‘Listening to you yesterday morning,’ Buddha continued, ‘I couldn’t help thinking of an article I read in the Monatshefte a few weeks back, in which a similarly strange case was described.’ He took the periodical from the table and put on his reading glasses. ‘I looked it up again, and I must say the similarities between our case and the…’ He peered through his spectacles ‘…Wawerka case from Dortmund are quite astonishing. Here, too, we have a victim who drowned in an enclosed space.’
‘Lamkau didn’t drown.’
‘Maybe Wawerka didn’t either. Who knows if forensic pathology is up to scratch in Dortmund. Either way, I couldn’t help thinking of it when you spoke yesterday.’ Gennat pushed the magazine across the table. ‘Have a look for yourself.’
Rath laid his plate on the table, praying that Buddha wouldn’t cut him a third slice, and picked up the journal. Perhaps I should read this sort of thing more often, he thought, feigning interest. ‘Have our colleagues in Dortmund had any more luck?’
‘I’m afraid not. The case is with the wet fish.’ Wet fish was Castle terminology for cold case. ‘But the similarities are striking. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it at briefing. Some officers are rather closer to the press than they ought to be.’ He looked Rath in the eye, knowing his inspector had links there too. ‘If the papers should catch the phrase “serial killer”, then all hell will break loose. But I don’t have to tell you that.’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Anyhow, we can’t allow them to make a fuss, especially when we still don’t know if we’re on the right track. I would therefore ask you to pursue this with discretion.’
‘Doesn’t the distance mitigate against your theory? Berlin and Dortmund are more than five hundred kilometres apart.’
‘Four hundred and ninety, if you take the Reichsstrasse. Six and a half hours by train.’ Gennat was unmoved. ‘But you’re right. Normally a serial killer operates in a more confined radius. Even so, we now have two cases that could go together, and perhaps there are more. Perhaps there are links we’re still not seeing, geographical or otherwise.’
‘And if it really is one and the same perpetrator, maybe they don’t come from Berlin at all, but Dortmund.’
‘Or elsewhere. Perhaps it’s a travelling salesman who strikes wherever he stops for the night.’
‘Then we should check if there have been any similar incidents in Prussia.’
‘My thinking exactly, Inspector.’ Gennat polished off his second slice of gooseberry tart, and look sated for the time being, a sure sign that the audience was over. ‘I’ve already notified police headquarters in all major cities, as well as the State Crime Bureau and Gendarmerie. That way we’ll hear of anything, even if it happened out in the sticks.’
‘Thank you, Sir.’ Rath rolled up the periodical and got to his feet. ‘One more thing,’ he said from the door. ‘The dead man from Dortmund – did he have links with the catering industry? Or was he found in a lift like Lamkau?’
‘He was a miner at the Zollern Colliery, found on site, dead in his bed.’
16
At least Rath didn’t have to say anything right away. When he returned to his men, Charly still hadn’t materialised. No one had heard anything from her since they’d left the office together around an hour before, but there was no way her talk with Dettmann could have lasted this long. He lit a cigarette and wondered whether he would have to give her a public dressing-down, if only to show his colleagues there were no favourites. He couldn’t overlook the fact that she had failed to inform the team of her movements. Had she paid Narcotics a visit? She ought to have left that to him. His colleagues would hardly have taken a male cadet seriously, so God alone knew how they’d react to a woman.
‘How’d it go with Buddha?’ Gräf asked.
‘Superintendent Gennat regrets not being able to supply us with additional officers, but would like a CID employee to work undercover in the Haus Vaterland kitchen.’
Gräf was unimpressed. ‘We’re supposed to scrub vegetables now?’
‘I wouldn’t be averse, providing we get to keep the wage,’ Lange said. ‘With our salaries, we need all the help we can get.’
‘It can’t be any one of us,’ Rath replied. ‘Our faces are known there.’
‘That leaves only Fräulein Ritter,’ Lange said.
‘Exactly who Gennat suggested!’
‘Poor Charly!’ Gräf couldn’t conceal a grin. ‘Finally gets a job with CID and still winds up in the kitchen.’
Rath found this less than amusing, since he was the one who had to break the news.
‘At least she knows her way around the kitchen,’ he heard Lange say. ‘You wouldn’t be able to use a man there. Unless you know anyone who can cook?’
‘One more thing,’ Rath said, in a tone that silenced the two jokers. ‘Gennat thinks we might be dealing with a serial killer.’
The phrase could choke any light-heartedness at police headquarters.
‘What?’ Gräf said disbelievingly, but with a hint of cheer still in his face. ‘You’re not serious. Where else is our killer meant to have struck?’
‘Somewhere out in the Ruhrgebiet.’ Rath pointed to the journal he had placed on the table. ‘Buddha came upon the case in the Monatshefte. I’m sceptical myself.’
‘You’re suggesting we ignore a tip from on high?’
‘I’m suggesting we don’t rush into anything. We’re under express orders to investigate discreetly. First I’d like to read the article properly. We’ll talk about it after lunch.’
Gräf nodded. ‘My stomach’s already rumbling. There’s beef liver in the canteen today.’
‘Count me in,’ Lange said. ‘How about you, Gereon?’
‘Liver’s not for me.’ Rath stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Ask Erika if she wants to join you. I’ll get something from Aschinger.’
With his colleagues gone, Rath leafed through the journal to the article in question. Mysterious drowning, the headline ran, sequence of events unexplained. As was often the case in the Monatshefte, the article was written in matter-of-fact, almost bureaucratic German, no livelier than the language used in police statements, albeit underscored by a pseudo-academic, schoolmasterly tone. He remembered now why he read it so rarely.
The man from Dortmund gazed innocently from the page: Hans Wawerka, found dead in his bed on Easter morning.
The investigation left the reader in no doubt that the miner had suffered a violent end, even if questions persisted everywhere else. The pathological report had ruled death by drowning, although whether it was simply a near-drowning, as Gennat suspected, was of secondary importance. Of greater interest was the fact that the Dortmund pathologist had also discovered a puncture site, likewise in the jugular vein, but neglected to pursue the matter, or, at least, failed to perform a blood analysis. Gennat’s suspicions regarding the competence of Prussian CID forces outside Berlin were clearly based on more than just arrogance. Could they establish the presence of tubocurarine in a three-month-old corpse? He would have to ask Dr Karthaus. Either way, it was time to dig the poor bastard up.
He looked at the article and again at the photo. Wawerka was dead, with water in his lungs and a puncture site on his neck, but everything else, as with Lamkau, was a mystery. There were no signs of a struggle or, indeed, of any suspects that were still alive. A Communist newspaper vendor, with whom the dead man had been in conflict, could be ruled out, since he had been killed the day before in an apparently politically motivated arson attack on his kiosk.