Фолькер Кучер - Babylon Berlin

‘Sorry to trouble you on a Saturday but…’

Rath needed a moment to interpret her blank gaze, before correcting himself, ‘I mean on Sonnabend …’ He hadn’t quite settled in the city linguistically either. Sonnabend was the word Berliners used for ‘Saturday’. ‘CID,’ he continued, ‘would you mind answering some questions?’

‘You’re not from around here!’ came the suspicious reply through the crack in the door. ‘Have you got any ID?’

He showed his badge through the crack.

‘And what do you want?’ She had a thick Berlin accent.

‘Perhaps I could come in first?’

She stepped to the side and opened the door fully. ‘Well, you’d better come in before the whole house sees it’s the police. Make sure you don’t get anything dirty!’

He wiped his feet and entered, squeezing past her.

‘Why do you want to speak to me in particular?’ she continued. ‘Just be glad that my Hermann isn’t here. He’d have told you where to go! Don’t you have anything more important to do? This is a respectable house, we’ve never had any trouble from the police.’

A brown uniform cap was hanging on the cloak stand in the hall.

‘Politically active, your husband?’ Rath interrupted.

‘You have to be, with the communists getting fresher by the day and the police losing control.’

She led him into a cosy living room. Although it smelt of cleaning agent here too, the air in the flat was somehow stale. The woman shifted her weight and followed Rath through the living room door. Hindenburg was hanging on the wall, next to the ex-Kaiser, both gazing sternly at the visitor. Rath couldn’t help thinking of their doppelgangers in König’s studio.

‘Take a seat, Herr…’

‘Rath, Detective Inspector Rath.’

‘So, you’ve finally caught up with the Liebigs from the rear building?’

He almost sank into the yellow chair. ‘Sorry?’

‘If they aren’t communists I’ll eat my hat! Liebig senior was out on the streets on the first of May, even though it was forbidden. Didn’t catch him though, your colleagues. Little snotbag came home talking big, with a red flag rolled under his arm. As for his wife…’

‘Thank you. I will pass your information on.’ He didn’t think she noticed his sarcasm. He watched in astonishment as her weight almost pressed the sofa cushions down to the ground. ‘But Frau Schäffner, I am here for a different reason.’

She squirmed on the sofa. ‘I don’t have much time. You’ve interrupted me in the middle of cleaning.’

‘I’m looking for a man who’s supposed to live here, but clearly doesn’t.’

She stared at him blankly.

‘Does the name Alexej Ivanovitsch Kardakov mean anything to you?’

‘A Russian? There are no Russians living here.’

‘No-one who’s moved in in the past couple of months?’

‘Not here. Brückner moved out of the first rear building. That is, my Hermann threw the red swine out because he couldn’t pay his rent. There’s someone new there now, but he’s German, not Russian.’

‘Kardakov has been in Germany a long time. Perhaps you didn’t realise he was Russian.’

‘Believe me, that’s the sort of thing I notice. Besides, he has a German name.’

‘Which is?’

She considered for a moment. ‘Müller or Möller. Something run of the mill like that. Now that you ask, I realise I don’t actually know. Probably because I’ve never seen him. I can only remember names once I’ve seen their faces.’

‘You’ve never seen him?’ Rath could scarcely believe that anything in this block escaped Frau Schäffner’s notice. Herr Müller or Möller must have been invisible.

She shrugged her shoulders as if she herself were surprised by this gap in her knowledge. ‘My husband must have seen him. He collects the rent.’

‘How long has the man been living here?’

‘Not very long. That’s what I’ve been saying. Works as a night watchman as far as I know. At Osram’s, Hermann said. During the day he sleeps. You can ask anyone here, he hardly ever shows his face.’

‘One final question…’ He took the scrap of newspaper from his pocket and pushed the photo of the dead Russian across the living room table. ‘Perhaps you have seen this man?’

She glanced at the picture curiously and shook her head, then suddenly recognised him. ‘That’s the man from the paper. The guy they pulled out from the canal! Is that your Kardakov?’

‘No, it relates to another case,’ Rath said quickly and returned the scrap to his pocket. A dead loss. He showed her the glossy print. ‘That’s Kardakov.’

‘Never seen him.’

He thought of something else. ‘Did you hear anything about a fight a few nights ago? Here, outside?’

‘We sleep at the back. The train makes such a racket out front. Means we don’t always hear what’s happening on the str…’ She paused. ‘But wait! There was a fight out in the courtyard. Someone was making such a noise we nearly fell out of bed. Hermann tried to get involved, but the troublemakers had left by the time he got outside. Someone else must’ve sorted it out. Is that why you’re looking for Kardakov? Did someone here complain? They should have come and spoken to us. Hermann would’ve dealt with it.’

‘Two Russians fighting?’ Rath probed.

‘One of them was Russian, true. The other was German.’

‘German? Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure. The one who calmed things down, naturally, was the German!’

‘And when was this?’

She considered briefly. ‘No idea. Monday or Tuesday perhaps. Sometime at the beginning of the week.’

She looked at the clock on the wall. ‘So.’ She rose to her feet. ‘Now I must ask you to leave. I’m not through with the cleaning yet and I still have to cook.’ Rath was surprised by how quickly she emerged from the cushions. He had a lot more trouble with his own chair. It felt like he had almost drowned in it. ‘You should take a look in the rear building,’ she called after him, ‘it’s about time the police dealt with the Liebigs.’

When he was outside, Rath did, in fact, head towards the rear building. He wasn’t so much curious about the Liebig family, as about the man who was apparently invisible. In the courtyard the first thing he did was to take a deep breath, happy to have escaped the sharp smell of the cleaning agent. The carpet rail was abandoned and the courtyard devoid of people, as if word had spread that police were there. In the second courtyard, Rath could hear a circular saw.

The letter boxes in the rear house revealed that a Herr Müller was indeed living there. Had Kardakov adopted the most banal of all German names? Or was there really a night watchman from the Osram plant living here? Rath climbed the steps to the first floor and rang.

In the flat all was quiet. He listened by the door. Not a sound. He hardly ever shows his face , the caretaker’s wife had said. Rath glanced at the time. Almost half past four. Even a night-shift worker ought to be on his feet by now but after ringing and ringing the bell there was still nothing doing. Either Herr Müller was deaf or there was no-one at home.

Since he was already in the building, he climbed to the next floor and rang the bell marked Liebig . Everything was still.

Back on the street he lit a cigarette. He was just about to flick the match onto the street in front of the house, only to reconsider when he noticed a head peering from behind one of the ground floor windows. Frau Schäffner was just as nosy as he had imagined, which made it all the more bizarre that she had never seen Herr Müller. Rath tipped his hat to her.

Something about this address didn’t add up. He decided to pay another visit to Luisenufer as he had to know who this invisible Herr Müller really was. Either he spoke with a Russian accent or else Kardakov had left Elisabeth Behnke a false address. Whatever the case, one thing was certain: Alexej Ivanovitsch Kardakov had gone to ground and didn’t want anyone to find him. That it was rent arrears alone, however, he could no longer believe. Not after they had fished a dead Russian out of the canal. The disappearance of the one Russian was surely linked to the death of the other.