kilometres away. The four-lane road, including twenty kilometres without an intersection, was intended to promote the city’s modernisation and create employment in difficult times. In the summer his father had asked him to attend the opening. Like the Rosenmontag invitation, it was an attempt to integrate him into Cologne’s inner circle, but a gunshot wound to his shoulder, a painful reminder of his adventures in Masuria, had served as a convenient excuse.

It was fun driving the Buick at full speed again. The last time had been on the AVUS in Berlin. It wasn’t until Bonner Strasse, Cologne’s southern arterial road, that he took his foot off the gas. The city had changed in the two weeks since he had left. The closer he came to the Rings, the wide boulevards that encircled Cologne’s centre, the more swastikas he saw, and not just on public buildings. The Nazis were everywhere. Only a few weeks ago city workers had removed unauthorised flags from the bridge. Try it now, and they would find themselves in the Rhine.

Apart from the swastikas though, the city looked the same. Maybe not that much had changed after all. There was no point getting worked up. He parked outside the entrance at Sudermanstrasse, and felt his guilty conscience and a host of unpleasant memories stir. A helpful female assistant, whom he had never seen before, opened the door and smiled at him. He placed a finger to his lips. ‘I’m a friend,’ he said, and gestured towards the office door. ‘I wanted to surprise Herr Wittkamp.’

His knock was met with a weary ‘come in’. Rath entered the office, the sight of which triggered yet more memories: wine bottles, mouse ears, the morning after the night before… Paul was entering something in a thick notebook. ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked without looking up.

‘Look at you, starving away. How about I buy you lunch?’

Paul looked up, wide-eyed. ‘You? Forget your toothbrush in the rush?’

‘I guess I owe you an explanation.’

‘An apology will do. There isn’t a lot to explain.’

‘Ha! I thought it was the other way round.’ Paul looked at him angrily. ‘Anyway,’ Rath continued. ‘I thought I’d buy us lunch. My way of putting things right. What do you think, or have I come at a bad time?’

‘You always come at a bad time. It’s never stopped you in the past.’ Paul screwed the lid back on his fountain pen and stood up. ‘Or me, for that matter.’

Weinhaus Brungs was near the town hall, a tavern which had opened in the rooms of a long-established in-house brewery that had recently ceased production. Seats and tables were made from wine cases, which gave an authentic feel.

‘Clients of yours?’ Rath asked once they had taken their seats.

‘Of course. It’s win-win. You buy me lunch, they re-order my stock.’

‘Let’s not go wild. It’s only lunchtime – and it’s Lent.’

‘Fish it is, then,’ Paul said. ‘I hear the trout au bleu is very good.’

The waiter arrived with the menus, and Paul ordered a bottle of Moselle.

‘One of yours?’ Rath asked once the waiter was gone.

‘My best drop,’ said Paul. Rath had an inkling this wouldn’t be cheap. ‘So, you want to straighten things out?’

‘Why do you think I’m here? This wine tastes pretty expensive.’

‘I mean with the girl.’

‘How do you propose I do that?’

‘What about gently informing her that you have no future as a couple.’

‘She’ll have guessed that by now.’

‘Perhaps. But there’s guessing and there’s knowing… It’s time you cleaned up your own mess for a change.’

‘You’re right.’

‘I’m not just talking about poor Hilde.’

‘What do you want me to do? I can hardly tell Charly.’

‘God forbid!’ Paul looked at him with unusual seriousness. ‘Didn’t I say you’d have me to deal with if you ever pull a stunt like this again?’

‘Whose witness are you anyway?’

‘I’m serious, Gereon.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’ll just have to forget about Carnival as a married man.’

‘If this is how it ends, maybe you should.’

‘The Nazis will ban it anyway.’

‘Why?’

‘Sense of humour isn’t really their thing.’

‘Adenauer’s hardly Carnival’s greatest fan either. And he collected money so that the parade could take place this year. The powers-that-be know how to make themselves popular…’

‘I wonder if it always works like that…’

‘Not for Adenauer anyway.’

Paul fell silent. The waiter came with their dishes and poured more wine.

‘Has Adenauer been voted out?’ Rath asked once the waiter had disappeared.

Paul looked around. ‘Let’s not discuss it here,’ he said.

They ate in silence, and by the time they were finished they had emptied the bottle. Rath looked out of the window as people filed past, many of them in brown uniforms. ‘What’s this?’ he asked. ‘They’re heading for the town hall, aren’t they?’

Paul placed his napkin to one side. ‘No idea, but let’s go. I need to get back.’

The bill made a dent in Rath’s wallet, but he left a decent tip all the same. Could he put the meal on expenses? He pocketed the receipt.

He hadn’t managed to find a space in the narrow alleyway in front of the restaurant and had parked a few metres down the road by the town hall, where an enormous throng was now gathered. His car was surrounded. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked a passer-by.

‘Haven’t you heard?’ The man had a thick Cologne accent. ‘The party occupied the town hall this morning. Adenauer’s scarpered.’

‘Which party?’ Rath asked. Stupid question.

‘Dr Riesen is mayor now.’

‘The Nazi? That’s why all these people are here?’

‘He’s going to make a speech about what’s going to happen in Cologne, now that Adenauer and his cronies are gone.’

‘I never thought the Nazis would get a majority in Cologne,’ he said to Paul across the roof of the car.

‘They didn’t, not even with the German National People’s Party.’

‘Then how come they get to pick the new mayor?’

Paul waited until they were inside the Buick with both doors closed and Rath had the engine running. ‘The Nazis took the town hall this morning by force. Adenauer did well to stay away. They might just have put him up against a wall, like they were threatening last time you were here.’

Rath rarely discussed politics with Paul, and was relieved his friend couldn’t stand the Nazis either. ‘In Catholic Cologne of all places. I thought they voted Centre here.’

‘Not by a long shot. The police even banned them from holding a rally on Friday. Adenauer’s final campaign speech was cancelled. Even he could no longer do anything about the swastika flags on his town hall. Things have been frantic since the Reichstag vote.’

Rath manoeuvred the Buick out of its space and through the milling mass at a snail’s pace. It took some time before he had a clear run, and people could be seen again on the pavements. People going about their daily business without uniforms or flags. There was still such a thing as normal. The crowds outside the town hall had seemed so unreal it was as if all this were happening in another city – in another world.

At Platz der Republik he stopped to let Paul out. ‘Braunsfeld,’ his friend said, leaning over the window. ‘Blumhoffer Nachfolger. Hildegard Sprenger, Sales.’

Rath gave a wry smile, and saluted. ‘Aye, aye, Sir!’

He drove on, lost in thought, without the slightest idea how he was going to tell this girl, whom he hadn’t seen for two weeks, that she was just a one-night stand. Stopping at a florist, he bought a small bouquet and drove via Aachener Strasse to Braunsfeld. The lemonade factory wasn’t as big as he’d expected. Trucks were being loaded on the yard, but with metal barrels rather than bottle crates. He asked the porter for Fräulein Sprenger from Sales, concealing the flowers behind his back.

‘First floor, second door on the right.’

Hilde Sprenger looked at him wide-eyed as he peered through the door. Annoyingly she wasn’t alone; a female colleague sat at the desk opposite. ‘Now, there’s a surprise,’ she said. ‘Are they for me?’

‘The porter actually, but he didn’t want them.’ She laughed a perfectly nice, normal laugh. ‘I thought I might buy you a coffee, seeing as I was in the area. Do you have time?’

The woman at the other desk pretended not to be interested. Hilde stood up and smoothed down her dress. ‘A quarter of an hour, for sure. I was about to take a break anyway. There’s a cafe on Aachener Strasse.’ He handed her the flowers. ‘Hedwig, could you put these in water for me?’ Her colleague took the bouquet with a grin. ‘Are you in town long?’ she asked, when they were outside.

‘No.’ Rath didn’t know what else to add.

‘Then you’re lucky you found me. I’m on holiday next week.’

‘You are?’ He cleared his throat. ‘Do you mean the cafe up ahead? It looks nice.’

This time they ordered coffee rather than Afri-Cola. Hilde took a cigarette from her handbag and he gave her a light. She smiled nervously and smoked. He flipped open his cigarette case. ‘You’ve already realised I’m not Paul Wittkamp,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t clear that up before, I was called away unexpectedly. I hope it wasn’t too much of a shock.’

‘It’s my own fault, going back like that, but I was curious. I wanted to see you again.’

‘I’m not even from Cologne. I’m a Berliner.’

‘You don’t sound like one.’

‘I grew up in Klettenberg.’

‘A Cologne boy after all.’

‘Before I lapsed.’

Hilde grew misty-eyed. ‘Berlin,’ she sighed, as if these two syllables held all the promise of the world. ‘Lucky you.’

‘How so?’

‘Right in the heart of the metropolis.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Well then, have you seen him?’

‘Seen who?’

‘Who do you think? The Führer, of course!’ There was such enthusiasm in her eyes it was as if she were discussing Willy Fritsch. ‘I just wondered. Weren’t you at the Reich Chancellery? In January, I mean, when he stood at the window.’

‘I had to work.’ He had got caught in the Nazis’ torchlight procession on the way home, but he didn’t want to mention that. This wasn’t what they were supposed to be discussing. The conversation had taken an unwanted turn, not that Hilde had noticed.

‘Isn’t it wonderful that the national revolution has reached Cologne?’ she asked. ‘That Adenauer and his Jew cronies are out on their ears at last?’

Rath’s cigarette almost fell out of his mouth. Hilde didn’t look like a Nazi zealot. He’d thought she was a modern girl, fun-loving and open to adventure, and that Nazi girls wore bunches, not bobs.

‘My family is on very good terms with Konrad Adenauer,’ he said sharply. ‘And to my knowledge he’s no Jew. As for his cronies…’

‘Did I say something wrong? Sorry, I shouldn’t have started on politics.’

Perhaps the conversation hadn’t taken such an unwanted turn after all. He stood up with such a sudden aversion to this naive Hitler-worshipper that his next move came easy. ‘I’m sorry. I thought we had something in common, but it seems I was wrong.’

He laid a two mark coin on the table, more than enough for the bill, snatched his hat and coat from the stand and left. He didn’t look around, but caught sight of Hilde Sprenger gazing after him in the reflective glass. She probably thought she had messed up with a single, ill-advised comment. With politics.

Well, it was no bad thing if at least one person in Cologne had cause to temper their Nazi enthusiasm. Above all, Rath was glad to have this business behind him, even if things hadn’t turned out as expected – but perhaps that was no bad thing either.

53

The tea dance began at five on the dot in Hotel Eden, and Charly was all dressed up. The risk of running into a colleague who might squeal to Wieking in a place like this was low; the cost, on the other hand, would be high. She had told Gereon as much on the telephone, but he had said it wasn’t important so long as she came away with a result.

Somehow she’d let herself be talked into going it alone! He was right, though, he’d never manage to prise her away from G Division officially, and there was no doubt that undercover operations had their appeal. This particular operation was so undercover that not even police knew about it. Still, what could they do? It was only dancing… for all that she was supposed to be ill.

She had left Kirie with the porter and walked fifteen minutes to the hotel, saving the taxi fare. The afternoon would be pricey enough. The Eden advertised itself as ‘the most modern luxury hotel in West Berlin’, and it was certainly among the most expensive.

She went straight from the cloakroom to the ballroom, taking her place at one of the tables near the dancefloor. She ordered a glass of house champagne, lit a cigarette and looked around. The band was already playing, and the room was filling even though it was only a few minutes after five. It was mostly women at the tables, the majority of whom wore expectant looks, until the first gallants arrived and led them to the floor. It seemed to Charly as if the dancers chose the most ardent looking women. Certainly they weren’t interested in the smokers. She stubbed out her Juno and tried to look keen. Before long a pomaded, southern-looking type with a pencil moustache arrived and essayed a perfect bow. A peacock, the kind she’d usually have sent packing.

‘May I have this dance?’

She smiled, reached for the man’s outstretched hand and stood up. The band played Latin American. She would have preferred Jazz, but that was asking too much at five in the afternoon.

She didn’t know the dance, but it wasn’t an issue. Her partner held her firmly and, thanks to his steady hand, her legs did what they were supposed to. No comparison with Gereon, whose range just about extended to the slow numbers.

‘The lady dances well.’

‘Entirely thanks to you.’

His response was a self-satisfied smile. Conversation wasn’t his strong point. Charly chose to lead. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

Her pomaded gigolo gave her a conspiratorial glance. ‘Just ask for Bertrand,’ he whispered.

‘From France?’

‘Brussels.’

‘How about Achim von Roddeck? Will I find him here too?’

Just ask for Bertrand looked confused at first, then insulted. ‘No, not anymore.’

‘They say he’s an author these days.’

His face told her he didn’t wish to discuss a former colleague, but nor did he wish to rebuff her. Or perhaps he wasn’t allowed. He smiled sourly. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know a lot about Herr von Roddeck.’

He wheeled her across the dancefloor. Charly tried again. ‘Can you make a living from it? Dancing, I mean?’

This time Bertrand didn’t even manage a sour smile, just looked thoroughly peeved. ‘I am dancing with you, because there is nothing I enjoy more in this world than dancing,’ he said. ‘And because the lady is a very talented dancer.’

And because you’d be on the breadline otherwise, Charly thought. ‘Why did Roddeck dance?’

‘I can only hazard a guess.’

‘Then hazard away.’

The dance was at an end, and with an elegant turn the Belgian snapped her backwards, catching her in his hands just as she feared she might hit the ground. The other dancers applauded. His eyes glared at her as he escorted her back to the table, but his mouth was smiling. ‘Why are you quizzing me about a colleague?’ he asked.

‘Well…’ Charly attempted a smile of her own. ‘You’ve got me.’ She looked at the ground in shame. ‘I’m a journalist,’ she said. ‘My paper asked me to write a feature on Achim von Roddeck’s former life. That’s why I’m here.’

For a moment she feared he might call for the house detective. ‘If that’s how it is, you shouldn’t waste your time dancing,’ he said. ‘Come back at eight o’clock when my colleagues and I eat dinner. You can ask your questions there. Willy can tell you more about Roddeck than me.’

‘Willy?’ she looked around.

‘He won’t be here until the evening.’

Again, Bertrand looked a little piqued. Charly pressed a five mark coin into the palm of his hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said, shaking his hand. ‘Hopefully your colleague is just as discreet.’

‘Discreet…’ he said, stowing the coin swiftly away, ‘…we dancers are only discreet where our female clients are concerned.’ He managed a smile that wasn’t sour. ‘Colleagues, on the other hand, are fair game. Especially former ones.’

Bertrand from Brussels made for the next table, bowing elegantly before a buxom blonde and leading her to the dance floor.

‘The lady dances well,’ Charly heard him say, as the two glided past. She drained her champagne, set down the glass, placed a two-mark coin on the table and left the room. The female cloak room attendant gazed at her in astonishment. It was probably the first time anyone had left the five o’clock tea dance at this hour, at least without a companion.

54

Arriving in Klettenberg, Rath hesitated a moment before ringing the front door. Frieda opened and looked at him wide-eyed.

‘Young man. Back again I see.’

‘Just passing through.’

‘I’m glad you’re here. We’re going out of our minds inside.’

She let him in and fetched his parents. Engelbert Rath looked as if he hadn’t slept, greeting his son as if he had seen him only five minutes before, and disappearing into his study.

‘You must excuse Father,’ Erika Rath said. ‘The last few days have been a little frantic.’

‘Why isn’t he at police headquarters?’

‘He called in sick. They know he’s a friend of Adenauer, and given Elfgen says he can no longer guarantee Konrad’s safety, your father fears the worst.’

‘The district president said that?’

‘The very same, but don’t go thinking Elfgen is actually doing anything about the brownshirts. It’s white feathers all around.’

Rath couldn’t help but smile. ‘Sounds like someone here didn’t vote for the Nazis. Am I right?’

‘Of course not! What are you thinking?’

After what he had seen earlier, her outrage did him the power of good. ‘It’s all right, Mama, I was only teasing.’

‘Your father’s party colleagues have been calling all day.’ She led her son into the sitting room where Frieda had laid out a pot of tea. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’

‘Police business.’

‘You’ll stay the night?’

‘If it’s no trouble.’

‘Trouble? Of course not… Wait! There was something.’ She stood up and went to the drawer to fetch a letter. ‘This came for you. We were going to send it on to Berlin, but seeing as you’re here…’

Rath looked at the envelope. Cologne Police Headquarters. ‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But Papa must.’

‘I didn’t want to bother your father with it. He has enough on his plate at the moment.’

He opened the envelope. It was a summons. A Detective Wiefelspütz from the Cologne Police wished to speak with him. One Herr Wilhelm Klefisch had accused him of misappropriating fifty marks from his wallet.

‘What is it, son?’

‘Nothing important.’ He stowed the letter in his jacket.

Engelbert Rath didn’t join them until supper, seeming tired but restless at the same time. Rath had never seen him unshaven before. His father had even managed on the black day they received news of Anno’s death.

‘I’m sorry I’m in such a mess, Gereon, but the telephone has been ringing for days and nights on end.’

‘I hear Adenauer’s been deposed.’

‘That’s what Gauleiter Grohe says. The brown mob stormed the town hall this morning.’ Engelbert Rath shrugged his shoulders as if to apologise. ‘Ever since the Reichstag elections, the SA have been behaving as if they own the city.’

‘And you’re letting them?’

‘What do you mean you?’

‘The police. The Centre Party. You!’

‘What would you have us do?’

‘Help Adenauer. Prevent the town hall from being stormed.’

‘Our hands are tied, boy. The district president has instructed police to avoid any conflict with the SA. Anything else would lead to bloodshed.’ Engelbert Rath sat in his armchair, hunched and helpless.

‘That’s it?’

‘You don’t know what’s been happening here. It’s as if everything’s been turned on its head.’

‘Elfgen’s a Centrist, isn’t he?’

‘Of course he is,’ Engelbert Rath said, as if the prospect of the Cologne District President belonging to any other party were simply unthinkable.

‘Yet here he is playing into Nazi hands?’

‘Some party members believe we must move with the national uprising and steer it in the right direction, rather than stand in its way.’

‘By working with people who would have Konrad Adenauer up against a wall?’

‘Gereon, you don’t understand…’

There was a knock and Frieda peered through the crack in the door. ‘Apologies, but it’s urgent. You’re wanted on the telephone. The mayor.’

‘Adenauer?’

‘Who else?’

Frieda looked appalled. In her world Konrad Adenauer was still mayor of Cologne. Rath found it equally hard to imagine someone else in the post. It felt almost as if God himself had been dethroned. For as long as he could remember the mayor here had been Konrad Adenauer, and for as long as he could remember the man had been a regular in the Rath household. Only two weeks ago he had been drinking Frieda’s tea.

Engelbert Rath stood up. ‘Excuse me, but I’ve been waiting to hear from Konrad all day. Let’s hope he’s arrived safely in Berlin.’

‘Adenauer is in Berlin?’

‘The brownshirts would have shot him here.’

‘Then what’s he doing in Berlin, of all places? Talk about the lion’s den. If you think the Nazis have taken over Cologne, wait till you see things there.’

‘What do you think he’s doing? He’s going to call on the Prussian Interior Ministry and protest against what is happening here. Konrad is still the rightful mayor, and president of the Prussian State Council besides.’

‘Call on the Interior Ministry? On Göring?’

‘Who else?’

‘But he’s a Nazi too!’

‘As well as being acting Interior Minister. He won’t like hearing how the SA have been carrying on down here. He’ll do something about it.’

Suddenly Rath realised that his father, once so in control of this city, had lost his political compass.

55

Charly entered the ballroom of the Hotel Eden just after eight o’clock. A new band played softly, there were no dancers and only a few guests, all of whom sat at the tables. An army of waiters prepared for the evening ahead. She waved one over.

‘Sorry, but the dancers – could you tell me where they eat?’

The waiter looked at her disparagingly. Perhaps he thought she was a girlfriend of one of the men. No doubt that sort of thing was frowned upon here. The dancers didn’t dine with their clients in the hall but had their own table in the basement, just by the kitchen. In the servants’ quarters, where they were joined at the long table by liftboys, chambermaids, porters and other hotel staff. Just no waiters, right now they had their hands full.

The dancers were already in evening dress and a little apart from the rest. Charly’s gallant from the afternoon spotted her and stood up. ‘There you are,’ he said, stretching out a hand with such perfect elegance she was afraid he might request a second dance. Instead he led her around the table and made the introductions. ‘Gentlemen, this is the reporter I mentioned earlier, Fräulein…’

‘Weinert,’ Charly said. It was the only name she could think of.

‘Fräulein Weinert is writing an article on our former colleague Roddeck, who, as we know, is currently making waves as an author.’

The dancers in the Eden were a motley bunch, bound only by their polished manners and more or less attractive appearance. Their table, meanwhile, was so full of gossip they could have been taking coffee at Kranzler. Everyone had a story to tell. She sat down between Bertrand and a blond youth he introduced as Willy from Vienna.

‘The lieutenant… he was quite a fellow,’ the blond said with admiration. ‘Certainly knew how to swoop.’

‘To swoop?’

‘We swoop on a lady when we ask them to dance,’ Bertrand explained, eyeing Willy angrily.

Charly made notes, having purchased a reporter’s pad at Bahnhof Zoo. It was the same kind as the one Berthold Weinert used, and he was the only reporter she knew.

‘Anyway,’ the Viennese continued, ‘Roddeck had an eye for ladies with a bit of loose change.’

‘Willy is implying,’ Bertrand interrupted, ‘that Roddeck received the largest tips.’

‘Right,’ Willy continued, ‘because he knew who would pay out.’

‘He made a decent living, then…’

‘Yes, above all since the Countess took him under her wing.’

‘The Countess?’

‘She isn’t really a Countess,’ Bertrand said.

‘No, she’s just rich,’ Willy explained. ‘Name’s de Graaf or something. Used to be a regular here.’

‘She became Achim von Roddeck’s dance partner?’

‘Not only that, if you ask me,’ Willy said, receiving another sideways glance from Bertrand.

‘She was his lover?’

‘It isn’t unheard of for a client to take up with a dancer,’ Bertrand said. ‘If they’re discreet enough, it can work out – at least, for a time.’

‘I see.’ Charly made notes, until she saw Betrand’s shocked expression. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I can be discreet too. This is all background information to build a better picture of Herr Roddeck.’

Background information. She had the expression from Weinert, and had experienced its meaning for herself. The pigeon droppings that had triggered Böhm’s exile to Köpenick.

‘He continued to work here as a dance host,’ Willy went on. ‘Only, he looked after the same client more or less every night. The Countess. They danced together, drank together, ate together, and disappeared together afterwards.’

‘Doesn’t sound very discreet,’ Charly said.

Willy shrugged. ‘Management turned a blind eye. They didn’t want to lose the Countess. She didn’t just dance at the hotel, she was a resident here too.’

‘How long did this go on?’

‘Two or three years.’

‘Then management stopped turning a blind eye?’ she asked. ‘Or why else was Roddeck dismissed?’

‘He wasn’t dismissed,’ Willy said. ‘The Countess dropped him like a hot potato.’

‘She did?’

‘These things happen. After that the lieutenant had a little trouble rejoining the ranks.’

‘Why?’

‘His colleagues first of all. We hardly treated him like the prodigal son, as I’m sure you can imagine. All those years thinking he was better than us. But no, the real reason for his demise was that he no longer had the ladies at his feet.’

‘He couldn’t just… swoop in… wherever he pleased?’

‘He was assigned to other, less lucrative tables. When you start getting rejected there, you know the writing’s on the wall.’

Bertrand hunched his shoulders. It seemed almost like an apology. ‘That’s how it is in our line of work, you just have to deal with it. At some point the years catch up with you.’ He looked so wistful he might have been referring to himself.

‘Is that why the Countess gave him the boot? His age?’

‘Who knows?’ said Willy. ‘Either way, she keeps a different private dancer these days. Der schöne Sigismund.’ Handsome Sigismund.

‘Sigismund? Like in the song?’ she blurted out, before looking around and whispering. ‘Is he here?’

Willy laughed. ‘No, no. After breaking with the lieutenant the Countess packed her bags and left. Sigismund dances at the Belvedere.’

56

On Eigelstein the whores stood outside the corner bars just as they always had, chatting up passing men regardless of age. Rath put off those who looked his way with a friendly smile. Here Cologne still felt like the Cologne of old; away from all the Nazi commotion life went on as before. A lone swastika flag flew at the far end of the street above the medieval city gate. The smell of mash from the nearby brewery hung in the air.

This time he was in luck. The shop was open. Master Watchmaker Eduard Schürmann looked up in surprise when he saw who had entered with the chime of the bell. ‘Inspector!’

‘Ede! Pleased to see you, and what a fine morning it is.’

‘Certainly, Inspector!’ The watchmaker was friendliness personified. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I was hoping you could fix something.’

‘Your lovely wristwatch? It looks brand new.’

‘It’s this business with the wallet. You remember?’

Ede tried his best to look stupid. ‘Of course! Tietz, wasn’t it?’

‘You do remember? Oh good. Then perhaps you can tell me where those fifty marks have got to.’

‘What are you talking about? I don’t know wh…’

Rath seized Schürmann by the collar of his grey overalls. ‘I know you pocketed the money before you dropped the wallet.’

‘My apologies, Inspector, a simple oversight. I thought I had put everything back.’

‘So you admit it.’

‘I don’t like to steal anymore, but sometimes the temptation is too great.’

‘When you’ve got such a lovely shop as well.’

‘It’s an itch. Sometimes you have to scratch.’

‘Perhaps you should have a doctor take a look.’ Rath let go of Ede’s collar and smiled. ‘Give me fifty marks and we’re even.’

‘You think it’s as easy as that?’ Ede smoothed down his overalls and cranked a lever on the prehistoric till. The drawer opened with a loud pling. ‘See for yourself, Inspector. Nothing but shrapnel. I’ve barely any change, so how am I supposed…?’

‘All I know is, I had to reimburse Herr Klefisch from my own wallet!’

Arriving at the police station, Rath had served up a story for Detective Wiefelspütz that not even he quite understood, but the Berlin Police identification coupled with the name Rath, which still held sway in Krebsgasse, had convinced Herr Wiefelspütz to accept his version of events and return the fifty mark note to its rightful owner.

Even so, he saw no reason to pay the sum out of his own pocket. ‘Do you know why I did it?’ he asked the thieving watchmaker.

‘I’m all ears, Inspector.’

‘Because I’m a humanitarian, and I didn’t want to report you. But that doesn’t mean I can’t change my mind, then you can kiss goodbye to all this.’

‘Please, Inspector!’ Ede seemed genuinely afraid. ‘Do you know what the SA do with people like me? They lock us up, whether we’re guilty or not.’

‘Then you appreciate the gravity of the situation. Give me the cash and I’ll say you’re an honest, upstanding watchmaker who hasn’t been on the rob for years.’

‘You’d do that, Inspector?’

‘Provided you give me the money.’ Rath held out his hand and rubbed his thumb against his index finger. ‘Otherwise the SA might hear a different story.’

‘I don’t have it, Inspector. Honest. If people settled their bills on time… but times are hard.’

Rath hadn’t seen Ede grovelling like this before, not even when he’d interrogated him a decade ago.

‘When can you have the money?’

‘A week, maybe two. Please, Inspector. You’ll get your money, just don’t report me!’

‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Two weeks. I’ll be back in Berlin by then.’

‘I’ll bring it to you. I’ll be there soon enough anyway.’

‘When?’

‘In April, for a trade fair.’

‘April? I’m warning you, Ede, there’ll be interest.’

‘Whatever you say, Inspector. Just don’t report me!’

Despite his empty travel fund, Rath relented and pushed his card across the counter.

Leaving the store he couldn’t help thinking about the new age, even if everything on Eigelstein looked the same. If someone like Ede, a small-time crook who’d seen it all before, could be so afraid of being reported, then things really were starting to change.

57

The euphoria that washed over her after alighting from the tram on Kaiserallee soon gave way to a crushing sense of disillusion, which was still there days later.

Yes, she had escaped Huckebein, but been forced to break with Fritze at the same time. She had often considered ditching him, but now, having finally succeeded, she missed him every moment he was gone. It wasn’t just because his absence made it harder to find a place to sleep. Never before had she felt so alone.

She had seen him on one further occasion, at Görlitzer Bahnhof, but he didn’t recognise her in the new coat she had acquired the same day she’d given Huckebein the slip. Watching from behind a pillar it pained her to see him begging again. She felt something like longing, and would have liked nothing more than to run to him, poke him in the ribs and revel in his dopey face. But she couldn’t. There was a chance Huckebein had seen them together, and was using Fritze as bait.

In the meantime she could manage on her own. She had learned that stealing was preferable to begging, and had stopped going to the Märchenbrunnen after the incident at Bahnhof Zoo. No one would show up there now anyway, it was more of a summer haunt. The thing was, she didn’t have a clue where the posse met in winter. If, that is, the posse still existed.

She had made for Neukölln, which seemed like the safest place, being far removed from Dalldorf and its warders, and equally far from Bahnhof Zoo. By now she was familiar with the area’s bars, cafes and shelters, knew where you could scrounge and where you couldn’t, and at Karstadt on Hermannplatz had even managed to filch an enormous cured sausage, which she had been nibbling at for days. If it wasn’t so damn cold, you could almost call if a life.

Nights she spent in an old, abandoned cinema. It wasn’t heated, but it did provide shelter from the wind and the rain, and in the old, dusty film organ she had found a cosy spot between the pipes where she felt safe. From here she could survey the whole theatre without being seen herself.

The dive bar she had stopped by this morning was one of the few places she could wash, even if the basin was out in the yard and it was all she could do not to cry out when the cold water touched her skin. She washed her face and neck and hands, no more, and, face-reddened by the cold, returned to the warmth of the public bar. Blinking against the cigarette smoke, to her surprise she recognised a familiar face. A member of the Märchenbrunnen posse stood at the counter. She went over.

‘Felix? Remember me?’ The youth, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, was warming his hands on a cup of weak coffee. He looked at her uncertainly. ‘Hannah,’ she prompted. ‘From Bülowplatz. We used to meet at the Märchenbrunnen.’

His eyes lit up. ‘That’s right,’ he said, and smiled. ‘Little Hannah! What happened to you? All of a sudden you stopped coming by…’

She knew she couldn’t say what had really happened, not even to someone like Felix. They stood in silence for a time. Felix had been quiet back then, too, Fanny and Kotze had done most of the talking. Kotze, whose real name was Josef Koczian, had been the group’s leader. ‘I’ve been in town for a week,’ she said. ‘No one showed at the Märchenbrunnen.’

‘Not in winter. Anyway, those days are gone.’

‘Where are Fanny and Kotze?’

‘Doing their best to get by.’

‘You don’t see each other?’

He looked her up and down. ‘Coffee? You look like you could use one.’

It felt good to talk, even with someone as taciturn as Felix, and no one else would stand her a coffee. She scooped three spoonfuls of sugar into her cup. That way the weak sludge would taste of something, and she’d feel as if she had something in her stomach.

‘What are you up to?’ she asked. ‘You’re looking swish.’

Felix had never been this well-dressed when she’d known him before. It wasn’t exactly an elegant suit – thick wool coat, corduroy trousers, peaked cap – but there wasn’t a patch in sight, or a frayed edge. He looked like a worker, albeit one who earned a decent wage.

‘You don’t look so bad yourself,’ he said.

She didn’t know if he was talking about her, or her clothes, which, though stolen, were more or less all new, but she felt uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to compliments.

‘Got somewhere to stay?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘You?’

‘Here and there, same as always.’

Felix looked her up and down for a second time. ‘Want to stay with me for a bit? I could use a woman’s touch.’

‘Do you have room?’

‘Can you cook?’

‘Of course,’ Hannah lied.

She could hardly believe her luck. She had a roof over her head again. A friend with money. Perhaps even a future.

58

The sun was setting as Rath reached Berlin where, as in Cologne, the number of flags seemed to have increased. In Lichterfelde and Steglitz they hung from the building fronts as if they had always been there. As cities Red Berlin and Catholic Cologne might be poles apart, but both now stood under the banner of the swastika. Only a few weeks before it would have been unthinkable.

The imperial black-white-and-red, along with the Nazi flag, represented the new Germany. According to the newspaper Rath had purchased at a petrol station the black-red-and-gold of the Republic was, as of now, forbidden. Hindenburg had given his blessing to the whole thing.

Thanks to Ede he had been obliged to pay by cheque. The attendant was suspicious at first, though the police badge set him at his ease. Even so, he insisted on making a note of Rath’s address.

He had little to show for his three-day trip, and neither he nor Gennat was happy about it. He had spoken with Buddha first from his parents’ house, then again from a telephone booth after returning to Magdeburg in search of Hermann Wibeau. Neither was sure what the man’s continued absence could mean. Wibeau’s neighbours, at least, were unconcerned, and no unidentified corpses had turned up in Magdeburg in the last few days. This had reassured Buddha, who had put out a warrant for the man all the same.

By the time Rath parked in Carmerstrasse it was already dark. He was surprised that Kirie should greet him alone, but then he heard music from the living room and went through to find Charly hunched over case files. On the table in front of her was a bottle of wine and a glass. Duke Ellington was spinning on the turntable. She looked up in surprise. ‘Back already?’

‘I’ve been away for three days.’

‘I completely lost track of time.’

She stood up, a little wobbly on her feet. He set down his case and took her in his arms. She snuggled up, and he was surprised by her affection. Had she really missed him that much – or was it just the alcohol? She tasted of red wine. ‘Welcome back,’ she said, and for the first time since renting the apartment almost a year ago, it felt like coming home.

‘What have you got there?’ he asked.

‘Hannah Singer. A new lead. She’s been sighted in town.’

He took off his hat and coat. ‘It’s landed with G Division?’

She shook her head. ‘I took the file from your office. Warrants put it on your desk, and I thought you might like to read it at home.’

‘What am I supposed to do with it? Hannah Singer is an escaped lunatic. She has nothing to do with my case.’ He was annoyed. Why couldn’t Warrants just pick her up and have her sent back to Dalldorf instead of clogging up his desk?

‘I can look into it if you like,’ Charly fetched a second glass from the cupboard. ‘Fancy a drop? I know it’s a little early, but I had to open a bottle.’

They clinked glasses. ‘Hard day?’ Rath asked.

She looked at him so seriously he’d have liked nothing more than to kiss her again. ‘Gereon, I can’t take it anymore. Wieking, Karin, the whole goddamn WKP! The way they run after this Hitler as if he were the Saviour.’

‘That bad, huh?’

‘Worse.’ She reached for her cigarettes. ‘Can’t you put in a request for me?’

‘If only it were that simple. You mustn’t think there are no Nazis in Homicide. The commissioner is a Nazi, the whole damn country is governed by Nazis. That’s how it is, but it won’t last forever.’

‘Though apparently I’m fine to work unofficially, and spend my evenings grappling with gigolos.’

‘I’m sorry about that. I thought…’

‘It’s fine. Actually I enjoyed it.’ She looked at him with that gaze she knew he couldn’t resist. ‘I realise Gennat isn’t going to let us strike out together, Gereon, but he could always pair me up with Reinhold Gräf, like Böhm used to.’

‘Gräf’s no longer on my team.’

‘What? Why not?’

‘I didn’t ask him to be.’

‘But he knows the case. He was there at the start.’

‘He’s still working for the Politicals. Besides, he’s…’ He broke off. He didn’t know how to tell her.

‘He’s what?’

‘I…’ he hesitated again. ‘The thing is: Gräf’s a Nazi.’

‘Reinhold?’

‘I didn’t want to say anything, but as far as the national revolution’s concerned he’s really got the bit between his teeth. He’s friends with an SA officer too.’

‘That doesn’t mean anything. Reinhold’s a nice guy, I can’t picture him as a Nazi.’

‘He isn’t one of the malicious ones, but he’s just as gushing about Hitler as all these women. Like your colleagues in G, as if Hitler’s the Saviour. That’s what Reinhold believes too.’

The record ended. Rath returned the tone arm to its starting position and went over to Charly, pulled her out of the armchair and danced slowly with her across the room. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I want to see what you learned from those gigolos.’

‘I hardly had a chance to dance,’ she said, nestling close.

She told him the rest over dinner. Potato soup, the best thing she’d cooked for him yet. He lavished praise on the food.

Her information confirmed him in his suspicions against Achim von Roddeck. A calculating sort who had been kept by various women, but had lost his meal ticket and possibly had money troubles of his own. All were avenues he ought to pursue. He told Charly about his visit to the demolition expert, Grimberg, and the man’s low opinion of his former lieutenant, before moving on to the widow Engel, whose description of her husband had been far removed from Roddeck’s lamentable novel.

‘It’s an insult to authors everywhere,’ Charly said. He looked at her in astonishment. ‘I had a glance at the Kreuzzeitung.’ She shrugged, as if to apologise for being more interested in his case than her own.

‘Then you’re up to speed.’ Rath had to grin. ‘No need to ask Gennat or Wieking for reinforcements.’

‘I certainly have some thoughts I’d be willing to share.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘You want me to be honest?’

‘Of course.’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me if Achim von Roddeck is behind the murders himself.’

‘I don’t like him much either, but I wouldn’t go as far as that.’

‘He’s the only one who’s benefited. Without these murders, his so-called novel would never have got this much attention. Nor would he. I have the feeling he enjoys playing the role of endangered author.’

‘Still, that’s no reason to kill.’

‘Perhaps there’s another motive, but I certainly wouldn’t put murder past him. The war would have taught him how to kill.’

‘His own orderly though? Wosniak was devoted to his lieutenant. The pair were inseparable. At least, that’s how Grimberg tells it, and he’s hardly Roddeck’s greatest fan.’

‘Take a look at the Kreuzzeitung and you’ll see what I mean. The papers are in your briefcase, along with the files from your office.’

While Charly cleared the table he retired to the living room and topped up his glass. The Kreuzzeitung had certainly pulled out all the stops for the start of their serial. The first lines of Roddeck’s novel were flanked by an up-to-date report on the endangered author and his life under police protection. Rath suspected that people would buy the paper mainly to see if Roddeck were still alive, or whether he, too, had fallen victim to the mystery killer. He examined the Kreuzzeitung’s photo of the author-come-gigolo-lieutenant. Achim von Roddeck gazed resolutely into the camera, flanked by two uniformed cops who escorted him to his car. It seemed almost as if he were a statesman of some kind, rather than an author whose work would most likely be forgotten in a year or two. It was a role he enjoyed; the photo left no room for doubt.

Charly was right. There was no question the deaths of Wosniak and Meifert had brought the lieutenant and his novel to the public’s attention. However stuffy his prose might be, a sizeable payout was sure to follow.

The next instalment made it sound as if the outcome of the war remained open and Germany still had a chance of victory.

Tomorrow: Fateful Slaughter on the Somme

As far as Rath recalled, the events of summer 1916 hadn’t proved decisive. Meanwhile the details of the episode which the Kreuzzeitung sought to lay bare hadn’t occurred until March 1917. He wondered how many more instalments would be published before then.

When Charly emerged from the kitchen she was holding a second bottle in her hand. ‘I knew you’d finish it. Do you want to open another?’

He grinned and reached for the corkscrew. ‘As long as it doesn’t become a habit. We both have to work in the morning.’

‘Then perhaps we should…’ she took the bottle from his hand. ‘…get ourselves to bed.’ With that, she vanished into the bedroom with the wine and her glass. She didn’t look in the slightest bit tired. Rath examined his almost empty glass and took a last gulp. He picked it up and followed her inside. Kirie was shown the door.

59

An Inspector Stresow from 1A was responsible for coordinating Achim von Roddeck’s security arrangements. ‘It’s Hotel Central today, Friedrichstrasse. Ask for Herr Rubens at reception.’

‘Rubens?’ Rath asked.

‘We use different names each day.’

‘Let me guess: yesterday it was Dürer?’

‘Come again?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I see you’ve got it all worked out.’

‘Can’t make things easy for his would-be assassin.’

When Rath emerged from the lift in Hotel Central, a handful of journalists were grouped outside the mysterious Herr Rubens’s suite. He lit a cigarette and joined them.

His day had begun in the small conference room. These days, A Division resembled the waiting room of a provincial train station but, with so many CID officers recalled from the Political Police, things were starting to pick up again. Rath noted Gräf’s continued absence with relief.

It was clear that a number of colleagues already took Hermann Wibeau for dead. There was nothing new from Warrants, but unless they picked him up on his doorstep he was unlikely to fall into their hands. Rath had instructed Henning and Czerwinski to conduct a parallel search, ensuring they were occupied while he stopped by Hotel Central.

‘You’re all here to see Herr Rubens?’ he asked the journalists.

Some nodded, others didn’t react. ‘You’ll need to be patient,’ said a slight man with his press card in the band of his hat, American style. ‘I’m next.’

Rath reached for his badge. ‘Police ID trumps press. Sorry, but rules are rules.’

The man didn’t contradict him. Respect for police officers had risen in recent weeks.

The interviews were coordinated by Roddeck’s publisher, Dr Hildebrandt, who took leave of an outgoing journalist with a cordial shake of the hand. ‘Next, please,’ he said, as if he were a doctor’s receptionist. On seeing Rath, his eyes grew wide, and Achim von Roddeck was equally astonished.

The author sat with a cup of tea behind a table by the window. A little to the side a policeman sat in an armchair leafing through a newspaper. By his bored expression he must be reading the Kreuzzeitung serial. Roddeck rose to his feet. ‘Inspector! You’re moonlighting as a reporter now? Or are you here on duty?’

The word inspector jolted the cop awake. He stood up and saluted. ‘Nothing to report, Sir.’

‘Thank you,’ Rath said. He looked at Roddeck. ‘It’s you I came to see.’

‘I thought CID were no longer interested.’

‘Uniform are certainly making up for it.’ Rath looked out onto Friedrichstrasse and two cops outside the hotel entrance. Another stood in the lobby by the lifts, and a fourth was stationed here in Roddeck’s suite. Commissioner Levetzow had spared neither effort nor expense.

Roddeck fixed his eyes on Rath. ‘Poor Meifert might still be alive if you’d afforded him the same protection, but you didn’t heed my warning.’

‘On the contrary,’ Rath lied. ‘Circumstances prevented it. The acute Communist threat… Limited resources…’

‘I don’t want to argue,’ Roddeck said. ‘It’s just, you so feel helpless when a comrade has to die – despite being aware of the risks.’

‘Like in war?’

‘What do you want, Inspector?’

‘To talk to you.’

Roddeck led him to the table. ‘Can I offer you something? Send for room service?’

Rath took his cigarette case from his pocket. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Nice work if you can get it. Staying in places like this.’

‘Not when you’re always on the move. Your colleagues say it’s safer. That it makes it harder for him to track me down.’

‘Him?’

‘Engel, who else? As long as we keep changing hotels, no one knows where I am.’

‘Apart from the police.’

‘Of course.’

‘And the press. They have to know how to find you too.’

‘What are you driving at, Inspector?’

‘The fact that there’s a new story about you practically every day. This endangered author, who, in spite of the threats being made on his life, stands by his explosive revelations.’

‘Jealous? You’d rather the focus was on you?’

‘I’m just wondering how safe all this is.’ Rath gestured towards the door with his chin. ‘Who can guarantee that your would-be assassin isn’t waiting outside?’

‘First, if Benjamin Engel came through that door I’d recognise him, and I’m ready.’ Roddeck lifted his jacket to reveal the leather of a shoulder holster. ‘Second, my publisher is present for every interview, along with a police officer. Right now, there are two of you.’

‘It seems things are going well with your novel…’

‘Demand has increased dramatically since the start of the serial,’ the publisher, Hildebrandt, said, visibly proud. ‘We’ve had to reprint already.’

‘Sounds good.’

‘And we’ve brought forward the publication date.’

‘Aren’t you afraid you might provoke the killer?’

Roddeck sat up. ‘Like I’ve said before, Inspector, our decision-making won’t be swayed by these threats.’

‘I spoke with the widow Engel,’ Rath said, and Roddeck appeared surprised.

‘And?’

‘She can’t imagine her husband is still alive. Even less that he’s a killer.’

‘She can’t imagine! You’d give weight to the imagination of a sentimental widow who has never seen her husband at war?’

‘I’m not giving weight to anything. I’m just wondering how Benjamin Engel could have survived this blast of yours.’

‘Believe me, I’ve asked myself the same thing often enough.’

‘Could there be someone else trying to prevent your novel from being published?’

‘The only explanation I have is that Benjamin Engel is still alive.’

‘An explosion like that… he’d have been torn to shreds.’

‘That’s what we thought too, but British artillery fire meant we couldn’t confirm it. Besides, we were already in retreat. We had to keep moving.’

‘Where were you when the explosion occurred?’

‘This is all in the book,’ Hildebrandt interrupted. ‘What’s the use in giving you a proof copy if you don’t even read it?’

Rath glared at the man and he fell silent.

‘Like it says in the book, we were already in retreat,’ Roddeck said. ‘Perhaps three or four kilometres behind the front.’

‘Did you witness the explosion yourself, or is your account based on hearsay? The book uses the term “we” rather vaguely.’

‘I witnessed it, and I heard it. There was an enormous bang. We were all startled, thinking the British were advancing. Then came the news that Captain Engel had set off a boobytrap while inspecting our abandoned trenches.’

‘How can a trap like that be set off prematurely?’

‘You’d have to ask the man who built it.’

‘As a matter of fact, I have.’

Again, Roddeck looked surprised. ‘You’ve been rather more diligent than I anticipated, Inspector.’

‘Never underestimate the Prussian Police.’

‘I don’t know what Grimberg told you, but I suspected a British grenade landed in the trench at the wrong moment, and triggered the explosion.’

‘It happened by chance.’

‘You wouldn’t believe how often life and death are governed by chance, Inspector. Especially in war.’

‘Isn’t it possible that someone from your unit knowingly detonated the charge? Someone who wanted rid of Captain Engel?’

‘What gives you that idea?’

‘It can happen in war. Hated superiors who fall victim to their men.’

‘Not in the German army.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘What are you trying to insinuate?’

‘I’m not trying to insinuate anything. I’m just asking questions.’

Roddeck was on the verge of losing his composure. ‘Don’t sully the army’s honour in the presence of a Prussian officer or I could be forced to take unpleasant action!’

‘Surely you’re not going to challenge me to a duel? I thought those days were gone.’ Rath shook his head. ‘Besides, the last thing I want to do is sully your honour, or that of the German army.’

‘Then what is this? You’re speaking with a potential victim here, not a killer.’

‘Who knows?’

‘What did you say?’ Roddeck turned bright red, and Rath was grateful to Charly for the idea.

‘So far you’re the one who’s benefited from these deaths. Who’s to say you aren’t responsible for them?’

‘Fanciful! It’s like saying the SA set fire to the Reichstag in order to strike at the Red mob.’

‘Then such thoughts aren’t completely alien to you. I just want you to be aware of the various avenues we need to pursue.’

‘All these avenues, a man could get lost. I can’t imagine your commissioner will welcome the digression.’ Achim von Roddeck rose from his chair and stood ramrod straight, every inch the humourless Prussian. ‘I must ask you to leave,’ he said. ‘The gentlemen from the press mustn’t be kept waiting any longer.’

Rath stubbed out his cigarette, and stood up. His attempts to provoke the self-satisfied lieutenant had been an unqualified success.

‘This,’ he said, placing a Berlin Police envelope on the table, ‘is a summons. I would ask that you appear at police headquarters in good time on Friday, so that we can turn today’s chat into something a little more formal.’

60

Using her police identification would only prompt more questions down the line, and as for the name Weinert… no one would link it back to her. Charly posed as a journalist again.

She asked herself why she was flouting the rule book to investigate on Gereon’s behalf, indulging in the very high-handedness she always reproached him for, but thinking of Karin van Almsick, whom she had left moments before on the flimsiest of pretexts, she remembered that it was to avoid the deadly monotony of her job and feel like a police officer again.

Marlene de Graaf was resident at the Hotel Belvedere in Tiergarten, where she had made the acquaintance of Achim von Roddeck’s successor, Handsome Sigismund. Sitting opposite her, it was clear how she had acquired the name ‘Countess’: her whole bearing was aristocratic. Judging by her eyes she must be about forty, but seemed younger. Above all she looked like someone who knew what she wanted and how to go about getting it. Charly couldn’t help but admire her.

‘Achim von Roddeck…’ the Countess said, smoking through a gold-plated cigarette holder. ‘What’s so interesting about him?’

‘Well…’ Charly pulled out her reporter’s pad. ‘…he’s enjoying great success with his debut novel, and our paper would like to shed some light on the man behind the author.’

‘Which paper?’

‘Der Tag.’

‘You want me to help?’

‘I hear you were once… intimately acquainted.’

‘That’s not something I’d care to read in the paper. As for my name… I hope you understand what I’m saying, or perhaps I should get in touch with my lawyer?

‘Don’t worry, nothing we discuss will appear in any paper. This is just for background information. I want to get a picture of Achim von Roddeck the man.’

‘The man?’ Marlene gave a bitter laugh.

Before Charly could probe any further a key turned and a door creaked open. The noises came from the vestibule, as did a high-pitched voice. ‘Darling, I’m home!’ A blond youth poked his head through the door and smiled. Handsome Sigismund was at least twenty years younger than the Countess. Seeing Charly, he interrupted himself. ‘You have a visitor…’

‘This lady is a journalist.’

‘I just wanted to drop off the shopping,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in the lobby if you need me.’ He pulled the door shut.

‘Now it’s just us again…’ Charly said. ‘I get the feeling you’re not on especially good terms with Achim von Roddeck.’

‘You’re not wrong.’

‘Others describe him as being thoroughly charming.’

‘Only when he wants something. Underneath, he’s a depraved character. Don’t be taken in by the glamour and charm.’

‘As you were for two years.’

‘I’m not complaining. I was happy until I realised.’

‘You’re single?’

‘I don’t see what that has to do with your story.’

‘I’m just curious. Occupational hazard.’

‘Oh, where’s the harm? I’ve been a widow since October ’18. The war, just before it ended, saw fit to take my husband.’ She sounded as if she had made peace with her fate. ‘I swore that I would never remarry. I never wanted to feel such pain again and, thanks to my inheritance, there was no need. As for the rest…’ she gestured towards the door. ‘…there are other ways.’

‘Such as Achim von Roddeck. Did you love him?’

‘Probably, or at least I convinced myself that I did. Which amounts to the same thing. I was beyond disappointed when I found out he was using me.’

‘Don’t you always run the risk of being used when you buy men?’

‘As long as my plaything behaves like a plaything, and doesn’t pretend to love me, then both parties know where they stand and no one feels used.’

‘But with Achim von Roddeck you no longer knew…’

‘He claimed he loved me, even spoke of marriage. Until at some point I started dreaming of marriage again myself. Against my better judgement.’

‘But you were hurt again…’

Marlene de Graaf nodded. ‘It was a letter. I’m ashamed to tell you, usually I respect people’s private correspondence, and their privacy in general.’

‘What kind of letter?’

‘It was the letterhead… A communiqué from Krefeld District Court. What can I say? The letter contained details about his past.’

‘He’s from Krefeld?’

‘He certainly lived there for a few years. It seems Achim von Roddeck made a different woman exactly the same promises he was making me. Promises of marriage, which he never kept as it transpired three years and forty-five thousand marks down the line… The wretch!’

‘He’s a convicted marriage swindler? With a police record?’

‘He was never sentenced. The silly goose withdrew her statement when she came face-to-face with him in court. Proceedings were discontinued.’

‘But you had reached your own verdict?’

‘The letter might have confirmed his innocence, but my mind was made up.’

‘You took him to task…’

‘I threw him out. I didn’t want to see him, for him to bring me round. Seduce me, even. As you say, he can be incredibly charming.’

61

The court files arrived from Krefeld on Friday morning, leaving Rath just enough time to glance through them before meeting Roddeck. What Charly had uncovered was true: proceedings had been discontinued when Roddeck’s accuser refused to testify. It was hardly convincing. In the absence of an acquittal, the lieutenant’s reputation was tarnished by implication. A man like Roddeck would struggle to live with such a stain. Was that why he had moved to Berlin, where no one would give a damn? But… what if his past had caught up with him, and someone had tried to blackmail him? How would that fit with the murders?

He had spent almost all of Thursday reading Roddeck’s novel for a second time, comparing its account with the statement made by the demolition expert, Grimberg. The lieutenant left the reader in no doubt that Captain Engel had died at the hands of his own boobytrap, just as he was now equally convinced Engel had survived. Though the events of March 1917 formed the novel’s central episode, the account limped on through another year and a half of conflict.

The story did have a moral, if you could call it that, and Roddeck wasn’t shy in hammering it home: Jewish officers, whether baptised or not, have no place in the German army. Unbaptised Jews were precluded from joining the Prussian officer corps anyway, while Prussian Jews were obliged to enlist with the Bavarian army, as Bernhard Weiss had done.

Achim von Roddeck arrived at the Castle without a lawyer, but in the best of spirits, cracking a joke that made even Christel Temme laugh. Rath wondered how this man, whom he had disliked from the start, could have such an effect on women. Perhaps he should ask Charly.

‘Let’s get started, Inspector,’ Roddeck said. ‘Otherwise your charming stenographer will be bored to tears.’

Rath made a start.

‘Can you account for your whereabouts on the twenty-first and twenty-second of February?’

‘You’re not seriously asking for my alibi, Inspector?’

‘It’s purely routine.’

Roddeck fetched a little black book from the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘Lucky I keep a diary,’ he said. ‘The twenty-first and twenty-second… So, there’s nothing on the Tuesday. On Wednesday, I had a meeting with my publisher at three o’clock.’

‘Afterwards?’

‘I think we had dinner. I’d have to ask Hildebrandt.’

‘It would be good to know what you were doing on the Tuesday. Were you alone?’

‘I don’t think so, but it was a few weeks ago and I’d have to think about it.’

‘Please do, and give me the names of the people you were with.’ Rath made a tick in his notebook. ‘How about the ninth of March? Where were you in the early afternoon?’

Roddeck leafed through his diary again. ‘Kreuzzeitung at eleven, otherwise nothing.’ He snapped the diary shut. ‘I had lunch with the editor, Frank, and was home around one.’

‘Alone?’

‘For the most part, yes.’

‘It’s hardly water-tight.’

‘If I was your killer, I’d certainly have an alibi!’

‘Benjamin Engel: when did you come to the view that he survived the war?’

‘When I realised that poison-pen letter was no joke.’

‘It’s unsigned. It could be from anyone.’

‘There is no one else! God knows, I’ve racked my brains but, believe me, Inspector, there’s no other explanation.’ Achim von Roddeck was on the verge of losing his self-control. Perhaps Christel Temme wouldn’t be bored after all.

‘Let’s change tack.’ Rath took the Krefeld court file from its folder. ‘Perhaps you could tell me what you were doing on the seventeenth of February 1927?’

‘That was ages ago.’

‘Allow me to jog your memory. The main hall of the Krefeld District Court. You were sitting in the dock accused of being a marriage swindler, when…’

Roddeck jumped up, his face red. ‘How dare you? What does this have to do with anything? Do you wish to slander me?’

‘Had you allowed me to finish, I’d have said that shortly before the public prosecutor gave his final statement, the chief prosecution witness, one Eleonore Weber, retracted all her accusations.’

Roddeck glared at him angrily. Christel Temme had ceased making doe-eyes, and was fully focused on her stenographer’s pad and pencil.

‘Tell me what you know!’ Roddeck demanded.

The pencil scratched across the page. Fräulein Temme was taking everything down.

‘Just what’s in here,’ Rath said, tapping the court file.

‘I have a clean record.’

‘No one’s suggesting otherwise.’

Rath was about to confront Roddeck with the issue of the missing gold, when the telephone rang. Roddeck was obviously grateful for the interruption. He sat down, suddenly charming again, but there was no way back with Christel Temme. ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ he asked.

Rath picked up. It was Gennat. ‘I’m in the middle of an important interrogation, Sir.’

‘This is more important. We’ve found another corpse. In Magdeburg. Hermann Wibeau.’

‘Warrants were supposed to be watching his flat.’

‘They were.’ Gennat cleared his throat. ‘His body was found on the train.’

62

A passenger in second class had failed to alight when the Hannover-Magdeburg express pulled into the depot for cleaning. Still at his window-seat, head to one side, paper in his lap, the man couldn’t be roused. His sample case held company identification belonging to the Deisler firm, and when police officers saw the name Wibeau the penny dropped. Gennat had been informed immediately, and less than two hours later Gereon Rath was on his way with Alfons Henning as back-up, the latter torn away from his partner Czerwinski.

An official led them to a siding at the far end of the station. Gennat had told the Magdeburg Police to leave everything as it was, so that Berlin could form its own impressions.

Hermann Wibeau wore a grey suit, his eyes were closed and he looked as if he were sleeping. Only the blood, which had trickled down his mouth and chin and seeped into the padded seat, suggested violence. In the luggage rack were two suitcases. One held mostly dirty washing and used socks, extra shirts and a sponge bag, the other was full to the brim with clean, pristine-white ladies’ underwear. At least now they knew how Hermann Wibeau made his living.

All the duty staff, from drinks attendant to driver, had been gathered together in a third class car to await dismissal. Most hadn’t noticed anything suspicious.

‘The gentleman had company most of the way,’ the conductor said. ‘I can’t fathom how anyone…’ He broke off, as if he couldn’t bring himself to say what it was he couldn’t fathom. That someone had driven a long, sharp object up the passenger’s nose and into his brain, a simple, efficient kill.

‘How often do you check the compartment during the journey?’

‘After each station. For new passengers.’ The conductor listed the stations on the fingers of his hand: ‘Lehrte, Peine, Braunschweig, Königslutter, Helmstedt…’

‘No need to be so precise,’ Rath interrupted. ‘When was the last time you saw the deceased alive?’

‘When I checked after Eilsleben.’

‘Who was with him?’

‘By that stage he was alone.’

‘You’re certain he wasn’t already dead?’

‘He looked up from his paper and smiled.’

‘Then his killer must have got off here in Magdeburg.’

‘There was no one left in the man’s compartment.’

‘You’re certain?’

‘I’ve a good memory for faces. You have to in our line of work.’

‘Then did you notice anything suspicious here, at the train station?’ Rath looked around, so that staff could see he was addressing everyone, not just the conductor.

‘What kind of thing are we talking about?’ the chief of staff asked.

‘Perhaps someone was in a rush, or elbowed other passengers to get off the train. Something like that.’

All fell silent and made helpless faces. Rath fetched the photograph of Benjamin Engel from his pocket.

‘What about this man? Could he have been on board?’ The picture elicited a few shrugs and shakes of the head. ‘The man looks different these days, of course. This photograph was taken almost twenty years ago, his hair will most likely be grey, and it isn’t known what injuries he sustained in the war. Only that they were serious.’

‘He was in the war, you say?’ The conductor, who had just passed the photograph on, hesitated. ‘I had a disabled veteran in car fifteen. Boarded at Braunschweig.’

‘Could it be the man from the photo?’

The photo was passed back and the conductor examined it once more. ‘Hard to say. At first glance, I’d say no, but he was pretty badly disfigured, with nasty facial scars and he dragged his leg. Well-dressed though.’

‘He wasn’t in military dress?’

‘No, a lounge suit. Simple and dark, wore a bowler hat.’

‘How do you know he was a veteran?’

‘I know a veteran when I see one.’

‘Where did this man get off the train?’

‘Here, in Magdeburg.’

63

Hermann Wibeau’s corpse consigned Rath to weekend duty for the third Saturday in a row. Despite this he decided to take Charly out. It wasn’t that she resented his overtime, in fact she envied his work, but he wanted to treat her all the same. And himself.

The Gloria-Palast was showing the latest Hans Albers film, Heut’ kommt’s drauf an, a perfectly ordinary comedy set in a world with no Nazis, swastikas or politics of any kind. Just the ticket to persuade her that the world outside could still be normal, and to assure himself that, although the Nazis proclaimed a new age, little had really changed.

Arriving home last night from Magdeburg, he had crawled into bed beside her and inhaled her scent. In the morning he told her what had happened, that her suspicions were unfounded now that Achim von Roddeck had an alibi. ‘He was with me in the interrogation room.’

‘But in Magdeburg, it was the same perpetrator as before…’

‘It looks like it.’

Confirmation came from Dr Schwartz a few hours later. The same weapon, the same method. Brief and painless, and the disabled veteran the conductor had seen might just be the killer. A former soldier putting his trench dagger to use once more. Had Benjamin Engel risen from the dead?

Rath had sent a police sketch artist to Magdeburg, but the result was next to useless. All the conductor could see were the suspect’s many scars. It was possible, of course, that it was an accurate depiction of Benjamin Engel following his injury, but it might have been anyone else. The most striking thing was the nose, which thanks to the suspect’s pitted complexion had morphed into a kind of indeterminable clump in the middle of his face, almost a caricature.

When Rath got home, tickets at the ready, Charly had on her green dance dress. So she did want to go out, to dance, to enjoy herself. After the trials of the last few weeks, she seemed to have recaptured some of her zest for life. He changed and they went on their way. The cinema was within easy walking distance and they strolled there without Kirie, whom they had left with the porter.

The swastika flags were less visible in the darkness, and the city looked much as it always had. Rath offered Charly his arm and she slipped her own through, smiling. There, you see? Just like old times.

Soon, with the spires of the Gedächtniskirche above them, they reached the cinema. The new Albers film was a big draw with the foyer full to bursting, but with his police identification casually placed on the counter Rath had acquired prime seats for the Saturday screening.

With its marble foyer and thick, soft carpets, pastel-green and gold theatre walls and bulky, red easy chairs, the Gloria-Palast was one of the most magnificent cinemas in Berlin, a premiere cinema, in which pretty much every Ufa star had made a red carpet entrance. It was also one of the few that still permitted itself the luxury of an orchestra, even though the silent era was at an end. The orchestra opened every screening, making a visit to the Gloria feel more like a visit to the opera.

‘Dr Schwartz sends his regards,’ Rath said, as they queued for the cloakroom. ‘He’s heard we’re getting married.’

‘I thought the whole of Berlin knew.’

‘Anyway, there’s no doubt our killer has struck again. The weapon in Magdeburg was the same.’

‘Do you think it’s Roddeck’s Todesengel?’

‘It certainly seems likely it’s a soldier.’ He told her about the conductor and the police sketch.

‘A disabled veteran?’ Charly looked at him wide-eyed.

‘A man with facial scarring. Unable to walk properly. Not a beggar, but the conductor swears he’s an ex-soldier. He had two brothers in the war, one of whom was killed in action. Says he can see it in their eyes.’

Charly wasn’t interested in the conductor. ‘Sounds like the man who raised the alarm at Bahnhof Zoo after seeing Hannah Singer. A well-dressed, disabled veteran with scars on his face and one leg dragging behind.’

‘I could show you a dozen who fit that description at Bahnhof Zoo alone.’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Show me.’

‘What?’

She dragged him out of the queue and towards the exit. ‘We’re heading there now, so you can show me all these men fitting that description. Facial scarring, bad leg, well dressed.’

‘We’ll miss the film!’

‘Show me!’

‘Okay, you’re right. But even if well-dressed veterans are rare, it could still be a coincidence.’

‘You know perfectly well it isn’t. It’s highly likely the man who recognised Hannah Singer and the man who murdered Hermann Wibeau on the Magdeburg train are one and the same.’

‘What if they are?’

‘Then he’s the link to Hannah Singer. Hannah didn’t just know Wosniak, she knew his killer too. That’s why she fled the asylum. Because he’s after her as well.’

Charly looked at him so triumphantly that he knew arguing was futile. He steered her gently to rejoin the back of the queue.

64

‘My gorilla has a villa in the zoo…’ Charly sang, dipping the washing brush in the warm water. There wasn’t a lot to wash up; yesterday’s wine glasses, Gereon’s breakfast dishes. He had chosen not to wake her this morning.

‘…my gorilla is happy and never blue…’

She couldn’t get the daft song from the film out of her head. The refreshingly silly comedy had put her in the mood to explore Berlin’s nightlife. The Nazis steered clear of the Ku’damm, which meant Charly could enjoy it all the more.

It was good to have the morning to herself at home. They had gone a little overboard last night but it had been fun. At least, as far as she could remember.

After the film their first port of call had been the Kakadu-Bar, just like two weeks ago when Gereon took her out for dinner and Göring did his best to spoil their appetite. In Kakadu you could forget that people like Göring existed. The few brownshirts who drank there were more worldly than their beer-swilling, march-obsessed comrades.

She danced through the kitchen, holding the washing brush like a microphone, trying to whip up her audience of one dog, but Kirie wasn’t interested. She tilted her head to one side and looked up with pity. Charly couldn’t help but laugh. She had no idea why she was in such a good mood, but why not just run with it?

The doorbell rang, too early for Gereon unless he had followed her lead and feigned a stomach ache. Unlikely, since in the meantime he’d really got his teeth into his case. Three dead bodies was decidedly too many, but what really rankled was that the killer could lead them on such a merry dance – and that Achim von Roddeck was innocent.

She looked through the peephole to see two police officers in blue coats, one wearing a shako, the other a brown SA peaked cap. On opening the door she noticed the little red-haired boy standing between them, grinning up at her in embarrassment.

‘Hello, Aunt Charlotte,’ he said. ‘Excuse the interruption.’

The cop administered a clip to the back of his neck. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to,’ he said, turning to Charly. ‘We picked him up at Friedrichstrasse station, begging from passers-by. He gave us this address and claimed you were his aunt.’

Charly looked down at the boy, who stared pleadingly back. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were full of trepidation. Before she could say anything, Kirie emerged from the kitchen and pitter-pattered towards the door for a closer look.

‘Hello, Fido,’ the boy said, ruffling her fur and floppy ears. Kirie wagged her tail and licked his face.

The cop looked as if he were about to strike the boy again, but cleared his throat instead. ‘Apologies. We thought the little mite had bust out of care.’

The boy was still busy with Kirie, but at the word ‘care’ he looked at Charly even more pleadingly than before. She didn’t know his name, but he seemed to read her mind. ‘Fido!’ he said. ‘You remember your old friend, Erich, don’t you?’

‘Erich!’ she said sternly. ‘How could you do this to your parents? Begging from passers-by! You should be ashamed.’

‘But Auntie!’

She grabbed hold of an earlobe and wrenched him away from Kirie. ‘You deserve a good hiding!’

‘But I had no money for the train.’

‘Did you run away again?’ She pulled on the boy’s ear so that he stood on tiptoes with his head tilted to one side. ‘I’ll see to the little rascal. Thank you, Officer.’

The cop looked satisfied, likewise the SA auxiliary officer. ‘Don’t be too strict on the lad, and give him his fare. You can certainly afford it.’ He gestured towards the brass doorbell as if that explained everything. ‘Then he won’t have to beg from strangers. Bad enough with all these street urchins. If there’s one less out there…’

‘Will do,’ she said.

‘Sorry again for the disruption, ma’am. In future tell your sister to keep a closer eye on the little devil.’ He turned to the boy and wagged his finger. ‘Just make sure I don’t catch you begging again. Do we understand each other?’

The boy nodded as best he could given he was still being held by the ear.

‘Else we’ll lock you up and your parents can come fetch you from jail. Or your aunt!’ He winked at Charly and gestured discreetly towards his companion. The two of them marched down the stairs.

Only when the door clicked shut did Charly finally let the boy go. He rubbed his ear while Kirie sniffed at him and wagged her tail.

‘Good boy, Fido,’ the boy began, but Charly interrupted him.

‘Fido’s name is Kirie,’ she said, ‘and what are you doing here!’

‘Still had your address, didn’t I?

‘All these lies… it’s nothing to be proud of.’

‘They’d have sent me back into care.’

‘And what am I supposed to do? It’s not like you’re actually a baker’s apprentice.’

‘Just don’t send me back. I’ll jump out of the window.’ He looked serious.

‘Don’t say that.’

‘I know you’re a cop but I thought I could talk to you.’

The boy’s instincts were good. Gereon always said she was too soft, especially when it came to the weak and vulnerable. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to send you back. Do you have somewhere to go?’

‘I’ll find something.’

She led him into the kitchen and made him a cup of cocoa. ‘Hungry?’ He nodded. She prepared a few sandwiches and fetched Hannah’s file from the living room. When she laid the photo on the table he stopped eating, staring reluctantly at the ED portrait of Hannah Singer.

‘This girl,’ Charly said. ‘The one I showed you before. I’m looking for her.’

‘Haven’t seen her, sorry. It’s a long time since I’ve been at Bahnhof Zoo.’

‘But you’ve seen her before? Her name is Hannah Singer.’

‘I don’t know her.’

‘Yes, you do! I save you from the cops, play along with the whole auntie charade, give you food and drink, and you won’t even tell me your name! You won’t tell me anything!’

Kirie’s gaze flitted between them.

‘I just told you my name.’

‘So it’s Erwin, is it?’

‘If I say it is.’

‘Ten minutes ago, it was Erich.’

He looked perplexed, then defiant. ‘It’s none of your goddamn business.’

‘I think it is, and not because I want to send you back. I just want to know who I’m dealing with.’

‘Fritze,’ the boy said. ‘Friedrich.’

‘OK, Fritze. Believe me when I say that I want to protect Hannah. I’ve no intention of harming her. She’s in danger, and I have to find her.’

‘But I’m looking for her too.’ Fritze sounded almost desperate. ‘One day she was just gone. There was this man at Bahnhof Zoo who shouted: Stop that mad girl! or something, then he spoke with the cops.’

‘You saw him?’

‘From a distance. I wasn’t sure if he meant Hannah. Back then I didn’t know she’d bust out of Dalldorf. Was it a warder?’

‘I think it was the man who’s after her.’ She showed him the pre-war photo of Benjamin Engel. ‘Could it have been this man?’

‘It could have been anyone. His face looked as if it had been through a meat grinder.’

‘You didn’t notice anything else about him?’

‘He had a limp, and a bowler hat.’

‘You have to help me, Fritze. If you see this man anywhere, I want you to head straight for the nearest telephone booth and call me. And if you see Hannah, bring her to me.’

‘She won’t come.’

‘It’s more important you tell me where she is.’

‘If I knew that…’ He looked at her helplessly. ‘I’ve been at Bahnhof Zoo for days on end, but there’s no sign.’

‘I’ll make a suggestion. You can sleep on the sofa, warm up a little and take a bath. I’ll give you food, and in return you help me look for Hannah. How about it?’

‘What if I don’t find her? Will you stick me back in care?’

‘Never, I promise.’ The boy oozed suspicion. ‘How about it? We’ll go together and you can show me all the places you’ve been with Hannah. The dog needs walking anyway.’

65

Rath had seen it coming after the weekend’s headlines. Despite the official line that close cooperation with the press was to be avoided, the public image of the Berlin Police was not to be taken lightly and so, this Monday morning, in light of his continued failure to deliver the Jewish mass murderer dead or alive, despite express orders to the contrary, Magnus von Levetzow had summoned him, once more, to report.

‘Inspector Rath,’ the commissioner said icily, ‘how kind of you to join me. I wonder if I could trouble you for a little information.’

‘Very good, Sir.’

‘How many dead bodies,’ he said, voice growing louder with each word, ‘will it take before you find our killer?’

‘With respect, Sir, it isn’t that simple. My team doesn’t have the resources.’

‘Enough of your excuses!’ When he wanted to, Magnus von Levetzow could really shout, and beat his fist on the table. ‘Half of Warrants is out looking for Benjamin Engel. The sketch you had made has been sent to all police stations in Prussia, together with a profile of the suspect. Talk about resources!’

‘Why am I sitting here,’ Rath asked, ‘if Warrants are to blame?’

‘You are here because of your own failures, and because you have exploited the powers invested in you as a police officer in a manner I refuse to tolerate.’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Sir.’ Rath knew what Levetzow meant all right. Roddeck had squealed.

‘Do I really have to explain? You treated a Prussian lieutenant, a former soldier whose life is under threat from the very man you are supposed to be apprehending, as a suspect.’

‘Convention dictates that all persons connected to a fatality are required to present their alibi. Since we were dealing with a new victim I felt compelled to ask Lieutenant von Roddeck for his.’

‘Just so there are no misunderstandings, Inspector. There’s nothing I like more than my officers getting in touch with their inner Rottweiler, but make sure you snap at the right people! The ones who can tell you where Benjamin Engel is hiding.’

‘With respect, Sir, that’s precisely what I’m doing. I’ve already grilled his supposed widow, we’re still looking for his driver, and above all we have the sketch with the description of the Magdeburg…’

‘Then don’t stop! I want you to question anyone who’s had anything to do with Benjamin Engel’s life, starting with his childhood friends and Rabbi. The murdering Jew has to be somewhere, and someone knows where. They’re the ones you grill, not poor Roddeck, a decorated war veteran.’

‘Yes, Sir.’ Rath did his best to sound contrite. He’d had a lot of practice down the years, and not just with this commissioner. ‘As far as Wibeau’s concerned, there’s no need to ask Roddeck for his alibi. I was interrogating him at the time.’

Levtzow shot him a glance. ‘Speaking of interrogations: we’ve received a complaint about you from the SA Field Police. Apparently you let a dangerous career criminal and alleged Communist escape during an interrogation?’

‘The man is a witness in the Wosniak investigation. He didn’t escape, his lawyer had a prisoner release form.’

Levetzow waved dismissively. ‘You were played by a Jew shyster and the witness retracted his statement. Am I right?’ Rath nodded. ‘Meaning you lost your witness, and the SA their prisoner.’ Rath nodded. ‘Perhaps you should have treated this lawyer with the same obstinacy you reserved for poor Lieutenant von Roddeck!’ Rath nodded. ‘Then get to work, Inspector. Find this Engel!’

‘Yes, Sir.’ Rath stood up.

‘Report to me as soon as you pick up his trail. I want to be kept personally informed.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Good, now get out of here.’ Magnus von Levetzow stretched out his right arm. ‘Heil Hitler!’

The salute caught Rath off guard. Unsure how to react, he settled for clicking his heels and taking his leave with a brisk bow. In the corridor he felt like an idiot, but at least he hadn’t been cajoled into thrusting his right arm aloft.

Back in his office he took Benjamin Engel’s biography from the file. As Levetzow had said: from his childhood friends to his Rabbi… To think, he didn’t even know if the man was alive.

The official report from 1917, which had found its way to police headquarters, gave no clues either. The episode was described more or less exactly as in Roddeck’s novel, which was hardly surprising when you looked at the signature on the form. Back then, the lieutenant had questioned the witnesses himself. Alongside demolition expert Grimberg, the focus had been on Engel’s driver, Franz Thelen. In point of fact, they were the only witnesses, or at least the only ones present when the charge detonated.

Absent from the report was the question, first raised by Grimberg, of whether Engel’s death might not have been an accident. The interrogation mostly consisted of the demolition expert exploring the various possibilities that might have led to the charge going off prematurely, including the stray pigeon he later mentioned to Rath. The statement made by Engel’s driver was more straightforward: a British artillery grenade must have landed in the trench and set off the trap. Unfortunately Thelen, the only other witness to the explosion, seemed to have vanished into thin air. In 1917 he had been sent to the Eastern Front, and in 1919 had joined a volunteer corps fighting against the Red army in the Baltic States. Erika Voss had been unable to find a current address.

A search for Engel’s corpse had never taken place, since the area in question had ceased to be part of German territory. If he had survived the blast, the advancing enemy, whether British or French, would surely have found him.

Rath skimmed the biography. Benjamin Engel was born in Siegburg in December 1883 and educated in Bonn, where he also attended university. The only period he’d spent outside of the Rhineland was in Munich, where he had completed his studies before taking his commission in the Bavarian Army. He had married Eva Heinen, whom he’d obviously known for some time, immediately following his return from Munich in 1907, and entered his parents’ furniture business. The couple welcomed a son, Walther, in 1908, and a daughter, Edith, followed in 1913. No mention of Rabbis or childhood friends, but Rath noted the names of the groomsmen all the same. Perhaps one was a friend from school days. After that came the Catholic priest who had married them, probably the same man who had baptised Engel.

Police colleagues in Bonn had been shadowing Eva Heinen since Rath’s visit to the Rhineland last week, but the only point of interest were her walks in the nearby Siebengebirge mountains, where her driver would drop her most mornings. Rath didn’t think the surveillance would lead them to Engel: by now it was clear the killer was based in Berlin or environs. It was here, rather than the Rhineland, that he had struck: Berlin, Potsdam, and on the train between Braunschweig and Magdeburg.

There was a knock at the door. ‘Yes,’ he said, reluctantly. He hated it when his secretary wasn’t there. He hated it even more when she wasn’t there, and he was interrupted. This particular interruption had a cute face, however, and lovely brown eyes.

‘Is this a bad time?’ Charly asked.

‘It’s fine. Come in.’

She crossed the empty outer office. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I forgot Erika isn’t here today.’

‘No problem. Should I lock the door?’

‘Gereon, really!’

‘Are you surprised? We had company last night, which means we have to take advantage during the day.’

‘Don’t start that again.’

Returning from work last night he had felt like a stranger in his own home. Charly intercepted him at the door and placed a finger to her lips, leading him on tiptoes into the living room where a boy lay under a woollen blanket on the sofa, at the end of which Kirie was curled into a little ball as if watching over him.

‘That’s Fritze,’ Charly whispered, before steering Rath into the kitchen and closing the door behind them. Eschewing a cognac in his favourite armchair, Rath made do with warmed Bouletten and a glass of water, after which Charly told him what the boy was doing there. Clearly she was in battle mode. Her gaze said the boy stays, or I go, and Rath was too tired to engage.

At breakfast the boy made himself useful in whatever way he could. Charly even entrusted him with Kirie’s morning stroll. Rath secretly feared he’d sell her to the nearest passer-by, but he was back after a quarter of an hour. A warm place to sleep obviously meant more than a hasty mark or two. Charly had promised he could stay for a few days, mentioning this only once she and Rath had left for work. She had already introduced Fritze to the porter, saying he was her nephew from Zehdenick. That way he could come and go as he pleased. ‘He’s helping me find Hannah,’ she had explained.

Rath swallowed his anger in the car, but could no longer hold his tongue. Charly was ready. ‘There’s no way I’m sending him back on the streets. He stays with us until I think of something else.’

‘How about a children’s home?’

‘Why do you think he bust out in the first place? He says he’d rather die than go back, and I believe him.’

‘And that’s not the only thing.’

‘Gereon, let’s not fight here too.’

‘Who’s fighting? As a matter of fact I suggested the exact opposite.’

‘Lecher!’ She couldn’t help but smile.

‘Then what are you doing here?’

‘Duty call.’ She gestured towards his desk. ‘The documents from the Bülowplatz fire, can I have them?’

‘What do you want with them?’ Rath rummaged in his drawer. The file was somewhere near the bottom.

‘I’m looking for a fallen girl,’ she said. ‘It’s what G Division are for.’

‘If you’re seeking refuge… from Wieking or your colleague – you can always use my office.’

‘I’m not sure your secretary would appreciate that.’

‘Erika’s off for the next two days, and I’ll see Plisch and Plum are kept busy.’

‘Then you’ll lock the door…’

‘Who knows?’

Charly kissed him back, but withdrew when he tried to embrace her.

‘Not now, Gereon,’ she said, waving the file. ‘No time.’

She turned at the door. ‘Can you tell me where I’ll find Reinhold?’

‘He’s still out hunting Communists. Why?’

‘He was the one who dug up this fire business in the first place. Perhaps he knows something that isn’t in the file.’

‘Hannah Singer, Fritze Don’t-Ask-Me, Alex back in the day…’ Rath sighed. ‘Could it be that you have a weakness for street children?’

‘Every woman has her secrets,’ she said, waving the file as she disappeared.

66

The wind whistled across Bülowplatz as Charly stepped out of the U-Bahn. She turned up her collar and circled the Volksbühne until Karl Liebknechthaus came into view. It was the first time she had seen the building without banners and Communist mottos. The rows of windows looked dead and deserted, like the square itself, as if the former Communist party headquarters held some dark threat. The Liebknechthaus had attracted workers from across the city with its slogans and political rallies, but for the past two weeks a Nazi flag had flown from its roof and Communists were thin on the ground. Upstanding citizens had always given Bülowplatz a wide berth and, where once it was fear of Communists, now it was fear of being mistaken for one. Only the Volksbühne reminded Berliners it was one and the same square.

Charly tried to locate the site where Heinz Singer and seven other beggars had been consumed by flames on New Year’s Eve 1931. The shacks of old were gone, with new buildings erected all around. The scene of Assistant Detective Stephan Jänicke’s murder four years ago was now a cinema. The Crow’s Nest, meanwhile, had been replaced by an apartment block, and there was nothing to suggest beggars had once lived here. So many pasts erased, Hannah’s too, and that of her father.

Horst-Wessel-Haus it said above the Liebknechthaus portal, where two SA auxiliary officers stood guard. It wasn’t the only building the Nazis had renamed. A second new plaque hung resplendent by the entrance: Police Headquarters, Berlin, Department for the Prevention of Bolshevism.

Charly showed the SA officers her identification and went inside, reluctant to treat the brownshirts as colleagues but with little choice. They had told her the room number at Alex. Reinhold Gräf looked up in surprise.

‘Charly,’ he said, pleased to see her. She struggled to believe what Gereon had told her. Just because someone worked for the Politicals and was friends with an SA officer, it didn’t make them a Nazi. ‘What brings you here?’

‘I wondered if you’d have lunch with me. I didn’t fancy eating at Alex.’

‘I’m afraid there’s no canteen here.’

‘Only nice new offices.’

‘Nice big offices anyway. We need the space.’

‘Ah yes, the new age. 1A has more officers seconded to it than any other department.’

‘Yet our work continues,’ he said, deadly serious.

‘Is that why you don’t have a canteen?’

Reinhold grinned and put the file he’d been reading into a drawer. ‘You might not believe it, but sometimes even the Political Police need a break. There’s a nice little restaurant around the corner.’ He reached for his hat and coat and held the door open.

‘Do you actually enjoy working for the Politicals?’ she asked, when they were out of earshot.

‘Define enjoy. Certain things you have to do.’

‘Snooping on people’s political beliefs?’

‘This isn’t a question of beliefs. People can think what they like, but the Communists want to establish a Soviet Germany by force. Having dragged our country to the brink of civil war with their rioting, they set the Reichstag on fire… don’t you think it’s time we put a stop to it?’

‘But your methods…’

‘Our methods, Charly. In the fight against the Reds every individual matters. Women’s CID are just as important as the Politicals and every other officer, including the auxiliary police.’

‘Who are free to use exactly the type of force we seek to prevent?’

‘History has shown there’s no other way. Besides: we are permitted to do so by the authority invested in us by the state.’

Conversations with Reinhold used to be less complicated.

He took her to a little restaurant beside the cinema. The prices were reasonable; perhaps some things never changed. Apart from a group of brownshirts occupying a table of six, the place was empty. The nearby presence of the SA and Political Police deterred normal paying customers. They found a seat away from the loudmouthed SA men.

‘I know what CID think of 1A,’ Reinhold said, ‘but, since joining the Politicals, for the first time in my career I feel like if I’m doing something useful. Not just in Berlin, but the country as a whole.’

‘You didn’t feel that way in Homicide?’

‘Where we investigate after the fact? Working for 1A I can actually prevent Communists and other enemies of the state from causing further damage.’

Enemies of the state. Charly wondered whether the Nazis didn’t pose the greater danger. Before she could say the wrong thing, the waiter arrived. Reinhold recommended the chicken fricassee Berlin style, and Charly followed his lead.

‘Speaking of old times,’ she said. ‘You worked with Böhm on the Wosniak case, didn’t you? These homeless shelters…’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘We were looking for someone to identify the deceased. Preferably the other survivor of the Bülowplatz arson.’

‘Gerhard Krumbiegel?’

‘Right.’

‘Did you find him?’

He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t have to mean anything. There are all manner of homeless shelters in Berlin. My theory is that Krumbiegel skipped town after the fire, maybe went back to Saxony. That’s where he was from.’

‘Saxony?’

‘Not the Free State, the Prussian province. He was from Halle. I telephoned the Criminal Record Office there. A colleague was due to comb the files.’

‘And?’

‘Then this lieutenant showed up and identified Wosniak.’

‘Von Roddeck?’

‘Yes, I told Halle the matter was closed.’

‘Did they find anything?’

‘Krumbiegel hasn’t been registered in Halle since he left shortly after the war.’

‘He was homeless. Doesn’t have to mean anything.’

‘No. What’s all this about, Charly?’

‘I don’t know. I just sense he’s got some role to play in all this. He might even be our killer.’

‘You’re back in Homicide?’

She felt caught out and had to laugh. ‘No, but I think this girl who bust out of Dalldorf…’

‘The crazy arsonist…’

‘Hannah Singer. I think she could be a key factor.’

‘What does Gereon think? Does he know you’re interfering in his case?’

‘Define interfering.’ She placed a finger to her lips. ‘Don’t say anything to Wieking. I’m just helping him a little when my schedule allows.’

‘Charly, Charly!’ Reinhold shook his head. ‘You’re talking like Gereon Rath.’

‘Is that a compliment?’

‘I’d rather not say. Just don’t let the chiefs catch you!’

‘It isn’t their concern how I spend my lunch break, or my free time.’

‘Charly, it would be a shame if your career went down the tubes before it’s even begun. Don’t go the same way as Gereon. His method’s toast, especially now.’

‘The way you talk about him…’ She smiled. ‘I thought he was your friend.’

‘So did I.’ The sentence had slipped out, and Reinhold was talking again before she had the chance to respond. ‘What’s up with him anyway? It’s like he’s disappeared. I hope you haven’t banned him from going out already?’

Charly sensed he wasn’t quite as relaxed as he made out. Clearly Gereon was playing hard to get, and Reinhold was wondering why. Had Gereon broken with his friend because he thought he was a Nazi? Without telling him… He was certainly capable of it. Besides, these days who told a Nazi to his face you didn’t share his beliefs?

She realised conversation with her old friend was being suffocated by politics. ‘You really think Gereon Rath would let himself be hen-pecked?

‘By someone as pretty as you, perhaps.’

She met the compliment with a smile, which felt just as false as the rest of their conversation. Once upon a time she had feared Reinhold was in love with her, only to realise that he simply valued her as a colleague. Now she wondered if they were even that.

67

Rath found the boy in the kitchen. Washing up done, he was cleaning the sink. The water gurgled down the drain, drowning out all other noise. Fritze spun around as Kirie jogged his elbow. ‘Jesus Christ!’

‘Morning, Fritze.’

‘Morning, Herr Rath.’ The boy pointed towards the sink. ‘Thought I’d do the washing up before I went looking for Hannah. It’s still only half past nine.’

‘Good,’ Rath said. ‘Perhaps you’ll have more luck today.’

‘Perhaps.’ After two blank days of searching it sounded as if Fritze had a guilty conscience.

‘I think it’s great you’re helping Fräulein Ritter,’ Rath said. He fetched his wallet from his jacket pocket and fished out a ten-mark note. ‘For you.’

Fritze looked at the note as if he smelled a rat.

‘Take it, for your help.’

‘No need.’ The boy looked almost scared of the money. At length, he accepted. ‘Thank you.’

‘Let’s not beat about the bush. We both know you can’t sleep on the sofa indefinitely.’ Fritze folded the note over and over again. ‘You can look after yourself out there, can’t you? You don’t need us.’ The boy nodded mechanically, as if he were a wind-up toy. ‘I’m not going to say anything to Welfare, but I don’t want to see you here again.’

‘And Hannah? Aunt Char… Fräulein Ritter wants me to…’

‘If you find her, sure, let Charly know. She’ll be pleased.’ Rath put a finger to his lips. ‘Not a word about our talk, you understand? It stays between us men.’

Fritze smiled uncertainly. ‘If I find Hannah I’ll be in touch. Otherwise you won’t hear from me again.’ He ruffled Kirie’s fur and she wagged her tail. No doubt hoping for a stroll she pitter-pattered towards the front door. Rath followed, grabbing her by the collar in the nick of time.

‘So,’ he said, raising his hand. ‘Good luck!’

‘Thanks for everything.’ Fritze glanced at Kirie a final time before taking to the steps.

Rath closed the door, feeling uneasy, but he couldn’t let the flat he shared with Charly be turned into a shelter for street children. Two nights with an unwanted guest in the room next door was quite enough. The boy was a real passion-killer.

He sat in the living room and smoked a cigarette. March music blared from the radio; he switched it off. Ever since Gauleiter Goebbels assumed control of the Berliner Funkstunde as Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, the station’s output had grown ever more wretched.

68

Charly couldn’t bear it. Karin van Almsick’s radio had been on since ten o’clock. Friederike Wieking had stopped by, but said nothing, not on a day like today when even the schools were closed. Against a backdrop of march music the reporter spoke as if more were at stake than the inauguration of the new Reichstag. The ceremony had been summarily relocated to the Potsdam Garrison Church, and the one-time royal seat of Prussia turned on its head. Festival services, open-air concerts, goose-steps, the whole shebang.

‘Everywhere you look the spirit of Prussia abounds,’ the reporter was saying, after painstakingly listing the regiments that formed the guard of honour which, together with the SA and Stahlhelm, now awaited the meeting of Hindenburg with Hitler.

‘The Reich President, still to emerge from his car, the pleasure garden awash with military federations of the Fatherland. We await his arrival here in front of the guard of honour…’

‘Can you turn it down a little, I can’t concentrate,’ she groaned.

‘Don’t be like that.’ Karin’s right ear was practically nailed to the device. ‘Oh, what I’d give to be there.’

‘I’m sure your Rudi will tell you all about it.’

Karin had ears for the radio only. His voice breaking with emotion, the reporter described how Hitler received Hindenburg, who had arrived at last, with a low bow and shake of the hand.

‘Just imagine, this is happening right now!’

The pathos from the radio made Charly dizzy. She actually felt sick. It wasn’t that she lacked Prussian patriotism, but here it served merely to highlight the hypocrisy on show. The Nazis had already taken Berlin, and now they were taking her Prussia, too! ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I have to stop by Registry.’

Karin nodded, and Charly wedged the Bülowplatz file under her arm and left for where she could make a call in peace. There was no radio in his office. Instead she was greeted by the dog. Gereon looked surprised.

Charly gestured towards Erika Voss’s abandoned desk. ‘You did promise me refuge if it came to the worst.’

‘Has something happened?’

‘The radio’s been on the whole day. Reichstag inauguration, in Potsdam. I’m sure you can imagine.’ She set the file on Erika Voss’s desk.

‘Doesn’t look like your standard G Division case.’

‘Mind if I help with yours?’

‘My orders are to find Benjamin Engel.’

‘Then someone has to investigate the leads you can’t.’

‘Make yourself at home,’ he said, ‘and if you need a break, there’s less chance of us being interrupted in my office.’

‘Gereon! I’m here to work.’

‘Just a suggestion.’

She sat down and Gereon returned to his office. Kirie looked for a spot under her desk while she placed a trunk call to Halle.

‘Officer Petzold and colleagues are following events in Potsdam,’ a secretary informed her. ‘Please try again later.’

Charly slammed the receiver onto the cradle with such force that Gereon came back out. ‘That is the property of the Berlin Police,’ he said. ‘It’s Bakelite, not Krupp steel.’

‘Is anyone actually working today? The only thing people seem to care about is Hindenburg shaking this goddamn Hitler’s hand.’

‘It isn’t the only thing,’ he said, pulling her chair away from the desk and into his office, where he shut the connecting door and turned the key in the lock. He leaned over her and kissed her, and, after a brief and half-hearted protest, she kissed him back.

‘You do this with your secretary too?’ she asked.

‘Only every third Tuesday.’

‘Cheeky bastard.’

‘Sorry,’ he said and kissed her on the nape of the neck. ‘But after the last two nights…’

She sighed, but he was right. If no one else was working why the hell should she?

‘Close the curtains,’ she said, pointing to the window. Outside an S-Bahn rumbled past, no doubt bound for Potsdam.

69

The university library reading room was the size of a railway concourse, but much quieter.

Walther Engel resembled his father in all but the captain’s uniform and Kaiser Wilhelm moustache. Rath had been looking over his shoulder but, when Engel turned around, put a finger to his lips. He laid his identification next to the books: German Quarterly for Literary Studies and Intellectual History; Psychoanalysis and Literary Studies; The Literary Generations; Identifying Characteristics of German Romanticism…

Engel examined the identification. ‘My mother said you might show up. Let’s go outside. I could use a break.’

Rath agreed and stowed his ID. On Dorotheenstrasse they were greeted by a chill wind. They walked alongside one another, hands in pockets. ‘Your mother mentioned my visit?’ he asked.

‘And your story about my father.’

‘What do you think?’

‘Can I imagine my father is still alive, or that he’s a spineless killer?’

‘You’re well briefed.’ Rath took his cigarette case from his coat and held it out. The two men strolled on, smoking as they went.

‘I’m glad I ran into you,’ Rath said. ‘It’s the semester break, isn’t it?’

‘You can study outside of lectures.’

‘But your… studies have little to do with the furniture business…’

‘Because I want nothing to do with it.’

‘Who will carry it into the fourth generation?’

‘My mother has taken care of all that. In times like these it falls to others to safeguard the store’s future.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m half-Jewish, Inspector, even if I’ve never set foot in a synagogue. Though that’s also true of many who count as “full Jews” in the eyes of the anti-Semites.’

‘So?’

‘What kind of future do you suppose a Jewish furniture business has in the new Germany?’

‘Come off it! What use is anti-Semitism to the Nazis now they’re in power? Things aren’t nearly as bad as people make out.’

‘I wish I shared your confidence. My mother certainly doesn’t. Why do you think she reverted to her maiden name? My father could have been baptised a hundred times, but as far as Bonn society’s concerned we’ll always be Jew upstarts.’ He gazed at Rath critically. ‘What is it you want?’

‘Anything you can tell me about your father.’

‘Inspector, I don’t know if I can help you. I was twelve when my mother told me Father wouldn’t be coming home. She never used words like dead or killed in action, but we knew, Edith and I. Like her we still hoped that one day he might return.’

‘And now?’

‘My father is dead. I can feel it.’

Rath took the police sketch from his pocket. ‘This man is almost certainly responsible for the murder of three ex-soldiers from your father’s unit.’

‘You think that’s my father? It looks nothing like him.’

‘It could do, if he survived a serious injury.’

‘Which he didn’t. We’re going around in circles.’

‘I’m a police officer and have to assume anything’s possible. There are some questions I need to ask you.’

‘Fine, but I tell you now, I won’t respond to speculation.’

Rath snapped open his notebook. ‘Do you know Achim von Roddeck?’

‘No.’

Rath made a tick. ‘Your father never mentioned the name?’

‘He never spoke about the war during his visits home. One day the visits stopped.’

‘But you recognise it.’

‘Only since he’s been dragging the Engel name through the mire.’

Rath made a second tick. ‘Did you threaten Roddeck to prevent him from publishing his war memoirs?’

‘As I’ve already said, I won’t respond to speculation. Especially not when it is so patently absurd. Am I a suspect?’

‘I’m afraid I must ask for your alibi.’ Rath said. ‘Where were you last Friday around midday?’

‘At my mother’s house in Bonn. It was her Saint’s day on the Tuesday, and I stayed on a few days.’

Rath made a note. ‘What about the ninth of March?’

‘I don’t know, Inspector. What day was that?’

‘Thursday.’

‘Library, probably.’

‘And the twenty-first and twenty-second of February? A Tuesday and a Wednesday.’

Engel shrugged. ‘I’d need to think about that. I can tell you I didn’t kill any war veterans.’

‘Let me know when you remember.’ Rath put his notepad away. ‘Best to provide details of a few witnesses while you’re at it.’

‘Of course, if there are any.’

‘Did you know any of the victims? Heinrich Wosniak, Linus Meifert, Hermann Wibeau?’

Engel shook his head. ‘They all served with my father, didn’t they? Like I said, my father never discussed the war at home.’

‘What about the names Friedrich Grimberg and Franz Thelen?’

Walther Engel looked surprised. ‘The driver?’

‘I thought your father never discussed the war. How do you know his driver’s name?’

‘His driver? More like one of my mother’s, from the store.’

‘You didn’t know he chauffeured your father during the war?’

Engel shook his head. ‘Mother will have. Maybe that’s why she hired him.’

‘Does Thelen still work for Engel Furniture?’

‘No, and he hasn’t for a long time. Why are you interested in him?’

‘He was there at the end, so to speak. Franz Thelen witnessed the explosion that buried your father.’

Walther Engel drew on his cigarette. After all these years, he was still preoccupied by his father’s fate.

70

It wasn’t so strange that people thought he was a cop, and he certainly did nothing to correct the assumption when it came up. Not that anyone came out with it in so many words, as if the term police were subject to an evil curse, which in these circles perhaps it was.

He didn’t have a photograph, but he was good at describing people. Maybe that was why they thought he was a cop. Then there was the reward, dangled in front of whoever he spoke to.

He’d got a good look at the brat at Bahnhof Zoo, each item of clothing she wore was burned on his brain. And that was how he described her too, never forgetting to add that this Hannah Singer was a dangerous lunatic.

They treated him with respect here, in a dive bar near the Volkspark Friedrichshain. The area was chosen deliberately; the Volkspark was where he and the other Crows had picked up Hannah, years ago, when she’d first tried to escape. The locals let him sip his beer and go about his business in peace. No one asked questions, just told him what they’d heard.

So far it was only rumours. A girl fitting Hannah’s description had been hanging around Kreuzberg and Neukölln. Others had information about her in Friedrichshain, but no one had actually seen her. He’d spent a day prowling the bars of Kreuzberg and Neukölln, but here, by the Volkspark, was where he’d made his base. People had to know where to find him.

Hunched over his beer, he kept his eyes open, which was how he spotted the youth. There was something determined, something excited about him, which set him apart. The youth whispered something to the owner, whom he seemed to know, but kept looking over in his direction. When the owner moved away the youth planted himself in front of him. ‘Heard you’re looking for someone?’

For days now he had been waiting. The youth was having trouble looking him in the eye, but that was normal. In fact it made things easier.

‘A lunatic from the asylum they say?’

Out of the corner of his eye, he realised his silence made the youth nervous.

‘Perhaps I can help you.’

‘Perhaps?’

‘What do I get out of it?’

‘One hundred.’

‘Two hundred and you have a deal.’

‘One hundred.’

The youth pretended to consider if it was worth his while, but his face gave him away. He needed the cash, and one hundred marks was hardly chicken feed.

He could have gone with two hundred, it didn’t make any difference. He wasn’t planning to pay, but yielding too quickly would make the youth suspicious.

‘One hundred it is.’

For the first time he looked into the youth’s eyes, delighting in his unease. ‘But only,’ he said, holding out his hand, ‘if I catch her too.’

They shook on it.

71

The pastor’s office was as Rath remembered: dominated by a huge, intimidating painting of St Norbert, filled with dark wood furniture, two windows facing onto Mühlenstrasse where the Buick gleamed in the cold winter sun. Spring came late to Berlin.

Having postponed their appointment with Pastor Warszawski once already, today they made sure to leave the Castle in good time.

St Norbert’s wasn’t exactly close by, nor was it Rath’s home parish, but he knew of no other Catholic priest in Berlin. After four years in this heathen city, Gereon Rath from Holy Cologne hadn’t once attended Mass but, unless he wished to be disinherited, a Catholic wedding was the only option. Rather than choosing someone unfamiliar, he had sought out Johannes Warszawski, whom he’d first met a couple of years back when Warszawski had taken an incense holder to the back of his head. After this painful greeting Rath had come to appreciate the priest, without whose help the Weisse Hand, a secret band of vigilantes who had infiltrated the Berlin Police, might never have been broken.

All that was ancient history. The reason for today’s meeting was the so-called Brautexamen, which the Catholic Church set all prospective spouses prior to marriage. The pastor, stocky rather than fat, sat behind his desk like a king Rath and Charly had come to beseech. The truth wasn’t so different; to marry a Protestant, Rath had to ask permission of the Holy Mother Church, and whether or not this was granted had less to do with Rath than with his Protestant bride-to-be. That is, with Charly. He hadn’t been this nervous in a long time, and just hoped she could rein in her unpredictable streak.

So far, everything was going swimmingly. Pastor Warszawski had spoken about the deeper meaning of the marriage sacrament, about the liturgy and order of ceremony, and was noting their personal details.

‘Is that a spider?’ Charly asked suddenly, pointing towards the sacred image on the wall behind the priest.

‘St Norbert,’ Rath explained hurriedly. ‘That’s how he’s always portrayed.’

‘Our patron saint,’ Pastor Warszawski said. His irritability always put Rath in mind of Wilhelm Böhm.

‘Why’s it coming out of a chalice?’

‘I’ll explain later.’

Warszawski laughed, and with his laugh the irritability was gone. ‘I needn’t be concerned about someone so inquisitive. You’ll be a fast learner.’

‘A fast learner?’ Charly looked baffled, and Rath feared the worst. Keeping his counsel he opted to say a quick prayer…

‘Well,’ the pastor began, looking serious again, ‘if you are to enter into the sacred bond of marriage with your betrothed here, then the Church must ensure that any resulting offspring will be baptised as Catholics and raised in the Catholic faith. Seen thus, a little awareness of Catholic matters is no bad thing.’

‘Well,’ Charly said, ‘I’ve no plans to study Catholic theology.’

For God’s sake! Rath was sweating blood.

‘Nor are you obliged to,’ Warszawski said. ‘These matters can just as well be explained by your husband.’ Rath nodded devotedly. ‘Very well,’ Warszawksi said. ‘Then I can tick that box too.’ He made a few ticks on the form in front of him. ‘That’s the greatest hurdle overcome.’

More questions followed, on previous marriages, on the voluntary nature of their own vows, on possible impediments and so on, Warszawski ticking the items off one by one. Charly didn’t make any more trouble, and Rath felt relieved.

‘Right,’ the pastor said, skimming the form a final time, ‘that’s about it for today.’ He pushed the form across the table towards Charly and handed her his fountain pen. ‘Sign here, Fräulein Ritter.’

Charly looked around helplessly. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I explained it to you,’ Rath said. ‘The Church has to be sure our children will be raised in the Catholic faith.’

‘You didn’t mention signing anything. I thought we were just talking.’

‘It’s only a signature.’

‘I can’t sign this. I don’t know anything about the Catholic faith.’

‘Will you stop making such a fuss!’

Pastor Warszawski gazed at him sternly, then turned to Charly. ‘Now listen, young woman. I am not the Pope, nor do I presume to pass judgement on your happiness. All I’m interested in, is whether you have the necessary respect for the holy sacrament of marriage. A covenant with God is a great commitment and responsibility. If you take it seriously you will raise your children accordingly.’

Charly nodded. ‘I take it seriously,’ she said and looked at Rath.

‘Then you can sign.’ Warszawski handed her the fountain pen. ‘The most important thing is what’s written in your heart.’

Charly seemed to appreciate this. She signed the document and Rath thanked God he had come to Johannes Warszawski and not one of the bigoted clerics he knew from childhood. Following Charly’s lead he signed the declaration and returned the pen to the priest.

‘Then it’s done,’ Warszawski said. ‘Now, I suggest we take the opportunity to schedule an appointment for confession. What do you say, Herr Rath?’

‘Confession?’

‘Of course. Best just before the marriage.’ He winked at him. ‘Which, needless to say, doesn’t mean you are free to sin with impunity until then.’

Rath forced a smile. ‘Needless to say.’

Sitting in the car ten minutes later his principal emotion was relief. Charly had signed. The only thing that could happen now was her jilting him at the altar. He watched her out of the corner of his eye and wondered what she was thinking about.

He was to find out soon enough.

‘Let’s stop at Bahnhof Zoo,’ she said, as they approached Charlottenburg. ‘We can look out for Fritze.’

‘The boy’s been gone three days. He isn’t coming back. Just be glad he didn’t steal anything from us.’

Charly glared at him. ‘Fritze is my only link to Hannah Singer,’ she said. ‘I have to find him.’

‘Charly, you’re getting too caught up in this business. You shouldn’t be neglecting your own work over it.’

‘My own work,’ she said contemptuously. ‘My own work is about as useful as a skin rash.’

‘You make it sound like a disease.’

‘It is.’ She looked at him. ‘Gereon, there’s something I need to confess.’

‘I’m the Catholic, not you.’

‘I was at the doctor’s today.’

‘Don’t say you’re…’

‘No!’ She laughed. ‘My God, is that all you lot can think of?’

‘You lot?’

‘Forget it.’ Charly took a piece of paper from her coat pocket. ‘I didn’t dare show this to you before but, following our meeting with the pastor, I think we should share everything.’

They stopped at a red light on Schaperstrasse, and Rath unfolded the letter. A medical certificate. He recognised the name of the doctor, one of her friends from academia, perhaps.

‘You’ve been signed off for two weeks. You seemed all right last night.’ He gave her a nudge, but she batted him aside.

‘Cut it out.’

‘I was just saying.’ Since Fritze’s disappearance things were back on the up.

‘I had an appointment with Dieter this morning. I know it isn’t right but I can’t bear it in G Division any longer, and I can’t keep running to you.’

‘But two weeks… What about your inspector training?’

She shrugged her shoulders, as if to apologise. ‘I can’t go back, Gereon. Not right now. Perhaps things will be different in two weeks.’

‘You think? Wieking will still be there; you’ll just have to get used to her.’

The light turned green and he stepped on the accelerator. He could see she was embarrassed, but felt this was the only way. They drove along Joachimsthaler Strasse in silence.

‘Paroxysmal neurasthenia,’ Rath said eventually. ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

‘Nervous exhaustion.’

He shook his head and smiled. Turning towards her he saw that she was smiling too.

72

Leo’s eye socket barely hurt anymore, but he still wasn’t used to the patch. It took a moment for him to recognise his reflection. The man staring back resembled a carnival-goer dressed as a pirate, or a fucking veteran. Had he really made it through the war to spend the rest of his days as a cripple?

Without the hellish pain, he could forget he was missing an eye until life served pitiless reminders: when he banged his foot, or poured his beer next to his glass. He could no longer judge distances.

When it came to shooting, however, he was better than ever.

In the spacious confines of Marlow’s villa he took out his anger on empty bottles and tin cans, and there were plenty around. Boredom had seen to that.

He had hoped to start on his list of names from that accursed SA cellar, but Marlow had brought him here to Bad Freienwalde, the arse-end of nowhere. Even Marlow seldom left the house, and never its grounds. The only person who’d stayed in Berlin was Liang. The Chinese remained in Marlow’s warehouse at the Ostbahnhof, ensuring that business continued and contacts were maintained. Including those with Berolina, with Leo’s men.

‘Relax, Leo,’ Marlow had said. ‘You’re safe here. Right now Berlin’s too dangerous.’

Leo hadn’t realised it was an order until a few days later when he tried to leave. Berlin was only an hour away, and he could look after himself, but guards prevented him from getting in the car. He was still a prisoner, even if Marlow put it differently. ‘I’m protecting you from yourself,’ he said. ‘I can’t risk you falling into Lapke and the SA’s hands a second time!’

God knows, that was the last thing on Leo’s mind.

Let the arseholes fall into his hands. Katsche, Lapke, Sperling, and whatever their names were. Anyone on the list in his head…

Perhaps, he thought sometimes, as he emptied his Browning into another row of cans, it was no bad thing Marlow was holding him here. Wasn’t revenge a dish best served cold? Already, Leo savoured the fantasy in his mind. First up would be Katsche, then Lapke and Sperling.

And not forgetting this police inspector…

Leo hadn’t added his name until Freienwalde. Marlow explained why he’d had to enlist a cop to bail him out. That Dr Kohn was powerless to do anything. That it wasn’t easy prying people away from the SA.

Leo understood all that, but then Dr M. told him when he had first spoken to the police inspector. Half a week before Katsche had sucked out his eyeball. Half a week!

What had he been doing all that time? Scratching his balls?

If this police inspector, who was supposedly in Marlow’s pocket, had taken his instructions seriously, there was no way he, Leo Juretzka, would be going around with a patch over his eye!

He hadn’t said anything to Marlow, of course; Dr M. would have regarded it as ingratitude, and Leo didn’t want that. He had simply made a mental note of the name: Gereon Rath. Added it to the list, and taken his Browning back outside.

73

When Rath returned from duty on Saturday, Charly was reading with a cup of coffee in front of her on the table.

‘You,’ she said, and sat up.

‘Pleased to see me?’ he asked. Kirie pitter-pattered over to greet him. He drew back the curtain. The morning fog had lifted, the sun was shining, and for once the house was empty.

‘What should we do?’ he asked. ‘Take a trip to the country? It feels like Kirie needs a walk.’

‘Why don’t you take her then?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I can’t go outside! Gereon, I’m sick.’

‘You’re on sick leave, and fresh air is good for you. Look out of the window. Spring’s almost here.’

‘What if someone sees me?’ For a good Prussian like Charly it was inconceivable that she be signed off work, only to stroll blithely through town.

Rath had pictured their weekend differently. ‘You really want to spend the whole day sitting there? Someone could just as well have seen you yesterday evening at Bahnhof Zoo.’

‘That was different, we were looking for the boy. I can’t be going gallivanting off when my colleagues think I’m ill.’

She sipped her coffee and turned back to her book, making a face as if her hamster had died. Rath had rarely seen her like this. Perhaps this doctor wasn’t so wrong with his ‘diagnosis’.

‘For God’s sake, Charly! You can’t spend the whole day in a funk just because the Nazis are in power. It’s only politics. Life goes on.’

She looked up. ‘Only politics. What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You know exactly what it means. We shouldn’t be getting worked up over who’s in government. Our job is the same as before: to catch criminals.’

‘Is it the same though? Somehow I don’t think so.’

‘Something had to give after the Reichstag fire, but things have settled down in A. It’s only a matter of time before normal service is resumed with you, too.’

‘If nothing’s changed in two weeks, then…’

‘What? You’ll get another certificate? And grumble on until Hindenburg shows Hitler and his Nazis the door?’

Charly fetched a Juno from her cigarette case and lit up. ‘I don’t know, Gereon. I just know I can’t stand it right now. If I have to listen to Karin swooning over Hitler and the new age one more time… I swear I’ll strangle her.’

‘Ordinary people like the Nazis. They think they’re going to usher in a better future.’

‘I can’t think about it.’

‘Let’s wait and see. Striking against the Communists was a natural first move, and there are plenty who’d say not before time. By no means just Nazis.’

‘It sounds like you’ve given up on democracy.’ Her disappointment was plain. ‘Or worse, like you never cared about it in the first place.’

Rath could no longer contain himself. ‘Democracy!’ he said. ‘It’s all I ever hear from you. Democracy, democracy. As if it’s the only solution to Germany’s problems.’ He was surprised to find himself shouting, but continued, he had to let it all out. ‘Who’s responsible for this whole shemozzle? How is it the Nazis have a Reichstag majority? I’ll tell you. Your precious democracy. Who knows, perhaps if you women hadn’t achieved the vote in ’19 the Nazis wouldn’t be where they are now.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ Charly stood up and glared at him.

‘It’s true. Without female suffrage, they’d never have got so many votes. It’s the women who run after Hitler. I know any number.’

‘Any number, eh?’

Careful… There was no way he could offer Hilde Sprenger from Cologne as an example.

‘Well, there’s your colleague for a start. And Wieking. Anyway, it’s true: they’d never have got this far without female suffrage.’

It was almost as if he could hear his own father talking, and he knew he had overstepped the mark. He waited for Charly’s response. She stood with her lower lip trembling. He wanted to go to her, take her in his arms, and tell her he didn’t mean it, but she reacted first with a hard slap, before turning on her heel and exiting the room, slamming the door behind her.

He stood rooted to the spot and moments later heard the front door snap shut. Still he couldn’t bring himself to move. His cheek was on fire, but he didn’t care.

At least she was getting some fresh air.

74

Hannah wakened to the sun shining through the window and the sound of pots and pans clattering. From the kitchen next door the smell of coffee wafted towards the bed.

The bed!

She still had to pinch herself to be sure she wasn’t dreaming. She was in a proper bed, where she fell asleep in the evenings and wakened the next morning. Free to go at any time.

Even so, things with Felix weren’t quite as she would have liked. Generous as he had been, at night he sought payment for his largesse and Hannah wasn’t prepared to oblige. Whenever he touched her, she was reminded of the Crows, who had taken what they wanted just so long as they were drunk enough.

Felix wasn’t like that, he respected her ‘no’, but it did nothing for his mood, which had deteriorated so much his place had ceased to feel like home. She couldn’t give him what he wanted, and her plan was to wait for the first really warm spell to leave for somewhere she could start afresh. Until then she would continue to wash his dishes, put his dinner on the table and do whatever else was required. Except for one thing.

She shuffled into the kitchen and couldn’t believe her eyes. Felix had made breakfast. Alongside a pot of coffee, he had managed to get hold of a few bread rolls. No one had done this for her before. No one had done anything for her before. Felix was the first. All right, maybe Fritze too.

‘There you are,’ he said. ‘I was just about to wake you. Coffee?’

She nodded and blinked into the sun, smiling at him.

‘Sit.’ He poured.

‘What a beautiful day,’ she said.

‘Spring’s around the corner.’

They sat drinking coffee and dipping their bread rolls, until she felt compelled to break the silence. ‘Maybe we should head out to the country,’ she suggested.

‘Can’t. There’s something going down.’

‘Can’t they leave you alone on Sundays?’

‘Not them. I’m working alone.’

‘What?’

‘I got a tip-off. No need for them to know. That way it might be worth it for a change.’

‘But how are you going to manage? On your own…’

‘Not quite on my own.’ He looked at her. ‘You’re coming on look-out duty.’

Now Hannah understood what breakfast had been about. She had been worried he might ask her something like this ever since she’d moved in; ever since she’d discovered he owed his comforts to a burglary ring. It was no secret and she had cottoned on pretty quickly. ‘I don’t know.’

Felix looked at her in astonishment and anger. ‘Where d’you think the money comes from? I thought you liked sleeping in a bed, but maybe you prefer life on the streets?’

‘No, no.’ Hannah was startled by his sudden unfriendliness. ‘I was just…’ She shrugged. ‘How are you going to get rid of the swag without the gang finding out?’

‘If that’s all your worried about, you can rest easy, it’s all in hand.’

‘I was just saying.’

‘Once it’s done we’ll go somewhere nice, just the two of us. Promise. Cinema, dinner, dancing.’

He came across as a slightly hapless lothario. Perhaps that’s just how he was, and he was better at practical things. Where talking wasn’t required.

He hadn’t told her where he was going to break in or what he was going to steal. It couldn’t be anything heavy since they weren’t even taking a handcart, let alone the truck the ring used to stow their loot, and which he was sometimes permitted to drive. That’s what he claimed, but Hannah suspected he was showing off. A burglary ring would never let a boy without a license behind the wheel.

Whatever, right now, they were on foot, crossing the Thielen Bridge towards Kreuzberg until Görlitzer Bahnhof, where they walked through the dark, piss-stained Görlitzer pedestrian tunnel to reach the other end of the station. From there it was under the elevated railway at Schlesisches Tor, until, finally, reaching a small square, they turned into a blind alley somewhere between Köpenicker Strasse and the Spree.

The cobbled path where they halted was like a cross between a factory site and a rear courtyard, surrounded as it was by dilapidated brick buildings, which could have been large workshops or small factories. The blind alley ended at a loading dock from which several doors led into the heart of one of the buildings. The colour had started to flake from the signs. OHLIGS CABINETMAKERS, Hannah read, next to an enamel sign advertising spark plugs. Was this even public land?

‘Don’t worry,’ Felix said, his voice low. ‘It’s only busy during the week. Right now there isn’t a soul for miles.’

‘What about the people who live here?’

‘They won’t come near the yard. Besides, they’re all at worship. The Protestants in the Emmaus Church, and the Catholics in the Liebfrauen.’

‘What about the Jews?’

‘There’s only you.’ Felix fetched his picklocks from his pocket and made a serious face. ‘No point being scared. Keep your eyes open, and if you see anyone, whistle.’

‘Whistle? Isn’t that a little obvious?’

‘A tune, so that no one gets suspicious. As if you’re just whistling to yourself. Clear?’

She nodded, and Felix jumped onto the ramp, where he fiddled around until a door opened and he vanished inside.

75

He missed the dog most of all. At night when she lay at the foot of the sofa it felt as if he had found a friend. It wasn’t easy getting used to life on the streets again after two nights under a warm blanket with a roof over his head, and two days in which he realised there was such a thing as family, or at least such a thing as home.

Herr Rath had been right to show him the door. A boy like Fritze Thormann didn’t belong in Charlottenburg, not in an apartment like that with a couple soon to be married. Still, something in him didn’t understand why he had been chucked out. He ought to have been grateful for the ten marks. Instead, not for the first time, he had choked back tears.

Idiot, why do you have to kid yourself? Stop dreaming! Open your eyes and see life for what it is!

Then there was the dog… He wondered if he should get a thing like that, then he wouldn’t be so alone. A dog could protect him, even if it would make finding a bed that much harder. Already he had been forced to sleep rough, since his old haunts were taken and for the first time in weeks he had failed to find anywhere new. At least it wasn’t so cold now, spring was on its way, not that he slept any better for it.

Luck had deserted him, even begging wasn’t the same. In the meantime he had given up any hope of seeing Hannah again. If this cripple really did mean to kill her then it was best she keep a low profile, but he still caught himself looking for her, begging at a new station each day. As he spoke with people and kept an eye out for cops, time and again he found his gaze drawn to girls who resembled her.

Using his takings to buy a hot broth near Schlesischer Bahnhof yesterday lunchtime, he had overheard people on the next table discussing a man who had promised money for information. Fritze couldn’t understand everything, but there was talk of an escaped lunatic and it sounded very much like Hannah. Even so, it wasn’t until he heard the word scar-face that his ears really pricked up. It wasn’t a cop who was looking for her, nor a warder from the asylum, but the man who’d chased her out of Bahnhof Zoo! The man who was trying to kill her, if what Charly said was right. Aunt Charlotte. He had liked her, had thought she trusted him, yet here he was back on the streets.

Görlitzer Bahnhof wasn’t a great spot. Most people were from Cottbus or Breslau and barely had money for tickets, but today the sun was out and good weather put people in a good mood, which made them more generous.

As usual he kept an eye out for Hannah as he put the moves on passers-by, when all at once he saw something familiar. Not a girl with a red beret, but a man with a dark winter coat and bowler hat. And a strange, unrhythmic gait.

He looked again, but the man had disappeared. Were his eyes playing tricks? The lady he’d asked for fare money shook her head as he hared off in pursuit of the bowler hat. Forget the money! This was his route back to Charly.

He was too small to make out the hats bobbing up and down, but luckily there weren’t many bowlers. Most wore flat caps like his own. Four or five hats appeared again and again in the sea of heads, but only one moved erratically.

Fritze didn’t know what to do. Tell Charly? He had already taken forty pfennigs this morning. Should he spend ten on a call? Charlottenburg was a long way away. By the time she got here he might have lost him. His eyes flitted between the telephone booths on Spreewaldplatz and the crowds.

76

Hannah stood in the yard feeling unspeakably alone. Noises she had scarcely heard moments before suddenly seemed very loud. Wind rattling sheet metal. The thunder of the elevated railway. Was that something from the workshop? What if they caught Felix in the act?

Don’t get worked up, girl!

Ten minutes, he’d said. How long had she been waiting already? She decided to count to pass the time and distract from her fear.

Twenty-one, twenty-two…

Stay calm, she told herself. You’re not doing anything illegal just standing here.

… thirty-nine, forty…

There’s only you.

How did he know she was Jewish? Had they discussed it? Unlikely, it was hardly important. Perhaps she looked Jewish? She had never thought about it before.

Just keep counting.

… eighty-seven, eighty-eight…

Reaching one hundred and eighty-seven she heard footsteps from somewhere beyond the bend, from the alleyway that led onto Köpenicker Strasse and which was invisible from here.

Shit! They should have gone to the country after all. But… it didn’t have to mean anything. Why shouldn’t someone be approaching? It didn’t have to be a worker, and certainly not a cop.

She started whistling. She didn’t know many tunes and plumped for Üb immer Treu und Redlichkeit.

She tried not to look, making as if she were more interested in one of the other doors leading onto the courtyard, as far away as possible from the cabinetmaker’s workshop where Felix had vanished.

She whistled louder and for a moment the footsteps appeared to die, but then they drew closer and from the corner of her eye she saw a shadow. Whoever it was didn’t seem to be heading for the workshop. That was good, but they were coming towards her.

Feverishly she tried to think of a story, when suddenly the shadow made a strange, lopsided movement, as if the person it belonged to was drunk or had a… limp!

She ceased whistling, the final note stuck in her throat.

‘Do carry on. It’s such a lovely tune.’

That familiar old voice… She turned around and there he was, twisting his scar-face into a grin. He was on her at once, with astonishing speed, much quicker than she’d have thought possible. Huckebein was still nimble, still strong. A soldier. He’d been the same in the Crow’s Nest, despite his leg.

He had boxed her into a corner. In his right hand was the long dagger which, he used to boast, had seen off countless Frogs and Tommys. Her eyes darted this way and that. If she could get past him maybe she’d have a chance. Goddamn blind alley!

She lunged right, only to swerve left, and he fell for it. She had just about evaded him when there was a stabbing pain in her arm and side, and she felt herself seized by an ice-cold hand. She was losing her balance, tumbling with him to the floor. The dagger slid across the cobbles with a clink. She must have knocked it out of his hand, or he’d lost it in the fall. Either way the thing was a few metres behind them on the pavement, so too his bowler, spinning around like a drunken whirligig.

Huckebein was no longer armed, but then neither was she, and he had her in his grasp.

She defended herself but, as ever, had no chance. After a brief, wordless tussle, he forced her onto her back and kneeled on her arms. She thrashed her legs, but it was no use. He had her at his mercy. Her impotence made her angry, gave her newfound strength, but still she was no match. Only now did it occur to her that she wasn’t alone. That she could cry for help. ‘Felix!’

The grin made his face even more repulsive.

‘Your Felix is long gone. Who do you think it was that shopped you?’ She let out a shrill cry, and he held her mouth closed. ‘There’s no one here. Save your breath. You’re going to need it.’ His hands gripped her throat. ‘You could have had a quick and painless death, but you know I prefer it this way.’

She gasped for air, felt the strength being sucked from her body. Desperation kicked in, but it was hopeless. She couldn’t move her arms under the weight of his knees, didn’t even reach him with her legs. She wriggled like a fish on dry land until her panic was replaced by fatigue, and a desire for peace. Why not just yield?

All at once she felt the pressure on her neck subside and the weight on her arms grow lighter. Hope returned and, with it, the will to live. She gulped air into her lungs as Huckebein’s shadow emerged through blurred streaks of light, waving its hands as if to banish an invisible swarm of wasps. She heard her frantic breath, and Huckebein’s cry.

Then all was still.

77

It was early for cognac, but the glass Rath poured after finishing breakfast (mainly coffee) helped dispel his hangover. The telephone had wakened him around ten. He staggered over, but by the time he got there the caller had hung up.

Charly, was his first thought, but he had resisted the temptation to call Greta. There was no question that’s where she was. Other women might go to their mother; Charly went to Greta. What was up with her? How could she let a harmless discussion about politics spiral like that?

After she had gone he had smoked two cigarettes, fed Kirie and left her in the care of the porter, and headed out along the Ku’damm to the Kakadu-Bar.

Despite the national uprising, business was much the same. The music was still good and American, the booze likewise, and, with the right change in your pocket, you could forget about the world outside, which was precisely what Rath intended to do, sampling a few drinks as he listened to the music and the chatter of his fellow patrons.

Still, Charly was on his mind and he had spent the evening being angry at her, longing for her, and drinking himself into a stupor. Back home he reached for the cognac, and so found sleep.

Since being wakened he hadn’t taken his eyes off the telephone, but it hadn’t rung again. Unless he’d missed a second call when he was under the shower?

One more cognac, he thought, then it’ll be time for Kirie’s walk. After that, we’ll see. He felt a strong urge to drive by Spenerstrasse with a bouquet of flowers, but his pride told him to wait for her to call and apologise. He was so focused on the telephone he needed a moment to realise the doorbell was ringing.

He ran into the bathroom to put a comb through his still-wet hair and check his shirt and tie before going to answer it. Kirie was there already, wagging her tail expectantly.

He hesitated, took a deep breath and opened, at pains to appear as indifferent as possible. It was Fritze. Rath was stunned into silence. The boy seemed equally put out, having no doubt expected Charly to answer.

‘I’ve found Hannah,’ he mumbled.

‘You’ve what?’

‘She said to tell you. I have Hannah.’ Fritze looked at him anxiously, stealing a glance inside. ‘Where’s Charly?’

Rath thought there was a note of desperation in the boy’s voice. ‘Not here,’ he said, sternly.

Fritze looked at him as if wondering if he could really trust this man. It was a moment before he spoke again. ‘Something terrible has happened. You need to help us.’ Heavy sobs racked his body.

Rath took the boy into the apartment and closed the door. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. The boy didn’t seem to hear. Rath steered him into the kitchen and sat him on a chair, a sobbing marionette.

Rarely had he felt so helpless. He hated situations like this. Hated them so much he made the call he had been shirking from all morning. As the operator patched him through he was secretly glad it had nothing to do with yesterday’s fight.

Greta answered. ‘Charly’s not here,’ she said, almost as soon as she heard his voice. He hadn’t even asked for her.

‘Tell her Fritze is back.’

‘Fritze who?’

‘Just tell her, for fuck’s sake! Fritze is here and I need to speak with her. So would you please just get her.’

‘First, I won’t be sworn at. And second, I won’t be ordered around.’

‘You stupid cow…’

Click.

If there was one woman who could make his blood boil quicker than Charly, it was Greta Overbeck. He slammed the phone down. What was he supposed to do with the boy howling in his kitchen?

Settle him first. Rath went back into the kitchen, where Fritze had at last stopped crying. He was sitting on the chair stroking Kirie. His eyes were still moist, but he had wiped the tears from his face.

‘Sorry. I don’t usually cry like that but…’

‘It’s fine,’ Rath said. ‘My father wouldn’t let me cry, but sometimes there’s no other way.’

‘All the same. Don’t tell anyone. That goes for Charly too.’

‘Your secret’s safe.’ Rath filled a glass with water and sat next to him. Fritze drank, and the water seemed to calm him.

‘I can’t get hold of Charly,’ Rath said. The news didn’t unsettle the boy as much as he’d feared. ‘Now tell me what happened. You found Hannah.’ Fritze nodded. ‘And where is she now?’

‘Kreuzberg.’

‘You said something terrible has happened. Is she hurt?’

Fritze looked at him despairingly. ‘She’s bleeding. I think she needs a doctor, but she won’t see one, or go near a hospital, so I thought I’d get Charly.’ He was on the verge of tears again.

‘What happened?’

‘It was him again… he had Hannah… and then…’ The boy shrugged. Helplessly. ‘What was I supposed to do?’

‘What is it? What did you do?’ Wrong question. The boy was racked with sobs once more. ‘All right. It’s all right. Can you take me to her?’

Less than five minutes later they were in the car racing east across Budapester Strasse. Fritze couldn’t say exactly where they were headed, only that he had boarded a train at Schlesisches Tor.

Rath hurtled along the Landwehr Canal and Gitschiner Strasse, as if racing the elevated train. Time was of the essence. Hannah had stab wounds, and if Rath understood correctly the man with the scars was responsible. He wondered if Hannah Singer might hold the key to their mystery killer after all. The girl had got herself to safety, and Fritze had gone in search of help.

As they approached Schlesisches Tor Rath took his foot off the gas. ‘Where now?’

‘Take the next street. It’s on the right.’

Fritze led him to an old, decommissioned cinema that had fallen victim to either the financial crisis or the advent of sound, perhaps both. The entrance was sealed with chains and padlocks.

‘In there? It looks like a fortress. How do you get in?’

‘Follow me.’

They went around the building into a rear courtyard where the back entrance was also sealed. Fritze cleared a few crates, and pointed to an air shaft. He might pass through, and Hannah too, but it was too narrow for a grown man.

‘We can’t go that way,’ Rath said, rummaging in his coat pocket for his picklocks, whereupon he began fiddling with one of the padlocks. Fritze looked on in admiration. Rath opened the door, which must have been an emergency exit at one time, and they slipped straight into the theatre. What daylight filtered through the crack revealed row upon row of dusty, moth-eaten seats.

‘She’s in there,’ Fritze said, pointing in the direction of the screen, and the contours of an enormous cinema organ. ‘It’s us. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.’

No response. Fritze climbed up the organ pipes. Rath sighed and followed him up the small ladder.

Based on the police photos alone he wouldn’t have recognised Hannah Singer. Her hair was different, and her face too. Definitely not crazy. She looked as if she were sleeping. He crouched beside her and felt her pulse.

‘Is she…’ Fritze didn’t dare finish his question.

‘She’s alive,’ Rath said, ‘but she urgently needs a doctor. She’s lost a lot of blood.’

‘No doctor.’ A quiet, reedy voice.

‘Hannah,’ Rath said. ‘Try to stay awake. We’re here to help you.’

‘No doctor…’ was all she said.

‘Talk to her,’ Rath was already descending the ladder. ‘Make sure she stays conscious.’ The boy crouched beside her. ‘I know someone who can help. Tell her I’m getting help. She needn’t worry. No doctor, no hospital. Everything will be all right. Tell her, talk to her!’

78

Charly called back, but he wasn’t picking up. Greta had meant well, and she had a gift for fobbing people off. ‘You have to keep them on tenterhooks,’ she had said. ‘Believe me, it helps.’

‘What did he want?’

‘What do you think? He wanted you back. “I need to speak with her,” he said. Swore at me too.’

‘He did?’

‘Called me a stupid cow.’

‘Just like that?’

‘What do you mean, just like that? He insisted I go and fetch you because of this boy, and…’

‘This boy? Fritze?’

Before Greta confirmed the name Charly knew she had to call Carmerstrasse, and when Gereon didn’t answer her mind was made up. ‘I’m going back.’

So here she was sitting in the empty flat, edgy as a cat on a hot tin roof, drinking her second coffee and wondering what to do next. The porter, Bergner, confirmed that Gereon had left the house with Kirie and a boy in tow, ‘your nephew, Fräulein Ritter.’ He didn’t know where they were headed, of course, only that they were in a rush.

She racked her brains over what could have happened, but there was nothing to do now but wait, drink coffee, and smoke.

Her guilty conscience stirred. She shouldn’t have slapped him yesterday, or run away, she’d realised that almost as soon as her anger subsided. Why did he have to talk such nonsense? Female suffrage had brought Hitler to power? When it came to politics Gereon was a fool, and he wasn’t the only one in this country.

She didn’t know how long she’d been waiting, but at some point she heard footsteps in the stairwell, several people, the pitter-patter of a dog… She stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. The door opened, and Kirie ran to greet her. Then came Fritze, throwing his thin arms around her as if he never wanted to let go. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

Gereon took the key from the lock and shrugged. Fritze was more forthcoming after she’d made him a few sandwiches in the kitchen. Scarface man had appeared again, and injured Hannah, but thanks to Gereon she was now safe because this Chinese had come and…

‘Chinese?’ she said, looking at Gereon.

‘Hannah didn’t want to see a doctor or go to the hospital. She was right, too. They’d have sent her straight back to Dalldorf. Is that what you would have wanted?’

‘Who was this Chinese?’

‘A man who owed me a favour.’

‘And he’s a doctor.’

‘Let’s say he knows his way around a scalpel.’ He glared as if in preparation for another fight. ‘She was bleeding to death. Damn it, Charly, where would you have sent her? To your doctor friend? An arsonist, a mass murderer?’

Fritze’s eyes opened wide at the word ‘murderer’ and Charly could have kicked Gereon for being so crude. Too late.

‘I didn’t mean to,’ the boy said, looking as if he might burst into tears at any moment. ‘Really I didn’t, but what was I s’posed to do? The bastard would have strangled her otherwise!’

She looked at Gereon. ‘What is he talking about?’ she asked.

‘It was self-defence, Aunt Charly!’ Fritze looked at her as if she might send him back into care. ‘This strange, pointy thing was just lying there and I… All of a sudden he wasn’t moving anymore.’

79

Charly sat on the passenger seat in silence, barely deigning to look at him, and then only to make it known that all this was his doing. For the second time that day Rath drove eastwards, this time watching his speed so as to avoid being pulled over by a colleague. This was not now a matter of life and death, but death alone.

It was approaching dusk when they arrived. Fritze’s description had been good, a dilapidated factory site off Köpenicker Strasse. A weathered sign directed them towards Ohligs cabinetmakers. Rath drove past the yard entrance and parked the Buick a little further down. Returning on foot Charly put her arm in his, whether because she wanted to or to avoid attention, he couldn’t say. There weren’t many people about, the buildings were mostly abandoned and, it being Sunday, those that were still occupied were empty. But what if A Division were waiting somewhere in the wings?

He hadn’t told her where Hannah had been taken. It was pure chance he’d got hold of Liang in Marlow’s office at the old Ostbahnhof, as Dr M. had temporarily struck camp, gone to ground like his loyal henchman Leo Juretzka. Clearly the SA had the Berlin underworld running scared. Liang hadn’t asked many questions, just looked at the bandage, which in the meantime Fritze had replaced, and nodded his agreement. Together they carried the girl out of the cinema and laid her gently on the rear seat of the black Adler sedan, otherwise used to wheel Johann Marlow around town.

‘Will they be able to help her?’ Fritze had asked, as the vehicle rolled out of the yard.

‘If anyone can, it’s them.’

Rath prayed to God he was right. That would be the only justification in the inevitable reckoning with Charly.

‘He just happened to run into her?’ she asked, disbelievingly. ‘Who goes around a place like this voluntarily?’

Rath shrugged. ‘He must have known Hannah was here. Why else would he head straight over from Görlitzer Bahnhof?’

‘Without realising a certain someone was following close behind.’

They had reached an uninviting-looking cobbled path that took them beyond the road.

‘This is where Fritze must have lost him,’ said Rath. ‘Until he heard Hannah cry out.’

The boy had told them what happened before they set out: how, reaching the yard, he had seen scarface man crouched over Hannah, choking her; how he had taken the dagger and stabbed, again and again, until the man simply keeled over and ceased to move.

They followed the winding path. Everywhere around, piles of junk obstructed their view. A God-forsaken place, brick buildings falling to ruin, most of the windows shattered by stray or well-aimed stones. The path led to a rear courtyard, which couldn’t be seen from the road.

The building Fritze had described was unmistakable. A pool of blood had formed on the pavement; a trail of blood led up the ramp to a door that was slightly ajar.

‘We couldn’t just leave the corpse in the yard, so we hauled it inside. Wasn’t easy, I tell you.’ Fritze was certain no one had seen them. ‘Everything around there’s empty. The most you’ll find is a few stray tramps.’

The buildings lining the yard looked as if they were waiting to be torn down. No one had worked here for years. Charly looked around. ‘Doesn’t seem like A Division have been here.’

‘Or else Gennat’s already waiting inside for us with the corpse.’

For a brief moment she looked horrified. Was there no end to Buddha’s talents, her gaze seemed to ask. Rath knew better. If the corpse had been discovered a uniformed cop would be stationed outside. ‘There’s no one here,’ he said. ‘I’ll go first if you like. If the worst comes to the worst, you can say you just drove me.’

‘Rubbish. We go together.’

Inside was pitch-black. Rath turned his flashlight on an abandoned workshop which smelled of rotting wood. In the far corner was a dead man among sawdust coloured red by blood. He shone his light on the corpse. The face was hideously scarred, and there was no denying the resemblance to the wanted poster from Magdeburg. Any resemblance to the pre-war photo of the dapper Captain Benjamin Engel was less pronounced. Rath struggled to imagine how such damage could be done to a face.

As Charly stared at the corpse he realised that, despite all her previous work for Homicide, she had seldom seen a dead body. ‘It could be Krumbiegel,’ she said.

Rath searched the dead man’s coat pockets, but found only a half-empty wallet, a used handkerchief and a blood-stained, pointed weapon. ‘No service record, nothing,’ he said, holding the dagger to the light. The blade, if that’s what this tapered skewer was, was triangular. ‘But this is the murder weapon. My money’s on Engel.’

‘What’s he got against Hannah?’

‘No idea, but what could your Krumbiegel, supposing he killed Wosniak, have against Hermann Wibeau, and Linus Meifert?’

‘What if they’re one and the same? Perhaps Engel assumed Krumbiegel’s identity. Maybe he stumbled on Krumbiegel’s service record fleecing some corpse on the battlefield. It’s possible.’

‘That’s pure speculation!’

The man’s eyes staring out of the network of scars were devoid of life. Rath turned him over. The back of his dark winter coat was covered in sawdust, the blood-soaked fabric glistening damp in the light of the torch. No doubt about it, he was dead.

‘Well, that’s just great,’ Charly said. ‘What now? Another case for your Chinese friend?’

‘Certainly not.’ What might the consequences be of sharing another deadly secret with Johann Marlow? ‘The obvious thing for Prussian officers such as ourselves would be to alert the Castle and await the arrival of Forensics.’

‘The obvious thing… but how do we explain to Gennat what we’re doing here? Not to mention the fact that I’m supposed to be laid up in bed.’

‘Then go home, and leave the rest to me.’

‘This isn’t just about me. Or you.’ She glared at him. ‘Fritze trusts us. You want to drag him into this?’

‘It was self-defence.’

‘Oh yeah, and who’s going to corroborate that?’

‘Hannah Singer, for one.’

‘Hannah Singer is Fritze’s only witness, and if she pulls through, I don’t intend to let the state anywhere near her.’

‘Charly, the girl is a fugitive from the asylum. A mass murderer!’

‘Hannah Singer is a girl who was forced into a slave’s existence by bastards like that…’ she gestured towards the dead man. ‘…who liberated herself in an act of desperation. Precisely because the state authorities were in no position to help.’

‘Charly, Charly. What are you saying?’ Rath shook his head. ‘The deceased is a mass murderer. The man I’ve been hunting for weeks.’

‘Then he has his just deserts,’ she said.

‘You’re not serious, are you? What do you suggest we do?’

‘I suggest we don’t argue about it, for a start.’

‘Let’s call it in, and I take responsibility for the corpse. That way we keep the kids out of it.’ And get some decent press into the bargain. Detective Inspector Rath Bags Dangerous Serial Killer, he could use a headline like that.

‘What will you say to Gennat?’

‘Self-defence. He tried to stab me, I defended myself.’

‘Apart from the fact that you’d have to explain why you cornered him here of all places… Why didn’t you use your service weapon? Why did you cut him with his own trench dagger? Like a pig.’ She pointed to the corpse. ‘There are at least half a dozen stab wounds, maybe more.’

‘I’ll think of something.’

‘Why did you drag his corpse into the workshop? And notify Homicide…’ she looked at her watch. ‘…six and a half hours later?’

Rath gave up. Charly was right. Gennat would unravel his lies before they were through the first slice of cake. Then she explained her plan.

From the very first, Rath knew it was a crackpot idea, but since he could think of nothing better, he agreed. Taking the rain barrel that stood brim-full under a downpipe they tipped most of its contents onto the pool of blood, saving the rest for the trail on the ramp. Then they returned to the car and drove back to Charlottenburg.