A Slow Death (Max Drescher Book 1)

by James Craig

  When Marin finally looked up, he seemed almost surprised to see the pair of them sitting there. For a moment, he let his gaze bounce from Max to Michael and back again while he tried to remember what precisely it was that he wanted to bollock them about. The Kriminalkommissar was a short, fat man in his mid-fifties, with a shock of silver hair, cut short. Dressed in a suit and tie, he looked like a middle-manager for Siemens, except for the unlit cigar stuck between his jaws. He had been off the streets, riding a desk in the Polizeipräsidium, for more than a decade now, and he gave every impression of liking the view over Stresemannstraße just fine. Marin might have started out as a law enforcement officer, but now he was 100% bureaucrat. As far as Max was concerned, he served no useful purpose whatsoever; the sooner he was despatched to the dole queue the better.

  Max’s hangover was not helped by the stuffy atmosphere in the room. The Kriminalkommissar’s office smelled like a locker room that hadn’t been cleaned in months. Evidently, the air conditioning was broken again and, even at this time in the morning, he could make out the dark stains under the armpits of Marin’s C&A shirt. There was more than a whiff of B.O. in the room; hoping it wasn’t him, Max began breathing through his mouth. Beginning to feel like the unfortunate Martina Sammer, he struggled not to show his disgust at his surroundings. The temptation to get up and open the window at the back of the room was almost overwhelming.

  ‘Where the hell have you been this morning?’ Marin growled, returning his gaze to the desk. ‘The day is almost half over, already.’

  For you, maybe. ‘I went to see Gerber at the Institut für Rechtsmedizin,’ Max lied effortlessly, knowing full well that his boss wouldn’t bother to check his story out.

  A look of horror spread across Michael’s face.

  By contrast, Marin offered up a sly grin. ‘Gerber? You went to see the senior pathologist, did you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Max nodded.

  ‘On his own slab was he?’

  What? Flustered, Max cast a rather desperate sideways glance at his sergeant.

  ‘I think that he was taken to the Herrmann Strauss hospital,’ Michael said quickly. ‘The Kriminalinspektor didn’t know about his fatal heart attack until he arrived this morning.’

  Heart attack? Staring at Marin’s ratty carpet, Max stifled a grin. Poor old Gerber. So much of the benefits of being a fitness fanatic.

  ‘I always thought that Gerber overdid it with his exercise regimes,’ Marin mused. ‘But I never thought that he’d keel over during a six kilometre fun run in Grunewald.’

  ‘It was a total shock.’ Max tried to keep a sombre look on his face.

  ‘We are organising a collection,’ Michael added, ‘for the family.’

  Good luck with that, Max thought.

  Marin made no effort to reach for his wallet. Instead, lifting his arm aloft, he clicked his fingers, like a hungry diner summoning a waiter. ‘It just shows, any one of us can go – bang – just like that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Max shot another quick look at Michael. The bastard seemed to be enjoying his discomfort. ‘You can never be too careful. You hear stories of people overdoing it all over the place these days. Exercise can be a dangerous business.’

  Too much exercise was never going to be a problem for the Kriminalkommissar. Marin looked down at his stomach and smiled. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’

  For a moment, the three men contemplated their own mortality.

  Finally, Michael tried to dig his immediate boss out of the hole he had dug for himself. ‘With Gerber, er, out of the picture, Leicht has taken over the Beerfeldt case.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Max nodded, having used the pause to regain his composure. ‘I spoke to him this morning.’

  ‘Her,’ Michael groaned.

  ‘Yes, sorry. Her.’ He gave Marin an apologetic shrug. ‘It’s been a long day already.’

  The Kriminalkommissar looked suitably unimpressed. ‘So, have you got the report?’

  ‘No. It’s not finished yet. The whole thing was a hell of a mess.’

  ‘A bit of a wasted trip then,’ Marin growled, ‘wasn’t it?’

  ‘I want to get on with it.’ Recovering a semblance of poise, Max grinned at Michael, who was staring at his shoes. ‘This case will be a right bastard. I know how much pressure there will be to get it solved quickly.’

  ‘Damn right.’ Marin took his cigar from between his teeth and dropped it into a small tin ashtray on his desk. ‘So what have you got, so far?’

  ‘It was clearly a professional hit,’ said Michael. ‘Not some out of control domestic argument.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Marin mumbled. ‘Even my wife wouldn’t shoot me in the head.’

  Why not? Max wondered. ‘The husband ran a bookshop,’ he interjected, ‘so either it was a case of mistaken identity or there’s something funny going on amongst the shelves in the fiction section.’

  Marin picked up the cigar and stuck it back in his mouth.

  Why don’t you just smoke the fucking thing? Max wondered.

  ‘Mistaken identity?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Michael responded, knowing how weak it sounded.

  ‘If you’re a professional hit man,’ Marin said, drawing on the wisdom of Solomon, ‘you don’t just kill a family of six by mistake. This is Germany, for God’s sake, not the third fucking world. Even our shooters are professional and efficient.’

  Graciously accepting the Kriminalkommissar’s insights, storing them away for future reference, Max smiled. ‘Good point boss; that’s why we’re going with the second theory.’

  ‘Good,’ Marin nodded. ‘Just make sure you make some progress. And quick. I don’t want us to be caught in the media spotlight on this one.’ Reaching for a cheap red plastic lighter, he finally began firing up his cigar. Taking that as his cue to leave, Max jumped to his feet, pulling Michael up with him.

  ‘The technical boys – and girls – will be going back to the house this morning, so we’re off to have a look round the bookshop.’ Without waiting for a reply, Max hustled his partner out of the door, heading for the exit of the Polizeipräsidium, towards the hustle and bustle of Stresemannstraße, with the promise of fresh air and some decent coffee.

  10

  The Last Word book store was located on Forsterstraße, less than a dozen blocks from the Beerfeldt family home. Set over the basement, ground and first floors of a wide commercial building, the shop was more substantial than Max had imagined. Inside, the floor-to-ceiling shelves were crammed with tomes of all descriptions, giving the place a cramped but cosy atmosphere. On each floor, towards the back of the building, were a couple of battered, comfortable-looking leather armchairs where customers could read at their leisure.

  I must have walked past this place hundreds of times, Max mused as he lowered himself into one of the chairs, but this is the first time I’ve ever made it inside. Then again, I was never much of a bookworm. The thought made him laugh out loud. Michael Rahn, who was talking to a girl by the till at the front door, looked up and frowned. He said something to the girl who nodded and promptly disappeared between two book stacks.

  ‘Find out anything interesting?’ Max asked hopefully as Michael slipped into the other chair.

  The sergeant shook his head, annoyed. ‘All she wants to know is will they be able to re-open and when is she going to get paid.’

  ‘That’s fair enough,’ Max mused. The girl reappeared at the till and he looked her up and down with the practised eye of a professional people-watcher. She was tall and slim, with short dark hair, tight jeans, a tight T-shirt bearing the face of Che Guevara. Armchair revolutionary, he thought, sliding further into his own seat.

  Catching him staring, the girl frowned. Undeterred, Max continued his assessment.

  Small breasts.

  Big earrings.

  Tight ass.

  Fairly pretty, if you liked that kind of thing.

  How old? Hard to say; he thought that she could be anything from tw
enty-one to thirty-five. Holding the girl’s eye, he smiled. Looking away, she began tidying a selection of books piled precariously behind the cash register.

  Having taken a moment to make himself fully comfortable, Michael spoke. ‘Her name is Suzanne Suzuki.’

  ‘Like the motorbike?’ Max grinned. ‘She doesn’t look very Japanese to me.’

  ‘God knows where the name’s from,’ Michael yawned. ‘She’s from Hamburg.’

  Max’s thoughts suddenly turned to Sarah Rahn and the Green and Red club. ‘Late night?’ he asked, lecherously.

  ‘Yeah,’ Michael nodded. ‘The kids were playing up.’

  ‘Ah. That’s tough.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Michael rested his feet on a pile of old National Geographic magazines. ‘I’m getting grief from all sides at the moment. The boys are particularly hyper at the moment. I think they might be going through another growing spurt.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Max didn’t a have clue.

  ‘And Sarah is pissed off because we never get any time alone together.’

  Max shrugged. ‘Women.’ It was another subject pretty much beyond his area of expertise.

  ‘She wants to go to the Pink Floyd concert at the Brandenburg Gate but we can’t get a babysitter.’ Michael looked at his partner enquiringly.

  Not a chance, thought Max. No way am I volunteering for that.

  ‘I don’t suppose –’

  ‘You don’t suppose right,’ Max grumped.

  ‘We haven’t been to see a band for years. It would just be for a few hours.’

  ‘A few hours? This is Pink Floyd we’re talking about. A few hours will barely get you through a couple of their songs. And the shorter ones at that.’ He waved an arm in the direction of the street. ‘Anyway, how can it be that you can’t find a babysitter in the whole of Berlin?’

  ‘It’s difficult,’ Michael sighed. ‘The regular girl we’d been using went off to London with her boyfriend and didn’t come back.’

  ‘London,’ Max snorted, ‘who would want to go there? It’s such a total dump.’

  Michael made a face. ‘Never been.’

  ‘I went there once, in the ‘70s. I remember going to a club in Charing Cross. It cost me a fortune and I ended up with a bad dose of the clap.’

  Michael grimaced. Too much information, boss.

  ‘The place was even more depressing than Berlin,’ Max continued, warming to his theme. ‘Undoubtedly the greyest place I’ve ever been to in my life. And the people, well rude and unfriendly doesn’t begin to cover it.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Michael interjected, trying to find his way back to the original point of the conversation, ‘the babysitter went to London and we haven’t been able to find a decent replacement yet. It doesn’t help that Sarah’s very picky. We’ve seen three or four possibles but she’s ruled them all out for one reason or another. She won’t leave the boys with just anyone.’

  ‘Rules me out, then,’ Max said cheerily. ‘There is no way that you can categorize me as a responsible adult.’

  ‘C’mon Max,’ Michael pleaded, ‘we’d both be very grateful.’

  The Kriminalinspektor let out a long breath. ‘Okay, okay, okay.’ He held up both hands in mock surrender. ‘Look, if you really can’t find a proper babysitter we can talk about it nearer the time. If it comes to that. But, for God’s sake, there must be someone you can get. Surely. Look harder.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks.’ Accepting that this was the best offer he was going to get, Michael returned to the matter in hand. He gestured towards Suzanne Suzuki, who was still hovering by the till, casting the occasional suspicious glance in their direction. ‘She says that she’s been living in Berlin for just over six years and has worked here in the bookshop for the last three. According to her, Beerfeldt bought the place just under a year ago, which came as a bit of a surprise to the staff. They all thought that the place was going bust.’

  Perking up a bit, Max pushed himself up in his chair. ‘What made them think that?’

  ‘Look at this place,’ Michael gestured with his hand, ‘it’s not exactly the KaDeWe, it is?’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ Max was not much of a shopper, but even he knew that the Kaufhaus des Westens department store, a Berlin institution, was always packed.

  ‘Suzanne says she has been the one running the place for a couple of years now, including doing the books. According to her, the store has been losing more than a thousand deutschmarks a month the whole time that she’s been working here.’

  ‘Ouch. Looks like someone got taken for a ride.’

  Michael shook his head. ‘Not really. Carl Beerfeldt knew all about the store’s finances when he bought it. He never seemed all that bothered about the losses.’

  ‘Only rich people can afford to think like that,’ Max mused.

  ‘According to Miss Suzuki, he always seemed very relaxed about money. He even gave the staff a bonus at Christmas. The first time ever.’

  ‘How very festive of him,’ Max mused.

  ‘They thought he was a bit soft.’

  ‘There’s gratitude for you.’ Max scratched his neck. ‘No one here seems particularly bothered that their employer and his entire family have been brutally slaughtered, do they?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I suppose we’ve checked out all of the employees?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Michael tartly, ‘I have. There’s only a dozen of them. Apart from Suzuki, they’re all part-time.’

  Max looked at him expectantly.

  ‘Pretty much what you’d expect. Students, slackers and bookworms.’

  Max grunted. ‘No professional killers, then.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘Pfff. This is turning into harder work than we might have hoped. Leads?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘We haven’t really got any.’

  ‘O-kay.’ For a moment, the Kriminalinspektor stared up at the cobwebs hanging from the light fitting above his head. ‘He certainly didn’t spend any money on cleaners, at least.’

  ‘Huh?’

  Max pointed at a grimy window, ‘The place is filthy.’ Another question popped into his head. ‘Who owned it before Beerfeldt?’

  ‘Er, no idea,’ Michael admitted.

  ‘Well, find out.’ Looking up, Max was disappointed to see Suzuki had disappeared. ‘Go and see if motorbike girl has got their details.’

  ‘Hey Max, wake up.’

  ‘Huh?’ Opening his eyes, the Kriminalinspektor shrugged off Michael’s hand on his shoulder.

  The sergeant took a step backwards. ‘You dozed off.’

  ‘No at all,’ leaning forward, Max stretched out his arms and legs, ‘I was just thinking.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Michael grinned. ‘How is the hangover?’

  ‘At least I’m in better shape than Gerber,’ Max chuckled. ‘Serves the silly old bugger right. All that running around was never going to do him any good.’

  ‘Got them,’ Michael waved his pocket notebook at Max.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The previous owners of the book store. They live out in Charlottenburg.’

  ‘Good.’ Max struggled to his feet and began rubbing his temples. It was barely eleven thirty in the morning, but he felt like a beer. Or, rather, he needed a beer. A quick trawl through his mental Rolodex came up with a list of three bars within a couple of blocks that should be open. ‘Let’s take a quick look round here then go and grab a bite to eat.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘After lunch, you can head over to see the old owners this afternoon, while I pursue some other lines of enquiry.’

  ‘What other lines of enquiry?’

  ‘I just want to check a couple of things out.’ Max gave him a half smile. ‘I’ll tell you if they turn out to be fruitful.’

  Michael gave him a quizzical look but didn’t enquire any further. He half turned away, then turned back. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. While you were thinking, I called the Institut für Rechtsmedizin. Hannah Leicht is working
on her report but it’s gonna take a bit of time.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Max replied, not particularly interested. ‘But we know what it’s gonna say – they all died from gunshot wounds.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Michael nodded, ‘but there is one other thing that has come up so far.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The fifteen-year-old step-daughter –’

  ‘Yeah?’ Max said warily, not liking where this was going.

  ‘She was three months pregnant.’

  ‘Great.’ Now he really needed that beer. ‘Let’s give it five minutes,’ he sighed, ‘then we’ll get going.’

  While Michael went to nose around in the storeroom, Max casually inspected the books beside the till. Finding a well-thumbed copy of ‘Oder was?’ he happily began flicking through a selection of the Werner comic strips. After a few minutes, he reluctantly put the comic book down and moved to a bookshelf by the window. Picking up a couple of hefty biographies of politicians who were so totally boring that they didn’t merit two hundred words between them, he shook his head. ‘Idiots,’ he scoffed, putting the books to the back of the shelf. ‘If this is what you’re trying to sell, no wonder you’re losing so much money every month. Give the public what they want. You need more Werner and fewer suits.’

  Hidden underneath the hagiographies, he found a small paperback with a picture of a male model on the front. Head bowed, naked from the waist up, the guy’s perfect abs were displayed to great effect. Max gave an appreciative grunt. Then he noticed the title: Dealing with HIV – A guide for the newly diagnosed.

  ‘Anything interesting?’

  Without thinking, Max stuck the book into his pocket. He turned to face Michael, who was standing by the door. ‘Nah,’ he shrugged, gesturing at the heaving bookcases. ‘Just books. Rows and rows of boring bloody books.’

  If the sergeant had noticed his boss’s shoplifting, he said nothing.

  ‘How about you,’ Max asked, ‘find anything?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Michael Rahn unlocked the door and pulled it open. ‘Leicht is going to send a couple of the forensics guys down this afternoon, but I don’t think we’re going to find much here.’