Фолькер Кучер - Goldstein

The smell of coffee hung in the flat. She led him into a sun-filled room with the skylight tilted open and noise entering from the street. A percolator in a dark-red cosy stood on a small table with two chairs, alongside a cup of steaming black coffee. A stubbed-out cigarette lay in the ashtray. Christine Möller’s breakfast habits mirrored his own.

‘Coffee?’

‘Please.’

She poured.

‘Why don’t you take off your hat and coat.’

Rath heard the undertone in her voice and, despite everything, could do nothing to prevent his sudden erection. This time Frau Lennartz’s flabby upper arms wouldn’t save him. He took off his hat and coat and joined her at the table, took a sip of coffee and tried to avert his gaze from her bosom, which was plain to see under the midnight-blue silk.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘Warm in here, don’t you think?’ Christine blew away a strand of blonde hair and leaned forward so that her robe opened to reveal a breast.

It was time to get down to brass tacks. He replaced the coffee cup on the saucer with a clatter. ‘You don’t just work for Johann Marlow,’ he said. ‘You work for my colleagues in Vice too.’

She remained astonishingly composed. ‘Don’t you work for Marlow and the police yourself?’

‘We’re talking about you here, not me.’

She shrugged. ‘If you pay well, I’ll work for you too.’

The subtext was clear enough. He kept looking at her as he tapped a cigarette out of the carton and lit it. ‘Not necessary, thank you.’

‘A shame.’ She snatched together the ends of her dressing gown. ‘Perhaps you should tell me who you’re representing here. Dr M. or Dr Weiss?’

‘I’m here for me.’

The more she avoided his questions, the more convinced he was that she had something to hide. The photos he had found in Lanke’s drawer were no coincidence.

‘But that doesn’t mean something useful won’t come out of this meeting for my employers,’ he continued. ‘It depends entirely whether you tell the truth or not.’

‘You’re here to threaten me.’

‘I’m here to warn you.’

‘Perhaps it’s me who should be warning you . What do you think Dr M.’s going to do when he hears you’ve been trying to blackmail me.’

‘What do you think he’s going to do when he hears it was you who lured Hugo Lenz into a fatal trap?’

‘What are you talking about?’

Her horror, even if she attempted to hide it with studied self-assurance, was genuine. Rath had only been expressing a hunch, but her reaction told him he was getting close to the truth.

‘You provided Hugo Lenz with his police contacts,’ he said. ‘Lenz envied Marlow, and hoped to settle Berolina’s issues with the Nordpiraten by double-crossing them with the police.’ Rath drew on his cigarette. ‘It was you who fanned the flames. Perhaps it was you who put the idea in his head.’

‘I really have no idea what you’re talking about.’

Rath felt confirmed in his hunch. Christine Möller had stopped trying to seduce him. She folded her arms to keep her dressing gown closed. He could no longer even see her neck.

‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. Herr Marlow, on the other hand, doesn’t, and I think it’s best if you keep it that way.’ Rath paused to let his words take effect, and stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Of course, it’s entirely up to you. You tell me what happened and it stays between us, I give you my word. Dig your heels in, or if I find out you’ve been lying, and I’ll leave it to Marlow to extract the truth.’

‘You lousy bastard.’

‘It’s your choice. Tell me everything you know, here and now. Or tell Marlow, while you’re tied up in a damp cellar.’

He didn’t need to make himself any clearer. Christine Möller understood.

‘I didn’t know they would kill him. I thought they were just going to arrest him.’

Then she told him everything.

In person, Gerald Thiemann looked even more like Harold Lloyd than on the sketch. He seemed nervous.

‘Thank you for getting in touch,’ Gennat said.

Thiemann nodded. ‘A friend told me that my picture was in the papers.’

Seated on the upholstered green living-room suite in Gennat’s office, Buddha was at pains to make him feel at home. Trudchen Steiner entered with freshly brewed coffee to join the selection of cakes already on the table. Gennat served them out personally after she poured. First, the witness. Gerald Thiemann selected a small slice of nutcake, clearly impressed by the range on offer. Charly passed, a decision Gennat met with a look that was somewhere between pitying and sympathetic, while Lange took an enormous slice of Herrentorte that he stared at reverently. For himself, Buddha chose a slice of gooseberry tart. The tray was still more than half full.

Böhm was the only one absent. Gennat had sent him back out to the Hansaviertel, where two assistant detectives were canvassing houses for possible witnesses to the Kuschke murder. Charly knew it was better that Böhm wasn’t present for awkward interviews such as this. He could be intimidating, even when he didn’t mean to be, and this was no time to be intimidating witnesses. It was one of the reasons they weren’t sitting in an interview room, but over coffee and cake in Gennat’s living room office. Ignoring the fact that the upholstery was not only worn but like something out of Kaiser Wilhelm’s era, you could probably say that Gennat’s was the cosiest office in the whole of police headquarters. Rumour had it that even the police commissioner’s official residence on the first floor – with its panoramic view of Alexanderplatz – wasn’t as comfortably furnished.

All that could be heard was the clatter of cake forks and coffee cups, until Gennat posed his first question. ‘What did you see at KaDeWe on the night in question?’

Thiemann set his cup back on his saucer. ‘There was this boy,’ he said, ‘and this girl. At first I thought she was a boy too, until I heard her voice.’

‘Please, start from the beginning. You were walking down Passauer Strasse…’

‘That’s right.’

‘What direction were you coming from, and where were you heading?’ Lange asked hastily. Charly registered Gennat’s angry glance, which caused Lange to go red and fall silent.

‘I wanted… I… I was on my way to…’ Thiemann looked at Gennat uncertainly. ‘Does this really have to be on the record?’

Gennat shook his head. ‘For us, the only important thing is that you were there. Not why you were there. Even so, it would help if you could provide a detailed outline of what you saw.’

Thiemann looked relieved. ‘So, I was coming down Passauer in the direction of Tauentzienstrasse, on the other side from KaDeWe, when I was surprised to see lights on in the department store. Not just the neon lights. I mean inside, on every floor.’ He took another sip of coffee. ‘I was looking over at KaDeWe when I saw this boy.’ In danger of disappearing into his chair, he sat up and gripped the armrests. ‘I thought he was about to jump, the way he climbed over the railings, but then this policeman came, and I thought it’ll be OK, there’s someone looking after him.’

‘Did you see what happened next?’ Gennat asked.

‘Yes. I was rooted to the spot.’

‘Were there any other people on the street?’

‘Not where I was. It was just me and this girl. She stood on the other side of the road looking up. She had trousers on. That she had just come out of KaDeWe, that she was a thief just like her friend up there… well, I didn’t work that out until later.’

‘What happened next?’

‘I don’t know how long it all lasted, but the co… the police officer just stood there making no attempt whatsoever to save the boy. At first I thought, he doesn’t want to rush things, he’s trying to talk him down, that sort of thing. Then I saw him tread on the boy’s finger with his boot, almost as if he were treading out a cigarette with his heel.’