The Last Temptation

by Val McDermid

  Darko Krasic sat in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes, working his way steadily through a large bucket of salted and buttered popcorn and staring out through the rain at a small lake on the outskirts of Potsdam. The passenger door opened and a tall man folded himself into the seat, taking off a cloth cap and shaking the raindrops from it. He was neatly dressed in chinos and a windbreaker with the logo of a designer sportswear brand over the left breast. He had the lugubrious face of a man who is convinced the world holds only the prospect of disappointment. “Fucking awful weather,” he said.

  “It’s always fucking awful weather in Potsdam,” Krasic said. “The sun can be shining in Berlin, and down here, it’s grey and miserable. So, what have you got for me, Karl?”

  KriPo detective Karl Hauser gave a sardonic smile. “So much for small talk, eh, Darko?”

  “Karl, we’re not friends. We’re never going to be friends. You’re on the payroll, that’s all. So what’s the point in pretending?” Krasic lowered the window and tipped the remains of the popcorn on the ground. Even through the rain, the waterfowl spotted the bonanza and headed for the car.

  “Since you mention money, I think what I have for your boss is worth a bonus payment.”

  “You do, huh?” Greedy bastard, Krasic thought. “Let me be the judge of that.”

  “That BMW bike? I’ve been doing some digging.”

  “That’s what us taxpayers pay you for.”

  Karl scowled. “Listen, Darko, what I’ve been doing for you goes way beyond the call of duty. Katerina Basler’s death was written off as an unfortunate accident. We’ve got more important stuff than that to deal with.”

  “OK, OK, Karl, we appreciate what you’re doing. And you know you’ve always been well rewarded in the past. So, you’ve been doing some digging…?”

  “That’s right. It occurred to me that the bike might have taken a bit of damage itself. A couple of the witnesses said they thought it might have caught the wing of the car. And it occurred to me that, if the biker wasn’t supposed to be tooling around Berlin on his machine, he might have got it repaired here. So I’ve been checking all the little back-street garages that specialize in motorbikes. And a balls-acher of a job it’s been too.” He paused, like a child waiting for praise.

  “You got a result?” Krasic demanded, unwilling to indulge him further. Useful though Karl Hauser was, at the end of the day he was a dirty cop, and Krasic had no time for people who couldn’t manage loyalty.

  “Eventually. I found a couple of mechanics out at Lichtenberg who replaced the front forks on a bike answering this description. They remembered it for two reasons. It took them a week to get the spare part from BMW for one, and for another, the driver was a Brit. They reckoned the bike had fake plates, but they made a note of the engine number, just to be on the safe side.”

  “Why didn’t they come forward at the time?” Krasic asked suspiciously.

  “They say they didn’t know about the accident. They don’t read the papers and they never watch the local TV news.”

  “Arseholes,” Krasic muttered. “I don’t suppose this biker paid for the repairs with a credit card?”

  “Nothing so convenient,” Hauser admitted. “Cash on the nail.”

  “We’re no further forward, then.” Krasic lowered the window again and lit a cigar without offering one to Hauser.

  Hauser smirked. “That’s where you’re wrong, Darko. With the engine number, I was able to find out from BMW who the bike was sold to. And this is where it gets very strange.” He paused expectantly.

  “Strange how?”

  “The bike was sold to the National Crime Squad in the UK. And, according to the British licensing authorities, that’s who owns it still.” Hauser shifted in his seat to gauge the impact of his words on Krasic.

  The Serb’s expression didn’t change. He put the cigar in his mouth, inhaled, then turned his head to let the smoke trickle out of the gap between the window and the frame. He didn’t want Hauser to have any idea how disturbing he found this information. There was altogether too much British shit flying around right now. Krasic didn’t believe in coincidences. Katerina’s death caused by a British bike; the British business going pear-shaped after another nasty and mysterious death; and now a British stranger charming the socks off his boss. It made him very, very uneasy. “That’s strange, right enough,” he finally acknowledged. “Any way of finding out who was riding it?”

  Hauser smacked the palms of his hands on his knees. “It’s never enough with you, is it? I sweated blood to get this much, and you want more.”

  Krasic slid a hand inside his jacket and produced his wallet. “I’m not the only one, am I?” He peeled off some notes. “Here’s your bonus. There’ll be a lot more if you come up with a name.”

  Hauser took the money between finger and thumb, as if he’d suddenly remembered this should feel dirty and distasteful. “I’m taking a big risk here,” he complained.

  “You want to try living on a cop’s pay cheque, it’s up to you,” Krasic said, not bothering to hide his contempt. “Is there anything else we should know?”

  Hauser replaced his cap on his greying hair. “I heard a whisper that one of the Arjouni brothers is trying to move in on some of Kamal’s street dealers. You’re going to have to plug that gap or you’ll lose your distribution.”

  “Thanks for the advice, Karl,” Krasic said sarcastically. “Arjouni’s working for me. So you can leave him alone.”

  “Like Marlene Krebs, eh?” he sneered. “You tied that one up tight, Darko. I hear the daughter’s gone missing too. Very neat piece of work.”

  “It’s called sending a message, Karl. One you should pay attention to.”

  Hauser opened the car door. “There’s no need to be like that. I’ll be in touch.”

  Krasic was gunning the engine before the door was even closed. As he swept the car round in a broad arc and headed for the exit, he muttered under his breath, “I can hardly fucking wait.”

  29

  He stood under the shower and let the scalding water pour over him. Please God, he would finally feel clean again after this. At least this harbour had decent, private shower rooms. He’d felt dirty ever since he’d fucked that bitch Calvet, and the facilities on board the Wilhelmina Rosen were too primitive to cleanse a man as defiled as she had left him. He had to get rid of the filth before it ate through his skin and poisoned his very soul.

  At first, he’d been proud of himself. Taking the bitch like that had showed his grandfather’s shade who was in charge now. But afterwards, with the whore he’d picked up in Köln, he’d lost it. Couldn’t get it up, then when he finally managed it, couldn’t come. Fucking Calvet was supposed to make him stronger, fill him with light and power, but instead her image kept blazing across his tightly squeezed eyes, distracting him, turning him off. He’d felt as useless and pathetic with that Köln hooker as he had in the days before he’d comprehended what he should be doing with his life.

  Driving back afterwards, the blackness had invaded him, filling the pit of his stomach with cold bile. What if he’d been wrong? What if the old man’s taunts had driven him the wrong way? Face it, any drunken sailor would have done what he had. He’d given in to the most basic instinct, he’d become as much of an animal as those bastards he was sworn to kill. His mission had been pure in his mind before he fucked that bitch, but now it felt cluttered and confused. Women, they were always the treacherous ones, dragging men like him down into the shit. Calvet didn’t deserve him, but he’d been weak enough to fall into the trap she’d laid for him with the old man.

  The whores didn’t deserve him either, but at least their corruption was honest. They didn’t pretend to be anything other than what they presented to the world, unlike his chosen victims.

  He had been pathetic. He had been carried away, let down by his body. He’d betrayed the purity of his cause, and it must never happen again. He had to make the light come back. Only by returning to his mission and
carrying it out correctly could he really cleanse himself, he realized as the water streamed over skin rubbed red raw with washing.

  Let it be soon.

  It felt strange to have Radecki standing in the middle of her living room, looking around him as if he’d never been there before. He’d arrived ten minutes early and she hadn’t quite finished her makeup. It seemed churlish to leave him drumming his heels on the pavement, so Carol had invited him up. It was, she thought, what Caroline would have done.

  Now she leaned in towards the bathroom mirror, applying eyeliner. The least convenient thing so far about being Caroline was having to wear much more elaborate make-up than she normally bothered with. Life, in Carol’s opinion, was too short for full slap every day. But Caroline would care too much about how she was perceived to skimp on that.

  “These places are really rather pleasant,” Tadeusz called from the living room. “More spacious than I imagined.”

  “The furnishings aren’t bad either.”

  “No. A bit bland, but rather that than in your face.”

  “It’s a lot better than a hotel,” Carol said. “Much more room and much more privacy. You don’t have housekeeping battering the door down every five minutes wanting to change the towels or check the minibar.”

  “How did you find it?” he asked.

  Careful, Carol, she cautioned herself. “My friendly travel agent told me about it. She got someone local to check it out and make the booking for me. She knows the kind of thing I prefer.” Satisfied with the eyeliner, she reached for the mascara.

  “You travel a lot, then?”

  “I wouldn’t say a lot, but fairly regularly. And I like to feel at home when I do. What about you? Do you travel much?”

  His voice came closer. He was too polite to peer in through the open door, but it sounded as if he was in the living-room doorway. That meant he wasn’t investigating her possessions, which tended to confirm her theory that he had been the searcher. “I do move around quite a bit within Europe, but it’s mostly connected to the business.”

  “You deal with things on the front line yourself, then?” she asked.

  “I like to know who I’m dealing with. But I leave most of the day-to-day stuff to my right-hand man, Darko Krasic. I hope you’ll meet him soon. He’s a crazy Serb, but he’s easy to underestimate. He looks like nothing more than a thug, but he’s actually a very smart operator.”

  Not the one who’s following me, then, Carol thought. Her tail certainly couldn’t be described as thuggish. Willowy, more like. “I look forward to that,” she said. “Just got my lippie to do and then I’m ready. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “Not at all. I’m glad I’ve had the chance to see where you’re living. Now I can picture you when we’re not together. Perhaps I can return the compliment? Maybe we could dine in my apartment tomorrow?”

  Carol chuckled. “You can cook too?”

  He laughed. “Not very well. But I can pick up a phone and order a delivery from the best restaurant in Berlin.”

  Carol emerged from the bathroom. “There. All ready.”

  He smiled, tilting his head appreciatively. “Well worth the wait.”

  To her surprise, when they left the apartment, the car wasn’t waiting at the kerb. “My flagship store is only a fifteen-minute walk from here, and I thought that since the rain had stopped, we could walk. If you don’t mind? If it’s a problem, I can call the car.”

  “It’ll be a pleasure. I need the fresh air,” she said.

  He held out his elbow, crooked in offer, and she slipped her arm through his. Nicely done, she thought. She wasn’t the only one upping the stakes.

  The next few hours required little from her but admiration and the occasional question. He was like a small boy showing off the finer points of his favourite train set. By the end of the afternoon, she knew more about the retail and rental of videos than she would ever have believed there was to know. But along the way, she had also picked up useful nuggets of information about the methods Tadeusz had adopted to launder his illegal proceeds through his legitimate businesses. Financial details had never particularly interested her, but even she could see how cunning his setup was. She knew she was learning things that would help forensic accountants to unpick the financial morass of Tadeusz’s empire once he’d finally been arrested.

  What was almost as important as the facts and figures that she’d garnered was the way their interaction was developing. Tadeusz found excuses to touch her at every opportunity; nothing overtly sexual, but something more than casual contact. Handing her a cup of coffee, his fingers would brush against hers. Showing her round the stores, he would place a hand in the small of her back or steer her by the elbow towards something of particular interest. Getting into the car, his knee would brush against hers.

  Their conversation too was becoming more relaxed. Carol was surprised by how entertaining he could be. Funny and serious by turns, he made interesting what could otherwise have been brain-numbing. As they drove round Berlin, he amused her with anecdotes and fascinated her with gobbets of fact about the sights he pointed out. For minutes together, she forgot that she was working undercover, that this relationship had nowhere to go except betrayal, and actually found herself enjoying his company. It took an encounter with a video to ground her again in the reality of what she was doing. In one of the stores, Tadeusz showed her a special display. “Woody Allen films are big in this part of town, so we always make sure we have the full set available for rental and purchase,” he’d said, gesturing towards the shelves. Zelig seemed to jump out at her, reminding her forcefully not to succumb to his charisma, to hold on to the memory of the viciousness that lay behind his easy charm and his sophisticated lifestyle.

  At the end of the tour, he directed the driver to take them back to her apartment. As usual, he walked her to the door. But this time, instead of a courtly farewell, he gazed down at her and took a step closer. Carol had to make an instant decision. Break the moment and walk away or draw him further into complicity with her. It was, she knew, a key moment. She stood on tiptoe and brushed a kiss against the corner of his mouth. “I’ve had a lovely afternoon,” she said softly.

  He leaned forward, an arm round her waist, and kissed her, lips slightly parted. The heat of his body provoked a surprising surge of desire in Carol, and she had to make a conscious effort not to let herself go in his embrace. “Can I see you this evening?” he asked, his voice husky and deep.

  Needing some distance between them, she put her hand on his chest, feeling the thud of his heart under her fingers. “I can’t tonight, I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to work.”

  Tadeusz gave a rueful pout. “Can’t it wait till tomorrow?”

  Carol stepped away from him. “I need to send some stuff overnight to my lawyer. We’re in the middle of a property deal and he’s got a meeting in the morning. I should have done it this afternoon, but you tempted me away.”

  He shrugged. “Never mind. Tomorrow night, then? You’ll come to my place for dinner?”

  “OK,” she said. “But you’re still planning on showing me the more interesting side of the business tomorrow, aren’t you?”

  “Of course. I’ve got a couple of things to sort out first thing in the morning, but after that, I’m all yours.

  “Great. Give me a call with the arrangements. Thanks again, Tadzio, I’ve really enjoyed your company.”

  “And I yours,” he said, moving back towards the car at the kerb. “I can’t remember the last time I laughed this much.”

  Carol couldn’t help a smile sneaking across her face as she walked into the lift. It might not last, it was true, but for now he was playing the game as if he was following Morgan’s script. She hoped it would continue that way.

  Tadeusz didn’t bother waiting for the lift. Instead he ran up the three flights of stairs two at a time, feeling a surge of energy that he’d forgotten could possess him. As Darko never tired of reminding him, Caroline was not Katerina.
It was only their looks that were similar. But, different as their personalities were, they seemed to have a similar effect on him. For the first time since Katerina’s death, he felt like a human being when he was with Caroline.

  He knew he should be wary. Not for the reasons Darko was mistrustful, but because he understood the mechanics of emotional rebound. It would be depressingly predictable to fall for the first interesting woman he met as a sort of bandage for the heart. But he believed that whenever, wherever, however he had encountered Caroline Jackson, he would have been attracted to her. Had Katerina still been alive, he would have acknowledged it to himself but not acted upon it. With Katerina dead, there was no reason not to allow himself to care. To attempt to ignore how he had started to feel was doubtless the safest course of action. But a man who thrived on risk as he did could no more adopt a safety-first policy with women than he could turn his back on the edgy and lucrative world that gave him so delightful a life.

  Tadeusz pushed open the fire door and emerged in the vestibule that led to his apartment. He wasn’t alone. Darko Krasic sat on the deep window sill, short legs stretched out in front of him, cigar smoke hazing the air. Tadeusz didn’t break stride, heading straight for his front door. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said, key in the lock.

  “I’ve got something that won’t keep,” Krasic said, following his boss indoors. Tadeusz took off his overcoat and hung it in a cloakroom in the hallway. Krasic carried on into the sitting room and threw his leather jacket over the back of the sofa. “I could use a drink,” he called.

  “Help yourself, you know where it’s kept.”

  Krasic poured himself a slug of Jack Daniels and swallowed most of it at a single gulp. He topped up the glass and settled into a modernist chair that was far more comfortable than it looked. He crushed out his cigar in the deep crystal ashtray on the end table, then drummed his fingers on his knee.