‘What is it?’
‘A radio transmission from Police Headquarters.’
‘You listen to police radio?’ Charly asked.
‘I need to know what’s happening in Berlin,’ Marlow said, and pointed to the message. ‘I think this concerns the two of you more than me.’
Rath looked at the paper. Charly had already begun to read.
Security Service Berlin: notice to all frontier posts for the arrest of Dr Bernhard Weiss, ex deputy police commissioner, born 30/7/80, Berlin, formerly resident at Steinplatz 3, Berlin Charlottenburg. Description: 165 to 170cm, stocky, dark-grey hair, glasses, typical Jewish appearance, long nose, toothbrush moustache. Confirm upon arrest. Police Commissioner, Berlin, Sect. 1A.
Section 1A, the Political Police, the department Bernhard Weiss helped establish, and even led in the years following the war, had put a warrant out for his arrest.
89
The man was sitting in exactly the same spot, white stick beside him, hat and cardboard sign in front. Sub-zero temperatures hadn’t deterred him in February. Today he was here just the same. With the Rothstein report submitted, Rath had put in for the rest of the week off, which Buddha had grudgingly approved. At some point he would have to use up the overtime he had accrued before the Reichstag fire, and with no new investigations running this was the perfect opportunity. He turned up his collar.
Reaching the elevated railway Rath climbed a few stairs, turned and descended slowly, keeping an eye on the site where, around a month ago now, he had collected the soiled canvasses. The pillar where Gerhard Krumbiegel, and not Heinrich Wosniak, had been found.
At the bottom he crouched beside the beggar and tried to adopt his perspective. Though partially unsighted by a steel column, he would have an excellent view of the crime scene. The man wore dark glasses, and from the side Rath could see his eyelids twitch as they blinked. Rath stood in front of him. The stench was unbearable.
War-blind, please give generously, the cardboard sign said. Fetching his wallet he rummaged for change, took out a ten pfennig piece and held it over the hat. Then, instead of dropping the coin, he clenched his fist and made as if to punch the man’s face, only to brake millimetres in front of the dark glasses.
The beggar flinched, no more than a slight jerk, then sat still as before, as if oblivious to the world around him. But Rath had seen enough. He tossed the coin, caught it and enclosed it in his fist. Sitting on the steps he did his best not to hold his nose. ‘Nice spot you’ve got here.’
‘Are you taking the piss?’ the beggar asked.
‘Bet there are a lot of people who come by? A good spot for begging, is what I meant.’
‘If you say so.’
‘You here every day?’
‘Unless I’m needed in the office.’
‘What?’
‘Joke. Do I look I have an office?’
‘You look like the kind of man who doesn’t miss a trick.’
‘You are taking the piss!’
‘Were you here towards the end of February?’
‘I don’t see how that’s any business of yours.’
Rath took out his identification and watched the beggar turn pale under layers of dirt. ‘Can you read it, or are your glasses too dark?’
‘Making fun of a poor veteran who lost his sight in the service of the Fatherland?’
‘Who knows what you lost in the service of the Fatherland. Maybe life dealt you a lousy hand. Hell, maybe you’re even short-sighted, but you are certainly not blind!’ Rath raised his voice.
The beggar placed a finger to his lips in horror. ‘Shh. Not so loud! It’s bad for business.’
‘I’ve no intention of ruining your business, and maybe I won’t even take you down to Alex, but you’d better start being honest.’ He pointed towards the steel pillar. ‘A man lay dead there for days. Homeless, a beggar like you. No one gave a damn.’
‘I knew something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t go official, could I… being blind and all.’
‘You saw him then.’
‘Keep your voice down. Saw him? People might hear! At first I thought the two of them were friends. He’d just given him a thick coat.’
‘He gave him his coat?’
‘Not the one he was wearing. No, it was fine wool, but he had another under his arm, an old army coat.’
‘Which is why you thought they were friends?’
‘I don’t know about friends, but they knew each other, even a blind man could…’ The beggar fell silent and eyed his white stick in embarrassment. ‘I mean, it was obvious.’
‘What happened next?’
‘The tramp put on the coat, all thank you, thank you. And then… I’m not sure. I was only looking over every so often, you know how it is, I had… patrons to thank…’ he swallowed. ‘Anyway, next time I looked over, bowler-hat man was crouched by his friend on the ground. Patted him on the shoulder and off he went.’
‘Towards the station? Past you?’
‘No, towards Bülowstrasse.’
‘Did you see his face?’
‘He had his collar up and his hat was pulled down over his eyes. It looked like he had a few scars. I took them for old war comrades.’
‘Did you notice anything else about the man?’
‘There was one thing. He had a strange gait, always dragging one leg.’
‘What about the dead man?’
‘He was just crouched there. Looked like he had wrapped himself up to take a nap. I didn’t realise anything was amiss until he was still sitting like that the next day. But what could I do? A blind man?’
‘Even blind men can notify the police.’
‘Being blind is how I make my living, Inspector! I thought, let someone who can see him do it. Eventually, someone did.’
90
Friday night. Nibelungen had booked the grand lounge in Hotel Adlon. It was sold out, and Rath only got in by using his police badge. ‘Your colleagues are already inside. At the back, beside the podium.’
Reinhold Gräf sat with Steinke and a few other plainclothes officers from A and H Divisions, probably hoping Benjamin Engel, the murdering Jew as Levetzow called him, would be careless enough to show. The whole thing had the appearance of a large-scale operation between Homicide and Warrants, mounted on the commissioner’s orders, but Rath knew nothing about it, having steered clear of Alex since handing in the Rothstein report on Monday. This was a purely social call.
Everywhere he looked, cops surveyed the diverse audience, the majority being prosperous types in evening dress alongside a number of veterans in uniform. One man had a prosthetic arm. Two or three had crutches by their chairs. None was as disfigured or damaged as the many war-disabled begging on Berlin’s streets.
Then, of course, came the inevitable brown with black-white-and-red brassards, everywhere now, as if the Nazis were rabbits and mating season was in full swing. In reality they were ordinary people who had jumped on the bandwagon before it was too late. Like Marlow said: citizens who wanted to get ahead; but workers too, who had been beaten down by life and joined SA ranks to ensure that others shared their suffering.
A familiar face jostled for position among the journalists in the first row. He had no wish for Berthold Weinert to see him, nor Gräf for that matter, or indeed any of his colleagues. Unusually for a book of this kind a number of women were also present, no doubt due to Roddeck’s previous existence as a dance host. He settled for a place at the back behind a fat lady, and hid his face in the information sheet which had been presented to him at the door.