‘You want me to make coffee now?’
‘Just a joke.’
‘My sides have split.’
‘What telephone number did you give Christine Möller?’ Rath asked.
‘Pardon?’
‘Christine Möller. Another girl from your impressive collection. You know it’s quite astonishing what you ask of your informants. Pretty much everything, it seems, except for information, of course.’
Lanke turned pale and leaned against the doorframe.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, but it didn’t sound convincing. Lanke knew why Rath was here.
‘Hugo Lenz, also known as Red Hugo was your plaything’s lover. Is that the right way to describe it? Were you jealous? Was that why you arranged the meeting with your supposed colleague? I think it was you who shot Hugo Lenz, or did you hire someone from overseas?’
‘I’m sorry?’ This time he sounded genuine. Rath was surprised. ‘It wasn’t me. You have to believe me!’
‘Then tell me who it was.’
‘I can’t. Don’t you understand!’
‘No.’
‘I can’t betray the fellowsh… the men. It would mean certain death.’
Gregor Lanke looked like a man out of his depth.
‘The story about how you wanted to get Goldstein by smuggling your informant into the Excelsior was a lie,’ Rath said. ‘You were acting on behalf of your comrades there too, weren’t you?’
Lanke said nothing, but Rath realised he was on the right track. ‘What’s going on here, Lanke?’
Gregor Lanke gazed at his feet, saying nothing, but shaking slightly. Rath almost felt sympathy for him.
‘You should think hard about cooperating, otherwise I’ll make your dirty business public and that’ll be it for your police career.’
‘If that’s what you have to do. I’ve got nothing more to say. Now, please leave my flat.’
Rath wouldn’t get anything more out of him for the time being. The man seemed genuinely afraid. When the doorbell rang he looked at it like a deer in headlights. Rath opened and stared into a pretty face. He had never seen this young lady before, but felt certain she could be marvelled at in an illegal nightclub somewhere in Berlin. He tipped his hat and took his leave, wishing both parties ‘a nice weekend’, which, of course, neither of them would have. Gregor Lanke was soaked in sweat, no longer capable of anything.
Rath had no sympathy, now, for his successor. He’d never been able to stand the man. The question was, what was Lanke so afraid of that he’d rather see Rath destroy his police career than blab? When it came out that Lanke junior was consorting with prostitutes doubling as Vice informants, his career would be over. Not even Uncle Werner would be able to prevent that.
Rath stepped onto the road and moved towards his car when, at that moment, he saw a man with a shopping bag. ‘Hello,’ he cried across the street, ‘taking care of the weekend shop, are you?’ Sebastian Tornow looked at him wide-eyed.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘I was about to ask you the same thing.’
‘I always do my shopping here. I live just around the corner, on Leuthener Strasse.’
‘A coincidence then.’
‘And yourself?’
‘I was visiting an ex-colleague. Assistant Detective Lanke.’
‘Lanke! I didn’t know you were in Vice.’
‘You know Gregor Lanke?’
Tornow laughed. ‘Everybody knows everybody around here. You run into people all the time, even while you’re out shopping.’ He gestured towards the bottles clinking in his bag. ‘How about a quick beer at mine? We can usher in the weekend?’
Normally, Rath would turn him down without thinking, but this time it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. ‘Why not?’ he said.
Tornow didn’t live in the same comfort as Lanke. His apartment was furnished, with a live-in landlady. Rath was reminded of his first Berlin flat on Nürnberger Strasse. True, Tornow was slightly better off, with two rooms: one for sleeping, and another for eating and working, albeit both had a sloping ceiling. There was a small dining table with four chairs, an armchair and a small sofa. On the desk by the window stood a typewriter and telephone along with a few framed photographs. Rath’s gaze fell on the aquarium next to the sofa.
‘You have fish,’ he said, surprised. An aquarium didn’t fit his image of Sebastian Tornow.
‘A man needs a hobby,’ Tornow grinned. ‘Ladies are strictly forbidden at Frau Hollerbach’s.’
‘Sounds familiar, which is why I found another flat. True, it might be a little more expensive, and it’s in a rear building, but I’m my own master. Frau Lennartz comes to clean, otherwise I could have a hundred women over without anyone taking any notice.’
‘Apart from Vice perhaps,’ Tornow said.
He took two beers from the bag and placed them on the table, clearing the rest of his shopping into the cupboard. The men flipped the lids open and clinked bottles.
‘Thanks,’ Rath said. ‘This reminds me that I haven’t made good on my promise to buy you a beer.’
‘There’ll be plenty of opportunities. Perhaps I’ll get to know the legendary Nasse Dreieck that Reinhold’s been telling me about.’
‘He has, has he?’ The Dreieck by Wassertorplatz was Rath’s local, where he ended long working days with Gräf. ‘I wanted to wait until I bought you that beer,’ he said, ‘but since we’re here now…’ He stretched out a hand. ‘It’s time we called each other by our first names. I’m Gereon.’
Tornow shook. ‘Sebastian.’
They clinked bottles for a second time. Rath pointed out of the dormer window, at the imposing figure of the Schöneberg gasometer towering above the roofs of the Sedanviertel. ‘Nice view you’ve got here,’ he said.
‘Can I tell you something?’ Tornow said. ‘Every now and then I do something illegal. Pretty often, actually. Almost every week.’
‘You’re a serial killer?’
‘No,’ Tornow said ‘From up there, you get the best view the city has to offer.’
Rath put his bottle down. ‘You climb up there?’
‘It’s where I think best, when it all gets too much for me down here.’
Rath would sometimes climb to Liebig’s dovecote when he needed peace and quiet.
‘The gasometer’s like an animal,’ Tornow continued. ‘It breathes. Every night the bell falls, and every morning it rises again. There’s something comforting about that.’
Rath gestured with his beer bottle towards the enormous steel framework. The gas holder had risen almost to its full height. ‘How do you get up?’
‘There are steel steps. Do you see the rings up there in the framework? They’re for maintenance workers, but anyone can climb them and see the whole city from the top.’
‘And that’s illegal?’
‘No entry for unauthorised persons, it says on the signs.’
‘Police officers are never unauthorised. Remember that, Cadet.’ On the desk was a photograph of a pretty, young girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old, with a knock-out smile. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked.
‘My sister.’
Rath looked at the cadet. ‘The reason you joined the force?’ Tornow nodded. ‘A pretty girl,’ Rath said. ‘Still so young.’
‘It’s an old photograph.’
‘You still haven’t told me the whole story. Why you became a police officer, I mean.’ Tornow took a sip of beer and fell silent, just like a few days ago when Rath broached the subject for the first time. This time he probed further. ‘Don’t you want to talk about it?’
‘I’m not sure you’ll want to hear.’