Фолькер Кучер - Babylon Berlin

They weren’t the only ones to find their way to Schultes’s office. There was barely any space left by the two windows. Jänicke was there too.

‘I wouldn’t be going to Aschinger’s today if I were you,’ he greeted his colleagues.

A big crowd had gathered amidst the building-site chaos at Alexanderplatz, several thousand people tightly packed around the entrance to Tietz department store. A shawm band in marching order had turned the corner at Alexanderstrasse and was heading towards the square, followed by the grey uniforms of the RFB . Now and then a banner was raised and Rath recognised the faces that also adorned the front of Communist Party headquarters on nearby Bülowplatz: Lenin, Liebknecht, Luxemburg. A holy trinity of Ls.

Since arriving in Berlin, he had grown increasingly infuriated by the audacity of the communists, the way they decorated their party headquarters with the portraits and slogans of these enemies of the state. Hail the world revolution! The sheer nerve of it, and now they were carrying these slogans in front of police headquarters. Down with the demonstration ban . Keep the streets free on the 1st of May! On an enormous piece of red fabric they had written: Long live the Soviet Union, fight for a Soviet Germany! To the left was a resplendent Soviet star; to the right a hammer and sickle. More and more red flags were fluttering above the heads of those marching. An underground worker had planted a red flag on one of the steam hammers at Alex. High up in the offices of the Castle they could hear the crowd chanting: ‘Down with the dem-on-stration ban!’

The grey and brown of the workers’ caps was surrounded by the black of the shakos and the blue of the uniforms. Another police van emerged from Königstrasse and a troop of officers sprang from the platform, chin straps tightly fastened. The cops on the square formed a line of blue, drew their batons and stormed forth in unison. The chorus of voices quietened and ceased and a murmur went through the crowd. Batons began their whistling descent.

Those demonstrating on the front line ducked under the blows. Some fell and some were bundled into a Black Maria, amongst them a man with a red standard. Still the throng would not be deterred. A short step back and they were pressing forward once more. A wooden banner knocked the shako off an officer’s head. The first stones were launched. The crowd had resumed their chant: ‘Down with the dem-on-stration ban!’

‘Have we taken on fire brigade duties as well?’ Rath asked. At the tram stop in front of the UFA cinema down below, two officers were attaching a fire hose to a hydrant.

‘New tactic,’ Wolter replied. ‘Water instead of batons. The demonstrators are about to get wet.’

Scarcely had the two officers connected the hose when the command sounded: charge the line! The officer with the hose waded into the middle of the crowd, which scattered in surprise. Some were knocked to the ground by the force of the jet, and sent rolling on the wet asphalt.

‘Nice work. Watering the communists,’ Wolter said.

‘The commissioner’s got the whole force on high alert for this?’ asked Schultes. ‘Socialist hysteria, that’s what I call it. Later this afternoon these communists will be sitting back at home by the fire, drying their wet things. Enough revolution for one day. People will have had their fun and order will be restored.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said Wolter. ‘The RFB are getting weapons and training from Moscow. They’re not just playing.’

‘We’ve always managed to bring the Reds into the line,’ said Schultes. ‘They tried to stage a revolution ten years ago and what became of it? The minute things get serious, they throw in the towel.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Wolter and made a concerned face. ‘At any rate, we can’t allow this rabble to take over the streets.’

‘No,’ Schultes replied, ‘but the Nazis with their brownshirts aren’t much better. Better marchers perhaps.’

‘They don’t shoot police officers.’

Schultes fixed his gaze on Uncle. ‘Law and order must be maintained at all times. You’re right there, DCI Wolter.’

‘That’s the job of uniform, not CID,’ said Rath. ‘I for one am happy that we have nothing to do with politics, only criminals.’

‘Politicians, criminals – who said they aren’t one and the same?’ Schultes replied and everyone laughed.

Rath gazed thoughtfully out of the window. Ten years ago the streets had also been turned upside down, but he hadn’t seen anything like it since. His colleagues on the square were going about their business bravely, and not just with fire hoses. At this precise moment Rath wouldn’t have liked to have been out there in his civvies.

The car hung from the hook of the salvage crane like an overgrown fish as dirty brown water poured back into the Landwehr canal. In the dark night, the crane’s spotlight bathed the vehicle in bright, eerie light.

Detective Chief Inspector Wilhelm Böhm emerged from a large black Mercedes on Tempelhofer Ufer and put on his bowler hat. A few curious night owls turned from the salvage operation to admire the car, out of which there followed a slim, elegantly dressed woman carrying a shorthand pad, followed by a young man.

The black murder wagon was famous in Berlin. Equipped with numbered markers to secure evidence, camera, spotlights, an inch rule and tape measure, ordnance maps, gloves, tweezers, a transportable police laboratory, and all sorts of paraphernalia for the recording of evidence, it even housed a mobile office of folding table, chairs and a travel typewriter.

The car being lowered onto the wet asphalt of Möckern Bridge was a cream-coloured Horch 350. The soft top was down and there was a man at the wheel. DCI Böhm marched towards the police officer directing the operation.

‘Have I just walked into Lunapark? What the hell are all these people doing? And why couldn’t you have waited until Homicide arrived before starting the recovery? Did you at least manage to check the exact location with the divers?’

Without waiting for an answer, the DCI approached the vehicle. Pointless, he thought, trying to teach these idiots in uniform about modern-day police work. They still thought that restoring order to a crime scene was more important than securing evidence from it. Böhm glanced at the dead man behind the wheel.

‘Gräf,’ Böhm barked through the night. ‘Make sure you get a photo before the doctor messes everything up.’

Assistant Detective Reinhold Gräf started lugging the heavy camera from the murder wagon. In the meantime the officer had recovered from being shouted at, and approached the DCI.

‘Kemmerling, First Sergeant,’ he said, pointing towards a gap in the canal fencing, right next to the bridge. ‘That’s where he went through. He must have hightailed it across Tempelhofer Ufer and come off the road.’

Böhm looked the corpse up and down and shook his head. ‘How’s he supposed to have driven with hands like that?’

Kemmerling winced as he caught sight of the dead man’s hands. Individual fingers could barely be distinguished. Some of the joints were held together by skin alone; others were so contorted that simply looking at them was agony.

‘How many people do you have here, Kemmerling?’ Böhm asked.

‘Five, sir. Most of my men have been withdrawn because of communist unrest.’

Böhm nodded sympathetically, he didn’t have enough people either. The May disturbances had gone on for two days now. After slipping out of police control the confrontations had quickly escalated. There had been shootings and fatalities and communist strongholds around Bülowplatz, Wedding and Neukölln had been officially declared as trouble spots. All three were under siege and it seemed like civil war was about to break out.