The Paderborn Connection (7 page)

“That would be ideal, can it be done before we leave for the airport?”

“No problem” said Andrew, “I'll get everything on the laptop put on discs as well.”

By now it was nearly seven o'clock and Andrew said he would run Mick into town, to the hotel. He locked the office door and they set off for the Hotel.

“I'll go into the office first thing and get somebody started on those files and come and pick you up about ten.”

“Bye Andrew, have a good night, see you tomorrow.”

Mick walked up the steps into the hotel reception put his overnight bag down and took out the booking reservation which he handed to the receptionist with his best “Guten Aben.”

“Good evening Sir,” she said in near perfect English and picked up the booking confirmation.

“Do you need my credit card?” he asked.

“No sir, the room has been charged to the account of Mr Andrew Jordan as instructed.”

“Oh, I didn't realise.” said Mick.

She handed him the key card,

“Room two hundred and twenty eight Sir, on the second floor, enjoy your stay with us.”

*

Mick took the lift up and followed the signs along the corridor to his room. He put his bag down, took off his shoes and lay on the bed looking up at the ceiling for a good ten minutes, going over in his mind the events of the day, since he had woken before five that morning.

“A shower I think,” he said to himself and he undressed and went into the bathroom. It was not like the bathrooms he was used to back home, he remembered he had been in something similar once before on one of their holidays in Austria. There was no shower cubicle or curtain, just the dial on the wall with a nozzle higher up, and a drain in the middle of the room.

He turned the dial and almost immediately a jet of warm water came out at high pressure. He adjusted the temperature and stood under the nozzle, reached for the shower gel and had the best shower he could remember for a long time. His mind went back to the first time he had been in a similar shower room and Sue had joined him and how they had giggled and washed each other like two teenagers on their first holiday together.

He took a white cotton bath sheet from the shelf near the door and, wrapping it around himself, went back into the bedroom. He made a cup of coffee from the hospitality tray on the dressing table and sat on the bed, leaning back against the headboard. He reached for his mobile and rang Sue.

“How's everything?” he asked “any news?”

“Nothing from the hospice Mick, your Peter rang earlier asking about Dad. I asked if he had been to see him but he said he was busy.”

“Sounds typical,” said Mick.

“Did you have a good flight this morning?”

“Yes fine, Lieutenant Jordan met me at the airport as arranged, brought me here to Paderborn and we've spent the day working together, we seem to have hit it off straight away. He drove us to Captain Austen's flat just up the road and we had a very useful hour there.”

“What's Paderborn like?”

“Nice countryside and one or two old buildings but like most towns in this part of Germany most of it has been rebuilt since the war.”

“How's your mother?”

“Not sure, I spoke to her this morning and she sounded a bit down. She's had more tests at the doctors but they haven't found anything yet, they're talking about her going into the hospital for more tests. I'd like to go down to Christchurch at the weekend and see her, it's been nearly a month since I last went.”

“If I can I'll drive you down and we'll make a weekend of it. We could stay in Winchester on Saturday night. You couldn't do me a favour tomorrow could you?”

“I should think so” she replied “What do you want?”

“My left knee is playing up again, it's not as swollen as last time but it's quite painful. Could you ring the doctors and try and get me an appointment for Wednesday morning if possible.”

“No problem, I'll do it first thing tomorrow.”

They chatted for another ten minutes or so and Mick said that he'd see her tomorrow night and wished her goodnight.

*

He got dressed in his chinos and pale blue polo shirt with the cockerel motif on the left breast, got the English – German phrasebook from the bag and put it in his back pocket and went down to the bar which was busy but not so busy that he couldn't chose a seat at the bar where he could watch the television.

Not that it did him much good as it was in German of course. The man sitting next to him tried to start a conversation about a news item but Mick shrugged and said “English.” The man just smiled and turned to the man sitting on the other side.

He caught the barman's eye and managed to order a drink by pointing to the pump and holding out his hands to indicate the size of the glass he wanted. He watched the till display to see how much it was and handed over a ten euro note. “Danke” he said as the barman pushed the drink across the bar towards him and handed him his change.

The barman pointed to his polo shirt and said “Tottenham, yes, Jurgen Klinsman, yes?”

Mick smiled and confirmed that that he was a Tottenham fan.

“I'm Bayer Leverkusen,” said the barman, adding “Dimitar Berbatov”. Mick smiled at this reference to another Tottenham player. Even in this foreign country where he spoke virtually no German, he had found common ground with a German bartender who spoke very little English.

He drank the lager slowly, taking in the surroundings, watching the other drinkers, enjoying the atmosphere. He could see the restaurant through the double door to his right, it seemed about half full. He got down from the bar stool and walked through the doors into a large room with big picture windows with the early evening sun pouring through.

He hovered just inside the door, not sure if he should just sit down or wait to be seated. He took his room card out of his pocket and held it so that the waitress nearby could see it.

She came over and said “table, yes?”

“Yes please,” said Mick. She went to the small desk and turning towards Mick said “English yes?” and she picked up a menu. He followed her to the table where he sat down and she handed him the menu.

He looked through it and said to himself

“Ah well, when in Rome…“

The waitress, a young woman in a pale blue checked dress and dark blue apron, came back after a few minutes to take his order,

“Spicy meat soup with paprika to start and veal escalope's in breadcrumbs. And a lager please.”

He showed her the key card and the little cardboard holder with his room number, two hundred and twenty eight. The waitress smiled, wrote down the order and the room number and hurried off.

The barman brought his lager, the soup and main course soon followed.

“Not bad,” thought Mick as he pushed his plate to the side. The waitress cleared the table and asked if he wanted anything more.

Mick, emboldened by the strong lager said, “einen kaffee mit sahne bitte.”

She smiled and said “very good, Coffee with milk yes?”

Mick smiled and nodded and she went to get his coffee.

“Danke,” he said when she bought it,

“You're welcome,” she replied. Mick drank his coffee and went up to his room. It was just after nine and he was absolutely shattered. He cleaned his teeth, went to bed and was asleep within minutes.

He woke just after seven thirty, got out of bed and made himself a drink and picked up the hotel information sheet to check the breakfast serving time – seven to nine thirty. He washed and shaved, got dressed and went down to breakfast. Not being sure what to expect, he followed three British business men in and basically watched what they did, which was to help themselves from the buffet table and sit down at the nearest empty table. He poured a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, spooned some fruit, a mixture of pineapple, melon and pink grapefruit into a bowl and sat down.

He saw that the three business men were drinking coffee but he hadn't seen a waitress so he leaned across and said

“Excuse me fellas, can you tell me where to get a coffee?”

The one nearest to him, a young man, quite a bit younger than the other two, pointed to another table to their left.

“Hot drinks and the continental stuff, you know croissants, bread rolls, ham and cheese, are all over there, you just help yourself”.

“Thanks” said Mick and fetched a coffee and a plate with two bread rolls, some cheese and ham and a few foil wrapped portions of butter.

As he sat down one of the two older businessmen said

“First time here? Here on business?”

Mick replied that it was his first time as an independent traveller although he and his wife had been to the Harz Mountains area on holiday some years before.

”I suppose I am here on business, if you can call police work business. I'm working on something with the Military Police here in Paderborn.”

He left it that, he had answered them truthfully without really telling them anything, a tactic he had used many times before.

“What line of business are you here on?”

“We're going to the University, we've been working with them on developing some specialist software to do with the car industry, very hush-hush of course.”

“Absolutely,” said Mick.

*

He finished his breakfast, said good-bye to the three businessmen and went up to his room. It was just before nine. He decided to go for a walk for half an hour to get some fresh air and stretch his legs. He wandered around looking at the buildings, the little squares, some with fountains, some with statues but couldn't help feeling that it all felt a bit false, like something from Disneyland. He returned to his room and packed his case, went down to reception to check out and sat in the foyer to wait for Andrew. He looked around him, he could have been in any hotel reception anywhere in Europe, the same notices, the same adverts, the same pictures on the walls.

*

Just after ten a car pulled up outside the hotel and Mick recognised Captain Wright, Andrew's superior, he leaned out of the window and called out for Mick to get in.

“Lieutenant Jordan's sorting out a problem with the laptop so I volunteered to collect you.”

“What's the problem” said Mick.

“Well any officer with the right security clearance can get into any of our computers. However in this case Captain Austen had put additional passwords on a lot of the files. We have specialists who can by-pass the passwords, it just takes a little time plus the man we need didn't arrive until nine-thirty. Bye the way Brigadier Fredericks rang this morning, he is ninety nine per cent certain that the major is not British.”

They arrived at Andrews's office who greeted them with the news that the problem had been sorted and everything on the laptop would be on a disc by eleven thirty, twelve at the latest.

The scanning was taking longer than he thought it would but he had asked one of the girls in the admin office to scan some of the less important files on her scanner and put them on a disc.

“What time's your flight Michael?” asked Andrew.

“Seven o'clock,” Mick replied.

“Right so I need to get you there by five say, which means leaving here by three at the latest.”

Mick asked if there was anything he could do,

“Not really, you could put that pile of documents into that box, they're all on a disc now. I've paid the cash into an account we keep for just such eventualities, money seized from the proceeds of crime and so on. The receipt will be on one of the discs.”

As he was putting the files into the box, Mick read through a few of the documents, he would have an awful lot of reading to do when he got back.

He thought to himself, “I need to get all the stuff on the discs printed off and put into some sort of order and a list of contents to make it easier to find things – a job for Emma I think.”

He also decided that he needed to speak to Rachel as it was looking increasingly likely that Captain Phillip Austen was not investigating a crime but rather was heavily involved in some sort of criminal activity himself. The amounts of money he had amassed, the shares, and the different bank accounts all pointed to it.

How on earth was he going to restrict his investigation to the murder and ignore everything else as he had been instructed by the Deputy Chief Constable?

*

The girl from the admin department came in and asked what to do with the cheque books as she couldn't really scan them in.

“Make me a list of everything you can't scan and let the Inspector have a copy. If you need to get anything from the actual cheque books you'll have to ring me Michael and we'll try and deal with it over the phone.”

Mick had decided not to mention his problem with the Deputy Chief Constables instructions, he needed to sort that out himself before telling Andrew.

The Corporal brought in a cold meat salad, identical to the one the day before. “Hope you like salad Michael,” said Andrew.

“That will do fine thanks.”

“I think that's about it,” said Andrew as he put the last of the documents back into the boxes and handed Mick six discs with all of the information on. It was now five to three, time to go. Just as Mick was putting the last of the discs in his overnight case and checking that he had had his passport, ticket and so on he suddenly spotted the cardboard tubes and said, “Have they been scanned?”

“Oh sod it, no,” said Andrew.

“Tell you what Michael, can you take them with you as they are, scan them your end and e-mail the contents to me?”

“No problem, “said Mick putting them in his overnight bag.

*

They left Paderborn just after three and set off for Dusseldorf and the airport. The weather was overcast but dry at the moment, although rain threatened. They drove along the main road, Mick took in the scenery and asked a question now and again about towns and villages that they passed. He told Andrew about his walk around Paderborn in the morning and how he had the feeling he was in Disneyland. Andrew laughed and said he knew exactly what he meant.

Andrew asked Mick if he was married and had any children,

Mick replied “married for twenty five years but no children. And how about you?” “Divorced two years ago, no children” said Andrew.

They chatted about their respective jobs, the differences and the similarities, the pay, prospects for promotion. Andrew said he was concerned that the army presence in Germany was being wound down and there was a distinct possibility that he would be sent back to work in the UK, or made redundant.

Andrew asked Mick what his prospects for promotion were like, Mick replied that he had thought about applying for promotion a couple of years previously but when he had considered the pros and cons, had decided against it. Mick liked the job he was doing, the unexpected things that could change a routine day into something memorable, the ‘thrill of the chase', the satisfaction that came from solving a particularly difficult case. It seemed to him that the higher up the ladder you climbed, the more distant you got from the real job of being a detective. Most of the senior officers he had contact with seemed to spend most of their day in meetings, preparing budgets or writing ‘mission statements' and ‘risk assessments' which was not something he particularly wanted to do.

They arrived at the airport at five past five. Mick got out of the car, Andrew got his overnight case out of the boot, they shook hands and said they would speak soon.

Mick walked into the airport building searching the departures board for his flight. Air Berlin flight to Stansted was on time. He checked in, went through security with no problems this time and made for the duty free shop. He bought a bottle of Channel Number Five for Sue, a bottle of twelve year old single malt for himself and a big box of those chocolates that looked like sea shells for them both. He sat in the departure lounge enjoying a lager and went to gate twenty three when his fight was called.

The rain that had threatened earlier was now bucketing down. Mick boarded the plane, found his seat and looked out of the window across the holding area where he could see at least three other planes waiting to leave. After what seemed like an eternity, but was in fact no more than about fifteen minutes, the plane crept forward and swung round, made its way to the allotted position and the noise of the four jet engines rose noticeably before the plane shuddered and lurched forward . They took off in a dramatic thunderstorm, the clouds were yellowish green and sheet lightning lit up the sky. The passenger next to him, a young woman, looked apprehensive but Mick decided not to say anything to her as she closed her eyes and gripped the armrests.

They landed at Stansted to the obvious relief of the young woman who, now smiling and looking much calmer, said “I see now where the inspiration for The Ride of The Valkyries came from.”

Mick had only ever seen one opera, he had taken Sue to see Aida for her fortieth birthday, he had enjoyed the spectacle and the music up to a point, Sue had sobbed at the ending when the lovers were sealed alive in the tomb and said it was one of the most moving things she had ever seen.

They disembarked and he passed through customs without being stopped, made his way to the car park, put his bag in the boot of his car and left the airport behind him in no time.

*

He arrived home just before nine and Sue greeted him with a hug and a kiss.

“Is that for me?” she said when he took the perfume out of the bag.

“Of course, and the single malt is for me and the chocolates are for both of us to share AND I know exactly how many there are in the box in case you sneak a few when you think I'm not looking.”

“Tight arse.”

“Sexy bum,” he replied playfully smacking her bottom.

“You must be starving” she said “What do you fancy to eat?”

“I tell you what I'd really like, a plate of bacon sandwiches and a pot of tea.”

“I think I can manage that” she said. “By the way, I got you an appointment with a Doctor Maybury eight thirty tomorrow morning. I hope that's O.K.”

“Fine thanks,” said Mick.

“How's your mum?”

“Well I spoke to her this afternoon and she seemed a little better, although she is adamant that she's not going to hospital. I'll go down and see her on Saturday. Carol rang from Australia to see how she was but I can't get hold of Paula, She might be on holiday somewhere in the wilds of Scotland. Paula, her other sister lived in the north east and they saw even less of her than they did of Carol in Australia. Her brother Steve had been down on Sunday and didn't think she looked too bad.

“Any news about dad?”

“Nothing, I haven't phoned today, I assumed you'd be going in tomorrow.”