Whether this someone was Captain Benjamin Engel, missing, presumed dead, was a different matter. Previously Rath hadn’t thought so: Juretzka’s statement had been a means of activating the police commissioner’s anti-Semitic reflex so that he might reopen the Wosniak case. So far, so good – only now, it looked as if the whole thing might be real after all.
The corpse in Potsdam had made headlines in Berlin by Saturday morning. The police hadn’t informed the press, but they had informed Roddeck, and the news found its way into the Kreuzzeitung, which could continue beating the drum for its soon-to-be-published serial. A novel, for the sake of which people were being killed… naturally, readers were curious. Nibelungen had brought publication, initially scheduled for May, forward by four weeks and everyone sensed a big payday. Apparently even the lieutenant’s personal protection was being exploited: the Kreuzzeitung had published a picture of von Roddeck jutting his chin forward in the company of two scowling uniformed cops. The midday editions had followed suit, and though they failed to mention the novel’s forthcoming serialisation in the Kreuzzeitung, their copy brimmed with anti-Semitic undertones.
‘I don’t like the way this is going,’ said Dr Schwartz, on whose desk Meifert’s corpse – after a call from the Prussian Interior Ministry – had landed after all. ‘A mysterious Jew, wandering like Ahasver and butchering brave German veterans. It sounds like something from Der Stürmer.’
Rath shrugged as if he felt the need to apologise personally. ‘I don’t like it either, but the Jewish angle is what convinced the police commissioner to reopen the case.’
‘Anti-Semite as he is, I’m not surprised.’
Rath had never heard the long-standing pathologist be so disrespectful about a serving commissioner. For all the scorn he might reserve for weak-stomached CID officers, Dr Schwartz had always been loyal to the Berlin Police. That seemed to have changed.
Rath cleared his throat. ‘But you can confirm it’s the same modus operandi?’
‘The same puncture channel, almost the exact same spot. As if the perpetrator had done it many times, practised it even.’
‘A soldier then?’
‘Do you want his rank and religion?’
‘All right. I was only asking.’
‘What do you want to hear? That only a Jewish captain can kill in such a perfidious manner?’
‘I’m no anti-Semite, I’m just looking for a Jewish captain.’
‘You’re right, I’m sorry.’ Dr Schwartz sounded calmer again. ‘It’s just… in times like these… it can be hard to know what to think of people.’ He covered the corpse and looked at Rath. ‘Do you know what Dr Karthaus said to me yesterday? He told me to take early retirement!’
Gero Karthaus was Schwartz’s younger colleague. A little on the strange side, perhaps, but wiry and ambitious. Above alclass="underline" not Jewish.
‘I’d be old enough, he said. In times like these, it would be better for all concerned. From one colleague to another, you understand.’ Schwartz shook his head. ‘Karthaus isn’t even a Nazi. It just suits him to swim with the tide.’
Rath wasn’t so sure about that. These days more and more Nazis chose to hide in plain sight.
48
On Sunday afternoon, having cast his vote in the local elections with Charly at his side, Rath sped across the North German Plain on the Fernverkehrstrasse 1. The journey would take approximately ten hours, with a couple of breaks thrown in. He’d sooner have sent Henning and Czerwinski, but Gennat insisted that he make the trip to the Rhineland himself. No doubt Buddha was still smarting at Magnus Levetzow calling him to report.
Charly wasn’t exactly thrilled, but there wasn’t a great deal she could say. Official assignments were sacred to her, especially when the order came from Gennat.
His first port of call was Magdeburg, where, according to Erika Voss’s research, Private Hermann Wibeau now lived. Eventually he found the right street, but no one answered the door. He kept ringing, and finally the front door opposite opened and a woman with small, crafty eyes peered through the crack.
‘Are you looking for Herr Wiebau?’
Rath looked at his note. ‘Hermann Wibeau. He lives here, doesn’t he?’
‘Herr Wiebau is a travelling salesman. He’s rarely at home.’
She made a point of mispronouncing the Huguenot name. Rath displayed equal force of will. ‘What does Herr Wibeau sell?’
The lady blushed. ‘How should I know?’
‘You’re his neighbour, aren’t you?’
‘So?’
‘What time does Herr Wibeau usually get home?’
‘Hard to say. The police were here yesterday, too. Has something happened?’
‘I sent them,’ Rath said, showing his identification. ‘CID, Berlin. Herr Wibeau is an important witness.’
He wrote a note on his card, and pushed it through Wibeau’s letterbox.
What a start. The same story in Elberfeld and Bonn would mean two or three days’ work, and any amount of petrol, for damn all.
He left Magdeburg and continued westwards, always in the direction of the sun. Passing through villages and towns, he was struck by the numbers of swastika flags hanging from windows, sometimes flying outside official buildings. It was polling day, of course, and the Germans loved nailing their colours to the mast, but in the course of the whole journey he didn’t see a single black-red-and-gold flag, let alone a red one. Voting wasn’t even over, and already it looked as if the Nazis had assumed control of Prussia’s town halls. Country dwellers had long since accepted the new powers, while Berlin and other cities resisted still.
Somewhere beyond Hildesheim, he stopped for the second time, parking outside one of the few country inns that hadn’t been converted into a polling station. The front was draped in black-white-and-red, but at least there was no swastika. It was still cold, though with the sun shining all day it felt as if spring were in the air. Rath ordered a cup of coffee, lit a cigarette and fetched Roddeck’s manuscript from his pocket.
We spied an enormous pillar of smoke on the western horizon, illuminated by the rising sun, and then, after some delay, heard the thundering explosion. The effect was as a tempest, where the rumble lags behind the flash, allowing the experienced meteorologist to determine the distance of the storm. At first we believed the British artillery had started firing, especially since more blasts followed, though none was as violent as the first. It, moreover, had not been preceded by the typical whistling of grenades that warns of an impending artillery strike. All this was only apparent in retrospect, however. A short time later the captain’s car roared towards us as we effected our retreat. Thelen, the captain’s driver, climbed out, then Grimberg, the demolition expert, uniforms and faces covered in dust. Immediately they submitted their report and we learned what had happened. Making an inspection of the booby-traps on the front line, Captain Engel had fallen victim to a misfire triggered as he set foot inside a trench. Thelen and Grimberg were fortunate to be standing by the car when the charge detonated. They had searched for the captain but soon acknowledged the futility of their efforts. Everything had collapsed, they reported, Engel was fully submerged in the rubble of the dugout. Though Thelen had fetched a shovel from the vehicle in order to clear the point where he believed his captain lay, by then the British had opened fire and they had no choice but to abort.