Фолькер Кучер - Goldstein

‘What do you want?’

‘I think you already know. I’d like to hear a little more about the young lady you are evidently so fond of. I take it you have your own lab at home, or someone who develops these dirty little snaps for you?’

Lanke said nothing.

‘Where’s Marion Bosetzky?’ Rath asked, his tone so sharp that Lanke started.

‘I don’t know where she is. It’s as if she’s vanished from the face of the earth since the weekend.’

‘How did she end up working in that hotel?’

‘How do you think? She applied for the job, simple as that, or are you one of those who thinks: once a whore, always a whore.’

‘I see. You’re helping a fallen woman reintegrate into society. Who’s going to believe that?’

Lanke squinted at the door, as if hoping his colleagues would soon return from the funeral, or, even better, his uncle Werner, to bring this highly embarrassing line of questioning to an end. No one came.

Rath held the photo under Lanke’s nose. ‘Now, answer me, so that I don’t have to use my contacts in the press. Why did you smuggle Marion Bosetzky into the Excelsior ? Did you allow for the fact that she would help Goldstein escape, or was that an occupational hazard?’

Lanke was sweating. He seemed to find it hard to come out with the truth. ‘Occupational hazard,’ he said, finally. ‘We wanted to keep an eye on Goldstein. So that we…’

‘Who is we?’

‘Myself and a few colleagues,’ Lanke said at last. ‘We heard about the Yank – one of us knows the lady from the teleprinter’s office that received the news. We wanted to catch him doing something red-handed and take the credit.’ He looked up at Rath like a wounded deer. ‘Do you think it’s easy to get promoted when you’re the division chief’s nephew? Not with this commissioner, anyway.’

‘Don’t make me cry. The officers you arranged this with, are they similar poor souls who have been hit by the moratorium?’

‘Make as much fun as you like. It’s how it is.’

‘Give me names.’

‘I can’t do that.’

Rath waved the photograph.

Lanke shook his head. ‘I can’t! It’s all gone south anyway. What do you want the names of the others for? I won’t grass on my fellow officers. I’ll take the fall for this.’ He adopted the expression of a man of honour or, at least, his interpretation thereof.

Rath left it there for the time being. Young Lanke had deviated from the straight and narrow, launching investigations of his own so that he could climb a few steps on the career ladder… It was familiar enough to Rath, but he’d never have thought the apathetic Lanke capable of such ambition. Perhaps he had been talked into it by one of his more zealous colleagues who knew about Goldstein and needed Lanke’s informant to keep an eye on him. It hadn’t worked, and if anyone was to be brought to account for Goldstein’s disappearance, Rath swore it would be Lanke junior’s head on the block. For now though, he would watch how things developed. As long as he feared exposure, Lanke could still prove useful.

Which was why Rath issued a little threat by way of goodbye.

‘If I should discover that you do know where Marion is, I promise the big city press will do such a job on you that your uncle will have to return to the beat with you.’

‘Believe me,’ Lanke said. ‘I really don’t know.’

Rath left the office after giving a sinister final look, but in the corridor had to suppress a smile. He left Vice in the best of spirits and started towards Homicide. His expression didn’t match his mourning suit, but it didn’t matter. The funeral was over.

The door to Homicide opened and Assistant Detective Lange emerged. Rath gave a polite greeting, and the man from Hannover said ‘hello’ in return. He was another Rath would have liked in his team in exchange for Czerwinski. Behind Lange, another face appeared in the door. Rath’s smile froze.

‘Cha… Fräulein Ritter!’ He gave a slight cough. ‘What are you doing here? After such a long time.’

Charly looked even more startled than him, although she must have guessed this might happen. It was his workplace after all. Perhaps it was the mourning suit and unfamiliar top hat that made her look at him the way she did.

‘Good day, Inspector,’ she said, smiling. ‘Nice to see you again.’

She was quickly back under control. Her strength of nerve really was a thing of wonder. Rath felt a tingling sensation, triggered by her last sentence. Perhaps it was because he’d have liked nothing more than to touch her, but couldn’t, not here at the Castle in the presence of colleagues. He gazed at her face and knew that the sentence wasn’t intended to sound erotic. When he looked closer, he saw that she was actually upset. Something must have happened.

Hopefully it wasn’t Alex. Money gone. Jewellery gone. Alex gone. Something like that. Perhaps it was a good thing she still didn’t have her ring.

He realised that Lange was looking at him expectantly, while Charly gazed at him in confusion. They were waiting for him to say something. Rath gestured towards his top hat and black suit. ‘Just back from a funeral, didn’t have any time to change,’ he said, and continued on his way. When he reached the door to his office he turned around again. Charly had disappeared with Lange into one of the interview rooms.

What on earth was going on?

The man gazed up at Charly, just as indifferently from under his shako as all the others. ‘No, it’s not him either.’ The man disappeared, and another took his place.

She shook her head.

Lange leafed patiently through the photographs and placed the next image before her. Another unidentified shako-wearer.

‘How many police lieutenants are there in Berlin?’ she asked, having shaken her head for the umpteenth time.

‘We’ll be finished in a moment.’ Lange attempted a smile. ‘At least with Tiergarten and Moabit.’

She had been sitting in this interview room for an hour, poring over images. Not the police mugshots that witnesses were shown, but the personal files of uniform cops.

‘Are you certain it’s a cop you saw?’ Lange asked.

‘I didn’t imagine him. He was there, and he emerged from the street where Kuschke was killed. He must have seen something. If not the murder itself, then the murderer.’

‘But you didn’t realise straightaway. That Kuschke had a knife in his stomach, I mean. He didn’t cry out or behave suspiciously in any way. Why shouldn’t it be the same for this officer?’

‘I only saw Kuschke from behind, and was so busy making sure I wouldn’t be spotted that I noticed everything else far too late.’

‘You’re implying that this officer must have seen everything you missed…’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, and let her shoulders droop. ‘It’s just that… sometimes I get the impression you don’t believe me, and I can’t stand it. At least, not right now.’

‘Well, you’re just going to have to,’ Lange said, his voice sounding strangely cold. ‘ Right now I don’t know that I can believe you.’

‘Pardon me?’

Lange stood and leaned with both hands on the desk. ‘Does this police officer actually exist, or did you invent him to distract from your protégé, and keep me occupied?’

Charly’s blood ran hot through her veins. The kind, harmless-seeming Andreas Lange had grown unexpectedly aggressive, and she pitied the men he grilled in these rooms. The stupid thing was, she was the one now being grilled.

‘I haven’t invented anything. I thought we were working together.’

‘That’s what I thought too. Why didn’t you tell me what happened at the slaughterhouse?’