Jonathan Rabb - Rosa

Groener was back behind his desk. “Long enough.” He was still the sour little man even in the company of a fellow conspirator.

Hoffner searched his pockets for a cigarette. “Who’s he protecting?” Groener needed more of an explanation. “The third prisoner,” said Hoffner. “At the Eden.” Hoffner found a stray and lit up. “The night Liebknecht and Luxemburg were killed.”

Groener was still trying to follow. He said hesitantly, “I don’t know. He never told me about that.”

Jogiches had been careful here: Groener was only a source, not a confidant. The interview continued: “The Ascomycete 4, the directors of Ganz-Neurath, Wouters’s replacement-you managed to track all that down by yourself, did you, Groener?” Groener nodded through each item on the list. “And you know where they’re keeping Luxemburg?” This time, Groener remained silent. “Well, we can’t have everything, can we?” Hoffner continued. “Still, more to you than meets the eye, isn’t there?” Hoffner tapped out his cigarette. “So, why was he having you get in touch with Kvatsch?”

“Who?”

“Kvatsch,” Hoffner repeated more clearly. “The reporter from the BZ. Why all the clandestine meetings?”

It wasn’t the pronunciation that had confused Groener. He continued to stare across the desk before slowly shaking his head. “I know no Kvatsch.”

Hoffner knew better. “You’ve been having lunch with him twice a week for the past-” Hoffner stopped; his mind began to sift through a thousand images. Idiot, he suddenly thought. Of course.

Groener had never met Kvatsch. There had been no meetings, no list to compile.

Little Franz had been the leak all along.

Hoffner’s mind continued to race: the boy’s appearance at the Senefelderplatz site; all the wires back and forth to van Acker; the spate of articles detailing the case while he and Fichte had been freezing their asses off outside the Ochsenhof -Franz had had time to sort through the files without fear of being spotted; the tip-off to Tamshik to be in the pit rooms; and most recently the trumped-up note from K. At least there Franz had shown a little reluctance. Evidently Tamshik and Braun were paying him more than a few pfennigs for his services.

Hoffner stood and, ignoring Groener, headed for the door. The boy would be upstairs asleep, and Hoffner had questions that needed answering.

He raced down the corridor and nearly collided with one of the interchangeable sergeants from the duty desk. Hoffner tried to sidestep the man, but the sergeant held his ground.

“Herr Chief Inspector,” said the young man. Again Hoffner tried to get around him, and again the man held his ground: “I’ve been trying to find you for the last fifteen minutes. I tried your office-”

“Yes,” Hoffner cut in angrily. “What is it that can’t wait, Herr Sergeant?”

The man needed a moment to recover. “A body’s been found, Herr Chief Inspector. A woman. With the markings.”

“What markings?”

“From the Wouters case.”

“The what?” Hoffner said in complete disbelief.

“The markings. On the back.”

Hoffner tried to clear his head. “You’re sure?” The man nodded. “Where?”

“Kremmener Strasse.”

Kremmener. . An image of Lina flashed into Hoffner’s head and he began to run.

The cab was still moving as Hoffner opened the door and jumped out. They had cordoned off the street, most of which was eerily quiet. He moved past the barricade and toward a pocket of bright white light that was pouring down from a series of high-wattage arc lamps: it made the milling bodies in the distance look almost ethereal. Hoffner had known which building it would be, the uneven steps, the barren flower boxes. Number 5. The screws in his stomach tightened at the confirmation.

A group of Schutzis was keeping the small crowd at bay. Everyone had seen enough of Hoffner’s picture in the newspapers to let him through without so much as a glance at his badge. He stepped through the line and saw the lone sergeant who was standing by a single sheet-covered body that lay at the bottom of the stoop.

Hoffner felt a numbing in his head as he drew closer. He tried to brace himself for what he knew lay beneath, until he saw the shape. The body was too large, the contours wrong. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t Lina. Hoffner slowed, and the desperate fear he had been carrying with him since the Alex melted away. They had sent him a message: We know where she is. We know how to find her. Consider yourself lucky this time. Hoffner knelt down and pulled back the sheet. For several seconds his mind went blank as he stared at the face. Martha’s lifeless eyes gazed up at him and Hoffner vomited.

In the summer of 1903, married less than a year and recently promoted to detective sergeant, Hoffner had taken Martha out to Wannsee for a day at the beach. He had put a little extra money in his pocket and they had rented two chairs and an umbrella and a cabana-tent of their own. She had packed sandwiches and a bottle of Sekt to celebrate, and after lunch they had changed into swimming clothes and waded out to where the water was coolest. Side by side and staring out across the endless lake, he had finally agreed to have a family. Martha had reached down into the water and pulled up a pebble as a keepsake. Hoffner had found it in a box by their bed the day he had buried her.

The following morning he had been relieved of duty. Prager had talked about the strain of it all, that a man couldn’t be expected to run a case in his position-any case-but the real impetus for Hoffner’s ouster was far more transparent: Prager had been told to clear him out. The order had come from beyond the walls of the Alex. There was nothing either of them could do.

Tonight, Hoffner’s refuge was a grotty little bar deep inside the maze that was Prenzlauer Berg, sawdust strewn across its floor for whatever the shadows might be failing to hide. A woman hovered shamelessly by the bartender, the dim light working in her favor: there might just be a warm bed for her tonight. The rest of the clientele showed a little more decorum: chins drooped to chests, aimless fingers clasped at half-filled glasses. Only the sudden shaking of a head and the quick tossing-back of a drink gave any indication that the place was anything more than a repository for propped-up corpses. Hoffner checked the bottle in front of him and saw it was whiskey he had been pouring back tonight.

Time had taken an odd turn in the past few days: it had slipped by with a steady indifference even as it had remained fixed on that moment in Kremmener Strasse. For the first time, Berlin was pushing forward without him: two more bodies had been found in Charlottenburg; the panic had returned. More than that, rekindled accusations of Kripo incompetence now hung over the city like so many added layers of soiled snow. There was even talk of corruption.

The papers, of course, were rewriting the past. Wouters was no longer the demented madman but the scapegoat for an investigation that had gone terribly wrong: what was the Kripo hiding? The fact that the little Belgian had been shot while wheeling around his final victim had somehow been lost to a collective bout of amnesia. It was even beginning to take its toll on the fledgling government: who was protecting Berlin?

Hoffner read through the articles-coherent moments between bottles-and let everything drift past him. Poor Fichte looked so hapless on all those front pages, no one to buy him a drink this time round.

Hoffner felt a shadow as a figure appeared at the end of his table.

“You’ve enough for two?” said a voice.