Rath shook his head.
‘I’ve never known you so reticent.’
‘Never between meals.’ It was meant to be an offhand remark, casual, indifferent, but the sight of the cocaine gave him cravings. He hadn’t taken any for a long time, above all for Charly’s sake, but he had liked it, back then. He stood up. ‘I just need a little sleep and I’ll be fine.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Marlow said. He opened a drawer and pulled out a set of keys, which he handed to Rath. ‘A few men from Berolina are keeping watch on the building. Show them your identification. I’ll let them know you’re coming.’
Hugo Lenz’s house was better guarded than Venuskeller, and more discreetly. Rath locked the car and crossed the street feeling watched, but there was no one to be seen. A man stepped from behind a tree.
‘What are you doing here?’
Rath showed his identification, remembering him as one of those guarding the Sorokin gold two years before. The man returned the papers.
Hugo Lenz had moved into a nice little house in the Prinzenviertel of Karlshorst, close to his beloved racetrack. You had to be more than just a head of a Ringverein to afford a place like this. Working with Marlow had clearly paid for the former safebreaker.
Three men playing cards spun around as he entered the kitchen. One drew his gun. Rath showed his identification and they relaxed.
‘Take as long as you need,’ the man with the weapon said.
Rath’s heart was pounding. It was a good thing Marlow had warned them in advance.
‘What were you about to play?’ another asked. No one paid the late-night visitor any more attention.
‘Grand Hand.’ The man placed his gun on the table. ‘Woe betide any of you shitbags if you’ve looked at my cards!’
Rath exited the kitchen. Why was Marlow guarding the flat so closely if Hugo Lenz wasn’t here? Perhaps they were guarding something else, or just preventing the Nordpiraten from torching the property?
The drawing room was conservatively furnished to the petit bourgeois tastes of a safebreaker who had come into money. Everywhere you looked, the carpets were plush and plump. Hugo Lenz was still trapped in 1890. Missing was the portrait of the Kaiser above the piano, although the obligatory Beethoven bust glowered from its rightful place on the piano. Rath doubted that Hugo Lenz could play, but its shiny black presence would correspond to his ideas of refinement. Likewise the books on the shelves were sorted according to colour. None appeared as though it had been read. Rath looked around, finding nothing valuable or noteworthy in the cupboards. He didn’t know what he was looking for, though that wasn’t always important; often it was precisely when you weren’t looking that you hit upon something of value.
It didn’t seem as if Hugo Lenz spent much time here; no doubt his real living room was the Amor-Diele. Things were different in the bedroom, however, a room of formidable size. The bed wasn’t made and worn trousers were draped across a chair, with old socks and underwear strewn across the floor. Hugo Lenz hadn’t planned on disappearing. A quick glance inside his wardrobe confirmed no empty hangers, and apparently nothing was missing. If Lenz had taken to his heels, for whatever reason, then he hadn’t had time to pack. Rath was starting to rule out the possibility that Red Hugo was a turncoat, gone over to either the police or the Pirates to sound the death knell for Johann Marlow.
He even had a kind of study – or at least a room that was dominated by a large desk. Rath rummaged through the drawers, finding neither an appointments diary nor a notebook, nor, indeed, any papers. Only a dozen sachets of cocaine. He did as Marlow asked and forgot he was a police officer.
The lower drawer also contained a number of forbidden items: pornographic photos. Not for sale, it appeared, but private use. They weren’t staged, like the ones Rath knew from his time in Vice, but snapshots, albeit of rare quality. Some gifted photographer had taken pictures of the Venuskeller sets down the years, and the results were for adults only. Right at the top of the pile Rath recognised Christine, only this time sans bathrobe and cavorting with a muscular gymnast. The picture left him strangely cold.
He leafed through the pile of photos and Venuskeller bills from previous years, at length finding one he had marvelled at two years before. The photographs showed a fake Indian working over a white woman tied to a stake – and not in the way old Karl May would have it.
He looked through the pictures, trying to recognise himself in the audience, but saw only unfamiliar faces. He couldn’t help thinking back to that night, when all this had started. Then, suddenly, he hesitated when he saw the face of the woman at the stake, a face he had long since forgotten, but which now seemed very familiar. Feverishly he searched for a better photograph. The photographer had fixed the lens on his subjects’ body parts, rarely their faces. Nevertheless, Rath managed to find a picture of such portrait-like quality it could have been used for a passport – at least, if you edited out the sexual characteristics. Suddenly he was wide awake. It took a moment for the penny to drop, but now he knew where he had last seen her, and it wasn’t all that long ago.
52
The 50th precinct was on Zingster Strasse, a stone’s throw from the Ringbahnhof and the new U-Bahn station at Gesundbrunnen. First Sergeant Rometsch hadn’t exaggerated. The station was mobbed. He received the visitors from Alex at the gate and led them into his office.
‘I place my office at your disposal, Detective.’ The sergeant stood up straight, as solemn as an army soldier about to lay down his life for the Fatherland. Gräf managed not to laugh.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘How many witnesses is it?’
‘Around a dozen.’
‘And they’re all here?’
‘Yes, Sir. I didn’t let anyone go before giving a statement.’
‘What about those who made their reports by telephone?’
‘I’ve summoned them too. They should be here by now.’
Gräf was no longer surprised by the crush in the corridor. ‘Send the most important witnesses in first.’
Rometsch saluted and disappeared.
While Böhm had another word with the unfortunate Leo Fleming at Alex, Gräf had been dispatched to the 50th precinct. ‘You wanted to pay that SA type a visit,’ Böhm had said. ‘Well, you can take care of this at the same time.’
Gräf made himself comfortable behind a desk that was so tidy it must belong to First Sergeant Rometsch himself. Christel Temme stood with her pad, unsure where to sit. Gräf pointed to a second desk in the office, which was far less tidy. She sat down, pushing a file, a half-eaten apple and some greaseproof paper to one side and, with a disgusted expression, placed her notepad on the newly cleared surface.
After a minute Rometsch sent in the first witness, a small man with a pointed nose. The man held a hat in his hands and was clearly very proud at being called first. He let fly before Gräf could ask him anything.
‘It wasn’t a fight with Communists, I can tell you that much. You’re barking up the wrong tree.’
The witness’s brazen manner, the way he sat complacently, straddle-legged on the chair, drove Gräf up the wall. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘And how do you know? Did you see the killer?’
‘No.’
‘Then perhaps it was you?’
The man gave a visible start. ‘For God’s sake, of course not!’
‘Then just tell me what you actually saw before you draw any hasty conclusions. From the beginning.’
‘It wasn’t a Communist the Nazis picked a fight with that night. It was a Jew.’