Bernhard Bacheran had taken his aunt to Anhalter train station and helped her put her suitcase in the luggage rack but he wanted to avoid a big farewell ceremony involving handkerchiefs and emotional flights although he knew his mother’s sister wanted one. She was only going away for a few days to visit her cousin near Dresden, but you never knew what could happen in the Eastern sector. Before you knew it you found yourself in a camp in Siberia.
The train disappeared in the direction of the Yorkstrasse bridge and Bacheran strolled down to the exit on Askanischer Platz. The train station was still very busy but the rumor was that the Reichsbahn, being operated by the East, wanted to abandon it and that in some senators’ desk drawers in West Berlin there were plans for its destruction. People grumbled: “What the allied bombs didn’t manage to destroy, we will…”
Bacheran was reminded of the stories his mother used to tell, how long ago she and her husband had taken the train from Anhalter station to Budapest and on to Verona, and he felt strangely elated. Tchaikovsky, Italian Capriccio. He turned up his coat collar. The station had no roof and the rain was freezing. A short man swept the puddles of water onto the tracks with a brushwood broom. A baggage porter hauled two containers of Winsinia Apricot Jam and three crates of kippers tied together to the train to Erfurt. A train had just come in from Dresden and the travelers were rushing to the gate. Most of them looked as if they had just emerged from the bunker. There were very few new shoes and often they were tied with string. Almost all the women wore headscarves and almost all the men’s coats were made of two types of material: Wehrmacht grey and some other material sewn together. Nowadays almost every German wore a uniform, Bacheran thought, the uniform of destitution.
Outside, across the street from the station, towards Möckernstrasse a row of booths had cropped up like a shopping street in the middle of the rubble. Clever dealers seeking to grab the East Germans’ money as soon as they got off the train in West Berlin. They advertised their wares on big black boards in heavy white chalk: 1a Kippers, five pound case for 2.95 West or 18.50 East. Gas lighters 2.50 East, half a pound margarine 5.15, bar of soap 6.20.
Bacheran heard a man from Saxony say: “Everything is much cheaper than home at the HO. I’m disabled and I travel for 25% less so I buy for the whole village.”
“Mama, are these yellow things lemons or apples?” a four year old girl asked.
A little old lady stood in front of a poultry vendor and put a plucked goose on his shaky stall table. “We’re from Lommatzsch. Of please dear sir, buy this goose from me. 10 pounds for 15 West Mark. I need to buy tires for my husband’s bicycle. All we have is Buna and they’re no good.”
The vendor refused. “No … Who’s gonna buy himself a whole goose right after Christmas?!”
The man who had come with her to West Berlin was just as disappointed. He wanted to sell his apples. The vendor he offered them to wouldn’t take them. “No you. They cost 25 pfennig at the store and here I get 20 for them.” Somebody shouted some advice: “Why don’t you go to Kudamm, people usually have money there.”
Bacheran would have liked to buy something from these poor people but he had to hurry to the Missing Persons Bureau. He set about enquiring about Rudi Merten and his mysterious dark haired girl friend: this was the other reason he had for being at Anhalter Station. But he kept getting the same reply: “Sorry, no idea.”
It was already so late that he thought of hailing a cab. No. Yes. He wasn’t going to Baghdad on the Orient Express, he could afford a taxi to the Missing Persons’ Bureau. In the car, he felt like a real State Attorney. Too bad Helga wasn’t sitting next to him. She would probably have refused to get in. If there was something she hated it was the decadent bourgeoisie. And for her this car was part of it.
At the Bureau no one had seen Kusian and she hadn’t called. Bacheran took an empty seat next to the officer on guard at the door. She would be sent here if she did come.
She did, at 7:30. There was a knock, they heard a quiet “Please, come in.” and a woman dressed in a very fashionable blue coat entered the room.
“My name is Elisabeth Kusian,” she said. “I’ve been asked to come here in connection with the Merten case.”
Bacheran’s first impression of Mrs. Kusian was entirely positive. Although she wasn’t wearing a nurse’s uniform, it was plain to see that she belonged to a profession founded on caring and devotion. But there was something else about her. Something in the way she thrust her pelvis forward, the way she showcased her body, reminded him of what his aunt used to describe as ‘whorish’, and Bacheran couldn’t help thinking how it would be to lie on top of her and… Christ, the woman was almost forty and she could have been his mother. Still… Maybe it was because she was a nurse and people always said nurses were sexy man eaters.
Elisabeth Kusian seemed very concerned. “Do you really think something happened to Mrs. Merten? She was very nice to me, she brought me a typewriter at home, on the second day of Christmas. When she came I stupidly didn’t have the money for the deposit so I gave her a twelve-piece silverware set as security. In the evening she came back again and I gave her the money…”
“When was that please?” Bacheran felt he should represent Menzel.
“Around ten.”
“So… around ten PM?”
“Yes. Mrs. Merten was on her way to Weissensee. I even walked her to Zoo station. She thought she might be too late for the last streetcar at Alexanderplatz.”
And that’s probably what happened, Bacheran thought, so she went up and down looking for a taxi … and that’s when she fell into the hands of the killer. Somewhere in the vicinity of Alexanderplatz. Then he carried the corpse into the rubble at Memhardstrasse.
“That’s all I can say. I hope nothing happened to her,” Mrs. Kusian repeated.
“Let’s hope for the best,” the attendant said. “Thank you, you can go now… Oh, wait, they’d like to talk to you about this at Police headquarters East. If you don’t mind…”
“Why should I?”
“Well, the Eastern sector and so on…”
“No. I have nothing to hide.”
Bacheran found that entirely convincing and when he joined Inspector Menzel in his office half an hour later, he would have put his hand in the fire for Elisabeth Kusian. “It’s absolutely unthinkable that this woman could have killed Seidelmann and Merten. The idea is absurd.”
Menzel was busy cleaning his nails with an opened paper clip. “The idea of a dismembered corpse also sounds absurd … and yet.”
“I still tend to think it was Rudi Merten,” Bacheran said.
“I have to disappoint you there, my friend: there are no traces of foul play in the Spandau apartment.”
“And I have to disappoint you too, Detective Inspector: no one’s heard of Rudi Merten or his dark haired love at Anhalter station.”
“And yet she exists…” Menzel turned around to make sure they were alone in the room. He lowered his voice. “She’s a Senator’s wife. She confirmed that she was with Rudi Merten at the time of the crime. Now that stays between us. A directive from higher up. And if you ever let the slightest word out about this, particularly to Leupahn, your career will be over, once and for all. Rudi Merten is not the perpetrator, he is to be excluded. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
When Bacheran called Helga he was careful to be strictly official. There were probably people in West Berlin who listened in on every conversation with the East. The American secret service was also thought to be listening in. “Miss. Leupahn, I am allowed to give you two pieces of information. First that Mrs. Merten’s husband, Mr. Rudolf Merten, is no longer a suspect. First because no traces of blood have been found in the couple’s home in Pichelsdorferstrasse in Spandau. Second because Mr. Merten’s albi is watertight. Also we asked Nurse Elisabeth Kusian when she paid a visit to our Missing Person’s Bureau to make herself available to you at your Police Headquarters as soon as possible, and she agreed. She stated that she walked Dorothea Merten to Zoo station around 10 PM on the second day of Christmas; the saleslady intended to go to her sister’s in Weissensee. As far as we are concerned, we have no reason to suspect Nurse Kusian or her testimony.”
“Is that all?” The answer was just as dry.
“Yes. Although it might be advisable that I come directly over to you for any information you might have after you see Mrs. Kusian.”
“We will be in touch, Mr. Diggermann.”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Hardnose.”