Babylon Berlin (46 page)

‘As you wish, Inspector.’ The concierge passed the key across the counter. ‘Room 412. Should I have drinks sent up?’

‘Thank you, that won’t be necessary. Is my luggage already up?’

‘Of course. Have a pleasant stay.’

A short time later, Gennat’s colleagues had searched the hotel room. Although Rath explained that he hadn’t even set foot inside, they searched not only his luggage but all the cupboards. Rath positioned himself at the window. This time he wasn’t looking onto
Anhalter
Bahnhof
, but a treeless rear courtyard.

‘Please excuse the fuss, Inspector,’ Gennat said after Plisch and Plum had completed their search with another, ‘Nothing, sir!’

‘It’s fine,’ Rath said. ‘I’d have done exactly the same.’

‘You’re right. We have to pursue every lead that seems halfway plausible, no matter how perplexing it appears. Not that this will be of any comfort, Herr Rath, but it wouldn’t be the first time a police officer had murdered a colleague.’

Rath nodded.
If only Buddha knew how close he
was to the truth.

After the fruitless search, they went back to being four colleagues discussing a case.

Since it wasn’t lunchtime yet, Gennat invited them to nearby
Café Josty
for coffee and cake. Everyone was still a little embarrassed by the operation, and Buddha was trying to restore the peace. He ordered an ample selection of cakes, rich ones at that, and after the first slice Rath sensed he would be skipping lunch. Czerwinski and Henning seemed to think likewise. All three turned down the second slice that Gennat tried to shovel onto their plates. Buddha just shrugged his shoulders and helped himself to a piece of
Schwarzw
ä
lder Kirsch
.

‘So, gentlemen,’ he said at last, after he had polished off a fourth slice, ‘we earned that! What a lot of work, just because of some joker.’ He made it sound as if Rath had been working alongside them, instead of being the subject of their investigation.

‘I don’t think it was some joker. I think it was the murderer,’ Rath said.

Gennat nodded. ‘Maybe, but he wasn’t able to laugh at our expense. We were so discreet that no-one noticed anything.’

Buddha must have agreed with Henning and Czerwinski that the operation was to be carried out in the strictest confidence. No-one would dare go to the press when there were so few people aware of it.

It was almost twelve when they returned to the Castle.

‘Let’s get back to work,’ Gennat said, when he took leave of the three men outside his office door. ‘See you tomorrow at the funeral.’

Rath had almost completely forgotten that Stephan Jänicke was due to be buried at the
Georgen
Cemetery on Greifswalder Strasse tomorrow morning at eleven.

For the rest of the day he had free rein. Gennat hadn’t dared force a new assignment on him. Thus he had time to brood once more. Why was Wündisch after Wolter? What had Jänicke discovered?

He played with the idea of phoning the head of the political police and asking, but 1A was legendary for its secrecy. Even when someone died during an undercover investigation, it was unlikely the politicals would cough up any information. They would keep the whole thing under wraps, and perhaps that was what Wolter was counting on. What he needed was more information about Jänicke’s operation, which he hoped to find in the notebook. Perhaps he had overlooked something. He would have to go through it again and it was a pain he couldn’t get to it right away.

On the other hand it was a good thing Plisch and Plum hadn’t found it on him. He just needed to be patient.

Shortly after three Roeder called, as expected.

‘In with your photos, you say? I’ve been looking for it everywhere. It must have fallen inside.’

‘Inspector, you surely don’t think I’m going to
deliver
your pistol to you! I’m afraid you’ll need to come here. I swore I’d never set foot inside the station again!’

‘I’m just happy it’s turned up at all. I’ll pick it up straightaway, if that’s alright with you.’

‘Nothing doing, I’m afraid, but you might come to the
Imperator
café at five. I have a meeting with my publisher.’

‘In Friedrichstrasse?’

‘Exactly. That way you don’t have to come all the way out here. If I could give you one more piece of advice, young man…’

‘Yes?’

‘Keep your office tidier! Order is the alpha and omega of our profession. You ought to be more careful, especially with a firearm. Now, if you don’t mind, I have things to do!’

When Rath entered the
Imperator
at just after five, Roeder was sitting with a fat man wearing glasses, presumably Dr Hildebrandt. He had wrapped the Lignose in newspaper so that no-one would notice it changing hands. By now Roeder’s fingerprints would probably be the only ones on the pistol, Rath thought, as he said thank you courteously and stowed the bundle in his coat. From Friedrichstrasse he went directly to the
Excelsior
where the concierge was waiting with eager anticipation.

‘Ah, Inspector!’ He pushed the registration form across the counter and appeared relieved when Rath finally began filling it out.

‘One more thing…’ The concierge waved an envelope. ‘Something just came for you in the post.’

Rath took the letter and moved towards the lift, but only after he had closed the door to room 412 did he open the envelope and let the small silver key drop out.

Before Rath went to bed, he strolled to Potsdamer station and looked inside his locker. He placed the pistol inside and fished out the little black book before closing the locker once more. Right now Jänicke’s notebook was the most exciting bedtime reading he could imagine, even if he didn’t understand a single word.

28

The church could scarcely contain the crowd. A huge police contingent had arrived for the burial of Stephan Jänicke, with the plain-clothes officers clustered around the back rows. The violent death of a young officer had affected many Berliners. Nearly all the papers had sent reporters, and there were a number of men with cameras at the back of the church.

Rath gazed around. Some pews were filled entirely by the blue of police uniform. The plain-clothes officers were no less uniformed either, dressed in black to a man with their top hats resting in folded hands. Rath was wearing the same suit he had worn for the funeral of Alexander LeClerk Jnr. Unhappy memories, he sensed them rising.

The coffin was draped in the sober black and white of the Prussian flag, and flanked by two officers in parade uniform with gleaming buttons and highly polished boots. In the front row, next to Zörgiebel, stood a man and a woman, both white-haired although they weren’t much older than fifty. Stephan Jänicke’s parents had travelled from Allenstein. As far as Rath knew, it was the first time they had crossed the Polish Corridor, the first time, in fact, they had ever left their East Prussian homeland.

How would they react if they had known that their son’s killer was seated only a few rows behind? Rath couldn’t make out Wolter’s face from his seat further back, but he had worn a serious expression as he entered the church. He wanted to avoid Uncle if possible; even the sight of him was unbearable. Would their son’s killer look the Jänickes in the eye at the grave? Would he shake their hands and offer his condolences?

The dead man’s book hadn’t provided any answers and, this morning, he had thought about throwing it in the canal along with the pistol. Still, he didn’t want to abandon hope so quickly. If he knew the motive, he could produce the necessary evidence, and the ballistics report would testify that Bruno Wolter had also executed Josef Wilczek. Rath wouldn’t contradict it. No, he wouldn’t have any scruples there, not since Wolter had tried to plant the murder weapon on him.

The service was sober, without pomp. Rath’s first visit to a Lutheran church almost felt like a disappointment. As the mourners set off from Greifswalder Strasse, he maintained a distance from Wolter, which wasn’t difficult since Wolter clearly had no interest in encountering Rath. He fell to the back of the cortege while Rath remained at the front with the homicide detectives, beside Gennat and Böhm.

He hadn’t seen Charly, but she was probably back at the Castle, holding the fort. It was better that way. Jänicke’s funeral wasn’t exactly the ideal place for their first meeting since their memorable encounter at the press conference.
You really are an arsehole, Herr Rath!
Whenever he recalled that moment, he realised that her eyes were no longer filled with love, but disappointment and contempt.

Six young men, colleagues of Jänicke’s at police academy, removed the coffin from the hearse and took it on their shoulders. They passed through the entrance to the cemetery just behind the priest, with the funeral cortege in tow. All was quiet, except for a finch sounding its call over the graves. Police colleagues strode silently side by side, accompanied by a light rain. Nevertheless, it seemed to be getting warmer. Rath wasn’t the only one sweating in the greenhouse-like heat. Zörgiebel wiped his brow with a white handkerchief. It would be no easy task accompanying the parents of a dead police officer to their son’s grave. The commissioner walked alongside the Jänickes.

The coffin bearers followed the main avenue for some time, before turning right onto another main road, eventually reaching a brick wall. A few metres beyond rose the façade of a tenement house, next to it a brick building, most likely a school and, beside the wall, was a freshly dug grave.

The priest stood still; the coffin bearers took a few more strides until they were exactly positioned on both sides. They were just about to lower the coffin onto the wooden beams that had been laid across the grave when the peace was shattered by a brief but violent cry.

Surprise or horror? Rath couldn’t say, only that it had come from one of the coffin bearers. The six young men froze, and the coffin tilted precariously. After almost losing their composure, the six men were soon gazing as stoically as before. As police officers they had learned to control themselves, but Rath knew they must have seen something terrible and, suddenly, all sense of normality was lost.

The coffin was still hanging in mid-air, as if the coffin bearers couldn’t decide where they should set it down. They exchanged uncertain glances, before shouldering it once more and carrying it slowly back, away from the grave. The priest moved aside, confused, and Zörgiebel reacted immediately. Leaving the Jänickes where they were, he moved quickly but with dignity to the open grave. His eyes widened for a fraction of a second. He removed his top hat, and wiped his brow. Seizing the Jänickes by the arm he pulled them away and motioned discreetly to Gennat, who had remained a few metres ahead of Rath. Despite his corpulence, the head of A Division moved with astounding speed, waving Böhm and a few colleagues over. Rath wasn’t sure if the gesture was intended for him or not, but made his way across anyway.

A sense of uneasiness set in amongst the mourners, and a few rubbernecks moved towards the front. The murmur rose to a clamour and Stephan Jänicke’s funeral was suddenly devoid of all ceremony.

Rath pushed past the coffin bearers. An unbearable odour was rising from the damp earth – and then he saw it.

There was already a corpse in the newly dug grave. Clods of earth hung to a stained, rotting grey suit. Hands and feet were reduced to a bloody pulp, and the body was in an advanced state of decomposition.

Suddenly there was a flash, momentarily bathing the corpse in an eerie, dazzling light.

A few reporters had taken out their cameras and instinctively began to snap. Gennat bellowed his orders, uniform pushed them to one side and a chain of blue uniforms surrounded the grave.

Rath stood between the uniformed officers, gazing at the corpse in disbelief. Though the face of the deceased had also been marked by decay, his features were still so clearly recognisable from the mug shots that there was no room for doubt. He didn’t have to wait for the official identification to know that this corpse was going to bring him trouble. For in the grave that had been dug for Stephan Jänicke lay the mortal remains of one Alexej Ivanovitsch Kardakov.

Remains
was the appropriate word, Rath thought as, barely half an hour later, he watched two men from ED pour plaster of Paris into the footprints right next to the stinking bundle that was all that was left of Kardakov. A third man was carefully examining the pockets of the mouldy suit with the aid of a stick and a pair of tweezers. All three had handkerchiefs around their noses and mouths, but were still wearing their top hats.

The rain had abated, but the humidity was becoming unbearable. The ground was steaming and muggy air carried the smell of decay in billows across the graves. It was bad enough up here, Rath thought. God knows what it must be like below.

They had begun the police work immediately, as most of the specialists were already on the scene. Dressed as they were they had set to work without complaint. Gennat had to send for Dr Schwartz and the forensic equipment from the Castle, but that hadn’t taken long, since Alex was close by.

The coffin containing Stephan Jänicke’s corpse was now in the cemetery chapel. As long as the forensics team was still working on the grave, the burial couldn’t take place. Rath would’ve liked to know how Zörgiebel was planning to explain that to the parents.

Whoever had deposited the corpse in the grave, one thing was for certain. He had not only disrupted the ceremonial funeral of a policeman killed in the line of duty, but utterly destroyed it.

Uniform had dispersed the mourners, ushering them from the cemetery as delicately as the situation allowed. Now only officers from Homicide and ED moved between the graves. With their black top hats, the men looked like a disorientated company of mourners. At the Greifswalder Strasse entrance, meanwhile, police were making sure that no-one set foot inside the cemetery for the time being. The little gate on Heinrich-Roller-Strasse was closed anyway.