‘I assume Yanaev is going to be there?’
‘Of course. He’s at the top table with the ambassador.’
‘So we can be introduced then?’ he asked.
‘Naturally, I hope you aren’t going to cause a scene. The Mayor of Berlin will be there with his gay partner too.’
‘And good luck to the both of them but my interest in is Yanaev.’
Peters studied the Israeli diplomat for her reaction. The force-field was still in place. It suddenly occurred to him that Yanaev might have been working for her bosses for all he knew. If this was so there could be no further way into the mystery that Lothar Blucher had partially opened for him.
‘One more thing before I go Irit. Is Herr Yanaev on your side? Is he on the books?’
She seemed disappointed by the question: ‘Come on, Martin, that is out of order. I don’t go around asking who’s working for you.’
‘But he isn’t, is he?’ Peters insisted.
‘I need to know.’
Irit Wiseman stared into Peters’ eyes; there was just a flicker from hers, a non-verbal signal that the detective was safe to pry into the affairs of Avi Yanaev, that he needn’t worry about Mossad covering the Russian’s back.
After embracing Irit once more he left the Beth Café tickled at the thought of what the glamorous Israeli spy would have made of one Lothar Blucher.
Outside, the police guards were getting drenched by a deluge, salty ice water needles from the Baltic stinging their faces and those of everyone else passing by on the pavements. Peters moved back down Tulchovsky Strasse then right up the Oranienberger towards Friedrichstrasse and the U-Bahn station. Amid the gathering gloom, filed up in parallel to the outdoor heaters of the Indian restaurants and bars stood a line of East European hookers all clad in their winter-street uniform of hip length white puffed up fake fur lined jackets, skin tight jeans and knee boots. One of them smiled at Peters before disappearing inside a jeep with blacked out windows, which then shot off in the opposite direction from where the detective was walking, eastwards towards the ever-dimming twilight.
Ten
The S-Bahn to Spandau pulled out of Friedrichstrasse and the eastern Berlin skyline started to slowly disappear in the decaying light. The winking beacon at the summit of the TV tower at Alexanderplatz was the only landmark still visible as the train coursed slowly westward through the lush green affluence of the Tiergarten, then on past the seedy drabness of the west end towards the Grunewald and the ultimate destination - the old British military headquarters near the notorious prison. Peters suddenly realised tomorrow was Thursday, Miriam’s day of arrival.
His mobile rang and he fished it out of his jacket. It was Heike Numann.
‘Martin?’
‘Heike, what’s up?’
‘He’s been in touch again. Another email. A different address.’
‘What’s he been saying?’
‘Can we meet up? I printed out the mail. Let’s have a drink somewhere.’
Peters noticed that the next stop was Sauvingy Platz, the square close to Blucher’s shop. If he jumped off and grabbed a cab he could be at Checkpoint Charlie in ten or fifteen minutes. Peters assumed Heike was back at work, inside WAMS headquarters in the gleaming, hyper modern skyscraper on Zimmer Strasse that Axel Springer built to show off his empire to the citizens once trapped just behind the Wall facing onto his offices.
‘How about Café Adler? I take it you are still at work in the Springer Building.’
‘Sure. Adler is perfect. Twenty minutes?’
Café Adler was situated to the left of Checkpoint Charlie, the bar that was once the pub at the edge of the world, a spit’s distance from the old Cold War barrier, now a stop-off hostelry for tourists milling around the former frontier zone.
After entering the bar, elbowing past a group of Japanese tourists fresh in from a tour of the museum across the street, Peters ordered a wheat beer and sat down by a table overlooking Zimmer Strasse.
Heike Numman was half an hour late; Peters guessed she was held back by the paper’s fact checkers assiduously editing her copy. She apologised for her tardiness and asked the waiter for a bottle of Schultheiss beer. Peters was already on to his second wheat beer. Heike then neatly rolled out a photocopy of the email in front of the detective.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: ‘the next phase.’
Well. Well. I hope you are busy with your story. You will have plenty to write about. This is only the beginning.
Peters wondered if he had been wasting his time cancelling his journey home to be with the WAMS journalist.
‘He doesn’t give much away does he?’
The reporter shrugged her shoulders and sipped at the beer bottle placed in front of her.
‘If he commits one more murder Martin I can’t not write about Christopher. He’ll go elsewhere if I ignore him. I’ve just written the report on the Russian murders. But if he strikes again then our deal is off.’
She was obviously serious, Peters realised his agreement with her hung on what she and him now called Christopher did next.
‘Grant it, he’s probably preparing for another one. But if he holds fire until the weekend then our deal stands, Heike.’ She was the only link to the killer barring Lothar Blucher. There was only one move he could make.
‘I want someone from the station to shadow you, Heike’
When she bridled at the thought, Peters added determinedly:
‘I’ll go to the top if you don’t agree with it. You could be in danger, Heike. Besides you are only real connection to the murderer. Let’s not forget that - he is a murderer.’
Heike detected something in the Englishman’s tone, something beyond the call of professional duty. They had been lovers once, albeit for a short time. She refused to commit herself to anyone in her life while building her career although that was not why she had ‘ended it. But she still felt a common bond with the detective, her reticence about over-involvement overlapping with his refusal even as he hit his forties to be tied down either to one person. And yet there was still something in his voice, something that told her that she remained somehow special to the ever elusive Martin Peters. He was stirred once more surveying those intense hazel-green eyes that were focussed on his reaction, the porcelain skin devoid of any make up and the way she kept her dyed black hair with purple tinge cut in that new romantic wedge.
‘Okay, Martin. We’ll give it to the weekend to see what Christopher does next. If he sees nothing in the paper on Sunday he might cut me off. But seeing as it’s you Herr Peters I don’t think I have a choice.’
Peters liked it when Heike flirted with him; it was more like a cat toying with a mouse, he succumbing as always to her game.
‘Oh, I don’t think even I could ever control WAMS’ finest,’ he said staring into Heike’s eyes. ‘I don’t think even your editor could keep you in check.’
She drew back in her seat and shot him a lascivious smile:
‘Oh, I remember a time when you used to regularly keep me in check,’ she said licking froth from her upper lip.
‘You used to say it was “my therapy”. Remember?’
He blushed, remembering a short passionate six months a couple of years ago before Frau Schuster, Miriam or Karen, when Heike would stay over on weekend nights in Heer Strasse, when they played games with each other until one of them ‘lost’ and paid the price over the knee. Embarrassed at the memory, Peters darkened the mood once more.
‘Still, I insist that we get someone in to shadow you at work. We need someone who can be there if he rings, emails or who knows, even makes a courtesy call.’
Even when she jolted at the thought of it, Peters stood his ground.
‘I’m deadly serious Heike. If I have to I’ll get Stannheim to call your boss. He has pull all over this city. We have no inroads into Christopher barring you,’ he added lying, thinking again about Blucher.
She knocked back her Schultheiss and immediately ordered another from the waiter. Peters resisted another wheat beer and instead asked for coffee. He wanted a clear head in the morning for his face-to-face with Stannheim.
‘Since you’ve handed me my scoop for the week and it’s only Wednesday how about a night on the town?’ Heike asked, bristling with confidence. Peters noticed the line of yellow cabs outside Adler’s door. He was too tired to go by U-Bahn all the way to Friedrichstrasse and re-trace his S-Bahn journey west back to Heer Strasse; he was far too tired either to fall for Heike’s temptation.
‘When all this is over Heike you and I are going to go on a real bender, a force 9 one all over this city. We’ll pub crawl all the way from Hallensee to Friedrichshain and back again. But not tonight. I’m sorry. Unlike you I’ve to go to my boss tomorrow morning completely empty-handed.’
‘That’s a pity,’ Heike replied curtly, stood up, marched out and left Peters to his coffee in a café filling up with more Japanese tourists. He was relieved to see that none of the tourists outside were hailing taxis. He couldn’t face the endless east-to-west-west-to-east pull that drove him back and forth over memories and history. For some reason he could not explain it was only travelling by car could he feel that he was living in a reunited whole.
Later, in those penumbral hours between the darkness and light, with the night sky gently crumbling away towards morning, Peters paced around his apartment, naked, unsettled, unable to sleep. The television plasma screen flickered in the corner of the living room, the volume muted, the ever changing images of scantily clad women speaking into telephones, different numbers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland flashing up and below the smaller digits below constantly reminding the caller of the cost in Euro and Swiss Francs per minute.
He sat down on the couch facing the TV and the women who even with the volume turned up would still have been saying nothing. Peters looked up towards the area above the door into the main room where the captured Kalashnikov hung. He thought about Angi’s father far way on the other side of the city, the sword hanging on his wall, his obvious delight that the swordsman who sliced and then hacked the second victim to pieces was probably one of Herr Domath’s old comrades. Then Peters thought about his own father and his long agonising death during that final six month posting to Northern Ireland just before the ceasefires; his tour of duty constantly interrupted by phone calls from his mother and her daily dispatches from the medical front; all of his R&R spent at the bedside in that very same hospital where he had born on the day of the World Cup triumph. All Peters could recall from their final conversations was Kurt’s continual amusement that his son was leaving the army to go back to Berlin and join the German police. His father was so stunned by the news of his son’s ambition that he shared it with all the other men in the cancer ward or as Kurt had described it on first entering, ‘Terminal One.’
For the next two nights Peters decided he could not be completely alone. So he was grateful for the insomnia and the isolation that sleeplessness brought. As he tried desperately to shift his thoughts towards the sword as well as the enigma of Avi Yanaev, Peters realised that his face was wet. For the last few minutes he had been unaware that tears were streaming down. He hated to admit but it was then that Peters regretted spurning Heike’s offer.
Eleven
It wasn’t the alarm clock but her mobile that was bleeping.
The phone must have been ringing for at least five minutes, on/off, on/off until Heike Numann was finally roused from her booze sodden slumber. She was still in her clothes, which smelt of smoke and sweat, both hers and others. She had gone on from Adler back to the Springer building and then joined some colleagues in the ground floor wine bar of the high rise media centre. From there it was on to the Russian disco in Prenzlauer Berg. Her increasingly frenetic consumption evolved from the Schultzheiss with Peters onto a bottle of Riesling and finally a toxic rainbow of different coloured shots in the nightclub, downed until she finally keeled over. All she could remember was stumbling out of her taxi into her apartment in Neun Kollen as the birds were starting to twitter. Heike knew she’d gone off at the deep end.
‘Hello. Who is it?’
‘Fraulein, good morning.’ She noticed that his German was formal, clipped, officiously polite.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be in the WAMS building by now?’ he went on.
She was still groggy, her antennae blunted by her overnight/early morning indulgences.
‘I’m sorry if this is someone from work but I’m not due in until midday.’
‘Fraulein. May I introduce myself? I am Christopher your friend from the email.’
No one at work was aware of what she had seen. It had until now been a secret between herself and Peters and he would never play games with her head like this.
‘Christopher? You’re the one that’s been mailing me?’ she was breathless now, her heart thumping until she would hear the blood pounding in her ears and feel her palms weeping.
‘I ring to apologise to you. I know the material you saw was unpleasant. I hope you weren’t too offended.’
She glanced at the LCD screen on the cell phone; the number was withheld of course. Heike immediately thought of Peters and wished she had persuaded him to stay with her.
‘Fraulein. You are very quiet. There is no need to be afraid.’
Heike yearned for a cigarette and rummaged around her bed and through her clothes but found nothing.
‘How...how did you get my number?’
‘It’s very simple. I just looked up the reporters’ contact details on the “WAMS” website and there it was. I hope you don’t find that too intrusive.’
If she had gone home last night, if she had went in early to the Springer building, she would have bought time to at least have had the call recorded. In her hazy state Heike knew she would lose details and be only vague in her recollections of voice, diction and intonation. For some unknown reason she started to apologise to the killer.
‘I’m sorry. I’m in a fragile state this morning. You were the last person I expected to call.’
He laughed gently: ‘We are both apologising to each other here. There really is no need.’
Those manners again, she thought, and the old fashioned pronunciation which hinted at an education and upbringing in the east.
She was so thrown by him Heike could only offer the kind on banal question a news editor would despair at .
‘No. No need. So why are you calling me?’
‘It’s very simple Fraulein. I’ve chosen you to explain what I’m doing. By the way, have you worked it out yet?’
‘What’s to work out? Two men killed on film and you are seeking publicity for it,’ the moment she said it Heike wondered where she had gotten her brashness from.
‘Fraulien. Let’s just see how you deal with the incidents.’
‘Then explain to me why. Why these men? Who are they?’
There was a pause on the line, deep breathing through his nose.
‘To tell you who they are is to tell you why they were chosen, Fraulein. The struggle isn’t over yet... .’ the line went dead.
Heike started swearing in frustration. Like the email he had told her next to nothing. She kept frantically pressing 1471 but continually that anonymous female phone voice told her it was a blocked call. She decided to take a shower and head into work, to get away from the bastard tormenting on her on the end of the line. Heike depressed the power button and switched the phone off.
She couldn’t bear the short journey via S-Bahn and then U-Bahn to Koch Strasse and the paper’s HQ around the corner. Instead she took a taxi, all the while in the cab thinking about the last word Christopher had uttered: ‘struggle.’ Struggle for what? Heike asked herself over and over again on the journey across central Berlin through Postdamer Platz, across the former frontier towards ‘Charlie’ and then Zimmer Strasse. Struggle! What a curious way to describe the slaughter of two old defenceless el
derly queens in front of a camera.
Later, at her desk in the open plan office on the 12th floor of the Springer Building, Heike felt the weight of her secret pressing down on her. She wanted to scream out to the reporters and sub-editors hunched over computer screens, whispering in near silence down the telephone line or huddling together in small groups of two and three, mapping out their various sections of Sunday’s paper, what she had seen and now heard.
Heike noticed that fat, black clouds pregnant with precipitation were now bulging around the top of the TV tower. She yearned for the downpour and longed to be outside in the sharp, static air, showering herself in the threatening storm about to break over Berlin. Heike also needed Peters.
Across the invisible border inside Kottbusser Strasse the English detective was about to hold court again in front of his murder squad. All were gathered there except Riedel whom Peters had called in to see at ‘Boyz R Us’ that morning. The only interesting thing Riedel had to report was that the few men flicking through the magazine and DVD racks were only talking about one thing – rumours that one of the ‘regulars’ hadn’t been seen for weeks. They pondered on whether he had had another heart attack. ‘Too much sniffing of the poppers’ one of them quipped provoking a round of sniggering from the others that day in ‘Boyz R Us.’
The Swinging Detective Page 6