The Swinging Detective

by Henry McDonald

  ‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me Irina, but tell me did they come alone or with friends.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say friends darling. They were Russian boys, mean looking bastards, they had just completed business and as you must know, there are no friends in business. Any business, even mine.

  ‘How do you know that? How do you they had just done business.’

  ‘Because one of the Spanish boys told me.’

  He slid the remaining €200 euro across the table towards Irina.

  ‘There’s more here if you can remember when and who they worked for.’

  She was sucking on her holder now, her mouth stinging from ice to heat, blowing slow draughts of smoke out of her collagen pumped up lips towards the nicotine stained walls, the twee strains of a Volks-crooner blaring from a radio at the bar.

  ‘Oh darling one day just melts into another, it must have been sometime after Christmas because we still had the tree up, but I do know who those Russian boys worked for.’

  ‘Who Irina?’ he asked again already knowing what the answer was.

  ‘The Jew. The one living down in Kopenick.’

  ‘You mean the Russian. Avi Yanaev?’

  ‘No the Jew. I mean yes, Yanaev.’

  ‘And these Spanish boys where did they go afterwards? Did they ever come back?’

  ‘Unfortunately no. And they didn’t leave their address or email or mobile either darling unlike most of my gentlemen,’ she said with un-menacing sarcasm.

  ‘Did they say which part of Spain they came from Irina?’

  ‘What is this a geography lesson?’ she was losing patience with him, nodding in the direction of ‘Dolly Parton’ to send her down another brandy. She was obviously a regular in this particular pit stop.

  He dropped an extra €50 onto the table when her drinks arrived and winked at ‘Dorothy’ who seemed to enjoy playing waitress to him.

  ‘Please accept this apology,’ he said nodding down to the note which Irina picked up nimbly placed into the inside pocket of her fur coat.

  ‘But can you remember if they said where they were from?’ he continued.

  She threw back her head, tossed her hair about and then leaned towards him. It was a simple command, asking him to re-light her a fresh cigarette which she placed in the holder.

  ‘Funny you say ‘Spain’ though,’ Irina said inhaling some smoke.

  ‘When I asked which part of ‘Spain’ they were from one of the guys lost it. He kept hammering one hand into the other telling me they weren’t Spanish. Then the two of them started yammering in this weird language which definitely wasn’t Spanish.’

  ‘How would you know that?’

  ‘Because darling I’ve been selling my pussy for the last ten years in that place around the corner to buy that little dream home on the Costa del Sol. Which I now own. You have to have the native lingo to work. If you ever fancy a weekend down there by the way I can pick you up at Malaga airport no problem....so long as you are paying.’

  ‘Where did your boys go after their session was over?’ Peters asked.

  ‘Back to their hotel I assume. One thing I do remember, ‘ she re-lit the cigarette at the end of the holder, ‘One thing I do remember is that they didn’t drink. Unlike most of the guys who you meet in there they were completely sober. Nice clean breaths. I remember mentioning that to them after we finished and they were getting dressed.’

  ‘They really made their mark on your Irina. Did you wonder why they stayed off the sauce?’

  ‘I didn’t need to; they said they had an early start.’

  ‘Start?’

  ‘Yeah, they had to go to Magdeburg first thing the next day.’

  ‘Magdeburg?’

  ‘Yeah, Magdeburg. Can’t think why they’d have to go to a place like that.’

  ‘Me neither, Irina, me neither.’

  He was getting closer to Yanaev now that he knew for certain the two Basques’ last pleasure on earth was enjoyed courtesy of the Russian’s hospitality and Irina’s hard work. A shudder of guilt and repulsion shot through his body as he suddenly saw in his imagination Irina lying face down in a pool underneath the crushing Andalusian sun with her throat slashed.

  Touching her cheek lightly as he stood up to leave Peters whispered into her ear: ‘Whatever you do Irina tell absolutely no one you went for a drink with me.’

  Thirty Two

  A Lutheran Pastor, a hero of the peaceful revolution of 89, someone who had given shelter and later hope to the dissenters in those first fledgling months of protest, had been transformed into a target for national hatred and ridicule. On the front page of ‘BZ’ the following morning the priest’s public appeal for mercy to ‘Christopher’ had spectacularly backfired.

  ‘PASTOR PLEAS FOR CAPTIVE PAEDO’ the headline screamed back at Peters and it was then that he knew for sure that Albert Briegel was truly doomed, just like all the others. To the side of the main story ran a single column reporting on an overnight telephone poll taken across the capital which indicated that 85 per cent of those questioned opposed his call for clemency for the self-confessed paederast. The Pastor’s plea had been mere camouflage to disguise the paper’s real feral agenda, to let the mob howl, to hear them cry for blood. The ‘splash’ ended with news that the clergyman was already receiving hate-emails and threatening phone calls.

  Peters flicked through the first few pages of the tabloid which were dominated by ‘Christopher’s Wrath,’ searching for references to himself. He eventually found one on page five, tucked away in a single column to the bottom left, a nameless snippet of information consisting of just six staccato paragraphs, informing the world that the English detective was no longer on the case. He had hoped, almost prayed, that ‘Christopher’ was a thorough reader and would spot the story.

  In the commercial centre of Friedrichstrasse Station, at an Imbiss stand, Peters sipped at an espresso, scanning ‘BZ’ and waiting for Irit Wisemann to join him before he took the 9.30am to Magdeburg.

  For several hours after he left ‘Haus Ivana’ the day before Peters had stayed at home banging the phones, using his contact books to track anyone who might be able to help him in the Magdeburg Polizie. Eventually he put a call into a Lieutenant Fischer who was currently investigating a fatal shooting in the centre of the city shortly after Christmas. There had been one victim, a Russian hit by a hail of bullets from a car speeding out a pub car park on the banks of the Elbe. Suspended by Stannheim from ‘Christopher’, Peters would spend the next day in the capital of Saxony-Anhalt with Fischer.

  He thought how dowdy and grey the commuters seemed compared to the tall, slender, Israeli that was emerging from the crowds in the station, her straight sleek hair, her severely cut, figure hugging green tweed business suit that made her stand out amid the monochrome blur. Peters ordered another cup of espresso and gestured for her to come over and join him at the booth.

  Wisemann noticed that Peters hadn’t shaved for days.

  ‘You look like one of our Zealots Martin. You wouldn’t seem out of place in Hebron and it really doesn’t suit you,’ she said raising her cup and sipping at the steaming coffee shot.

  ‘You been doing some undercover work then? ‘she continued.

  Irit had sent him a text late the previous evening, simply mentioning ‘something urgent to discuss.’ He suggested they meet early next day before he took the train west.

  In his duffel coat, white polar neck and four-day growth he must have appeared to her like an off duty sailor.

  ‘I’m trying to hide from the general public Irit,’ he said feeling a twinge of discomfort that he had actually sounded and felt temporarily like the misanthropic Lothar Blucher. ‘Mothers Against Paedophiles could get militant. They don’t like the idea of us hunting down their hero.’

  She leaned her face against one hand and stared hard at the detective.

  ‘Martin I need to tell you a few things about Avi Yanaev.’

  Peters felt his stomach lurch
as if he was on a plane pitched about by violent turbulence. He was expecting the worst from Irit, a hands-off warning over ‘their’ Russian asset.

  ‘Yanaev, through third parties of course, owns a whore house in Dahlem...’

  ‘Seven storeys high, a different kink on every floor,’ Peters interrupted her.

  ‘Well Martin, what you don’t know is that the place is hiving with bugs,’ Peters almost choked on the sticky thick liquid he had just swallowed.

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘There was an Arab diplomat based here in Berlin, a senior Arab diplomat. They got him on film having fun on floor seven where the transvestites and transsexuals ply their trade. Which would have been fatal for him if pictures of that started appearing all over the Internet especially in the Middle East.’

  Peters decided to ask a stupid question for which he knew there would be no direct, open answer:

  ‘And how I wonder did you know that Irit? Did your friend Avi tell you?’

  She rested her head on both her hands, her elbows depressing on the metallic table.

  ‘We got to hear what they tried to extract from the Arab gentleman and it certainly wasn’t money’.

  ‘Not money. What else would they be blackmailing him for?’

  ‘Yanev doesn’t need money but he does need friends and connections. Next time you get an invite, if you ever do again, to one of his charity functions work out how many local TV celebs and Bundesliga stars have shown up, all of course being aficionados of “Haus Ivana.” He seeks out future favours in return for his silence. Turning up for free to one of his gigs is one of them.’

  ‘So they just wanted your Arab to turn up in a tuxedo for a thousand plate euro feast?’ Peters said with a taint of sarcasm..

  ‘In his case no. We were able to find out exactly what Yanaev wanted, it was help in business. Diplomatic bags, private jets, boats, free unchecked access to ports in the Middle East. It was a very long list.’

  So Yanaev hadn’t been working for Irit and her station at all. He was prepared rather to turn to their mortal enemies to smooth along the passage of his lethal commerce.

  ‘Arms routes. No wonder everyone takes such an interest in him. Tell me this Irit why didn’t your people breathe down his neck instead of inviting him to a film festival?’

  Another stupid question he left for her to field but this time she appeared to read Peters’ game.

  ‘There’s only so much I can tell you Martin,’ she said checking her watch with the giant clock suspended over the escalator leading to the platforms above them.

  ‘You draw your own conclusions.’

  ‘What happened to our Arab friend then?’ He asked as she prepared to leave. Irit shook her hair and lifted her handbag off the table.

  ‘I don’t have time for any more of this Martin. Just think about it. Yanaev deals in death. He has no compulsion about dealing it out. As for our Arab friend, since you asked, he was suddenly recalled.’

  ‘Why are you in such a hurry too?’ he said checking his own watch.

  ‘I’m off to Schoenefeld Airport. My beloved is back,’ she said playfully.

  Peters tried not to appear too disappointed that her husband had once again returned from wherever in the Middle East he was acting out his ordained part, his proposal for dinner on his return now redundant.

  ‘One more thing Irit? Why didn’t your people lean on Yanaev? Get him work for you?’

  ‘That is a trick question .Let’s just say Herr Yanaev is better observed from afar,’ she parted blowing a kiss in Peter’s direction.

  On the regional train towards Magdeburg winter had refused to lessen its grip over the North German Plain. Along the journey westward flat, tilled fields and forests of bare trees were sprinkled and gleaming with frost. Early morning commuters at a line of shabby little stations shivered in the cold as snow blessed the platforms they waited along with thick, soot-polluted flakes. Amid the towns and cities of north-eastern Germany that appeared and then disappeared on the rail journey from Berlin to Magdeburg there were no signs, for now at least, even after 15 years of reunification, of Helmut Kohl’s promise to transform the former communist east into ‘blooming landscapes.’ Instead at almost every human settlement, village, town or city, there were brown and red brick, smoke stack factories lying idle, their windows smashed, their desolate locations epitomising not only the collapse of the old planned economy but also the aftermath of the ruthless free market that came and shut them down. The bleakness beyond the glass, both natural and man-made, only compounded Peters’ sense of total disconnection. He caught sight of himself in the window, a gaunt spectral apparition with a shadow slashed across the eye sockets, like the Lone Ranger’s mask, a visage permanently stencilled over the passing landscape of the Brandenburg Mark.

  He had chosen a carriage in the upper deck of the two storey regional express because it was empty. And also because if the mobile trilled Peters would feel safer and more comfortable taking to his quarry if ‘Christopher’ chose to call in during the journey. But how long would it take for ‘Christopher’ to react to the news that the English detective was off his case? And why would he bother? For he could move as quickly, ruthlessly away from him just as he had done with Heike. Maybe it was better to forget about ‘Christopher’ entirely....at least for now.

  The trajectory across the flattened, bleak Prussian plain was familiar to him. He had come here first in the year before the DDR’s collapse, on the special British military train that was rolled out of its toy box as a show-off trophy to annoy the ‘beastie easties’ monitoring military traffic on route to west Berlin. Peters recalled a sumptuous lunch in the officer’s dining car, thick linen laid tables, gleaming regimental silver, privates-turned-waiters in red jackets and white gloves delivering the five course lunch, thick studded crystal glasses filled with sharp Sauvignon Blanc and robust Burgundy, all raised up in salute at chosen strategic locations in polite defiance towards the East German military along the checkpoints and watchtowers from Magdeburg to Potsdam while, further down the train, boozed up squaddies reserved their own salute for the People’s Army by mooning up at their windows for the benefit of the NVA photographers outside the bubble of British mobile opulence and civility, two-finger salutes towards the dank, drab uniformity of the DDR. Somewhere in the scattered archives of the defunct East German army, Peters guessed, maybe even in a private collection of a retired NCO living in Brandenburg, there was a mountain of exposed hairy British arses.

  He had once travelled back in the opposite direction, alone, furtive, concealed in civilian dress, posing as a student inter-railer towards his current destination, that first encounter with his general he would eventually send across the Iron Curtain before the Ministry for State Security closed in on him. Peters wondered if his old contact had ever opted to move back to his home city after the Wall came down. Even if the general had returned how to look him up now? They had given him a new identity faraway in Saarland, in a village within walking distance of France, the top half of a house overlooking a series of allotments and a tributary of the Saar in return for files on Soviet military manoeuvres and that warning of a Tiananmen in the middle of Europe that never actually came. Why would the general ever go back to this depressed eastern region of reunified Germany? Yet Peters wished that one day, when all this was over, he would take time off in pursuit of his former charge and when they found each other they would sip wine together and forget about the old times.

  Maybe Stannheim kept in touch with the general to remind himself of past glories. The old man’s network had been deployed rapidly to smuggle the general out as the Stasi’s focus fell upon Peters’ source. Stannheim had arranged safe passage for the general through Hungary in the year when Budapest lifted its border controls and the first holes in the Iron Curtain were punched open. To this day the boss of the Kottbusser Strasse murder squad had never spoken about the mechanics of moving the general out of the DDR. All Peters had to do was turn up w
ith a team in a certain hotel on the Pest side of the Danube and wait to shepherd their charge to the airport, a picture-less UK passport at the ready, a flight to Frankfurt Main booked under the name Goodacre and the general spirited to a military intelligence de-briefing centre near Falingbostel. His greatest triumph in the corps while living on the Cold War front line.

  Then it struck Peters: The general, Yanaev, ‘Christopher,’ even Stannheim. He was hunting down all his history’s cast-offs, swimming in its backwash, searching for the remains of the un-dead armies of his war gone by.

  Thirty Three

  Fischer’s self-description had been as modest as it was accurate. He was small for a cop, bald-headed, pot-bellied, a greying goatee, more like an over-fed Federal civil servant than a murder detective – his own words.

  He had been waiting for Peters at the entrance to the Magdeburg Hauptbanhof, the front passenger door of a green Audi left open. Peters noticed that the man in the dark green three quarter length coat was stamping the ground to keep warm.

  ‘Welcome to Magdeburg Captain Peters! Let’s do lunch,’ Fischer said outstretching his hand. He even sounded like a state bureaucrat. Peters was tempted to shoot back: ‘Malzeit!’

  ‘Shouldn’t we talk about your case first Lieutenant?’

  ‘We are going to the case Captain,’ Fishcher said jovially slapping on Peters’ left shoulder.

  ‘Please get in and I’ll explain on the way.’