Dr Karthaus had already begun when Rath swept into the autopsy room. Böhm glanced reproachfully at his watch, but Gennat continued listening to the pathologist.
‘…your suspicion has been confirmed,’ he said, giving Rath a nod of greeting. ‘The vocal cords have indeed been removed.’
‘Just like Vivian Franck,’ said Rath.
Gennat sounded as if he had been expecting the news. ‘Whether we like it or not, we should get used to the idea that we’re dealing with a serial killer.’
Böhm grunted at the phrase.
‘To avoid a second Düsseldorf and a fresh wave of hysteria,’ Gennat continued, ‘we should keep this to ourselves and continue to handle things as you have done so far, Böhm. The press has done enough damage already. If we were to confirm the serial killer theory now…’
‘What do you mean, confirm?’ Böhm said. ‘The press is on completely the wrong track. They’ve thrown together two cases that have absolutely nothing to do with one another.’
‘Apart from the strange coincidence of the Chinese gooseberry,’ Gennat said.
‘You know what I think of that nonsense.’
‘On that note. Did you find anything, Herr Rath?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact.’ Rath cleared his throat, only to be cut off by Dr Karthaus.
‘Far be it from me to interrupt CID business, but aren’t you gentlemen here to listen to me?’
‘Of course, Doctor. Rath, come to my office immediately afterwards to make your report.’
‘I…uh, at three…my appointment with Zörgiebel.’
‘In that case come straight after your appointment.’
‘Might I continue?’ Karthaus asked, sounding slightly agitated.
‘On you go, Doctor, on you go,’ Gennat said.
Karthaus cleared his throat. ‘Seeing as you’ve mentioned these yangtao that Dr Schwartz found in Betty Winter’s stomach…’ He made a dramatic pause so that the three CID officers realised he had read the Winter case notes as well as the Franck file. ‘…I have examined the contents of the deceased’s stomach and can only say that she didn’t eat very much before her death, fruit mostly. There is nothing to suggest the presence of Chinese gooseberries…’
‘I’ve brought a few along with me,’ Rath said, reaching in his pocket for the yangtao the Chinese man had given him.
‘Looks like a furry potato,’ Gennat said.
‘You have to cut it open,’ Rath said to Dr Karthaus. ‘That’s your area of expertise.’
Karthaus took the scalpel, and parted the unremarkable-looking fruit to reveal a bright green centre with small black seeds arranged in a radial pattern.
‘Looks very pretty from the inside,’ Gennat said.
‘Tastes good too,’ Rath said. ‘And it’s healthy.’
‘As I said,’ Karthaus continued. ‘I didn’t find evidence of any such fruit in her stomach, but she had eaten other kinds of fruit, albeit many hours before she died.’
‘The cause of death? Drugs? Poison?’
‘Wrong on both counts,’ Karthaus said. ‘Ultimately, I can’t tell you what she died of.’
‘Just like Franck,’ Böhm growled. ‘Can you at least venture a guess?’
‘The examination revealed an excessive acidity of the blood. That’s normal with dead people, but the results were uncommonly high…’
‘Get to the point, Doctor. You must have a hunch.’
‘That’s really all it is, and I have no other explanation. She could have died of hypoglycaemia, but I can’t prove it.’
‘Never heard of it,’ Gennat said. ‘What is that?’
‘Extremely low blood sugar.’
‘And it can be fatal?’
‘Absolutely. However, it usually only occurs in diabetics who treat their illness with insulin. If the insulin dose is too high or the body isn’t supplied with enough sugar, then it can lead to low blood sugar.’
‘Was Fastré diabetic?’ Gennat asked.
Karthaus shook his head. ‘I requested her files from her doctor. She was fit as a fiddle, but there are these injection sites. On closer inspection, I found a number of subcutaneous injections, not so easy to uncover.’
Gennat nodded. ‘But this stuff…’
‘Insulin…’
‘…is something only diabetics take?’
‘That’s right.’ Karthaus nodded. ‘It’s saved the lives of many people. If I may, I should like to propose a little theory.’
Gennat grinned. ‘So, you’re finally letting the cat out of the bag.’
‘Someone administered a number of insulin jabs, either against her will or without her knowledge.’ The pathologist paused and watched the reaction of the police officers. ‘Subcutaneous injections, as I said. That is, in the subcutaneous fatty tissue, where the active agent slowly enters the bloodstream. She received these injections over several days.’
‘Without her knowledge,’ Gennat muttered thoughtfully.
Karthaus nodded. ‘Nevertheless, her doctor was unable to tell me of any medication she had to take by injection, so it would have been difficult to trick her. Which leaves against her will, although I’ve found no trace of violence. The final dose, at any rate, was so high it was fatal; and the woman must have slowly but surely gone into insulin shock. After that she clearly didn’t get any more sugar.’
‘Sugar?’
‘The only thing that could have saved her life once the insulin was in her body.’
About half an hour later Rath set off again, with Böhm and Gennat remaining to receive Grunwald, Fastré’s producer, who would identify the body. He made good progress and was parked in the atrium by ten to three. Kirie greeted him enthusiastically when he entered the office. He crouched and patted the dog who, in her exuberance, knocked the grey felt hat from his head and started chasing it round the room. Only with the help of Erika Voss and a few cunning tricks did he manage to get it back.
‘Any calls?’ he asked, as he hung it, now moist and slightly misshapen, on the hook.
Erika Voss reached for the list on her desk. ‘Your father said he’d call back. Then a woman who didn’t want to leave her name, probably something private…’ She looked at him expectantly, but Rath’s features were as if chiselled in marble. ‘And Frau Klang…to remind us about your three o’clock. What’s it about, do you know? Why does the commissioner want to speak to you?’
‘Goodness knows…’
‘Is it about Brenner?’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I’ll cross my fingers for you.’
Rath suspected that the whole station knew about his clash with Brenner. The rumour mill in the Castle was working full-steam, and the canteen was its pressure cooker. Erika Voss spent every lunchtime in there, and it couldn’t just be for the food.
Before seeing Zörgiebel, Rath splashed a few litres of water on his face to freshen up. He needed a clear head; just maintain his composure and everything would be fine. He positioned himself in front of the mirror and combed his wet hair into shape. The man staring back at him didn’t look too shabby. He couldn’t be such a bad guy; surely the commissioner would see that.
Brenner was sitting in Zörgiebel’s outer office when Rath entered, holding a magazine awkwardly in his left hand. Reading wasn’t so easy with your right arm in a sling. The plasters on his face were a little much, Rath thought, sitting as far away as possible. Zörgiebel was clearly still busy; the leather-upholstered door to his inner sanctum was closed. Rath examined the old Berlin cityscapes on the wall with interest, and tried to avoid making direct eye contact with Frank Brenner. Dagmar Kling typed unperturbed, as the two men gave each other the silent treatment. It was safe to say that The Guillotine, as Zörgiebel’s secretary was known, had seen worse than two quarrelling inspectors.
The telephone rang and Dagmar Kling answered. She listened and hung up. ‘The commissioner will see you now, gentlemen.’
Brenner jumped to his feet and Rath let him go first. In his eagerness Brenner hadn’t realised it would be difficult to open the massive double door with only his left hand. Rath didn’t come to his aid, even when he fancied Dagmar Kling was staring at him reproachfully. He waited and followed Brenner in at a respectful distance.
Zörgiebel wasn’t alone. Across his brightly polished desk, in one of the three leather chairs, sat Superintendent Brückner, Chief of the Fraud Squad. Brenner had been caught out, Rath registered with satisfaction, although he didn’t realise it yet. He couldn’t have seen his doctor in the past few days. Smiling obsequiously, Brenner gave first Zörgiebel, and then Brückner, his left hand before sitting down. Rath was glad it wasn’t Bernhard Weiss leading the discussion, as that would have been a tougher nut to crack. With Zörgiebel he had no such reservations.
Preliminary greetings over, Zörgiebel didn’t hang about. ‘Gentlemen, you know why you are here, so let’s get to the point. An incident occurred on the evening of the first of March in the Residenz-Casino. Inspector Rath, you are alleged to have struck Inspector Brenner on two occasions. What do you have to say to that?’
Rath made a guilty face. ‘I did strike Inspector Brenner, and I am sorry,’ he said, ‘but it is a mystery to me how he could have sustained such serious injuries. I took a couple of hefty swipes at him, but my blows couldn’t have been that forceful. I’m not Max Schmeling.’
‘We’ll come to that presently,’ Zörgiebel said. ‘So, you are sorry that you struck Inspector Brenner.’ The commissioner cleared his throat. ‘Then I would ask you to stand up, give the inspector your hand and apologise formally for behaviour that is entirely unworthy of a Prussian police officer.’
Rath did exactly as asked. He stood up and stretched out his right hand towards Brenner, who almost met it with the hand in the sling, before switching to his left. Rath likewise switched hands.
‘I apologise unreservedly, Herr Brenner,’ he said. ‘It won’t happen again.’
‘Good,’ Zörgiebel said after Rath had resumed his seat, ‘then let that be an end to this. Inspector Rath, I would like to remind you that one of a Prussian police officer’s most important duties is to conduct himself in a fitting manner at all times. Especially now, with the press ready to pounce on our every error.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Good. Then I won’t keep you from your work any longer. Please take this matter to heart and…’
‘What?’ Brenner could no longer keep his rage and disappointment in check. ‘That’s it? A half-baked apology and the matter is closed for good old Herr Rath? If that’s how it is, I’m going to have to seriously consider instituting criminal proceedings against my colleague here for assault. You and your distinguished Vipoprä tried to talk me out of it, and, idiot that I am, I agreed. This isn’t the last of it!’
Brenner no longer had himself under control, almost slamming his right hand against the table.
Zörgiebel remained calm. ‘Inspector Brenner, I think you should consider very carefully what you are saying. If you institute criminal proceedings I will have to insist upon an official medical examination. Do you really want that?’
Brenner gave a start. ‘What are you trying to say?’
‘That is something I’d like to discuss with you and Superintendent Brückner in private. That’s why I was just asking Inspector Rath to leave, before you interrupted me.’
‘My apologies, Commissioner.’ Brenner was kowtowing now. Did he sense what was in store? Rath would have dearly loved to stay in the room and hear what accusations Brenner had to defend himself against.
‘Can I go now, Sir?’ he asked.
‘Of course, my dear Rath!’ Zörgiebel waved him out. ‘Get back to work.’
Rath took his leave with a bow and the friendliest of smiles. This will be hard on Brenner, he thought, strolling past Dagmar Kling’s clattering typewriter and out of the office. Falsification of documents, theft. A number of charges had accumulated. Zörgiebel would probably sweep most of it under the carpet, but Brenner would pay a price. Normally they threatened miscreants with a stint in Köpenick, far outside the gates of the city. Rath’s costume in the Resi would thus take on a prophetic meaning.
He had just begun to feel pleased at this favourable turn of events when he remembered what had caused them in the first place. Charly and her cowboy. The grinning man who’d opened the door that morning was the one he should have beaten up, not Brenner.
It was twenty past three when he opened the glass doors to Homicide and knocked on Gennat’s door. Trudchen Steiner told him that Böhm was still with Buddha. ‘I’ll ask if you can go in.’
He could. Böhm and Gennat were sitting eating cake.
‘Take a seat,’ Gennat said. ‘Would you like a slice? Trudchen, please bring the inspector a cup of coffee and a cake plate.’
Rath sat down. The fact that Buddha could get stuck into cakes straight after a visit to the morgue testified to a steady constitution. Böhm didn’t look quite so happy, but was forcing himself to eat a slice of nut cake.
‘So,’ Gennat said, ‘take a seat and tell me what you found out about these yangatang…’
‘Yangtao, Sir.’ Rath fished one out of his pocket and divided it with the cake knife. ‘You can use your fork to scoop it out.’
Gennat tried it and nodded appreciatively. ‘It comes from China, you say?’
‘I met someone today who grows yangtao here in Berlin, but that’s the exception. Otherwise I think you can only get it in China. It’s a very exclusive fruit, and not exactly cheap.’
‘Just the thing for film actresses.’
‘Perhaps it’s fashionable in those circles. I still don’t know where Fastré bought hers, but the owner of the Chinahaus in Kantstrasse remembered Betty Winter. Curious as it seems, the matter doesn’t appear to go anywhere after that. You see, Vivian Franck has nothing to do with yangtao. She never even went near Chinese food, I learned today. On the other hand, she was picked up by this stranger outside a Chinese restaurant.’
Trudchen Steiner entered with coffee and a cake plate. ‘Help yourself,’ Gennat said.
Rath looked at the cake plate which, despite having already been plundered, still contained a lavish selection. He left the last slice of gooseberry tart for Gennat, Buddha’s favourite, and shovelled a slice of cheesecake onto his own plate.
‘Well,’ Böhm said, having polished off his nut cake, ‘we can consign this Chinese gooseberry nonsense to the shelves. I thought it was hogwash from the start.’
Gennat helped himself to some German gooseberry tart. ‘Rath has already voiced his doubts,’ he said, ‘but as far as I’m concerned the matter isn’t closed. There remains this curious coincidence…’
‘Exactly, coincidence!’ Böhm thundered. ‘The Winter and Fastré cases have nothing to do with each other!’
‘…this curious coincidence,’ Gennat continued, ‘and such coincidences always make me uneasy.’
‘We should be concerned with facts, not feelings,’ Böhm said.
‘We might collect facts, but we should nevertheless allow ourselves to be guided by our instincts,’ Gennat said. ‘I wouldn’t have solved half the cases I have if I had limited myself to simply collecting the facts.’
‘I’m not talking about limiting ourselves. I’m saying we shouldn’t be abandoning ourselves to wild theories,’ Böhm grumbled.
‘If you mean Rath’s theory that it was staged,’ Gennat responded, ‘then I have to tell you that, of all the observations made by colleagues this morning, it’s still the most plausible. We are dealing with a perpetrator who loves putting on a show – perhaps he has a background in theatre or film, which would explain his preference for actresses. If the killer is trying to tell us something with these murders, and the way he presents his victims, then there are a number of questions we need to ask ourselves. Why are the corpses in these cinemas specifically? Why are they in cinemas at all? Why film actresses, and why does he remove their vocal cords? We know that he kills them first. So why does he dress their corpses so beautifully afterwards, make them up and deck them out in fine clothes, perfume them even?’
‘One way or another we’d have to answer all those questions,’ Böhm objected, ‘whether the whole thing has been staged, as you believe it has, or not.’
‘Then we are in agreement, Böhm,’ Gennat said.
‘At any rate, he treats his victims better once they’re dead,’ Rath said. He was thinking out loud, but Buddha listened attentively all the same. ‘To me it looks like he loves and hates them in equal measure.’
Gennat nodded his agreement. ‘Let’s leave the cinema killings to one side for a moment,’ he said at last, ‘and turn our attention to the Winter case. You both have ground to make up there. If you had collaborated more effectively with one another, gentlemen – and I don’t want to hear any excuses, from either of you – then perhaps we would have made more progress.’ He took a carefully folded piece of paper from his jacket.
‘The search order for the offices of La Belle Film and Heinrich Bellmann’s private quarters,’ he said, waving the paper. ‘I’d like you to lead the operation jointly. You’ll head out there today, I’ve placed a squad of duty officers at the ready.’
Rath and Böhm were both taken equally by surprise and looked at each other in horror. They had to resolve their differences. Buddha had spoken. There was no getting around it.
They couldn’t even work separately. Heinrich Bellmann’s offices and private quarters were housed at the same address, which was typical of Bellmann. It was just another way of saving money – dispensing with the representative office in Kantstrasse and residing in Pistoriusstrasse, where the rents weren’t nearly so high.
The cars rolled up at five on the dot, an Opel containing the CID officers, with Böhm in front next to the driver, Assistant Detective Mertens, and Rath in the rear next to Gräf, whom Gennat had also forced to take part despite being on late shift in the Castle. A police van of squad officers followed, and a pick-up truck to stow the confiscated articles.
Bellmann lived in a solidly middle-class tenement flat in the front building, while the La Belle office was located in the first rear building. A discreet brass plate pointed the way to a kind of studio with large windows that looked as if it had been built for a sculptor who needed a lot of space. Now it was home to desks and a conference table, everything more untidy, old-fashioned and thrown together than in Oppenberg’s uncluttered modern office in Kantstrasse.
Rath left it to the higher-ranking Böhm to dangle the search order in front of the astounded producer’s face. Bellmann was soon on the telephone to the lawyer he so enjoyed threatening people with, probably the same one who had earned him a load of money in his running battle with Manfred Oppenberg. Barely quarter of an hour later the lawyer arrived, but there was nothing he could do except watch as the officers packed files and reels of film into crates and carried them outside. Time and time again Bellmann protested that if the Liebesgewitter premiere had to be postponed he would be holding Böhm and Rath directly responsible, but the protests were half-hearted. For some reason Bellmann’s mind seemed to be elsewhere.
In his years of service, Rath had developed an instinct for house searches. He had learned to read the guilty consciences of people who protested about their four walls being turned upside down, and could distinguish genuine anger from feigned outrage. Bellmann had something to hide, that much was clear. Rath and Böhm took care that no one disposed of anything secretly.
There was a great deal to pack up, mainly document files, and he felt like he was part of a tax investigation. In his private residence, Bellmann had a little study from which they seized all papers and files, as well a few old appointments diaries, notebooks and screenplays. Next to the study was a small projection room, and Rath instructed that all film cans be secured, including the reel that was still in the projector.
They were almost finished when a woman in a grey winter coat swept through the front door, looking around frantically until she recognised Rath. ‘What’s going on here?’ Cora Bellmann asked.
‘House search,’ Rath said. ‘DCI Böhm has the warrant.’ He gestured towards the adjoining room where Böhm was currently signing a list of confiscated articles for the lawyer.
‘If anything important should go missing,’ Bellmann cursed as he scanned the inventory, ‘or your people should have broken anything, then…’
‘…then the Free State of Prussia will naturally reimburse you for the damage,’ Böhm interrupted. ‘This is a summons. Please make sure you present yourself at police headquarters tomorrow morning at ten.’
‘You’ve a nerve! I’ve got an important meeting tomorrow at ten.’
‘You’ll have to postpone.’
Cora Bellmann cut in. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ she asked first her father, who shrugged his shoulders, then Böhm. ‘Can you explain to me why you are treating my father like a criminal?’
‘If we were treating your father like a criminal he’d be in handcuffs and heading for a night in the cells,’ Böhm said.
‘We don’t have to stand for this!’
‘Actually you do.’ Böhm remained calm. ‘You may accompany your father to the station tomorrow morning should you wish, Fräulein Bellmann. Any questions you have will be answered there. Now you must excuse me. Our work here is done.’
Böhm lifted his hat and pushed his way outside. Emerging through the door he gave Rath a wink before cocking his head to one side, a gesture that could only mean one thing: let’s get out of here!
Gräf and Mertens stayed behind to shadow the producer, ‘…but conspicuously, so that he notices,’ as Gennat had said. Thus the Opel stayed where it was, and Rath and Böhm were obliged to head back to the Castle in the pick-up, squashed beside each other on the front seat next to the driver. The return journey was a little rough in places, and the pair were shaken around so much that there was no way they could avoid bumping into one another.
Böhm maintained an icy silence, as he had on the journey out. The driver sensed the tension and said nothing. The man was far too easy to offend, Rath thought. If they had to work together then they should at least try to make the best of it. He decided to give it a whirl.
‘I know I acted improperly the day before yesterday when I set the whole disused cinema business in motion,’ he said. ‘Lange had told me expressly that it was against your wishes.’
Böhm continued to stare at the Greifswalder Strasse evening traffic, saying nothing.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rath said. ‘I thought the idea was right and wanted to put it into action. If I’ve offended you by doing so, then I’d like to apologise.’
‘It’s fine,’ Böhm growled. ‘The fact it was successful proves you made the right choice.’ He turned his head and looked Rath sternly in the eye. ‘But if you should disregard a single one of my orders today, even if all you do is refuse to make coffee, I’ll slap a disciplinary hearing on your arse so hard you won’t be able to recover from it. Is that understood?’
‘Understood.’
Despite the serious threat, Rath couldn’t help but grin. The atmosphere in the car was suddenly more relaxed. The driver sensed it too, and was noticeably calmer behind the wheel.
When they arrived at Alex, only the late shift was still on duty in Homicide. Henning, who had to step in for Gräf, and Lange, as well as a little black dog. Kirie jumped up as Rath came through the door.
‘What’s the dog doing here?’ Böhm asked.
‘Fräulein Voss brought her just now,’ Henning said. ‘For Inspector Rath, she said.’
‘I’m looking after her,’ Rath explained. ‘She belonged to Jeanette Fastré, the poor thing.’
‘Doesn’t it belong in a home?’
‘She was beside herself with fear when we found her, I had no choice but to get her back on her feet.’
‘Just make sure the damn thing doesn’t eat any files, and that bringing dogs into Homicide doesn’t become a habit.’
Kirie refused to be intimidated and started barking when the first uniformed officers entered with the heavy crates. She sniffed nosily at the pile, and Rath seized her by the collar to pull her back.
‘Enough,’ he said. ‘Sit down and be good!’
The piles grew as more and more crates were brought in. At last, an officer placed the final crate, which contained only reels of film, at the top. ‘That’s it, Sir,’ he said to Böhm.
The DCI nodded. The officer shrugged his shoulders and took his leave.
‘That’s a lot of timber,’ Lange said, examining the contents of a crate. ‘Did Buddha…I mean Superintendent Gennat, say we have to plough through all this tonight?’
‘I’m saying it,’ Böhm growled. ‘We’ll search until we find something.’
‘And who’s going to watch the films?’ Henning asked.
‘We’ll take care of that tomorrow. The files are more important. Anything that’s linked to Betty Winter or her new film. Contracts, fee statements, insurance documents, what do I know…? Anything that provides information about Bellmann’s finances and the commercial success or otherwise of his film company.’
‘Someone should get to work on Bellmann’s private notebooks and appointments diaries,’ Rath said. ‘Perhaps he made a note of the fact that Peter Glaser’s real name was Felix Krempin.’
‘You can take care of that,’ Böhm said.
‘I take it that’s an order.’
It was meant to be a joke, but Böhm wasn’t laughing. ‘Shall we, then?’ he said, heaving the first crate onto a desk. ‘A crate each. That’s the quickest way.’ The three men did as they were told.
‘I still don’t understand,’ Lange said, opening the first lever arch file. ‘What are we actually looking for here?’
‘Ammunition for Superintendent Gennat,’ Böhm said.