‘I did ask you,’ responded Tilo. ‘And you just fobbed me off with stupid excuses.’ He pressed the gun harder. ‘I took a look at all the cases you’re working at the moment and none of them are linked to Viola. So much for being mates, eh.’
Nik squinted, trying to get a look at the gun. It was a Walther PPQ 9 mm with a silencer. Not Tilo’s service weapon. Probably not even registered. ‘Fuck you, Tilo.’
Tilo’s hand tightened around the gun’s grip. He pulled the weapon away and started to laugh. ‘I had a feeling you might not be intimidated by me,’ he began, ‘so I made some preparations.’ Tilo put away his gun, walked over to one of the plasterboard sheets and tore it down. There was Finn. Tied up and gagged. His eyes wide with fear. He was sweating profusely and had a cut on his left temple. His trousers were soaked with urine.
Tilo pointed to the young bartender. ‘I barely had the gun up to his forehead before he started telling me everything he knew about Viola. When he last saw her. What she was like. Oh, and he also told me about all the secret CCTV down at The Palace.’
‘Let the boy go!’ said Nik. ‘He’s got nothing to do with it!’
Tears were streaming down Finn’s cheeks and his body was trembling.
‘These are the rules,’ said Tilo, taking a folding knife from his bag. ‘You answer my questions or . . .’ – he rammed the knife into Finn’s hand, right through to the wood – ‘. . . the boy gets it.’
Finn’s whole body seized up in pain and he braced himself against the ties. He was screaming but the gag covering his mouth reduced the noise to a groan.
Nik squeezed his fists together. He’d always known Tilo wasn’t just some coward police officer who sat behind his desk all day eating sandwiches. But this? Taking down the two of them like this threw the case into a whole new dimension. But before he worried about that, he had to get Finn out of there. ‘OK,’ Nik relented. ‘What is it you want to know?’
With one tug, Tilo removed the knife from Finn’s hand. ‘Why did you dig up this case?’ He wiped the bloody blade on Finn’s trousers.
‘A guy hired me,’ Nik explained. ‘Offered me lots of money to get the information.’
‘Bullshit,’ responded Tilo. ‘You’ve never cared about money.’
‘I’m in debt with the bank and my landlord’s threatened to chuck me out. I’ll happily show you my statements.’
‘One more lie and I’ll poke the boy’s eyes out.’ Tilo lifted the knife to Finn’s face.
‘And this guy . . . he’s got a voicemail from Viola saying she’s afraid someone’s going to kidnap her. It was just before she disappeared.’ He didn’t want to mention Jennifer and Justin, so he thought up a lie.
Tilo lowered the knife and moved one step closer to Nik. ‘And why did he tell you that and not the police?’
‘Apparently he went to the station but nobody cared. Somehow he managed to get his hands on the case file and there wasn’t any mention of the voicemail. He thinks one of us is involved and covered everything up.’
Tilo nodded. ‘And let me guess: the thought of proving that one of your detested colleagues might be bent got you all excited. Bet he didn’t even need to offer you any money.’
Tilo folded the knife together. ‘What’s your new friend’s name?’
‘Jonathan Schuster,’ Nik lied.
‘And where does he live?’
‘I don’t know. The only thing he gave me was his mobile number.’
‘Which number?’
Nik nodded his head down to his jacket. ‘In the pocket.’
Carefully, Tilo searched inside Nik’s jacket. He took out the piece of paper, went two steps back and looked at the number.
‘I’ll have the address soon,’ said Nik with a hopeful smile. ‘And now you tell me what’s going on. What is it about this Viola that made you beat me up and torture a boy who’s got nothing to do with it?’
Tilo looked at his watch. ‘No time. I still have loads to take care of.’ He took his gun out of its holster, went over to Finn and shot him point blank in the head. Blood sprayed on to the plasterboard behind.
‘No!’ Nik screamed, thrusting himself against the ties on his hands. The wood from the chair squeaked but the armrests didn’t give. ‘Why did you do that?!’
‘This thing you’re messing with, Nik, it’s massive,’ explained Tilo calmly. ‘I can’t afford to have any witnesses.’
‘So are you going to shoot me too?’
‘Of course.’ Tilo’s voice had an element of confusion in it, like he couldn’t quite believe Nik had asked the question.
He came closer. ‘Any last words?’
‘You once asked me why I never tie my boot laces.’
‘Yeah, and you said so you can slip out of them quicker.’ Tilo was now standing in front of Nik. ‘Which, to your colleagues’ annoyance, you’re always doing in the office. What’s that got to do with anything?’ He shrugged his shoulders questioningly.
‘You should have tied my ankles up tighter.’
Nik yanked his feet out of the boots, crouched over like a rugby player before a tackle and rammed his shoulders into Tilo’s stomach. Tilo was pushed backwards and a shot went off. The gun dropped out of his hand and he fell back, slamming the back of his head on the floor. He seemed dazed for a moment.
The cable ties around Nik’s wrists were still fastened tightly to the chair. Fighting wasn’t an option in his crouched position, so he took a deep breath, turned his back to Tilo who was still lying on the floor, and dropped down backwards on top of him. The chair landed on his head. He heard a bone break and knew he’d hit the target.
Nik swung himself up and threw himself down . . . again and again . . . shattering Tilo’s skull. The ties dug deeper into Nik’s wrists with every plunge. Blood was running down his arms but he couldn’t feel the pain. He kept going, slamming on to Tilo until he stopped moving.
Nik lay on the floor, panting. His head pounded, blood was dripping from his hands and his chest burned with anger. He turned to the side. Tilo’s face was soaked in blood. His jaw, nose and cheekbones, all crushed. And his eyes stared blankly ahead, void of any life.
‘What the hell have I got myself into?’ Nik asked himself, shaking his head.
Chapter 3
It took Nik a long time to break the armrests and release himself from the chair. Still in just his socks, he staggered through to the room next door and looked out the window. It was still dark outside but the snow had stopped. As far as he could tell, he wasn’t far from the station, but he guessed that because the entire building was undergoing refurbishment, nobody had heard them.
He sank his feet into his shoes, picked up a can of turpentine and washed his blood off the floor and the broken bits of chair. With his job in such a precarious position right now, he didn’t want to take any risks. His headache was getting worse and Tilo’s beating must have left him with at least a concussion. Every so often he had to prop himself up against the wall and force back the urge to be sick. He kept wondering if he’d imagined everything. How could it be that some closed case had led Tilo to torture and kill an innocent man? Something wasn’t right.
After wiping away the traces of blood, Nik looked through Tilo’s jacket. No police ID. No work phone. All he found was Finn’s mobile, which he put in his pocket. Tilo was still holding the piece of paper with the blonde woman’s number on it, so he pulled it out and made his way unsteadily outside.
As Nik reached the door he looked back at Finn. His head was slumped over and his eyes were staring absently at the ceiling. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said miserably.
The pavements were icy and walking with the head injury proved difficult, but he couldn’t risk the cameras on the U-Bahn or being recognised by a taxi driver. He had to go on foot. And anyway, from the way he was walking, the few people who were out and about so early would just think he was drunk. Nik walked until he was a kilometre away from the building site and used Finn’s phone to call for an ambulance.
‘I’ve found a body!’ he said in a high, hysterical voice. ‘Dachauer Straße. Inside that empty block near the station. Hurry up!’ He hung up. Another two hundred metres down the street, he took out the battery and SIM from the mobile and threw them down a drain. There was no doubt that when the police found Finn’s body, the investigator would ask who had used his mobile to call the police. But that question would now be impossible to answer. Just as impossible as it would be to find out who had battered Finn’s murderer to death.
Nik battled his way home step by step. He stumbled up the stairs and with the last bit of strength he could muster, he opened his flat door. Once inside, he fell on to the couch and sank into a long and restless sleep.
Nik stayed in bed all of Friday. He felt dizzy and could only just make it into the kitchen, where he luckily had a hefty supply of painkillers. It was this stash that helped him make it into work the next day for his early shift. Before leaving, he bandaged up the wounds on his wrists and put on a long-sleeved shirt. The bump on his head, however, wasn’t as easy to hide, so he put on a woollen hat.
When Nik got to work, he looked through the cases that had come in. He’d expected to find a double murder right at the top of the list but there was no mention of it. There was the body of a homeless man in Schwabing, an attack on an internet cafe in Neuhausen and a robbery with bodily harm in Moosach. Nothing in Dachauer Straße.
Nik clicked his way through the calls that had come in early on Friday morning and found his own message. He opened up the accompanying document and read the text:
On 13 January at 4.36 a.m. an unnamed man called to report the discovery of a dead body at a building site in Dachauer Straße. After he gave this information, the line was disconnected and it was not possible to reconnect with the number. A patrol officer was informed and he proceeded to search a block of flats in Dachauer Straße near the main train station. All flats in the block are currently under renovation. The officer found no evidence of forced entry. Upon being questioned, local residents were unable to provide any additional information.
Nik pounded his fist down on the desk with rage. ‘That’s not possible,’ he said quietly through gritted teeth. He had even flipped over a piece of plasterboard before he left so that Tilo’s body would be easy to spot from the stairway. There was no way his colleagues could have missed the two bodies if they’d been in that building. He’d been sure there was only one block under reconstruction in Dachauer Straße but there was no other explanation: they must have been in another building.
Nik opened up an official website that contained a list of missing people. It was an inconspicuous database which he often used for his work. It was no surprise to him that Tilo’s name wasn’t there, but Finn’s hadn’t been registered either. He scrolled down to the unidentified deaths. The last entry was from 1 December 2016: an unidentified male who’d been found in Leinthalerstraße. Other than that, there was a burned body found at the English Garden and a deformed body from the Westend.
‘Another rough night?’ Danilo interrupted his rumination. His colleague was grinning widely and waving a folder in the air. ‘Then this’ll make you smile. Residents have complained about a stench coming from a flat in Bogenhausen. Police opened the door to find the rotting body of an elderly woman inside.’ He hurled the folder on to Nik’s table. ‘I’m off to change. Wouldn’t want the stench to spoil my clothes.’
While Danilo was in the toilet, Nik got up with a groan and swallowed another painkiller. It was going to be the longest day of his life but that afternoon he’d have to return to Dachauer Straße.
Nik’s confusion only increased when he got to the site. This was a crime scene. It should have been cordoned off and investigators should have been searching for clues. But it was as if Nik was the only person who knew anything. Despite it being Saturday, the pavement was blocked by vans from various trade companies. The ground was sticky and the air was thick with the smell of plaster. At the front of the building was a skip full of debris and a rubbish bin overflowing with fast food containers and empty takeaway coffee cups. Men were leaving the building carrying tool bags. Some of them were smoking, while others had already cracked open their first after-work beer. A forklift truck was loading cement bags on to a pallet, which was then lifted up by a pulley. There was nothing to suggest that two people had been killed there two nights before. Nik went up one floor into the room where Tilo had tied him up.
Not a lot had changed. The broken plasterboards had been cleared up, there were now electric cables hanging from the ceiling and the tarpaulin sheets on the windows had been removed and replaced with newly installed frames. No broken chair. No bloodstains. And no bullet casings. Nik leaned against the wall and shook his head. He’d had plenty of crazy dreams in his life but he knew Finn’s murder and his fight with Tilo had not been one of them. The wound to the back of his head and his raw, red cheek were proof enough.
Nik went and stood on the spot where Finn had been shot and looked around. He noticed a sharp, chemical smell that was overpowering the general smell of screed. It wasn’t the turpentine he’d used to remove his bloodstains. More like bleach.
He went over to the wall, which Tilo’s final shot must have hit, and carefully ran his fingers over every centimetre. Finally he found a damp patch of grey filler, the exact colour of the concrete. Pressing his finger into it, he felt a tiny indentation. Nik took a pen out of his pocket and scraped away the filler. The bullet had been removed.
He closed his eyes. According to the police report, his call had come in at 4.36 a.m. By that time, he was already a couple of streets away, so it was likely he’d left the building around 4.20 a.m. The reporting of a dead body is never taken lightly and it typically takes a police officer no longer than five minutes to get to the scene. Searching the ground floor and getting up to the first floor would have taken another five minutes. In total, that would have given somebody twenty-six minutes to move the body and clean up the crime scene. Even if Tilo had survived, he would have been in no fit state to remove Finn’s body.
This left one other option: somebody else had been in the building. Somebody who didn’t want to be seen and who also didn’t want Viola’s case to be reopened. Somebody who knew how to clean up a crime scene and get rid of a body so that it wouldn’t be found. A professional.
Nik exhaled loudly. This case wasn’t going away any time soon.
On his way over to Tilo’s house, Nik called up a colleague who sat in the office next to Tilo’s.
‘Friederike Betz,’ she said after one ring.
‘Hello, Frau Betz, this is Inspector Pohl from Division 91.’
‘Hello,’ she said, uninterested. Nik wasn’t sure if the woman knew of him or if this was just her usual shitty manner.
‘I’ve been trying to get hold of Tilo all day but I’m not getting him on his landline or his mobile. And he hasn’t replied to an email I sent him. Perhaps he’s still in a meeting? You see, the thing is, I’ve got some questions about a case and they can’t wait. Have you seen him today?’
‘No,’ she answered curtly.
Nik suppressed a groan. But he had to remain friendly. ‘Hmm, that’s strange. Tilo’s the most reliable police officer I know. Even if he’s got the flu, he’ll work from home.’
‘Very true. Herr Hübner is reliable. But I don’t have access to his calendar, so I’m afraid I can’t help you.’
‘Many thanks,’ Nik said before hanging up. Just as he was putting his mobile back in his pocket, he arrived at the expensive housing development on the outskirts of the city where Tilo owned a terraced house. A beautiful beech tree was growing in the middle of his garden and the lawn had been laid with grass. A gas barbecue stood on a paved patio. There was no traffic in the neighbourhood and the cheapest car around was a BMW 3 Series. The streets were clean and well maintained and the nearby Grünwalder Forest looked breathtaking under the setting winter sun.
Nik had been over to Tilo’s house twice
before. The interior design was modern, with chrome-plated lamps, designer furniture and a luxury kitchen. There was a multi-room audio system, a large flat-screen TV, an outdoor Jacuzzi and a gym in the basement.
Although Tilo had earned good money in his position, it was nowhere near enough to afford this lifestyle or this kind of neighbourhood.
As well as a work computer, Tilo also had his private one. There had to be clues on it about Viola but unfortunately the house was protected by the latest security technology, meaning breaking in would be impossible.
Tilo’s BMW was parked in the drive, which was no surprise – driving it to the building site would obviously have been a bad idea. There were no lights on in the house, so Nik could be sure nobody was home, but he rang the doorbell anyway. There were no footsteps and nobody opened the door. Today’s post was still in the letterbox along with the morning paper.
A woman with a blonde ponytail appeared from the house next door. She was wearing pink jogging bottoms, a shabby sweatshirt and had a bag full of rubbish in her left hand. Nik had seen her at Tilo’s birthday party once. They hadn’t been introduced to one another, but Nik could read ‘A&G Ebbers’ on her front door.
‘Good evening, Frau Ebbers.’ Nik walked over to her. ‘Nik Pohl,’ he said. ‘I’m a colleague of Tilo’s. We met at his birthday party?’
‘Oh! Hello, Herr Pohl,’ she said politely, although her facial expression said she had no idea who he was.
‘I’m supposed to be meeting with Tilo to discuss a case. But he doesn’t appear to be home and isn’t picking up his phone either. Do you have any idea where he might be?’
‘I haven’t seen him since Thursday evening,’ said Frau Ebbers. ‘He came home and cleared away some snow from the drive.’
‘Ah, OK. It’s just a bit strange because his car is still in the drive, you see.’
‘You’re right, yes. He normally leaves for work early on a Saturday but when I left this morning to take the children to the park his car was still there. I just assumed he’d taken the weekend off.’ She came a little closer. ‘Do you think something’s happened to him?’
Broken Glass Page 5