All this secrecy. Gereon might be used to it, but she wasn’t – and didn’t think she ever would be. With every hour that passed it grew worse. Should she try and get the green light to notify Inspector Rath? Then again… she knew only too well that Gennat had brought Böhm into their little team because he had been handling the Humboldthain case, and that Böhm just couldn’t deal with someone like Gereon, who rarely accepted another person’s authority. Charly didn’t blame him for ignoring Gereon half the time, even if Gereon hated him for it. She had always got on well with Wilhelm Böhm, so it could be done, so long as you didn’t take his surly charms to heart.
She heard footsteps in the stairwell. Could it be Gereon? She took another sip of wine and listened, almost anxiously, to the noise from outside.
96
Earlier that morning, Rath had sent Gräf and Tornow away to resume their investigation into Grabowski’s list of Camel outlets. They seemed to get along, so now he could do what he enjoyed best: working alone.
He parked the Buick on a side street in Treptow. Christine’s surname was the solidly middle-class, run-of-the-mill Möller, and she lived in far greater comfort than he had anticipated. Front building, first floor.
It took a while for someone to open, even though Rath had heeded Liang’s advice and waited until after lunch. The Venuskeller’s main attraction wore a midnight-blue, silk gown, as elegantly cut as the bathrobe she wore in her dressing room. She seemed to have recognised him, and looked at him like a lioness in her den, shy and belligerent in equal measure.
‘I knew we’d be seeing each other again,’ she said, opening the door. ‘Please come in. I’m having breakfast.’
The smell of coffee hung in the flat. She led him into a sun-filled room with the skylight tilted open and noise entering from the street. A percolator in a dark-red cosy stood on a small table with two chairs, alongside a cup of steaming black coffee. A stubbed-out cigarette lay in the ashtray. Christine Möller’s breakfast habits mirrored his own.
‘Coffee?’
‘Please.’
She poured.
‘Why don’t you take off your hat and coat.’
Rath heard the undertone in her voice and, despite everything, could do nothing to prevent his sudden erection. This time Frau Lennartz’s flabby upper arms wouldn’t save him. He took off his hat and coat and joined her at the table, took a sip of coffee and tried to avert his gaze from her bosom, which was plain to see under the midnight-blue silk.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘Warm in here, don’t you think?’ Christine blew away a strand of blonde hair and leaned forward so that her robe opened to reveal a breast.
It was time to get down to brass tacks. He replaced the coffee cup on the saucer with a clatter. ‘You don’t just work for Johann Marlow,’ he said. ‘You work for my colleagues in Vice too.’
She remained astonishingly composed. ‘Don’t you work for Marlow and the police yourself?’
‘We’re talking about you here, not me.’
She shrugged. ‘If you pay well, I’ll work for you too.’
The subtext was clear enough. He kept looking at her as he tapped a cigarette out of the carton and lit it. ‘Not necessary, thank you.’
‘A shame.’ She snatched together the ends of her dressing gown. ‘Perhaps you should tell me who you’re representing here. Dr M. or Dr Weiss?’
‘I’m here for me.’
The more she avoided his questions, the more convinced he was that she had something to hide. The photos he had found in Lanke’s drawer were no coincidence.
‘But that doesn’t mean something useful won’t come out of this meeting for my employers,’ he continued. ‘It depends entirely whether you tell the truth or not.’
‘You’re here to threaten me.’
‘I’m here to warn you.’
‘Perhaps it’s me who should be warning you. What do you think Dr M.’s going to do when he hears you’ve been trying to blackmail me.’
‘What do you think he’s going to do when he hears it was you who lured Hugo Lenz into a fatal trap?’
‘What are you talking about?’
Her horror, even if she attempted to hide it with studied self-assurance, was genuine. Rath had only been expressing a hunch, but her reaction told him he was getting close to the truth.
‘You provided Hugo Lenz with his police contacts,’ he said. ‘Lenz envied Marlow, and hoped to settle Berolina’s issues with the Nordpiraten by double-crossing them with the police.’ Rath drew on his cigarette. ‘It was you who fanned the flames. Perhaps it was you who put the idea in his head.’
‘I really have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Rath felt confirmed in his hunch. Christine Möller had stopped trying to seduce him. She folded her arms to keep her dressing gown closed. He could no longer even see her neck.
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. Herr Marlow, on the other hand, doesn’t, and I think it’s best if you keep it that way.’ Rath paused to let his words take effect, and stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Of course, it’s entirely up to you. You tell me what happened and it stays between us, I give you my word. Dig your heels in, or if I find out you’ve been lying, and I’ll leave it to Marlow to extract the truth.’
‘You lousy bastard.’
‘It’s your choice. Tell me everything you know, here and now. Or tell Marlow, while you’re tied up in a damp cellar.’
He didn’t need to make himself any clearer. Christine Möller understood.
‘I didn’t know they would kill him. I thought they were just going to arrest him.’
Then she told him everything.
97
In person, Gerald Thiemann looked even more like Harold Lloyd than on the sketch. He seemed nervous.
‘Thank you for getting in touch,’ Gennat said.
Thiemann nodded. ‘A friend told me that my picture was in the papers.’
Seated on the upholstered green living-room suite in Gennat’s office, Buddha was at pains to make him feel at home. Trudchen Steiner entered with freshly brewed coffee to join the selection of cakes already on the table. Gennat served them out personally after she poured. First, the witness. Gerald Thiemann selected a small slice of nutcake, clearly impressed by the range on offer. Charly passed, a decision Gennat met with a look that was somewhere between pitying and sympathetic, while Lange took an enormous slice of Herrentorte that he stared at reverently. For himself, Buddha chose a slice of gooseberry tart. The tray was still more than half full.
Böhm was the only one absent. Gennat had sent him back out to the Hansaviertel, where two assistant detectives were canvassing houses for possible witnesses to the Kuschke murder. Charly knew it was better that Böhm wasn’t present for awkward interviews such as this. He could be intimidating, even when he didn’t mean to be, and this was no time to be intimidating witnesses. It was one of the reasons they weren’t sitting in an interview room, but over coffee and cake in Gennat’s living room office. Ignoring the fact that the upholstery was not only worn but like something out of Kaiser Wilhelm’s era, you could probably say that Gennat’s was the cosiest office in the whole of police headquarters. Rumour had it that even the police commissioner’s official residence on the first floor – with its panoramic view of Alexanderplatz – wasn’t as comfortably furnished.