‘Inspector Rath has instructions to return to Berlin and wanted to…’
Superintendent Wieking wrenched the phone from her hand. ‘Inspector Rath,’ she bellowed into the receiver. ‘If you have instructions to report to Berlin, then I suggest you do so. God knows we need every officer here to repel the Communist threat. Now, if you would kindly refrain from distracting my girls!’
Charly longed to hear Gereon’s response, but couldn’t make it out.
‘Let me worry about that, Inspector,’ Wieking said pointedly, and hung up.
Karin paused in the door holding two cups of tea. Her eyes flitted between Charly and her commanding officer, towards her work station and back.
‘Please come in, Fräulein van Almsick. What I’m about to discuss with Fräulein Ritter is no secret, especially seeing that you, too, are affected by her actions.’
Karin set one cup on Charly’s desk and the other on her own. She sat down and opened a file. When her eyes finally met Charly’s she shrugged her shoulders as if to say: sorry, I didn’t mean to snitch. Charly didn’t believe her.
‘Were you at the Wittenauer Sanatorium this morning, Fräulein Ritter?’ Wieking began.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘I don’t recall sending you there a second time.’
‘Chief Inspector Böhm called and…’
‘I’ve spoken with Chief Inspector Böhm. He didn’t request a follow-up.’
‘What I was about to say was that Böhm called to inform me that Hannah Singer had escaped from the sanatorium, the girl I…’
‘And you saw this as an opportunity to send yourself back to Reinickendorf? Leaving your colleague here in the lurch.’
‘I thought I could help.’
‘A commendable attitude, Cadet Ritter, but in future you should wait until someone authorised gives the order.’
‘Yes, ma’am. It’s just… I felt responsible somehow. The interrogation yesterday…’
‘…got out of hand. Yes I can see that. As for your report…’ Friederike Wieking threw the file onto Charly’s desk and tapped it with her finger. ‘You couldn’t call it a transcript. You mention glances, advance suspicions – but as for facts, as for a single meaningful word, I can’t find anything.’
‘That’s because she didn’t say anything.’
‘Extracting a statement from a crazy Jewish brat was always going to be a fool’s errand. But I didn’t want to turn down Superintendent Gennat’s request…’
So Böhm had engaged Gennat’s help, Charly thought.
‘If DCI Böhm gets fixated on something, that’s his business,’ Wieking continued. ‘What I can’t have is him commandeering my officers. Have I made myself clear?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Very well.’
‘Should I re-write the report?’
‘Leave it as it is.’ A smile spread across Superintendent Wieking’s face. ‘I don’t think Chief Inspector Böhm will be working on the case much longer.’
‘But…’
‘The report can wait. I’d rather you focused on the Red Rats. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had something to do with the Communist revolt. Graffiti like that, and days later the Reichstag’s on fire…’ Friederike Wieking waved her hand. ‘Well, I’m sure you and Fräulein van Almsick have it in hand.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Karin, who had interpreted the superintendent’s words as praise. Charly had never hated working in G Division under Friederike Wieking so much.
‘Then you know what to do,’ the superintendent said. Reaching the door, she turned around, lifted her right arm and issued a brisk ‘Heil Hitler!’ before departing.
Charly and Karin exchanged surprised glances. Six months ago the superintendent would have risked disciplinary proceedings for the Hitler salute, which was still something she’d never have dared in Gennat’s presence. Party politics had no place at police headquarters, even if the Nazi leader was now Chancellor and his thugs working hard to destroy German democracy for good.
For the time being, however, the German Reich remained a Republic, and, like so many others, Charly hoped the March elections would give its government something to think about. Democratically – or at least civically – minded Germans might still rise up and fight. They couldn’t let these barbarians run the country.
15
The fog had dispersed but it was still cold beneath the elevated railway, where a sharp wind was blowing. It was at least ten degrees cooler than Cologne. Rath had never been able to stand the Berlin winter. The city was too cold for a Rhinelander.
Beggars gathered on the station steps. One man sat huddled on a piece of cardboard in a coat stiff with dirt, his hat on the pavement propping up a sign that said: War-blind, please give generously. Despite his white stick and pitch-black sunglasses, Rath felt that the man was staring at him. He rummaged for a ten pfennig piece and dropped it into the hat.
A cop bobbed up and down on his bootheels, wringing his gloved hands to keep them warm. Pigeons cooed in the bridge struts. Rath went over and presented his identification.
‘Why don’t you see how things are coming along,’ Böhm had said, though Rath hadn’t known what awaited him at Nollendorfplatz until he got there. At the foot of a steel column were two wooden frames, each covered with canvas. The canvasses were splattered with pigeon droppings. According to Böhm they’d been here since the weekend, guarded by the Berlin Police as if they were the Hohenzollern crown jewels.
Now Rath understood the cop’s disgruntled expression. It was all he could do to prevent his own mask from slipping. Had he really interrupted his carnival celebrations for this… shit?
Yesterday on the phone it had sounded as if the successful capture of the Reichstag arsonists rested in Gereon Rath’s hands alone. All leave has been cancelled, Erika Voss informed him, every available man is to report for duty. Within hours he was on a train to Berlin without saying goodbye to Paul, let alone explaining the misappropriation of his office. Revellers might still be spilling out of the station, but to Rath it felt like Ash Wednesday. The fun was over, and it was time to head back.
His late-night arrival at Bahnhof Zoo, on the platform where he and Charly had shared many a reunion and goodbye, was an anticlimax. She appeared bleary-eyed and absent-minded, while Rath’s delight was tempered by his guilty conscience. Conversation was no more than perfunctory on the journey home until, arriving at Carmerstrasse, they fell exhausted into bed.
This morning any notion that he might be involved in the Reichstag investigation had been swiftly disabused. Although the fire remained the dominant theme at A Division briefing, Gennat had assigned him to Wilhelm Böhm. Unlike most of his colleagues, Böhm saw little point in hounding the city’s Communists and had already been deserted by Cadet Steinke, who had volunteered for the newly formed Reichstag task force.
Rath lit a cigarette and examined the soiled canvasses, wondering if he shouldn’t follow Steinke’s lead when he got back, despite being sceptical about the general political madness: the Red threat had always been overstated in Berlin, and even now he couldn’t believe the Communists were on the brink of revolution.
He took the photo Böhm had given him from his pocket: the corpse of a homeless man, his coat covered in rime and pigeon droppings. He compared the thickness of the shit with that of the two canvasses remaining from the original six.
‘I come bearing glad tidings,’ he said to the cop, who stood at a distance from the site. ‘Our work here is done.’
The cop looked as if he had been given the all-clear following a lengthy illness. ‘About bloody time. You wouldn’t believe how many people have stood here mugging me off.’