Фолькер Кучер - Goldstein

‘These are your new colleagues,’ Weiss continued. ‘CID is being supplemented by a number of cadets. Despite the compulsory saving measures imposed by the government, we are doing everything in our power to avoid police numbers being cut.’

‘And what are you doing to avoid police salaries being cut?’ a heckler shouted. Everyone turned, but the man was nowhere to be seen. No one dared laugh and Weiss remained calm.

‘I see many well-nourished faces before me. To my knowledge, no CID officer has died of starvation this year. Should you genuinely be living in want and find yourself unable to afford the canteen, come and see me in my office. Just make sure you don’t go nosing about Superintendent Gennat’s cake selection.’ A few colleagues laughed, but not many. ‘Back to our cadets,’ Weiss said. ‘Allow me to invite the men onto the stage.’

Rath heard chairs shifting as half a dozen young men lined up in front of them.

‘Messrs Start, Tornow, Schütz, Weisshaupt, Marx and Kluge begin their service as cadets today. Initially, they are assigned to J Division, as Warrants are currently suffering the greatest shortages. However, they can be assigned to other divisions on a case-by-case basis, at the discretion of Chief Scholz.’

Second from the left was the police lieutenant Rath had encountered outside Weiss’s office. He cut an immaculate figure in a suit. Tornow, the deputy said his name was.

‘I ask that you remain on hand with help and advice for these men,’ Weiss continued. ‘Most of you were in Uniform not so long ago, exposing yourselves to great danger in the service of our democratic state. If you are teamed with one of our cadets, please exercise patience as you show them the ropes. Remember, in time, one of these gentlemen could be your superior.’ He paused until the laughter died. ‘All joking aside, yesterday’s events remind us how important it is to work together, with rather than against one another.’

Rath couldn’t be sure through Weiss’s thick reading glasses, but he felt as if the deputy had his eyes trained on him. It was probably just his imagination, an inherent sense of guilt exacerbated by his rigorous Catholic upbringing. Appeal over, Weiss brought the meeting to an end. The officers stood up and gradually filtered out of the room. In their midst moved a man whose vast frame made him impossible to overlook.

Rath considered whether he should speak to Gennat. Perhaps the chief of Homicide could exert a little pressure, even if it was clear that Bernhard Weiss had no intention of withdrawing Rath and his men from the Goldstein operation. Why the whole thing couldn’t be transferred to Warrants, Rath didn’t know, especially now that they had a few extra hands. After all, what better job was there for a cadet than a stake-out? Rath headed towards Buddha, before hesitating. Wilhelm Böhm stood alongside the superintendent. It would have to be Böhm! Approaching the two detectives he overheard the Bulldog mention something about a robbery homicide that wasn’t.

‘Good morning, Superintendent.’ Rath tipped his hat. ‘Detective Chief Inspector.’

‘Ah, Inspector Rath,’ Gennat said. Böhm broke off mid-sentence and cast the troublemaker an angry glance. ‘I see you’re back,’ Gennat continued. ‘How is everything going?’

‘Fine, thank you for asking. I just wanted to check what was happening in A Division. We don’t hear much out in the field. Looks like the number of cases is on the rise again.’

‘Yes, a real tragedy, this business with our colleague. We’ll touch on it in briefing later.’

‘And DCI Böhm is investigating a death as well, I hear?’

Böhm shot him a second, angrier glance, which Rath chalked up as a minor victory.

‘We found a corpse yesterday in Friedrichshain,’ Gennat said. ‘A second-hand dealer in a pretty bad way at the back of his shop. Everything points towards robbery homicide, except the man was a known fence with links to the Berolina Ringverein.’

‘Which is why I suspect a different motive,’ Böhm butted in. ‘Berolina and the Nordpiraten are at loggerheads and it wouldn’t surprise me if the robbery homicide was staged. There are, at any rate, a few discrepancies.’

Rath’s ears pricked up. ‘You think there’s someone out there settling underworld scores? What do you think?’ he asked Gennat. ‘Would it be possible for me to take part in today’s Homicide briefing? Just to keep up to date, in case my men report back for duty in the next few days.’

Gennat looked at him as if trying to establish the real reasons for Rath’s interest. Buddha might appear a little sleepy, but his eyes were so alert and his gaze so intense that Rath couldn’t help but blink. ‘Any time,’ he said. ‘As long as you can make it work with your other commitments.’

That didn’t sound as if Gennat was about to ask Weiss for his men back. Rath hid his disappointment and nodded.

A short time later, he sat with his old colleagues in the small meeting room, with everything just as before, except that Gräf was missing. Henning and Czerwinski were catching up on sleep after finishing the nightshift. Rath half listened as Assistant Detective Lange spoke blandly about the dead boy from KaDeWe, whom they had now identified, and Assistant Detective Mertens recapped yesterday’s shooting in the east. The investigation was being headed by Section 1A, with Homicide operating in a purely ancillary capacity.

For a CID detective, there was nothing worse than acting as dogsbody to the political police. Even so, Mertens couldn’t hide his satisfaction that 1A had been unable to trace the gunman. Reading between the lines, it was clear he considered it wishful thinking not only that the shot had been intentionally fired, but that it had come from a Communist source.

Next up was Böhm, who received Rath’s undivided attention. Evidently he still hadn’t heard anything about Red Hugo’s disappearance, mentioning only that Hugo Lenz, who was on his list of interviewees, was to be found neither at home nor at his regular haunt. Apparently that wasn’t Mulackritze , as Rath had always assumed, but Amor-Diele in Friedrichshain, where he had been only last night. To think he could have run into one of Böhm’s men!

Whether he was a victim of the Nordpiraten or not, Böhm’s dead fence, whose name was Eberhard Kallweit, had been found in his shop yesterday, and probably been there for several days. The till was empty, but the perpetrators had left a surprising number of valuable items, high-quality wristwatches among them. That was one of the reasons Böhm thought the robbery homicide was staged, especially since the victim had been brutally tortured before death. So brutally, in fact, that it was all too much for one of his tormentors. Next to the dead man, Forensics had found a pool of vomit that definitely hadn’t issued from Kallweit, a fact confirmed in Dr Schwartz’s post autopsy report. Aside from the vomit the pathologist had found numerous breaks and lacerations, as well as the source of the internal bleeding that was responsible for the victim’s death.

Böhm then reported on the background to the current gangland feud. It wasn’t open warfare, he said, and there still hadn’t been any fatalities, or, at least, no obvious executions, but, in the past two weeks clashes between the Nordpiraten and members of Berolina had grown more frequent.

‘We believe it to be connected to the release of Rudolf Höller and Hermann Lapke, both of whom have just served two years in Tegel for attempted bank robbery. Clearly they hope to restore the Nordpiraten to their former glory.’

The incidents were stacking up. Berolina drug-dealers had been beaten in broad daylight; bars that stood under the official protection of the Ringverein had been destroyed, their guests insulted. The attacks had culminated with the unfortunate drug-dealer who landed spine first on a set of basement steps. The torching of a new Pirate betting office on Greifswalder Strasse was seen as Berolina’s response, even if neither police nor the Pirates could prove it. Had the fence been killed in retaliation?