Babylon Berlin (7 page)

‘Kemmerling, First Sergeant,’ he said, pointing towards a gap in the canal fencing, right next to the bridge. ‘That’s where he went through. He must have hightailed it across Tempelhofer Ufer and come off the road.’

Böhm looked the corpse up and down and shook his head. ‘How’s he supposed to have driven with hands like that?’

Kemmerling winced as he caught sight of the dead man’s hands. Individual fingers could barely be distinguished. Some of the joints were held together by skin alone; others were so contorted that simply looking at them was agony.

‘How many people do you have here, Kemmerling?’ Böhm asked.

‘Five, sir. Most of my men have been withdrawn because of communist unrest.’

Böhm nodded sympathetically, he didn’t have enough people either. The May disturbances had gone on for two days now. After slipping out of police control the confrontations had quickly escalated. There had been shootings and fatalities and communist strongholds around Bülowplatz, Wedding and Neukölln had been officially declared as trouble spots. All three were under siege and it seemed like civil war was about to break out.

‘Four of you can get rid of the onlookers and seal off the crime scene; the fifth can help secure the evidence until ED get here. If they get here at all, that is.’

‘Ahem…’ it seemed Kemmerling didn’t quite understand. ‘Secure the evidence?’

‘Don’t touch anything or go inside anywhere. Just do whatever Homicide tells you,’ Böhm said. ‘Ritter,’ he called into the darkness.

The stenographer stepped into the glare of the salvage crane.

‘Put your pad away, Charly,’ said the DCI. ‘First, kindly show this gentleman how to secure evidence.’

In the meantime, Assistant Detective Gräf had assembled the camera and, for a split second, the crime scene was lit by the flash. It seemed almost as if the dead man was smiling for the camera.

Charly felt the officer staring at her dress, even though she was walking ahead of him. She had made the green dance dress only a few days before and knew that it accentuated her figure as well as revealing a not inconsiderable length of leg. She was wearing it today for the first time and, on the dance floor at
Moka Efti
, it had felt great. She had enjoyed attracting the attention of the men, which was never a bad thing on a first date. Jakob shouldn’t go thinking she was a sure thing. That her heart started thumping whenever he so much as smiled at her was something she hoped he hadn’t noticed.

The truth was everything had gone pretty well until a liveried valet held a sign up with her name.
Telephone for Fräulein Ritter.
She had guessed the call was from Homicide: Böhm was the only one who knew she was in
Moka Efti
– apart from Greta, of course, but she’d never have disturbed Charly tonight. Jakob was standing at the bar when she returned from the telephone booth. He had accepted that she would have to leave and, after accompanying her to the cloakroom, had even ventured out onto Friedrichstrasse.

When the murder wagon drew to a halt in Leipziger Strasse, with Böhm already ensconced inside and urging her to hurry, she couldn’t have said if their taciturn exchange was a parting or a quarrel. Before the vehicle had gone far he had returned to the escalator. Yet another man incapable of dealing with her job?

She felt a little chilly. The short coat she was wearing over her dress wasn’t particularly warm. Even at the start of May, the nights in Berlin could still be cold.

‘Are you a gentleman?’ she asked the officer as they reached the murder wagon.

‘How do you mean?’ he asked.

‘Are you or are you not?’

‘Of course…’

‘In that case you can lend me your coat.’

He looked at her as though he had misheard.

‘Don’t worry, you’re not going to have to lay it over a puddle. It’s for me. It belongs to the Prussian police anyway. Or perhaps you’d rather not lend Homicide your support?’

She had to turn up the sleeves of the heavy blue coat twice, but immediately felt warmer. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

She passed the officer a pair of fabric gloves and slipped a couple of metal evidence markers into his hands. They trudged onwards. In his coat she no longer felt like she was being watched as she pressed on to the canal bank. The vehicle seemed to have burst through the wrought-iron canal fencing without braking. The posts had been bent downwards, and some had been ripped from their foundations.

The officer followed Charly’s instructions and placed the first evidence marker at the point of impact. There was no trace of skid marks. In fact, it was hard to see what route the Horch had taken. One of the trees by the shore had a strip of bark missing. The car must have scraped past before colliding with the fencing. At most this had caused a change in direction. If the car had crashed head-on into the tree, they wouldn’t have had to pull it out of the canal, although the man at the wheel would scarcely have fared any better. And his face wouldn’t have looked nearly so good. Between the tree and the canal bank was only a few metres. If the gap in the fence was anything to go by, then the car must almost have hit it at right angles. But where had the vehicle come from before that? The case was beginning to interest her.

After she had given the officer further instructions she took a few steps down Möckernstrasse, which led from the canal to Yorckstrasse. Only the left side had been developed. The right side was dominated by a high brick wall that stretched along the pavement. Behind the wall was the site of the
Anhalter
goods station, with a few cars parked underneath the roadside trees. She had to strain her eyes in the dark, but found it eventually: on the wing of a jet-black BMW was a light-coloured paint stain, cream-coloured to be exact. Now she was sure. She called the officer over.

Out of the corner of his eye he had watched First Sergeant Kemmerling traipsing dutifully behind Charly, evidence markers in hand. He had given up his coat for her, another thing
he
hadn’t thought of, even though it was his fault she was trailing through the cold in her skimpy dance dress. DCI Wilhelm Böhm was just an ill-mannered chump, and there was nothing to be done about it. Nonsense, he thought and looked over towards the Horch, which was illuminated again and again by the light of the flash. It’s not my fault. It’s his fault and his fault alone. The unidentified man we’ve just fished out of the canal is the one who’s ruined our evening.

He watched the first sergeant move towards her, obviously finding it difficult to follow instructions from a woman. Had Kemmerling known that Charlotte Ritter didn’t even hold the rank of detective he wouldn’t have lifted a finger, which was why Böhm hadn’t told him. He knew he could rely on Charly and that, on nights like this when he could barely muster enough troops, was particularly important. However, since she was out there securing evidence, he was now missing a stenographer and Böhm was no longer used to taking notes. The paper he held had been loaned by Gräf.

The DCI had made himself comfortable on the heavily padded bench seat of the murder wagon, the rear of which could be transformed into an office in next to no time, and was interviewing the only witnesses: a man and a young woman who had been sitting in a parked car on Tempelhofer Ufer when the Horch had crashed through the canal fencing.

The couple had been rather preoccupied and barely seen a thing. The vehicle must have come out of the darkness with no lights on. A loud noise had startled the pair. Fräulein Wegener had just had time to take in the roar of the motor and the spinning of the wheels before the vehicle hit the water. The man didn’t appear to have seen anything. The pair of them climbed out of the car and ran towards the shore. There was nothing they could do except look on helplessly as the Horch overturned and sank. When they realised that their assistance would already be too late, they notified the police.

‘Did you see or hear anything else?’ Böhm asked. ‘The noise of the brakes, or the driver calling for help? Were there other people in the car with him?’

Fräulein Wegener answered in the negative. ‘If you ask me, he was completely out of it. Didn’t react at all when the car went under. Maybe he was drunk.’

Or already dead, Böhm thought. He looked down at his notes. There wasn’t a great deal there, and the few things he had written could scarcely be deciphered.

‘Hmm,’ he said and rose to his feet. ‘I think that will be all for now. We have your details.’ They climbed out of the murder wagon. Böhm left them standing where they were. He had caught sight of a familiar silhouette on the bridge.

‘Mankind’s progress is undeniable,’ he heard the man on the bridge say. ‘Floaters are driving cars now.’

Wilhelm Böhm had known Dr Magnus Schwartz for years. The doctor’s cynicism was an occupational hazard which detective inspectors were not immune to. Maybe that was why Böhm had such a good relationship with the coroner, who was also a respected professor at the university.

‘Good evening, Doctor! Did they tear you away from the opera?’

Schwartz turned from the dead man at the wheel. Under his coat, he was still in evening dress.

‘Böhm! I should have known you were behind this!’ the doctor shook his hand. ‘No, I don’t go to the opera. It’s too loud for me. Reception at the dean’s. Pretty dull conversation when you consider it was attended by the cream of the German intelligentsia.’

‘You can be grateful that we dragged you away.’

‘Just don’t tell my wife!’

‘So?’ Böhm gestured towards the corpse.

‘You’ll scarcely believe it, my dear Böhm, but this man is dead.’

‘Seriously?’ Böhm feigned surprise. ‘There’s nothing quite like the word of an expert.’

The doctor undid the buttons on the dead man’s double-breasted jacket and shirt. Then he inspected the inside of his mouth. ‘Cause of death still unknown,’ he said after a pause, ‘but most likely he was already dead before he fell in the water. Would you like to hear any more guesses or can you wait until noon tomorrow? I’ll know by then whether he had water in his lungs.’

Böhm didn’t say anything.

‘I thought as much,’ said the doctor. ‘Well now, these are all approximations and remain subject to change until we have the official result tomorrow. Male corpse, height over one seventy, weight around 65 kilograms, age mid-thirties, poor teeth, cause of death still…’

‘Poor teeth?’

‘That’s a fact, not an approximation.’

‘Then he must have been afraid of the dentist.’

‘I don’t think so. Judging by the ruined landscape of his mouth, he’s been to a dentist. A bad one. Seems more likely he was unable to afford decent treatment.’

‘And yet he drives a new car and wears an elegant dinner jacket. He’s almost more stylish than you are, Doctor!’

‘Maybe he preferred to spend his money on cars and clothes than on the dentist. You know how it is, fine feathers make fine birds. And wheels too! Nice car, that Horch. My colleague Karthaus drives one. Not that I’m jealous – what are you supposed to do with a crate like that when it goes off road and lands in the canal…’

‘I think that’s got less to do with the car than the roadworthiness of the driver.’ Böhm gestured towards the dead man’s deformed hands. ‘Can you die of something like that, Doctor?’

‘You can die of almost anything, my dear Böhm.’ Schwartz adjusted his glasses with his index finger and took a closer look at the mash of skin flaps, flesh and bones. ‘What a mess,’ he said finally. ‘That must have been very painful, but he most probably survived it.’

‘Strange,’ Böhm murmured to himself.

‘My dear Böhm! You wouldn’t believe the things people can survive.’

‘No, I mean his face.’ Böhm seemed as if he had awoken from a dream. ‘Is that the face of a man who was in great pain shortly before dying?’

Schwartz didn’t answer but focused instead on the deceased. The dead man seemed to be smiling peacefully.

6

They had been hauling people out of their beds since a quarter past six, searching everywhere, not just in the flats but in the attics and cellars as well. Officers were even rummaging for weapons in the bins. Rath never imagined he’d be back in Hermannstrasse so soon. Eight police squads had been deployed in the communist area of Neukölln alone.

The May disturbances had persisted into a third day. Communists and police had clashed repeatedly. Shots continued to be fired as war raged on the streets of Wedding and Neukölln. Building materials in Hermannstrasse had been used to erect barricades, and entire rows of streets lights put out of commission by protesters throwing stones. Gangs of youths were taking advantage of the darkness and plundering shops.

The previous night, rioters had stoned the 220th precinct building in Selchower Strasse where, as recently as Sunday, they had launched the operation against König. Shots had even been fired and the affair was only defused by a police squad with an armoured car and two trucks.

Episodes like this exacerbated fears of a communist putsch while also stirring up the feelings of the police force. Every officer on the street – especially those in workers’ districts – was nervous and ready to open fire.

In Rath’s eyes, his colleagues’ state of mind bordered on hysteria. When they had summoned him and Wolter to Neukölln, therefore, he determined to keep a cool head. On the morning of the third of May, Commissioner Zörgiebel ordered CID to assist uniform in their search of the city’s trouble spots. Police squads had cordoned off the district on both sides of Hermannstrasse, from Boddinstrasse to Leykestrasse and a huge part of the city had become a no-go area. Uniform guarded the access points, and signs warned that heavy gunfire was expected.

When they began the house-to-house search, duty officers sealed off the entrances to courtyards, before uniformed troops, led in each case by two members of CID, combed the entire block. They had been met with the same reaction everywhere: men cursing, women swearing, children crying – but there had been no weapons. The more the morning wore on, the more Rath felt that people knew something. Somehow, word had spread.