A Slow Death (Max Drescher Book 1) (24 page)

43

‘Jeez, this place is heaving.’

‘It’s certainly busier than Stresemannstraße.’ Scanning the police station lobby, Max located the front desk on the far side of a wide flight of stairs leading to the first floor. A group of around twenty people were crowded in front of a harassed looking sergeant who was handing out what looked like raffle tickets. Dodging a red-faced man heading towards him, Max picked his way across the stone floor towards the crowd.

‘Excuse me.’ Ignoring a few muttered complaints, the Kriminalinspektor pushed past the supplicants. Reaching he desk, he caught the sergeant’s eyes. Without a word, the man tore a green ticket out of a small book and thrust it at Max.

‘Here you go.’ The sergeant pointed to a set of benches near the door which were already full to overflowing. ‘Take a seat and we’ll call your number.’

Max looked at the ticket.
37
. Dropping it on the desk, he pulled out his ID and held it up for the sergeant to inspect. ‘I’m not here to make a complaint.’

‘Good for you,’ the man grunted.

‘Why is this place so busy?’

‘Bloody Ossis,’ was all he got by way of reply.

‘Where would I find the Evidence Locker Room?’

The sergeant gestured over his shoulder with a biro towards the stairs. ‘First floor, head down the corridor to your right and it’s the fifth on the left.’

‘Thanks,’ Max said cheerfully.

‘My pleasure,’ the sergeant muttered, retrieving Max’s ticket and offering it to an unhappy looking woman who was clinging on to the desk for dear life. Max saw that the woman had been badly beaten, with a deep gash in her left cheek and two black eyes.

You look like you’ve been in a worse fight than me,
he thought.

‘Here you go.’ The sergeant again pointed to the benches. ‘Take a seat and we’ll call your number.’

Cold and gloomy, the corridor on the first floor must have been the best part of a hundred metres long. Completely empty, it was painted in a drab, institutional green with a succession of unidentified offices situated on either side. Feeling like a minor character in a Kafka novel, Max listened to the soles of his shoes squeaking on the linoleum flooring as he moved stealthily along, counting off the doors as he went.

‘Fifth on the left.’ The Kriminalinspektor came to a halt in front of a large metal door with a spyhole in the middle. Hanging from the ceiling, a security camera hovering was trained on the intercom beside it. Pressing the buzzer, Max held his ID above his head for the benefit of anyone watching.

‘Kriminalinspektor Max Drescher.’ He spoke slowly and clearly into the microphone. ‘I’m from Stresemannstraße.’

After a few seconds there was the buzz of the lock disengaging. Grabbing the handle, Max grunted as he slowly pushed open the heavy door.

‘Need a hand?’ Michael enquired solicitously.

‘I’ve got it,’ Max muttered as he finally got the door open wide enough to allow him to squeeze through with a modicum of dignity. The room inside was a large space, with whitewashed walls and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on to the street. The room itself was empty, apart from a couple of chairs and a massive oak desk. According to Max’s calculations, the desk was roughly about the same size as his entire kitchen back in Segitzdamm. Hanging from the ceiling was a large, old fashioned fan. One of its blades was missing. Looking at the dust which had accumulated on those which remained, Max estimated that it last worked sometime in the 1960s. In the corner, was a small barred door which led to the evidence locker proper. On the wall in front of them was a large notice board on which had been pinned a 1960s map of the city and a 1986 calendar advertising a now defunct insurance company. Beside the calendar was a colour-coded chart which, on closer inspection was a fearsomely complex rota, outlining the various work patterns of the officers who kept the storage facility open.

‘Can I help you, kriminalinspektor?’

‘Huh?’ It took Max a moment to realise that there was someone sitting behind the desk. Peering round a huge stack of files, a tiny female officer eyed him with an expression that just about stopped short of a scowl.

‘Can I help you?’ she repeated, her voice adopting the tone of an irritated twelve-year-old. Her eyes betrayed her irritation at being disturbed. A badge above her left breast bore the moniker B. Rinne.

Max shot Michael a look that said
pen pusher
before turning to the officious sparrow and giving her his finest Kriminalinspektor smile. ‘We are working on a case with Kriminalkommissar Eichel,’ he explained, ‘and I need to take a look at some evidence that he booked in last night – a black Adidas holdall.’

A brittle smile flickered across the woman’s face as she detected the painfully obvious flaw in his story. ‘The Kriminalkommissar isn’t likely to come down here to deposit evidence,’ she said tartly. ‘That’s a chore rather below his pay grade, don’t you think?’

‘Look –’ Max was just about to put the woman into her place, when he found Michael edging him out of the way. Taking up a position directly opposite the clerk, Michael tried a smile of his own.

‘Officer … Rinne.’

The woman’s face softened as she flicked a stray strand of hair from her face. ‘Britta.’

You smooth bastard,
Max thought. Taking a step away from the table, he moved out of Britta’s line of sight, the better to let his sergeant work his magic.

‘Britta,’ Michael’s smile grew wider, ‘I know that it wouldn’t be normal for Kriminalkommissar Eichel to do this himself, but this is a very delicate matter.’ Placing his hands on the table, he lent forward, lowering his voice. ‘It’s a very important case which we’ve been helping him with over the last few weeks. With a bit of luck, we’re about to get a result in the next day or so.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘If we do, it will be nothing more than a just reward for all of the Kriminalkommissar’s hard work and effort.’

Don’t overdo it,
Max thought.

‘What we need,’ Michael said matter-of-factly, ‘is just to double-check some of the evidence in the bag. I might be wrong, but I was fairly sure that he brought it in yesterday.’

Rinne thought about it for a moment. ‘I haven’t seen him, but then I only came on duty earlier this morning.’ She pointed at the notice board. ‘You can check with the rota. Vogel was on duty before me. And Otte before that, I think.’

Michael pointed to the heavy, leather-bound ledger on her desk, next to the files. ‘Either way, if the Kriminalkommissar did deposit something, it should be in the book. Maybe we could take a look.’

‘Let me see.’ With her residual reluctance evaporating, Rinne pulled the ledger towards her. After licking the tips of her fingers, she began flicking through the pages in a desultory fashion as she searched for the most recent entries. ‘No,’ she smiled, more than a hint of triumph evident in her voice, ‘the Kriminalkommissar has not been down here. He has not signed anything in – or out for that matter – in the last forty-eight hours.’

Michael nodded. ‘Perhaps someone else deposited the bag.’

‘No.’ Rinne ran her finger down a list of entries. ‘All we’ve had in the last twenty-four hours is 25 grams of heroin taken off a dealer in Hochstraße, a stolen bike that was dumped in the park and a couple of wallets that were found on a pick pocket on the U-Bahn. No black Adidas bags.’

Max gestured towards the locker room. ‘Can we take a look?’

Rinne shook her head. ‘It’s not there.’ Closing the ledger, she shot Max a suspicious look.

‘Maybe,’ Michael speculated aloud, ‘this thing we’re working on is just so …
delicate
, that the Kriminalkommissar decided that he didn’t want to bring anything down here.’

I bet he didn’t,
Max thought.

Suddenly animated, Rinne reached for the phone sitting on her desk, Picking up the receiver, she offered it to Michael and Max in turn. ‘Do you want to give him a call and check?’

Max glanced at Michael, who was already edging back towards the door. ‘It’s okay,’ he replied, not missing a beat, ‘we’ll just head upstairs and speak to him face-to-face.’

44

After wolfing down the last scraps of his bacon and eggs, Max wiped the plate clean with a slice of white bread.

‘Urgh.’

‘What?’ Ignoring his colleague’s disapproval, Max took a large bite out of the bread and began chewing happily.

Michael took a dainty sip of his coffee. ‘You’re not going to eat the plate as well, are you?’

‘I was hungry.’ Picking up his knife, Max smeared a mix of egg and tomato sauce on the last of his bread, before ostentatiously popping it into his gaping maw.

‘Jesus,’ Michael complained.

‘Waste not, want not.’ Placing the knife carefully back on the plate, Max reached for his coffee cup. ‘There’s nothing wrong with an empty plate.’ Slurping noisily, he let his gaze drift to the Wall on the far side of the street. A twenty metre stretch had been torn down, offering a view across what had, until recently, been the most heavily patrolled border in the world. On what had been the East German side, a dozen or so young boys were having a having a competitive kick about on the sandy ‘death strip’ where people had once been shot trying to escape. Max smiled as a skinny kid tried to dribble round one of his larger pals and was unceremoniously bodychecked for his trouble.

‘What’s so funny?’ Michael demanded from behind his coffee cup.

Max pointed towards the lad, rolling around on the ground as if he had just been taken out by a sniper himself. ‘Those kids. A couple of years ago – less – they could have been shot for playing there. Now it’s just another scrap of derelict land that’s best used for a game of football.’

‘That’s progress,’ Michael observed.

‘Yes, it certainly is.’ Letting out a satisfied belch, Max sat back in his chair and pushed his plate towards the middle of the table. ‘It’s good to know that kids playing football will always outlast the secret police.’

‘Let’s hope so.’ Michael carefully placed his cup back on its saucer.

‘When I was that age …’ Max let the thought dribble away.

‘So, what do you want to do now?’ Michael asked. ‘This morning’s been a bit of a waste of time.’
For a change
.

‘Not at all,’ Max corrected him. ‘We learnt a lot.’

‘We did?’

‘Sure. We know now that Eichel has stolen the money. He’s going to give it back to its owner. That means he can lead us to Kappel. Nothing’s changed. We just keep following the money.’

Michael raised an eyebrow. ‘Do we really know that?’

‘It’s a reasonable assumption.’

‘A guess,’ Michael grunted.

‘An
educated
guess,’ Max insisted. ‘More than a hunch, less than a known fact.’

‘A guess,’ the sergeant repeated, shaking his head.

‘Look, the key point is that Eichel took the money. Why? What does he need it for? Why would he bother to take the cash from Stresemannstraße if he wasn’t going to bring it straight here? And where is it now? As far as we know, he hasn’t been back to Gesundbrunnen since Marin waved him off with the three million bucks.’

‘We don’t know that,’ Michael countered. ‘For all we know, he could have been in the building when we were talking to the lovely Britta Rinne. The cash could be stashed in a safe in his office. All above board.’

‘He wasn’t there.’ Max shook his head. ‘I checked in the car park on the way out. No red Porsche.’

‘That doesn’t prove anything,’ Michael protested. ‘He could have taken the bus into work this morning.’

‘No one who owns a Porsche takes the bus,’ Max scoffed. ‘Eichel is on the wrong side of this, I can feel it in my bones.’

‘So it
is
a hunch,’ Michael grinned.

‘Not at all. I don’t do
hunches
. This is completely different – I am taking a view based on the not inconsiderable circumstantial evidence, along with an analysis of the individuals involved and a tiny sprinkling of professional judgement.’

‘Oh, the old Max Drescher
intuition
,’ Michael scoffed, ‘how could I overlook that. Guaranteed to always be 100% accurate; a world away from a simple hunch.’

‘All in all, my track record’s not that bad,’ Max mused. Outside, the skinny kid had picked himself up and was back in the heart of the action. With the ball at his feet, he set off on another dribble across the pockmarked sand. This time he rode a couple of tackles before once again being dumped on his backside.

Michael chuckled. ‘Like that poor accountant you had pegged for the Heckerdamm cat burglar?’

‘The guy looked good for it,’ Max protested, keeping a good humour despite being put on the spot.

‘And the woman in Lichterfelde who killed her husband,’ Michael continued. ‘You swore blind she was innocent, right up to the point where she confessed.’

‘People always go for the obvious domestic angle in those situations. I was just trying to dig a little deeper.’

‘And –’

‘Okay, okay.’ Max held up a hand. ‘Enough already. I’ve worked enough cases to have had the odd blemish. Who hasn’t? The point is, you have to take a view. That’s what being a policeman is all about.’ He glanced out of the window; the skinny kid was still sitting on the sand, while the game itself seemed to have moved fifty metres down the road, disappearing behind the Wall. ‘My judgement’s not perfect but it’s good enough. At the very least, Kriminalkommissar Eichel has got some serious explaining to do. Two of his guys have been shot, he’s had me beaten up, and now he’s walked off with three million dollars.’

‘Not standard operating procedure,’ Michael admitted.

‘Not at all. Why did he try to warn me off the Kappel case? Surely he should be straining every sinew to try and nail the guy? There are a lot of questions that need to be answered.’ Leaning back in his chair, Max thrust a hand into the pocket of his jeans, searching for some cash with which to pay the bill. ‘So, this is what we’re going to do …’