‘Anything else Lothar? Names maybe, addresses, credit card details we could pull down and check on for their purchases in the shop?’
His informer’s huge frame was shaking, no longer from cold but rather laughter, the mocking of an innocent beside him.
‘How many of my clients would use plastic to buy anything from me? It’s cash over the counter mostly. No names neither, just faces. If you showed me some faces I might be able to connect them to our two film stars.’
First thing Monday morning Peters would speak to the techno-boys about putting a hidden camera in the shop but he decided to keep it back from Blucher. And then there was Riedel, forever smouldering in sullen plots, suddenly becoming a vital link in the trail towards ‘Christopher.’ Peters at once resented the idea that Angi’s secret tormentor was potential pathfinder to their quarry. He shook himself down by the tree, slapped Blucher on the back and bade his source farewell for now, this time running off to escape from his thoughts of Riedel’s breakthrough. As he beat a path back to Heer Strasse Peters switched his mind towards an evening with Irit Weissman and Avi Yanaev and then cried out back in Blucher’s direction: ‘I’ll get that Russian bastard myself Lothar, believe me!’
Fifteen
Irit Weissman’s ‘frock’ for the occasion turned out to be a rippling blue chiffon dress that seemed to shimmer in sync with the contours of her body as she glided across the floor of the Martin’s low ceilinged ballroom. She kissed and mwaw’d her way through a thicket of Berlin senators and their wives or significant others. The Israeli’s glass tinkled constantly as her face lit up almost automatically at the sight of each German, foreign diplomat and benefactor in town for the opening of the film festival. Her visage transformed from flirtatious to serious as she moved from the glittering correspondents of society magazines to the chin stroking critics and from the culture sections of the more upmarket Berlin papers. And all the time as she slalomed around the politicians, the journalists, the dignitaries, the entrepreneurs, the photographers, the battalions of hotel staff milling around, Weissman was focussed on coursing her way towards one particular table in the centre of the room, the one where Avi Yanaev would be sitting.
At her side, his hands shoved into the pockets of his dinner jacket, looking and feeling ill at ease, miffed too, that she hadn’t allowed him to link one of her perfectly bronzed arms, was Peters smiling nervously at everyone she had greeted, cocking his head above the throngs of guests and waiters in the direction Weissman was heading obviously heading for. On their journey together he kept thinking about chess moves, of what Blucher had said to him, of Yanaev and the way he ruthlessly dispatched any piece of the board that stood in his way.
Yet what greeted him, literally, when the Israeli woman’s progress slowed to a halt, shocked Peters. He had expected some bling’d-up bloated oligarch looking more like a bouncer than a businessman flanked on either side by younger trophy women. Instead Peters was towering over a small, slight man with a short wispy moustache and nervous, darting brown eyes. It was difficult to hear what the man he sought was saying above the hubbub of those gathered for the Jewish film festival and the stains of Schubert from the Israeli quartet flown in by the embassy for the occasion. Peters strained to hear the Russian but did feel a weak shake of his right followed by a polite nod that bordered on the edge of a deferential bow. It took Weissman to amplify the greetings with a throaty introduction from a voice rubbed by years of smoking.
‘This is Martin Peters, one of the Berlin Polizei’s top detectives...well that is what he tells me all the time.’
The other diners around Yanaev, which included at least one journalist and one politico Peters vaguely recognised, issued polite collective laughter from their table.
Peters felt those shifting eyes sizing him up, something about Yanaev suggested that this stooped, wan, translucent image of a man was a mask hiding a deeper, darker interior. It was there in the eyes, Peters noticed, just a hint that another man lay beneath.
‘Thank you for coming to our festival Herr Peters. We always appreciate the support of the Berlin Polizei,’ he heard Yanaev say when the Russian was only a breath away. He then realised he had been staring at Yanaev for too long.
‘It’s always a pleasure to take Irit on a date, any excuse will do,’ Peters said wrapping his arm around the Israeli’s waist, guessing her to be somewhere between a size 8 and 10.
Yanaev made a pointing sign at Peters, a gesture almost like a child making a gun with their fingers and thumb.
‘You are not German. You are English.’ The Russian wasn’t wagging his fingers around; instead he kept his gesture frozen on Peter’s body. ‘What is an Englishman doing in the Berlin Polizei?’
He noticed that Weissman was looking a little alarmed at where all this was going.
‘Like a lot of people after the Cold War, I was facing redundancy and boredom. No more beasty Easties to spy on anymore now that we were friends all of a sudden,’ Peters replied ignoring his partner-for-the-evening’s visible concern.
‘I’ve never met a spy before. How intriguing,’ said Yanaev.
‘I wasn’t a spy I was a soldier, Herr Yanaev.’
‘I see sir. Maybe you should write a book about your time as a soldier of course.’
‘Actually I’m more interested in the here and now. Every new case brings a new challenge. Like the one that the Havel threw up. Did you read about it at all Herr Yanaev?’
The Russian didn’t flinch, nothing was betrayed in his reaction. He retreated back into his facade and sipped at a glass of fizzy water. Peters noted that there was no sign of any booze around his plates or cutlery.
‘I have to apologise to you. Which case was this?’
Peters leaned over, a little too intrusively and in a near whisper said:
‘The one Tavarich of the two headless corpses that were washed up on the lake shore. Do you know what someone had printed on their arms? ‘
Inexplicably Yanaev started sniggering, nervously, Peters unclear if this was an authentic response or yet another stratagem to cloak what lay behind.
‘You didn’t ask me what was on their arms.’
‘Do I really need to know that Herr Peters?’
‘It was Kharkov and Kursk. You recognise those names?’
‘Of course I do. Battles of the Great Patriotic War. Any soldier would know that especially one who used to serve amongst our once gallant allies like you.’ Yanaev replied.
‘Why would anyone leave those marks on these men?’
‘How on earth would I know? That’s your job, you’re the detective. I hope to read about the end of this mystery when you solve it. I really love a good detective story.’
He felt Weissman gripping his arm, the pressure that she was applying increasingly painful.
‘One more thing sir,’ Peters said wincing from his partner-for-the-evening’s vice on his forearm,
‘I think this was a Russian hit and that these men were from the motherland.’
The last remark seemed to send a jolt through Yanaev who suddenly rose from his chair again.
‘What makes you think those men were Russians at all,’ Yanaev hissed, ‘You jump too quickly to conclusions Herr Peters and now if you don’t mind I’d like to sit down to dinner.’
This time it was Peters who was bowing politely, beating a retreat from the table, quietly pleased that he had punched through the defences around this diminutive Russian in an ill-fitting tuxedo.
After appetites had been satisfied and thirsts slaked, the ballroom was plunged into near darkness as a series of film clips for the festival were presented on a giant screen, Weissman squeezed Peters’ leg under their table and leaned to whisper into his ear.
‘Did you deliberately seek out to piss our Avi off, Martin?’
Peters retaliated with a tighter squeeze on one of the Israeli agent’s thighs.
‘I’ll tell you why if you come back to Heer Strasse with me tonight.’
‘L
ousy try Martin. And you still have to answer my question – were you here just to raise his heckles all night?’
‘No, I came for the nouvelle cuisine and a glimpse of the movies on offer. Fancy coming to the pictures with me next week?’
‘You never give up. That’s why I like you.’
Peters hoped Yanaev thought something similar of him, that he would dog him to the end. He was certain that Blucher was right about the connection, he knew it in his bones. Now that he had come face to face the name linked to that horrific discovery two weeks to the day Peters could turn his thoughts to obliterating the rest of the night. He checked his watch and realised there was plenty of time left to spend in Der Zug now that the elusive Irit Weissman was thinking about her bed alone.
Sixteen
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: coverage
Fraulein Numann. Naturally I was disappointed when I opened up my copy of WAMS this morning and found nothing inside about this struggle. Instead I read about headless corpses washed up on the Havel’s shore. Please try and take what I am doing more seriously. I shall be in touch....soon.
Was it out of spite, duty or fear that Heike had forwarded the mail to Peters’ work address overnight on Sunday? It had been the first portent for a week that would test him and the squad in Kottbusser Strasse to their utmost limits. She hadn’t resorted to screaming abuse down the line or turning up at Heer Strasse in a strop. Instead she had decided to post Christopher’s latest, terse, affronted communiqué, coldly to his office for Monday morning. Peters realised his media management campaign was about to spectacularly backfire.
He had spent Sunday morning in bed recovering after his date with Irit Weissman which had been followed by an energetic evening at Der Zug entertaining a brace of housewives in town from Magdeburg for the weekend. On Sunday night he suffered from a sulking Frau Schuster who had taken exception to his rejection of her offer of a free Med cruise shortly after Easter, and had gone home early instead back to his apartment after the widow announced she wanted to spend the rest of the night alone. The two of them had more in common than Peters cared to admit.
He was about to take a print-out of the email to Stannheim’s office when he saw the lanky frame of the unit’s commanding officer towering over his desk. There was a dull thud on the table as Stannheim dropped a pile of newspapers onto the table.
‘Take a look at these Martin. No doubt your friend at WAMS will be delighted at the coverage too,’ Stannheim growled.
Peters stared open mouthed at the headlines screaming up at him from below on the desk. Thick black lines with huge exclamation marks emblazoned across front pages complimented by blurred stills of the doomed men on film that were somehow connected to Lothar Blucher. ‘Christopher’ had had a busy Sunday.
‘CRAZED KILLER FILMS VICTIMS’
‘SLASHED, BEATEN AND BROADCAST’
‘GHOULS ON FILM’
The last one from the stable of BZ almost amused Peters with its cheeky, tasteless, back reference to Duran Duran. But he was glad he didn’t visibly see the funny side of the final headline: Stannheim’s manner was graveyard grim.
‘Fuck me Martin we have well and truly screwed up,’ he muttered and gestured, nodding back towards his office. Both men walked over to Stannheim’s lair and the boss of the Kottbusser murder squad gingerly closed the door behind them.
Stannheim checked to see if anyone was watching them and then went around the glass box that was his HQ, closing each of the three sets of blinds until they were fully obscured from view. He sat down in his chair, pointed to Peters to sit on the other lower one before him and searched for his cigarettes in the pockets of his ash stained cheap nylon purple suit.
After lighting up, taking a deep draught of smoke into his lungs and then exhaling, Stannheim stared at Peters.
‘The press office is going bananas. We promised them radio silence and now we have got it out in full stereo. And we probably have a jilted journo who is going to go full frontal this weekend about her “relationship” with our killer about whom we know next to nothing. What a start to the week!’
Peters noticed that the dark lines insomnia had mined underneath Stannheim’s eyes were blacker and deeper than ever.
‘I’m sorry sir. We made a deal with Heike and WAMS but we never guessed “Christopher” would go elsewhere. I’ll get the team to check with the rags how they got the story. Presumably he mailed his snuff movies to them.’
He was trying to think of ways of recovery, of suggesting something that might convince Stannheim they were making some semblance of progress. Reluctantly, Peters thought of Riedel and what he had picked up in Blucher’s shop.
He cleared his throat as if the idea of Riedel carrying in a breakthrough might make him retch.
‘There may be an entry point sir.’
‘Go on.’
‘It’s something Riedel picked up in “Boyz R Us’. Something one of the customers said.’
‘Which was?’ Stannheim asked as he lit his second cigarette of the day.
‘That they were missing someone. Someone who hadn’t been in the shop for a while. As I said before there is a link between our two film stars and the shop. Maybe if we could talk to the customers missing their mates.’
‘Ok. If they come again get Riedel to ID them and we can pick them up for questioning. Is that all?’ Stannheim’s question was seared with sarcasm.
‘Yes, I think I’ll call Heike Numann. Try and keep her on side. I don’t want a first-person account of how the killer contacted her and we tried to cover it up.’
‘Ex-fucking-actly Martin. That’s what we’ll be crucified for. Trying to hush the whole thing up. The media don’t like being treated like idiots. They’ll be out for blood, even your friend. I mean look at this shit. “Bild has learnt that polizei are investigating a possible link between the two murders on camera and the de-capitated corpses found on the Havel shore. Detectives fear this may the start of a major Russian mafia war...” The only thing I fear is crap like that seeping out because we are going to be left to shovel it up.’
More sarcasm, thought Peters, and puzzlement too. After all, how did he remain fiercely loyal to an officer like Stannheim whose mission in life seemed to be to constantly point out the mistakes of his chief subaltern? And then he remembered Angi’s observation, blurted out in a rare moment of frankness at a Christmas party, that Mannfred Stannheim only ever criticised one man on his team because he was the only one he ever wanted to succeed him.
When he returned to his desk Angi was holding up his landline, her face as grim as Stannheim’s had been a few minutes earlier. She uttered the words Peters was dreading to hear.
‘It’s Heike on the phone sir.’
Peters took the set from her and answered. What he heard both pleased and astounded him.
‘Don’t worry Martin I’m not about to bark,’ she said, her voice quivering down the line.
‘He’s been on the handy again. Christopher. He’s told me to be at an address in Wedding within the next two hours. I’m going. Care to join me?’
When she disconnected the call after reading out the street Heike was instructed to be in Peters felt as if his body had just been subjected to a short burst of electric shock. It took him about 30 seconds to recover and then he leaned over and whispered to Angi:
‘Get the team together. All of them. No sirens. No noise. Just make sure the firearms unit aren’t far behind us. Make sure everyone is armed including yourself.’
Seventeen
Berliner Strasse was a single row of pre-war five storey apartments facing onto a small public park in a rundown part of Wedding. The ground floor of the flats was a miserable strip of grimy shops run by Turkish and Maghreb immigrants along with a bakery and a launderette. At the very far right corner stood a seedy 24/7 pub which at this time in the morning had just two customers inside, an old pair of insomniac codgers playing chess a
t the window, sipping occasionally at their Kindls and Korns.
Peters was relieved that Heike had been ‘summoned’ at this time of the day, especially the way she was dressed. With her above the knee skirt and shiny black boots and the way she stood nonchalantly dragging on a cigarette she wouldn’t have looked out of place filed up alongside the lines of whores who used this pitch late at night. He had recognised the park immediately when he set up the snipers and their spotters in the undergrowth across the road from the apartment block. Just over two years earlier Peters had been sent here one cruelly bright summer morning after local uniform came across one of the girls that had only started working the area; a savagely beaten Natasha whose Russian pimp had taken exception to her open air ‘freelancing’ outside from the knocking shop he and his cronies ran down in Charlottenberg.
At least Peters had had the satisfaction of putting that particular bastard behind bars in nearby Moabit for life. He would often quite deliberately drive past the prison in the middle of the residential district wondering what kind of lives the men he had put in there were now living. Constantly miserable, he always hoped and prayed. For Martin Peters had no faith in the redemptive power of incarceration.
For Peters man’s (it was almost always men) warped sense of their own honour, self-image and machismo drove them to brutalise the women and children they sought to either control or covet. They would not change either inside or out of prison; he was sure of that and the necessity for them to stay there rotting until death.
The Swinging Detective Page 9