by Val McDermid
Improbably, the answer had come at the funeral, a gratifyingly small gathering. The old man had been a bargee all his adult life, but he had never had any talent for friendship. Nobody cared enough to give up a cargo to pay their last respects at the crematorium service. The new master of the Wilhelmina Rosen recognized most of the mourners as retired deckhands and skippers who had nothing better to do with their days.
But as they filed out at the end of the impersonal service, an elderly man he’d never seen before plucked at his sleeve. “I knew your grandfather,” he said. “I’d like to buy you a drink.”
He didn’t know what people said to get out of social obligations they didn’t want. He’d so seldom been invited anywhere, he’d never had to learn. “All right,” he’d said, and followed the man from the austere funeral suite.
“Do you have a car?” the elderly man said. “I came in a taxi.”
He nodded, and led the way to his grandfather’s old Ford. That was something he planned to change, just as soon as the lawyers gave him the go-ahead to start spending the old man’s money. In the car, his passenger directed him away from the city and out into the countryside. They ended up at an inn that sat at a crossroads. The elderly man bought a couple of beers and pointed him to the beer garden.
They’d sat down in a sheltered corner, the watery spring sunshine barely warm enough for outside drinking. “I’m Heinrich Holtz.” The introduction came with a quizzical look. “Did he ever mention me? Heini?”
He shook his head. “No, never.”
Holtz exhaled slowly. “I can’t say I’m surprised. What we shared, it wasn’t something any of us like to talk about.” He sipped his beer with the fastidiousness of the occasional drinker.
Whoever Holtz was, he clearly wasn’t from the world of commercial barge traffic. He was a small, shrivelled man, his narrow shoulders hunched in on themselves as if he found himself perpetually in a cold wind. His watery grey eyes peered out from nests of wrinkles, his look sidelong rather than direct.
“How did you know my grandfather?” he asked.
The answer, and the story that came with it, changed his life. Finally, he understood why his childhood had been made hell. But it was rage that welled up inside him, not forgiveness. At last, he could see where the light was. At last, he had a mission that would shatter the glacial grip of fear that had paralysed him for so long and stripped him of everything that other people took for granted.
That night in Heidelberg had simply been the next stage in that project. He’d planned scrupulously, and since he was still at liberty, he’d clearly made no mistakes that mattered. But he’d learned a lot from that first execution, and there were a couple of things he’d do differently in future.
He was planning a long future.
He powered up the small crane that lifted his shiny Volkswagen Golf from the rear deck of the Wilhelmina Rosen on to the dock. Then he checked that everything was in his bag as it should be: notepad, pen, scalpel, spare blades, adhesive tape, thin cord and a funnel. The small jar containing formalin, tightly screwed shut. All present and correct. He checked his watch. Plenty of time to get to Leiden for his appointment. He tucked his cellphone into his jacket pocket and began to attach the car to the crane.
6
The applause broke in waves over Daniel Barenboim’s head as he turned back to the orchestra, gesturing to them to rise. Nothing quite like Mozart to provoke goodwill to all men, Tadeusz mused, clapping soundlessly in his lonely box. Katerina had loved opera, almost as much as she loved dressing up for a night out in their box at the Staatsoper. Who cared where the money came from? It was how you spent it that counted. And Katerina had understood about spending with style, spending in ways that made life feel special for everyone around her. The prime seats at the opera had been her idea, though it had seemed entirely fitting to him. Coming tonight had felt like a rite of passage, but he hadn’t wanted to share his space, least of all with any of the several preening women who had made a point of offering their condolences in the foyer ahead of the performance.
He waited till most of the audience had filed out, gazing unseeing at the fire curtain that shut off the stage. Then he stood up, shaking the creases out of his conservatively tailored dinner jacket. He slipped into his sable coat, reaching inside a pocket to turn his phone back on. Finally, he walked out of the opera house into the starry spring night. He brushed past the chattering groups and turned on to Unter den Linden, walking towards the spotlit spectacle of the Brandenburg Gate, the new Reichstag gleaming over to the right. It was a couple of miles to his apartment in Charlottenburg, but tonight he preferred to be out on the Berlin streets rather than sealed off inside his car. Like a vampire, he needed a transfusion of life. He couldn’t stand to play the social game yet, but there was an energy abroad in the city at night that fed him.
He had just passed the Soviet War Memorial at the start of the Tiergarten when his phone vibrated against his hip. Impatiently, he pulled it out. “Hello?”
“Boss?”
He recognized Krasic’s deep bass. “Yes?” he replied. No names on a cellphone; there were too many nerds out there with nothing better to do than scan the airwaves for stray conversations. Not to mention the various agencies of the state, constantly monitoring their citizens as assiduously as they ever had when the Red Menace still surrounded them.
“We have a problem,” Krasic said. “We need to talk. Where will I find you?”
“I’m walking home. I’ll be at Siegessäule in about five minutes.”
“I’ll pick you up there.” Krasic ended the call abruptly.
Tadeusz groaned. He stopped for a moment, staring up at the sky through the budding branches of the trees. “Katerina,” he said softly, as if addressing a present lover. At moments like this, he wondered if the bleak emptiness that was her legacy would ever dissipate. Right now, it seemed to grow worse with every passing day.
He squared his shoulders and strode out for the towering monument to Prussia’s military successes that Hitler had moved from its original site to form a traffic island, emphasizing its domineering height. The gilded winged victory that crowned the Siegessäule gleamed like a beacon in the city lights, facing France in defiant denial of the past century’s defeats. Tadeusz paused at the corner. There was no sign of Krasic yet, and he didn’t want to loiter there looking obvious. Caution was, in his experience, its own reward. He crossed the road to the monument itself and strolled around the base, pretending to study the elaborate mosaics showing the reunification of the German people. My grandmother’s Polish heart would shrivel in her breast if she could see me here, he thought. I can hear her now. “I didn’t raise you to become the Prince of Charlottenburg,” she’d be screaming at me. At the thought, his lips curled in a sardonic smile.
A dark Mercedes pulled up at the kerb and discreetly flashed its lights. Tadeusz crossed the roundabout and climbed in the open door. “Sorry to spoil your evening, Tadzio,” Krasic said. “But, like I told you, we’ve got a problem.”
“It’s OK,” Tadeusz said, leaning back against the seat and unbuttoning his coat as the car moved off down Bismarck-strasse. “My evening was spoiled by a bastard on a BMW, not by you. So, what’s this problem?”
“Normally, I wouldn’t bother about something like this, but…That package of brown we brought up from the Chinese? You remember?”
“I’m not likely to forget. I haven’t had my hands on the product for so long, it’s not as if I could confuse it. What about it?”
“It looks like there’s some sort of crap in it. There’s four junkies dead in S036, and according to what I hear, there’s another seven in hospital in intensive care.”
Tadeusz raised his eyebrows. East Kreuzberg, known locally by its old GDR. postal code, was the heart of the city’s youth culture. Bars, clubs, live-music joints kept the area round Oranienstrasse buzzing towards dawn every night. It was also home to many of the city’s Turks, but there were probably more vendors of s
treet drugs than of kebabs in the scruffy, edgy suburb. “Since when have you given a shit about dead junkies, Darko?” he asked.
Krasic shifted his shoulders impatiently. “I don’t give a shit about them. There’ll be four more tomorrow queuing up to take their place. Thing is, Tadzio, nobody pays any attention to one dead junkie. But even the cops have to sit up a bit when there are four bodies on the slab and it looks like there are more to come.”
“How can you be sure it’s our junk that’s killing them? We’re not the only firm on the streets.”
“I made some inquiries. All of the dead ones used dealers who get their supplies from our chain. There’s going to be heat on this.”
“We’ve had heat before,” Tadeusz said mildly. “What makes this so special?”
Krasic made an impatient noise. “Because it didn’t come in the usual way. Remember? You handed it over to Kamal yourself.”
Tadeusz frowned. The hollow feeling in his stomach had returned. He recalled the bad feeling he’d had about this deal, the unease that had stolen up on him in the Danube boatyard. He’d tried to avoid the fates by changing the routine, but it seemed that the measures he’d taken to sidestep trouble had simply brought it to his door by a more direct route. “Kamal’s a long way from the street dealers,” he pointed out.
“Maybe not far enough,” Krasic growled. “There have always been cut-outs between you and Kamal before. He’s never been able to say, ‘Tadeusz Radecki personally supplied me with this heroin,’ before. We don’t know how much the cops know. They might be just a step or two away from him. And if he’s looking at a deal that will save him too much hard time, he might just think about giving you up.”
Now Tadeusz was really paying attention, his languid disinterest a distant memory. “I thought Kamal was solid.”
“Nobody’s solid if the price is right.”
Tadeusz turned in his seat and fixed Krasic with his sharp blue eyes. “Not even you, Darko?”
“Tadzio, I’m solid because nobody can afford my price,” Krasic said, clamping a beefy hand on his boss’s knee.
“So, what are you saying?” Tadeusz moved his leg away from Krasic, unconsciously making physical the distance he knew existed between them.
Krasic shifted in his seat, turning to stare out of the window past Tadeusz. “We could afford to lose Kamal.”
Two months ago, Tadeusz would simply have nodded and said something like, “Do whatever it takes.” But two months ago Katerina had still been alive. He hadn’t yet had to revise his understanding of loss. It wasn’t that he harboured some sentimental notion that Kamal could be to someone what Katerina had been to him; he knew Kamal, knew his venality, his power games, his pathetic strutting attempts at being someone worth reckoning with. But his experience of the wrench of sudden death had opened up a channel for empathy in quite unexpected directions. The idea of having Kamal killed on the off-chance that it might be for his personal benefit sat uncomfortably with Tadeusz now. Side by side with this was the consciousness that he could not afford to reveal what Krasic would surely see as a weakness. One would be very foolish indeed to show too much of the soft underbelly to a man like Krasic, however loyal he had always been. All this flashed through Tadeusz’s head in an instant. “Let’s wait and see,” he said. “Getting rid of Kamal right away would only draw the cops’ attention in that direction. But if there’s any sign that they’re moving towards him…you know what to do, Darko.”
Krasic nodded, satisfied. “Leave it with me. I’ll make some calls.”
The car swept past Schloss Charlottenburg and turned into the quiet side street where Tadeusz lived. “Talk to me in the morning,” he said, opening the door and closing it behind him with quiet finality. He walked into the apartment building without a backward glance.
Even though the sky outside was grey and overcast, Carol’s eyes still took a few moments to adjust to the gloomy interior of the little quayside pub where Tony had suggested they meet. She blinked rapidly as she registered the quiet country music playing in the background. The barman looked up from his paper and gave her a quick smile. She glanced around, taking in the fishing nets draped from the ceiling, their brightly coloured floats dulled by years of cigarette smoke. Watercolours of East Neuk fishing harbours dotted the wood panelling of the walls. The only other customers appeared to be a couple of elderly men, their attention firmly on their game of dominoes. There was no sign of Tony.
“What can I get you?” the barman asked as she approached.
“Do you do coffee?”
“Aye.” He turned away and switched on a kettle that perched incongruously among the bottles of liqueurs and aperitifs below the gantry of spirits.
Behind her, the door opened. Carol turned her head and felt a tightening in her chest. “Hi,” she said.
Tony crossed the few yards to the bar, a slow smile spreading. He looked as out of place in the bar as he always had everywhere outside his own rooms. “Sorry I’m late. The phone just wouldn’t stop ringing.” There was a moment’s hesitation, then Carol turned to face him and they hugged, her fingers remembering the familiar feel of his well-worn tweed jacket. The couple of inches he had on her made him a good fit for her five feet and six inches. “It’s good to see you,” he said softly, his breath whispering against her ear.
They parted and sized each other up. His hair had started to thread with silver round the temples, she noted. The wrinkles round his dark blue eyes had deepened, but the ghosts that had always flickered in his gaze seemed to be finally at rest. He looked healthier than she’d ever seen him. He remained slim and wiry, but he felt firmer in the hug, as if his compact frame had built a subtle layer of muscle. “You look well,” she said.
“It’s all this fresh sea air,” he said. “But you—you look terrific. You’ve changed your hair? It’s different somehow.”
She shrugged. “New hairdresser. That’s all. He styles it a bit more sharply, I think.” I can’t believe I’m talking about hairdressing, she thought incredulously. Two years since we’ve seen each other, and we’re talking as if there had never been more between us than casual acquaintance.
“Whatever, it looks great.”
“What can I get you?” the barman interrupted, placing a single cup with an individual coffee filter in front of Carol. “Milk and sugar in the basket at the end of the bar,” he added.
“A pint of eighty shilling,” Tony said, reaching for his wallet. “I’ll get these.”
Carol picked up her coffee and looked around. “Anywhere in particular?” she asked.
“That table in the far corner, over by the window,” he said, paying for the drinks and following her to a spot where a high-backed settle cut them off from the rest of the room.
Carol took her time stirring her coffee, knowing he would recognize the displacement activity with his usual cool detachment, but unable to stop herself. When she looked up, she was surprised to see he was staring just as intently at his beer. Some time in the past two years he had absorbed something new into his behaviour; he’d learned to give people a break from his analytical eye. “I appreciate you taking the time for this,” she said.
He looked up and smiled. “Carol, if this is what it takes to get you to come and visit, all I can say is it’s a small price to pay. E-mail’s all very well, but it’s also a good way to hide.”
“For both of us.”
“I wouldn’t deny it. But time passes.”
She returned his smile. “So, do you want to hear my Mission Impossible?”
“Straight to the point, as always. Listen, what I thought, if it’s OK with you, is that we could get you settled in at your hotel then go back to my place to discuss what they’ve got lined up for you. It’s more private than a pub. I only suggested meeting here because it’s easier to find than my cottage.”
There was something more that he wasn’t saying. She could still read him, she was relieved to find. “Fine by me. I’d like to see where you’re living
. I’ve never been here before—it’s amazingly picturesque.”
“Oh, it’s picturesque, all right. Almost too picturesque. It’s very easy to forget that passions run as high in picture postcard fishing villages as they do on the mean streets.”
Carol sipped her coffee. It was surprisingly good. “An ideal place to recuperate, then?”
“In more ways than one.” He looked away for a moment, then turned back to face her, his mouth a straight line of resolve. She had a shrewd idea what was coming and steeled herself to show nothing but happiness. “I’m…I’ve been seeing someone,” he said.
Carol was aware of every muscle it took to smile. “I’m pleased for you,” she said, willing the stone in her stomach to dissolve.
Tony’s eyebrows quirked in a question. “Thank you,” he said.
“No, I mean it. I’m glad.” Her eyes dropped to the gloomy brown of her coffee. “You deserve it.” She looked up, forcing a brightness into her tone. “So, what’s she like?”
“Her name’s Frances. She’s a teacher. She’s very calm, very smart. Very kind. I met her at the bridge club in St. Andrew’s. I meant to tell you. But I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure something was going to come of it. And then…well, like I said, e-mail is a good place to hide.” He spread his hands in apology.
“It’s OK. You don’t owe me anything.” Their eyes locked. They both knew it was a lie. She wanted to ask if he loved this Frances, but didn’t want to hear the wrong answer. “So, do I get to meet her?”
“I told her we’d be working this evening, so she’s not coming over. But I could call her, ask if she’d like to join us for dinner if you’d like?” He looked dubious.
“I don’t think so. I really do need to pick your brains, and I have to go back tomorrow.” Carol drained her coffee. Picking up her cue, Tony finished his drink and stood up.