He entered Saint Norbert’s through the middle door, crossing to a little anteroom before reaching the nave. He saw the holy water and, without thinking, dipped his fingers in it to make the sign of the cross. He hadn’t been inside a church for a long time, but the rituals of childhood soon took over. He had never been sure about his faith, but there was no doubt in his mind that he was Catholic.
He took in the familiar smell of a Catholic church, the same the world over, everywhere you went a slice of home and childhood. Perhaps they were the same thing: childhood and home.
It was pleasantly cool as he made his way through the nave alone, his steps echoing against the white walls. There was no sign of Marion Bosetzky. Where on earth had she got to? He looked inside the confessionals: empty. He even popped into the sacristy: again, no one. Perhaps in the organ loft? She had to be in here somewhere, or he would have seen her leave. He climbed to the upper floors, to the section of building overlooking the street. It looked more like an office than a priest’s quarters. Rath gazed around curiously. Had Marion Bosetzky disappeared inside one of the rooms? Was she paying the priest a visit?
He knocked on one of the doors. No one answered. He pressed down on the handle, finding the door unlocked. He opened it slightly and looked inside. The room was similar to their offices at the Castle: desk, telephone, roll-front cupboards, even a typewriter and a smaller table by the window. Only the large crucifix and pictures of the Madonna and the saints made it look any different from police headquarters. Instead of the obligatory Hindenburg portrait was an oil painting depicting a saint in Norbertine habit holding a monstrance. Out of his chalice crawled a spider. Rath could vaguely remember a legend in which Saint Norbert of Xanten had drunk a spider that fell into his communion chalice, displaying both death-defying courage and an unshakeable belief in God. It was one of many hagiographies that had been drummed into him as a child. He glanced out of the round-arched window. Below on Mühlenstrasse, his Buick glistened in the sun.
Aside from a saint with a spider in his chalice, there was nothing unusual here. He left the office and knocked on the door opposite. Again, no response. The room was dark. He was groping for a light switch when something jumped at him.
The blow to his chin didn’t strike him flush, but only because he had turned his head to one side. A blow like that to the point of the chin would have knocked him out but, as it was, he just felt a hellish pain in his jaw and fell backwards against the doorframe. The figure was on him, dealing a second blow to the solar plexus that left him short of breath, before making for the door. Rath stuck out a leg and, in the light from the corridor, caught sight of his attacker.
Abraham Goldstein.
He didn’t have time to wonder how Marion Bosetzky had morphed into the Yank. Goldstein was now running downstairs. Struggling to get his breath back, Rath gave pursuit, leaping as Goldstein reached the bottom. The pair crashed onto the stone floor with Goldstein taking the brunt. He was still dazed as Rath knocked him down with a right hook. He got up before toppling backwards into the nave of the church, his hands desperately searching for a hold, but succeeding only in tearing prayer books from a shelf.
Rath jumped after him, to finish him off, as he had stupidly left his handcuffs in the car. As he was about to throw a second punch, Goldstein dodged, recoiled, seized Rath’s arm and rolled over backwards. Rath didn’t understand what was happening until Goldstein pulled him down with his entire body weight. He felt the Yank’s boot against his groin as he slammed against the church pews, Goldstein having now let go of his arm. There was a loud thump as the wood struck his forehead and he saw stars, teetering like a ship on troubled waters.
Then Goldstein was on him again, pulling him up by the collar. Rath dodged the ensuing punch, and essayed a kick to the groin which momentarily gave Goldstein pause for thought. Just when he saw his chance to land the deciding blow and send the Yank into the realm of dreams, he felt a hard thud against the right side of his head and heard a loud, gong-like clang. There was a flash of brightness which seemed to light up the world before everything went black.
105
Charly paced her flat increasingly nervously. She had already smoked seven cigarettes, one after the other, not knowing whether she should be happy or even more furious with the bastard. He had barely let her get a word in.
‘I’m in a rush’, she imitated. What was he thinking? Snubbing her like that. At least he had conceded, but what was it he said about those gangsters? That their death had something to do with Kuschke’s? Red Hugo had been found dead at the Mühlendamm, and, as far she knew, he wasn’t Gereon’s case.
For some reason his telephone call had made her even more nervous. Pacing up and down, she felt the need to do something, but hadn’t the slightest idea what. He had told her to wait but her curiosity was greater than her rage. Almost an hour had passed. Where was he, and who was it that had telephoned for him? Did it have to do with his latest discovery?
There, the doorbell!
She checked her watch. Gereon had telephoned forty-seven minutes ago. If he had shaken a leg to get here it was most unlike him.
Her rage subsided, her tension eased. She had wanted to be mad with him but, as was so often the case, when he finally showed up her anger dissolved into thin air. At least she had the self-discipline to wipe the smile off her face as she opened the door.
She froze.
It wasn’t Gereon.
Sebastian Tornow was outside with an older man who looked familiar somehow, even if she couldn’t quite place him. She only knew it was his pistol pointed at her.
106
His head hurt. In fact, his whole body hurt. It was an unpleasant awakening. He’d sooner have slipped back into unconsciousness. At first he didn’t know where he was; he saw angels and saints in fluttering robes. Then he remembered: Saint Norbert’s. Goldstein!
Carefully, he turned his head. He was still in the church, and on one of the pews sat a mildly overweight priest, holding a battered incense burner, the sort of canister Rath would have swung as a ten-year-old boy. Though not to knock anyone out, which seemed to be what the priest had used it for.
Rath felt his temples. He had a mighty bump above his right eyebrow. ‘Did you do that?’ he asked.
Only now did he see Goldstein lying a few metres away and looking a little worse for wear too, holding the back of his head where the canister must have struck him.
‘I don’t tolerate violence in the house of God,’ the priest said, sounding like a teacher who had caught two young punks fighting in the schoolyard.
‘That man’s a dangerous gangster,’ Rath said, pointing towards Goldstein. ‘He’s armed.’
‘This man,’ said the priest, ‘has sought the sanctuary of the Holy Church, and he has been granted it. Besides, he is unarmed.’
‘What did you say?’ Abraham Goldstein, a Jewish gangster, had found asylum here, in a Catholic church? ‘There’s a warrant issued for his arrest.’