A Slow Death (Max Drescher Book 1) (10 page)

17

At a loss at what else to say, Michael Rahn looked down at his hands. The only sound in the front room of the elegant
Schöneberg town house
was the sonorous tick of a grandfather clock to his left. As the second ticked past, he felt progressively less comfortable. He silently cursed the Kriminalinspektor for asking him to make this call.

Perched on the edge of an armchair
,
Angela Brinker-Behle eyed the police sergeant coldly.
‘Was there anything else?’ She tilted her narrow chin towards the window. ‘It is just that the children will be home soon and, well, I would rather that I had the opportunity to tell them about their father on my own.’ Her tone was neutral and composed, as if she was getting ready to disclose nothing more dramatic than a change of holiday plans or perhaps the death of a largely ignored family pet. ‘It is not the kind of news that a child should get from a stranger.’

‘No.’

Something approximating a smile spread across her well-preserved face. ‘Even if he does happen to be a policeman.’ She stood up. ‘So, if there is nothing more for us to discuss …’

‘Yes, of course.’ Jumping to his feet, Michael retrieved a business card from his pocket, and offered it to the woman. ‘If there is anything we can be of assistance with, please do not hesitate to get in touch.’

‘I’m sure that I will not need to trouble you any further.’ Ignoring the card, the woman buttoned up her Chanel jacket as she ushered him towards the door. ‘If
you
need anything else, you can contact my lawyer, Claus Apitz at Berg & Thumm.’ Reaching the doorway, she gestured for him to lead the way down the hall. Michael nodded. ‘I’ve heard of them.’

‘Claus is very efficient.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Berg & Thumm also represent Peter’s architectural practice.’

‘I will make sure that they are kept informed of any relevant developments,’ Michael coughed, ‘should there be any.’

‘Good.’ As he opened the front door, the woman forced herself to say: ‘Thank you for coming.’

Standing on the doorstep, Michael contemplated the quiet suburban street. ‘Forgive me, but I have to say, you don’t seem very surprised by the news about your husband.’

Looking over his shoulder, Angela Brinker-Behle sucked in her cheeks and fixed her gaze on a point in the middle distance. Her breathing was shallow but even; her expression more of annoyance than sadness. Biting her lower lip, she carefully composed her response. ‘It got to the point,’ she said finally, ‘where nothing that Peter did surprised me anymore.’ Not wishing to prolong the conversation any further, she slowly closed the door, giving him no option but to take his leave.

Max watched as Michael trudged towards his desk. ‘You look knackered. How was the wife?’

‘Good looking woman, if a bit gaunt. You know the type; all designer clothes and expensive jewellery. Borderline bad taste. You can have too much of a good thing.’

‘Peter used to say as much.’

‘Strong woman, though.’ Michael flopped into his chair. ‘She was very composed when I turned up. Took it all in her stride. There were no tears. It was almost like she was expecting it.’

‘Maybe she knew what he was up to all along.’ Max went back to the overdue report he was trying to complete, another work of fiction destined for the vaults. ‘I mean, you could ignore it but you’d have to try very hard to miss it altogether.’

‘Perhaps. For sure, she wasn’t interested in the details.’

Looking round, Max checked no one was eavesdropping on their conversation before he asked: ‘Did you tell her about the test results?’

Michael looked sheepish. ‘Well, actually no. The opportunity didn’t come up.’

‘The opportunity didn’t come up?’ Max hissed. ‘How could it not come up? You went there to tell the woman that her husband had killed himself, for God’s sake? How could you forget to mention why?’

‘I didn’t get the chance,’ Michael shot back. ‘I was only in there for, like, five minutes at the absolute most. She couldn’t wait to get me out of the house.’

‘Pah.’

‘If it was that important,’ the sergeant countered, ‘you could have gone yourself.’

‘Hardly.’

Not wishing to prolong their conversation any longer, Michael turned his attention to a large manila envelope on his desk. Picking it up, he tore it open and pulled out the contents. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’

‘What’s the matter now?’ Max asked.

‘Bloody Hannah Leicht,’ Michael muttered, ‘she’s sent me the wrong autopsy report. How the hell is that possible?’

‘In this place, anything’s possible.’

Michael waved the front page of the autopsy report at his boss. ‘Instead of Carl Beerfeldt, she’s sent me the sheet for some guy called Grozer.’

‘Who’s he?’ Max asked, happy enough to be further distracted from the paperwork of his own.

‘He’s a guy that was found hanging from a beam in an empty warehouse in Lichtenberg. It was one of Penzler’s.’

‘Don’t tell me we’re going to get landed with his cases as well,’ Max grumped.

‘Hardly.’ Michael scanned the report. ‘He was an accountant and …’ His voice trailed away as he stared at the page.

‘What?’

‘Holy shit.’

‘What?’

Michael looked up. ‘For the last twelve months, this guy Grozer worked for a company called Isar Services.’ The battered olive green phone on Max’s desk started to ring, shrill and insistent. For a moment, both men looked at it. Finally, the Kriminalinspektor lent across the desk and tentatively picked up the receiver.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Serhat.’ The voice on the other end of the line was clipped, stressed.

Max raised an eyebrow. His informant wasn’t the type of guy who liked to use the telephone. The traffic noise in the background suggested Serhat Khedira was calling from a payphone on the street. ‘A bit early for you to be up and about, isn’t it?’

‘Something’s up,’ Serhat snapped, ignoring the Kriminalinspektor’s feeble quip. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Okay, talk.’

‘Not on the phone.’

Max sighed. ‘Why not?’

‘Meet me at the Kreuzberg Monument in an hour.’ Without waiting for a reply, he hung up.

‘Idiot.’ Max hissed at the receiver.

‘Problem?’ Michael enquired.

‘Dunno.’ Replacing the receiver on the cradle, Max got to his feet. ‘But I’d better go and find out.’ He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and pulled it on. ‘See what else you can find out about this accountant,’ he waved a hand in the air, trying to recall the guy’s name.

‘Grozer,’ Michael ran his finger down the autopsy sheet, ‘Bodo Grozer.’

‘Yes, right.’ Max was already half way to the door. ‘See what you can find out about Bodo Grozer. And if Marin comes sniffing around, give him an update. Make sure you keep him off our backs.’

‘An update on what?’

‘On whatever there is,’ Max chuckled, disappearing through the door.

If you were a tourist, or a local at a loose end, the Viktoriapark, opened at the end of the 19
th
century, offered the best views over the city. Standing at the bottom of the Kreuzberg Monument, a memorial to some long-forgotten war against the French, Serhat Khedira wasn’t much interested in the vista however. Puffing away on his L&M, he walked round and round in a small anti-clockwise circle, head bowed, muttering to himself as he waited for the Kriminalinspektor to arrive. 

‘Bloody Max, always late.’

A hand on his shoulder made him jump. ‘Here, you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.’

Serhat turned to see a familiar face smiling at him. ‘Ah.’ His stomach did a somersault as he saw the semi-automatic glinting in Volkan Cin’s hand. With great force of will, he forced himself to lift his gaze to eye level. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘What are
you
doing here?’ Volkan Cin threw his question back at him. ‘Waiting for someone?’

Taking a final drag on his cigarette, Serhat let the stub fall to the ground, crushing it under the toe of his shoe. ‘No, er, I was just, you know, hanging around.’

‘Hanging around?’ Volkan sneered. ‘Here?’

‘Ye-es.’ Serhat looked past Volkan, hoping to see Max slouching towards them.

‘I thought you might be waiting for that cop?’

Serhat glanced back down at the gun. He could feel his legs trembling. ‘What cop?’ he stammered.

‘That slob who turned up at Kazan’s the other day.’

‘Him? Why would I be waiting for him?’ Serhat could hear the guilt and fear in his voice. Volkan could sense it too. The bastard was feeding off it. He was getting off on seeing Serhat squirm.

‘I was wondering,’ Volkan casually enquired, ‘how long have you been a snitch for the cops?’

‘I’m not –’ his words were lost in the explosion from the gun. Serhat gasped as a searing pain seeped through his gut. He staggered backwards before falling on his backside. Trying to staunch the flow of blood from his stomach, he was conscious of Volkan Cin hovering in his eyeline, the gun pointed at Serhat’s head.

‘How long?’

Does it matter?
Serhat smiled at his assassin. ‘Fuck you.’

Emerging from the Platz der Luftbrücke U-Bahn station, Max lifted his face to the sun, enjoying its warmth as he ambled into Viktoriapark. Approaching the monument, he was dismayed to see that the waterfall was closed for repairs but his attention was quickly drawn to a small knot of people a hundred metres or so further up the hill. Increasing his pace, he began jogging towards them.  From somewhere in the distance, was the sound of sirens, getting closer. ‘Shit.’ Upping his pace, he immediately felt a burning sensation across his chest.

By the time he reached the crowd, the Kriminalinspektor was out of breath. Struggling with his jacket, he retrieved his ID and waved it above his head. ‘Police. Stand back please.’ After a little grumbling, most of the people obliged but one, an elderly woman remained standing over the body, the toes of her sturdy brogues hovering by the edge of the pool of congealing blood that was slowing soaking into the concrete.

‘American tourist,’ one of the locals muttered, a tired-looking man, tightly gripping a worn leather lead which looped round the neck of a sad-eyed mongrel. ‘She doesn’t understand much German. Her husband went to call for help.’ The sirens were getting louder. ‘It should be here in a minute.’ Right on cue, an ambulance pulled up at the Großbeerenstraße gate. A couple of paramedics jumped out, retrieved their equipment from the back and headed uphill at a sharp pace.

Manoeuvring the American woman out of the way, Max looked down into the lifeless eyes of Serhat Khedira. ‘It’s a bit late for all that, I’m afraid.’

18

Neslihan Kayalar looked up from painting her nails as Max strode through the door, with Michael in tow. The elderly patrons of Kazan’s, who did not seem to have moved a centimetre since the Kriminalinspektor’s last visit, remained hidden behind their newspapers. Resul Keskin, alone at a table towards the back of the café, glanced up nervously as Max called out his name.

‘Where are your mates?’

‘No idea,’ the youth shrugged, leaning back in his chair. ‘They haven’t been around for a while.’

‘We know where Serhat is,’ Michael chipped in, taking up a position in front of Resul, blocking off any possible sprint for the door.

‘Oh?’ Resul tried to affect interest and ignorance at the same time.

‘He’s on the slab at the morgue.’

‘Holy shit.’ Resul slumped forward, scowling. ‘Poor bastard. What happened?’

‘Don’t waste our time,’ Max snapped. Reaching forward, he grabbed Resul by the collar of his jacket and dragged him out of the chair. ‘Where’s Volkan?’

Resul tried to free himself but the Kriminalinspektor’s grip was too strong. ‘I don’t know. Like I said, he hasn’t been here for a few days.’ Max gave him a couple of quick slaps. ‘Ow. Get off me.’

‘Where else does he hang out?’

‘I don’t know.’

Pushing Resul on to the floor, Max gave him a sharp kick in the ribs. Groaning, the kid rolled into a foetal position, trying to get under the table for some protection. Breathing heavily, Max gave him a second kick, harder this time, on the backside. ‘Tell me where he is, or you’ll be going out of here in an ambulance.’

‘I don’t know where he is,’ Resul repeated.

‘Voklan’s girlfriend has a place in Schöneberg. Somewhere on Hauptstrasse, I think.’ From behind the counter, Neslihan shot a look of irritation at the two cops as Resul retreated further under the table. ‘Maybe you’ll find him there.’

Max wiped the sweat from his forehead. ‘Thanks,’ he replied, following Michael towards the door. ‘We’ll go and take a look.’

‘Next time you want to ask some questions,’ the girl grinned, ‘please do it outside. Uncle Erthan doesn’t like people messing up his place.’

After a brief debate about the best way to Schöneberg, they took the U-Bahn to Nollendorfplatz. Skipping out of the station, Max lead Michael past the huge, concrete air-raid shelter at Pallasstrasse which had proved impervious to post-war demolition, before ducking into a small shop front next to a kindergarten. Over the door a small sign read
Plass Properties.
Before the sergeant had even made his way through the doorway, his boss was embracing the owner enthusiastically.

‘Lena, this is my colleague Michael Rahn.’

Escaping from Max’s clutches, the petite brunette woman smiled as she offered the sergeant her hand. ‘Lena Plass.’ Dressed in black jeans and a red jumper, with a pair of tortoiseshell glasses perched on the top of her head, she looked to be somewhere in her early 50s. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘Lena runs a property rental business,’ Max explained, pointing to the large street map of the neighbourhood which dominated the back wall of the room. A selection of red and blue pins were scattered along different streets; near the centre a small silver star signified the location of the office. ‘I thought she might be able to help us out.’

‘It’s never a social call with you, is it Max?’ She turned to Michael. ‘I remember Max way back when. He’d just come over from East Berlin and, boy, did he like to party.’

‘He still knows how to have a good time,’ Michael confirmed. ‘I didn’t know he came from the GDR though.’ He shot his boss a quizzical look.

‘There’s lots you don’t know,’ Max snapped, signaling that particular line of conversation closed.

Lena pointed to a small poster taped to the window, a poor reproduction of Storm Thorgerson’s illustration of light refracted through a prism, more commonly known as album cover for Pink Floyd’s
Dark Side of the Moon
. ‘Are you going to the concert, Max? You always were a big Floyd fan, if I remember rightly.’

Max looked at Michael. ‘I don’t think so. It’s looking like I’ll have a diary clash that night.’

Lena pushed a strand of hair from her forehead. ‘Ah, that’s too bad. I was thinking of going myself.’

‘These things happen,’ Max shrugged. ‘Work and all that.’

‘Yes. It must be tough being a cop. I’m surprised you’ve survived all these years.’

‘It’s a miracle,’ Max agreed.

‘So what can I do for you Max?’

‘Michael and I are trying to track down a woman who we think is renting a place on Hauptstrasse. It’s quite urgent.’

Slipping on her spectacles, Lena retreated behind her desk and began flicking though a large day book. ‘Those Altbau period apartments are very popular nowadays. Everything comes back into fashion eventually. And, of course, David Bowie doesn’t do the place any harm.’

‘Huh?’ Max frowned.

‘When Bowie lived in Berlin in the ‘70s, he and Iggy Pop rented a place at Hauptstrasse 155 and hung out at the Neues Ufer café.’ Lena looked up from her book. ‘I get a minimum of two or three foreigners a week – Americans mainly – ringing up and asking if they can stay there. Anything on Hauptstrasse that comes on the market gets snapped up immediately.’

‘Must be good for business,’ Michael reflected.

‘Not bad,’ Lena smiled. ‘As long as landlords don’t think they can cut out the middleman.’

‘This woman, her name is Carolina Barbolini. I think she would have moved in round here a year or so ago. Something like that.’

‘Okay.’ Picking up a yellow and black striped pencil. Lena resumed flipped through the pages of her book. ‘Let’s see what we can find. Even if I didn’t get the rental, I would know about anything that came on the market.’ She casually tapped the table with the pencil as she stared at her notes. ‘No one knows the neighbourhood as well as I do.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’ Max waited patiently for Lena to conclude her deliberations.

After a few moments, she looked up. ‘Looks like there were three places rented out on Hauptstrasse – I handled two of them; the third was done privately. Neither of my two tenants was a woman. One was a bloke, a writer. The other was corporate.’

‘Corporate?’

‘That’s right. The top floor of 161. It was rented out by a business who said they needed it for executives visiting Berlin. A surprising choice of neighbourhood but they would have had their reasons. I assumed that they were just trying to save money.’

Max looked at Michael. ‘What was the name of the company?’

‘I’ll have to check the rental agreement, hold on.’ Three grey filing cabinets were lined up against the back wall, underneath the map. Tossing her pencil on to the desk, Lena strode up to the middle one and pulled open the top drawer. After a few seconds sifting through files, she pulled out a sheet of paper and waved it in the air. ‘Here you go, 161 is rented out to a company called … Isar Services.’

‘Jesus.’ Michael exhaled a deep breath.

Lena looked at each of the policemen in turn. ‘What is it?’

‘Lena,’ Max said gently, trying not to let his excitement show, ‘would you still have a key?’

A preliminary search of the top floor apartment at Hauptstrasse 161, revealed little other than a fridge full of Bismarck Vodka and an impressive selection of condoms in the drawer of one of the bedside cabinets.

‘Someone’s keeping busy,’ Max mused, scanning the dishevelled bedclothes. ‘I bet forensics could turn up some interesting stuff in here.’

Perched on the end of the bed, Michael yawned. ‘Shame that it’s an illegal search, then.’

Max gave him a wounded look. ‘When did you become so straight-laced?’

‘When I started working with you,’ Michael shot back.

‘Ha. Just be grateful Lena was able to scrounge a key from the concierge. I don’t know if I could have managed to have picked the lock any time this decade.’

Michael shook his head. ‘Imagine spending hours breaking in and then finding bugger all.’

‘It hasn’t been a complete waste of time,’ Max observed. ‘At least we know the placed is being lived in.’

‘And they’re shagging like rabbits,’ Michael added, with more than a hint of envy in his voice.

‘That’s young people for you.’

For the briefest moment, each man contemplated his long lost youth.

‘We don’t even know if this is the right woman,’ Michael said finally. ‘I mean, this hardly looks like the pad of a mafia boss.’

Max contemplated the large, framed black and white photograph on the wall above the bed. It was a moody black and white print of the Unter Den Linden at night.
Very imaginative
. ‘Maybe she’s a middle manager on the way up, or a graduate trainee, or something. Anyway, this place is rented. Most of this stuff isn’t going to be hers anyway.’

‘I thought that the mafia didn’t like women in management roles.’

Max laughed. ‘Is that what they taught you in Police College?’

‘Organised crime tends to be a fairly male-dominated profession,’ Michael pointed out. ‘We don’t spend a lot of time chasing down women, do we?’

‘I suppose not,’ Max conceded.

‘And the Italians, they’re not the most enlightened bunch to start with, are they?’

‘In this case, who knows?’ Max sighed. ‘Generalisations are never that helpful. The world is changing.’

‘I suppose.’ With a grunt, Michael struggled to his feet. ‘So what do you want to do? Wait and see who turns up?’ The look on his face suggested that this wasn’t his preferred option. ‘I’m starving.’

Taking the hint, Max shook his head. ‘Nah. We could be waiting for days. For all we know, Carolina Barbolini has headed out of town. Anyway, I don’t necessarily want to confront her just yet.’

‘What about Volkan Cin?’

‘That little shit,’ Max growled, ‘is another matter altogether. But he’s not here, is he?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Let’s call it a night. I’ll get Oster to come and keep an eye on the place in the morning.’

‘Marin won’t like that.’ Theo Oster was a new arrival from the Police Academy, being fast-tracked through the ranks – with much irritating fanfare – on a ‘stars of the future’ programme. Inevitably, this made the inoffensive Oster about as popular as a dog turd with old hands like Max who made a point of finding a steady stream of crappy jobs for the lad to do. Oster didn’t do himself any favours by complaining about the low-rent errands to Martin Marin. Marin, in turn, complained to Max. Every time the Kriminalkommissar demanded better assignments for his protégé, Max went out of his way to find even worse things for him to do.

‘Well don’t tell him then,’ Max muttered. ‘If Oster is going to have any chance of being a proper cop then he has to put in the hours on the street, no?’

Michael grunted his assent.

‘And, frankly, there are a lot worse things he could find himself doing than sitting in Neues Ufer, drinking coffee and flirting with the waiters, while waiting to see if Barbolini or Volkan turn up. Anyway, we’ve got a lot of other ground to cover tomorrow. I want to check out the offices of Isar Services and then there’s Grozer’s house, where Penzler was shot.’ Placing the apartment key safely in his pocket, he headed towards the hallway. ‘C’mon, I’ll buy you a slice of pizza and a beer and then you can get off to your family.’