‘But for you.’
‘So long as there’s nothing hanging from the train, it’ll be fine. The cars are high enough. I just have to duck.’ His grin. ‘This is the Prussian Ostbahn. There won’t be anything under their trains. No metal parts, no loose screws. Nothing.’
You remember that you believed him. What else could you do? You lay beside him, likewise on your stomach, just the track between you now, and above the track the chain that held your shackles together.
As you lay down you heard the track vibrating.
Sobotka said nothing, simply covered the back of his head with his hands. You were about to follow suit when you shielded your ears to try and block out the vibrations, which were accompanied now by a rattling sound.
The train was approaching.
85
The longer the conversation went on, the worse Charly felt. As if yesterday’s grilling wasn’t bad enough, there was now the matter of Gereon’s telephone call. She had told Gennat about it straightaway, and there had been no let-up since. ‘You know this means you’re shielding a wanted man.’
‘I’m not shielding anyone. I don’t know where he is. You think he’s any more open with me?’
‘Unless something has changed, you’re engaged so, yes, I’d expect a degree of openness between you. Besides, it was you he called, no one else.’
‘He called headquarters!’ Charly lit a cigarette angrily. ‘I just happened to be there.’
‘But you didn’t tell anyone.’
‘It was around eight, half past. I told you straightaway this morning. It didn’t seem necessary last night.’
She didn’t mention how Dettmann had got in the way. She’d been happy just to leave the station without further indignity.
‘We could have tipped Warrants off,’ Gennat said. ‘You know how important time is in our work.’
‘Tipped them off… how? He didn’t actually tell me where he was.’
‘Is that really true?’
‘As soon as the connection was interrupted, I telephoned his Treuburg hotel. He checked out yesterday at midday. He was calling from a train station.’
‘Then he’s still in East Prussia.’
‘Or in the Corridor. He was planning on coming back, that much he did tell me.’ She didn’t say that Gereon wouldn’t be arriving until early tomorrow morning. Perhaps all this would have blown over by then. ‘At least we know he’s alive,’ she said, stubbing out the cigarette with enough force to burn a hole in the ashtray. Her anger didn’t stem from Gennat’s persistence, more that she felt obliged to lie. To Buddha, whom she worshipped more than any man she’d ever worked for.
He adopted a more conciliatory tone. ‘Wengler’s operations manager is killed, Inspector Rath falls under suspicion, and a day later he gets in touch claiming Gustav Wengler’s a murderer. It can’t be a coincidence, can it?’ Charly was tired, weary of these questions. ‘Do you believe him? That Wengler, is a murderer?’
‘He can’t prove it yet. He said so himself.’ She looked at Gennat. ‘But, yes, I believe him.’
She wondered whether Buddha would buy it. Her tone gave him reason to doubt.
‘So who’s after Wengler, then? Who is this sinister avenging angel?’
‘If Gereon says he’ll find out, then you can be sure he will. He’ll do everything in his power.’
‘That’s precisely what I’m afraid of,’ Gennat said.
His secretary knocked and opened the door. ‘Excuse me, Sir, but Andreas Lange is here to see you. He says it’s urgent.’
‘Send him in,’ Buddha grunted. Moments later, Lange stood in Gennat’s office, hat in hand and a little out of breath.
‘It’s Gustav Wengler,’ he said, without taking a seat. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Gone where?’ Gennat asked.
‘Boarded the train to Danzig at Friedrichstrasse. I could scarcely get on with him.’
‘No problem,’ Gennat said. ‘I’ll inform Officer Muhl in Danzig. They can intercept him at the train station, and assume surveillance duties.’
‘It’s the Free City of Danzig,’ Lange said. ‘The German Police has no authority there.’
‘Perhaps that is why Wengler is headed there, but John Muhl is a Prussian and an old friend. He’ll be glad to help.’
86
The night train through the Corridor didn’t leave for another four and a half hours, so Rath used the time to visit the jail where Jakub Polakowski had been wrongly interned until his fatal escape attempt two years before. The prison director was happy to receive him, so, shortly after arriving at Allenstein train station, he made his way over by taxi.
The smell of prisons was unmistakable, whether you were in Klingelpütz, Plötzensee or Tegeclass="underline" urine and sweat, mixed with dust and steel and fear. As soon as he passed through the security gates he knew he was in a place of confinement. Wartenburg Jail had originally been conceived as a monastery and, certainly, he knew of no other detention facility with a church steeple as the dominant feature. It was almost idyllically situated on a peninsula, separated from Wartenburg town centre with its brick church by the mill pond.
Rath doubted whether the prisoners would appreciate the view, but…
Imagine Polakowski languishing here, his lover murdered by the man who helped send him to jail.
A guard entered the waiting room. ‘The director will see you now.’ He had been ushered into the estate house at Luisenhöhe to meet Gustav Wengler with similar words. The prison director’s office was on the small side, but looked across the water onto the town. Clearly, East Prussian officials understood the value of a good view.
Prison Director Karl Henning was a thin man with even thinner hair, who greeted Rath kindly and offered him a rickety chair.
‘Beautiful location,’ Rath said, cautiously taking his seat. The chair felt as if it might snap at any moment. ‘May I smoke?’
‘Feel free.’ Henning gestured towards an ashtray on the desk, and Rath took out his case. ‘Are you interested in someone in particular?’
‘Yes, Director. Jakub Polakowski. Sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. Committed on 7th November 1920.’
‘You’re aware the man is dead? He perished during an escape attempt.’
‘Yes, but I’d like to know whether he had any relatives or close friends. Who visited him during his time here?’
‘I can tell you exactly. We keep a book.’ Henning reached for the telephone on his desk. ‘Grundmann? Bring me the Polakowski file, Jakub, prisoner four-six-six-slash-twenty.’
Rath still hadn’t finished his cigarette when a young, overzealous type appeared with a thin file, which he placed on the director’s desk. Henning didn’t need long. ‘Here we are…’ He leafed back and forth, as if the odd page were missing, then continued. ‘If this is correct, then in the ten plus years Jakub Polakowski was here, he received only one visitor.’ He shook his head. ‘I remember thinking the man was very isolated, but I didn’t realise the full extent.’
‘Who visited him, and when? It’s very important. The man could have been a killer, someone taking revenge on Polakowski’s account.’
‘It wasn’t a man,’ Henning said. He passed the file across the desk and pointed to the name entered there, alongside a full address.
Cofalka, Maria, Librarian, Treuburg, Administrative Region of Gumbinnen, Seestrasse 3.
It wasn’t the name he’d been expecting. He’d reckoned with another Polakowski, some distant relative or other, but in spite, or indeed because, of this, he felt the same tingling sensation he always did when potentially decisive developments began to emerge.