8
The interrogations had eaten into their lunch hour. Against expectation, Gennat had failed to provide any additional troops, not even a cadet. With no time for a proper break or to discuss their findings, Rath paused at the Aschinger on Leipziger Strasse for a Bratwurst and red cabbage. The interrogation marathon had confirmed what they already knew, the only item of note being that one of the witnesses failed to show up.
Rath had sent Gräf and Lange out to the Lamkau office in Tempelhof. ‘Lamkau’s widow is expecting you. Take a look at the company papers, most recent bills and so on. See if you can’t find some explanation for the thousand marks in Lamkau’s overalls.’ With that he had not only dispensed of his colleagues, but kept his promise to Edith Lamkau.
Arriving at Haus Vaterland he was glad to have eaten en route, since he met Alfons Riedel, the spirits buyer, in the afternoon hurly-burly of the Rheinterrasse. Behind a glass pane, the end wall of the saloon displayed a huge, illuminated Rhine panorama: Sankt Goarshausen complete with moving trains and ships. Riedel sat in a quiet corner of the restaurant before an array of bottles, testing the quality of various digestifs. ‘Yes, yes. Lamkau.’ He nodded. ‘A tragic business.’
Rath ordered a coffee from the waiter who had led him over. ‘You knew him personally?’
‘More professionally, I would say.’
‘But you’ve shaken his hand? Spoken to him?’
‘Naturally.’ Riedel sniffed calmly at the glass he’d just filled.
‘We found a large quantity of cash on his person, the source of which is still unclear. Could it be that Lamkau made the delivery in person on Saturday morning because there was an outstanding balance here in Haus Vaterland?’
‘Kempinski pays by cheque or banker’s order. Not in cash!’ Riedel sounded almost indignant.
‘So, is there an outstanding balance between Haus Vaterland and the Lamkau firm, or not?’
‘Kempinski,’ Riedel said. ‘I don’t just buy for Haus Vaterland, but Kempinski too.’
‘Right. So does the Kempinski firm still owe Lamkau?’
‘I’m not directly responsible for company accounts, but no, not as far as I know.’
‘Then can you explain why he had so much cash on him?’
Riedel shrugged. ‘Perhaps he’d just delivered somewhere else. I don’t know how other companies settle their accounts.’
‘We’re surprised the company owner should’ve made the delivery in person on Saturday.’
Riedel looked around, as if afraid someone might be listening. ‘One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,’ he said at length. ‘But you’re bound to hear it at some point.’
‘Hear what?’
‘His delivering in person might’ve been a gesture of…’ There was a pregnant pause. ‘…goodwill. The Lamkau firm has a little ground to make up.’ Rath pricked up his ears as Riedel gestured towards the bottles in front of him. ‘This is all high-quality stuff. No such thing as rotgut at Kempinski. Our clients know that, and so do our suppliers.’
‘What’s that got to do with Lamkau?’
‘A recent delivery was tainted. Several crates of the stuff. Not Luisenbrand, like it said on the label, but cheap hooch. A layman might’ve fallen for it, but an expert – impossible.’ Riedel sniffed at a glass of light pomace brandy. It wasn’t hard to believe the man was an expert in all things alcoholic, and not just because of the colour of his nose.
‘You’re saying Lamkau tried to palm you off with low-grade hooch?’
‘Who knows? He may not make the stuff himself, but he’s the sole distributor of Mathée Luisenbrand across Central Germany. Either way, this sort of thing shouldn’t happen.’
‘But it did.’
‘Yes. Which is why the Lamkau firm stood to be removed from our list of suppliers. In fact I had invited Herbert Lamkau to a meeting today.’ He looked at his watch. ‘He ought to be sitting exactly where you are now.’
Suddenly everything in the room went black, and a murmur passed through the crowd. Behind the glass pane there was a flash of lightning, followed by a peal of thunder, and rain started falling over the miniature Sankt Goar. Cries of astonishment suggested the majority of diners had never been here before. Rath doubted there was anyone who would watch the show a second time.
‘Im Haus Vaterland ist man gründlich, hier gewittert’s stündlich,’ Riedel said with a shrug.
A reference to these simulated hourly storms, the tired slogan was designed to entice potential customers. Riedel made it sound more like an apology. Rath waited until the noise had died and lit a cigarette. ‘This meeting. What would it have been about?’ he asked, waving the match out. At the same moment the lights came back on.
Riedel took a sip from one of the glasses before him, taking notes on the individual drinks. ‘Staying on our list of suppliers,’ he said.
‘What happens now that he’s dead?’
‘I can get hold of their other products easily enough. It’s only Luisenbrand the firm has sole distribution rights to.’
‘What about Danziger Goldwasser?’
‘Lamkau isn’t the sole distributor there.’
‘So, if the Lamkau firm had been dropped, who would supply Haus Vaterland in their place?’
‘Do you know, honestly, I haven’t given it much thought, but Luisenbrand isn’t the only decent Korn about.’
Rath tore a sheet from his notebook and passed it across the table. ‘Write me a list of potential alternatives and their suppliers.’
‘You think it’s a competitor who has Lamkau on their conscience?’ Riedel shook his head. ‘I can’t imagine it.’ He wrote down a few names and Rath briefly surveyed the list. He didn’t recognise any of the companies on it.
‘Let’s get back to your meeting with Lamkau,’ he said, stowing the paper in his pocket. ‘What could have persuaded you to change your mind?’
‘An apology.’ Riedel held a glass containing a yellow-gold liquid against the light. ‘A reasonable explanation as to how it could’ve happened. And, naturally, a guarantee there would be no repeat. That would have been enough.’
‘Perhaps the odd banknote might have helped.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You have a lot of power here. In the whole Kempinski firm, in fact. Surely the odd supplier has tried to bribe you?’
‘In my position, you can’t afford to be susceptible.’
‘But a thousand marks? Wouldn’t that make you more… susceptible?’
Riedel laughed loudly. ‘A thousand marks? You must be joking. The quantities Lamkau supplied, how d’you suppose he’d recoup a sum like that?’
On the way up to the fourth floor Rath noted that both freight elevators were back in commission, before reaching the heart, or rather the stomach, of Haus Vaterland. There was so much equipment on display the central kitchen felt more like a small factory. Inside, Rath found a line of gas stoves: huge cauldrons, big as bathtubs, full of steaming soups and sauces, numerous coffee machines, stirring machines, slicing machines, mixing machines, potato-peeling machines and mincers. Set slightly apart, an enormous metal structure went about its business, a kitchen-hand loading a never-ending supply of trays and dirty crockery onto its conveyor belt. Everything hissed and scratched and rattled and clanked and jangled and turned, while countless staff scurried between the glistening technology snipping vegetables, stirring pans, tenderising meat or loading trays of food onto the little paternoster.