Cranking the wheel back seemed to help. Whatever was caught underwater detached itself, and the sluice gate moved with a gurgling squeak.
‘There’s something in there,’ shouted one of the men on the barge, leaning on his staff. The gate was by now almost closed again. The lockmaster gazed into the water, and saw something glimmer just beneath the surface. The optical refraction made it look as though it had been steamrolled. If the lockmaster had known what it was, he probably wouldn’t have looked so closely, but he didn’t realise until he saw the eyes staring back at him out of a face so pale and swollen it no longer looked human. But human it was, the skin waxy and green with algae, hair swaying like seaweed. There was a deep, but bloodless – and therefore all the more hideous – wound on the man’s face, which exposed half his teeth and made it look as though he were snarling. He was staring at a corpse.
His knees grew weak, and he felt his stomach turn. He sank to the floor, retched once, and threw up both first and second breakfasts in the dirty black water of the lock chamber. It was six forty-five on Thursday morning.
89
The atmosphere was eerily reminiscent of the week before. Again Bernhard Weiss stood on the podium, and again the deputy commissioner made a serious face. Another uniform cop had been killed, in the Hansaviertel this time but not, this time, in the line of duty. He had been stabbed to death while on leave of absence.
‘The circumstances remain a mystery,’ Weiss said. ‘It seems unlikely to have been politically motivated, although we cannot rule that out. It appears that, on this occasion, it wasn’t the police uniform that was targeted, but the man himself. Jochen Kuschke.’
Tornow swallowed. ‘Damn it, that’s one of my colleagues from Wittenbergplatz.’
This was confirmed moments later when Ernst Gennat replaced Weiss on the podium. Buddha explained that underworld involvement couldn’t be ruled out, since Sergeant Major Kuschke had taken part in the KaDeWe operation two weeks before – the same operation which had famously resulted in the death of one of the young intruders.
‘It is possible,’ he continued, ‘that it was an accomplice of the dead intruder, or indeed the mastermind behind the robbery, taking bloody revenge.’
Damn it, Rath thought. Was Charly’s Alex a murderer too, on top of everything else? He hadn’t breathed a word about her yesterday evening, and Charly hadn’t mentioned anything either, but keeping quiet was no longer an option. What the hell was going on? Was she so up to her neck that she was covering for a murderer?
‘We are pursuing all lines of enquiry,’ Gennat said. ‘Since this case is now our priority, we will be reassigning certain members of the homicide team.’
It was unusual for Buddha to lead an investigation himself. Looking around, Rath could see that even the department’s old hands were nervous. They wanted to be in the team. Rath, too, felt restless. You could always learn something from Gennat and, apart from anything else, it was good for your standing. He would even be willing to partner Wilhelm Böhm, the first name called. Next up were Grabowski and Mertens, followed by several assistant detectives he didn’t know. Rath came away empty-handed, and Gräf didn’t make the cut either. Plisch and Plum weren’t even in the room. No sooner had Buddha assembled his team than they learned why.
‘A corpse was fished out of the water at the Mühlendamm early this morning,’ Gennat said. ‘I’ve given it to Henning and Czerwinski.’
Gennat had now reassigned most of the officers working on the Kubicki case, leaving just Rath, Gräf and Tornow. Most likely he felt that Rath and Gräf still had to make good on their error at the hotel, as Abraham Goldstein remained the prime suspect for the SA man’s death. At least with Tornow they’d have an additional colleague – unless, of course, he was being returned to Warrants? But no, Gennat had explicitly requested that Rath, Gräf and Tornow attend a subsequent briefing.
Once there, Böhm handed them the Kubicki documents, which already filled two heavy lever arch files. ‘I almost filled one myself,’ Gräf said, with a sour smile. ‘Pages of useless statements, made by so-called witnesses.’
‘At least we know what we don’t have to read,’ Rath said, wondering whether the old Jew had returned to repeat his statement. It didn’t sound like it. He gave the first file to Gräf, the second to Tornow, and was just about to leave when Böhm waved a third in his face.
‘This is for you too,’ he said. Rath gazed at it curiously. ‘Looks like there’s a second corpse linked to this case. Rudi the Rat mean anything to you?’
‘From the Nordpiraten?’
‘Correct. They found a corpse a few days ago at the dump, out at Schöneiche. Kronberg has identified him. Bullets to the head and chest. Same weapon as Kubicki, apparently.’
‘Damn it,’ Gräf said. ‘Do the Nordpiraten know?’
‘Not yet.’ Böhm looked suspiciously at Rath. ‘My advice would be to find Goldstein before the Nordpiraten get to him first.’
Rath glared at the file. It looked almost as if Böhm’s men were trying to get rid of anything that had to do with the case.
‘I have what might be a lead,’ said Grabowski. ‘I’ve discovered where Goldstein bought his cigarettes. The tobacconist recognised him from the sketch. He says a man fitting Goldstein’s description bought a large quantity of American cigarettes from him at Stettiner Bahnhof on Sunday morning: Camel.’
Rath looked inside the file at a long list of addresses. It looked like a hotel directory of Greater Berlin. ‘What’s this?’
‘All hotels within a kilometre radius,’ Grabowski said. ‘They’re sorted according to distance rather than price category. He might be lying low somewhere. There are a lot of flophouses in that part of town.’
That part of town was the Poetenviertel, near Stettiner Bahnhof, but the only thing poetic about it were the street names, named after Germany’s great Romantics. Otherwise, the area was devoid of both poetry and romance. It was a railway district: dilapidated house fronts, dim rear courtyards, dive hotels, prostitution, drugs, the whole shebang. It was also Nordpiraten turf.
Barely an hour later, Rath was forced to park outside the newly completed yellow-brick commuter line station that looked like a miniature version of Stettiner Bahnhof, but was treated like its inferior cousin. There was a great to-do by the main station as tanned holiday makers encountered pale city dwellers desperate to escape the rainy summer. He had requested an Opel from the motor pool, as the Buick was too small for three people and he didn’t want to consign Gräf to desk duty.
Before they got out of the car, he distributed the lists, having asked Erika Voss to sort the addresses according to location. Most of the hotels were to the south of Stettiner Bahnhof. Rath took those in the southwest, while Gräf handled those in the southeast. Tornow took everything north of Invalidenstrasse. Thanks to Grabowski they had more than enough to get on with.
‘Right, men,’ Rath said. ‘We’ll meet at the station restaurant at one. If either of you find Goldstein, place him under arrest and notify the nearest precinct. Even if it’s before lunchtime.’
The men fanned out and Rath gazed with envy at the tanned Baltic Sea holidaymakers streaming out of the station. Was the weather on Rügen so much better than in Berlin? It certainly looked that way. What it would be to go on holiday with Charly now, and reprise their miserable summer. Perhaps he’d visit her in Paris in the autumn, when there was less going on in the Castle and they could take time in lieu. He wondered where she was now and hoped her fugitive girl hadn’t had anything to do with this latest police murder.