‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at.’
‘That Wosniak killed Krumbiegel because he wanted to stage his own death.’
‘My faithful Heinrich! Why would he do that?’
‘I’ll know soon enough. I certainly don’t believe that Benjamin Engel killed all these men.’
‘You sound very sure.’
Rath had to tread carefully. He had come here to catch Roddeck off guard, not give away what he knew. ‘It’s just a theory. You have yours and I have mine. As far as I’m concerned Benjamin Engel is not behind these murders.’
‘Perhaps that’s why the commissioner took you off the case. I’d think about that if I were you.’
Back on the street, Rath aimed a kick at one of the rubbish bins that was supposed to keep Unter den Linden, Berlin’s oldest boulevard, free from dirt. The bin was ripped from its moorings and its contents spilled on the pavement. He hadn’t been this angry in a long time.
He had miscalculated. Achim von Roddeck was slippier than an eel, and to cap it all, seemed to know that Rath was onto him. It looked like Gereon Rath and his temper had made a hash of things again. At least on this occasion Gennat was none the wiser.
92
Sometimes Charly felt glad when Fritze was out with Kirie and she had time to catch her breath. Was he really so slow on the uptake or did he just not care? When she thought of everything she’d done to find him a school… If the boy didn’t get his head down soon he’d get a rude awakening after Easter, and the new session. He had gaps just about everywhere, and could barely write his own name. Capable of some basic arithmetic, his brain went on strike whenever fractions were involved. He seemed to have no idea how important these things were, and didn’t want to make the effort.
Do you want to spend the rest of your days on the streets? I’m busting a gut to give you a decent life and you can’t even be bothered trying! More than once she had been close to telling a few home truths, but he had her wrapped around his little finger. It was impossible to stay angry.
One night she’d asked Gereon to go through basic fractions with him, but he was even more impatient than her. What would they do when they had children of their own?
Fritze’s interests lay elsewhere. Recently, after returning from his morning walk with Kirie, she had noticed sherbet powder on his lips. ‘Have you been buying sherbet? I don’t recall giving you any money.’
‘That’s ’cause you didn’t, Auntie.’
‘You haven’t been scrounging again?’ The constant Auntie Charly made her blood boil. ‘Why do you do it? If you need money tell me!’
‘Sorry, Aunt Charly, it just happened. There was this man outside the station, begging to be parted from his cash.’
‘You don’t have to anymore.’
‘I didn’t mean any harm, and he was only too glad to help.’ With that he disappeared into the kitchen and produced another two sachets of sherbet powder. The boy needed a firm hand.
She pondered the coming week with horror. On Monday she was due back in the Castle. Fritze would have all day to himself, but that was hardly her most pressing concern.
Thinking of her office, of Women’s CID, of Friederike Wieking and Karin van Almsick, she felt positively sick. More so when she thought of the files gathering dust on her desk. Files on children and youths, some scarcely older than Fritze, none of whom fitted with the new regime’s plans and certainly not with those of her commanding officer. Finally Friederike Wieking had license to hunt down the youth gangs she had always despised.
For years it had been Charly’s dream to work as a police officer and now, on the verge of becoming a CID inspector, with only the exam still to pass, she suddenly doubted whether this was the job for her. Not, at any rate, with Wieking as her superior. As for her caseload, she hadn’t taken up the job to hunt Communists.
Every day the Vossische Zeitung carried news items headed Shot Attempting to Flee, and no matter where the reports came from, the details were always the same: wanted Communist arrested, attempts to flee en route to the station, fails to heed the cries of police officers, summary execution.
The audacity with which the written press continued to spread such lies was breathtaking. At least the Vossische, which the Ritter family had read for generations, published these endless, identical reports in such a way that the lie was obvious.
She had tried to contact Professor Heymann to seek his advice, but her old law professor had been granted sabbatical leave at his own request and couldn’t be reached. The university office couldn’t, or didn’t want to, say more. She knew from the paper that high-ranking figures, such as directors or professors, were being granted sabbatical leave almost as frequently as Communists were being shot. The common factor being that they were Jewish. Anti-Semitism was more than just electioneering. Last week, prior to the boycott, the SA had picked up all Jewish judges and lawyers from the court building on Grunerstrasse while, at the university, Jewish professors were said to have been assaulted by students. She hoped Professor Heymann had managed to get out in time.
The doorbell returned her to the present. It was the postman. ‘Fräulein Charlotte Ritter?’
‘Yes?’
He never missed the chance to show his disapproval that she should live in an apartment with a different surname on the door.
‘A letter for you, from Prague.’ He stressed ‘Prague’ as if a letter from the Czech capital was the most obscene thing an upstanding German could receive.
‘I’m glad you know where it’s from. Did you look inside? Want to read it to me too while you’re at it?’
The man looked at her as if she were serious, and perhaps thought she was. ‘Read it out?’ He shook his head. ‘No time, Lady. Do you know how many houses I still have to visit?’
She closed the door and went inside to examine the stamp. Pošta Československá. No sender. She didn’t know anyone in Prague. Unless Professor Heymann had…
These days receiving mail from democratic countries made you a target of suspicion, and men like the postman were a perfect fit for this sick, new Germany. Sometimes Charly felt as if Berlin had been full of people just waiting for this government who were now, suddenly, revealing their true colours. As if the whole time somewhere deep under this city there had been another, darker Berlin that was seeping upwards like sewage rising in the street.
That wasn’t true, of course, it was the same people inhabiting the same Berlin. The new government simply had a talent for bringing out the worst in its citizens.
The letter was written on hotel paper.
My dear Fräulein Ritter,
My brother informed me of your concern regarding my whereabouts and mentioned what a great help you had been in these troubled times.
Let me start by saying that all is well with myself and my family; as I write we are in Prague, where we have taken up residence in the Hotel Modrá Hvĕzda. I do not wish to speak of the events of recent weeks, but will say this much: I have seen places and sides of Germany that I never knew existed, both good and bad (places as well as sides).
Spring is on its way here, bathing the city in golden light. It is hard not to feel optimistic. We are, at least, safe for now and must wait and see what happens next. I am friends with the police commissioner here and count on receiving his support.
Thank you for everything, and pass on my regards to your future husband. Our police force needs people like you! And take comfort in the fact that nothing lasts forever.