Фолькер Кучер: The March Fallen

‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure. I don’t want to jump to conclusions but…’ He looked to Paul for assistance, perhaps uncertain as to his role. At any rate he seemed to take Rath for a thief, albeit one with an unusually sophisticated trick.

‘You can rest assured…’ Rath took out his police identification, ‘if that money really is gone, then I didn’t take it.’

Klefisch examined the identification, still suspicious. ‘Well, someone must have.’

And I know who! Rath thought. Only, he’s long gone… ‘We can go to police headquarters and report it but, speaking as a police officer, I don’t hold out much hope. Anyone could have taken it in the crowd back there. Just be happy you still have your papers.’

‘Very well. Let’s drop it, but I must insist on taking your name.’

So much for my good nature, Rath thought, folding Ede’s card smaller and smaller in his hand.

After almost three hours rummaging through the archive and card-index cabinets, Reinhold Gräf entered the office waving the file in his hand. Böhm looked up from his desk. Steinke pretended not to be interested, but not even that arrogant little upstart could spoil Gräf’s mood, not now that they had Wosniak’s name on file.

The dead bum might have ruined his weekend plans, but at least they had a starting point. Luckily Conny never complained when the job got in the way. Gräf was grateful, of course, but what could he do? Police work and chance operations went hand in hand.

‘Our man from Nollendorfplatz is already on file,’ he said, placing the folder on Böhm’s desk. The detective chief inspector gave a nod of acknowledgement. From Böhm, that was as good as praise.

‘I can’t say I’m surprised, Sir,’ Steinke said with pointed boredom. ‘With an antisocial like that.’

‘If you’re so clever,’ Böhm said, ‘how is it you haven’t made police commissioner?’

‘All I’m saying, Sir, is that rooting through the files isn’t enough. You have to trust your instincts.’ Steinke tapped his chest. ‘I’d have bet any money that bum was known to police. As soon as I saw his face. A mug like that, you just know.’

‘Perhaps those instincts of yours aren’t as trustworthy as you think,’ said Gräf.

‘What do you mean? You said yourself he was on police file…’

‘Heinrich Wosniak does indeed appear on file, but not as a suspect.’

‘Then what?’

‘As a victim.’

Böhm opened the file. ‘Arson,’ he said.

Steinke came over.

‘Heinrich Wosniak was the victim of an arson attack,’ Gräf went on. ‘He survived by the skin of his teeth. Perhaps I could make my report?’

Böhm grunted his approval.

‘Heinrich Wosniak was the victim of an arson attack, which took place on New Year’s Eve ’31. Seven dead, three seriously injured, one of whom succumbed to his injuries five days later. All of them beggars or homeless. The wooden shack where they lived on Bülowplatz went up in flames.’

‘I remember. It was in the press. So one of the survivors is our man… Am I right in thinking it was a child who started it?’ Böhm asked.

‘Hannah Singer. Born 1916.’

‘Was she messing around with fireworks? How did it happen?’

‘It was no accident. Hannah Singer was picked up by colleagues outside the shack. The matches she’d used to spark the flames were by her feet. She had a whole suitcase of them; she sold the things.’

‘Why did she do it?’

‘If only we knew,’ Gräf shrugged. ‘According to our records Hannah Singer was interrogated a total of eleven times after the attack. Each of the transcripts is a page long. There are no answers, just questions. She didn’t utter a word.’

‘No discernible motive?’

‘No motive, but an interesting detail: Hannah Singer is the daughter of one of the victims.’

Böhm looked at Gräf. ‘What did you say?’

‘There was a theory the explanation could lie there, but not even the courts could prise it out of her.’

‘Is it possible her father abused her?’

‘Heinz Singer lost both of his legs in the war. The poor bastard wasn’t in a position to abuse anyone.’

Böhm nodded thoughtfully and leafed through the file. ‘An act of mercy perhaps? A kind of assisted dying for her crippled father.’

‘Death by fire as an act of mercy? What about the six innocents who died with him?’

‘Then hatred. There must be a reason for something like this.’

‘If there is, we haven’t found it. A psychological report certified Hannah Singer as paranoid schizophrenic. It seems life on the streets messed with her head. The judge had her committed to a lunatic asylum.’

‘Psychology!’ Steinke said. ‘Jewish mumbo-jumbo. Murderers belong on the scaffold, not in a lunatic asylum.’

‘She was only fifteen. Even with a full confession she wouldn’t have been executed,’ Böhm said. ‘As a trained lawyer, you ought to know that.’

‘Laws can be rewritten.’

‘Luckily not without a Reichstag majority. Which is something no one has… not even your Nazis.’

‘That could change.’

‘Enough big talk, Steinke. You’re a CID officer, or at least you soon will be. Whether you like it or not, you have to comply with the laws of the land.’

‘Can’t a man say what he’s thinking anymore?’

Böhm glared at him. ‘Our work would be a damn sight easier if you kept your opinions to yourself.’

Gereon Rath gazed at Charly with that strange look in his eyes, defiant, withdrawn, and yet above all surprised. He was on duty, suit rumpled, impatiently staring into the camera lens, hands nestled deep inside coat pockets. The photograph had been taken by Reinhold Gräf about two years before, at a crime scene in Tiergarten. Now it stood on her desk for the sake of her female colleagues, who had presented it last summer following her engagement with Gereon. Though given partly to tease the new girl in G, Charly hadn’t wanted to appear unappreciative. Besides, she liked it: Reinhold was a good photographer.

She caught herself thinking back to her time in A Division, when she had often struck out with him, questioning witnesses, even the odd suspect. Wilhelm Böhm didn’t seem to care that she had been hired as a stenographer; he’d recognised her talent. Police work had been enjoyable before she became a candidate for inspector.

Now she was part of the system and what did they have her doing? Investigating childish pranks.

The prints Superintendent Wieking had requested from the lab all bore the same image. A bare brick wall, the like of which could be seen a hundred times over in Wedding, Friedrichshain, Neukölln or any other workers’ district. Daubed across it in white: Deutschland erwache, Juda verrecke ! Germany awake, Jew die! The penmanship was expert, as if the culprit had all the time in the world. Someone else had run a red line through the slogan and scrawled hastily underneath: Deutschland, mach die Augen auf, Hitler hat ein Ar(i)schgesicht!

Open your eyes, Germany , but then the “i” in Arisch was crossed out, rendering Hitler’s “Aryan face” Hitler’s “arse-face”. Reading the sentence, Charly couldn’t help but smile. Her colleague Karin van Almsick, meanwhile, studied the photos with deadly seriousness, magnifying glass in hand.

‘I don’t know why we’re only hunting those responsible for the second sentence,’ Charly said. ‘The point is, it’s forbidden to scrawl political slogans, no matter how nice they are to look at.’

‘It also depends on the message!’ There was astonishment in Karin’s voice at having to explain something so obvious. ‘Where would we be if any old lout could get away with besmirching someone else’s property?’