Фолькер Кучер - The Silent Death

‘What would you like?’ he asked.

‘Just some information,’ Rath said. This time he showed his badge straightaway. The Chinese man nodded humbly and smiled. ‘You sell Chinese groceries…’

‘For more than seven years now…’

‘…do you have yangtao?’

Lingyuan gestured towards a stack of crates. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘What’s left of them. Arrived from China two weeks ago.’

‘As long ago as that?’

‘You have to keep yangtao cool, then they stay fresh for a long time. Up to half a year.’

‘Isn’t that expensive? Importing them from China?’

‘Quantity is the key,’ Lingyuan said. ‘Do you know how many Chinese people live here in the city? A few thousand. The poorer ones by Schlesischer Bahnhof, the more prosperous in Charlottenburg, the rest spread across the city.’

‘And they all buy from you?’

‘All the Chinese restaurants, I’d say. As well as two or three Chinese shops.’

‘Do you have the addresses?’

‘Why?’

‘I need to know all the places in the city where yangtao is sold. Are there any other importers?’

‘Not that I know of. At least no one else who grows Chinese fruit and vegetables.’

‘Here in Berlin?’

‘I have a little nursery over in Mariendorf. A few weeks ago I’d have been able to offer you yangtao that I’d picked myself before Christmas.’

‘Business is good, no doubt.’

‘I get by.’

‘How much does a yangtao cost?’

‘Let’s say a little more than an apple.’

‘A delicacy then…’

‘If you like. Something different at least. Very healthy too.’

Rath showed the Chinese man the photos of Betty Winter and Jeanette Fastré. Lingyuan didn’t seem to go to the cinema or read the paper. He shook his head. ‘Never seen them,’ he said.

‘Where could these women have got hold of yangtao?’

‘I’ll give you a few names,’ the man said, reaching for the notepad next to the weighing scales.

Rath left the market hall with the addresses of five restaurants and three shops, but it wouldn’t be worth visiting the former today. ‘Rest day,’ Lingyuan had warned. So, the Chinese shops it was. Two were in Friedrichshain, the third in the west. Rath fetched the car from Alex and drove first to Krautstrasse, which formed the heart of Berlin’s little Chinese quarter. He didn’t have happy memories of the area. His fateful clash with Josef Wilczek had taken place just a few blocks away, at a building site on Koppenstrasse.

He parked outside the first address. Compared with New York’s Chinatown around Pell Street, which he had visited years ago with his brother, this was a disappointing affair: the building fronts a little run-down, barely any cars on the roadside, a few children playing noisily on the pavement, not a single Chinese person. It was a normal street in East Berlin. At least the Chinese shop, in front of whose display he had parked the car, was adorned with red Chinese characters. There were no Latin letters whatsoever; from the outside it wasn’t clear if it was a grocery shop, a clothing store or a laundry.

As it transpired it was a mixture of all three, and much more besides, with an assortment of goods as varied as in KaDeWe, but using only a fraction of the space. Alongside food, tea and spices, there were colourful silk fabrics, porcelain, little soapstone carvings, shelves, paper lanterns, all tightly packed in a wild jumble. The old Chinese lady inside the dark cave, which smelled even stranger than Lingyuan’s market stall, didn’t speak a word of German. Rath tried his luck with sign language, showing her a few photos and pointing towards the floor with his index finger.

‘These women here?’ he asked. ‘Yangtao?’ The old lady gestured towards a crate containing a few miserable-looking yangtao. Rath showed the photos again, this time omitting the word yangtao , but the woman shook her head. During the entire conversation, if you could call it that, her face under the black beehive hair hadn’t displayed an ounce of emotion. Rath was equally unsuccessful in the next shop, just a few houses further along in Markusstrasse. Once again there was yangtao. Once again no one spoke German or recognised the actresses.

When he returned to the car, he found it surrounded by snotty-nosed brats.

‘That yours, chief?’ one asked. ‘Nice wheels you’ve got there.’

‘You can look but you can’t touch,’ Rath said, climbing in. It was a crummy neighbourhood. He couldn’t imagine either of the two actresses setting foot in a street like this. He drove west.

The third shop was in Kantstrasse, and a very different establishment from the previous two. The Chinahaus, this time using the Latin alphabet, was located next to a Chinese restaurant and was bright and elegantly furnished, with fine porcelain vases lining the walls and two stone lions guarding the stairs. The room’s scent came from a shelf full of different types of tea. A slender Chinese man with hair slicked tightly back approached him.

‘How can I help you?’

‘Do you sell food as well?’

‘Of course. If you could follow me.’

‘I’m only looking for information.’ Rath showed the photos and asked his question.

The man reacted to Betty Winter. ‘I think I saw her here a few weeks ago, it could have been her. Usually it’s only Chinese people who shop here. Occasionally a curious German or two.’

‘You don’t have any regular German customers?’

‘You couldn’t call them regulars.’ The Chinese man shook his head. ‘Apart from this one old man, perhaps. Although he hasn’t been here for a long time.’

‘And he comes here often?’

‘To buy yangtao too, yes, but not just yangtao.’

‘Do you have a name?’

‘Alfred or Albert, something like that.’

‘How about an address?’

A shake of the head.

He gave the Chinese man his card. ‘Please let me know if he comes back. Promptly and without delay, that’s very important! Try, if you can, to get his name and address.’

‘I’m not a policeman. I can hardly interrogate my customers.’

‘Discreetly, of course. You could tell him you need to order the goods first, and ask for a delivery address. You’ll think of something.’

Since he was already in Kantstrasse, Rath decided to pay Oppenberg a visit. He was in luck, the producer was at his desk and had already heard the news about Krempin. ‘Poor Felix,’ he said. ‘A rather unfriendly colleague of yours came by to tell me. Just dreadful, plunging to his death like that.’

Rath looked at him closely, but there was nothing in his demeanour to suggest that he was responsible for Krempin’s death. ‘I’m here about Vivian,’ he said. ‘The underworld lead has come to nothing, but we’re in the process of uncovering new links that could be significant. Do you know yangtao, the Chinese gooseberry?’

Oppenberg considered for a moment. ‘Could be. The name doesn’t mean anything, but I sometimes go to the Chinese along the road. Perhaps I ate it there. You never really know what’s on your plate.’

‘Then you can’t say whether Vivian Franck liked yangtao either?’

‘Vivian?’ Oppenberg laughed out loud. ‘On the contrary. I can tell you that she gave any food that looked Chinese, or at all Asian, a wide berth, and not just because of the chopsticks. I could never persuade her to come to Nanking with me.’

Rath thought about what Oppenberg had said as he made his way back to the car. Betty Winter and Jeanette Fastré adored yangtao, while Vivian Franck despised it. It didn’t look like a correlation now, just a strange coincidence. Or was the fact that Vivian Franck abhorred Chinese food some kind of explanation?