Babylon Berlin (41 page)

He noted the addresses. Two more tiles in a mosaic that, though still far from complete, was beginning to take shape. It was about time he shared his knowledge. He smiled contentedly, and almost forgot to look for the addresses he had come for in the first place.

24

Dear Herr Zörgiebel, is the Berlin police force neglecting its
duties?

Several incidents from the recent past give us cause
for concern. It is the duty of the police to
maintain law and order, solve crimes and, above all, to
ensure that justice prevails. We ask you: is the Berlin
police force still up to this task?

Imagine, my dear
Zörgiebel, that you are sitting in a concert hall. Suddenly
police storm the building and fire machine guns into the
audience because it is alleged that two pickpockets are seated
among them. An overreaction, you cry? And yet that is
precisely what is happening in your city. Not in a
concert hall, but on the streets, in Wedding, in Neukölln,
in the heart of Berlin.

Your police force, whose duty
it is to maintain law and order, is in breach
of the very same. Rather than protecting its citizens from
violence, it has inflicted violence upon its citizens.

You gave
us renewed hope when the victim of a violent crime
was salvaged from the Landwehr canal, and you faithfully promised
to do everything in your power to catch his killer
and make the city’s inhabitants feel safe once more.

Having promised us this, Herr Zörgiebel, why have you withdrawn
all officers from the investigation?

I’ll tell you why:
because a police officer was shot dead and the Berlin
police force is concentrating all its resources on finding his
killer. At your behest, Commissioner!

A dead officer, that is
regrettable, it is true! But does it give you the
right to operate a double standard? Is a civilian murder
victim of lesser importance than a victim in police uniform?
We ask you, Herr Zörgiebel, are all non-police officers
second-class citizens? Can the police force be allowed to
neglect its duties and ignore unsolved cases whenever one of
its own falls victim to a crime?

Rath pushed the paper contentedly to one side. The journalist had done a good job in softening Zörgiebel up for his next visitor, Detective Inspector Gereon Rath, bearing glad tidings in this, the commissioner’s hour of need.

Rath had got hold of the eight o’clock edition of
Abendblatt
in the foyer downstairs and taken it to his room. From his window he could look onto Askanischer Platz and the nightly illuminated
Anhalter Bahnhof
. He had spent his first few nights in the
Excelsior
too, before he had moved into his room at Elisabeth Behnke’s when
Anhalter Bahnhof
had lain under a carapace of snow and ice.

He glanced at the time. Already nine. She should be here any minute.

In the bathroom he used both hands to splash cold water on his face. The man in the mirror looked a little worn out, but satisfied all the same.

No wonder he was tired. After his visit to the passports office, the afternoon had dragged on and on. It had taken time for Rath to canvass all six names on his list as he had had to call on four of the addresses several times before finally getting hold of someone. A good thing he had use of the car, since three of them lived in Wedding, two in Friedrichshain and one in Prenzlauer Berg. None in Kreuzberg, where Rath would have liked to pay another two men a visit, but there was still time for that.

All six men on his list had an alibi for Wednesday morning. They had been at the rally outside Karl-Liebknecht-Haus and could each name a dozen witnesses who had also taken part. Rath imagined that his colleagues, who had also been checking the alibis of former Red Front members, had fared likewise. What was the point? An endless list of names with dubious alibis would scarcely help them solve the murder, and if there was one thing Rath couldn’t stand, it was tedious assignments that made little or no sense.

Did Böhm hope the perpetrator would react carelessly if police suddenly turned up? Rath suspected that these former Red Front members were only being checked for Zörgiebel’s sake, while Böhm was off pursuing a completely different line. People like Gereon Rath were making fools of themselves for the commissioner, while Wilhelm Böhm would bask in the glory of a successfully solved case.

Rath had drafted the report quickly and indifferently, the most frequently occurring word being
ditto
. No wonder, what with six practically identical statements. If he didn’t see the point in an assignment, then he completed it in a correspondingly lacklustre manner.

He had still been sitting at the typewriter in Roeder’s outer office when Charly came in to collect the report. The fact that she was acting as messenger quickly improved his mood, likewise the imminent prospect of spending the evening with her. The
Excelsior
was huge, respectable and relatively inexpensive, in other words just the ticket. When he had first booked the room over the phone, Charly hadn’t really seen the attraction, but since she categorically refused to take Rath back to hers, she didn’t really have much of a choice.

‘We need to make our relationship more official soon, Gereon,’ she had said. ‘We can’t go on playing hide-and-seek in hotels!’

‘I wonder if Zörgiebel will let us keep working in the same department?’

‘Then I’ll transfer to G Division. It’s where I’ll end up if I become a police officer anyway,’ she had said before disappearing with his report.

He had telephoned Bruno to say he wouldn’t be coming out to Friedenau later, not mentioning that he was staying in a hotel – nor had he said anything about his companion.

It was almost eight when he finally left the Castle and took the underground to Potsdamer Platz. He re-emerged directly in front of
Haus Vaterland
, night-time Berlin receiving him with its boisterous revellers and gleaming neon signs. The walk via Königgrätzer Strasse took him past
Europahaus
, where he stood outside the cinema watching patrons stream inside. Exactly one week ago he had stood here waiting for Charly, kissing her for the first time in
Café Europa
. Filmgoers jostled past and he set off once more. The
Excelsior
was only a few steps away.

There was a knock on the door. It had to be her. He folded the copy of
Abendblatt
that still lay open on the table and hid it under the bed. For some reason he had a guilty conscience about it, even if he couldn’t say exactly why.

‘Open up,’ she called through the door, ‘I don’t have a hand free!’

She beamed at him as he opened the door. In her right hand, she was holding a little suitcase, in her left several paper bags bearing the names of department stores. She pressed a kiss onto his cheek.

‘This time, I’ve come prepared,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to have to go to work again wearing the same dress as the day before. And you…’ She threw a Tietz shopping bag onto the bed. ‘…for you I’ve brought some fresh underwear and socks.’ A third bag flew onto the bed. ‘Whether the shirt will fit or not, I’m not sure, I had to guess your collar size. But the tie should match your suit at any rate.’

He took the bags from the bed in amazement. ‘Not bad! Should I try it on now?’

She hung the
Do not disturb
sign on the door.

‘Try it on? Think again, Inspector. This is not the time to be trying things on. It’s the time to be taking them off!’

He obeyed, but first he saw to her, covering each area of exposed flesh in kisses, her arms, her shoulders, her slender neck. When he bit into the nape of her neck, she let out a quiet groan. She wanted to turn him towards her, kiss him, embrace him, but he motioned for her to keep still. He took off her shoes and rolled her stockings slowly down her legs, first the right and then the left. As the dress slid from her shoulders, he could hardly stand it any longer but maintained the slow tempo. She shivered slightly, as his hands clasped her breasts and his mouth reached for her neck once more. Only then did he slowly turn her towards him. For a brief moment they looked each other in the eye, breathing heavily.

Then they fell upon each other as if starved.

Afterwards they lay next to each other for a long time in silence. He gazed at the ceiling lost in thought, Charly wrapped in his arms. He hadn’t been this happy in a very long time.

You’re in love, my friend
, he told himself.

Charly was right, it couldn’t go on like this. Still, things would soon be different. He’d have a permanent position in Homicide, no more secrets, a professional, not to say personal, future in this city at last. He would have been only too happy to move in with her straightaway, especially since he was already looking for somewhere to live. True, he didn’t want to spring it on her, but – for the first time he could feel it – with a woman like Charly by his side, he could be happy in Berlin.

‘You know what you’re into?’ she asked suddenly, stroking his chest. ‘Delayed gratification.’

He laughed. ‘Sounds like a criminal offence, do you learn phrases like that in the Faculty of Law?’

‘It’s not a crime, it’s something very arousing.’

‘Are you trying to say we should always take a week’s break?’

‘Absolutely not!’

And this time they got straight to the point.

He was first to rise in the morning, and it was lovely to wake next to her. How peacefully she lay. He stroked her face gently so as not to wake her, stood up and went to the window. The rain was drumming on the immense roof of
Anhalter
Bahnhof
, but there was still lots going on below in Askanischer Platz. The Whitsun traffic had begun and umbrellas were streaming towards the station.

To the left, Möckernstrasse led into Königgrätzer Strasse. A few hundred metres on, it continued over the Landwehr canal, where Boris’s corpse had been found.

He’d put an end to this business today. Pass everything over to the commissioner, sell his story as best he could. Zörgiebel would have no choice but to give him Roeder’s desk, and all this secrecy would finally be over.

Smooth arms wrapped themselves around his chest. Her warm body nestled up to his. He hadn’t even heard her.

‘Lousy weather, isn’t it?’ she mumbled, still half-asleep.

‘And we didn’t even bring an umbrella.’

‘The sort of weather that makes you want to stay in bed all day.’

‘Only I fear that good old Wilhelm Böhm wouldn’t allow it. He’s got a lot of work to delegate at the moment.’

‘Get back to bed,’ she whinged.

‘What did Böhm do with your old case? Has it been closed?’

‘The file’s with the wet fish. Now, come on.’ She pulled him towards the bed.

‘Hey!’ he protested. ‘What’s the big idea? I don’t have much more than a quickie in me.’

‘Well, I am impressed by your vocabulary, I have to say. You can tell vice cops are well versed in this sort of thing…’

Before she could carry on, he had thrown a pillow in her face.

They skipped breakfast but were still late for work. They didn’t say their goodbyes until they had reached Alexanderplatz station. While Charly walked into the station, Rath chose to have a browse at the newspaper kiosk. A few papers had reacted overnight and jumped on the bandwagon that Weinert had set in motion. Zörgiebel had angered too many journalists for them to pass up the opportunity to get their own back. Rath didn’t think that a single one of them would have checked that Zörgiebel had frozen all other investigations for the sake of the Jänicke case. They had just cribbed it from Weinert.

He only entered Roeder’s office to hang up his coat, then he was on his way again.

The wet fish were located in the Central Homicide Archive, which Gennat had set up and cultivated as if it were his own child. That was also why he had housed it in a room next to his office, a big room whose longitudinal wall was completely blocked by filing cabinets. In the middle of the room was a reading table with eight chairs, which could also be used for smaller meetings. The card-index cabinet was located under the window with a thriving rubber plant on top. It was probably looked after by Trudchen Steiner.

The files were categorised according to mode of death with only a small cabinet reserved for unsolved cases – testament to the unflinching self-confidence of A Division. Böhm must have felt great when he deposited the
Möckern Bridge
file here. No homicide detective liked putting anything in this cabinet. The Wilczek file was a different matter, of course, Rath would be only too happy to dump it with the rest.

In the space of two weeks Böhm had managed to fill not just one ring binder with information but four, an astonishing disparity between effort and outcome.

Rath wedged all four files under his arm, intending to bury himself in the
Möckern Bridge
case until late afternoon. Then it would be time to tell Zörgiebel – while they were already starting up the rotary press at
Abendblatt
.

Unfortunately when he returned to Roeder’s office with the ring files, there was a new sheet of paper on his desk. Charly must have brought it.

Another six names, the letter P this time. They’d soon have covered the whole alphabet. Rath decided to ignore the list. What he was planning to do today would be as good as declaring war on Böhm anyway, and none of this would make any difference. He opened the first file and set to work. Any number of witnesses interviewed, and someone – probably Böhm himself – had circled and marked the more interesting sections. At ten he telephoned Weinert before carrying on, working through lunch.