‘I’m sorry to make you go through all this again,’ I told her. ‘I just want to make absolutely sure we didn’t miss anything.’
She sighed and sat down at the kitchen table, opening her crocodile-leather handbag and finding a matching cigarette box. I lit her and watched her beautiful face tense a little. She spoke like she’d rehearsed what she was saying too many times to play the part well.
‘On Thursday evenings Emmeline goes to a dancing class with Herr Wiechert in Potsdam. Grosse Weinmeisterstrasse if you want to know the address. That’s at eight o’clock, so she always leaves here at seven, and catches a train from Steglitz Station which takes thirty minutes. There’s a change at Wannsee I think. Well, at exactly ten minutes past eight, Herr Wiechert telephoned me to see if Emmeline was sick, as she hadn’t arrived.’
I poured the coffee and set two cups down on the table before sitting opposite her.
‘Since Emmeline is never, ever late, I asked Herr Wiechert to call again as soon as she arrived. And indeed he did call again, at 8.30, and at nine o’clock, but on each occasion it was to tell me that there was still no sign of her. I waited until 9.30 and called the police.’
She sipped her coffee with a steady hand, but it wasn’t hard to see that she was upset. There was a wateriness in her blue eyes, and in the sleeve of her blue-crepe dress could be seen a sodden-looking lace handkerchief.
‘Tell me about your daughter. Is she a happy sort of girl?’
‘As happy as any girl can be who’s recently lost her daddy.’ She moved her blonde hair away from her face, something she must have done not once but fifty times while I was there, and stared blankly into her coffee cup.
‘It was a stupid question,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’ I found my cigarettes and filled the silence with the scrape of a match and my embarrassed breath of satisfying tobacco smoke. ‘She attends the Paulsen Real Gymnasium School, doesn’t she? Is everything all right there? No problems with exams, or anything like that? No school bullies giving her any trouble?’
‘She’s not the brightest in her class, perhaps,’ said Frau Steininger, ‘but she’s very popular. Emmeline has lots of friends.’
‘And the BdM?’
‘The what?’
‘The League of German Girls.’
‘Oh, that. Everything’s fine there too.’ She shrugged, and then shook her head exasperatedly. ‘She’s a normal child, Kommissar. Emmeline isn’t the kind to run away from home, if that’s what you’re implying.’
‘Like I said, I’m sorry to have to ask these questions, Frau Steininger. But they have to be asked, I’m sure you understand. It’s best that we know absolutely everything.’ I sipped my coffee and then contemplated the grounds on the bottom of my cup. What did a shape like a scallop shell denote? I wondered. I said: ‘What about boyfriends?’
She frowned. ‘She’s fourteen years old, for God’s sake.’ Angrily, she stubbed out her cigarette.
‘Girls grow up earlier than boys. Earlier than we like, perhaps.’ Christ, what did I know about it? Listen to me, I thought, the man with all the goddamned children.
‘She’s not interested in boys yet.’
I shrugged. ‘Just tell me when you get tired of answering these questions, lady, and I’ll get out of your way. I’m sure you’ve got lots more important things to do than help me to find your daughter.’
She stared at me hard for a minute, and then apologized. ‘Can I see Emmeline’s room, please?’
It was a normal room for a fourteen-year-old girl, at least normal for one who attended a fee-paying school. There was a large bill-poster for a production of Swan Lake at the Paris Opera in a heavy black frame above the bed, and a couple of well-loved teddy bears sitting on the pink quilt. I lifted the pillow. There was a book there, a ten-pfennig romance of the sort you could buy on any street corner. Not exactly Emil and the Detectives.
I handed the book to Frau Steininger.
‘Like I said, girls grow up early.’
‘Did you speak to the technical boys?’ I came through the door of my office at the same time as Becker was coming out. ‘Is there anything on that trunk yet? Or that length of curtain material?’
Becker turned on his heel and followed me to my desk.
‘The trunk was made by Turner & Glanz, sir.’ Finding his notebook, he added, ‘Friedrichstrasse, number 193a.’
‘Sounds cock-smart. They keep a sales list?’
‘I’m afraid not, sir. It’s a popular line apparently, especially with all the Jews leaving Germany for America. Herr Glanz reckons that they must sell three or four a week.’
‘Lucky him.’
‘The curtain material is cheap stuff. You can buy it anywhere.’ He started to search through my in-tray.
‘Go on, I’m listening.’
‘You haven’t read my report yet then?’
‘Does it sound like I have?’
‘I spent yesterday afternoon at Emmeline Steininger’s school –the Paulsen Real Gymnasium.’ He found his report and waved it in front of my face.
‘That must have been nice for you. All those girls.’
‘Perhaps you should read it now, sir.’
‘Save me the trouble.’
Becker grimaced and looked at his watch.
‘Well actually, sir, I was just about to go off. I’m supposed to be taking my children to the funfair at Luna Park.’
‘You’re getting as bad as Deubel. Where’s he, as a matter of interest? Doing a bit of gardening? Shopping with the wife?’
‘I think he’s with the missing girl’s mother, sir.’
‘I’ve just come from seeing her myself. Never mind. Tell me what you found out and then you can clear off.’
He sat down on the edge of my desk and folded his arms.
‘I’m sorry, sir, I was forgetting to tell you something else first.’
‘Were you indeed? It seems to me that bulls forget quite a lot round the Alex these days. In case you need reminding, this is a murder investigation. Now get off my desk and tell me what the hell is going on.’
He sprang off my desk and stood to attention.
‘Gottfried Bautz is dead, sir. Murdered, it looks like. His landlady found the body in his apartment early this morning. Korsch has gone over there to see if there’s anything in it for us.’
I nodded quietly. ‘I see.’ I cursed, and then glanced up at him again. Standing there in front of my desk like a soldier, he was managing to look quite ridiculous. ‘For God’s sake, Becker, sit down before rigor mortis sets in and tell me about your report.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ He drew up a chair, turned it around and sat with his forearms leaning on the back.
‘Two things,’ he said. ‘First, most of Emmeline Steininger’s classmates thought she had spoken about running away from home on more than one occasion. Apparently she and her stepmother didn’t get along too well–’
‘Her stepmother? She never mentioned that.’
‘Apparently her real mother died about twelve years ago. And then the father died recently.’
‘What else?’
Becker frowned.
‘You said that there were two things.’
‘Yes, sir. One of the other girls, a Jewish girl, remembered something that happened a couple of months back. She said that a man wearing a uniform stopped his car near the school gate and called her over. He said that if she answered some questions he’d give her a lift home. Well, she says that she went and stood by his car, and the man asked her what her name was. She said that it was Sarah Hirsch. Then the man asked her if she was a Jew, and when she said that she was he just drove off without another word.’