Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 11

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “But they do not fit, mon ami,” Auguste said patiently. “They are impure ingredients together—”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  Auguste thought hard. “The ingredient for murder that does not fit.”

  “Hurry up, man,” Rose said urgently. “If you’re going to have an idea, have it quickly. Time’s fast running out. Halbach may be dead, but if there’s still a killer running around, we need to know.”

  “Kugelhopf!” cried Auguste in triumph. “Stefan Meyer is not German.”

  Rose regarded him blankly, and Auguste hastened to explain. “Meyer’s favourite food. But Kugelhopf is an Alsatian dish, not German.”

  “Alsace is in Germany,” Rose snapped.

  “No, mon ami. Not to those who live there. They still belong in their hearts to France, and wait only for an opportunity to be free of the tyrant that has governed them since 1870. Meyer is an Alsatian name too. Furthermore, when speaking of Halbach, Stefan Meyer spoke of his fatherland, not our— Halbach’s fatherland is Germany, but not Meyer’s.”

  “Then he wasn’t Halbach’s accomplice?”

  “He pretended to be, but only to foil the plot to kill the man whom he regards as his President.”

  A pause. “I’ll give the good news to Lapelle.”

  Auguste walked back into the kitchens, eager to find his assistant chef. “I think, mademoiselle, you need have no fear now of impure ingredients. Our recipes will be presented to the President tonight; we will forget such matters as forcemeat, and,” he took her hand, “soon perhaps we may spin sugar together?”

  Françoise blushed prettily. “I did my best,” she sighed, with downcast eyes that failed to hide the twinkle in her beautiful eyes, “but working with a master chef such as you, how can my best be enough? Monsieur . . . Auguste . . . to spin sugar, to float through the heavens with you . . .”

  Auguste kissed her hand, and soon, he hoped, her lips. “How shall we enjoy our Entente Cordiale, Françoise?”

  Midwinter Interlude

  Alexander McCall Smith

  Ulf Varg was a Swedish detective. He was very well aware of just how fashionable it was to be a Swedish or Danish detective, and was amused by the extraordinary degree of interest shown by the rest of the world in Scandinavian crime. “It’s entirely unrealistic,” he said to his friends. “People must believe that Scandinavia is a hotbed of criminal activity – with bodies everywhere – whereas in fact we have a very low crime rate compared with other places. It’s the same with English villages: they have a sensational murder rate, if you believe those novels – which, of course, one does not. Real life is very different. There are no clichés in real life.”

  That, of course, is where he was wrong. Sweden may not have a very high crime rate, but it has plenty of detectives who are exactly as they are portrayed in fiction and on the screen – rather morose, a bit enigmatic, inclined to drink too much, perhaps a bit depressing. There are undoubtedly Swedish detectives who are not like that at all, but there are many who fit the mould very well. Ulf himself was one of these.

  His name, of course, was absolutely right for the job. If Philip Marlowe was a perfect choice for a laconic Los Angeles gumshoe, and Hercule Poirot an ideal name for a moustachioed Belgian, then Ulf Varg was an entirely fitting name for an inspector with the Malmö criminal investigation department. Ulf means “wolf” in Danish and Varg translates as “wolf” in Swedish. Ulf Varg was therefore a name that would make most malefactors think twice before engaging in criminal activity. One would not wish to trifle with somebody called Wolf Wolf.

  Yet even if the name Ulf Varg was one that might discourage criminals, Ulf himself was a gentle and sympathetic man. He was prepared to be rough, of course, when toughness was required, but he understood the role of mercy and forgiveness. On more than one occasion, Ulf had turned a blind eye to a matter that a harder detective might have pursued to its conclusion. He understood that people did things they might regret; that even the worst of men might have within them some qualities worth cherishing. “That is what our civilization stands for,” he explained. “If we cannot exercise forgiveness, then what have we learned over the last thousand years or so?”

  On one occasion, when he was attending a police conference in Stockholm, he responded to a question from the speaker in terms that surprised the other detectives present. The speaker had talked about the qualities of a good detective and had concentrated on intuition and a willingness to be painstaking and methodical. Ulf agreed that these were important elements in police work, but when the speaker had said, “And is there anything else?” Ulf had put up his hand and said, “Forgiveness.” The other delegates had all turned in their seats to look at him; there had been sniggers and one or two people actually burst out laughing.

  “I’m serious,” said Ulf. “Without forgiveness, our life is an empty cavern of ice.”

  This remark had brought silence.

  “Possibly,” said the speaker, after a while. Then he had added, “However, I would query whether it is for us, as detectives, to forgive.”

  Again there was silence, and then an inspector from a northern city, a place of winter darkness, had said, “You can forgive them after they’ve served their sentence; not before.”

  Ulf lived by himself in an apartment in the centre of Malmö. He had been married, but his wife had gone off with an accountant who worked for a car-hire firm. He was lonely, and his colleagues, sensing this, had attempted to match-make. Ulf was used to being invited to dinners at which he would find himself seated next to a recently divorced or separated woman – quite coincidentally, of course – but he had never found that any of these people appealed to him. He had had one or two relationships after the break-up of his marriage, but none had lasted. His work made it difficult, of course; a detective inspector keeps strange hours, often being called to a crime scene in the small hours of the morning and then finding himself on duty for twenty hours or more. “Never leave a crime scene too early,” Ulf said to his assistant. “Leave no stone unturned. Clues are like fish: they go off after a while.”

  “Yes,” said his assistant, who agreed with him on all points. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “Don’t only bear it in mind,” said Ulf. “Practise it.”

  “Of course,” said the assistant.

  Ulf’s assistant was named Markus. He was thirty-two and was married to a paediatric nurse named Tekla. She came from the northern town of Örnsköldsvik, where her father had been an ethanol engineer. She preferred Malmö, where there was more light. “No wonder Swedish films are so dark,” she once said to Markus. “All that darkness, all that cold. No wonder Bergman made the films he did.”

  “We are not meant to notice such things,” said Markus. “If you are Swedish then darkness and cold are natural. We do not notice them.”

  “I do,” said Tekla.

  Ulf liked Tekla and she liked him. Every two or three weeks she invited Ulf to join Markus and her in their apartment for a meal of raw fish, washed down with Finnish vodka. After they had finished their meal, they would sit in silence, gazing through the window at the clouds moving slowly across the sky.

  Shortly before Christmas one year, Ulf invited two of his junior colleagues to a special lunch in a restaurant near the headquarters of the Malmö CID. This restaurant was owned by a man whom Ulf had known since he was a boy in Gothenburg. They had enjoyed many adventures together, some of them rather dangerous. It had been their habit to hide in the bushes at the Liseberg amusement park, watching a particular ride in which people were strapped to a garishly painted gondola that then swung backwards and forwards on a long metal arm before doing a complete circle. The performance of the circle meant that the people taking the ride were briefly and stomach-churningly turned upside-down, and it was at this point that Ulf and his friend, Fabian, would run out from their hiding place and retrieve the money that fell out of the pockets of the suspended thrill-seekers.

  On one occasion, Fabian was
not quite quick enough in getting out of the way of the descending gondola. He had seen a ten krona coin fall from somebody’s pocket and he had dashed out to rescue it. Sensing danger, Ulf had called him back, but Fabian had disregarded his friend’s warning. The gondola caught him on the right leg and broke it in three places. Thereafter Fabian walked with a limp.

  Ulf had learned a lesson too. Greed, he thought, is the downfall of many. And that lesson had been of great assistance to him in his police work. Time and time again he saw it: greed led people to take one risk too many; greed, he was convinced, was the most useful of all the handmaidens who danced attendance on Nemesis and helped her in her work.

  The two junior officers whom Ulf took for this Christmas lunch were his assistant, Markus, and Stig, a young detective from another department.

  “This is very kind of you,” said Stig. “My boss never gives us a Christmas lunch. Never.”

  “Mr Varg always does,” said Markus. “And I am very grateful to you, sir.”

  “I enjoy it too,” said Ulf. “At this time of year it is very pleasant to sit in a restaurant at lunchtime when outside it is cold and inhospitable.”

  “And there is a wind blowing down from those cold northern quarters,” added Stig.

  Fabian gave them a warm welcome and allocated them the best table. “I have some very good things on the menu today,” he said. “Julskinka – Christmas ham in a special sauce I have developed myself; Janssons frestelse – potatoes with anchovies; and fläskkorv – pork sausage. – All of this is very delicious, I assure you.”

  Ulf rubbed his hands in anticipation of the feast ahead of them.

  “Tekla says I’ll have to go on a diet after this,” said Markus.

  Ulf laughed. “You could go to the gym instead.”

  That reminded Stig of something. “I had to make an arrest in a gym the other day,” he said. “When the suspect saw me coming he forgot that he was on an exercise bike. He pedalled faster and faster to get away, but of course he did not move at all.”

  They all laughed. You have to have a sense of humour if you are a detective, or you would rapidly become over-burdened by the nature of the work. Especially in Sweden.

  Halfway through the ham course, Ulf said, “Don’t give any indication. Don’t stare, but I’ve recognized somebody at that table over there. Or I think I have.”

  Both Markus and Stig were too well trained to look in the direction of the table in question.

  “Who is it?” asked Markus, sotto voce.

  Ulf toyed with his ham. “Not a major criminal, but one we know all about. Andersen – I forget his first name. He’s a big pickpocket.”

  Stig raised an eyebrow. “Hardly big stuff.” He bent down to retrieve the napkin he had deliberately dropped on the restaurant floor and in so doing glanced in the direction of the other table. “Railway stations? Airports? That sort of thing?”

  Ulf shook his head. “No, our friend Andersen is a cut above all that. He moves only in the best of circles. He masquerades as a waiter and gets into classy receptions. He’s only interested in big pickings.”

  “I suppose it’s easy if he’s serving drinks and so on,” said Markus.

  “Yes,” said Ulf. “And there’s a warrant out on him.”

  “I suppose we’ll have to arrest him,” said Stig. “Shall I go over and take him in?”

  Ulf thought for a moment. Then he shook his head. “It’s Christmas in two days’ time,” he said.

  “What’s that got to do with it?” asked Stig.

  “Rather a lot, actually,” replied Ulf. “Andersen’s mother’s pretty ill. I know that because my secretary lives a couple of doors from them. She says that she’s not long for this world, I’m afraid, and so this probably means her last Christmas.”

  Stig glanced at Markus. “But is that—” he began.

  “Yes, it’s relevant,” Markus said.

  Stig shrugged. “He’s lucky it’s you here rather than some of the other inspectors. Very lucky.”

  While they were waiting for the cheese course, Ulf rose from his chair to visit the washroom. Andersen saw him then, not having noticed him before. The pickpocket froze, a forkful of food on the way to his mouth, suspended now midway.

  Ulf hesitated, but then walked firmly over towards Andersen’s table. There was one other person seated at it – a woman wearing a small fur stole.

  Andersen began to rise to his feet, but Ulf had already reached him and pushed him gently back into his chair.

  “I hope you’re enjoying your Christmas lunch,” Ulf said.

  Andersen looked down at his plate. His expression was one of misery.

  “How’s your mother?” Ulf asked. “I hear that she’s not been too well. I do hope that you’ve got a good Christmas lined up for her.”

  Andersen looked up in surprise. “Yes,” he stuttered “I—”

  Ulf cut him short. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. And then, with a polite nod to the woman, he went on his way.

  They rounded off their meal with coffee and liqueurs. While they were doing so, Andersen suddenly appeared at the table. He, too, was heading for the washroom, but evidently wanted to say something to Ulf. Ulf looked up, bemused.

  “Yes, Andersen?” Ulf said.

  “I just wanted to thank you Mr Varg,” said Andersen. “There are plenty of people in this world who are mean inside – really mean – and – then there are some who are not.”

  Ulf said nothing, as he was inclined to feel embarrassed by emotional exchanges. Nor did he say anything as Andersen bent down to embrace him.

  “Thank you, Mr Varg,” the criminal muttered. “Thank you for being human.”

  Ulf never had to pay at Fabian’s restaurant. He gave Fabian fish he caught on his fishing expeditions throughout the year, and these gifts offset the cost of any meals he had in the restaurant. So he did not need to reach for his wallet until he was walking home after the meal and stopped to buy an evening paper. Realizing that his wallet was not in his pocket, he stood quite still for a moment. The sky was heavy with snow, and a few flakes, drifting, blown by the wind, had started to fall.

  “I have been very foolish,” he said to himself. “Human nature is human nature.”

  There was no point in going back to the restaurant, he thought; Andersen would be long gone, and it would only embarrass Fabian, who never liked any fuss. So he continued his journey home, planning to phone from the apartment and cancel his credit cards before Andersen or his fence could do anything with them. The snow was falling faster now and his shoes, inadequate for the purpose, were beginning to let in water from the slush underfoot.

  He heard someone coming up behind him. He turned around. It was Andersen. “Mr Varg,” he said. “Thank goodness I found you. You dropped this in the restaurant. I only noticed it a couple of minutes ago.”

  Ulf took the wallet and slipped it back into his pocket. “Thank you,” he said.

  Andersen nodded. He smiled.

  Somewhere not far away a street musician had started to play a tune. A child ran past, pulling a sled. On the other side of the road, a man for some reason was holding a flashlight and its beam was weaving through the night, a cone of yellow gold in the darkness.

  The Tiger

  Nina Allan

  There is a bed, a wardrobe with a large oval mirror, a builtin cupboard to one side of the chimney breast. The boards are bare, stained black. There is a greyish cast to everything. Croft guesses the room has not been used in quite some time.

  “It’s not much, I’m afraid,” the woman says. Her name is Sandra. Symes has told him everyone including her husband calls her Sandy, but Croft has decided already that he will never do this, that it is ugly, that he likes Sandra better. “I’ve been meaning to paint it, but there hasn’t been time.”

  She is too thin, he thinks, with scrawny hips and narrow little birdy hands. Her mousy hair, pulled back in a ponytail, has started to come free of its elastic band. Croft cannot help notici
ng how tired she looks.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “If you can let me have the paint, I’ll do it myself.”

  “Oh,” she says. She seems flustered. “I suppose we could take something off the rent money. In exchange, I mean.”

  “There’s no need,” Croft says. “I’d like to do it. Something to keep me out of mischief.” He smiles, hoping to give her reassurance, but she takes a step backwards, just a small one, but still a step, and Croft sees he has made a mistake, already, that the word mischief isn’t funny, not from him, not now, not yet.

  He will have to be more careful with what he says. He wonders if this is the way things will be for him from now on.

  “Well, if you’re sure,” Sandra says. She glances at him quickly, then looks down at the floor. “It would brighten up the walls a bit, at least.”

  She leaves him soon afterwards. Croft listens to her footsteps as she goes downstairs, past the entrance to the first-floor flat where she and Angus McNiece and their young son live, and into the pub where she works ten hours each day behind the bar. Once he feels sure she won’t come back again, Croft lifts his luggage – a canvas holdall – from where he has placed it just inside the door and puts it down on the bed. As he tugs open the zip, an aroma arises, the scent of musty bedsheets and floor disinfectant, a smell he recognizes instantly as the smell of the prison, a smell he has grown so used to that he would have said, if he’d been asked, that the prison didn’t have a smell at all.

  No smell, and no texture. Being outside is like being spun inside a centrifuge. He keeps feeling it, the enthralling pressure on his ribs and abdomen, the quickfire jolts to his brain as he tries to accustom himself to the fact that he is once more his own private property. Just walking from the station to the pub – the long, straight rafter of Burnt Ash Road, the blasted concrete triangle that is Lee Green – gave him a feeling of exhilaration so strong, so bolt upright it still buzzes in his veins like neat whisky, like vertigo.

  The pub is called the Old Tiger’s Head. Croft has read it was once a coaching halt, a watering hole for soldiers on their way to the Battle of Waterloo. More recently it was a tram stop, where trams on their way down from Lewisham Junction would switch from the central conduit to overhead power. Photographs of Lee Green in the early 1900s show the place when it was still a village, a busy crossroads between Lewisham and Eltham, creased all along its corners, faded, precious.