Фолькер Кучер: The Silent Death

‘Are you the lighting technician?’ Rath asked.

‘Senior lighting technician.’

‘Then you’re responsible for the spotlight that grew a mind of its own up there?’

The little man opened his mouth to say something, but Bellmann got in first. ‘It goes without saying that the responsibility is mine alone.’ He sounded like a has-been politician attempting to forestall the opposition’s demand for his resignation.

‘Well, someone’s messed up, and if it wasn’t the manufacturer of the lighting system, then it must have been one of your people.’

‘Impossible,’ Lüdenbach said.

‘Don’t you make regular checks to ensure everything up there is screwed in tight? You are the senior lighting technician.’

‘Of course we do! We can’t do any filming until the light’s right.’

‘And everything with the flood was OK?’

‘Optimum settings. The light was perfect. I don’t know why the fixtures gave way. I’d need to have a closer look.’

‘You mean you haven’t done that yet?’

Lüdenbach shook his head. ‘Your people prevented us. We shouldn’t touch anything was the first thing they said.’

‘Then show me where the flood was hanging.’

Lüdenbach made for a narrow steel ladder, which seemed to lead straight into the sky, and Rath wondered whether you needed to be as thin as Hans Lüdenbach for the trestles to hold. Heights of ten metres were enough to make him break out in a cold sweat, so he didn’t look down as he climbed, focusing on the grey overalls moving above. Nor did he gaze downwards as he followed the technician across the rickety grating, the structure rattling and squeaking with every step.

He groped his way forward, hands gripping the rail, but couldn’t help looking at the tips of his shoes whenever he took a step. The studio floor seemed impossibly distant through the iron grille beneath his feet.

A curious floor plan was beginning to emerge as viewed from above. Next to the fireplace room that housed the dead woman was a hotel reception and a simple servants’ quarters, and next to it a pavement café. The door of the fireplace room, meanwhile, led straight into a police office with holding cell. Most likely all part of the Liebesgewitter set. From below came the glare of a flash. Gräf had started his work. Rath forced himself to look up. The senior lighting technician had disappeared.

‘Hey!’ Rath cried. ‘Where have you got to?’

The maze of steel grates was more confusing than it looked from below, mainly because of the heavy lengths of fabric hanging everywhere from the ceiling and obscuring his view.

‘Here it is.’ The voice of the senior lighting technician sounded muffled, but seemed nevertheless to be close at hand. ‘Where have you got to?’

Having worked his way forward by a few metres, Rath saw Lüdenbach again, crouched by the floor of the grating, three metres away at most. ‘Be right with you,’ he said. ‘Don’t touch anything!’

His hands were knotted in pain and there was sweat on his forehead, but he didn’t let it show as he inched his way forwards. Lüdenbach indicated a mounting. ‘Here,’ he said as Rath crouched beside him, ‘take a look at this. I don’t believe it! There should be a threaded bolt here. It must have come loose. Impossible really, they’re all secured with a cotter pin.’

Rath looked at the mounting close-up. ‘Maybe the bolt’s broken!’

Lüdenbach shrugged his shoulders helplessly. ‘There’s still the one on the other side.’

The picture was the same there, however: no threaded bolt.

Lüdenbach shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he muttered. ‘I just can’t believe it!’

They stood up. Rath held onto the swaying platform and his sweaty hands immediately cramped up again. He felt decidedly queasy, while Hans Lüdenbach stood by the railing, as secure as a helmsman in stormy seas.

‘This sort of thing shouldn’t happen.’ Lüdenbach said. ‘That’s why the spotlights are doubly secured.’

‘Perhaps someone wanted to adjust the spotlight and forgot to screw the bolt back in place.’

‘But not in the middle of a shoot!’

‘Still, the spotlight must have come loose somehow. Double metal fatigue seems far less likely than the possibility that someone’s been a little careless.’

‘My people are not careless!’ Lüdenbach was outraged. ‘Glaser above all! He knows what he’s doing!’

‘Who?’

‘Peter Glaser. My assistant. He’s responsible for the flood.’

‘Why, in that case,’ Rath asked, with growing impatience, ‘haven’t I seen him already?’

‘Because you wanted to come up here with me ! Don’t you think I’d have spoken to him long ago if I knew where he was?’

‘Pardon me?’

‘He was up here this morning setting everything up.’

‘And now?’

Lüdenbach shrugged. ‘Now he’s not here.’

‘Since when?’

‘No idea. I haven’t seen him for a while. Since lunchtime today, perhaps longer. Maybe he’s sick.’

‘He hasn’t reported absent?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

Rath lost his patience. ‘If you want to be of any use at all today, then I suggest you show me how to get down from here right now!’

Peter Glaser was not in the studio. Bellmann had provided his address, though not before emphasising what a reliable worker the man was, and Rath sent Henning and Czerwinski on their way. In the meantime, the men from ED, the police identification service, arrived with the pathologist, and began searching the floor for two threaded bolts. Dr Schwartz crouched next to the corpse and examined the burns to the head and shoulders. Kronberg’s people searched as systematically as only ED officers could but it was Gräf who made the find, an unremarkable oily-black piece of metal that had rolled underneath a spotlight tripod.

Lüdenbach confirmed that it was from the mounting. It had no cracks and was unscathed. They consigned it to an ED crate for further examination.

The second bolt remained elusive, however, and they found no trace of the cotter pin.

‘Have we just cleaned their floor for nothing?’ asked an ED officer.

‘At least we have one of the bolts,’ Gräf said.

‘Perhaps Glaser has the other,’ Rath said. ‘Tried to dispose of the evidence, only he couldn’t find the second bolt before he had to scram.’

‘Do you really believe he meant for the spotlight to fall?’ Gräf asked. ‘Maybe he was just too much of a coward to admit responsibility for the accident.’

Rath shrugged. ‘What I believe won’t get us anywhere. Someone here really messed up, that much is clear…’

‘Inspector?’

A young man approached them, waving a film canister.

‘The cameraman,’ Gräf whispered. ‘Harald Winkler.’

‘Inspector,’ Winkler said. Despite his youth, his hair was already starting to thin. ‘I think this might be of interest to you.’

‘What’s this?’

‘The accident. You can see how it happened for yourself.’ Winkler raised the film canister. ‘Everything’s on here.’

‘You filmed the accident?’

‘I filmed the scene. The camera kept on running. I… well, it was instinct, I suppose. I just continued filming until the lights went out. Maybe it’ll be of use. There’s no better eyewitness than my camera at any rate.’

‘When can we see what’s on it?’

‘Not before Monday. It needs to be processed. If you like, I can book us a projection room.’ Winkler handed Rath a card. ‘Give me a call…’

Suddenly the cameraman was no longer looking in Rath’s eyes, but over his shoulder. Gräf, too, was looking to one side. Rath turned and gazed straight into half a dozen press lenses. A swarm of reporters had somehow managed to get past the policeman on the door. Before any of the officers could intervene there was a flurry of flashing lights.