“Well,” said Hoffner as they maneuvered their way through the crowd, “I can see why you raced back to get me.”
“The building site, Herr Inspector.”
Fichte led Hoffner up toward the subway excavations. The fencing around the northern tip of the square had been there for almost a year, a promise from the Kaiser that his capital would be home to the finest trams and underground trains in Europe. Few Berliners took notice anymore of the wooden slats that sprouted up around the city, most Stdters resigned to the ongoing renovations that had been a part of their lives for the past twenty-five years. Wilhelm’s insecurity about his chosen city had led him, over time, to reinvent her as a paean to grandeur in the architecture of her monuments, churches, government buildings, stores, hotels, and, yes, railway stations. It was said of Berlin that even her bird shit was made of marble.
Then again, the slats did make for nice advertising space. A large placard of a cigar-smoking goblin peered down at Hoffner as he followed Fichte toward the site. The lime-green skin against the cerise background, at first off-putting, quickly became hypnotic. The creature had an almost maniacal smile, the cigar evidently just that good to take him to the edge of sanity, although why a goblin would need any kind of stimulus for that sort of behavior had always puzzled Hoffner. A cigar, though, would have been nice right about now.
Fichte and Hoffner moved out into the square, jumping the tram rails as they sidestepped a cab, its goose-squawk horn eliciting a growl from Fichte. A single patrolman stood guard atop the wooden ramp that led up to what, until recently, had been the boarded-up entrance to the pit behind the fencing. He put out a hand as Hoffner and Fichte approached.
“It is forbidden, meine Herren.” The man’s German had the precision of working-class Berlin, the extended roll of the r’s a pompous display of office. He kept his woolen short-coat buttoned to the neck, its band collar sporting the single stripe of a constable, his lip-brimmed helmet topped by the ubiquitous silver imperial prong. “Please turn around-” The man caught himself as soon as he recognized Fichte. “Ah, Herr Detective.” There was nothing apologetic in the tone.
Hoffner knew this type, a Schutzi-lifer who considered the very existence of the Kripo a slap in the face, even if, every year for the past fifteen years, he had applied and been rejected for transfer. Still, it was the chain of command. Order had to be preserved. The man stepped aside.
Hoffner nodded. “Patrolman.”
A white-gloved finger smoothed through a perfectly pruned moustache. “Detective.”
Hoffner moved past the man and began to make his way down a second ramp behind the fencing. As he did so, he turned his head and corrected, “Detective Inspector.”
Inside, the building work was far more extensive than one might have imagined from the square. An area, perhaps twenty meters by ten, extended to the far fencing, most of it still earth. Closer in, however, stood the top staging of a tower of wooden scaffolding that dug deep into the ground. From their vantage point, Fichte and Hoffner could see only a fraction of the edifice, its depth apparent only once they stepped out from the ramp and moved to the ladder at its center. A second patrolman stood directly behind the small hole of an entrance. Hoffner looked at the man, then peered down the shaft. “Must be a good fifteen meters,” he said. Police lamps, recently attached, hung along the rungs, all the way down. Hoffner looked back up, a thoroughly disingenuous smile on his lips. “May we?” The man said nothing as Fichte took hold of the top rung and started down. Hoffner followed.
The air quickly thickened, and the smell of damp earth-at the top quite pleasant-gave way to something less inviting as they descended, familiar, yet nondistinct. It was only when he reached the bottom and stepped away from the ladder that Hoffner recognized the odor. Human feces. Muted, but undeniable.
The two Kripomen were now standing in the first of a series of man-made caverns, wide mining shafts that spoked out from the central area. The subway station at Rosenthaler Platz had evidently been chosen to house an underground arcade-shops, cafes-the skeleton of which had been near to completion before the work had been shut down. All that remained by way of construction material, aside from the timber and steel supports, was the odd piece of wiring and the scrawl on the wooden slats, measurements and the like penned in a dull charcoal. A few of the slats had gone missing, though Hoffner recognized that they had been well chosen; none of the gaps looked to be threatening the pit’s structural integrity. He had to hand it to the poachers.
He never imagined, however, that these poachers would be standing directly behind him, or rather sitting. And yet there, along a narrow wooden bench in an adjoining cavern, sat an utterly unexpected foursome-husband, wife, and two sons of perhaps eight and ten. They were all neatly dressed, considering the circumstances, the man in a worn coat and tie, the woman in a long dress in need of a good cleaning, all with overcoats folded in their laps. The gaunt faces stared straight ahead as if, with a kind of macabre persistence, they were waiting for a train. Off to the side were what looked to be two well-worn feather beds sitting atop several of the absent slats, a small wooden table, a bucket, and a camping fire. A steel trunk rounded out the furnishings.
Two more patrolmen stood at either end of the bench. A third-a sergeant, from the braiding on the brim of his helmet-stood by the fire. He took a step toward Hoffner. “Herr Detective, I am-”
“Yes, I’m sure you are,” said Hoffner as he turned to Fichte. “I think my partner can fill me in.”
The attention seemed to catch Fichte by surprise. When Hoffner continued to stare, Fichte finally said, “Apparently they live down here. The man was an engineer-”
“Division Two, Firma Ganz-Neurath.” The voice came from the father. Hoffner turned. “I am a designer for this site,” the man continued in an accent tinged with something other than German. “Under the direction of Herr Alfred Grenander. We have only been living here. Nothing else. Nothing else.” There was a wavering sincerity in his tone, one that Hoffner recognized all too well. It was usually reserved for the third or fourth hour of interrogation, that time when a man tries to convince himself of his own innocence. “I am not ashamed to be here.”
Hoffner kept his gaze on the man, then turned to Fichte. “He’s not ashamed to be here,” he echoed wryly.
Fichte nodded. “From what we can make out, he lost his position. They had a choice. Either hold on to their flat, or eat. They decided to eat. It’s actually pretty livable down here. It’s dry, warm, and except-”
“Yes,” said Hoffner. “I can smell it.”
Again, Fichte nodded.
“And the boys?”
“On the rolls at a nearby school. They haven’t missed a day.”
Hoffner looked back at the family. Again, he waited. “Why am I standing down here, Herr Kriminal-Assistent?” Before Fichte could answer, Hoffner continued, enjoying his audience: “He seems like a nice-enough fellow, decent. Amid all the shortages, war, revolution, he’s managed to find a way to keep a-well, to keep something over his family’s head. He sends his children to school. He’s been an engineer with Ganz-Neurath, Division Two, under the tutelage of the great Grenander himself. What more can we ask of him?” Hoffner peered over at the sergeant, then slowly moved toward him. “But, of course, for the Schutzmannschaft, this poses a problem. Criminals everywhere, and they choose to spend their time on-”