Фолькер Кучер - Goldstein

‘What the hell was Buddha thinking getting you involved?’

‘I think he has a guilty conscience. He probably wasn’t expecting things to develop the way they have.’

‘You were forbidden from telling me?’

‘Gennat and Lange didn’t mention you explicitly,’ she said, smiling for the first time since Hardenbergstrasse. ‘They said I wasn’t to tell anybody .’

‘So, why now?’

Charly took his hand and pulled him and Kirie past the advertising pillar. At the fourth or fifth house she halted. ‘It was here,’ she said. ‘This is where I ran into a cop. Just before I found Kuschke mortally wounded. He was coming towards me, approaching from Händelstrasse, from around the corner.’

‘So?’

‘This cop ransacked Kuschke’s flat on the same day. His victim’s flat.’

‘A uniform cop killing one of his own? My God, what a horror-story.’

‘Until now we thought Kuschke’s killer only used the uniform as camouflage, and to gain access to his flat. You know how most landladies go rigid at the sight of a uniform.’

Rath nodded.

‘Gereon,’ she said. ‘The man I saw here three days ago was Sebastian Tornow.’

Now everything was quiet, Alex could venture out of her hiding place. She’d never have thought she’d shut herself in a department store again. The business in KaDeWe and Benny’s death were only two weeks ago. Now it was Wertheim, of all places, but she didn’t have any choice. She urgently needed funds to get out of this city. Cash, that she knew was lying dormant in this vast, confusing mass of buildings. It was spread across the whole store, on every floor, in every department. The tills would contain only change by the evening, as the day’s takings were stored in Wertheim’s private cellar vault. Cracking it was impossible. No safebreaker had ever tried, not even the Brothers Sass, though she reckoned the Wertheim vault contained more cash than most banks in Berlin.

Getting to the money in the registers was easier, however, especially if you knew where the keys were kept. The cashiers picked them up every morning before the start of their shift, and she knew exactly where.

Jewellery and watches were a no-go. Kalli was dead, and with any other fence she ran the risk of being handed over to the police. So, cash it was, and change above all. It would be a real grind, but it would be worth it. In every till was thirty marks’ worth of change, and there were many tills in Wertheim, often several to a department. Alex didn’t know how many exactly but it was at least a hundred. This was Europe’s largest department store, after all. A hundred times thirty. It would mean a lot of shrapnel, and a lot of weight, which was why she had brought Vicky along. They would have to negotiate their escape together, above all if they didn’t want to leave the spoils behind.

She had no reservations about stealing from her former employer. This would be her last hurrah before leaving Berlin for good.

They had borrowed a hundred and twenty marks, having found the cash in an earthenware pan that still smelled of herring. So far they had only spent around eighty, on a few new items of clothing for herself and Vicky, hair dye and, of course, the digs they were staying in. They had rented the room to continue their campaign of revenge. She had hatched a new plan when she saw the article. She wasn’t certain, since it was very vague, but Vicky’s call to the station at Wittenbergplatz had settled the matter. At first they had said that Kuschke was on leave, but when she dug a little deeper, saying it was a private matter she needed to discuss with him at his home, the cop on the telephone explained. He was very sorry, he said, to be the one to have to tell her, he didn’t know how close she was to Sergeant Major Kuschke, but unfortunately the man had died in tragic circumstances.

Someone had killed the sadistic arsehole!

At first, she wasn’t sure if she should be happy or not. It felt as if someone had stolen her chance of revenge. She wouldn’t have gone so far as to kill him, just to put the fear of death in him, but now the fucking pig was dead and she didn’t know if the punishment was fitting or not. It wouldn’t bring Benny back to life, but, then, her own revenge wouldn’t have done that either.

Standing in her dark outfit in the dim light of the store’s vast atrium, Vicky looked almost exactly like Benny two weeks before. The night watchmen had finished their rounds. It was time. They wouldn’t need more than an hour if they stuck to Alex’s route, beginning downstairs in haberdashery.

They were the last customers in the Nasse Dreieck but Schorsch, the taciturn landlord, didn’t complain. He simply placed beer after beer in front of them with the patience of a saint, every so often adding a short for good measure. A landlord who knew his patrons didn’t have to talk much, or take orders.

Rath had imagined his evening panning out rather differently. It was a week since he had last sat here with Gräf, putting the world to rights, and he couldn’t think of anything he’d rather be doing after his latest blazing row with Charly.

Why did they always quarrel at the start of the weekend? They would be better off squabbling on Monday or Tuesday, so that they could make up again by Friday, Saturday at the latest. That would be altogether more productive, especially since any reconciliation usually ended with the two of them in bed, which wasn’t the worst way to draw a line under the working week.

This time the cause was Sebastian Tornow. He couldn’t believe what she had told him. Above all he didn’t want to believe it: Tornow was no killer. ‘You saw this cop for maybe three seconds, and his face is branded on your memory?’

‘His smile. It’s his smile that’s branded on my memory. It was the same man.’

‘He’s not the only man ever to have smiled.’

‘Don’t joke, you know it upsets me!’

That was when he knew it wouldn’t just blow over. The more arguments he presented the more stubborn she became in her – flimsy – defence.

‘Tornow hasn’t been in uniform for almost two weeks. It can’t have been him in the Hansaviertel.’

He made a triumphant face, but Charly remained unimpressed.

‘Even so.’ She folded her arms like a defiant child. ‘It was him. Just believe me!’

‘How can you be so pig-headed?’

‘ I’m not the one being pig-headed around here!’

Five minutes later he was sitting in the car with Kirie on his way to Luisenufer. The dog understood their quarrels least of all. She had been settling in for a cosy evening in Spenerstrasse when suddenly they left without her mistress. Even as she trotted dutifully after him, it was plain that she didn’t understand what was going on. People were inexplicable. With dogs it was different. They sized one another up and, as soon as they smelled each other, got down to business. People are far more complicated, thought Rath as he looked at Kirie, curled up at the bar.

He clinked glasses with Gräf who was immersed in his own thoughts. Rath hadn’t mentioned the quarrel. Even though Gräf was a friend, he never talked about Charly, just went drinking with him whenever they fought.

‘What do you think about the new man?’ he asked, offering Gräf a cigarette from his case.

‘Seems OK. Why?’

‘Just asking.’ Rath also took a cigarette and lit it. ‘I thought he might be one for our team when he’s finished training. It could be worth mentioning to Gennat, don’t you think?’

‘He’s a good fit,’ Gräf said. ‘Impressive powers of observation and deduction…’

‘But?’