Фолькер Кучер - The Silent Death

‘And the Winter case?’ Weinert had asked. ‘Is it connected or not?’

‘I know who killed Betty Winter, but we don’t have any evidence. Only the hairpiece from the Funkturm… But that will probably be inadmissible.’

‘Who lost it?’

‘I can’t tell you that. It’s not even official police opinion.’

‘Just as background information. Who?’

‘Victor Meisner.’

‘The husband?’

‘If you write anything along those lines, then it’s speculation and nothing more.’

Weinert was gone by the time Rath’s colleagues arrived, almost all of them at once. Erika Voss led the way with a large bouquet, followed by Reinhold Gräf and Andreas Lange, then Mertens, Grabowski and finally Henning and Czerwinski, together again at last. Suddenly the little room was chock-a-block.

‘I’m afraid I can’t offer everyone a chair,’ Rath said.

Gräf shook his head. ‘What on earth have you been up to, Gereon? It’s high time you found yourself a partner. You can’t be left on your own for a minute.’ The detective passed him a pile of Kriminalistische Monatshefte . ‘So that you don’t get bored without us…’

Since Lange and Czerwinski were among the few who were still working on the cinema killings, they had been allowed to assist Gennat during his interrogation of Marquard.

‘This morning he talked nineteen to the dozen,’ Czerwinski said. ‘Now he isn’t saying a thing.’

‘The inspector doesn’t want to hear about work,’ Erika Voss said. ‘He needs to look after himself. Isn’t that right, Herr Rath?’

‘Let them speak. It’s bad enough I can’t be at the station.’

Lange had tried to reconstruct Marquard’s background, primarily from his medical records. At fourteen, Wolfgang Marquard, who had spent his entire childhood in that enormous, forbidding Wannsee villa, had fallen ill with mumps. Then came the inflammation of the pancreas and diabetes, all as Elisabeth Marquard had said.

‘Those years must have been torturous, if the doctor’s medical notes are anything to go by,’ Lange said. ‘The strictest of diets and the lack of insulin left him little more than skin and bones. When insulin became available as a form of treatment, it must have been like starting a new life after those six years of constant torment. He took up medicine, which would explain his surgical skills, but gave up after a few semesters. At twenty-two he lost his father, that was Christmas twenty-five. Barely half a year later, in May twenty-six, the family doctor, Dr Schlüter, died as well. Guess how?’ Lange paused. ‘Insulin. Hypoglycaemia.’

‘And the father?’

‘Dr Schlüter recorded it as a heart attack, but no one examined his blood.’

‘Yet they did take a blood sample from Dr Schlüter…’

‘Schlüter suffered from age-related diabetes and took insulin in small doses, which is why they collected the sample. A logical suspicion, but no one could explain why the experienced physician had miscalculated the dose to such an extent.’

‘He probably hadn’t.’

‘No,’ Lange said. ‘Probably not. We can’t prove anything after all these years, but we believe these two deaths were Marquard’s first murders using insulin.’

Rath shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was his mother, Elisabeth Marquard, who killed them both. Her son found out and locked her up.’

‘Why?’

‘So that we didn’t, or have her committed to an institution. She’s mad; no doubt she’d have given herself away sooner or later. At least that’s what he feared, and so locked her away.’

‘Why did he remove her vocal cords?’

‘No idea,’ Rath shrugged. ‘He seems to be rather sensitive where voices are concerned.’

‘It isn’t just the mother who’s mad in that family,’ Czerwinski said. ‘Marquard junior is crackers too, that much is clear. Has a full-blown shrine in his tower room, with photos and posters of all the women he’s killed or intended to kill.’

‘I know,’ Rath said. ‘He showed it to me.’

Her name! He heard them call her name. Even though they closed the door immediately behind them.

Betty Winter!

He is left speechless and slumps onto the chair next to the door. He supports his head in his hands and closes his eyes, almost dragging the guard to the floor in the process.

‘Quickly, Lensing, call the doctor,’ the officer says, holding Marquard’s arm with such force it’s as if handcuffs alone aren’t enough. The man crouches beside him while his colleague goes to the telephone; the handcuffs that bind them together leave him no choice.

The police officers inside are speaking loudly, he can understand almost everything. He has closed his eyes and is concentrating on each individual word.

You want things to end up like they did with Betty Winter? the brawny officer cried, and the fat one said something in reply.

Now the brawny one is speaking again. Victor Meisner has been given advance warning thanks to Rath, he heard him grumble. He isn’t going to confess to anything now! The way he stood there at his wife’s grave this morning, acting the grieving widower… disgusting! As if he knew very well we couldn’t prove he killed his wife. You really want Rath to mess things up with Marquard too?

Again the fat man says something he doesn’t understand, but it doesn’t matter now.

He has heard enough.

He knows what he must do, and opens his eyes.

He is already dead and they still haven’t realised. Meanwhile there is another man in this city who doesn’t realise that he, too, is already dead.

He sits up again.

‘Seems like he’s feeling better. Should I still call for a doctor?’

‘You’re right. Let’s not go overboard. In a quarter of an hour we’ll be in Moabit, he’s being examined there anyway.’

Things move so quickly in our age that even the horrors of the Düsseldorf murders have already partially faded from memory. And yet not so long ago we were living almost in a state of war: the struggle of an entire population against beasts in human form, who sought their victims now here, now there…

Rath had just begun to leaf through the new edition of the Monatshefte . He was reading Gennat’s article when he was interrupted by the clattering of crockery.

‘Dinner time,’ Sister Angelika yodelled, ‘but first we need to take some blood.’ She placed the tray to one side and felt for his vein.

‘I’ve come to believe you are a vampire,’ he said, smiling grimly.

Her response came in the form of a needle, which she thrust into his arm. That would be a Yes .

After she had finished, she sat him up and served him chicken with rice. The sister wished him bon app é tit and let him alone. It didn’t taste bad at all.

Superintendent Gennat appeared before dessert.

‘I see you’ve got your appetite back,’ he said. ‘That’s a good sign.’

Rath mumbled something with his mouth full.

‘Don’t let me disturb you.’

He spooned the tinned pears they had given him for dessert into his mouth, while Gennat set a little present on his lap and looked round.

‘I’ve brought you something,’ he said when Rath was finished, and unwrapped his gift. He had evidently stopped off at a bakery and loaded up on supplies. ‘They tell me you need a lot of sugar, so I thought… You do eat cakes, don’t you?’

‘Thank you, Sir. Put it on the table for now. Can I offer you a slice?’

‘Only if you take some too.’

It was more or less a command, so Rath sat on his sickbed nibbling at a slice of marble cake, while Ernst Gennat savoured his gooseberry tart.