A Slow Death (Max Drescher Book 1) (28 page)

50

Wiping the sweat from his hairline, Max waited for the blissful silence to reassert itself. As the adrenalin subsided, he was conscious of the weariness flooding through his limbs. Resisting the temptation to sit down for a moment, he let his gaze slide from Kappel as he tried to pick out the form of the handcuffed woman who was cowering in the darkness.

‘Carolina?’

Getting no response, Max bent down and picked up a filthy rag from the floor. On closer inspection, it looked like the tattered remains of a discarded T-shirt. Tearing off a strip of cotton, he wrapped it around the HK4 and began wiping down the various surfaces of the semi-automatic with the ultra-slow precision that his brain was demanding his fingers employ.

Finally satisfied that none of his fingerprints remained on the weapon, he returned to where Eichel lay, his lifeless eyes still staring at the ceiling. Standing over the body, Max squatted down, careful not to put a shoe in the Kriminalkommissar’s blood, before reaching over and taking the dead man’s right hand in his own.

‘Here we go.’ Max carefully pressed Eichel’s prints into the HK4’s grip, one after another. Once he was satisfied with the result, he delicately lowered the lifeless hand to the ground, letting the gun fall nearby.

‘That’s you.’ Lifting the Makarov from Eichel’s chest, Max stood up and began wiping it down with the rag, just as he had done with the HK4, while trying to decide what to do with the woman. Dead or alive, she would contaminate his carefully constructed tableau. He would have to get her out of the tower. But what then? Irritated at his inability to come up with an instant solution, he rubbed harder at the grip of the Russian gun.

First things first,
he told himself.
Sort these two out and we’ll worry about the girl later.
The Kriminalinspektor was very much aware that there was only so much that could be done in the face of professional scrutiny. Once they’d checked the bodies and the angles, the forensics guys wouldn’t buy the idea that Kappel and Eichel had shot each other for more than about ten seconds. His hunch, however, was that, in this case, politics would trump forensics. Martin Marin would jump at such a neat resolution to such a problematic case, whatever the science said. And, anyway, as long as no one could place him at the tower, any inconsistencies thrown up by the evidence wouldn’t be Max’s
problem.

              Stepping over to Kappel, he surveyed his handiwork. The old man was slumped in a seating position, one eye closed, the other gone, a mash of blood and gore where the eye socket had been.

Not bad shooting
,
for a man on the brink of retirement.

Squatting down, Max placed the Makarov into Kappel’s right hand, laced the old man’s index finger through the trigger guard and gently closed his remaining digits around the grip.

Another low groan came from the far side of the room, reminding him that the job was far from finished. With a sigh, he shoved the rag in his pocket and began rummaging through Kappel’s jacket. Recovering a weighty semi-automatic, Max pocketed it next to his own Beretta. On his way out, he would drop Kappel’s gun down the first storm drain that he came across. 

Searching Kappel’s trouser pockets, Max finally came up with what he had been looking for – a set of small keys. Stepping into the darkness, he found the woman curled in a foetal position on the floor, her eyes closed, apparently comatose. The metal bracelet on her right hand had been attached to a narrow pipe that ran along the wall, maybe three centimetres off the floor, leading to an old-fashioned metal radiator.

‘Carolina Barbolini?’

The woman did not stir. Even in the poor light, Max could see that she had been badly beaten. A vivid scar running down her left cheek suggested a series of cigarette burns while dried blood congealed around her left ear. Her breathing was deep and regular, suggesting that she might have been drugged. Fumbling with the keys, Max reached forward and unlocked each bracelet in turn. Barbolini’s hand fell to the ground but, otherwise, there was no movement. Max stared at her for a moment, before gathering up the handcuffs and stuffing them into the back pocket of his jeans, along with the keys.

              ‘Hey, wake up. We need to get out of here.’

Barbolini groaned.

‘C’mon. It’s time to go.’ Max gave her a gentle slap across the cheek. ‘Get up.’

The woman’s mouth twitched. A second or so later, a single world trickled out.

‘Water.’

‘Later,’ Max grunted. ‘We need to move first.’ Placing his hands on her shoulders, he tried to manoeuvre Barbolini into something approximating a standing position. However, without any leverage, he barely managed to lift her backside a centimetre off the ground before she slipped back onto the concrete.

‘Water.’ The woman repeated, her eyes still firmly shut.

‘I haven’t got any damn water.’

‘In the bag.’

‘In the bag,’ Max repeated. Struggling to his feet, he walked over to the doorway, reached down and unzipped the Adidas holdall. Looking inside, a sea of green presented itself. Max prodded half-heartedly at the money. Standing up straight, he scratched his head. ‘There’s no water in there.’ He half-turned to face the woman, only to be smacked flush on the jaw by something hard and metallic. Immediately, he felt his mouth fill with a soup of blood and teeth. Conscious that he couldn’t leave any evidence of his presence, he resisted the temptation to spit out the mess and instead swallowed hard. Looking up, he saw Barbolini come at him again. Her eyes were wide open now, blazing with a terrible mixture of hate and fear. Staggering backwards, Max grabbed at the length of pipe in her hand but she danced away from his grasp, getting off a glancing blow that caught him on the left temple.
After all that’s happened,
Max thought ruefully,
feeling his legs buckle beneath him,
what a way to go.
Unable to get back on his feet, he could do nothing to prevent her final assault, sending him plunging towards a darkness that was as complete as it was unyielding. 

51

‘So what happened this time? You fell down another pothole?’ Kriminalkommissar Marin no longer seemed so amused by the latest multicolour mess that was Max’s face. ‘Or was it the same one?’

Weighed down by the worst headache of his life, Max gave his boss a sour look. At least the double vision he had experienced on first coming round had finally cleared. The thought of two Martin Marins sitting in front of him would have been impossible to bear.

Marin’s gaze went from Max to his sergeant and back again. ‘I thought that I told you to sit tight and do nothing; sit out your last few days without causing any more trouble. How hard could that have been? Even for you.’

‘I haven’t been up to anything.’ Max glanced at Michael, who was busy trying to remove a ketchup stain from his Pink Floyd T-shirt. ‘Just getting ready for my retirement.’

The look of disgust on Marin’s face looked like it might cause his ugly mug to melt. With a theatrical shake of his head, he reached for a cigar.

‘Don’t worry boss,’ Max said flatly. ‘This time tomorrow, I’ll finally be out of your hair for good.’

Shoving a stogie into his mouth, Marin pulled a box of matches from his pocket and began lighting up. ‘And what about all the mess you’re leaving behind?’ he asked, between puffs.

As the first stream of smoke reached his nostrils, Max had to endure a wave of nausea that, momentarily, left him convinced that he was about to deposit the contents of his stomach on Marin’s desk. Sensing his discomfort, Michael abandoned his cleaning, jumped up, unlocked the window and pushed it open, allowing the air pollution outside the room to mix with the air pollution inside.

Marin looked nonplussed. ‘I didn’t know you could do that,’ he said finally.

Michael allowed himself a small smile as he sat back down. ‘I think things have resolved themselves reasonably well,’ he ventured.

‘Yes,’ Max agreed, his discomfort easing slightly as Marin’s cigar smoke finally began drifting towards the outside world.

Eyeing the pair of them suspiciously, Marin rolled the cigar in his mouth. ‘So Bruno Eichel shot Scaramanga – ‘

‘Kappel,’ said Michael and Max and unison.

‘Yes, yes. Eichel shot the bad guy and vice versa?’

‘It looks like they were both bad guys,’ Max pointed out.

The Kriminalkommissar raised an eyebrow. ‘Makes it even more convenient, don’t you think?’

Max said nothing.

‘A bit too convenient, perhaps.’

Max smiled blandly. ‘It’s rare enough that you get a bit of luck. You might as well take it when it happens.’

‘The crime scene guys have their doubts,’ Marin pouted.

I bet they do
, Max thought.

‘Apparently, the angles were all wrong, given where the bodies ended up,’ he waved the cigar in an arc above his head, ‘and so on and so forth.’

‘I’m sure that there is an explanation,’ Max shrugged.

‘Then there’s the question of Eichel.’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s supposed to have shot Scara –
Kappel
with his right hand.’

‘So?’

‘So, Eichel was
left
-handed.’

Max broke into a quick bout of coughing, the better to conceal the pained expression on his face.

Marin patiently waited for him to finish before adding: ‘Last, but certainly not least, we have the money – three million dollars.’ Marin shot Max an enquiring look. ‘Or, rather, we don’t have it.’

Max met his stare and held it. ‘Eichel took it from downstairs.’ He was about to add ‘
with your blessing’
but thought better of it.

‘Yes,’ said Marin, who was thinking exactly the same thing, ‘but where the hell is it now? The idea that a Kriminalkommissar can steal that kind of money is bad enough. But if we can’t recover it –’ an expression of hopelessness spread across his face as his voice trailed away.

‘We’ve searched his apartment,’ Michael pointed out, ‘his office and his damn car and not even come up with a single dollar bill.’

‘They were all hundreds,’ Max pointed out.

Marin glared at him through a thickening wall of cigar smoke.

‘Forensics think there was probably a third person at the crime scene,’ Michael added, trying to move the conversation on. ‘Perhaps Carolina Barbolini.’

‘She’s the only major player in this little drama who’s still in the wind,’ Max pointed out. ‘Maybe she’s got the cash.’

Marin looked doubtful.

Max tried to look thoughtful. ‘It’s a possibility.’

‘She’ll have run off back to Italy by now,’ Marin pointed out, taking another doleful puff on his cigar.

‘That’s one for our friends in Rome to check out,’ Max offered.

‘Have you ever tried working with the Carabinieri?’ Marin scoffed. ‘It’s a complete waste of time. The fucking Italians don’t even pretend to be interested.’

Max looked at Michael and smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to be able to sort something out, boss.’

Closing the door to the Kriminalkommissar’s office, Max watched his boss puff away happily on his cigar. Having decided not to chase Barbolini to Italy, Marin was now fully engaged watching the smoke rising towards the ceiling, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. ‘Such a lack of curiosity,’ he mumbled, ‘it’s a terrible thing in a cop.’

‘Huh?’ Still fiddling with the stain on his T-shirt, Michael didn’t look up.

‘Never mind.’ Max began making his way towards the stairs. ‘Let’s go and get a coffee.’

‘Sorry, boss.’ Michael sounded genuinely apologetic. ‘I’ve got to go out and slap the cuffs on Erwin Helmes.’

‘Again?’

Michael nodded. ‘He tried to smack another cop last night.’

‘What will this be, his sixth arrest this year?’

‘Eighth.’

‘He must be going for some kind of world record. Shall I come along? You could hold him down while I give him a kicking for old times’ sake.’

‘Nah.’ Finally letting go of his T-shirt, Michael pointed across the room. ‘I won’t be going solo. Your replacement’s already here.’

Looking up, Max saw the back of the unnaturally blonde head sitting at a desk near the window. Feet up on the table, Ulrike Baachaz was talking animatedly to someone on the phone. ‘So she got the job,’ he smiled.

Michael nodded. ‘Formally starts the day after tomorrow.’

‘That was quick.’

‘Just one of those things,’ Michael replied sheepishly. ‘It was Marin’s decision. He seems delighted that she’s come back.’

‘Ha. I bet he is.’

‘He reckons it makes up for Theo Oster packing it in, as well as you leaving, of course.’

‘Oster quit?’

‘Yeah. Apparently, Terium’s death was the last straw. The poor kid is struggling to cope. He’s still on medication for his nerves.’ Michael stretched his arms out wide. ‘He’s decided that all this is not for him.’

Poor kid, my ass.

‘The word is he’s gonna retrain as a history teacher.’

‘Good for him.’

‘Anyway, if Ulrike keeps Marin off everybody’s back that’s got to be a good thing, right?’

‘Right.’ Max looked across the room. Even at this distance, you could see that the woman was something special. ‘Does Sarah know that she’s going to be your new partner?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I’d get on with it, if I were you.’ Max gave him a pat on the back. ‘You don’t want her finding out from someone else.’

‘I was gonna tell her tonight,’ Michael stated unconvincingly.

‘Good idea.’ Changing the subject, Max gestured at his colleague’s stained T-shirt. ‘How was the concert?’

‘It was great,’ Michael nodded. ‘We couldn’t see a thing, but the sound was amazing. And the boys really liked the babysitter. We’re going to use her again.’

‘Excellent,’ Max smiled. ‘It’s good to know I’m not going to find myself landed with the role of child care in the Rahn household any time soon.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Michael glanced over at Ulrike, still talking on the phone, before lowering his voice. ‘But when are you going to tell me what really happened at that water tower?’

‘Later,’ was all Max would offer by way of reply.

‘Later?’

‘Later.’ Max gave his friend a final pat on the shoulder then turned away and headed for the stairs. ‘Good luck with Ulrike. And give Helmes a smack in the mouth from me.’