Фолькер Кучер - The Silent Death

He had felt that he was being watched during the struggle with Wilczek, but there was no way his face had been visible in the dark rear courtyard. Absolutely no way! Someone had seen the fatal shot and the body being buried in the concrete, and then told Marlow, who must have figured out the rest. Because he had discovered in the meantime that Wilczek had followed the inspector from Ostbahnhof that evening.

Charly turned to face him. ‘Hello, anyone there?’

‘Sorry, I’ve just got so much on my mind…’

‘Me too.’ She smiled and her dimple finally hauled him back to the present. ‘Today was something of a surprise, wasn’t it?’

‘You can say that again.’ He tried a smile too, but didn’t manage half as well. ‘Come on, let’s go to the car.’

‘Can you still drive?’

‘All the better after a glass or two.’

She linked her arm in his again and they descended the stairs in silence, mingling with the other three thousand leaving the theatre.

When they emerged onto Küstriner Platz, the parking lot was bedlam. Some cars had had their wheels removed and were now resting on bricks, looking like clumsy insects on spindly little legs. They moved along the row, passing one wheelless car after another.

‘That’s all we need,’ Rath said, but the tyre thieves hadn’t made it as far as the Buick. They had stopped at the car next to it, a Horch. This time, however, they had taken only the rear wheels and jacked up the bumper.

‘They must have been interrupted,’ Charly said. ‘A patrol probably.’

Rath shook his head and gestured towards the square. ‘The police don’t have much say in this quarter. There must be another reason.’

He persuaded himself it was coincidence that the car thieves had stopped exactly in front of his Buick, but his gut told him that he had Johann Marlow’s protective hand to thank for not having to take the train home.

On the journey west both were immersed in their own thoughts. Only an hour before, Rath would have done anything to prevent the evening from ending so soon, but now all he wanted was to be alone in the silence of his flat with Coleman Hawkins and a glass of cognac. He drove her straight to Spenerstrasse and accompanied her to the door, not knowing how he should say goodbye. ‘So, what now?’ he asked.

She shrugged.

‘Sunday’s supposed to be nice. We could take a drive out to the countryside if you like.’ She nodded. ‘I could pick you up in the car. Then perhaps we could…’

This time she didn’t press a finger to his lips to silence him. She kissed him.

He awoke at five in the morning, heart pumping, staring at the ceiling, but it wasn’t Charly who had kept him from sleeping. It was the dead Josef Wilczek haunting his dreams, and Felix Krempin gazing at him through the window glass of the Funkturm restaurant with those rigid, terrified eyes.

Rath couldn’t sleep, and didn’t want to. He decided to pay the exhibition grounds another visit before heading out to Alex.

In the first light of dawn the Funkturm was even more imposing. Someone must have given the area a good scrub, as the bloodstain Felix Krempin had left on the concrete was now scarcely visible. The pay booth was still closed and there wasn’t a soul on the grounds.

The shrub was a good distance from the Funkturm and hadn’t been searched by ED. Its branches were full of morning dew, so that Rath’s coat was soon wet and glistening, but at least they were bare. The search would have been a lot trickier in summer. He bent the branches apart with a stick, trying to locate something furry in their midst, and was on the verge of giving up when he found the toupee on the ground. Reaching with the stick he pulled it through the mud towards him and finally managed to catch hold, before picking it up gingerly and returning to the car.

When he passed the Funkturm on the way back, the lights were on in the pay booth. The exhibition grounds were coming to life and it was time for him to disappear. He threw the wet and slimy toupee, which somehow reminded him of a drowned guinea pig, onto the leather of the passenger seat, started the engine and drove off.

He got through the morning traffic on Kantstrasse quicker than expected and stopped on Savignyplatz by a telephone booth. Weinert was eating breakfast. ‘How did you fare yesterday?’ he asked.

‘Your colleagues kept asking if I knew the man who was with me by the corpse. The one who went back up the Funkturm.’

‘You didn’t, of course.’

‘Several witnesses saw you, Gereon.’

‘Still, the fact remains: I wasn’t at the Funkturm. A detective inspector meeting with a murder suspect in secret – how do you think that looks?’

‘Just as lousy as a journalist meeting with an alleged killer. Especially when he uses the occasion to jump to his death.’

‘Are you going to write it up?’

‘I don’t know. As long as your lot don’t broadcast the fact that the Funkturm suicide was Felix Krempin, the other papers won’t carry anything. A suicide report at most. First I need to think about how I sell the fact that I was there to my boss.’

‘As coincidence.’

‘He isn’t stupid.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t write everything you know. If people think Krempin flung himself from the Funkturm out of guilt, they’ll also think he killed Betty Winter and Vivian Franck, and that is total nonsense. Krempin didn’t commit suicide.’

‘Are you sure? Your colleagues seem to think he did.’

‘He didn’t agree to meet us, only to plunge to his death before our eyes!’

‘He wouldn’t be the first.’

‘Someone pushed him, and that same someone lost something that I found.’

‘Don’t keep me in suspense.’

‘A toupee.’

‘Pardon?’

‘A hairpiece, a toupee, you know.’

‘You’re serious? That’s your evidence?’

‘There was someone else on the viewing platform when Krempin fell. He exited via the stairs while I was in the lift. I went after him but he had too big a start. Did you see anyone emerge from the Funkturm after the others?’

‘Only you. But you don’t wear a wig, do you?’

‘Leave the jokes, this is serious. Someone up there pushed Felix Krempin, and if I find him I find Betty Winter’s killer too. I’m certain of that.’

‘Then good luck. I’ll help as best I can, but you’ll need to supply more facts.’

‘Officially I’m off the case, but perhaps you can help me. Could you find out who made this hairpiece, and where it was bought?’

‘You made off with the toupee?’

‘Yes, this morning. It looks a little worse for wear. More something for forensics than your follicles.’

‘If there’s a story in it, I can always try my luck. I’ll be over your way later, why don’t we meet? In that Nasse Viereck…’

‘…Dreieck.’

‘Right. Around nine?’

‘Sounds good.’

Rath hung up and returned to his car. The toupee on the passenger seat still looked like a drowned guinea pig, albeit one that had half-dried in the sun. He stuck it in the glove compartment and drove to the Castle on time. His coat had more or less dried by the time he climbed the steps to A Division but, before entering the conference room, he gave his hands a thorough wash and removed a few traces of mud from his clothes.

Böhm had asked both teams to attend morning briefing again. It was only in the eyes of the press that the Winter and Franck cases were linked, but that was why it was so important for both groups to know exactly what was going on. Today, the focus was on the death of Felix Krempin. Böhm started to reconstruct the fatal fall as Rath entered the room. At most he was a minute late, but it was enough to elicit an angry glance. Rath listened, for once not having to feign interest.