Inspector Zott

Inspector Zott, a pedantic, corpse-averse little man who solves cases entirely through charts rather than interrogation, spends three days with the Hobgoblin files before briefing Obergruppenführer Prall. His deductions — a solitary, older, radio-less bachelor who works nights, writes on Sundays, and visits a relative near Nollendorfplatz roughly every three months — largely repeat conclusions Escherich had already reached, to Zott's private irritation at hearing them credited elsewhere. His genuinely new insight is that the drop sites cluster near tram stations, leading him to conclude the author works for the tram network, and Prall enthusiastically authorises surveillance of eleven stations alongside house-to-house inquiries. Privately contemptuous of Prall's bullying, Zott returns to his files fixated on his tram theory, so invested that when told days later a carpenter has possibly been caught near Nollendorfplatz, he dismisses the report outright — 'let him go' — without registering the coincidence of place, day, or hour, sealing the Quangels' release.

Zott is Escherich's methodological opposite, and the chapter shows superior method still can't beat a theory its investigator has fallen in love with. Dismissing the carpenter is comic and appalling at once: correct information reaches the wrong temperament, and the case goes cold because someone was too clever for it.