Фолькер Кучер - Goldstein

Trudchen Steiner, Gennat’s secretary, placed the cake tray on the table and Gennat served his guest. Discussions like this were more akin to a coffee morning than an official briefing. Lange thanked him for the slice of poppy seed cake that had landed on his plate, and took a bite.

‘How long have you been with us now, Assistant Detective?’

Lange replied with his mouth full, feeling ambushed. ‘Almothst two yearsth,’ he said. ‘Thinthe Dethember thwenty nine.’

‘Before that you did two years at Robbery Division in Hannover?’ Lange was glad that a nod of the head would suffice. His mouth was still full of poppy seed cake. Buddha seemed to have studied his personal file. ‘We’ve just taken on a number of cadets.’

‘Dr Weiss has introduced them already, Sir.’

‘Have you thought about applying?’

‘With respect, Sir, it seemed a little premature. I haven’t been at the Cas… ah, in Berlin, two years yet.’

Lange realised he had turned red, and felt annoyed, but Gennat didn’t seem to have noticed.

‘You’ve made a very good job of the KaDeWe case so far. Officers Nebe and Böhm are full of praise.’ Gennat shovelled a slice of gooseberry tart into his mouth, his favourite. ‘At the same time, you were disciplined enough not to mention our own suspicions.’

‘Well, Sir, I thought…’

‘And you thought right.’ Gennat leaned a little closer. ‘You’re aware that without a witness statement, you can’t give the public prosecutor anything.’

‘Yes, unfortunately. I still don’t know how I’m going to get hold of her. I suppose it’ll come down to Warrants.’

Gennat nodded. ‘I’d like you to take over the Kallweit case from Böhm. You’ve been working together on it anyway.’

‘DCI Böhm mentioned that this might happen. Does it mean I can close the KaDeWe file?’

‘For Goodness sake, no! Don’t be so hasty. Keep it simmering. Let’s bide our time for this witness.’

‘But the Commissioner is pushing for a swift resolution.’

‘He always does, but don’t let him bring you to heel. You can’t close the file until you’ve heard what the witness has to say.’ Lange nodded. ‘And this dead fence,’ Gennat continued. ‘There are enough links to the KaDeWe case. It might yield the odd insight.’

‘It could do, Sir. I just hope the KaDeWe witness doesn’t have the dead fence on her conscience. That would be a link I could do without.’

‘You’ll get support from Officer Mertens. But… as far as our suspicions go: not a word to anybody!’

Lange took another bite of poppy seed cake.

‘And,’ Gennat said, ‘if I don’t see an application for inspector on my desk during the next round of recruitments, there’ll be trouble.’

They were late. Dusk was already falling. Kirie pulled hard on her lead. Some scent or other was enticing her onwards, and it was all Rath could do to hold on.

‘To heel,’ he scolded for the umpteenth time. Kirie kept pulling. Rath wasn’t in the best of moods after his nerve-shredding journey home with the Hanomag. He had been looking forward to a quiet evening but, instead, was traipsing around the banks of the Müggelsee.

‘For God’s sake, Kirie, to heel!’ He pulled furiously on the lead. The dog gave a brief yelp and looked back in surprise, but at least she stopped. Charly too.

‘What on earth’s the matter with you?’ she said. ‘Pull yourself together.’

‘We should have left the dog at home.’

‘So she can keep the whole building awake? You know she doesn’t like being on her own.’

‘Maybe all three of us should have stayed at home.’

‘If it’s too much for you then you should have said.’

‘It’s fine. I just had a lousy day, that’s all. Sorry.’

Rath was still annoyed that he’d let himself be talked into it. God knows, he could imagine better things than searching for a homeless camp on the Müggelsee. If he was right, then this business with Charly’s fugitive had come to a head, and Alex Reinhold was no mere fare-dodger. She was also involved in one of the most spectacular break-ins of recent times, as well as two possible murders.

First Beckmann, one of Böhm’s cold cases. Heinrich Beckmann was shot dead in his flat on the evening of December 20th. There was no sign of the killer, but witnesses attested that they had seen Karl Reinhold emerge from the house. Others claimed to have seen his sister Alexandra entering the building around ten minutes beforehand. Both had been missing until yesterday afternoon, when Alexandra had done a bunk from Lichtenberg District Court. Her parents had been thrown out of the flat just two days after the murder, a forced eviction which Beckmann, the buildings manager, had set in motion on the morning of his death.

The second murder had to do with the KaDeWe break-in. Some of the spoils had been found with the dead Berolina fence. Whatever Alex’s role in these cases, Charly’s error had taken on a new significance, and could no longer be brushed aside.

Although needing to find the girl as quickly as possible, Rath still couldn’t see the use in visiting her homeless parents, especially when questioning them had been a dead end six months before. ‘You have her name, you’ve tracked down her family and you’ve even dug up an old case, so why don’t you just leave the rest to Warrants,’ he said once Charly had told him everything. It was meant to be comforting, but she had looked at him with that blank gaze he so hated, that ever so slightly contemptuous gaze which seemed to say: how can you still not understand me?

The settlement, a strange mix of campsite and shanty town, was clean and tidy, almost as if it were regularly swept. The smell of fried potatoes hung in the air. They reached a kind of square where wood was neatly stacked in the middle. A woman was hanging out washing and two children were playing tag, otherwise there was no one to be seen. The woman eyed the two well-dressed visitors suspiciously. The last rays of the setting sun made the scene appear almost idyllic.

The hairs on the back of Kirie’s neck stood up and she growled.

The woman took the wash basket and disappeared inside one of the shacks and a dog started barking fiercely.

‘Hold Kirie tight,’ Charly said.

Rath had already wrapped the lead several times around his wrist, but Kirie made no attempt to break free. She stood stock-still, growling to herself and quivering like an electric motor with fur. She gazed at the lane which led into the middle of the settlement. The barking grew louder, and at last they saw a big dog the colour of a cockroach, an unhealthy mix of Dobermann, Rottweiler and Werewolf rolled into one.

Rath realised to his horror that the monster wasn’t on a lead. For a moment it stayed where it was and looked at the newcomers curiously, before breaking into a trot and making straight for them. Now Kirie started barking too, yapping at the onrushing jumble of muscles, hide and teeth, but she sounded like she always did: harmless. She certainly didn’t scare the charging brute. Rath stood stiff as a board, feeling as if his heart had stopped. The dog was only a few metres away when there was a shrill whistle and it threw itself to the ground.

A man of perhaps thirty was sitting in the shadow of a corrugated iron wall. He stood and went over to the dog. ‘Good boy,’ he said, patting the dog on the back of the head. ‘Good boy,Stalin.’

The dog looked at Rath and Charly as if he wasn’t finished with them yet.

Rath stood close to Charly, whose face was slowly regaining its colour. Stalin’s master left the dog where it was and approached.

‘If you’re from the public order office, I advise you not to show up here without the police.’