‘Depends how I get on. I still have a few addresses to check. How about a beer tonight in the Dreieck?’
‘No can do. I have to look after Charly.’
Gräf got out, let Kirie onto the passenger seat and tipped his hat. Gereon returned the gesture. No sooner had he closed the door than the Buick turned and headed back towards Frankfurter Allee. Through the reflection in the windscreen he tried to see whether Gereon was looking back, but all he could make out was Kirie’s silhouette.
After crossing a miserable-looking courtyard, he descended the basement stairs to the second rear building and was assailed by the smells of mildew and male sweat. Olga Joppich lived in a flat almost completely devoid of light. It seemed scarcely credible that a dozen men could have slept here last night, but they had, and paid for the privilege.
Places like this were plentiful in north and east Berlin. Miserable, damp, mouldy basements that poor souls like Olga Joppich rented to those who were even less fortunate, to avoid being put out on the streets themselves.
Gräf fervently hoped that such conditions, imposed on Germany by the November criminals, would soon be a thing of the past. German soldiers who had sacrificed their health for the Fatherland now lived on the streets – that couldn’t be right. In the new Germany, they, too, would find their place. Sadly it was too late for Heinrich Wosniak, and many others who had spent their final years in penury. Men whom the Weimar ‘system’ had on its conscience.
Reaching the door he followed the instructions on the yellowed sheet nailed to the jamb, and rang three times.
20
Rath still wasn’t quite with it as discussion turned to the latest rumblings in the press. The article in Der Tag had opened the floodgates for the rest. Gennat advocated going on the offensive, but Böhm was having none of it, so great was his distrust of ‘hack writers’. His experiences with the press hadn’t been universally positive, which no one knew better than Rath, who had been responsible for many of them. But what did Böhm, who avoided all contact with journalists, expect? Certainly Gennat was against such default negativity.
While Buddha and Böhm argued, Rath’s thoughts turned to Luisenufer earlier that day. He still couldn’t believe it, but there was no other explanation. Reinhold Gräf was a pansy.
How could he do this to him? After all the beers they had drunk together, everything they had been through? How often had they got changed after police sports? Stood under the shower together? Plenty of opportunity to look him up and down… Rath grew furious thinking about it.
‘…isn’t that so, Inspector Rath?’
The voice belonged to Böhm, but everyone was looking at him.
‘Come again?’
‘The murder weapon. The trench dagger. My colleagues and I would like to know what progress you have made.’
‘Well, it’s tricky.’ Rath cleared his throat. ‘There is no such thing as a standardised trench dagger. Remember that trench warfare was something unknown, for which German soldiers were unprepared. For the most part, the men would have acquired their own daggers, whether by manufacturing them or adapting existing weapons. It wasn’t until the second year that infantrymen on the Western Front were provided with trench daggers, albeit there were still enormous regional differences.’
‘Fine, Inspector,’ Böhm interrupted. ‘But what does it mean for us?’
‘That we still have a long way to go. The only thing we can say with any certainty is that our murder weapon is unlikely to be standard army issue.’
‘A homemade job then?’
‘Or stolen from the enemy, that sort of thing happened too. Although a dagger with a triangular cross-section was rare, it wouldn’t have been the only one. For the time being I have concentrated our inquiries on Heinrich Wosniak’s unit, the First Guards Reserve Infantry Regiment. Perhaps we’ll learn more if we can track down one of his old comrades.’
‘Thank you, Inspector Rath,’ said Gennat. A ‘thank you’ from Böhm was unthinkable. ‘Given the degree of uncertainty, I think it would now be appropriate to appeal to the press for witnesses.’
Böhm seemed to hold Rath personally responsible for his defeat. ‘You heard Superintendent Gennat,’ he shouted, ten minutes later when they had retired to his office. ‘Now get the ball rolling.’
‘Me?’
‘It’s thanks to you we’re in this position. If you’d made a little more progress on the murder weapon, we wouldn’t have to bother.’
‘I don’t understand your aversion to launching an appeal, Sir. The public has helped get many an investigation back on track.’
‘First, who said anything about my investigation not being on track? Second, you know perfectly well that for every reliable witness another twenty unreliable ones crawl out of the woodwork, and that’s not counting the busybodies.’
‘I…’ Rath didn’t get a chance to finish. There was a loud knock and, before anyone could say ‘come in’, two SA men wearing auxiliary police brassards appeared in the doorway. Behind them, Böhm’s secretary, Margot Ahrens, gestured apologetically.
‘I’m sorry, Sir, but the gentlemen wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
Böhm leaped from his chair. ‘How dare you?’ he thundered. ‘You’re interrupting an official conversation.’
The brownshirts were unimpressed. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Böhm?’ the smaller one asked. Böhm nodded. ‘The commissioner would like to see you.’
‘Fine. Tell Herr von Levetzow I’ll come and find him as soon as our meeting is over. In future, a simple telephone call will suffice, especially when we need every available man.’
‘You don’t understand. We have orders to bring you to the commissioner. Now get your jacket and come with us.’
‘I beg your pardon!’
‘The police commissioner would like to see you. Now.’
‘You hangers-on would be better off doing as you’re told,’ the second SA man said. ‘You’re finished here.’
For a moment Böhm was speechless, then it all came out. ‘You’ve some nerve, speaking to me like that. You’re an auxiliary officer! How dare you take that tone with a Prussian police officer?’
‘Prussian police officer? Let’s see about that,’ the small man said. ‘You are guilty of multiple breaches of duty, and…’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Now come with us.’ The SA man placed his hand on Böhm’s shoulder.
Böhm looked at the hand as if it were an insect to brush away. He opened his mouth but said nothing, halting in the doorway to address his secretary, who didn’t know where to look for embarrassment.
‘I’ll be right back, Fräulein Ahrens, it’ll be fine. Go and take your break.’ He looked at Rath and shook his head before following the uniformed officers through the outer office into the corridor.
Margot Ahrens stared at the door as it shut behind them. She uttered a brief cry of horror, more like a sob, and held her hand in front of her mouth. She looked at Rath wide-eyed, and when all he could do was shrug, she took her coat from the hook and ran outside.
21
The fourth years seemed to sense he was distracted. Entering the room like an absent-minded professor, he took the wrong textbook from his bag and almost returned the seventh year essays, two whole lessons early. The article in the morning paper had startled him. Heinrich Wosniak. How long had it been since he’d heard the name?
Linus Meifert had settled into a modest existence as a senior teacher and tried not to think of that time any longer, at least not during the day. Nights were different. Time and again he wakened drenched in sweat.