When the moon rises over Berlin

      Three man were sitting in the half-lit office, each of them was thinking about his own. There was a lot of evidence, they needed to close Ingrid’s case and start a new one on Wilhelm’s murder. Adler was sitting with a slight hangover, his hands were resting on the table, he still recalled those jaws in front of his eyes. Ehrman, on the other hand, was taking a long heavy smoke. He could not get over the shock. Strange documents of Norwegian prisoners had been found in Wilhelm’s personal things yesterday — a case that Wieland had handled — and now he himself was waiting for the soldier who had gone to bring the file from the archives.              All three of them could not believe that Ingrid’s death would entail such a huge tangle of problems and cases, seemingly completely unrelated to each other. The door opened, in a matter of minutes there were documents on the desk, which Wieland began to unfold at once.              The man had been analysing a lot of information over the past few days, making his brain boil and require rest.              “So, the case I’d been working on for a few weeks was rather controversial and vague. For example, it covers more than one country. The death of a certain Wally was presented to me. Not only she was a non-local, she was exactly the kind of girl who crossed the border illegally, which surprised me,” Wieland finished. Adler and Ehrman immediately pitched forward. There were death cases of several murdered individuals in Germany at once.”              “What’s else?” asked Adler, pouring himself another glass of water.              “The thing is, no one wanted to pursue the case, just like yours. At first I thought it wasn’t a very interesting investigation either, but then it turned out to be the opposite.”              The case starts in the winter. A request for help came to the SD from Denmark, they were asked by Norway. Prisoners had escaped from a women’s prison to neighbouring countries. It seemed to the Norwegian police that they headed to Germany. But Germany did not consider it necessary to help them, the case was withdrawn. But there was more than one case. There were about thirty-four of them filed against prisoners for illegal border crossing. Apparently they had escaped through Denmark and some of them took their way directly to Germany. I was asking myself how it was possible. After all, it’s not easy to get lost in the crowd when you’ve just got out of prison. But at that time I didn’t care much about that question. I asked the Gestapo for all these cases, it turned out that girls were dying or disappearing all over the country,” Wieland flipped through the pages, playing with a pen in his hand. He was nervous.              “On German territory?”              Wieland replied to Ehrman’s words with a nod.              “That also seemed strange to me, because… how so? However, the answer came when I discovered that the girls were dying. Besides, they weren’t dying of natural causes. They all were murders, committed at different times and in different parts of the country. These victims were not registered anywhere and they knew they had nowhere to go. So, they could only go to people as criminal as themselves. Therefore…”              Adler interrupted Wieland:              “Do you think they might have been working for Wilhelm?”, expressed his theory Adler.              “Maybe. Because the girls who held on long enough were working illegally at factories, stealing goods and then reselling them on the black market. Actually, wherever. Someone sold them in jewellery salons, the others did so in car dealerships. But the interesting thing is that we had never found an end to the case. We found one Willahelm Baum, a man who was a speculator. He was prosecuted for reselling paintings and sculptures from time to time. He was sentenced for ten years then.”              “So you’ve got the wrong man.”              “Well, yeah. Because we blamed everything on him at the time, indiscriminately. And we didn’t have time to look into it.”              “What happened to him?”              “He died of tuberculosis. As if on purpose!”, said Wieland with a slight thump of his fist on the table.              “I’m beginning to think that all these deaths are not accidental,” Adler began to list the deaths of Ingrid, Wilhelm and Willahelm.              “Yes, also we can recall the vandalism at his father’s house,” agreed Wieland.              “Yeah, that’s too weird of a coincidence. We’ve gone through his entire house and now we’ve discovered this Wally’s file as well. Why does he have her papers?”              “And teeth,” said Ehrman with a wince.              “I’m getting the impression that it’s not Wilhelm who killed her,” Wieland and Ehrman listened intently to Adler. “Think about it. Well, let’s say she found out about his smuggling and decided to tell her father. What’s the point of killing her? Besides, remember Ingrid’s flat. There are many fur coats, a constantly stocked fridge, expensive champagne, perfume, lipsticks, a lot of clothes, jewellery and a constantly stuffed purse.”              “You mean she was at one with her brother, right?”              “If she was involved, then her death wasn’t that favourable to Wilhelm. He knew it would bring too many problems and pull a lot of trouble. It wasn’t favourable to him.”              “Maybe they hid it from their father then,” Adler wrinkled his nose. But Ehrman agreed with Wieland, rubbing his eyes.              “Maybe the father ordered the murder of them both: his daughter and son.”              “Did you see their father?” hissed Adler. “It could be anyone but their father. I don’t think he’d ever hold a kitchen knife.”              “What if there was someone else in the flat, and it’s their blood on the carpet?”, Ehrman, dumbfounded by this sudden thought, looked at Adler and Wieland. They waited for his thought to continue. “We know that Ingrid was killed with a knife, right? That’s the main cause of death. What if Wilhelm came to warn Ingrid of the danger? For example, he was threatened. He knew the first person to be killed would be his sister. He came to warn her, but he didn’t get there in time. Someone was already in the flat, or someone came in through the window. Then Wilhelm tried to protect his sister and hit the burglar. That’s why there was the blood on the carpet, not much, but it’s there. The killer came down the same way he came in.              “And then Wilhelm tried to help his dying sister,” continued Adler, picking up on the thought. “But when he found out he couldn’t save her, he carried her into the bathroom and, realising that they might blame him, began to wash the carpet. Thinking it was pointless, he fled the scene.”              “But then the question is who it could be,” Ehrman finished the sentence. Wieland, looking at Ingrid’s case, Wilhelm’s case, Adler’s case and his own, came to one conclusion:              “We barked up the wrong tree.”              Adler looked at him dumbfounded.              “We tried and put in jail the wrong people, Adler. Wilhelm was a smuggler who transported goods from one country to another, right? That’s right! I can see why he wanted to be a pilot. But where would he find so many teeth? Right, he took them from corpses. Those Norwegian prisoners weren’t prisoners, they were killers who delivered teeth to him. That’s why there were so many of them. They took turns breaking out of prison and handing him the goods, then he killed them. What’s not clear is what he did with the bodies. That’s how the diamonds appeared: he had time to move them, but the teeth had to be airlifted. Ingrid was also a delivery person, but most likely she was supposed to transport some of the remaining diamonds. And most likely, by refusing, she brought death upon herself. That’s how she got the tickets and the desire to escape.”              “Then the murderer, when he learned of Ingrid’s death, began to realise that Wilhelm would tell everything, and killed him. That stone thrown through the window was familiar,” Ehrman added from his side.              “So it turns out we put the wrong people in?”              “Yes, Adler,” the man leaned on his elbows.              “Damn, Wieland, do you realise that if this gets out, we’re going to get busted! Shit, we’ll be shot. Wieland, it’s over!”, Adler panicked, he had never been so worried in his life.              “Adler, it’ll happen only if it gets out. We have enough reasons not to tell our superiors. Officially, we’ve solved the Ingrid Fuchsmann case. But her killer as well as Wilhelm’s one is walking free. And now we have to investigate him. Besides, think about it, now we’re going to have to get into an even bigger net.”              “Hope, it won’t affect us,” Ehrman slapped himself on his knees, stood up and started to dress, “I don’t know about you, gentlemen, but I’m not going to do this until after Christmas and New Year’s. Besides, I’m getting married. I don’t want to spoil my holiday,” Ehrman said proudly, heading for the exit.              “Don’t be too proud of that, Ehrman,” shouted Adler. “Besides, are we invited?”              “You wish!” parried Ehrman, turning half-turned round.              “It’s not nice, we’re sort of mates.”              “I’ll think about it, anyway, I know your phone numbers,” he said and closed the door behind him.              Wieland and Adler were left alone.              “How are you going to celebrate Christmas?”              Wieland grinned:              “As always — with my wife and relatives. What about you?”              “With my colleagues in the unit, my wife has gone to her relatives anyway.”              “Did you have a fight?”              “Wieland, stay out of it.”              The man grinned. He walked Adler to the door and began to pack himself.              It was the day before Christmas, but neither Adler, Wieland, nor Ehrman were happy. All they wanted was to get drunk in a bar and forget themselves for at least one day.