An Incidental Death

by Alex Howard

  She was fonder of Serg than she cared to admit. Had he been based in London she would probably have severed all connection with him. Having him at arm’s length somewhere in central Europe suited her.

  She could see him when she wanted, and that was very important. The idea that she might have to be at someone else’s beck and call was intolerable.

  And he was an incredible lover.

  Then again, she thought, so am I.

  As her strong, white teeth closed down on the cake she put Serg from her mind and thought of what had brought her here. Images of Lottie’s tarot cards whirled through her head.

  The Devil?

  Was that Marcus Hinds, the plausible liar. Suave, good-looking, horribly plausible?

  The Lovers, the naked figures smiling at each other with naked lust. Schneider and Hübler?

  And who was the Fool, walking thoughtlessly to their death without a care in the world?

  She called the waitress over and paid, paused at the counter and, on impulse, bought Enver a selection of home-made chocolates which the smiling efficient woman gift-wrapped for her.

  She left the warmth and light of the shop and was immediately consumed by the cold, damp, darkness.

  Hanlon noticed the man immediately.

  She had first seen him as she’d walked in the café, reflected in the large mirrors that ran along the back of the shop. He hadn’t followed her in but had walked on past the door. Here he was again.

  He was good-looking, in his mid-fifties, an overall impression of grey, from his full head of grey hair to his grey trousers and shirt, although his jacket and shoes were black. The rain didn’t seem to worry him. He wasn’t the kind of man who cared about discomfort. He had hard, watchful eyes, a battered nose and deep laughter lines that were at odds with the casual brutality of his features. He reminded her of Corrigan.

  Police.

  Hanlon’s immediate thought. She was one, had been one for rather longer than she cared to think about. She felt she knew one when she saw one.

  She sauntered along the shopping street near Schlossplatz, the big square in the centre of the town. Grey Man had a visible paunch and was heavy-set, built for strength, not speed. She crossed the Platz quickly, walked down the entrance to the U-Bahn, and ran through the busy, echoing subterranean place, towards one of the other exits on the far side.

  She emerged by an art-nouveau cinema and headed off down a side street. The pavements around here were thronged with people and she thought she must have lost him, he wouldn’t have been able to keep up with her. But maybe there was more than one?

  Well, we’ll soon find out, she thought.

  Stuttgart lies in a valley and there are hills on two sides, steep hills. Hanlon had learnt from her Lufthansa in-flight magazine that the former terraced vineyards of the town had long ago been concreted over and built on, but many of the original steps, now staircases, remained, leading straight up the hills.

  The hills, her friends. Hanlon did a lot of practice endlessly running up and down thigh-punishing gradients, it was what made her such a good performer, the ability to relish the pain. To recognize the agony and push through it. Pain didn’t deter her, it spurred her on.

  As if by magic, as she resurfaced several hundred metres away from where she had gone into the underpass with its labyrinth of exits, Grey Man reappeared, unhurried, on the other side of the street. So there was someone else as well as him tailing her then. He had to have been told, tipped off as to where she was. How many followers would she warrant? Six to eight bodies, she guessed. She headed for one of the hills rising up before her. Let’s see how fit you are, she thought grimly to herself.

  Hanlon was wearing Chelsea boots, far from ideal, but in trainers she could run a marathon in a respectable three hours. Even wearing boots she’d be good for half an hour, she thought. Grey Man looked like he’d have trouble on an escalator. She grinned wolfishly as she increased the pace of her stride. This is going to hurt you.

  She strode down the road and then increased her stride to a jog, her hair bouncing in its familiar comforting rhythm. There was a main road with heavy traffic and Hanlon ran across it, weaving through the traffic, the faces of the other pedestrians expressing outrage at the flagrant jaywalking. It would have gone unnoticed in London, but not in Germany where such things are taken seriously.

  Horns honked angrily.

  From the safety of the other pavement she glanced back. Grey Man had given up the chase. He didn’t seem worried about it. He leant on the railings opposite and lit a cigarette. Their eyes met over the four lanes of traffic and even from this distance she thought she could see the ghost of a smile on his face.

  Hanlon turned and strode away up a side street. She guessed that she’d still have others on her tail. Then she saw what she was looking for: steps leading upwards at the end of a walkway between two buildings, office blocks, glass, chrome and marble.

  The side of the tall hill rose up dauntingly, like a wall, behind the buildings built along its base. One of the original, thousand-year-old, stairways built by the original settlers of Stuttgart cut into the side of the hill, now modernized with proper steps and handrails, but still as steep and precipitous as running up an office block fire escape. She ran for that and two men suddenly broke cover behind her like pheasants flushed from a covey.

  Hanlon hit the steps hard and fast. Head down, arms pumping.

  Who are they? The thought ran through her head as her legs pistoned up the endless steps. Eleuthera? Or something to do with what Lottie had just divulged? Had the dwarf sold her down the river?

  She must have run up a couple of hundred steps. Hanlon glanced back after a couple of minutes. One of the two men behind her in pursuit was visibly struggling and then he just gave up, clutched the steel railing and looked up at her with frustration. She could sense his chest heaving as he tried to suck air into his burning lungs.

  The other was still running, but appreciably slower now. Hanlon felt great. Her breathing was smooth and regular. Perhaps I ought to go a bit slower, get on a city bike if I can find one when I reach the top, then cycle down to the river and jump in – we could make a triathlon out of this yet. See how fit you are.

  She turned and ran ahead, then rounded a corner. She stopped abruptly in dismay.

  She thought of Lottie’s tarot card, the Fool. The blind idiot sauntering towards the yawning canyon. It hadn’t occurred to her that this might refer to her, now it seemed it did. Her with her smug plan of just outrunning them without thinking of this.

  Ahead of her, walking unhurriedly in her direction, was Grey Man and a companion. He raised his hand to the brow of his hat in a mock-friendly salute.

  God, he’s good, she thought. He must have worked out where she was headed and why and had a car on call to drive him up to Panoramastrasse, which was the name of the street at the top of the steps, and then head down to cut her off. From below she could hear the sound of footsteps as the other man made his way towards her.

  She was trapped.

  Hanlon thought furiously. Ahead was impossible, besides she had conceived a healthy respect for Grey Man. She just knew he’d be a vicious, tough old bastard to deal with. She turned, she’d run down, with any luck with the height and pitch of the steps the face of the man below would be level with her boot. She planned to kick him in the face and continue down.

  Not a brilliant plan, but a plan.

  The lights of Stuttgart lay spread out in the valley below. She could see the Mercedes star illuminated on top of the art deco railway station, her original destination. It twinkled mockingly at her.

  It was almost as if it had been placed there as an ironic reminder of her plight. She took a deep breath.

  Then, from behind her, a discreet cough. Hanlon froze and then turned round.

  The fight starts here, she thought. There was the figure of a man, shrouded in darkness. He stepped forward so she could see his face. Tall, sardonic, those half-Tartar features tha
t she knew so well.

  Relief, anger, disbelief, then she found her voice. ‘Serg, you fucking idiot!’

  ‘Hello, Hanlon,’ he said, and opened his arms.

  Grey Man and his companion rounded the corner.

  ‘Boss, ti vi poriadke?’ Grey Man called out.

  He smiled to himself at the absurdity of the question. His boss, a hard, frightening, driven man, looked more OK than he had ever seen him. Serg lifted his head from where he had buried it in Hanlon’s hair.

  ‘Da, normalno. Vi vse mozhete idte.’ Serg dismissed them with polite indifference.

  Grey Man and his companion walked past Serg and Hanlon. Their eyes met and he ran his gaze frankly over her as if evaluating his boss’s taste in women. He smiled at her, saluted smartly, turned away and met up with their companion, who groaned as his burning legs straightened and he took another step up this endless stair.

  ‘A teper vse vimetaytes,’ said Grey Man to his juniors, barking out the orders in his sonorous Moscow-accented Russian. Serg watched his security team climb slowly down the hill and away into the night.

  ‘Shall we go?’ he said to Hanlon, indicating the stairway in front of them.

  ‘Da,’ she said. It was one of two words of Russian she knew.

  Nyet was the other. She wouldn’t need that one tonight.

  42

  ‘What the hell are you doing here, Marcus?’ said Huss, her breath steaming in the cold, wintery night.

  ‘Trying to get proof that I didn’t kill anyone,’ Hinds said irritably. He added, plaintively, ‘Can we sit in your car, I’m freezing out here.’

  Huss shook her head and pressed the key fob. They both got in the VW and she felt a momentary desire to just cuff him to the steering wheel and have done with it. Then call it in. She might well have done if her back hadn’t been hurting so much. The last thing she wanted was a struggle in the cramped space of a car. What she really wanted was to go to bed, pull the sheets over her head and sleep.

  ‘Go on then, talk!’ Huss switched the heating on and Hinds rubbed his hands theatrically.

  ‘I know that Eleuthera are planning something for tonight. I know a girl there and she’s reliable. There’s something big scheduled for Schneider. If we go there now, to the lodge, we’ll be able to stop it, and I’ll be vindicated. I’ll get my story and then some.’

  ‘You mean you think the charges against you will be dropped and you’ll make a fortune selling your story.’ Huss’s tone was sarcastic.

  ‘God, yes!’ Hinds’s tone was fervent.

  ‘Well, I’d better give Diplomatic Protection a call,’ she said. ‘They’ve still got a team up here at the Rosemount, or should have, I’ll let them decide what to do.’

  Hinds grew agitated. ‘Are you crazy! You’ll have half a dozen guys in hi-vis clothes waving sub-machine guns, two or three marked police cars, a ’copter with thermal imaging thundering overhead.’

  ‘And a couple of dog handlers, probably,’ agreed Huss. ‘They love their dogs, Diplomatic Protection. All those woods.’

  ‘Well, Eleuthera aren’t going to do anything are they, then,’ protested Hinds.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But what about me?’ wailed Hinds. Huss looked at his face, so close to hers in the front of the car. It was certainly not an act. Hinds plainly wanted to establish his innocence.

  ‘It’s not all about you,’ said Huss. ‘Innocent lives are at stake.’

  Hinds was growing increasingly agitated. ‘Think of Justice! Look, Melinda, I mean DI Huss, this is your big chance to nail the murderers of that old lady, Hübler and that bell-end Kettering. If you catch them here and now, they might well confess to the other killings.’ He paused, changing his tack. ‘Think how pleased your boss will be.’

  Huss thought Templeman would not be pleased at all to be proven wrong. But as the idea sank in that Eleuthera would be put to bed and that smug bitch Georgie Adams would be facing jail time, the bait dangled by Hinds started to gain traction.

  ‘What kind of thing are they planning?’

  Hinds shook his head. ‘I don’t know exactly. I have a source in Eleuthera who has tipped me off.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Huss, sceptically.

  Hinds shook his head in exasperation. ‘A girl called Rowenna, she knew Elsa from the soup kitchen. Mark Spencer strong-armed her into revealing Elsa’s whereabouts. She didn’t know so she gave Spencer the name of an old boy, Harry someone.’ He paused. ‘She hasn’t seen him since.’

  Huss’s heat sank. ‘That’s three days ago, Marcus, maybe four. He could be dead.’

  ‘That’s not my fault, is it?’ said Marcus, sulkily. ‘I’ve been on the run accused of murders I never committed. Perhaps he’s fine, just lying low.’

  ‘I’ll deal with it later,’ said Huss grimly. ‘What did Rowenna tell you is going down?’

  Hinds said, ‘She doesn’t know herself, but she does know it involves Arzu and Georgie. They’re the two major players, after all.’

  Assassination, presumably, thought Huss. Well, if she could move Schneider and Kellner out, she could move the protection team in via the entrance that Hanlon had used. Frank Muller and Wotan could fend for themselves. She could always, if worst came to the worst, stick the Germans in a cell at Summertown.

  Three murders solved, a terrorist cell, maybe two, bust open. Ancillary arrests. Maybe too the chance for someone to take responsibility for the death of Elsa.

  She saw Georgie Adams’s smug face, gloating in her cleverness. Hinds carrying the can for her activities.

  Huss decided to spare Hinds.

  ‘OK, I’m going to go and fetch Schneider, get him out of harm’s way. When that’s done, I’ll sneak the Protection boys in and I’ll get a Divisional Support Team Group in. Schneider out, cops in. You stay here but, Marcus, you’re coming in with me back to the station, OK? That has to be part of the deal. I can’t let you go again. The meeting at the York Hall was off the record, this is very much on the record, have you understood that?’

  ‘Sure, I knew you’d say that, I’ve come prepared for the nick. Uncle Cliff has arranged a brief for me who’ll go out to wherever I’m held. It’s all good.’

  He was quite resigned now, it seemed, to spend some time locked up on remand.

  ‘Fine.’

  She got out of the car and gasped with pain from her back, paused to lean on the bonnet and straighten up. Using her palms to push her spine upright.

  Not good.

  She walked round to the front of the hotel and made her way step by painful step, walking exaggeratedly straight, as though she was on parade, to the front terrace, the mock Palladian frontage of the hotel lit up brilliantly like the front of the National Gallery transported to the middle of Oxfordshire.

  She hobbled down the steps towards the lights of the lodge and followed the path to the main gate.

  From behind it she heard savage barking and some curt command in German.

  I wonder who that is? thought Huss to herself, sarcastically.

  ‘Wer ist das?’ Muller’s gruff voice.

  ‘It’s DI Huss to see Herr Schneider.’

  There was silence, then the gate swung open. The Presa, on a choke chain, strained forward, eager to get at her, its massive muscles ridged under the short fur. Its lips were drawn back from its teeth.

  Muller leaned back to control the animal, putting his full weight behind restraining it. Huss kept a wary distance. Despite his great bulk, Huss could see he could barely hold back the beast. If it came at me, she thought, I’d be dead.

  Muller jerked his head in the direction of the lodge and Huss walked up to the front door and banged on it.

  Dr Florian Kellner let her in and closed the door behind her. Huss suddenly felt an enormous sense of relief that the solid oak lay between her and the Presa. The dog was seriously out of order.

  Dr Kellner said pleasantly, ‘And how may we help you tonight, DI Huss?’

  Huss chose her words carefully. ‘I
have received information, credible information, that an attempt may be made to breach security here at the lodge tonight, and I would like to suggest that you and Herr Schneider come with me and we’ll make alternative arrangements for your accommodation.’

  Kellner frowned. With his bald head, fat face and rather blubbery lips, he looked a little like a petulant baby. Right now like a petulant baby that was somehow being denied a treat.

  ‘Look, we’ve got visitors at the moment. Can I take you downstairs to the treatment room to wait whilst we finish? It really won’t take long, but it is confidential.’ He smiled. ‘That’s politics for you, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Huss. ‘It’s down here, isn’t it?’ She pointed to where a spiral stair disappeared down to the basement. It was very spa-like, a slim, curved metal handrail with thin metal hawsers running in parallel underneath, like you might get on a ship, and stone and glass steps with recessed lights leading down to the room below.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Kellner, ‘make sure you are comfortable.’

  His eyes bulged behind his glasses. God, he’s creepy, thought Huss.

  He led the way into the treatment room and indicated the sofa that Enver had slept on. ‘Please have a seat.’ She did so, gasping as she sat down.

  ‘Back problems?’ asked Kellner sympathetically. Huss nodded.

  ‘Me too,’ he said.

  The room was very bright and Huss saw that although it was essentially a reclaimed basement, it had long narrow windows just under its ceiling so it would get some natural light during the day.

  ‘We’ll be about twenty minutes,’ said Kellner. ‘I’ll come and fetch you. But don’t worry, nobody will get past Frank and Wotan.’

  Huss watched him go back up the stairs and closed her eyes, feeling the pain in her lower spine.

  The sofa was extraordinarily uncomfortable to sit on. Standing up proved problematic. It was so sore she ended up in a kind of undignified twist with both hands on the sofa’s arms, levering herself up, hissing with pain through her clenched teeth as she moved.

  She stood there for a moment and took a couple of steps until she was leaning on the treatment bench. For a moment she considered lying on it, but she would have felt ridiculous to be found by Kellner like a crusader on a tomb or a corpse on a slab, and decided against it. Then her eye fell on the cryosauna. The red LED display lights said ‘-40’. And this was the device that Czerwinski hoped to inveigle her into? He had to be crazy. She walked over to it and tried the handle. It was locked and there to the right of the door she saw the keypad.