Cay Rademacher - The Murderer in Ruins

As he was leaving Therese Dubois had told him she didn’t think the evidence of an eight-year-old would be enough to convict Maschke. She had said it with a sad smile. ‘It’s easier to kill 600 people in a single day than to bring a murderer to justice,’ were her words.

‘He’ll end up in court, I promise you,’ Stave had replied. ‘I’ll find the proof I need.’

Now he was wondering if that was a promise he could keep.

Back at the office he had to drag himself down the corridor, ignoring the pain in his leg and the fact that he was hungry. Erna Berg was just putting down the telephone receiver when he walked in.

‘MacDonald?’

‘He called. He’s on his way here.’

‘Anything else I ought to know about?’

‘No. Nobody called. Nobody’s been in.’

‘No more dead bodies.’

Erna Berg gave a shy little smile and said, ‘May I take the afternoon off? I’d like to go and see the gynaecologist.’

Stave gave her a look. Gynaecologist or abortionist? What do I care, he realised and nodded. ‘Off you go. Doesn’t look like there’ll be much more to do here today.’ He hesitated for a minute and then added, ‘Good luck,’ but so quietly that she almost certainly didn’t hear him.

After his secretary had left Stave spent the next half-hour on the phone, ringing round hotels and police stations on the Baltic coast, but he couldn’t track down Maschke. He’s probably with some doctor, he thought to himself.

Should he call up Maschke’s personnel file? Maybe he’d find some clue there as to his change of identity. A forged document? Some contradiction in his supposed CV? But what would he tell the personnel department he wanted the file for? That an old acquaintance had made some allegation against him? But why would he want the whole file? Better to leave it where it was. There was nothing for it. Stave would have to go and speak to the public prosecutor. Ehrlich would find it easier to get hold of the files discreetly.

But he felt better nonetheless. I’m getting somewhere, he thought to himself. I just have to deal with this my way. Maschke’s real name is Herthge. That’s a discovery in itself.

There was a knock on his door. It was MacDonald.

‘I’ve finally managed to track down that story Anna von Veckinhausen told you,’ the lieutenant said. ‘On the day in question she did indeed sell a painting to a British officer outside the Garrison Theatre. I’ve even seen it. Best quality German kitsch. Price: 520 Reichsmarks.’ Then he took a deep breath, and said, ‘By the way, where’s your secretary?’ – trying hard and failing to sound casual about it.

‘She’s gone to see a gynaecologist,’ Stave told him.

MacDonald put his head in his hands and began rubbing his temples. For the first time he struck the chief inspector as weary. ‘It seems I don’t have much luck with women,’ he muttered.

‘Frau Berg looks to me as if she’s head over heels in love,’ Stave said stiffly, not really knowing what to say to make the man feel better.

MacDonald smiled. ‘Not exactly the way a married woman is supposed to be in her situation. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.’ He lapsed into silence.

Stave said nothing, waiting to see what was coming next.

‘Erna is the second woman to have meant something in my life,’ the officer eventually added. ‘The first was a wonderful, clever woman with a real lust for life but unfortunately married to one of my brother officers in the same regiment. The son of a lord. Heir to a stately home, a vast fortune and half a dozen noble titles.’

‘Hardly a fair fight then.’

‘More like a scandal. She might well have chosen me in the end. But then rumours about us began to circulate in the officers’ club.’

‘Those invisible barriers?’ Stave said.

MacDonald gave a thin smile. ‘An aristocratic English lady and a Scottish nobody. It would have been the end of her social life. Mine too. So she went back to her husband. Everything according to the rules.’ The lieutenant waved his hand as if swatting an irritating fly. ‘Good enough reason to volunteer for the front line, don’t you think?’

‘A good reason to stay here,’ Stave told him with a smile. ‘Frau Berg is certainly no aristocrat,’ he said, encouragingly.

Speaking of aristocratic ladies, he thought to himself, time for me to interview a witness or two. Starting with Anna von Veckinhausen.

He took the tram, getting off at the stop near the charred wall. The street that still had street lamps. He was glad it was barely 3 p.m. The food shops had already closed so there were no queues outside their doors. Just a few children who’d had lessons in the morning playing out on the street despite the cold. Lots of children were still at school at that time, and their parents were either at work or out somewhere doing deals on the black market. The streets between the ruins were all but empty.

The ideal time to commit a murder, the chief inspector told himself. Why do I always assume they happened in the late afternoon or evening, he wondered. There’d be almost no likelihood of a witness to an early afternoon killing.

Could that fit in with Anna von Veckinhausen’s story? It was already dusk when she had spotted the figure she mentioned. But by then, Stave reckoned, the old man they had found near Lappenbergs Allee was already dead. The murderer had hidden the body and stripped it. That took time. Maybe the witness had disturbed him, wandering through the rubble as it was getting dark.

The Nissen huts at the crossroads. Empty streets. The barracks, almost in the middle of the city, where Anna von Veckinhausen lived. Or to be more precise, where she had disappeared behind a door the evening he had been with her. He hadn’t been able to see inside. So what now? He couldn’t be sure that she was there. Maybe she was out looking for more antiques somewhere in the rubble? One way or the other, he could hardly ring up in advance to tell her he was coming. There were no telephones in the Nissen huts.

The chief inspector knocked on the door. It sounded as if he was banging an empty oil drum. An old man with no teeth opened the door instantly, as if he’d been lurking behind it waiting for him. His shirt was stained and he smelled of onions. Stave’s stomach rumbled.

The chief inspector gave his name, but didn’t mention any police rank, or show him his ID. He didn’t want to embarrass Anna von Veckinhausen by revealing that he was a policemen. He asked for her by name.

‘Never heard the name before,’ the old man grumbled, giving him a suspicious look.

Had Stave’s witness been leading him on? Maybe she didn’t live here after all? He gave the old man a description of her.

‘Oh, her,’ he replied, stepping back to let Stave in.

He walked in. How long had this old boy been living in the same Nissen hut as Anna von Veckinhuasen without even knowing her name?

The cast-iron stove in the centre of the hut, smaller than a beer barrel, was burning, orange flames glowing through the rips in the ragged sheet hanging inside the door. There was a smell of rust in the stale air. The Nissen hut wasn’t much larger than a weekend allotment shed. Within seconds Stave’s face was glowing from the warmth of the stove, but his back, which faced the outside wall was still cold. If that stove were to go out, everybody in here would freeze, he thought. He wondered briefly if they took turns at night to tend the fire. Like people did back in the Stone Age.

Grey Wehrmacht blankets hanging from wires divided the Nissen hut into four separate areas, centred on the stove in the middle. The old man walked past the stove to the rear left partition and shouted out ‘Visitor’ as if he was on a parade ground.