The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows

by Riches, Marnie

  Marianne looked like a sartorial accident from a Winter-Olympics village, in her pristine snow gear and walking boots, George assessed. Months and months since she had last seen her and even now, it felt like an unhappy reunion taking place too soon.

  ‘I don’t choose to accept it, I’m afraid,’ George repeated in a childish, mimicking voice. Realised she was being churlish. Didn’t care. ‘Shove it up your arse!’ George said in English. Sucked her teeth slow enough to make her disdain incontrovertible.

  Tapping on the passenger side window, their host spoke, unaware of the friction that was taking place behind him in deadly rapid-fire Dutch. ‘See that building on the right?’

  His halting English was heavily accented. Mainly German but with a hint of something else. Looking at his black hair and dark skin, George assessed he was probably Turkish. What was his name again? Fatigued as she was from travelling, she had laughed out loud when he had given her his business card. She pulled it from her jacket pocket and checked it. Hakan Güngör. Sounded like a Transylvanian despot, or some shit. Looked like a matinee idol in detective’s cheap plain clothing.

  ‘That is the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra,’ Hakan said. ‘My ex-wife plays cello, there.’ No hint of acrimony in his voice. ‘I also played violin in the youth orchestra a long time ago.’ Matter of fact. Efficient Berliner. Obviously.

  ‘Oh. Nice,’ George said drily.

  Van den Bergen glared at her. He hadn’t even looked at the contemporary sprawl that looked like municipal swimming baths to George, whose taste had moulded itself over time around the jagged medieval spires of Cambridge.

  At the zoological gardens, they passed through the giant, green iron gates, where majestic stone lions presided over the snowy scene. Kings of the jungle, wearing sparkling white robes, spattered with hardly any birdshit at all from two robins that hopped bravely over their snowy hind legs and heads. The freezing crystalline air was sullied by the diesel stink of the bus station opposite; buses were pulling in and out, empty of travellers. Unsurprising in these weather conditions. Only the sluggish, passing traffic and dedicated staff in the art nouveau kiosks bore testament to this being one of Berlin’s main attractions. George hated zoos.

  ‘The bodies were found at the polar bear enclosure,’ Hakan said, beckoning them further in along the gritted pathways; open spaces that must have been landscaped garden areas, unrecognisable as anything but indistinct blobs beneath two feet of snow.

  They trudged past the rhinos on their left. Then, the glass-domed ceiling of the hippo house appeared, Pig house in the distance on the right. George remembered a disastrous trip to London Zoo with both parents when she was very small. Letitia the Dragon had sharpened her claws to tear chunks from the frail flesh of George’s father. He had looked pasty and browbeaten, even in the blistering heat of an unseasonably hot British summer. His half-Spanish blood quietly coming to the boil. The fire in Letitia’s Jamaican belly had erupted in balls of angry patois; George had been piglet in the middle. She shuddered.

  ‘Cold?’ Van den Bergen asked, rubbing her upper arm gently.

  ‘Someone walked over my grave,’ she said in English.

  At the enclosure, one polar bear was visible outside, having a ball. Skidding around in its Arctic-like surrounds. Fake rocks covered with genuine snow and ice. The semi-circular pond seemed to be frozen solid. Ah, there was a second polar bear, George noted. Damned hard to see against all that white. It looked up and fixed them with hungry eyes as soon as they approached. A sly, blood-stained smile on its lips.

  ‘At least someone is enjoying this weather,’ Hakan said, grinning abruptly.

  Nice straight teeth. Black lashes like brushes, fringing almond-shaped dark eyes. George could imagine him playing the violin with great sensitivity. Unbidden, a memory of Ad popped into her head. Adrianus Karelse – her olive-skinned pretty boy, physically reminiscent of Hakan. But oh, how that sweet first love had turned so sour. She shook the thought away.

  ‘I presume the bodies were found this side of the enclosure,’ Van den Bergen said, peering over the boundary wall at the steep drop into the pond below.

  Hakan nodded. ‘One man was draped over the wall. Another on the ground where we’re standing.’

  George looked around, drinking in the vibe and trying to imagine the scene.

  ‘What time of day were the men killed?’ Marianne asked, rubbing her red nose with the back of her ski-glove.

  ‘Night time. We think around 2 a.m. for the time of death.’

  ‘How did they get into the zoo?’ George asked.

  ‘That’s the big mystery,’ Hakan said. ‘There was no break-in. One of the men must have had a key to the gate.’

  ‘Were either of the victims employees or related to employees?’ Van den Bergen asked, pulling his woollen hat over his earlobes.

  Hakan shook his head. ‘We interviewed everyone who works here and prepared artist’s sketches of the men. Nobody has been able to identify them. Nobody’s been missing from work.’

  ‘Sketches?’ George asked.

  ‘Their faces had been badly beaten,’ Hakan said, breath steaming into the air. He stared at the largest of the polar bears as he reared silently on his hind legs, as if to get a better look at this potential meal, care of the Berliner Polizei. ‘That’s partly why we haven’t been able to identify them. Their teeth were knocked out and splintered so badly from some kind of blunt trauma that our forensics guys are only now trying to do a dental reconstruction.’

  They had nothing.

  As Marianne examined the two men’s bodies at the morgue, George sat in the zoo’s café with Van den Bergen and Hakan. Frostbitten fingers clutching at hot chocolate. She was hastily devouring a cheese and ham sandwich when she suddenly felt self-conscious that she was eating ham.

  ‘Sorry. Am I offending you?’ she asked the detective.

  ‘Eat whatever you like,’ Hakan said. A kind smile with eyes closed. ‘I’m not fussy about other people’s eating habits. Anyway, my wife was a lapsed Lutheran. Honestly, it’s fine.’

  Van den Bergen looked momentarily at his own salami baguette and rammed what was left into his mouth, whole, and shrugged.

  ‘The thing that occurs to me, seeing the crime scene,’ George said, chewing thoughtfully, ‘is that there was definitely some kind of a planned showdown here. Signs of a struggle. Two men, brutally killed. I’m thinking this couldn’t possibly have been a two-on-one fight. The murderer must have had some help in overpowering two men.’

  ‘We did think it was about drugs,’ Hakan said, draining his espresso cup. ‘But of course, with no evidence to support that; it’s just an educated guess. We have no record of the dead men’s fingerprints being in the police’s database of convicted or cautioned felons.’

  Van den Bergen cleared his throat and pushed his chair out so that he could cross his legs comfortably. He pulled his glasses on their chain out from his coat, pushed them onto the end of this nose and scrutinized the cake menu. ‘It’s a peculiar place to commit a murder,’ he said. ‘Somebody broke in with their own key, maybe. That tells me they were either an employee, which you say is not feasible, or they came here regularly out of hours.’ He tapped on the menu with a long finger. ‘Chocolate cake for me. George? What would you like?’

  ‘Nothing.’ George leaned forwards towards Hakan, an idea forming in her mind. ‘Could the dead men have been involved in some kind of illegal trade of rare animals?’ she asked. ‘I’ve heard about criminals stealing tigers from zoos and selling them to buyers in the Far East to be butchered and used in virility treatments.’

  Hakan nodded. ‘Could be. There has been the odd exposé article over the years about the fate of some exotic species in the zoo. There is no saying that the dead men or their murderers weren’t involved in some kind of animal rights activism as well. I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘Have you got the artist’s sketches to hand?’ George asked.

  ‘Why?’

 
; ‘I’d like to see what they looked like.’

  The Berlin detective produced from his coat pocket two folded-up photocopies of the artist’s sketches. One fat man. One thin. Ordinary-looking men. It was hard to tell from sketches.

  ‘Let’s see what Marianne finds out at the morgue, if anything,’ Van den Bergen said.

  CHAPTER 19

  Berlin, a hotel in Potsdamer Platz, later

  ‘There’s no doubting the similarities between those two men and our paedo pusher in Bijlmer,’ Marianne said, sipping her mojito in the hotel bar.

  An entente cordiale of an Anglo-Dutch G3, seated on brown plush velvet barstools in a quality boutique hotel that Kamphuis had certainly not signed off on. Outside, the snow had started to fall again in earnest. Inside, the mood lighting and cranked up heating had tried hard to recreate a summer’s evening but had merely left George with a headache and dried-out eyes. She sipped beer from a glass, half-wondering if Hakan had ever tasted alcohol.

  ‘Same modus operandi? An icicle?’ she asked.

  Marianne nodded. ‘Yes, but there were additional injuries that weren’t evident in the London and Bijlmer murders. Severe facial lacerations.’ She raised an eyebrow coolly. ‘And I think the fat man’s penis was severed with the same blunt blade.’

  ‘Murder weapon … hazard a guess?’ Van den Bergen asked, peeling the label on his beer bottle, making a mess of sticky paper peel on the marble counter. George put her hand on his, compelling him to stop.

  ‘I’d put my money on a snow shovel,’ Marianne continued. ‘They must have scores in the zoo alone. You can buy them on every street corner since the big freeze. And on such a large campus and in such extreme weather conditions, it’s hardly surprising nobody’s come across a murder weapon. Easily covered in a blizzard within an hour or two. Or maybe the murderer just took it with him.’

  George gnawed at the inside of her cheek. ‘These two murders don’t sound quite as carefully thought through as our guy. The facial wounds and severed penis smack of heat-of-the-moment frenzied injuries.’ She regarded her glass carefully, and suddenly realised there was the shadow of a lip mark on the rim. She pushed it away in disgust. Where on earth was the barman? ‘The London and Bijlmer murders come across as cleverly planned hits to me. No murder weapon to find. No witnesses. Apparently quick and deadly, given the built-up, busy areas where those men were killed. But this zoo business …’ She tailed off. Craning her neck to see where the damned barman was. Dirty glass in a nice hotel like this; it would never pass muster with her Aunty Sharon.

  ‘It takes some planning to get into a zoo at night,’ Van den Bergen said.

  George examined her fingernails. ‘I guess so. Okay, maybe that sounds premeditated. But what might have been a clean, controlled hit like the others seems to have turned nasty. You’ve got two men in a deserted location with all the gates locked – not a crowded thoroughfare. And they’re chopped into dog meat. I just don’t understand it. It all feels … off.’

  Silence fell upon the three, as though the snow that fell steadily outside had enshrouded not just Potsdamer Platz in a sound-swallowing blanket but also this beige and anodyne hotel communal area. The contemplative silence was broken only when Hakan came striding over to them, all smiles. He really was handsome, George decided. But not Van den Bergen, of course.

  ‘Good evening, my friends,’ Hakan said, his English stiff like a limb that had not been exercised often enough. He nodded at the barman who had miraculously reappeared and who wordlessly poured the detective a Diet Coke.

  A lone female drinker, whom George had earmarked as a prostitute, rose abruptly from her seat at the far end of the bar and left.

  ‘I thought that I would drop in, now that my shift is over, to see what you are discovering.’

  George was aware of Van den Bergen studying her body language intently, then diverting his attention to Hakan, as though deciding if this younger, obviously handsome man was a sexual threat. She was careful to conceal any telltale signs of superficial attraction to Herr Güngör. After weeks of estrangement from her emotionally unpredictable lover, the last thing she needed to come between them on the night of their reunion was unfounded jealousy.

  ‘Were there any other interesting cases reported on the night of the zoo murders?’ George asked. ‘Robberies. Fights. Drug-related trouble. Anything to do with children?’

  The black bow of Hakan’s right eyebrow lifted. He tapped a slender violinist’s finger against his glass. ‘Actually, yes. I have been transferred to this case because my colleague, who was called to the murders in the first instance, is falling on the ice and breaking his leg. When the men were discovered in the zoo, I was investigating a call from residents in Kreuzberg. Five young children were found wandering the streets in the middle of the night.’

  ‘Oh?’ Van den Bergen said. ‘What do you mean?’

  Hakan stared intently at George until she blushed.

  She felt herself coquettishly toying with one of her curls. When he looked up to the ceiling, moving his lips, she realised he had merely been thinking of how to vocalise his German thoughts in English.

  ‘We have found a dirty old house in the district where nobody is officially living. There are mattresses in the basement. The children we found had been held there as prisoners. They were mainly gypsy children we are putting into care while we find their parents and make a note of their stories.’

  ‘Roma?’ George asked, curiosity piqued. Her mind raced remembering her conversation with Sophie and Graham Tokár at the Open Society Foundation. The Son of the Eagle.

  ‘Ja.’ Hakan nodded. ‘Roma. Precisely.’

  Staring at the bubbles rising in her glass, George pondered the Jack Frost and Krampus murders. Vulnerable migrants’ kids thrown into the mix. What or who was the common denominator?

  Later, away from her compatriots, sitting on the perfectly clean-smelling hotel toilet, George thumbed out a text to Marie. It was a gamble as to whether she would respond at all. Who knew what the hell Marie got up to in the evenings?

  ‘Come on, for fuck’s sake,’ George told her phone display.

  After five minutes she checked her watch. Still nothing. Her bottom and the tops of her thighs had gone dead by now, seated uncomfortably as she was. But then, just as she was about to flush and give up all hope of a response to her question, a text pinged back.

  Checked Vlinders’ phone records. There are four texts to a German number. Owner answers to the name Gerhard.

  When she returned to the bar, Marianne was draining her mojito. Hakan was shaking Van den Bergen’s hand, as though he was about to leave.

  ‘Gerhard,’ she said.

  All quizzical eyes on her.

  ‘You go through the interview records from those Roma kids,’ she told Hakan. ‘See if that name crops up. Maybe check who owns the properties neighbouring the house where the kids had been. And you need to keep an ear out for The Son of the Eagle or Shquipëtar, too.’

  Marianne swung her bag on her shoulder. ‘While you were on the loo, I had a text through from the forensic pathology guy I met today,’ she said. ‘The ETA for the finished dental reconstruction is tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got a feeling one set of teeth might belong to a paedo called Gerhard,’ George said, feeling a triumphant smile creep into the reluctant corners of her mouth. She grabbed Van den Bergen by the hand, swinging to and fro like a child, eliciting the glimmer of a grin in the grim-faced bastard. ‘London, Bijlmer and Berlin Zoo might seem to be disparate dots on a map … but something tells me that all of this – and that includes the kids from the house in Kreuzberg – it’s all somehow connected.’

  It felt like a hopeful conclusion to the evening. George looked for a frisson of excitement in her lover’s eyes. Wasn’t she holding his hand? Wasn’t this the first night they had had together since she had stormed out on him and told him to grow a pair? And yet, though Van den Bergen’s eyes shone, they sparkled not with romantic anticipatio
n but with that familiar, dogged curiosity she knew so well.

  He cleared his throat, fixing Hakan with his laser-like gaze, and shook his own hand loose from George’s grip. ‘Take us to this derelict house,’ he said. ‘I want to have a look round.’

  Twenty minutes later, the unlikely team of four stood beneath the naked bulb in the basement of the house in Kreuzberg.

  George held her nose. ‘Aw, it fucking stinks, man. Mould. Dust. Dirt. Stale food. Misery. You name it …’

  Fingerprinting dust from the police around the already grubby architraves bore the hallmarks of the place having been thoroughly searched. It was a once-grand house, reduced to dereliction beyond squat-like neglect. High ceilings in the basement bore testament to the building’s age, as did the nooks and crannies and an old fireplace – still working, judging by the fresh-looking ashes in the grate.

  ‘I am not sure what your Chief Inspector is hoping to find,’ Hakan said to George, as Van den Bergen stalked into a dingy kitchenette that was lit only by his pocket torch and the moonlight that struggled its way through opaque blocks of two miserly sub-floor windows.

  ‘It’s freezing in here,’ Marianne said, grimacing. ‘I’d rather go back to the hotel and have another mojito before bed, if it’s all the same to you guys.’ She pulled a hat out of her handbag and rammed it onto her head. ‘Berlin forensics will have been all over this place. Their pathologist’s good. I like him. Thorough guy. And need I remind you, Paul, that this is not Amsterdam? It’s not our turf!’

  ‘Shut it, Marianne,’ George said, ramming her hands into her Puffa jacket pockets, narrowing her eyes at the know-it-all interloper. ‘Nobody asked you to come with.’

  ‘Nothing that I can see in the kitchen,’ Van den Bergen said, emerging from the adjacent room. He scanned the walls with his torch, assessing every square foot.