‘That might be true of the courts, perhaps, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about Artur Radlewski. Herr Wengler, my colleagues in Berlin are concerned that Radlewski’s vendetta, if that’s what this is, might not be over. I share their concern.’ He stared back at Wengler. ‘I would ask you to take a look at the list. Perhaps something will occur when you see the names.’
Suddenly Gustav Wengler became serious. ‘Do you have a cigarette?’ Rath opened his case and Wengler helped himself, inhaling greedily as the lighter’s flame touched the tobacco. The director thought for a time. ‘Inspector,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if this is important, since no charges were ever brought, and there was no mention of it in the paper. But… my brother.’
‘What about your brother?’
‘Siegbert was a police officer here. He… how shall I put this?’ Wengler shook his head, as if pained by the memory. ‘He was accused of being in cahoots with the moonshiners, or at least of having tipped them off about a raid.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘There was nothing in it.’ Wengler threw Rath a hostile glance. ‘They found a hideout in the forest by Markowsken, but by the time police arrived there was no one left to arrest.’
‘And your brother took the fall?’
‘Obviously there was no one there. I’d have been astonished if an operation like that had succeeded. Police uniforms in a forest. That’s about as conspicuous as…’
‘…an Indian in a capital city.’
‘Something like that.’ Wengler managed a smile. ‘At any rate – Siegbert decided to put in for a transfer. With all those rumours swirling around… Sometimes it’s better to make a fresh start.’
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ said Rath. ‘So, where did your brother make his fresh start? He could be in danger. We have to warn him.’
‘It’s a city you’re familiar with, Inspector. My brother has been in Berlin for almost eight years, as a traffic officer.’
47
The hollow space under the board between the bedroom and lounge. That is where you have stowed everything you need in case the police call again. Every day you reach inside, fetch the curare pipe, Veronal solution and needles, head to the train station and await your chance. To be alone with him. A single moment will suffice.
You examine the red cloth, which you now fold and place with the other items, and with the red, the memories return.
A red cloth hangs from the railing of the town mill bridge, easily overlooked among all the colours decorating the town. On each entrance to the marketplace they have erected triumphal arches of fir, swathed in black and white and red. Dieses Land bleibt deutsch, you read on one; on another, Das Land ist unser, unser soll es bleiben. Both proclaim allegiance to the Reich. Polish words are nowhere to be seen. You have emerged from the polling station and are making your way down Deutsche Strasse when you see the red cloth fluttering in the breeze. Your heart pounds; you must fetch your bike from the shed. If you pedal hard, you can make it out to the little lake in half an hour: the place you always meet.
But you don’t reach the lake, you don’t even reach the shed. As if by magic the trio from the distillery plant themselves in front of you. They are wearing Homeland Service brassards, and even at this hour, appear to be drunk.
‘Where’s the fire, you dirty Polack?’ their leader asks, a man who takes pleasure in tormenting other people.
‘Jestem Prußakiem,’ you say. They don’t like people using this language, especially not to say they are Prussian. You won’t tell them how you voted. They will only think their crude propaganda, their threats and their violence have succeeded. They think you are a Polish sympathiser, you don’t know why. Perhaps because you come from Warmia and are Catholic. Perhaps because you once protected Marek, the Pole, when the men from the distillery drunkenly abused him in Pritzkus’s bar. Perhaps, even, because of your name, though there are many here who don’t have German names.
They are drawing closer now, and you realise there was no need to provoke them; they were coming for you anyway.
‘That sort of talk’ll get you a good thrashing,’ the bigmouth says.
‘It’s long overdue,’ the youngest seconds, a giant of a man, a Masurian who ought to know better than to get involved with these thugs, who only spout nationalist rhetoric as a pretext for breaking people’s noses. Still, perhaps that is the Masurian tragedy: its people want to be more German than the Germans themselves.
The little one says nothing, but you see the belligerence in his eyes.
You have no choice. You roll up your sleeves, break off a slat from the shore fence and prepare to defend yourself.
Gradually they approach, there is no escaping them now. Behind you there is only the river.
You strike the Masurian giant first, and the strongest of the trio goes to ground. In the meantime the dogged little man has hurled himself at your legs, and you know that if he succeeds in toppling you, all will be lost.
He clings on, no dislodging him, not even a blow from the slat can knock him loose, and though you struggle, eventually you lose your balance and land on the dusty turf. The Masurian is languishing on the grass, forehead bloodied, but now their leader is upon you, gazing down with boundless contempt in his eyes. He kicks you in the solar plexus and suddenly you can’t breathe. Still the little man clings to your legs, you can’t get up, and now the ringleader is winding up again – when a police whistle pierces the summer air.
48
Up here he issued the commands. He loved the feeling, and it was why he still loved this job, even if it wasn’t what it used to be… but, wasn’t that true of everything? Time was when a whole village had answered to him, then a small town; now it was just an intersection. True, it was the busiest in Europe – assuming the information they provided to tourists on Unter den Linden was correct.
Trams approached from every angle, buses droned impatiently; between them, cars and taxicabs flitted through what spaces they could find, the bicycles gleaming in the milling mass like insects blinded by the sun.
He turned the lever, and the traffic filtering through Potsdamer Strasse came to a halt. At the front of the line was a taxicab, behind it the number five bus, and, drawing up alongside the cab, a blonde cyclist inadvertently displaying too much leg as her balance failed her. When they would move again would be his decision alone. Up here in the traffic tower he ruled the world!
There were regulations concerning how long a carriageway could remain closed, but they were subject to interpretation and who the hell was going to check on him? He knew the police commissioner’s official car as well as that of his deputy; the murder wagon likewise. If he saw any of them in line, or a fellow officer, he’d switch straight to green, obviously. But not now, with a cute blonde in a summer dress making a show of her legs.
Yes, Siegbert Wengler still loved his job, even if it used to provide more thrills. That said, for a man of his age, a blonde in an airy summer dress afforded exactly the right level of thrill to distract from the tedium of his shift, the greatest challenge of which consisted in climbing the ladder that led inside the traffic tower. He looked at his wristwatch. The relief was late. Scholz, the greenhorn! Had he lost track of time in that toilet cubicle at Potsdamer Bahnhof? Or missed his train? He’d give him what for, and it was hardly the first time! If he had to wait any longer than ten minutes, he’d chalk it up to overtime and leave it to the bloody greenhorn to explain.