The Swinging Detective

by Henry McDonald

  ‘What’s bigger? What’s more dangerous?’

  ‘Things that kill you. Guns. Bullets. Bombs. The word up has always been that Tavarich Yanaev makes a lot of money flogging off the surplus arsenal of my old army. But he does it via one or two persons removed.’

  Gavrilov reached into his pocket and plucked out a packet of Lucky Strikes and a lighter. After lighting up and taking a long draw on his cigarette, the Russian added: ‘I can only do so much Martin before this place would get torched. I’ll ask around but believe me this guy keeps his tracks well covered and besides, he has some powerful friends back at home.’

  ‘There is one thing. One thing line I’d want you to pursue Arkady.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Has he had any dealings with Basques? Basque terrorists, Spanish criminals.’

  ‘Okay, Martin I’ll ask if Yanaev has ever done business with ETA or been in Euskadi. That’s the Basque name for their homeland by the way, I had a girl from San Sebastian working for me one time when we were tracking an errant banker from Dahlem who was banging a mistress over in Bilbao. I promise I’ll ask around but be careful.’ Peters noted that it was the first time since the Wall fell and the Cold War ended that Major Arkady Gavrilov (retired) had demonstrated any outward sign of fear.

  After leaving ‘Dark Corners’ and reaching the ground floor of the Europa Centre Peters slipped into the Irish bar in the basement which was almost entirely empty except for a group of ruddy faced tourists from Ireland, all male, no doubt in Berlin for a stag weekend, their table groaning with pints and long stacked up towers of shorts. The Englishman chose a quiet corner screened off from the revellers, called over a bored looking waitress and ordered a double Black Bush, his favourite tipple since his tours of duty during the Troubles.

  He would decline Heike’s offer of a drink and an information exchange over in ‘Anna’s’. It was too near work and thus too near the gathering gaggle of news crews outside his station. Besides it was his turn to get indignant with Fraulein Numann, he would knock back the whiskey, find a cab and return to Heer Strasse waiting for what ‘Christopher’ would do next.

  Twenty Four

  It is spotting the incidentals that can save your life.

  Peters recalled this advice while panting and sweating on the pathway he pounded every morning through the Grunewald before work. One of his Special Branch contacts had passed this on during an extremely busy, often precarious tour of duty operating undercover in the Ulster countryside. He remembered the cop retelling a lucky escape when he clocked a gunman just in time coming towards him and his wife while out shopping in Belfast city centre. There had been nothing suspicious about the young man in a business suit walking in their direction except that when the officer looked down he spotted plastic covering over the hands. Transparent surgical gloves that gave away the man’s mission. His RUC comrade had pushed his wife into the doorway of a bank and then dived after her before the terrorist drew his gun and fired and then ran off without hitting his target.

  Now it was the identical sportswear they were wearing that first alerted Peters that he was being shadowed.

  Two exceptionally tall men, in their late twenties he guessed, jogging at a precise distance behind him for the last fifteen minutes, their shadows in the morning winter sun like dark wings gliding across the clearing through the forest where he had chosen to run. Out of the corner of his eye Peters noticed that they were wearing the same dark green tracksuits with dark black trimmings and the Adidas logo on their breasts. This was definitely a team, the Englishman quickly concluded while accelerating his pace.

  And it was the lack of a bulge in the skin hugging ‘uniforms’ they had put on that day that told him he wasn’t going to die, at least for now.

  Each time he tried to lose them, the pair speeded up to maintain that precise distance between them and him. Peters attempted to break from them three times before reaching the regular spot where he had planned once more to see Blucher. On the fourth attempt he sensed they had doubled their speed and eventually from the corner of his eyes saw that they were running in parallel now. He glanced on either side and noticed that neither of them had even broken into sweat yet.

  One of them, to his right, swivelled his body slightly to move closer towards Peters and then he swung his leg, Peters felt a sharp pain in his right shin and a hard pressuring on his shoulder; then the world tumbled. When the detective could tell up from down again, he was on the dirt path crawled up into a ball.

  The two runners were standing over him now and Peters could see that they were even wearing identical trainers. Only the tackler who had upended Peters spoke.

  ‘We are just like you English: we do really hate nosey parkers,’ he said in guttural English. Peters detected the trace of a Russian accent. The next thing he felt was the dull thud of thick rubber soles hammering into his upper body and legs. He shielded his crotch with his hands, which turned out to be a mistake because the duo then focussed their kicks on his lower arms stamping on them until Peters lashed and exposed his cock and balls. They rammed their feet into his privates sending sickening shock-waves into his groin. When he began to writhe, they switched to fists which fell upon him like pistons. Just before he passed out ,Peters realised they had avoided his face and head and whispered: ‘Message read and understood.’ There was a blinding flash across his eyes, the high pitch of pain obscuring his consciousness. Over and out.

  When he came to Peter saw a magpie pecking the ground beside him as freezing rain sheeted down and the gleam of silver heels propping up long black shiny boots. Beside them were black stubbier, moccasins rubbing out a still lit cigarette. He gazed upwards and saw Lothar Blucher and Anika directly above him; he in his Crombie, she/he in a three quarter length soft leather coat.

  ‘We heard you moaning and yelping and waited until they pushed off,’ Blucher said matter-of-factly.

  ‘They didn’t take anything from you so I knew it wasn’t a mugging. That’s why we stayed in the Volkswagen over there. Not safe to get spotted with you Martin.’

  Peters’ hands had gone back to cover his now aching dick and testicles. He was then helped to us feet by the surprisingly strong Shemale who yanked him off the forest path in one go.

  ‘That was very noble of you Lothar, ‘ Peters croaked, ‘You’re a real hero.’

  Anika broke in: ‘C’mon dahling. I help you to the car. Get you to the hospital.’

  He kept on hand around his groin area and used the other to lean on Anika as they inched towards Blucher’s battered Orange VW parked close to the old American listening station. When Peters finally slid into the back seat, the pain of sitting was even more unbearable than he suffered on standing up. He lay back and found Anika stroking his forehead and speaking to him as if he was a child. It had a strange soothing effect on the detective as he lapsed in and out of consciousness on the journey towards the Charite hospital.

  As they drove eastwards down Heer Strasse towards the Mitte Peters heard snippets of Blucher’s monologues from the driver’s seat.

  ‘You have to understand neither of us was capable of jumping them. Although you thought those boys were fit, eh Anika.’

  This provoked a shriek of laughter from Peters’ fellow passenger in the back.

  ‘They gave you some going-over Martin ‘Why didn’t you fight back?’ Blucher asked with clinical indifference.

  ‘You’re lucky that Russian doesn’t want you dead because we could have been witnesses and then the game would really be up.’

  Before Peters closed his eyes for a final time until he woke again on a bed in a private single room, he murmured: ‘You fucking cunt Lothar. You’d have let me die out there to protect yourself. You’d have let Anika die too. You’ll always fight to the last drop of someone else’s blood.’ No one was listening.

  Awake again and Peters’ body was being caressed by another ‘mistress’ from the east. Mistress Morphine circulating through his blood, soothing away the pai
n from the blows that had earlier rained across his limbs and torso. As his eyes focussed through misty milky light Peters realised Blucher and Anika were gone. In their place overlooking his bed was a rakishly thin man in a white coat, with steel round-rimmed glasses, sporting a pinched face and a rather small mouth. The doctor standing above him had his arms folded as if he was about to scold someone.

  ‘You are very lucky Captain Peters,’ the medic said in a campish Bavarian accent.

  ‘Whoever beat you up avoided your head and face although they have left you with bruising all over the rest of your body.’

  The doctor shook his head as if in amazement, or was it disappointment: ‘Not a bone broken. I thought we would find cracked ribs or chipped bones. But no, just a lot of bruises. You will be sore for a while. You must take painkillers.’

  As Peters was about to say something, the doctor put his hand up to stop him in his tracks.

  ‘One more thing. Do not have any sexual relations for some time. Your penis and your gonads are very badly bruised. It would not to be a good idea to masturbate either for a while.’

  Instantly Peters remembered that tomorrow was Miss Thursday. Miriam. At least she wouldn’t have to go through her weekly ablutions.

  The doctor interrupted his morphine-charged erotic reverie about his Turkish lover, which was just as well because his cock was going hard.

  ‘A nurse will check your blood pressure and heart rate on the hour and make sure you are getting enough Morphine. You took a series of extremely hard blows. What I just can’t work out why nothing was broken or damaged beyond repair.’

  ‘Because they were professionals, doctor, real professionals,’ Peters giggled.

  ‘Yes indeed. By the way some of your colleagues are waiting outside to see you. Shall I call them in?’

  ‘Yes please....Oh by the way doctor.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What happened the two people that brought me in? The fat man and the far eastern one...’

  ‘What two are you talking about? The nurses found you on your own with your Polizei ID card laid out over your chest in the A&E entrance.’

  Bastard Blucher, thought Peters. He was so paranoid about being seen with me he dumped me at the door.

  When the doctor had done Peters was surrounded on either side by Angi and Stannheim. The sight of the two them seemed to temporarily jolt Peters out of his morphinous haze.

  Stannheim pointed towards him, an unlit cigarette wedged his forefinger and middle one: ‘You, mate, are taking some time off.’

  ‘Get lost Manny will you. I’ll be out of here by tomorrow. If I have to climb out the window and hand-glide to freedom I will.’

  ‘Did you get a good look at them sir? Descriptions? Age?’ Angi had her mini note book out, as officious and dedicated as ever.

  ‘Fit. Tall. Twenties or early thirties. Russian. But you are not going to catch them.’

  ‘What?’ Angi looked perplexed.

  ‘Because it was only a message, isn’t that right Martin?’ Stannheim was reading Peters’ thoughts.

  ‘The boss has got it Angi. He knows what this was all about.’

  ‘If you really want to I can have Yanaev hauled in and put under pressure?’ Stannheim said half-heartedly in anticipation of the answer that was coming.

  ‘And what good would that do Mannfred? He’d have a cast iron alibi, the best lawyer dirty money can buy and besides the two boys will already be knocking back the Vodka on the Aeroflot flight home to Moscow this evening.’

  Stannheim looked deeply uncomfortable. Peters remembered he had spent months in and out of the same former East Berlin hospital, in the last few agonising laps before his wife finally, mercifully passed away.

  ‘I need a smoke Martin. Besides I’ve got to get back to the fort. We are being encircled by the Indians. Mothers Against Paedophiles as well as the media.’

  Peters nodded over giving Stannheim his exit visa and the old man left the private ward leaving Angi and her notebook still over his bed.

  ‘Angi I need you to do me a favour.’

  ‘Ask away sir.’

  He pointed behind him to his left where the personal locker was.

  ‘My keys to the apartment are probably in there somewhere. Rummage around and get them for me. Then go over to Heer Strasse. Take a good look around and see if the place has been turned over. I think I left the sliding door to the balcony open. The front room is probably either freezing or soaking or both. Have a search and see if you can find my mobile. If you get it will you bring it over tonight?’

  ‘And your laptop too?’ Angi inquired.

  ‘No the mobile will do.’

  Angi was now staring at Peters, her glare preparing him for something he wasn’t expecting.

  ‘Heike Numann’s here. I told her to get lost but she insisted. She rang for you at the station and Bauer blabbed that you were in the Charite.’

  ‘Bring her in. Bring her in.’

  ‘She says she’s something to show you. Wouldn’t discuss it with me. Too low down the food chain for her.’

  ‘Just get her in here Angi. Don’t take it personally. It’s a game between her and me, that’s all. Information is her power.’

  The two women passed each other in the ward doorway without their eyes meeting, a slither of air and light between them as Angi disappeared and Heike got closer towards Peters. On arriving at the bed she was holding up a mobile phone.

  ‘Jesus Heike normal people bring in flowers and grapes for patients. You bring in a handy, thanks a million,’ Peters sniggered, his consciousness still gliding on the air stream of morphine.

  ‘Is your head in gear for what I’m going to show you Martin?’ she inquired as Peters shot up in the bed wriggling his back on the pillows.

  ‘Now more than ever Heike. Now more than ever.’

  She held the LCD screen close to his face and said coldly: ‘This was sent this morning. It’s dated from a month ago.’

  The first thing Peters saw in the video was a close-up of the Berliner Zeitung just as Heike had said from exactly a month ago. Then the phone’s tiny camera started to pan around a living room, bringing into focus the interior of a grubby apartment. For a few brief seconds it trained on flickering images on a television screen. Peters could make several naked torsos of flabby middle aged and elderly men and a fleeting shape darting back and forward from the larger bodies to a much smaller flash of flesh. He could have sworn he heard moaning and crying from the faint speakers of the mobile. The shot went wider to incorporate most of a living room panning left away from the TV and then onto a three-seater sofa and a man, probably in his late 60s or 70s, dressed in a cardigan and striped shirt buttoned right up. His head was kinked backwards and it appeared at first that he was asleep. The screen faded to black for an instant and when it came back to there was a tight focus on a small red smoking circle just about an inch above the bridge of the sleeper’s nose. Fade to black again and on return a close up of a passport photograph, the phone’s recording eye tracking away from it across the page to the name ‘Ulrich Vogts.’ A final fade and then the return on the tiny monitor of that familiar logo now emblazoned on walls, T-shirts, badges, posters, tabloids, broadsheets and even the upper arms and breasts of some of his more dedicated followers all over Berlin and beyond.

  ‘His latest “target”!’ Peters said softly.

  ‘Or perhaps his first. Check the date. And then there were four.’

  ‘You’ve got to ring Kottbusser Strasse right away and ask for Stannheim. Give him the name.’

  Judging by the entry wound ‘Christopher’ had used a single clean shot. He suddenly imagined the stench inside wherever this had happened in.

  ‘What I keep wondering is how many more has he left in storage somewhere?’ Heike mused out loud.

  ‘I mean most of these guys would have no normal friends or acquaintances let alone to worry for them. They’d be the easiest to “disappear” ‘, she continued.

 
Peters was tempted to press the soft pink button on the plastic wire guiding the morphine into his veins but resisted. Instead, he was trying clear a pathway through his brain once more.

  ‘I’ll bet anything our Ulrich Vogts has a record too. That’s why he was chosen. Take that over to Kottbusser Strasse and give it to Angi if that’s not too painful a task.’

  He was delighted that the Numann scowl had returned, the petulant pout and the eyes narrowing.

  ‘No pain at all Martin,’ she replied curtly. ‘It will be a pleasure doing business with our Angi again. By the way if our man hasn’t shared this with anyone else can I have Vogts to myself?’

  He nodded his assent: ‘I’m happy to be renewing our one to one relationship. Speaking of which did “Christopher” call you at any time before or after he sent his latest home- movie?’

  ‘No, nothing at all. Why?’

  The pain in his arms and his groin was returning, but Peters knew that once he released the Mistress back into his body he would stop making any sense.

  ‘Because, Heike, when he does I want you to tell him again that I need to speak to him directly. Tell him everything about me, especially the soldiering bits, the things you know, the Cold War stories I used to bore you with. Give him my handy number, my office number, my home number. Tell him I understand that this is a campaign. Tell him that. Tell him I know about the struggle. It’s just a feeling I have. We squared up to each other once when that Wall was out there. He might appreciate that.’