Stave went over their findings in his head again, coaxed himself to get on with it and told Breuer about his meeting with Burger-Prinz.
‘I have to admit you’re trying everything.’
Stave stood there silently, not sure if it was meant seriously or sarcastically. ‘I’m doing my best.’
‘Tell that to the mayor,’ Breuer said. ‘He wants us to go and see him. He’s not happy.’
Stave and Breuer took the Mercedes the few hundred metres to the city hall, even though Stave would have preferred to walk. It would have given him time to think.
The city hall with its impressive neo-Renaissance facade and its tall, tapering tower had not been damaged: a monument to the riches of trade and bourgeois pride standing there in a wasteland of rubble. A tram came round a corner and screeched to a stop. Tradesmen and postal workers climbed in. Passers-by rushed past as if they were heading for the nearest air-raid shelter, the sound of the sirens still in their ears.
The chief inspector followed his boss into the imposing building, down corridors half in darkness to the unheated office. Mayor Max Brauer greeted them. A massive, energetic man with a square jaw, grey hair brushed back and bright eyes. Sixty years old. Until 1933 he had been mayor of Altona, the Hamburg suburb that then had independent status, before being kicked out by the Nazis. He left for China then eventually the USA. He had returned a year ago and had been Hamburg’s mayor for the past three months.
Stave knew him slightly, because in December 1946 he had worked on a knife-fight between Altona black marketeers and had been going round looking for witnesses at the scene, Palmaille, the broad promenade along the bank of the Elbe. It had been a Sunday morning and he was ringing doorbells. Number 49 had a nameplate that said ‘Attic Apartment: Brauer’, but it was a common name and he thought nothing of it. It had been a bit of shock when he found himself face-to-face with the mayor.
He recognised Stave again and shook his hand with a firm grip. ‘Please excuse the fact that there’s no heating,’ the mayor said. He had his own overcoat on, but didn’t seem to be frozen through.
Cuddel Breuer left it to Stave to bring him up to date with the state of affairs.
‘We need to do something,’ Brauer said after listening to Stave’s report. ‘Show we mean business.’
Cuddel Breuer nodded. Stave made do with staring expressionlessly into space.
‘In all my years I have never experienced a winter as hard as this,’ the mayor went on. ‘Nobody has any idea when the frost will end. In another week? Or another month? Even two? How are we to get through this winter? Even in the best of times it would have been an enormous challenge. We have burst water pipes all over the city, electricity pylons falling down, coal ships that can’t get into port, unusable country roads, I hardly need tell you. But in these extraordinary conditions…’
I hear what you’re saying, Stave thought. You’ve just been mayor for three months. People have expectations. The chief inspector would have liked to help Brauer, he had voted for him in November 1946. But what was he to do? He felt like a failure and just stood there in silence.
‘We’ll get some more posters printed, warning people to be careful,’ Cuddel Breuer said in his place.
‘We’ve put as many officers on the case as we can,’ Stave said, finally opening his mouth. ‘The British are cooperating. We’ve gone down more avenues than in any other case since the collapse, even sending out requests to the Soviet zone. And we still don’t even know the identity of the victims. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
The mayor nodded understandingly, smiled even, but remained persistent. ‘Obviously we can’t just go out and make an arrest, I know that. But I read the newspapers. And I hear what the ordinary people are saying. They write me letters. There’s whispering going on, even amongst the city officials.
‘Everybody is afraid, everybody is asking who the victims are – and who the murderer is. Everybody has their own theory, everybody suspects everybody else. There are nasty rumours going round. It’s as if all the misery, the deprivation and humiliations are stoking up a hatred that’s looking for something to focus on. And this faceless murderer is becoming that focus. As long as it remains as cold as this and there is no arrest, that hate and anger will grow. Sooner or later people are going to accuse the police and the whole administration of incompetence. And sooner or later somebody is going to say what I am sure some people are already thinking, that things didn’t used to be like this – under Adolf. I cannot sit here doing nothing while some crazy killer creates a situation where people start to get nostalgic for the Nazis!’
Stave had already heard the same story in one shape or form from Breuer, from public prosecutor Ehrlich, from MacDonald; even Kleensch from Die Zeit had said something of the sort. He stared at the mayor, who looked back at them still with a smile on his face, but the chief inspector realised that he was faced with something else here: an ultimatum. Either they produced something or the mayor himself would take over if only so as not to appear helpless. Stave got the message that what mattered was not necessarily catching the killer but at least making sure that the headlines on the story improved, or, better still, disappeared altogether. As long as people calmed down. As long as they forgot about it.
‘I assume these posters have already been printed?’ Brauer asked.
For the first time since Stave had known him, Cuddel Breuer looked embarrassed. ‘We consider it necessary to try once more to find out the victims’ identities. And to warn the public.’
‘Go ahead, but Stave has told me that he has no great hopes that putting these grim photos up on advertising hoardings all round the city will help in their identification. I suggest that if there are no results this time, in future you conduct your investigation more discreetly.’
‘With no headlines. I get the message,’ Stave said.
Brauer gave a sad smile. ‘My concerns are no longer limited to a few burst water pipes. The hospitals are stretched beyond capacity; they’re seeing pulmonary infections, starvation, oedema, frostbite. Every day more people than our lunatic has killed are dying. Seen from a purely statistical point of view, he’s a much more minor problem. But psychologically, it’s another story. I cannot have this killer become a symbol of our failure. That is all I’m asking of you.’
Breuer and Stave said nothing as they walked back to the Mercedes. Only when the heavy car doors had closed did Stave dare to open his mouth, as if he was afraid they were listening to him in the city hall.
‘What happens if the victims are never identified?’ he asked. ‘And if we never solve the case? If the killer gets away?’
‘Then you’d better pray for a thaw soon,’ Breuer grumbled, turning the key in the ignition, ‘so we don’t freeze our backsides off when we’re put back into uniform and assigned to traffic duty.’
When Stave, hungry and dejected, finally got back to his office, the anteroom was empty. Erna Berg and MacDonald had gone. But as soon as he entered his own office, he stopped dead. Something was missing. It took him a second to realise what it was.
The murder files were gone.
He hurried over to his desk, certain that he had left them there this morning after Mashcke came in with the news of the fourth murder. He hadn’t put them back in his filing cabinet; he’d just dashed out. Had his secretary been tidying up? It had been ages since she’d done anything of the sort. Nonetheless he pulled open the filing cabinet drawer.
It was empty.
Stave looked round in confusion. Don’t panic, he told himself, pull yourself together.