Gennat looked at him as if trying to establish the real reasons for Rath’s interest. Buddha might appear a little sleepy, but his eyes were so alert and his gaze so intense that Rath couldn’t help but blink. ‘Any time,’ he said. ‘As long as you can make it work with your other commitments.’
That didn’t sound as if Gennat was about to ask Weiss for his men back. Rath hid his disappointment and nodded.
A short time later, he sat with his old colleagues in the small meeting room, with everything just as before, except that Gräf was missing. Henning and Czerwinski were catching up on sleep after finishing the nightshift. Rath half listened as Assistant Detective Lange spoke blandly about the dead boy from KaDeWe, whom they had now identified, and Assistant Detective Mertens recapped yesterday’s shooting in the east. The investigation was being headed by Section 1A, with Homicide operating in a purely ancillary capacity.
For a CID detective, there was nothing worse than acting as dogsbody to the political police. Even so, Mertens couldn’t hide his satisfaction that 1A had been unable to trace the gunman. Reading between the lines, it was clear he considered it wishful thinking not only that the shot had been intentionally fired, but that it had come from a Communist source.
Next up was Böhm, who received Rath’s undivided attention. Evidently he still hadn’t heard anything about Red Hugo’s disappearance, mentioning only that Hugo Lenz, who was on his list of interviewees, was to be found neither at home nor at his regular haunt. Apparently that wasn’t Mulackritze, as Rath had always assumed, but Amor-Diele in Friedrichshain, where he had been only last night. To think he could have run into one of Böhm’s men!
Whether he was a victim of the Nordpiraten or not, Böhm’s dead fence, whose name was Eberhard Kallweit, had been found in his shop yesterday, and probably been there for several days. The till was empty, but the perpetrators had left a surprising number of valuable items, high-quality wristwatches among them. That was one of the reasons Böhm thought the robbery homicide was staged, especially since the victim had been brutally tortured before death. So brutally, in fact, that it was all too much for one of his tormentors. Next to the dead man, Forensics had found a pool of vomit that definitely hadn’t issued from Kallweit, a fact confirmed in Dr Schwartz’s post autopsy report. Aside from the vomit the pathologist had found numerous breaks and lacerations, as well as the source of the internal bleeding that was responsible for the victim’s death.
Böhm then reported on the background to the current gangland feud. It wasn’t open warfare, he said, and there still hadn’t been any fatalities, or, at least, no obvious executions, but, in the past two weeks clashes between the Nordpiraten and members of Berolina had grown more frequent.
‘We believe it to be connected to the release of Rudolf Höller and Hermann Lapke, both of whom have just served two years in Tegel for attempted bank robbery. Clearly they hope to restore the Nordpiraten to their former glory.’
The incidents were stacking up. Berolina drug-dealers had been beaten in broad daylight; bars that stood under the official protection of the Ringverein had been destroyed, their guests insulted. The attacks had culminated with the unfortunate drug-dealer who landed spine first on a set of basement steps. The torching of a new Pirate betting office on Greifswalder Strasse was seen as Berolina’s response, even if neither police nor the Pirates could prove it. Had the fence been killed in retaliation?
‘If Kallweit should prove to be the first victim in a gangland war,’ Böhm said, ‘things will soon escalate.’
‘Lock ‘em up,’ someone cried. ‘That’s how you avoid your escalation right there.’ The heckler received a murmur of approval. ‘That’s right,’ said another. ‘We know almost all the members of these Ringvereine. Why can’t we just put them all behind bars?’
‘Why not do the same with the Communists,’ a third cried. ‘Wouldn’t be able to gun our men down from inside.’
‘Quiet, gentlemen!’ Gennat, who had been silent until now, stood and made a conciliatory gesture with his hands. ‘Quiet, please!’ The superintendent could be astonishingly loud.
The murmuring subsided.
‘You are well aware why we can’t do that. Locking people up just because we think they might commit a crime. In Prussia only those found guilty and convicted can be put in jail. There is no preventative custody, and rightly so. Otherwise the way is paved for misuse and despotism. Gentlemen, we live in a constitutional state…’ He paused, seeming to look every single officer in the eye. ‘…and you are a part of its executive power, no more, but equally – and I stress this – no less.’
He had the room back under control. ‘If it is as Böhm here suspects and we are dealing with the first casualty of a gangland war, then we will do everything in our power to prevent further loss of life. Using the means afforded to us by our constitutional state.’
‘As far as I’m concerned, a single casualty isn’t enough,’ the officer next to Rath hissed. He didn’t dare say it out loud; that much at least Gennat’s sermon had achieved. ‘Let the bastards take care of each other.’
There was a knock on the door and Assistant Detective Grabowski poked his head inside.
‘Superintendent,’ he said. ‘Please excuse the interruption, but we’ve found a corpse, in Humboldthain.’
35
The murder wagon pulled up on Brunnenstrasse, outside the Himmelfahrtkirche, whose pointed spire towered in the sky, drawing a crowd of rubberneckers. Wilhelm Böhm shouted at the first cop he saw to clear the path in front of the church. ‘Kindly ask people to use the other side of the road!’
‘But… the corpse is behind the church…’
An angry glance was enough. The officer did as bidden, rounding up a few other cops and cordoning off the path. Böhm emitted a satisfied growl and waved Christel Temme, the stenographer, over. Together they proceeded around the back of the church. ED, the police identification service, was already in action, looking like a group of grown men hunting for Easter eggs, the biggest of which was apparently lying hidden behind a bush, with two ED officers and a cop standing by.
The cop gave a smart salute. ‘First Sergeant Rometsch, 50th precinct, at your service, Sir.’
Böhm nodded and looked at the shrubs that had been planted in front of the chancel to denote the beginning of the park. Behind a thick gorse bush lay the dead man, wearing a uniform with a swastika brassard. Another victim of what too many people confused with politics.
‘Who found the corpse?’ he asked, and Christel Temme, who had already pulled out her notepad, started scribbling. The stenographer wrote down absolutely everything, even when someone asked the time.
The cop shrugged his heavy shoulders. ‘Someone called in anonymously.’
‘What precinct are you again?’
‘I beg to report, Sir: the 50th precinct, Detective Chief Inspector, Sir.’
Böhm looked at the corpse. ‘So. What do you think?’
Sergeant Rometsch was visibly thrown by the question. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I would say the Red Front’s a possibility.’
Böhm nodded. ‘Even though it’s banned.’
‘Yes, Sir, even though it’s banned. We know that hasn’t stopped them.’
‘Cut out the constant standing to attention. You’re not on the parade ground here.’
‘Yes, Sir!’ First Sergeant Rometsch from the 50th precinct stood with his back even straighter.
Böhm shook his head.