Фолькер Кучер - Babylon Berlin

‘Trench work,’ said Uncle, and lit a cigarette while uniform got stuck into the waste containers in the courtyard.

Rath nodded. ‘We’re not about to find anything either.’

‘Are you surprised? The fighters are all out on the streets. Thälmann’s boys are stashing their weapons. 1A need to be more on the ball. It’s these caches we should be cleaning out, instead we’re searching workers’ flats.’

Wolter made no secret of his aversion to the political police. He took a final drag and threw the half-smoked cigarette onto the courtyard. ‘This is no work for CID. I’m sure uniform can manage for a while on their own.’ At the rubbish containers a young officer was using a giant poker to root through ashes and waste. Uncle gave him a few instructions and pressed the list of addresses into his hand before making his way back to Rath.

‘Let’s go to Hermannstrasse, drop off the revolver and submit an interim report,’ he said. ‘They’ve got a good old-fashioned field kitchen and my stomach’s starting to rumble.’ Police had sequestered two private flats on the first floor of Hermannstrasse 207 to set up an operational base for the troops. ‘Who knows, maybe we’ll find someone looting or erecting a barricade on the way. At least then we’ll have done something useful today.’

It wasn’t until Hermannstrasse that they encountered anybody else, but still no-one they needed to arrest. All the streetlamps had been shattered and broken glass crunched beneath their feet. In several places stacks of wood for the construction of the new underground had been overturned across the carriageway. Not exactly barricades, they were more like minor traffic obstacles. Not that there were any cars on the road.

The tram wasn’t stopping at Hermannstrasse today either as uniform had effectively sealed the trouble spot. No-one came in and no-one went out without police say-so. The Berlin public transport authority no longer sent any of its buses or trains into the communist districts anyway, as rioters had already wrecked several.

Shots rang out and Rath and Wolter sought cover in the entrance to a house. Uncle drew his weapon. Rath did likewise, having taken the episode on the Karstadt scaffolding to heart. He released the safety catch of his Mauser and poked his head out carefully from the entrance. An armoured car was rolling up Hermannstrasse, rattling its machine gun at irregular intervals. ‘Idiots. Just like in the war. Under fire from our own side.’

They put their guns away. Standing in a house entrance in civilian clothing with a pistol in your hand was dangerous. It was all too easy for your own side to become confused.

‘Your attention please, this is the police speaking,’ a voice cried. ‘Keep the streets clear! Move away from your windows! We’re about to open fire!’

Really? Rath thought. We’re about to open fire? They’re announcing that a little prematurely. He peered round the corner and watched the armoured car roll onwards. The few people still on the streets took refuge in house entrances to the left and right. Behind the armoured car were two trucks carrying duty officers. The men had jumped down from the trucks and were cocking their rifles. Rath could feel how nervous they were. With anxious glances, they scoured the windows for snipers, weapons at the ready. For a short time it was quiet, then a rifle crackled and a glass pane shattered.

‘Move away from your windows!’ The voice was drowned by the crackle of rifle fire. The first shot had opened the floodgates.

A man was running across the pavement with his hands over his head as if they could shield him from bullets and falling glass. He came towards them in the entrance, pulled a key from his pocket and opened the heavy front door.

‘Come on then,’ he said, and held the door open. ‘Inside before the pigs get you.’ They burst into the house and the man ran upstairs. Rath banged the door shut and gazed after him.

‘For fuck’s sake, they’re clearing the streets! Deploying a special vehicle. Why the hell didn’t anyone tell us this was happening?’

‘No idea,’ Wolter replied. ‘Probably because the whole thing’s been planned by social democrats.’

There were more shots from the streets. Rath gestured with his head that they should move further back into the stairwell where they’d be safer.

Suddenly they heard a cry. ‘No!’

Not a cry of pain or fear. A cry of horror.

They briefly exchanged glances and hastened upstairs. The door to the flat on the first floor stood open. They burst inside to be welcomed by petty bourgeois conservatism and comfort. Nothing here was remotely out of place, not a person to be seen or a voice to be heard. In the neighbouring flat, Richard Tauber was singing, his voice scratched out by a gramophone. The noise from the street penetrated through the open balcony door. From time to time there was a cry or an isolated shot as the commando receded into the distance. A gentle wind made the long curtain billow out and blow into the room.

There were two women lying on the balcony. Peacefully, as though they were sleeping, but they weren’t sleeping. Blood was seeping from their heads and chests. The cry must have come from the man who was hunched over the older of the two, the man who had just opened the door for them. He was no longer crying out, but weeping silently. Having laid the head of the deceased on his lap, he was now stroking her bloody hair.

‘Martha,’ he said. ‘Martha!’

The windows were boarded on the outside so there was barely any daylight in the shop. The man behind the counter didn’t look much like a master butcher. Far too thin, pale face, hollow cheeks. Only the blood specks on his white coat gave him away, and his greeting.

‘What will it be?’

‘Police.’ Rath showed his ID.

He had been on the move for quarter of an hour. No-one in Hermannstrasse seemed to own a telephone. The only public telephone he found hadn’t worked but he struck lucky with Wilhelm Prokot the butcher. There was a sign on the door with a telephone symbol. Telephone 20 pfennig per conversation , it said below. Twice as expensive as a public telephone.

‘There was me surprised that there were still people out shopping with all that racket,’ grumbled the butcher. ‘Do you and your colleagues want to occupy the shop?’

‘I just need to use the telephone.’

‘Out back,’ the butcher nodded towards a door. ‘It’s not for free though.’

‘The state will pay.’

Rath followed the man to a telephone hanging from the wall and asked to be put through to Hermannstrasse 207. The butcher remained in the doorway, looking on curiously. ‘Do you have nothing else to do?’ Rath barked.

‘No,’ said Prokot in his Berlin accent. ‘Your people have scared off all my customers.’ He disappeared back into the shop.

Rath asked to speak with one of the officers in charge of the operation. He gave a concise report of the fatal incident and received equally concise instructions in return: take down particulars, secure evidence, interview witnesses, have the corpses medically examined and removed, processes with which Rath was familiar from his time in Homicide. It annoyed him that they treated him like a novice here.

‘Can you recommend a doctor?’ he asked, as he pressed two 10 pfennig coins into the butcher’s hands.

‘What seems to be the matter?’ the butcher asked.

The Berlin sense of humour did nothing for Rath. He ignored the stupid remark. ‘Well,’ he said simply, doing his best to conceal his displeasure.

‘You’re in luck. There’s a doctor in the house above.’

The practice was directly above the butcher’s shop. Dr Peter Völcker, General Practitioner , read the sign next to the door. The waiting room was empty. The receptionist looked at Rath with surprise. ‘An emergency,’ he said simply, showing his badge. ‘I need a doctor.’ The woman led him into the consulting room where Dr Völcker was sitting at his desk.