The Swinging Detective

by Henry McDonald

  She lit a cigarette and stood up, realizing that her limbs were aching with the cold and the lack of sleep.

  ‘Alright Mannfred but everything else is mine especially his latest target.’

  ‘Target? You are beginning to sound like him. Try the word victim when you’re writing up your report.’

  ‘You stick to detective work, Mannfred and I’ll stick to the journalism. By the way, isn’t wire tapping illegal unless you have a warrant? When am I going to get my privacy back?’ she was almost tempted to shout Fuck You but resisted.

  ‘Nothing is illegal in this investigation; you just make sure to let Martin know he’s going to get that call. And Heike, there is one more thing...

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is between just me and you and him. No one else in Kottbusser Strasse will know about it.’

  ‘Really now? How about all those techies in the Berlin Polizei and maybe even the BND for good measure.’

  Then she found herself repeating what ‘Christopher’ had accused her of only a few minutes before.

  ‘Are you being deliberately naive or provocative?’

  There was no reply back. Stannheim had disconnected.

  Peters’ pain was subsiding by the time he knocked back his third beer - Lt Colonel Domath (rtd) was at least a generous, if somewhat un-cooperative host.

  Angi sat beside her father on a new three seater sofa which was covered by a woollen, moth worn blanket. Peters wondered if the old man had placed it there to accentuate the frugality of the rest of his living room, as a humble cloak to hide this object of excessive consumerism. Angi must have bought it in the vain of hope of brightening up the place. She held up a copy of the photo-fit sketch based on Oskar Beer’s description in front of the Colonel’s face.

  ‘Does anyone spring to mind?’ Peters called out when he put down his bottle on one of the doilies Colonel Domath had placed on all the tables around the room.

  ‘Does our friend resemble anyone you’d have known in the army? Someone who was in Special Forces? Somebody who had close links with the Sovs?

  He watched as the Colonel moved his head, first across from left to right, and then up and down, absorbing the image in front of him. Finally, after a long pause, the old soldier lay back on the sofa and put his hands behind his head. Peters thought the Colonel was about to raise them, as if to surrender.

  ‘I’m afraid not. I don’t recognise him, whoever he is.’

  ‘Are you certain dad?’ Angi asked. ‘Do you need a closer look? Maybe we could leave it with you for a couple of days and see if it jogs your memory.’

  The old boy shot his eyes up towards the ceiling in frustration. Or was it in protest?

  ‘Angi, if I knew who this was I would have spotted him right away. I have always lived by Chairman Mao’s dictum....’

  ‘Which one was that Colonel?’ Peters interrupted.

  ‘Always forgive your enemies but never forget their faces!’

  Peters burst out laughing, which seemed to unnerve Colonel Domath.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘What’s funny, Colonel, is that you’re not looking at an enemy, are you? He was one of yours although, as you say, you’ve never seen him before.’

  ‘I met many soldiers in my time in the National People’s Army. We had thousands of men under arms in our republic. It’ just a pity we didn’t put them to good use at the exact time when they were needed.’

  By ‘good use’ of course, Peters knew, the Colonel had meant shooting unarmed citizens during the summer of 1989 when the dissidents finally lost their fear of the regime and thousands turned out on the streets demanding change. He thought about mentioning that but then retreated into his fourth beer which Angi had fetched from the fridge in the cramped little kitchen next door.

  ‘It’s medicinal Colonel, I know it’s early in the day but I’m in a bit of pain,’ Peters said holding up the bottle. The Colonel showed no interest in what had happened to the Englishman, who was now sitting in his house. He stood up and walked to the window overlooking the internal courtyard. This time he spoke as if lost in thought.

  ‘The other night I saw two kids, barely in their teens, down there buying drugs off some character I’ve never seen before around here. Two kids who live in Pankow who never knew what it was like before. They think that what they lead now in life is normal. That’s what’s so sad about it all.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call the local cops and shop the dealer?’ Peters said.

  ‘I’m an old man and I don’t want my windows to be put in. I’m just tired of it all,’ the Colonel said, his voice deflated.

  He walked gingerly back across the room, lifted the photo-fit out of his daughter’s hands and held it up to the shaft of wan light penetrating the gloom of his apartment. This time he said nothing but simply stared at the image on the paper before handing it back to Peters.

  After Peters finished the beer and Angi placed two kisses on her father’s cheeks, the Colonel crossed to the opposite side of the room, to the other window that looked over the street leading to the local S-Bahn station. He pointed towards the sleek black BMW parked adjacent to the communal door of the apartment block.

  ‘Nice car. That was something we could never do. Build machines like that,’ Colonel Domath muttered as the two detectives left the flat.

  They didn’t speak again until Angi had taken the pool car to Potsdamer Platz in the direction of the Marriot Hotel. Outside commuters were descending into and ascending from the new U-Bahn station entrances strategically located in what was once the dead ground between West Berlin and the Wall, in the place where Presidents and Prime Ministers once came to peer into the east and then make some pious speech about the superiority of their system on this side of the divide. Watching the endless belt of people going up and down the entrances to the underground, Peters imagined he was in some futuristic sci-fi set with conveyor belts of troglodyte proles moving to and fro from the earth’s innards.

  When she halted at the Marriot’s entrance, where they were greeted by a nod from a huge African man in a black top hat and purple cape, Peters finally spoke.

  ‘Do you think your father was being entirely honest with us?’

  The instant he said it Peters regretted the question. He recalled the warm embrace and the kisses, those little smears of purple that Angi had planted on her father’s face.

  ‘Why do you ask that?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh nothing, I just thought he was a bit cagey that’s all,’ Peters replied apologetically.

  There was a long pause; the only audible sound was the rumbling of the engine protesting against being halted.

  ‘He simply doesn’t trust anyone. Especially not someone with your background.’

  He resisted the urge to upbraid her and remind her that he was her senior officer. She shouldn’t talk to him like that. Instead he waved out at the increasingly anxious Marriot doorman who was dealing with a line of grumpy drivers backed up behind the Kottbusser Strasse murder squad’s BMW.

  ‘I think our friend out there wants us to push off. Look Angi go back to base and leave me here. I’ve an old chum to look up, besides the beer is wearing off and the pain’s coming back. I need some more medicine. Just keep me posted about what’s going on at the station. I’m officially off for the rest of the week,’ Peters said trying to sound cheerful as he allowed the Marriot’s imposing security man to open the car door for him and gently usher him inside, where the detective was safe from the Arctic gales starting to batter the buildings all around Potsdamer Platz.

  Looking inside the BMW Angi’s face appeared frozen, her indignation still visible even when she reached into the glove department, took out a twenty pack of Marlborough Lights, took out the lighter from the dash board, lit one up and drove off west without saying a word.

  ‘And you’re being a bit cagey too madam,’ he said out loud while watching her car disappear amid a beige and black blur of traffic and freezing rain, near perfectl
y vertical, that was teeming down, now, all over central Berlin.

  As he entered the hotel once more Peters’ mobile bleeped from the top pocket of his leather fur lined jacket. When he pulled the handy out there was a text from Heike on the LCD.

  ‘Our St. Chris will be in touch with you soon. He says he wants to chat.’

  Peters was relieved that it had come after he was shot of Angi. No one, he said to himself, no one except Heike needed to know about this. Then he remembered that he had left behind ‘Christopher’s’ photo-fit in the Domath family apartment back over in Pankow.

  Twenty Six

  For a man whose business had just been blown to pieces Lothar Blucher appeared remarkably relaxed. Bulging out of one of his dark blue suits, Blucher was in his usual spot close to the bar, huddled over a fully armed chess board, a row of mobiles on one side, a tall glass of Stolychnya on the other. He didn’t need to look up to sense that Peters was there. Blucher simply motioned to the Englishman to sit facing him.

  Peters pointed at Blucher’s electric blue tie: ‘Shouldn’t you be wearing black today?’

  His informer shrugged his shoulders and then placed his right index finger on the Black King, rocking the piece back and forward on the board.

  ‘And shouldn’t you still be in hospital?’

  ‘Ah, yes Lothar. I wanted to talk you about the hospital. To thank you really for dumping me at the door. That was very considerate of you.’ Peters said acidly.

  ‘You’re not safe to be seen around anymore. I’m even a bit concerned about us meeting here,’ Blucher answered scanning the near empty foyer.

  ‘I suppose you didn’t even go to the trouble of taking a snap of those two joggers with your mobile. Of course you must have got a good look at them. Perhaps we could go down the station and take a statement.’

  Blucher looked up at Peters and smirked.

  ‘I don’t think that is going to happen....and nor do you. I’m your dirty little secret.’

  ‘Speaking of dirty little secrets where is Anika?’ Peters inquired.

  ‘Oh probably up in the room powdering his cock,’ Blucher replied in between sips of vodka. He called over to a waiter at the bar and ordered Peters a large Pils.

  ‘He might not be around for much longer anyway,’ Blucher sighed not so much from loss but more evident boredom. ‘I thought it might be interesting to see both sides so to speak but...,well I can’t say it was......interesting that is.’

  ‘Poor you Lothar. Poor you. What’s going on? Is she about to run away with that Filipino waiter who put his hand up her skirt?’

  ‘They are welcome to each other! HE has just informed me that HE wants to be a full time SHE. Wants the snip and had the cheek to ask me to pay for it.’

  ‘And being the generous soul you are Lothar you are going to dig deep and pick up the tab,’ Peters was really enjoying this.

  ‘Certainly not. Did you know by the way that HE is here under false pretences? Applied for political asylum. He claims his life is in danger because he’s from a Muslim part of Thailand and that the bearded loonies are after him for being queer.’

  Peters watched Blucher lean over the chess board again, his informer surveying it, mapping out his next moves. He then flicked the black Queen off the board and onto the glass table shoring up their drinks.

  ‘Well of course I first met him in a Bangkok bar and he told me he came from some rat hole in the city. Imagine if someone in immigration or border control were to hear that,’ Blucher said in a near whisper.

  ‘Imagine that indeed!’ Peters was wearying of Blucher’s games already.

  ‘Listen Lothar as the sword and shield for the good taxpayers of Stuttgart and Bavaria who stump up for our hospitality isn’t there something more useful we should be talking about.’

  ‘Excellent to know that I’ve joined the rest of Berlin then in living off the hard labour of our friends in the south. And if you mean those two thugs that give you a going over in the Grunewald what more can I do? I certainly won’t be making any statement.’

  ‘No one is asking you to be a hero in public.’

  ‘Good. All I can do is ask my chess partner if they were sent down by Yanaev. You must have really pissed him off by the way.’

  ‘Let’s say I ruined his lunch date.’

  ‘He might be a remote control murderer but to ruin a man’s lunch demonstrates very bad taste. Whatever happened to the English gentleman?’

  ‘He’s been dead since about 1945 Lothar, thank fuck. You and your Prussian artisto clap trap you keep reminding us of. Now, when you have your next daily chess challenge with your Russian chum I want you to raise this subject. Ask him if Yanaev deals in arms. I think there’s a link between that and the reason why two headless cadavers were washed up on the Havel shore.’

  The waiter delivering a second round of vodka and beer to their table interrupted Blucher and Peters’ jousting. As he poured Peters’ Pils out, the man appeared to recognise the detective.

  ‘Did I see you on television this week, sir?’ the waiter asked.

  Peters returned an unresponsive, cold stare.

  ‘You might have. Now just put that on Herr Blucher’s tab and leave us in peace.’

  When the waiter, red faced, scampered back behind the safety of the bar, Blucher’s mood changed.

  ‘We are going to have to stop meeting here. Everyone knows you now. You’re the cop that can’t catch ‘St. Christopher’. Isn’t that what it says in these,’ he pointed to a copy of today’s ‘Berlin Morgen Post’, which had been placed on the table to cover a pile of CDs below. Peters had sped-read the lead story, a speculative piece that suggested the serial killer may have been a Russian. Ridel, Bauer or someone else from inside Kottbusser Strasse were at their work again, thought Peters. Good, let them fire out as many heat flares as possible, the longer ‘Christopher’ believed the cops were getting nowhere the better.

  Blucher was shaking his head in mock-disgust: ‘There you go again. Displaying bad manners even to the hotel staff. The death of the English gentleman. How tragic.’

  ‘Listen Lothar, you just remember why you’re here. You could have been in your shop when that bomb exploded. It’s only our generosity that keeps you in this place. By the way what’s under the paper?’ Peters said pointing to the Morgen Post.

  ‘Something very precious to me Martin. Something sentimental.’

  ‘Sentimental! You dont know the meaning of that word Lothar.’

  When the paper was lifted Blucher revealed a cylinder of CDs, most unscratched but without any boxes or covers. He picked one of them up and held it towards the light.

  ‘This was what made me my fortune. The moment I heard he had bombed the shop I sent Anika over by taxi. He retrieved as many of them from the skip your officers had kindly parked outside. He does have some uses I suppose.’

  ‘I take it they are totally legal.’

  ‘Well some of them are barely legal,’ Blucher snorted.

  ‘They include my one and only masterpiece. ‘Man Every Day’. I’m thinking of filming a remake with my castaway taking his friends back to London. Savages on Hampstead Heath. Can you imagine that? They didn’t call him Cruiseo for nothing. Do you think Daniel Defoe would approve?’

  ‘Tell me Lothar, why are you so chirpy? A few intact CDs wouldn’t exactly cheer me up if my business had been blown sky high.’

  ‘I’ve the place insured and don’t for one-minute think it was an inside job. To be honest, seriously, it was a loss maker even before this lunatic started killing some of my best customers. Besides, I’ve just bought a bar,’ Blucher said smugly.

  ‘Where? In Berlin?’

  ‘No, no, in a land faraway.’

  Often when Peters looked directly at Lothar Blucher he instantly thought about nuclear war and the survival of cockroaches.

  ‘A land faraway might be a very good investment at present Lothar,’ Peters added, getting up to leave, holding the beer glass in his hand.

/>   ‘Make sure you get your Russian pal to start talking about Yanaev’s other business. And stick around until all of this is over. I’ve got to justify your stay in this place.’

  Blucher stood up and tinkled his glass against Peters’ and winked.

  ‘Watch yourself Captain Peters. I’ve told you before jogging and fresh air aren’t good for you. Stay out of forests too.’

  Despite himself, Peters smiled at his oldest source in Berlin, masking a faint regret that Blucher might be leaving the city for good.

  ‘I’ll take to press ups in my apartment instead then. Look after yourself Lothar.’

  In the back of a cab on the way to Heer Strasse Peters kept staring at the last message on his handy. He was too nervous to use the phone in order to cancel Miss Friday and confirm that Miriam was on for this evening, needing the latter as a balm, needing to avoid the manic demands of the former.

  He got the taxi man to pull over at a filing station where he knew there was a public pay phone. Fortunately, Peters kept a Telekom card reserved in his wallet when he needed to use a public phone to reach an informant. The detective spent the next ten minutes offering limp excuses to Karen and later imploring Miriam to join him tonight. There would be no Der Zug this Saturday, nor would he play bus boy for Frau Schuster in her pub.

  When he got back into the taxi the driver finally realised who his passenger was.