Her guilty conscience stirred. She shouldn’t have slapped him yesterday, or run away, she’d realised that almost as soon as her anger subsided. Why did he have to talk such nonsense? Female suffrage had brought Hitler to power? When it came to politics Gereon was a fool, and he wasn’t the only one in this country.
She didn’t know how long she’d been waiting, but at some point she heard footsteps in the stairwell, several people, the pitter-patter of a dog… She stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. The door opened, and Kirie ran to greet her. Then came Fritze, throwing his thin arms around her as if he never wanted to let go. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
Gereon took the key from the lock and shrugged. Fritze was more forthcoming after she’d made him a few sandwiches in the kitchen. Scarface man had appeared again, and injured Hannah, but thanks to Gereon she was now safe because this Chinese had come and…
‘Chinese?’ she said, looking at Gereon.
‘Hannah didn’t want to see a doctor or go to the hospital. She was right, too. They’d have sent her straight back to Dalldorf. Is that what you would have wanted?’
‘Who was this Chinese?’
‘A man who owed me a favour.’
‘And he’s a doctor.’
‘Let’s say he knows his way around a scalpel.’ He glared as if in preparation for another fight. ‘She was bleeding to death. Damn it, Charly, where would you have sent her? To your doctor friend? An arsonist, a mass murderer?’
Fritze’s eyes opened wide at the word ‘murderer’ and Charly could have kicked Gereon for being so crude. Too late.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ the boy said, looking as if he might burst into tears at any moment. ‘Really I didn’t, but what was I s’posed to do? The bastard would have strangled her otherwise!’
She looked at Gereon. ‘What is he talking about?’ she asked.
‘It was self-defence, Aunt Charly!’ Fritze looked at her as if she might send him back into care. ‘This strange, pointy thing was just lying there and I… All of a sudden he wasn’t moving anymore.’
79
Charly sat on the passenger seat in silence, barely deigning to look at him, and then only to make it known that all this was his doing. For the second time that day Rath drove eastwards, this time watching his speed so as to avoid being pulled over by a colleague. This was not now a matter of life and death, but death alone.
It was approaching dusk when they arrived. Fritze’s description had been good, a dilapidated factory site off Köpenicker Strasse. A weathered sign directed them towards Ohligs cabinetmakers. Rath drove past the yard entrance and parked the Buick a little further down. Returning on foot Charly put her arm in his, whether because she wanted to or to avoid attention, he couldn’t say. There weren’t many people about, the buildings were mostly abandoned and, it being Sunday, those that were still occupied were empty. But what if A Division were waiting somewhere in the wings?
He hadn’t told her where Hannah had been taken. It was pure chance he’d got hold of Liang in Marlow’s office at the old Ostbahnhof, as Dr M. had temporarily struck camp, gone to ground like his loyal henchman Leo Juretzka. Clearly the SA had the Berlin underworld running scared. Liang hadn’t asked many questions, just looked at the bandage, which in the meantime Fritze had replaced, and nodded his agreement. Together they carried the girl out of the cinema and laid her gently on the rear seat of the black Adler sedan, otherwise used to wheel Johann Marlow around town.
‘Will they be able to help her?’ Fritze had asked, as the vehicle rolled out of the yard.
‘If anyone can, it’s them.’
Rath prayed to God he was right. That would be the only justification in the inevitable reckoning with Charly.
‘He just happened to run into her?’ she asked, disbelievingly. ‘Who goes around a place like this voluntarily?’
Rath shrugged. ‘He must have known Hannah was here. Why else would he head straight over from Görlitzer Bahnhof?’
‘Without realising a certain someone was following close behind.’
They had reached an uninviting-looking cobbled path that took them beyond the road.
‘This is where Fritze must have lost him,’ said Rath. ‘Until he heard Hannah cry out.’
The boy had told them what happened before they set out: how, reaching the yard, he had seen scarface man crouched over Hannah, choking her; how he had taken the dagger and stabbed, again and again, until the man simply keeled over and ceased to move.
They followed the winding path. Everywhere around, piles of junk obstructed their view. A God-forsaken place, brick buildings falling to ruin, most of the windows shattered by stray or well-aimed stones. The path led to a rear courtyard, which couldn’t be seen from the road.
The building Fritze had described was unmistakable. A pool of blood had formed on the pavement; a trail of blood led up the ramp to a door that was slightly ajar.
‘We couldn’t just leave the corpse in the yard, so we hauled it inside. Wasn’t easy, I tell you.’ Fritze was certain no one had seen them. ‘Everything around there’s empty. The most you’ll find is a few stray tramps.’
The buildings lining the yard looked as if they were waiting to be torn down. No one had worked here for years. Charly looked around. ‘Doesn’t seem like A Division have been here.’
‘Or else Gennat’s already waiting inside for us with the corpse.’
For a brief moment she looked horrified. Was there no end to Buddha’s talents, her gaze seemed to ask. Rath knew better. If the corpse had been discovered a uniformed cop would be stationed outside. ‘There’s no one here,’ he said. ‘I’ll go first if you like. If the worst comes to the worst, you can say you just drove me.’
‘Rubbish. We go together.’
Inside was pitch-black. Rath turned his flashlight on an abandoned workshop which smelled of rotting wood. In the far corner was a dead man among sawdust coloured red by blood. He shone his light on the corpse. The face was hideously scarred, and there was no denying the resemblance to the wanted poster from Magdeburg. Any resemblance to the pre-war photo of the dapper Captain Benjamin Engel was less pronounced. Rath struggled to imagine how such damage could be done to a face.
As Charly stared at the corpse he realised that, despite all her previous work for Homicide, she had seldom seen a dead body. ‘It could be Krumbiegel,’ she said.
Rath searched the dead man’s coat pockets, but found only a half-empty wallet, a used handkerchief and a blood-stained, pointed weapon. ‘No service record, nothing,’ he said, holding the dagger to the light. The blade, if that’s what this tapered skewer was, was triangular. ‘But this is the murder weapon. My money’s on Engel.’
‘What’s he got against Hannah?’
‘No idea, but what could your Krumbiegel, supposing he killed Wosniak, have against Hermann Wibeau, and Linus Meifert?’
‘What if they’re one and the same? Perhaps Engel assumed Krumbiegel’s identity. Maybe he stumbled on Krumbiegel’s service record fleecing some corpse on the battlefield. It’s possible.’
‘That’s pure speculation!’
The man’s eyes staring out of the network of scars were devoid of life. Rath turned him over. The back of his dark winter coat was covered in sawdust, the blood-soaked fabric glistening damp in the light of the torch. No doubt about it, he was dead.
‘Well, that’s just great,’ Charly said. ‘What now? Another case for your Chinese friend?’
‘Certainly not.’ What might the consequences be of sharing another deadly secret with Johann Marlow? ‘The obvious thing for Prussian officers such as ourselves would be to alert the Castle and await the arrival of Forensics.’