Assistant Detective Grabowski came around the corner, carrying the camera from the murder wagon. He unfolded the tripod. ‘Tricky perspective,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t the killer have left him by the church?’
Only now did Böhm see the pool of blood by the church wall, in the dark corner where the nave met the transept. The assistant detective was observant, he thought, and gave a grunt of appreciation. It didn’t pay to praise these young men too much, or they took on airs and graces. He gestured towards the dead man’s right foot. The shoe was split open by a gunshot, and out of the bullet hole swelled an unseemly, red-brown mass. The blood had spread to his gaiters. ‘Don’t forget to take a few close-ups of the foot.’
Grabowski got down to work.
‘Ah, Böhm, there you are!’ Kronberg approached, waving identification with a swastika on the front. An SA membership card, whose passport photo displayed the face of the deceased. ‘The man’s name was Gerhard Kubicki.’
‘And he was a brownshirt?’
The Forensics chief nodded. ‘To be exact: an SA-Rottenführer.’
‘I can never get my head around these Nazi ranks – does that make him a big fish?’
‘Relatively.’
‘So, a mid-ranking Nazi.’ Böhm gestured towards the pool of blood in the shadow of the church. ‘Seems to have been dragged here, wouldn’t you say?’
Kronberg nodded. ‘Possibly to hide the body, but that’s not the only stretch the man covered. Come with me!’
Böhm followed Kronberg to a footprint that a forensics technician was filling in with freshly mixed plaster.
‘Footprints,’ Kronberg said superfluously, ‘one of which we have matched to the victim. He dragged his leg behind him.’
‘No wonder, with an injury like that.’
‘It looks like he made it to the church by himself. We found a trail which we were able to trace back to a meadow in the park.’ Kronberg pulled a tin from his overalls and opened it. ‘And this…’ he said, ‘is what we discovered there.’
In the police evidence tin was a bullet smeared with blood and dirt.
Böhm gave a nod of acknowledgement. ‘Before you give it to Ballistics, you should take it to Pathology and have the blood group checked. We have to be sure it’s from the murder weapon.’
Kronberg shook his head. ‘The murder weapon wasn’t a pistol,’ he said, enjoying keeping Homicide on tenterhooks. He paused again, for slightly longer this time, and Böhm almost lost patience. He must have shot him an angry glance; Kronberg at any rate gave an apologetic shrug. ‘I don’t want to anticipate your pathologist, but if I’ve assessed his injuries correctly, we’re looking for a knife or a dagger. A stabbing weapon at least.’
‘Did you find one?’
‘We’re still looking. Most likely the perpetrator took it with them. Or threw it somewhere in the Panke or wherever else. But…’ Again he made his clever-clever face.
Böhm rolled his eyes. ‘What? Get to the point!’
‘I can tell you what kind of stabbing weapon it was,’ Kronberg said, looking triumphant. ‘In all probability it was a trench dagger from the War.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’
They returned to the bushes where the corpse lay. Böhm took a closer look at the blood-soaked shirtfront. It did indeed display stab and slash wounds. Kronberg gestured towards the dead man’s belt, and an empty knife sheath dangling from it. ‘More or less every front soldier had one,’ he said. ‘Normally a trench dagger goes inside. Lots of SA men still carry their weapons from the War.’
‘This man’s too young to have served.’
‘Perhaps he inherited it from his father. At any rate this sheath goes with a trench dagger, I’m one hundred percent positive.’
‘Which means…’
‘In all probability, the man was stabbed to death with his own weapon.’
‘So, I’d say it was a fight that spiralled out of control,’ Grabowski said. He was just about to photograph the man’s injured foot. ‘Did you see?’ He pointed towards the deceased’s right hand, which was clasping a knuckleduster.
Böhm gave another grunt of appreciation.
‘But if I’ve understood correctly,’ he said, ‘the fight didn’t take place here.’
Kronberg nodded and led the DCI to the meadow where they had found the bullet. Here, too, forensics officers were looking everywhere for clues. Early walkers strolling through the park watched them curiously, but at least stayed on the path.
‘We should cordon this area off too,’ Böhm said. Moments later two uniformed officers were forcing passersby to make a detour.
Most of the clues were to be found in the middle of a clearing surrounded by bushes and trees. The gravel path only passed directly by the meadow on one side.
‘A struggle seems to have taken place here.’ Kronberg pointed towards the spot in question. ‘There are a number of footprints and a few people also seem to have fallen. We found blood in the grass. A trail of blood leading from here to the church.’
‘Sir!’
Kronberg looked around. One of his men had found something. Böhm and Kronberg went over to see what.
A cigarette butt, in a pair of tweezers, still damp from the morning dew. CAMEL the stub said in big letters.
‘Who smokes those?’ Böhm asked.
‘Not too many people, I hope. I wouldn’t have called you over if it was a Juno.’
They went back to the church where Böhm checked his watch. Barely a minute was needed to cover the distance. With a shot-up foot, perhaps a little longer.
In the meantime Dr Schwartz, the pathologist, appeared.
‘Finished taking photographs?’ Böhm asked Grabowski, who had already folded away the tripod.
‘Making way for the doctor.’
‘Good, then I have something else for you. Could you check which tobacconists in Berlin sell the brand… Camel, was it?’
‘It’s pronounced Cämmel,’ Grabowski said. ‘It’s American.’
‘Spare me the linguistics lecture and get down to work. Put the camera back in the car and take the next train to Alex. I don’t need you here for the time being.’
Grabowski swallowed whatever he was about to say and turned back to the camera. Böhm left him and went over to Dr Schwartz, for whom they had already pulled the corpse a little out from the bushes.
‘They cut him like a wild sow,’ Schwartz said, displaying his customary empathy. ‘Must have damaged a few internal organs in the process.’
‘How long has he been dead?’
Schwartz shrugged.
‘I’m not going to hold you to it.’
‘Less than ten hours, I would say.’ The doctor looked at the corpse unwaveringly, as if trying to bring it back to life. ‘Though that isn’t to say he didn’t sustain his injuries much earlier. It probably took him a while to bleed to death. Judging by the amount of blood he lost, his heart must have kept beating for some time.’
‘And the shot to the foot?’
‘Harmless.’ Schwartz sounded as if he were talking about a sniffle. ‘Would hurt a bit, and there’s a good chance you’d walk with a limp for the rest of your life, but otherwise… the man could have hobbled to the nearest hospital and got treatment. However…’
‘What do you mean, however?’
‘I don’t know that they’d have been happy to take him in.’
‘What are you saying?’
Schwartz gestured towards the swastika. ‘The nearest hospital,’ he said, ‘is the Jewish Hospital.’
Böhm nodded. Just then it started to rain. The doctor gave the undertakers, who were waiting impatiently, a wave, and the mortal remains of Gerhard Kubicki disappeared inside a zinc coffin.
36