A Slow Death (Max Drescher Book 1) (13 page)

I just hope the poor sod’s still alive,
Max thought.
These bastards have already killed one cop.

‘You were going to tell us something else,’ Michael prompted her.

‘Yes, ah, well, in the interests of sharing and cooperation, you should know that the gun that was used here was used in another killing. A Turkish kid called Serhat Khedira.’

Aw, hell.

‘He was shot near the Kreuberg Monument.’

I know where he was shot,
Max thought grimly, already heading for the door.

23

Sitting at a table in the Neues Ufer café, Theo Oster looked at his reflection in the mirror above the bar and grimaced.
Around here,
he thought,
dressing like a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman is just an invitation to get mugged.
If he’d known he was going to be spending his day slumming it in Schöneberg, he would have worn a pair of dirty jeans and his leather jacket, rather than his only suit, a two-button, single-breasted grey polyester-cotton mix from C&A. The suit had been a gift from his mother when he graduated from the Police Academy. Theo knew that, above all else, the present was her way of telling him to get himself safely ensconced behind a desk at Police HQ as quickly as possible. Agnes Oster had always hated the idea of her only child pounding the streets, consorting with criminals and ruffians. She had never been the type of mother to try and tell him what to do with his life, but she knew what she didn’t like all the same.

Letting his gaze slip back to the street outside, he realised that, after more than two hours of people-watching, he had not seen one other person wearing a suit walking down Hauptstrasse. Not one other person. He was like an alien in his own city.
I’m like Thomas Jerome Newton
, he mused,
the Man Who Fell to Earth.

Even after removing his tie and undoing the top button of his shirt, Theo remained acutely conscious of just how out of place he looked among the bohemians and lowlifes. Aside from the odd smirk, however, the locals seemed happy enough to leave this strange creature to his own to his own devices. At this time of the day, they were far more concerned with getting caffeine into their bloodstream than checking out their fellow patrons.

Feeling more than a little sorry for himself, Theo toyed with his third americano of the morning
. If this is the fast track to being a Berlin cop,
he thought,
I’d hate to see what the slow one is like.
At this rate, he would be pushing thirty by the time he made Kriminalinspektor. Such a slow rate of progress almost made going to the Academy seem like a waste of time. More than that, it had made him a hate figure for every ‘proper’ cop who had made his way up through the ranks the old-fashioned way, by cracking skulls and nicking scumbags.

Trying to avoid making eye contact with the waiter hovering at the bar, Theo ran through a list of some of the rubbish jobs he’d been landed with since arriving at Stresemannstraße.

There had been the long, slow investigation into the wave of sick dogs in Kreuzberg over the previous six months. Eventually, it was discovered that the hapless hounds had been poisoned after eating the excrement of junkies. In the wake of this revelation, Theo found himself on his hands and knees in the bushes of Viktoriapark, collecting human turds in plastic evidence bags. The end result? Only one arrest. Even then, the moron somehow managed to OD in his holding cell, leaving the case to be quietly closed.

Then there was the sixty-seven-year-old man walking his dog (what was it with him and dogs?) who was killed after being run down on a pedestrian crossing by a short-sighted motorist who had forgotten to put on his glasses. A plea-bargain and a suspended sentence for the driver had resulted in Oster receiving hate mail from the widow, much to the amusement of his colleagues.

And now this: hanging around some gay café, waiting to see if some little hooligan with the 36Boys showed up. And all because that sleazeball Max Drescher couldn’t be bothered to do the job himself.

Theo drummed his fingers on the table in frustration. Of all the rubbish cops he had come across in his short career Drescher was the worst. Everyone knew that the Kriminalinspektor was a total disgrace, a lazy, cynical drunk.

From what Oster heard around the station, the man was almost as bad as the criminals he was supposed to be chasing. He was exactly the kind of dinosaur that the hierarchy was trying to get rid of. Kriminalkommissar Marin clearly hated him. Well, changes were afoot. The whiff of modernisation was in the air, mingling with the tear gas. All in all, it would be a miracle if Drescher still had a job this time next year.

The inevitable demise of Max Drescher didn’t exactly help him this morning, though. Shifting unhappily in his chair, Oster decided that he was definitely going to complain to Kriminalkommissar Marin about this latest appalling misuse of his talents. This was most definitely not how you should be treating one of your ‘stars of the future.’ Not that he expected that going over the Kriminalinspektor’s head to complain about his assignments would have much effect; Marin was the type of superior officer who would nod sagely, promise to look into it and then usher you out of his office as quickly as possible, forgetting all about the matter before the door had slammed shut.

Too much coffee had left a sour feeling in his stomach; it was having its effect on his bladder as well. Getting to his feet, Oster looked around, trying to locate the Neues Ufer’s bathroom. As he did so, he was conscious of movement on the street outside. Peering through the window, he saw a couple approaching the entrance to Hauptstrasse 161 on the far side of the road. Each of them was carrying a leather weekend bag.  Oster tried to stare without making it look too obvious. Even at this distance, he reckoned that the bloke looked Turkish. The woman would be his girlfriend. According to Kriminalinspektor Drescher, she was an Italian and this was her place. Tanned, with long dark hair pulled into a ponytail, Oster’s first impression was that she looked good, but not amazing. He watched as she pulled a set of keys from her bag, opened the door and quickly stepped across the threshold. After glancing up and down the road, the man followed her inside.  

Oster watched the door close behind them. ‘At last.’ he hissed, fishing a handful of coins out of this trouser pocket and dropping them on the table. Turning round, he found the waiter hovering at his shoulder.

‘Have you got a phone?’ Oster demanded.

The waiter, a bald, middle-aged man with a permanent smirk gestured towards an ancient-looking handset sitting at the far end of the bar. ‘It only takes incoming calls. There’s some phone booths round the corner, though.’

‘Great.’ Scampering outside, Oster found himself in two minds. The Kriminalinspektor have given him clear instructions to call the Polizeipräsidium if Volkan Cin showed up. On no account, was Oster to try and approach Cin. Drescher had been very clear on that point: ‘
Call it in,
w
ait for backup and don’t do anything to spook the little bastard.’

Oster cursed under his breath. If this had been a legitimate job – i.e. one with Kriminalkommissar Marin’s approval – he would have been issued with a radio. Instead, he faced a dash to the nearest telephone kiosk. Even worse, standing at the kiosk he would lose sight of the entrance to the building. Cin and his girlfriend could easily slip back out and he would never know it. By the time the Kriminalinspektor arrived, they could be long gone. It had been ridiculous for Drescher to send him to do a surveillance job like this on his own.

As he looked across the road, the front door of Hauptstrasse 161 slowly opened and an old woman appeared in the doorway, dragging a shopping trolley behind her. Suddenly energized, he took advantage of a break in the traffic to jog across the road.

Reaching the door, Oster gave the woman a big smile, grasping the trolley and lifting it down the steps.
The old dear must be eighty,
he thought
, at least.

‘Thank you, young man,’ the woman said, her rather curt tone suggesting that she felt perfectly capable of managing on her own.

Edging past her on to the top step, Oster caught the heavy door before it snapped shut. ‘I’m just here to see some friends on the top floor,’ he pointed skyward. ‘Do you know if they’re in?’

‘How would I know?’ Stepping on to the sidewalk, the woman grabbed her trolley, pointing to a series of buzzers behind Oster’s head. ‘Maybe you should try ringing the bell?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he stammered, flustered by her somewhat forceful response.

‘Pfff.’ The woman shook her head as she began walking down the road at a steady pace in the direction of the local Spar mini-mart. Oster waited until he was sure she wasn’t going to look back before heading inside. Ignoring the lift, he skipped up the stairs until, only faintly out of breath, he came to the top floor landing. Standing under a large skylight, he wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and glanced at his watch. It was less than five minutes since the couple had arrived home; now should be a good time to catch them unawares.

In front of him there were two flimsy looking doors, both painted in the same drab olive green. The door to his left had the name
Schambach
written in blue biro on a small, grubby piece of card that had been taped above the buzzer. The door to his right had a similar buzzer but there was no name card beside it. Stepping closer, Oster belatedly realised that the door with no name was ajar; there was a gap of maybe a centimetre or so that gave him a partial view of the hallway inside. Tiptoeing towards the threshold, Oster could hear voices. The couple were having an argument. Squatting on his haunches, Oster put his ear to the crack, straining to make out the cause of the dispute.

‘… we cannot go back now …’
the man shouted.

The woman said something in response but her words were drowned out by the sound of a door slamming. Rocking forward on the balls of his feet, Oster tentatively reached for the door, trying to widen the gap just a little. As he did so, the door was flung open from the inside. Pitching forward, he reached out for the doorframe, reversing his momentum and stumbling backwards onto the cold concrete of the landing.

Stepping through the door, Volkan Cin towered over him. ‘Who the hell are you?’ Not waiting for a reply, he grabbed the collar of Oster’s jacket and hauled him inside before slamming the door firmly shut.

‘Stay.’

Oster started to get to his feet and was given a swift kick in the ribs for his trouble. ‘Are you stupid? I said stay there. Don’t get up.’

Struggling to catch his breath, the young policeman could only nod. Out of the corner of his eye, he became aware of a presence in the doorway at the far end of the hall.

‘Who’s he?’

‘That’s what I’m just going to find out.’ Planting one foot firmly on his chest, Volkan reached down and quickly emptied Oster’s jacket pockets, rifling through his wallet before coming up with his police ID. Holding it up for Barbolini to inspect, he shook his head. ‘Cop.’

A dark look passed across the woman’s face. ‘That’s great,’ she wailed. ‘You’ve brought the damn police literally to my door?’

‘Me?’ Volkan responded sulkily. ‘What did I do?’

Ignoring the question, the woman folded her arms. ‘What are you going to do with him?’

‘Me?’ Volkan repeated, his voice becoming more shrill as he lifted his foot from Oster’s ribcage.

For a moment, they eyeballed each other angrily, saying nothing. Caught in the middle of this domestic dispute Oster kept his gaze firmly on the floor, trying to keep his breathing short and shallow. Every breath was agony; he wondered if Volkan’s boot had broken one of his ribs. Equally worrying was the thought of what would happen next. Even if he managed to extricate himself from this mess, his decision-making would be seriously questioned. So, too, would his ability to obey orders.
So much for being a ‘star of the future’,
he thought glumly; right about now he would settle for any kind of future at all.

Barbolini finally broke the silence with a monumental sigh. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’ll have to get my guys to deal with it.’

My guys?
Suddenly conscious of his aching bladder, Oster gritted his teeth. The last thing he wanted to do was to lose control of himself on the woman’s floor.

Barbolini eyed him with disgust, as if she was reading his thoughts. Lifting her gaze to her boyfriend, she shook her head in dismay. ‘Jesus. Wait ‘til Cesare hears about this.’ Volkan started to say something, but she cut him off with an angry wave of her hand. ‘Let me make a couple of calls. Just make sure he can’t go anywhere.’

24

Looks like I’ve gone and got Serhat killed.
The Kriminalinspektor sat at his desk, brooding over the latest developments. It was never good to lose an informant, even one as erratic as Serhat Khedira. More worrying was the apparent change in Volkan Cin. The boy seemed to have gone from hooligan to killer in the blink of an eye. How did that happen?

Lost in his thoughts, it took Max a while to realise that someone was watching him. Looking up, he became aware of Marin standing in the doorway of his office.

‘Max. In here now.’

What had he done now?

Getting to his feet, Max suddenly remembered that Theo Oster was still out in Schöneberg. The Kriminalkommissar wouldn’t be happy at his pet being put to work.

The office was overheated and the stale smell of sweat and cigar smoke seemed worse than usual.

Marin gestured for him to sit.

Max lowered his backside into the chair. ‘I can explain –’

Marin held up a hand. ‘I don’t need to know.’

‘Huh?’ Max saw the look of contempt mingled with fear in the Kriminalkommissar’s eyes and realised that this was not about Theo Oster.

Reaching forward, Marin pushed a sheet of paper across his desk. Even upside down, Max could easily make out the Charité Universitätsmedizin logo. ‘You should have informed us of this straight away,’ he said stiffly.

‘It is in the hands of my union lawyer,’ Max said calmly. ‘I assume that they will follow all proper procedures.’

With a snort, Marin waved away all the bureaucratic bullshit. ‘You’re a sick man, Max. I will have to put you on immediate Administrative Leave.’

Stay calm,
Max told himself.
Don’t let this idiot wind you up.
‘I am absolutely fine,’ he said calmly. ‘You will recall that I had my annual medical just over a month ago. It was A-1.’

Marin raised an eyebrow.

‘I’m in great shape,’ Max insisted. It was a bit of an exaggeration, but the tests were not very demanding and he had passed easily enough.

Marin gingerly picked up the test results between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, as if the piece of paper itself was infectious, waving it across the table at Max. ‘Jesus Christ. How can you say that?’

Max took a deep breath. ‘Because it’s true.’

‘What happens if this gets out?’

Max’s eyes narrowed. ‘You can’t leak my medical details. That would be a clear violation of my rights.’

‘No one’s going to want to work with you. How can you do your job?’

‘Michael knows the situation,’ Max said, letting each word out in a grim and determined manner, hoping to batter Marin into submission. ‘He will work with me.’

‘Maybe,’ Marin shrugged, ‘but what about all the others? Never mind the bloody public. Every time you go and arrest someone, we could be facing a lawsuit.’

‘So what am I supposed to do, Martin? Just crawl away into some cave somewhere? Save you all the embarrassment of my misfortune?’

Marin folded his arms. ‘Your terms of employment are clear. We shouldn’t even be having the conversation. It’s really a matter for the Personnel Department.’

‘Fine,’ Max shrugged. ‘Get them to speak to Clara Ozil, my lawyer at the Polizeigewerkschaft and they can sort it out among themselves.’ He allowed himself a small smile thinking about Clara running rings round some dullard from the KriPo’s chronically inept HR office. ‘It doesn’t have to be your problem.’

Dropping the test results into a drawer in his desk, Marin gave him a small nod to signal that was an acceptable solution. ‘Okay, but this needs to be resolved quickly.’

‘I’m sure it will be,’ Max nodded. ‘In the meantime, we will continue to chase down the killer of those kids.’

Marin let out a casual fart. ‘What kids?’

‘Here you go.’ Holding the Luger by its barrel, Dante Fei offered up the semi-automatic.

Grasping the walnut grip, Stefan Hug weighed the weapon in his hand. ‘Where did you get this? A museum?’

Dante shrugged. ‘It’s a design classic.’

‘It’s old is what it is.’

‘I think Barbolini picked it up from a dealer in Zurich. These old World War II handguns are still very popular in Switzerland. They love their weapons up in the mountains.’

‘And what if it blows up in my face?’

‘Don’t worry, it’s been well looked after. Works perfectly. I tested it myself.’

Nodding, Stefan lifted his arm and pointed the Luger at the kid whimpering on the floor in the corner, handcuffed to a radiator pipe.
You don’t look like much of a cop,
he reflected
, you’re not much more than a kid.
The kid’s face was a mess; puffy and bruised. On the floor, by his shoeless foot, was a dislodged tooth. Dante had already given him a good going over, just for fun. Now it was time to apply the coup de grace. ‘And Barbolini doesn’t want to watch this time?’

Dante shook his head. ‘Nah. She’s too busy fucking that little Turkish bastard to be interested in the ‘details’, so we just have to get on with it.’

‘We’ as in ‘me’,
Stefan thought grimly, letting his arm fall to his side. He had never shot a man before; it was another line he was being forced to cross and knew he would have to work himself up to it. ‘I would have thought she would have got Kooy to do it.’

‘The thing is,’ Dante scratched the back of his neck, ‘I don’t think she likes Floris that much. Anyway, he’s been out of town the last couple of days.’

‘So,’ Stefan persisted, ‘why does she want me, specifically, to pull the trigger?’

Dante’s face split into a cracked grin. ‘Specifically … she’s worried about you.’

Conscious of his accelerating heart rate, Stefan frowned.

‘The boss doesn’t think you’re enjoying your work so much these days,’ Dante explained. ‘She wants to see if you’ve still got the balls for it. Balls are important in our business, that’s a well-known fact.’

‘Yes.’

‘So,’ Dante raised a quizzical eyebrow, ‘
do
you still have the balls?’

Once again, Stefan lifted his arm and pointed the gun at the kid. Taking a deep breath, he began emptying his mind of all random thoughts.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Letting his eyes lose their focus, Stefan flicked off the Luger’s safety lever with his thumb. ‘Of course I’ve still got the balls, Dante. How could you ever doubt that?’  Wrapping his index finger around the trigger, he swung his arm slowly around and shot Fei smack in the middle of the forehead. As the explosion rang round the room, a bemused expression settled on Dante’s face. Mouth open, he took a half-step towards Stefan before falling backwards on to the concrete.

When the boy finally stopped screaming, Stefan let the room slowly come back into focus. Re-engaging the safety, he stuffed the Luger into the back of his jeans before stepping over to the kid and releasing him from his cuffs. ‘Get up,’ he ordered. ‘We need to get out of here.’

‘What … what did you do?’ Theo Oster stammered.  ’What the hell did you do?’ Struggling to his feet he rubbed his wrists, his eyes remaining fixed on the body lying in front of him.

‘You saw what I did,’ Stefan said, trying to sound as casual as possible. ‘I shot the bastard.’

Keeping as far away from the corpse as possible, Oster edged towards the door. ‘Who was he?’

‘He was a nasty little crook called Dante Fei.’

Slowly tearing his eyes away from the pool of blood spreading across the dirty floor, Oster turned to face Stefan, confusion written across his face. ‘And who are you?’