Фолькер Кучер - The Silent Death

Behind the construction fences at Alexanderplatz, the police headquarters rose dark into the night sky. Red Castle was the name Berliners gave to the mighty brick building, which had turned out bigger than the City Palace. Unlike the palace, however, it still had a function. His colleagues simply called their workplace Castle , a name that was reassuring somehow, and fitting too, even if Rath’s former stamping ground in Cologne appeared far more medieval than its Berlin counterpart. The façade actually invoked the Florentine Renaissance, but somehow the Prussians even managed to turn the building’s delicate motifs into a forbidding stronghold.

Rath parked the Buick in the atrium, where a riot squad was just getting into a car. Once in the stairwell, however, he was on his own again. The endless corridors on the first floor were deserted, but brought to life now and again by the faint echoes of steps, voices or slamming doors. In Homicide, only the late shift was still present, an inspector and an assistant detective: Brenner, one of Böhm’s bootlickers, and Lange, the new man from Hannover, who had been transferred to the Castle a few weeks back.

‘Evening,’ Rath greeted his colleagues. ‘Where are Czerwinski and Henning?’

‘I sent them home,’ Brenner said.

‘What makes you think you can give orders to my people?’ Rath snapped.

‘What do you mean, your people? I’m in charge of the late shift, and as far as I know neither of them are on it. We’re to avoid unnecessary overtime. Orders from above.’

‘They’re both part of my team, and they’ve just brought in a suspect. I hope you haven’t sent him home too.’

‘Don’t panic, Inspector,’ Brenner grinned. ‘Your package is sitting all nicely wrapped in custody.’

‘Then what are you waiting for, Detective?’

‘Waiting for?’

‘Get your arse in gear and make sure my man is ready for questioning in five minutes at the most!’

Brenner reached for the receiver.

At the door Rath turned round once more. ‘And another thing, Detective,’ he said, friendly once more, ‘if you ever give orders to my people again I will kick up such a fuss that not even Chief Inspector Böhm will be able to help you. Clear?’

‘I wouldn’t talk so big if I were you,’ Brenner grumbled, before putting the call through.

Rath had to walk a few paces along the corridor to get to his office. Somewhat removed from the other rooms in A Division, it had been the only one available when he first joined Homicide. It was pretty cold. The heating was on low, so he kept his coat on for the time being. Taking a seat in the outer office, at his secretary’s desk, he leafed through the personal file on Glaser, which Czerwinski had left alongside the man’s papers. The dates tallied with those from his passport.

Barely ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door and a guard pushed a pale, intimidated-looking man into the room. ‘Here he is, Inspector.’

Rath posted the guard outside and examined the suspect. Glaser had halted by the door and was looking about him uncertainly. Perhaps it was no bad thing that he’d been left to stew in custody. He smelled ripe.

‘Take a seat,’ Rath said, leafing through the papers. Glaser shuffled forward and sat down. Rath said suddenly and without looking up, ‘Your name is Peter Glaser…’

‘Yes.’

‘Born 25th September 1902.’

‘Yes.’

‘Resident at Röntgenstrasse 10 in Charlottenburg.’

‘Yes.’

‘Since November 1st 1929 you’ve been working as a lighting technician at La Belle Film Production in Marien…’

‘Pardon me?’ All of a sudden the man, who up until now had been hunched in his chair like a limp dishrag, sat up straight.

‘Nothing about you being hard of hearing in the file.’

‘That’s because I’m not.’

‘I asked where you work.’

‘No, you didn’t.’ His voice sounded as if he had just woken up. ‘You read the file and told me where I’m supposed to work. Something to do with film, but it isn’t true.’

‘Then why is your name in this file?’

Glaser shrugged his shoulders and gave Rath a belligerent look. ‘You’ll have to ask whoever drew it up. My personal file is with Siemens & Halske. I’m an electrician at the Elmowerk.’

‘The what?’

‘Can’t you keep up?’ Glaser was beginning to get the upper hand. He had even stopped shivering, despite the cold. ‘I work for Siemens! At the Elektromotorenwerk, the electric motor plant. I’d just got back from my shift when your colleagues grabbed me right outside the door to my flat, handcuffs, pistol, the lot. I just hope my neighbours didn’t see. That Knauf next door is a nosy bat.’

Rath looked at Glaser’s passport. The man in the photo and the man in front of him were the same, no doubt about it.

‘Got the wrong man?’ Glaser asked.

Rath snapped the document shut. ‘We’ll soon have this sorted.’

That soon turned out to be optimistic. Rath offered the increasingly unruly Glaser hot tea until, finally, after three-quarters of an hour that dragged interminably, the guard pushed a thoroughly dishevelled-looking Heinrich Bellmann through the door. On the telephone, Bellmann hadn’t given an entirely sober impression, and now brought the smell of alcohol with him.

‘Good evening, Inspector,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise you work in the middle of the night too.’

‘Please, have a seat.’ Rath offered him a chair by the desk.

‘Please excuse my condition, I had a little too much… it’s not normally my way… but Betty’s death… I’m only human after all!’

‘Don’t you want to say hello to my guest?’

‘A pleasure.’ Bellmann stretched his right hand across the desk towards Glaser. ‘Bellmann.’

‘Glaser,’ said the other as he shook the producer’s hand.

‘You don’t know this man?’ Rath asked.

‘Should I?’ Bellmann asked.

‘This is Peter Glaser.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Your lighting technician.’

‘Nonsense!’

‘Did you bring the photo I asked for?’

Bellmann reached inside his jacket. ‘It’s from the Christmas party,’ he said, hunching his heavy shoulders apologetically.

The photo showed a good-looking man holding a punch glass, smiling cheerfully into the camera with his arm around a woman. Rath had never seen the man before, but the woman was Betty Winter. Alarm bells started to ring quietly, but insistently.

‘Here,’ Bellmann said, tapping the photo, ‘that’s Glaser. He got on well with Betty, especially that night.’ He shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe it. That she’s no longer with us, I mean.’

The whole time Peter Glaser had been eyeing the photo curiously. By now he was craning his neck, eyes almost popping out of his head. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘That’s bloody Felix! What’s he doing next to Betty Winter?’

The matter was soon resolved. Bellmann’s missing lighting technician was called Felix Krempin, and he had obviously used the identity of his unsuspecting friend, Peter Glaser, to sign up with La Belle Film Production. In reality, Krempin worked as a production manager at Montana Film.

No sooner had Glaser mentioned the name Montana than Bellmann hit the roof, going on about espionage, sabotage and worse. ‘Those criminals! I should have known! They’ll stop at nothing! Not even murder!’

Rath called for the guard to accompany Bellmann outside. They could still hear him through the closed door as Rath began a quick-fire interview of Peter Glaser about his friend, Felix Krempin.

‘Thanks for your help,’ Rath said, by way of goodbye. ‘It seems your friend has played a nasty trick on you – and on us too.’