Until that point, no one who had seen the likeness had been able to put a name to the face, neither Böhm nor Warrants. But someone at Alex must have recognised Goldstein, and this same person hadn’t told Böhm, but Stefan Fink, a journalist who craved sensation as a morphine addict craves his next phial.
So, where was the leak? The police sketch had gone to Warrants and police stations citywide on Saturday evening. That meant someone must have passed it to Fink during the night.
Gereon Rath and his men were among the few who knew who Goldstein was, and Rath vouched for them all, even if he was a little unsure of Czerwinski. Weiss dismissed them with clearly defined tasks: Böhm was to step up investigations in the Kubicki case, while Rath was to continue searching for the missing gangster with the help of J Division, for whom the search was now priority number one. They couldn’t keep the fact that there was a known American gangster in the city under wraps any longer.
Rath’s men were already in position. Henning and Czerwinski had been in the Excelsior since eight o’clock continuing their interviews with hotel staff. Plisch and Plum were to question all employees who had been on duty in the relevant section of the hotel. If Goldstein had used the staff staircase, then perhaps someone had seen something.
It should have been Gräf conducting the interviews, but Böhm had pinched him again. He was in Interview Room B working his way through the list of witnesses. The number of people who claimed to have seen something, but really just wanted attention, had risen further since the article in Tag. More often than not it was anti-Semites taking advantage of the opportunity to remind police of their failure; there was an American gangster roaming the streets, a Jewish killer who clearly had it in for the SA!
Rath was especially tickled by the prospect of brownshirts up and down the city huddled indoors in fear of venturing out. If that were true, Goldstein’s escape had actually made the streets safer, but Rath didn’t envy Gräf the task of dealing with such idiots, knowing he lacked the patience for it himself.
By now it was lunchtime and he was at his desk. He had telephoned Czerwinski and spoken with Warrants but, so far, DCI Kilian had no leads. The paper’s unauthorised printing of the sketch had brought a number of innocent people to the department’s attention. None bore any resemblance to Abraham Goldstein. The one thing they had in common was that they were Jews, denounced by resentful neighbours or colleagues.
Needing fresh air, Rath attached Kirie to her lead. After stopping at Aschinger for a few Bouletten, he made for the telephone booths at the train station. Luckily, one was free. While the dog busied herself with the meatballs, her master pressed a ten-pfennig piece into the slot.
‘Herr Weinert isn’t in the office,’ said the voice on the line. ‘Didn’t you know? He’s with Dr Eckener.’
‘In the Zeppelin?’
‘That’s right. Didn’t he tell you? He’s covering the Iceland flight.’
Rath hung up. Berthold Weinert might have given him something on Fink’s informer, but he was hovering somewhere above the Arctic Ocean. He took Kirie’s lead and stepped back into the fresh air, heading for Monbijou Park to think things through.
When he returned to the office an hour later he had to use his key. Erika Voss had gone for lunch. He sat at his desk, with Kirie underneath.
He thought back to Lanke’s office that morning, before all the fuss about Goldstein had started. Rath could tell by the superintendent’s face that he knew exactly who Marion Bosetzky was. Since the division chief, a pencil-pusher par excellence, couldn’t have recruited the nude dancer himself, another suspicion presented itself. Rath decided to look into it before asking Gennat’s permission to access the files. The bureaucracy involved there, he’d be drawing his pension by the time it was approved. He couldn’t wait that long.
He had left the door to the outer office open and, while he was still thinking, there was a timid knock. Who the hell could that be? Another knock.
‘Enter!’
A short time later, there was a third knock. Whoever it was, they were as stubborn as they were deaf. He stood up and went to the outer office. Kirie pitter-pattered after as he threw the door open. ‘What in God’s name do you want?’ he asked, staring at the figure outside.
An old man, dressed in black, with a grey beard and sidelocks; an orthodox Jew who looked as if he had just arrived in Berlin from his shtetl in Galicia.
‘Detective Gräf, please,’ the man said, looking now at Rath, now at the dog.
‘I’m sorry, he isn’t here.’ Rath hated giving answers that were Erika Voss’s responsibility. ‘If you’re a witness, Interview Room B is down the corridor, then the second or third door on the right. There’ll be a sign outside.’
‘I already was, the room is closed. I ask but am sent here.’
‘Detective Gräf must be at lunch.’ Rath gave a pointed look at his watch. ‘If you come back in an h…’
‘Please, I do not have much time. I need to make statement.’
‘Then please take a seat.’ Rath pointed down the corridor. ‘There are benches outside.’
‘Please, I do not have much time.’
Rath bade the man enter, Gräf’s witness or no. At least he wasn’t an anti-Semite here to insult the police. ‘Please sit down, and I’ll take your statement,’ he said.
There was no stenographer, but that wouldn’t matter. He showed the old man to a chair and sat behind Erika Voss’s desk, opened his notebook and pulled out a pencil.
‘So, let’s get started,’ he said. ‘Your name, please.’
‘Please, I just want to make statement.’
‘I understand that, but I still need your name.’
‘I can’t give you name, I just want to make statement.’
‘To make a statement we need your name and address.’
‘Please, I just want to make statement.’
‘Which is why I need your name.’ Rath rolled his eyes. ‘Tell me what you saw, and we’ll take care of the formalities later.’
‘Not tell. I met man you are searching for.’
There was a pile of newspapers in Erika Voss’s filing tray. Rath took one and passed it across. ‘You mean this man?’
The old man nodded, and Rath sat forward.
‘Where and when did you see him?’
The old man pointed at the photograph. ‘Didn’t have knife. Had pistol.’
Rath cleared his throat. ‘Can we agree on something? I ask the questions and you answer them.’ The man nodded. ‘So: where and when did you meet him?’
‘Helped me, this man.’
‘Where and when?’ Rath felt like a broken record.
‘Under the ground. They were bad men.’
‘You mean the underground?’
The man nodded. ‘Men insulted and cursed me.’
Rath thought of the witness statements made by several passengers at Gesundbrunnen. He drew a swastika in his notebook. ‘These men?’
Again the man nodded. ‘I wanted go. Didn’t want no trouble. Better dog in peace than man at war.’
‘But they didn’t leave you in peace?’
‘They chase me, into woods.’
‘Four men, is that right?’
The old man nodded.
‘One more time for the record: four men in SA uniform abused you at Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn station; you tried to avoid a confrontation, but the men followed you to Volkspark Humboldthain…’