Фолькер Кучер - Babylon Berlin

‘Put your hands in the air,’ Rath called out to the Stahlhelmers . ‘But put your weapons down first.’

The young men obeyed immediately and one by one the handcuffs clicked. Rath issued the operation commander with instructions. The men waiting outside in the vans were to be arrested too. Only Marlow’s people were spared. There was no reason to take them to the station. None had previous convictions and they could provide firearms licences for their guns. Their boss, the owner of an imports business, had even helped police lay the trap by placing his property at their disposal.

Marlow went over to Rath.

‘Bloody hell! Turned out just the way you pictured it, no?’

Rath shook his head in silence. He thought of Zörgiebel’s words: it’ll be alright .

How wrong he had been.

Rath still wasn’t sure how he was going to tell the commissioner. They had wanted to punish Bruno Wolter and take him out of circulation. And they had done so, at least after a fashion.

‘How are we supposed to get hold of the gold now?’ Marlow asked. It sounded almost reproachful. ‘Do you think the DCI made a copy of his map?’

Rath shrugged his shoulders.

‘No idea, and to tell the truth I couldn’t care less.’

He left Marlow where he was and went over to the goods shed, from which Reinhold Gräf emerged, legs still wobbly, camera on his shoulders.

‘I hope you didn’t photograph the finale,’ he said to the pale man.

‘Too busy being sick,’ said Gräf. Rath offered him an Overstolz and this time the assistant detective helped himself.

The men smoked in silence, examining the faulty tank wagon. Liang, still wearing work gloves, took a closer look at Schäffner’s bullet holes. He used a knife to pick a bullet out of the tank wall. His face gave nothing away. At all events he soon interrupted his work to whisper something in Marlow’s ear. Dr M.’s expression brightened again. He went over to Rath and Gräf.

‘Inspector, you assured me this operation would be carried out discreetly. I trust you’ll be true to your word.’

‘Don’t worry. The press won’t get wind of anything that happened here.’

‘Your Buddha isn’t about to move in and turn my place upside down?’

‘There’ll be no CID investigation. Officially, nothing happened here.’

‘There were loads of witnesses.’

‘The officers involved can be relied on.’

‘My people too. Then I hope you have the Stahlhelmers under control. They saw quite a bit too.’

‘They won’t say anything.’

‘Good. Then we should start tidying up. It’s about time normal business was resumed.’

Rath nodded.

Marlow gave the Chinese man a sign. Liang connected the tank wagons, climbed back into the locomotive and the train moved off slowly, leaving as it had arrived: like a phantom.

The Nasse Dreieck – Wet Triangle – lived up to its name. The lounge was actually triangular, just like the whole building, squeezed as it was between two tenement houses, and it was so small that one was seldom dry for very long. The pub had its advantages: the prices were decent, and the modest dimensions meant there wasn’t room for fights. If push came to shove it was close enough to Rath’s flat for him to crawl home.

There were only four tables in the public bar. Rath didn’t mind. He usually sat at the counter anyway. Just like now in fact.

‘Schorsch, another glass of beer and a short for both of us!’

‘So, two beers, and two shorts.’

‘Yup.’

‘Nothing for me?’

‘Then make it three.’

Three or four weeks had gone by since the shoot-out at Ostbahnhof . It was mid-June, and the summer had the city firmly in its grip. In the Nasse Dreieck , it was pleasantly cool. The barman placed two beers and two schnapps on the counter.

Rath raised his schnapps glass. ‘Cheers, Detective! To your promotion!’

‘Fuck the promotion,’ Reinhold Gräf said dismissively. The whole station was talking about it, a detective at twenty-three! During a moratorium on promotions at that! The subject was clearly making him uncomfortable. ‘Let’s drink to life,’ he said.

They downed the strong schnapps. In a strange way the incident at Ostbahnhof had bound them together, even if they never spoke of it. To compensate they met up with one another and drank, mostly in the Nasse Dreieck.

‘Have you heard? Buddha wants to finally assign the Selenskij/Fallin file to the wet fish,’ Rath said.

Gräf drank his beer in silence. ‘Charly was grilling me again today,’ he said after a while.

‘Does she still want to know why you’re meeting up with me?’

Gräf nodded.

‘What did you tell her?’

Gräf grinned. ‘The same as always. That it’s your irresistible eyes.’

Rath laughed, even if he didn’t really feel like it when his thoughts turned to Charly. After the botched operation at Ostbahnhof , their relationship had grown noticeably cooler again. Too many things appeared strange to her. No wonder. She must have noticed the inconsistencies in the story the commissioner was pedalling about the operation. Meanwhile Gereon Rath was saying nothing, likewise Detective Gräf.

They often talked about Charly. It was their way of talking about what happened at Ostbahnhof , and about their silence. Zörgiebel knew how to buy silence. The newly appointed Detective Gräf felt uncomfortable in his own skin. Rath no less so – and he hadn’t even been promoted.

But then how many police officers felt comfortable in their own skin?

It was late by the time the Nasse Dreieck closed, and the bricks and asphalt still reflected the heat of the day. Rath just needed to go across Wassertorplatz to be home. He didn’t even feel that drunk, despite the bill in the Nasse Dreieck being rather sizeable again. When he stepped into the rear courtyard on Luisenufer, all the lights were already out. People went to bed early round here. There were no curtains on the windows of the caretaker’s flat. The Schäffners had moved out. The caretaker Hermann Schäffner, unable to work due to the injuries sustained to his hand, had been awarded a generous disability pension by the Prussian state. Meanwhile Lennartz, the new caretaker, was still renovating.

The police seal on the attic flat in the rear building had long since been removed, but the place still hadn’t been rented out, since Frau Steinrück alias Sorokina had paid half a year in advance. One evening Rath had seen Ilja Tretschkov hurrying across the yard. He dashed out of his flat and tried to catch up with the Russian, but by the time he made it outside Tretschkov had disappeared.

That was a week or two ago now. Rath couldn’t help thinking back to it as he opened his front door and heard a noise upstairs. It couldn’t be the Liebigs. The communists went to bed early. Rath didn’t think long before quietly ascending the steps.

He had heard right. There was someone in the attic flat.

There was light coming into the stairwell through the crack in the door. He heard quiet steps. Had Tretschkov come to clean again? It was already past midnight.

Rath decided to knock.

It took some time, but at last the door opened slightly and he found himself looking into the eyes of a beautiful woman.

Svetlana Sorokina. She had dyed her hair black.

‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘I saw the lights were on and…’

‘Well?’

‘We haven’t met.’ He stretched a hand through the door. ‘Lennartz, Peter Lennartz. I’m the new caretaker.’

‘Ingeborg Steinrück.’

‘I’d like to speak to you a moment, Fräulein Steinrück.’