‘What makes you think he could have died an unnatural death? My father-in-law was terminally ill.’
‘It’s just surprising that he should die at precisely the moment your nephew, Abraham Goldstein, was in his room.’
‘Stop talking nonsense! My nephew would have visited us long ago if he were in Berlin.’
Rath showed them the newspaper article. The Flegenheimers skimmed it and looked incensed.
Lea Flegenheimer shook her head. ‘It can’t be.’
‘I thought you had never met him.’
‘I know… knew my brother. I just…’ she pounded the newspaper with her fists. ‘I just can’t believe that’s his son.’
‘But it is, Frau Flegenheimer,’ Rath said. ‘And I have met your son. We’ll find out whether or not he’s responsible for the death of this SA officer, but it is beyond question that Abraham Goldstein is under police surveillance in the USA as a multiple homicide suspect.’
‘What does all this have to do with my father-in-law’s corpse?’
‘It’s purely a matter of routine,’ Rath said. ‘This is the procedure the public prosecutor is obliged to follow should there be anything unusual about the circumstances of death. If I’m not mistaken, you’ve already spoken with your brother-in-law about the legal background.’
With nothing to be gained, Rath prepared to beat an orderly retreat. This visit had been just as pointless as the first. The Goldstein sisters clearly had no idea where their nephew was; they didn’t even know who he was.
He stood up. Tornow, who until now hadn’t uttered a single word save for ‘Good morning’, did likewise. Rath handed Lea Flegenheimer his card. ‘If your nephew should get in touch, please let me know.’
The woman’s mind seemed to be elsewhere.
‘I hope you’ll see to it that my father-in-law can be buried soon,’ Ariel Flegenheimer said. ‘The Aninut mustn’t be extended any longer than is necessary.’
‘The what?’
‘The period of mourning between death and burial.’
‘Ultimately, it’s the public prosecutor who decides,’ Rath said, ‘but I promise to contact you as soon as I know more.’
He took his hat and, heading for the door, halted at the bookshelves and the books of the Torah. In front was a small metal tin with a coin slot, a kind of piggy bank.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘It’s our Tzedakah box,’ Flegenheimer explained. ‘If you like, you can put in a few coins. Give Tzedakah.’
‘Give what?’
‘A donation. Not for us. We’re collecting for a charitable cause. Every day we set aside a little of the change encumbering our purses.’
The idea appealed to Rath. He took out his wallet and dropped in a few coins. Tornow kept hold of his money, but Rath couldn’t blame him; a new lieutenant in CID was hardly going to be rolling in it.
‘Strange people,’ Tornow said after they left the flat. ‘They could try and adapt a little, having moved to Germany.’
‘There have been Flegenheimers here for generations. They’re Prussian through and through. It’s the Goldsteins who arrived from the East.’
‘So why does he act as if he just got in from Poland?’
‘Jeder Jeck ist anders,’ Rath said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘It’s a saying in Cologne. It means something like: Let every man seek heaven in his own fashion.’
‘That’s Old Fritz, isn’t it?’
‘It was one of you Prussians, anyway.’
As a Prussian, Tornow didn’t find being lumped together with Ariel Flegenheimer amusing. He fell quiet, but kept a straight face, only breaking his silence in the Buick. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked. Rath drove north via Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse, rather than take the turning for Alex at Potsdamer Platz.
‘Hannoversche Strasse,’ Rath said. ‘We’ll have this done and dusted by lunchtime.’
Joseph Flegenheimer was recognisable from a long way off. Dressed like his father, he was especially conspicuous in Pathology where most workers wore white. The man wasn’t thirty but wore a Methuselah-like full beard. He had placed a prayer shawl over his black caftan, and bobbed back and forth as though he were in a synagogue rather than the lobby of the morgue. He seemed to take his religion even more seriously than his father.
Thinking of Abraham Goldstein, Rath could scarcely believe the two men were related. Cousins! But then he recalled his own cousin Martin, Aunt Lisbeth’s son, who had also spent the whole day praying, having built a little altar in his bedroom underneath a sombre crucifix. Martin had become a monk at eighteen, maybe even a priest. Rath could no longer say; he had avoided his aunt’s family ever since he was able to decide who to visit for himself. He remembered not being able to play with Martin, or talk to him much either.
Dr Schwartz, a man who wasn’t easily intimidated, seemed nervous when he greeted them, but perhaps he was just tired. Rath introduced his new colleague.
‘A cadet,’ said Schwartz, ‘and straight into Homicide. Congratulations! I hope you have a strong stomach.’
‘We’ll see,’ Tornow said, clearly unimpressed. He gestured towards the praying man. ‘I see you have company?’
Schwartz forced a smile. ‘We Jews can be a real nuisance, can’t we? No one better when it comes to pig-headedness.’ He led them into the autopsy room. ‘He was here when I arrived this morning. The porter said he couldn’t be dissuaded; wanted to be as close as possible to his grandfather. I tried to encourage him to visit the canteen at the Charité or one of the nice cafes nearby, but he insisted on staying here to pray.’
‘Have you examined the corpse?’ Rath asked. ‘I’d like to release the body as soon as possible.’
‘The examination is complete,’ Schwartz said, leading them to the gurney on which the covered corpse lay. ‘Here he is, but I’m afraid his release is up to the public prosecutor.’
‘Perhaps we overreacted – because he had a visitor just before he died. It might have been better not to send him at all.’
‘Don’t say that. If you ask me, people don’t arrange for autopsies as often as they should. Still, that would mean having more staff here, and that’s something no one’s willing to pay for. The reason most killers get away – and this is my avowed opinion – is that no one believes a murder has been committed in the first place.’
‘And in this case?’
‘Hard to say, but I wouldn’t call it murder.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Death was a relief for this old man. The final stages of pancreatic cancer. The poor fellow must have been in terrible pain.’
‘You didn’t open him up, did you?’ Rath asked, horrified. ‘I telephoned here specifically and left a message with the por…’
‘I know better than to open the corpse of an orthodox Jew. I’d need to have a very good reason for that. No, I had Dr Friedländer send his medical file.’
‘So, he did die a natural death after all.’
‘Like I said, it’s hard to say. I didn’t find any traces of external trauma on his body – apart from injection sites from various needles. But the blood examination revealed something interesting: a high concentration of morphine, over a thousand nanograms per millilitre.’ Dr Schwartz looked over the rim of his glasses, first at Rath then at Tornow. ‘Dr Friedländer assures me he only administered morphine in moderation, and I’ve no reason to disbelieve him.’
‘What are you trying to tell me?’ Rath asked.
Schwartz hunched his shoulders. ‘That’s for you to find out, but I wouldn’t discount the possibility that someone tried to spare the man further suffering.’ He nodded towards the frosted glass in the swing doors where the shadow of the praying Flegenheimer was still bobbing up and down.