Back in the station Peters looked worried. Stannheim sat in his usual recalcitrant pose at the back playing, no threatening, to be the disturber of the peace. Angi was standing beside her boss holding a mounted photograph of the sword, two black arrows pointing at the blown up Cyrillic word on the weapon’s side.
‘What Angi is holding up is a picture of the murder weapon and one word engraved in the blade,’ Peters announced. As he did so the team opened their files and each lifted up A4 photocopies of the sword from their desks.
‘The word for those of you who never benefited from a DDR education is Russian. It means ‘Comrade’. And you can’t buy it from one of the hucksters flogging East German memorabilia outside Checkpoint Charlie or the Brandenburg Gate,’ Peters continued.
‘Angi and I have discovered that the sword is a collectors’ item, not commonly or widely available. They were manufactured by the Soviets and given to their most trusted East German comrades. Members of the old NVA who fought with the Russkies in Afghanistan or Africa. Unless our man has stolen the sword I would guess he was given this before the Wall came down. Which as I’m sure you can guess means that he may have been a soldier.’
Peters wasn’t the least bit surprised that it was Bauer, the suspected former Stasi-nark who used accusations against Angi as a shield to deflect attention from his own past, that put his hand up first.
‘Sir, I have a few old NVA contacts that might be able to help us there.’
The Englishman was tempted to say ‘I suppose it’s better than spending all of your day in gay bars’ but he resisted. Bauer probably did have contacts in the East German military, possibly even some of those in the more elite units linked into the old party’s apparatus of power and terror.
‘Go east Bauer and dig them up. Find out exactly which units were awarded these swords. Ask if any of ex-soldiers have gone weird lately. Maybe they’ve started to frequent gay pubs. And don’t forget to wonder out loud if any of them own a quiet lock up somewhere deep in the east, somewhere where no one will hear you scream.’
He detailed the rest of them to check other police districts for reports of missing relatives; to quietly issue photographs of the two victims in stations across the city; to check out if any of the doomed duo had a record and to track anyone with a history of homophobic violence. When the team dispersed to their desks, or in Bauer’s case disappeared to the car pool, Peters sat alone in a chair beneath blown up pictures of the dead men. He was aware that Stannheim was staring at him, slyly.
‘How is your media management campaign coming on?’ the superintendent asked.
‘Our deal still stands sir,’ Peters said with renewed confidence. ‘Heike Numann will be as good as her word.’
Stannheim marched across the incident room floor until he was directly facing Peters. The station’s chief reeked of tobacco and his breath betrayed a night at home downing snaps waiting for his son to arrive back, as usual an effort made in vain.
‘You have just made a classic error Martin.’
The accusation stung Peters.
‘What on earth do you mean, sir?’
‘Too much unnecessary detail to too many officers. The thing about the sword should have been kept between you, me and Angi. Instead you blurted it out in front of the entire squad. On the law of averages I would guess that at least one of them has a contact in the lower end of the media food chain.’
‘I don’t follow, sir,’ Peters said with barely concealed sarcasm.
‘What I’m saying Martin is that it’s going to get out. All the juicy bits are there now. A former soldier slaughtering older gay men with a Russian sword, the tabloids will hyperventilate over all that one.’
‘Then I’ll make sure there won’t be a leak because if there is I’ll have their balls off and turned into Easter Eggs.’
‘Who says the leak will come from the men?’ Stannheim interjected.
‘So you do trust your troops after all sir?’
‘An awful lot more than I would trust any journalist.’
‘Heike Numann will honour our agreement, sir. That at least I can promise.’
On the mention of her name his mobile rang. Peters had had a bizarre feeling that the call was from her. It turned out to be perfect timing. He would be released from Stannheim, a man whom he loved and feared in equal measure.
‘Excuse me for a moment, sir.’
‘Never mind a moment, Martin, I’m off to Anna’s’
‘Anna’s’ was an old fashioned kniepe-Berlin corner pub in a street parallel to their station. Stannheim had gone off in search of his early morning cure.
Peters ran to his desk and snatched up his mobile, pressing the green answer button at the sixth and final ring.
‘Hello.’
‘Martin, it’s Heike.’
‘I know. I was expecting you.’
‘Then you must be telepathic.’
‘Just intuition. Anyway, how can I help you?’
‘Martin. I need to see as soon as I can.’
There was a hint of panic again in her voice, just like the first time when her morning and, perhaps, her sanity was partly fractured by the horror show sent to her through cyberspace.
‘Heike, are you ok?’
‘Not really. He’s called this time. On this number. I’ve managed to hear his voice.’
She sounded captivated and Peters was filled by panic, fearful that Stannheim’s prophecy was about to come to pass.
Twelve
‘Anna’s’ was the casualty ward for the over-indulgent, the mournful, the traumatised and the permanently passed-over. Officers from Peters’ station around the corner sought solace here amid the gloomy décor and the brothel-red lights. Its proprietor, a widower who named the corner pub after his late wife, hardly ever left the premises. Every time Peters and the Kottbuser Strasse murder squad came here to wash away the dirt from their finger nails along with the sordid details of their days amid the dead and deranged, the owner was always propped up behind the bar, his waxen, taut skin translucent in the crimson glow of the pub lights. And today was no different when Peters walked into ‘Anna’s’ with Heike Numann beside him.
‘Good day Herr Peters,’ the landlord growled . ‘And who is this lovely fraulein I see before me?’
‘This is Heike Numann, one of the Berlin press’s finest and she will have a Kindl and a Korn. I’ll have a double brandy.’
Heads were already turning at the bar. The leering brigade from uniform elbowing each other at the sight of Heike sliding into a snug with Peters behind her clasping beer and spirits to his chest.
When they sat down Heike lit a cigarette and downed the Korn in one go.
‘Struggle?’ Peters asked.
‘Struggle? Why would he use a word like that to describe what he is doing?’
‘That is exactly what I thought, Martin. A strange word indeed.’
He almost blurted out that it wasn’t unusual for an ex-soldier to employ the language of war. But he resisted, remembering his pact with the journalist and the fact that the days were ticking away towards the weekend and publication.
‘This is very interesting, Heike. I promise you can use all this once we get a better picture of our man. No one else is talking to us directly.’
She seemed placated by what Peters had said and that gave him confidence to ask for more from her.
‘Angi is coming to WAMS tomorrow to shadow you. She’s the best I have and totally trustworthy,’ he hesitated.
‘Heike, if he rings again try and engage with him, keep him on the line, make him feel important, as if you want to tell his life story. Then the second he puts the phone down, write everything down that you’ve heard, instantly and then call me.’
They sat for a while enjoying their drinks, watching the hunched over and the hung over throw back shots and drain beer glasses. Peters was as ever on the look-out for Stannheim but there was still no sign of the boss. He remembered Mannfred’s warning about the danger of
disclosing the details. To hell with him. It was worth the risk.
‘Oh, Heike ask him this: Does he think he is a soldier?’
‘A soldier? Whatever for?’
‘He might think he’s at war. Angi will join you in the newsroom tomorrow morning. Stay close to her and let her know everything about him. Now I have to go and avoid someone.’
As they left ‘Anna’s’ he spotted Stannheim coming around the corner from Kottbusser Strasse. He had been too late. The chief was already waving wildly over at his favourite officer. ‘Time for a beer, my friend,’ he bellowed across the street. Peters nodded to Heike to get off sight quickly.
Back once more inside the pub Stannheim simply nodded to the landlord who poured out two large Kindls and left them on the table where the two men had sat down.
‘Prosit,’ said Stannheim lifting up his glass and clinking it against Peters’.
‘Did you have company?’ he asked slyly as if not knowing.
‘Yes, Heike Numann.’
‘Is our journalist friend still co-operating with us?’
‘Yes sir. She’s on for the Russian story still. Nothing about Christopher.’
‘Listen to me Martin. It’s going to get out. You must know that. Someone in the investigation is going to blabber to someone else who happens to know someone in the media and there we go. So we don’t have much time left. When he sees that Frau Numann hasn’t bothered putting him on the front page he is going elsewhere with his manifesto.’
‘You are a prophet of doom Mannfred. How is Paul by the way?’ Peters tried to shift the focus of his boss’ attention onto another more personal source of misery.
The old man suddenly looked crushed, his face sunken, his entire frame deflating. Peters expected the worst about the errant son. It was the reason why Mannfred Stannheim consistently cleared the room in ‘Anna’s’. No one wanted to hear his rolling tales of filial woe.
‘He stayed over last night. Found him rifling through the room where I keep my wife’s things. I lock up the money every evening in a safe. Paul only has a key to the house. There’s nothing for him to take. So he was searching for something from her room to sell. We had a huge row when I caught him on. Jesus Christ, Martin.’
His boss was on the verge of tears now.
‘When he’s like that anything is possible. He had one of her necklaces in his hand. One I bought her years ago. All he cares about is his fucking fix.’
Peters gripped Stannheim by the shoulder, steadying the ship, preventing the old man from breaking down in front of the remaining flotsam and jetsam in the bar.
‘Get a grip Sir. You have to lead from the front.’
‘Spare me your old regimental mottos, Martin.’ He was wiping the water from his eyes with a handkerchief flicked out of his ash stained jacket.
‘He’s a fucking arsehole Martin. You know that. I know that.’
‘It’s the smack sir, that’s all. It’s not him. I’ve seen it hundreds of time before. So have you. He’s a nice lad deep down. It’s an illness sir.’
Stannheim waved away Peters’ excuses.
‘Well it’s too late to even care about that. He’s slipped away from me a long time ago. Anyway, you be careful with that Fraulein Numann. If she loses Christopher to some other hack there’ll be hell to pay.’
With that Peters’ boss stood up, gripped onto the table to steady himself before marching off towards the door of ‘Anna’s’.
Miriam arrived as always in her taxi, the light on top switched off to avoid being hailed down, the car then parked quietly up against the space at the side of the building where Peters’ car should have been had he ever had bothered to get one. He watched her from his bedroom five storeys up, noticing the crown of her head and that permanent neat parting exposing a line of her skull that separated her long jet black hair, hearing momentarily the muffled wail of Middle Eastern music from her stereo before she switched it off, opened the door, slammed it shut and flicked the alarm on to de-activate.
Inside his apartment he had lit scented candles, the aroma of lemons and limes wafting across the flat more for the benefit of his Turkish born lover than himself.
‘You look tense, Martin,’ Miriam remarked the second she came through the door, her hazel eyes swimming in sympathetic water.
She put one of her hands to his face and stroked his cheek gently, her touch forcing Peters to close his own eyes.
‘Let me massage you, Martin. I think you’ve had as terrible a day as I have.’
Thoughts, theories, conspiracies were all ricocheting like a pin-ball through his weary brain. Lights and noise rattling across his consciousness, flashing up images of headless cadavers and tortured doomed captives. He was trying to calm down and let Miriam relax him. She began rubbing one of her forefingers up and down the back of his neck, then knead them deep into his muscle tissue. But Peters didn’t want to be soothed. There was only one way to turn off the machine. By trip-switching it with a burst of lust laden energy. He grabbed Miriam roughly around the stomach and lifted her off her feet. Within seconds they were in his bedroom and he was working off her tracksuit bottoms and pants until he was over her, effortlessly entering her. By the time he was thrusting deep into Miriam she was digging her ankles into either side of his spine.
Later they lay together, Miriam stroking his head, her hand movements creating shadow play in the candle light.
‘I can feel your blood throbbing, Martin.’
‘That’s down to you, love’, he said flattering her.
‘No, I would prefer if it was singing instead. It’s a sign that you are tense. A hard day?’ she whispered.
‘You don’t want to know. Was yours any better?’
She sat up in bed then reached down to the floor where she had dropped her handbag, fished around inside and produced cigarettes and lighter.
Peters watched her light up in the semi-darkness, caressing her nipples while she smoked.
‘Yol is getting worse by the day,’ Miriam said, her voice almost croaking. ‘For him everything in Germany now is shit, corrupt, filthy. He won’t even watch Turkish TV because he says it’s infected by the west. Those channels from the Gulf are on constantly except at the weekends of course when he turns back to the football.’
‘Why did he come here then?’
Miriam sighed as if Peters had just asked a stupid question.
‘Because when he left Turkey the army was in charge and his family were left wing. He used to believe in Marx not the Mosque, just like his father. Twenty years of life in Berlin has turned him inside out. It’s funny but it was the Wall that did it for him in the end.’
‘As it did for a lot of socialists darling,’ Peters interjected.
But Miriam was losing her patience, gently but firmly for not being fully understood.
‘No Martin! He was depressed when it came down. While it was up things were simple. The socialists on one side, the imperialists on the other. He loved the idea of all those pro-American Germans trapped inside West Berlin. He used to laugh at them and say one day the East is going to cross over and then they will know the score. He loved the idea of being so close to real power.’
‘Why didn’t he go over there then?’
‘He wasn’t that stupid. It was just his perversity, his kink, his kick. He enjoyed being on the edge of something and when that disappeared, well...’
‘He sought out another crutch.’
Miriam moved closer to him, until he could smell the dry-rot reek of tobacco on her breath and body.
‘Yol has needed a crutch all his life, Martin. First there was his father, then the party back in Turkey and now, after the Turn, the Imams. He is a weak man and they are the ones I fear most of all.’
Peters almost blurted it out, his one secret desire, the wish he kept suppressing, the easy temptation of commitment. But he managed, just in time, to stop himself from saying: ‘Leave him. Come and live with me instead.’
She seemed to se
nse that he was tensing up and stroked his face again.
‘Enough of him, Martin. Tell me about what’s happened.’
‘No, not now. We will eat and then you’ll go home pretending you’ve been driving around the west end all night.’ Momentarily he couldn’t believe how resentful that had sounded.
He had a phrase for it, her ritual of departure after they had made love: they lay together for a short time and then dined, after that it was her ‘nightly ablution’ when she would disappear into his bathroom to wash and shower away any scent of him off her body. Peters had even learned to remember never to wear aftershave on Thursday nights. He imagined her husband, his paranoia increasing with every sermon denouncing the decadence of the west, sheet-sniffing around everything external that Miriam came into contact with.
Sometimes he felt the same way towards Miriam as he did with all those informers past and present, the believers and refuseniks behind the Wall who lived in constant fear of exposure and ten years in solitary confinement or the firing squad, or the criminal ones today who, through baser motives, risked a slower, more brutal demise for their betrayals. Spy and later policeman, it was dawning slowly on Peters that he was putting Miriam in the line of her husband’s ire.
The Swinging Detective Page 7