Фолькер Кучер - The Silent Death

Being chosen by Gennat was an honour, something you couldn’t turn down so easily. Rath’s father, however, had advised against a return to the Rhine Province, even if it was Düsseldorf and not Cologne. Too dangerous, Police Director Engelbert Rath had said, LeClerk and his news-papers could get wind of the fact that Gereon Rath was still working as a police officer, and everything they had put in place a year before would be for nothing.

But how frustrating! The Düsseldorf case was the most spectacular in Prussia for years: nine murders allied to a number of attempted murders within the space of a few months. The Düsseldorf police had assumed it was a lone perpetrator and in so doing triggered uncontrollable hysteria throughout the city. Gennat didn’t believe in drawing such hasty conclusions, and had set out the specific features of each individual Düsseldorf murder.

It was the perfect case for the Monatshefte. In each edition Gennat reported on the state of the investigation, which, despite the high-profile assistance of his Berlin team, was still going nowhere. Lacking concrete results, he had painstakingly listed the victims: the nine deceased, but also four with serious and five with minor injuries, all recorded in the Düsseldorf area during the past few months. The 26-year-old domestic servant, Sch. , whose fate he had so vividly described, had only survived with serious injuries because the perpetrator had been interrupted.

Rath had read each instalment while holding the fort at Alex, making do with the scraps that Detective Chief Inspector Böhm fed him under the table. Of all people, it was the bulldog Böhm whom Gennat had entrusted with leading the Homicide Division at Alex during his absence. For Gereon Rath that meant running tedious errands or, at best, accepting cases no one else wanted. Like that of Isolde Heer, who had turned on her gas stove in Schöneberg two days before without lighting it. There were any number of cases like that at the moment. Suicides were enjoying a boom this winter. They were hard work, and investigating officers had little opportunity to cover themselves in glory. Most cases were handled by local CID in their individual precincts, but every now and then a few found their way to headquarters. Once there, they landed unerringly on the desk of Gereon Rath.

He leafed through the journal to where his reading had been interrupted.

Thereupon, Sch. felt the sudden thrust of a knife to her throat, and cried loudly for help. She thought her cries were immediately reciprocated. ‘Baumgart’ again stabbed at her, wounding her seriously in the back. As mentioned elsewhere, at this point the tip of the dagger broke and became lodged in her spine…

‘Telephone for Inspector Rath!’ A boy moved through the rows of tables, carrying a cardboard sign containing the word Fernsprecher in big block letters. ‘Telephone, please, Inspector Rath!’

It took Rath a few seconds to realise who the boy meant, then he raised his hand as if he were in school. A few customers turned to face him as the boy approached his table.

‘If you would be so kind as to follow me…’

Rath left the journal face down on the table to save his place. As he followed the cardboard sign to the booth, he speculated on whether it was Kathi cancelling by telephone. Well, if that was how she wanted to play it…

‘Cabin Two,’ said the boy.

He was immediately confronted by two public telephones behind glazed doors made of dark wood. A lamp was shining over the one on the right. The boy pointed towards the gleaming brass ‘Two’ located next to the lamp.

‘You just need to lift the receiver,’ he said. ‘Your call has already been put through.’

Rath closed the door behind him. The murmur of voices from the café could now scarcely be heard. He lifted the receiver, took a deep breath and identified himself.

‘Rath? Is that you? At last!’

‘Chief Inspector?’ He knew only one person who barked like that into the telephone. DCI Wilhelm Böhm.

The bulldog had an uncanny knack of catching him on the hop. ‘What are you up to, man? You should brief your colleagues a little more thoroughly! Fräulein Voss couldn’t even say what you were doing out west!’

‘Isolde Heer,’ Rath muttered, ‘her suicide has been confirmed. The report is as good as done. It’ll be on your desk tomorrow.’

‘Have you joined the literati? Or perhaps you can explain why you’re writing your reports in a café?’

‘A witness works close by and suggested that we mee…’

‘Doesn’t matter anyway. Forget all that and grab that assistant detective of yours…’

‘You mean detective…’

‘And head out to Marienfelde. Terra Studios. Fatal accident just come in. Our colleagues in 202 have asked for assistance. Seems more complicated than they first thought.’

Or they’re worried about knocking off on time, Rath mused. ‘An accident,’ he said. ‘Sounds exciting. What was the name of the studio again?’

‘Terra. The film lot. Someone’s fallen from the scaffolding or something. I’ve sent you a car, your colleagues know the way.’

‘How can I ever repay you?’

Böhm pretended not to notice Rath’s sarcasm. ‘Oh, Inspector,’ he said. ‘One more thing.’

Shit! Never get on the wrong side of your superiors.

‘Yes?’

‘That Wessel is being buried tomorrow at five. I’d like you to keep an eye on things. Discreetly of course.’

Well, of course, the bulldog had found another way to ruin his weekend! The ideal combination: a thankless task, perfectly timed for his Saturday afternoon off, and of guaranteed insignificance to further investigations.

‘And what exactly am I supposed to be keeping an eye on, Sir?’ Rath didn’t see the slightest use in hanging around the cemetery in such a politically charged case, whose sequence of events had long been established. It might be something for the political police, but not for a homicide detective in A Division.

‘I don’t have to explain how CID operates,’ Böhm snapped. ‘It’s routine! Just keep your eyes peeled!’

‘Yes, Sir.’

The bulldog hung up.

Visiting the funerals of murder victims was indeed part of A Division’s routine – only it was clear that tomorrow wouldn’t resemble a funeral so much as a political rally. Nor would it shed any new light on a case that was already crystal-clear. A few weeks ago, a pimp had fired a bullet into the mouth of a young SA Führer who had liberated one of his ‘girls’. On Sunday the Stormtrooper had died, and Goebbels’s newspaper Der Angriff had made a saint of the youth who had fallen in love with a whore and paid for it with his life, a martyr for the movement, or Blutzeuge as the Nazis called it.

The pimp had been in custody for six weeks and already confessed, citing self-defence, although he and his Communist pals had forced their way into the victim’s flat. The public mood had been stirred and the police, expecting violence between Nazis and Communists, had stood a few hundred uniformed officers at the ready. This was where Böhm was sending him! Into this seething cauldron. Perhaps the DCI was hoping that some Nazi or Commie would fell him by mistake.

Rath stayed on the line and put a call through to Schöneberg, reaching Gräf in Isolde Heer’s flat. Five minutes later, he was standing on the pavement by Uhlandeck waiting. Kathi still hadn’t materialised but, by now, it was too late for a heart-to-heart.

Böhm hadn’t let him use the murder wagon. A green Opel from the motor pool was double-parked on the Ku’damm. Detective Czerwinski peeled his overweight body from the passenger seat and opened the door to the back. Assistant Detective Henning was at the wheel.