He stared at the mess in disbelief.
‘Are you fucking mad?’ There was no sign of his grin now.
‘Oops,’ said Rath, replacing the empty inkwell on the desk. ‘How clumsy. I’m afraid those trousers are done for.’
Dettmann’s attention turned to the ink-soaked pages, which he had most likely spent hours typing up. ‘You piece of shit,’ he said, pulling the report from the desk, which worsened the mess. ‘It hasn’t even been copied yet!’
‘You’ll just have to write it again. Take comfort from the old journalist’s rule: you’re always quicker second time around. I’d think that’s true of police reports too.’
‘I’ll kill you, you bastard!’
Rath raised his hands. ‘Then go ahead. I won’t put up a fight.’
Dettmann stood, breathing heavily, holding the desecrated report and staring at Rath, who tipped the brim of his hat and made for the door. ‘I almost forgot,’ he said. ‘I’d like to offer a formal apology for the trouble I’ve caused. I’m truly, truly sorry. I can be a real klutz sometimes.’
The inkwell came flying, but he had already closed the door. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone on his break feeling this good.
22
He had done it: the book was in his possession. You just had to be patient and wait for the right opportunity.
For two days he had marked time but, now, at last, he had been rewarded.
He had been observing the wanted posters near the glass door, fingers already searching for the false key in his trouser pocket, when he saw the inspector disappear inside the next office without locking his door.
Talk about good fortune. It meant he could do away with the picklock, and avoid the risk of being caught fumbling with a police door.
Yesterday there had been a twenty-minute window during the lunch hour when no one else was around, but he knew that might not always be the case. Indeed, he wasn’t alone now, but it was clear the two men standing close by had only agreed to meet here on their way to the canteen, and were soon gone.
So, calm as you like, he made for the door in question, taking one final look around before venturing inside. This time there was no barking dog; this time he could enter unopposed, and saw the cardboard boxes the two officers had seized from Lamkau’s premises spread across the chairs and floor.
He didn’t need long to find the book. A quick look inside told him he had the right one. With any luck, they wouldn’t have deciphered its meaning yet. Cops were ignorant when it came to figures, the ones that worked in Homicide anyway.
Still in the outer office, he stowed the book in his waistband and, after making sure the coast was clear, emerged back into the corridor.
Now he just needed to reach the stairwell. He almost jumped out of his skin when he heard steps behind him and, turning his head slightly, saw Inspector Rath trailing in his wake, gaining on him the whole time. By the time he reached the stairwell door the inspector had caught up. But there was no firm grip on his neck, no ‘What were you doing in my office?’
Instead, all he received was a friendly ‘Afternoon’, as the inspector overtook him on the half landing and continued cheerily down the stairs.
23
Rath was returning from his break when he heard Erika Voss say: ‘That’s him now.’ She pressed her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Dortmund.’
He nodded, ruffled Kirie’s fur, hung his hat on the hook and went through to his office. It was empty, meaning Lange and Gräf were still investigating the tubocurarine lead.
‘One moment, please, I’ll put you through,’ Erika Voss said, and the telephone on his desk began to ring. He closed the door, fetched both the Wawerka and Lamkau files, and placed his notes alongside them on the desk. Only then did he pick up.
Detective Chief Inspector Watzke from Dortmund was helpful enough, but he couldn’t say much that wasn’t already in the Wawerka file.
‘Was the man known for being violent?’ Rath asked. ‘As this business with the fight suggests.’
‘It’s the only incident we have on file. Truth be told it was no more than a harmless bar brawl which led Wawerka to my colleagues at Lütgendortmund. Otherwise the man’s clean. We had a good look into his past, even asked our friends in Treuburg, but there too Hans Wawerka was considered a law-abiding citizen.’
‘Why Treuburg?’
‘His home town. It’s where he lived and worked before moving to Westphalia to earn his keep.’
‘Treuburg, you say?’ Rath was confused. He leafed through the file. ‘But… in the file it says… wait a moment…’ At last he found the relevant information. ‘It says he was born in Marggrabowa.’
‘I assume you’ve no interest in East Prussia?’
‘You must be joking. I wouldn’t be seen dead there. I’m a Rhinelander.’
‘Well, Marggrabowa and Treuburg are one and the same city.’
‘A city with two names?’
‘Marggrabowa changed its name four years ago. Its inhabitants wanted to pay homage to the fact that, during the 1920 plebiscite in Masuria, only two citizens voted for Poland. The rest remained loyal to Prussia and the Reich.’
‘I must say, you know a hell of a lot about East Prussia.’
‘My father hails from Königsberg. He didn’t want to be seen dead there either, and eventually moved west.’
Watzke didn’t sound too upset, but Rath sensed he had put his foot in it. ‘No offence intended,’ he said. ‘I really don’t have anything against East Prussia, it’s just that I haven’t had much to do with it until now. Let me get this straight. Today: Treuburg; before that: Marggrabowa.’
‘You’ll find it in Brockhaus. It’s the capital of the Oletzko district.’
Watzke didn’t stop there, but Rath was no longer listening. A word his Dortmund colleague had said echoed in his mind. He had stumbled across it recently, he didn’t know where, but he knew it was something to grab at, a link, a piece of common ground, information that was contained in the files, information that he had already read. He thanked his colleague for the telephone call and hung up before rummaging through the two murder files on his desk, searching feverishly, leafing through each individual page, each individual document, scanning his memory bank.
At length he held Lamkau’s driving licence in his hand, and the feeling that he had a concrete lead became a certainty, even before his gaze or, rather, his mind alighted on precisely what it was that Watzke had said. It was three words printed on Lamkau’s passport photo.
Oletzko District Authority.
His instincts had been correct. He had found it, goddamn it. The connection he had been seeking for days.
24
Edith Lamkau was amazed to see the police again so soon. ‘I told your colleagues yesterday. I don’t recognise these men, and I don’t recognise these death notices.’
‘Your husband seems to have known them,’ Rath said. ‘Or one of them, at least. Hans Wawerka.’
She shrugged. ‘We weren’t at his funeral.’
‘Take another look at the photo.’ He showed her the police photograph from the Dortmund file. ‘Perhaps you saw Herr Wawerka somewhere. Perhaps he came to see your husband…’
The widow recoiled in disgust, as if the photo had halitosis. She gestured towards the numbered chalkboard Wawerka held in front of his chest. ‘Is he a criminal? Why would someone like that come to see my husband?’