Goldstein Read online

  Volker Kutscher was born in 1962. He studied German, Philosophy and History, and worked as a newspaper editor prior to writing his first detective novel. Babylon Berlin, the start of an award-winning series of novels to feature Gereon Rath and his exploits in late Weimar Republic Berlin, was an instant hit in Germany. A lavish television production aired on Sky Atlantic in November 2017. There are now six titles in the series, most recently Lunapark in 2016. The series was awarded the Berlin Krimi-Fuchs Crime Writers Prize in 2011 and has sold over one million copies worldwide. Volker Kutscher works as a full-time author and lives in Cologne.

  Niall Sellar was born in Edinburgh in 1984. He studied German and Translation Studies in Dublin, Konstanz and Edinburgh, and has worked variously as a translator, teacher and reader. He lives in Glasgow.

  Also available from Sandstone Press

  Babylon Berlin (Der nasse Fisch)

  The Silent Death (Der stumme Tod)

  Other titles in the Gereon Rath series

  The Fatherland File (Die Akte Vaterland)

  The March Fallen (Märzgefallene)

  Lunapark

  First published in Great Britain by

  Sandstone Press Ltd

  Dochcarty Road

  Dingwall

  Ross-shire

  IV15 9UG

  Scotland.

  www.sandstonepress.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored or transmitted in any form without the express

  written permission of the publisher.

  First published in the German language as “Goldstein” by Volker Kutscher

  © ٢٠١٠ Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH & Co.

  KG, Cologne/ Germany

  © ٢٠10, Volker Kutscher

  The right of Volker Kutscher to be identified as the

  author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  Translation © Niall Sellar 2018

  English language editor: Robert Davidson

  The publisher acknowledges support from Creative Scotland

  towards publication of this volume.

  The translation of this work was supported by a grant

  from the Goethe Institut which is funded by the

  German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

  ISBN: 978-1-912240-12-8

  ISBNe: 978-1-912240-13-5

  Cover design by Mark Swan

  Ebook compilation by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore.

  Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia?

  Quia et latrocinia quid sunt nisi parva regna?

  Augustinus, de Civitate Dei, Liber IV

  Contents

  Part One - Crime

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  Part Two - Punishment

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  77

  78

  79

  80

  81

  82

  83

  84

  85

  86

  87

  88

  89

  90

  91

  92

  93

  94

  95

  96

  97

  98

  99

  100

  101

  102

  103

  104

  105

  106

  107

  108

  109

  110

  111

  112

  113

  114

  115

  116

  117

  118

  Part Three - CODA: Escape

  119

  Part I

  Crime

  Saturday 27th June

  to

  Saturday 4th July 1931

  1

  The place smelled of wood and glue and fresh paint. She was alone with the darkness and the silence, with only her breathing and the faint tick of the watch in her jacket pocket for company. The man seemed to have disappeared again, yet she decided to wait a little longer, stretching to get the blood flowing through her arms and legs. At least there were no coat hangers on the rail; she could see a chink of light through the crack in the door. She took the watch from her jacket pocket. It was just gone nine. The night watchman would soon be completing his rounds on the sixth floor.

  Confirmation came with the grinding of the lift, echoing so loudly through the darkness that she gave a start. It was time. He was on his way back down, and in the next few hours would only be concerned with the roller grilles in front of the doors and display windows, with making sure that everything was locked and no one could break in.

  Alex carefully opened the wardrobe and peered out. Better safe than sorry, Benny always said. The neon signs on Tauentzienstrasse shone so much colour through the windows there was no need for a torch. She could see everything: the luxurious show bedroom, with a bed wide enough for a whole family and a carpet so soft her feet sank into it. When she thought back to the scratchy coconut matting in front of the bed she had shared with her little brother, Karl, when she was still living with her parents, in digs that were as murky as they were cramped . . . What had become of Karl? She didn’t even know if the cops had gone looking for him after Beckmann’s death. She didn’t miss her family, but she’d have liked to see him again.

  Alex spun around at a movement on the edge of her vision. The big mirror on the dressing table reflected an eighteen-year-old girl staring defiantly back, legs in baggy trousers and hair held in place by a coarsely woven linen cap. She gave herself a wry grin.

  Pausing at the end of the elegantly decorated plywood panel that served as a makeshift bedroom wall, she peered around the corner. It was hardly necessary. The night watchman wouldn’t make another round of the shop floor before morning, towards the end of his shift. She knew that from Kalli. There wasn’t a soul around and it was a nice feeling, knowing that all this belonged to her for the next few hours. Her and Benny.

  Alex found her way without difficulty. The restless, dappled light from outside, flickering constantly between one colour and the next, was more than enough. She had committed the most important things to memory a few hours before when the place
was full of people. Behind her were the doors leading to the southern stairwell and, to the left, past the wall of curtain fabrics, was the access to the escalators.

  Everything was calm. Traffic noise was muffled, almost unreal, a dull murmur from a different world that had nothing to do with its magical counterpart inside. She entered the deserted curtain section that seemed like a fairy-tale castle, long drapes hanging from ceiling to floor in silk, satin and net. As a little girl, she had often stood here in astonishment, clasping her mother’s hand. Young Alexandra soon understood that her mother never came to buy, only to dream. Take it all in, she had said, we proles may not be able to afford anything here, but they can’t stop us from looking.

  They had never had enough money to buy things in the west, not even when Father was still in work and Mother had her cleaning job. In fact it had been rare for them to venture outside of Boxhagener Kiez. The Ku’damm, KaDeWe and Tauentzienstrasse – for her father these places were a symbol of wasteful capitalism, the west of the city a hotbed of vice to be avoided like the devil avoided holy water. If not for Mother the stubborn old man would never have allowed himself to be talked into those occasional summer visits to the zoo, but even Emil Reinhold understood that you shouldn’t deprive working-class children of the wonders of nature. Alex had never cared to see creatures suffering behind bars, however, and by the polar bears she would already be thinking of the return journey. The Reinhold family was accustomed to strolling the length of Tauentzienstrasse before boarding the U-Bahn at Wittenbergplatz and heading back to the east. At the first shop windows Emil Reinhold would begin his recurring sermon about the excesses of capitalism, even if Alex and her mother had their eyes fixed on the displays. The KaDeWe displays held a kind of magic for Alex. In Mother’s eyes, too, was the sparkle of long-forgotten dreams of a better life, a life which the dictatorship of the proletariat could never hope to provide. Father never noticed, or never wanted to notice. He continued his sermon to the captive audience of his sons, above all to Karl, who took everything so seriously. Karl, the prince of the proletariat, the staunch Communist, who was now in hiding from the cops just like his thieving sister.

  Alex had almost reached the escalators when a noise brought her back to the present, a hard clack, more immediate than the padded roar of traffic. She crouched behind two giant rolls of cloth and listened: something was banging against the glass, clattering and scratching against one of the windows. She tried to place the sounds. A fluttering, then a cooing. Venturing from her hiding place, behind the neon-lit pane of glass she saw the silhouettes of two pigeons resting on the window ledge.

  She took a deep breath to still her beating heart. First the mirror and now this! Benny would kill himself laughing if he could see her. When had she become so easily startled? When she realised her messed-up life was more important than she cared to admit?

  With a loud flap of wings, the pigeons swooped back into the night and Alex continued on her way, the nervous tension accumulated during those long hours in the wardrobe all but evaporated. She enjoyed her night-time stroll through the silent department store more with each passing step. It was as if everything had fallen into a hundred-year sleep, and she was the only person awake in this enchanted kingdom. KaDeWe outstripped all the other department stores they had shut themselves in until now; Tietz for sure, but even the enormity of Karstadt on Hermannplatz paled against the magnificence of Tauentzienstrasse.

  She left the curtain section and reached the escalators. The metal steps stood deserted and motionless as if an evil fairy had turned everything to ice. It was five storeys down to their agreed meeting point on the ground floor: the tobacco section, as always. It had become a kind of ritual, to stock up on brands they could never otherwise afford. Benny had a nose for the stuff.

  She had met him on a freezing cold day in February, quarrelling over a cigarette butt that some snotty-nosed, rich little upstart had thrown half-smoked onto the pavement in front of Bahnhof Zoo, a few weeks after all that crap with Beckmann. Alex had already spent the money she had stolen from that fatso at the Christmas market. She was hungry and hadn’t had a cigarette in two days.

  They pounced on the butt in the same instant, she and this slender, almost dainty blond boy, who, despite his awkward appearance, wasn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty. He moved quickly, but not as quickly as Alex. He glared at her, a look she had returned with interest, so much did her body crave the nicotine. It was a miracle they had managed to make peace and share the fag-end. No doubt it was his eyes that did it.

  Right from the start Alex felt she had to look after this skinny boy with the melancholy gaze, and soon developed almost maternal feelings towards Benny, who was still not yet sixteen. At the very least, she felt like an older sister to him, yet it was Benny who, in the weeks that followed, showed her how to survive on the streets; Benny who taught her how to steal wallets, open doors without a key and drive cars belonging to other people. Useful knowledge for a girl who, when night fell, was never sure where her next meal was coming from.

  For the whole of spring they made ends meet with pickpocketing, small-scale burglaries and a few assignments they took care of for Kalli while they survived from hand to mouth. Until they discovered department stores.

  The first time at Tietz, on Dönhoffplatz, was pure chance. Alex and Benny were in the store just before closing to shelter from the rain. The idea came to them of its own accord as customers were politely ushered towards the exits. They only needed to exchange glances before spending the next few hours huddled tightly together in an enormous wardrobe trunk. When everything around them fell silent they ventured out, every bone in their bodies aching, to empty the jewellery cabinets, and whatever else they could lay their hands on. They filled two small cases from the leather goods section, just enough to carry comfortably without drawing attention to themselves. No one stopped them when they were back outside on Krausenstrasse or had any idea what they were carrying in their cases. They boarded the next train at Spittelmarkt, calm as you like, and passed unnoticed there too, a couple of youths with suitcases, who looked like exhausted street traders returning home after a long and fruitless day.

  The next morning Kalli was astonished, and only too happy to cough up. They had never scored so much before, at most a pocket watch taken from a drunk, or a few odds and ends stolen from a car. After Tietz they stopped dealing in bits and pieces. Pinching wallets on the U-Bahn or fleecing drunks was scarcely worth it, being risky and always a matter of chance. The department store ruse was more lucrative; easier too. All they had to do was shut themselves in, raid the display cabinets and get the hell out. By the time the night watchmen noticed the empty displays, Alex and Benny were long gone.

  They had worked over four department stores by now, and last time, at Karstadt, had made away with some really nifty pieces. It was Kalli who had suggested Berlin’s finest establishment. Alex and Benny would never have thought of it themselves, out of sheer respect. In KaDeWe, they could really make hay, Kalli said, why not try their luck there? The place would be no better guarded than Tietz or Karstadt, guaranteed. He knew someone who worked there.

  Now she was teetering over escalators making her way down floor by floor. The feeling of having KaDeWe all to herself suddenly overwhelmed her. She couldn’t help thinking back to Tietz, where together with Benny she had moved from section to section, savouring the fact that they were alone with such treasures. They had tested any number of things, even paying the toy section a visit, a little coyly at first since, in spite of their friendship, they mostly concealed their childish sides from one another. In the second department store, however – Tietz again, this time at Alexanderplatz – they had got straight down to work.

  The great hall on the ground floor opened out in front of her. To get to the tobacco products she had to go through gentlemen’s fashion, where a line of mannequins with wax faces looked down on her rigidly, arrogantly, just like the snotty little upstarts who wore these clothes
on the outside and could scarcely move for their conceit. Alex hated their kind and took pleasure that it was exactly these types who stood here now, condemned to spend the rest of their days as KaDeWe fossils. At the end of the army of mannequins she could already sense the wood panelling and shelves of the tobacco section.

  Benny didn’t seem to be here, but there was something in the weak light flickering outside. She froze, rooted to the spot. Had one of the mannequins at the end of the row moved? She took a closer look but everything was as before. A red neon sign flashing outside was making the shadows in here dance. There was no night watchman among the mannequins, not a single peaked cap in the line, just casual fedoras, bourgeois bowlers and elegant top hats. She continued with her heart still pounding; it seemed as if every beat must be audible in the silence.

  The mannequin that had so startled her stood right at the end of the line, just before the entrance to the tobacco section. She stuck her tongue out and it tilted its upper body slightly forwards. Terror coursed through her like an electric shock.

  ‘Come right in, my lady,’ said the dummy in an operatic Hungarian accent, ‘don’t be shy!’

  ‘Are you trying to give me a heart attack?’ Alex punched the snow-white dickey.

  Benny took a bow, removing his top hat and waving her through the door like a fairground barker. ‘Come in, my lady! And don’t be cowed by the prices. There’s something here for everyone!’

  ‘You’re a right one, you are,’ Alex grinned. ‘You look like a trainee ringmaster!’ She immediately regretted her choice of words when she saw his face. He had expected amazement, wonder, applause – anything but a joke at his expense.

  ‘I thought since we were here, why not get all dressed up,’ he said, trying not to let his disappointment show.

  ‘Looks damn elegant,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen you in anything like it.’

  ‘Why would you have? This isn’t made for the likes of us. Yet here I am!’ He opened a canvas bag. ‘I got you something from ladies’ fashion,’ he said, lifting out a red silk dress. ‘What do you think?’