Bad Wolf (2 page)

“I didn’t ‘stumble up’ the career ladder, no way. My rank was changed, that’s all,” she responded coolly. “And to whom are you referring as ‘the old man’? You mean Bodenstein?”

Behnke just shrugged it off with a grin and kept on chewing his gum. That was one thing he hadn’t managed to give up.

After his inglorious departure from K-11 two years earlier, he’d lodged a complaint about his suspension and been lucky enough to be reinstated. At any rate, he’d been transferred to the National Criminal Police office in Wiesbaden, and nobody at the Regional Criminal Unit in Hofheim had been sorry to see him go.

He slipped past her and sat down in Ostermann’s chair.

“Everybody flew the coop, I see.”

Pia muttered to herself as she kept on looking for that autopsy report.

“To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” she then asked.

Behnke clasped his hands behind his head.

“Well, what a shame that you’re the only one here I can share my happy news with,” he said. “But the others will find out soon enough.”

“What is it?” Pia gave him a suspicious look.

“I got fed up with working the streets. I’ve done that shit long enough,” he replied without taking his eyes off her. “The Special Assignment Unit, K-11, all that’s behind me now. I always got the best evaluations, so they forgave me my minor indiscretion.”

Minor indiscretion! Behnke had punched their colleague Kathrin Fachinger in a fit of uncontrolled rage and committed enough other transgressions to warrant a suspension.

“I was having personal problems back then,” he went on. “That was taken into account. At the State Police office, I passed a couple of additional qualifications, and now I’m at K-134, the Office of Internal Affairs, responsible for investigating and bringing charges against police personnel and preventing corruption.”

Pia couldn’t believe her ears. Frank Behnke as an Internal Affairs investigator? That was utterly absurd.

“Along with my colleagues from the other federal states, in the past few months we’ve developed a strategic concept that will go into effect on July first nationwide. Improvement of services and professional oversight within subordinate departments, sensitivity training for personnel, and so on.…” He crossed one leg over the other and jiggled his foot. “Dr. Engel is a competent manager, but occasionally we get reports from the individual investigative offices about transgressions committed by colleagues. I can vividly recall certain incidents in this very office that were quite disturbing: failure to administer punishments in the office, not following up on misdemeanors, unauthorized IT queries, passing internal documents to third parties … just to mention a few examples.”

Pia abruptly stopped searching for the autopsy report.

“What are you getting at?”

Behnke’s smile turned malicious, and his eyes took on an unpleasant glint. Pia had a bad feeling about all this. As always, he was enjoying demonstrating his superiority and power with regard to his opponent, a character trait of his that she despised. As a colleague, with his envy and perpetually rotten temper, Behnke had been a veritable torment, but as a representative of internal investigations, he could be a disaster.

“You, of all people, should know best.” He stood up and came around the desk to stand close to her. “But you’re the obvious favorite of the old man.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Pia replied icily.

“Oh, don’t you? Really?” Behnke moved so close that it made her uncomfortable, but she resisted the urge to step back. “Starting Monday, I’m going to start an authorized internal investigation in this building, and I probably won’t have to dig very deep to bring a few corpses to light.”

Pia was shivering despite the tropical heat in the office, but she remained outwardly calm, even though she was boiling inside; she even managed to smile. Frank Behnke was an unforgiving and petty person who forgot nothing. Old frustrations were still eating at him and seemed to have multiplied tenfold in recent years. And he was contemplating revenge for the injustice and humiliation he imagined he’d suffered. It wouldn’t be smart to make an enemy of him, but Pia’s anger was stronger than her good sense.

“Well then,” she said sarcastically, resuming her search. “I wish you much success in your new job as … a cadaver dog.”

Behnke turned to go.

“Your name isn’t on my list yet. But that could change at any time. Have a nice weekend.”

Pia didn’t react to the unambiguous threat his words implied. She waited until he was gone, then grabbed her cell and punched the hot key for Bodenstein. The call went through, but nobody picked up. Damn. She was sure that her boss hadn’t the slightest idea what a nasty surprise was waiting for him here. She knew pretty much what Behnke was insinuating. And it could have very unpleasant consequences for Oliver von Bodenstein.

*   *   *

The deposit on three returnable bottles was enough for a pack of noodles. Five more would buy veggies to go with it. That was the currency he dealt in these days.

Before, in his former life, he hadn’t paid any attention to collecting the deposit, but had blithely tossed empty bottles into trash cans. That was exactly the sort of person who ensured his basic needs today. He’d received twelve and a half euros from the kiosk owner for the two bags of empty bottles. He got paid six euros an hour under the table by the greedy cheapskate for standing all day in this tin box at the edge of an industrial zone in Fechenheim, grilling hot dogs and burgers and deep-frying potatoes. If the cash register didn’t add up perfectly, the amount was docked from his pay. Today, everything had come out even, and he hadn’t had to beg for his money like he usually did. Fatso was in a good mood and had paid him what he was owed for the past five days.

Combined with the money from collecting bottles, he had about three hundred euros in his wallet: a small fortune. That was why, feeling suddenly flush, he’d splurged not only on a haircut but also a shave from the Turkish barber across from the train station. After a visit to Aldi, he had enough left to pay the rent on his trailer space for two months in advance.

He parked his rickety motor scooter next to the trailer, pulled the helmet off his head, and took the shopping bag out of the carrier.

The heat was driving him crazy. It didn’t even cool off at night. In the morning, he would wake up soaked with sweat. In the miserable lunch stand of thin corrugated iron, it could get up to 140 degrees, and the stifling humidity made the stench of sweat and rancid fat settle in his hair and pores.

The dilapidated trailer in the RV park in Schwanheim was supposed to have been a temporary solution, back when he still believed he could make a go of it and restore his financial situation. But nothing in his life had turned out to be as long-lasting as this temporary arrangement—he’d already been living here for seven years.

He unzipped the awning, which must have been dark green decades ago, before the weather had faded it to a nondescript pale gray. A puff of hot air gusted toward him. Inside the trailer, it was several degrees hotter than outside, with a stifling and stuffy smell. No matter how much he scrubbed and aired out the place, the odors had settled into the upholstery and every nook and cranny. Even after seven years, it still filled him with disgust, but for him there was no other option.

Ever since his plunge into the abyss, and as a convicted criminal, he belonged to the underclass, even among the residents of the slum on the outskirts of the metropolis. Nobody wandered in here on vacation or to admire the glitzy skyline of Frankfurt, the concrete and glass symbols of big money across the river. His neighbors were mostly blamelessly impoverished retirees or failures like himself who had landed on the down escalator. Alcohol often played a leading role in the story of their lives, which were depressingly similar. As for himself, he drank no more than one beer in the evening, he didn’t smoke, and he paid attention to his weight and grooming. He didn’t bother with the Hartz IV law of 2005, which combined unemployment insurance with social welfare, because he couldn’t stand the thought of having to show up as a supplicant and kowtow to the bigoted whims of indifferent bureaucrats.

A tiny scrap of self-esteem was the last thing he possessed. If he lost that, he might as well kill himself.

“Hello?”

A voice outside the awning made him turn around. A man was standing behind the half-desiccated hedge that divided the property of his tiny plot from the neighbor’s.

“What do you want?”

The man came closer, hesitated. His piggy little eyes flicked angrily from left to right.

“Somebody told me you would help anyone who was having trouble with the authorities.” The high-pitched falsetto was a grotesque contrast to the massive figure of the man. Sweat was beading on his balding head, and the smell of garlic overpowered the even less pleasant body odors.

“Oh, really? Who says that?”

“Rosi, from the kiosk. She told me, ‘Go see Doc. He’ll help you.’” The sweating hunk of lard glanced around again, as if he was afraid to be seen there. Then he took a roll of bills out of his pocket. Hundreds, even a couple of five hundreds. “I’ll pay you well.”

“Come on in.”

Right off, the guy seemed kind of disagreeable, but that didn’t matter. He couldn’t be picky about his clientele, his address was not in any phone book, and he certainly didn’t have a Web site. Still, there were limits to what he’d do, no matter how much money was offered, and people knew that. With his previous conviction and the probation that was still in force, he couldn’t get involved in anything that might send him back to the slammer. But word on the street was that he’d already helped tavern owners and operators of lunch stands who had come into conflict with official regulations, desperate pensioners who’d been bilked on promotional shopping trips or by door-to-door salesmen, unemployed people or immigrants who couldn’t understand the complex bureaucracy in Germany, and young people who were seduced early by the temptations of a life on credit and had fallen into the debt trap. Anyone who asked for help knew that he worked only for cash.

He had long since gotten over any feelings of sympathy. He was no Robin Hood; he was a mercenary. For cash in advance, he would fill out official forms on the scratched-up Formica table in his trailer, translate complicated bureaucratic German into understandable everyday language, and offer legal advice for any situation in order to augment his income.

“What’s the problem?” he asked his visitor, who cast an appraising glance at the obvious indicators of poverty and seemed to gain confidence.

“Man, it’s sure hot in here. Have you got a beer or a glass of water?”

“No.” He made no effort to be friendly.

Long gone were the days of mahogany-veneer conference tables in air-conditioned rooms, trays holding little bottles of water and fruit juice, and glasses arrayed upside down.

With a snort, the fat man pulled out some rolled-up papers from the inside pocket of his greasy leather vest and handed them over. Recycled paper, small print. The tax office.

He unfolded the papers, which were damp with sweat, smoothed them out, and scanned the text.

“Three hundred,” he demanded without looking up. Rolls of cash stuffed in pants pockets always signified illegal earnings. The sweaty fat man could afford to pay a bit more than the usual rate he charged seniors and the unemployed.

“What?” the new client protested, as anticipated. “For a few pages?”

“If you can find someone to do it cheaper, be my guest.”

The fat man muttered something unintelligible, then reluctantly peeled off three banknotes and laid them on the table.

“Do I at least get a receipt?”

“Sure. My secretary will make it out later and give it to your chauffeur,” he replied. “Now have a seat. I’ll need some information from you.”

*   *   *

Traffic was backed up at Baseler Platz leading to the Friedensbrücke. For a couple of weeks now, the city had been one big construction zone, and Hanna was annoyed that she’d forgotten all about that and driven into downtown instead of taking the route via the Frankfurter Kreuz and Niederrad to Sachsenhausen. As she drove along at a snail’s pace behind a bunch of rusty pickup trucks with Lithuanian license plates crossing the bridge over the Main River, Hanna replayed the unsatisfying conversation with Norman that morning. She was still pissed off about his stupidity and his lies. It had been hard for her to fire him with no notice after eleven years, but he’d left her no choice. Before he stomped off in a huff, he’d fired off a series of nasty curses and issued several vile threats.

Hanna’s smartphone hummed, and she grabbed it and opened her mail app. Her assistant had sent her an e-mail. The header said “Catastrophe!!!” Instead of a message, there was a link to FOCUS online. Hanna clicked the link with her thumb, and her stomach lurched when she read the headline.

Hanna Heartless,
it said in bold letters, and beside it was a rather unflattering photo of her. Her pulse began to race and she felt her right hand trembling uncontrollably. She gripped her phone harder.
All she cares about is profit. The guests on her TV show have to sign a nondisclosure agreement before they’re allowed to speak. And whatever they say is scripted in advance by Hanna Herzmann, 46. Bricklayer Armin V., 52, wanted to speak during the show about his hassle with his landlord (the topic was “My Landlord Wants to Evict Me”), but with the cameras rolling, he was labeled a transient renter by the moderator. When he protested after the broadcast, he discovered another side of the supposedly sympathetic Hanna Herzmann, and of her lawyer. Now Armin V. is unemployed and homeless after his landlord finally succeeded in evicting him. Something similar happened to Bettina B., 34. The single mother was a guest on Hanna Herzmann’s program in January
(topic:
“When Fathers Hit the Road”
).
Contrary to preliminary arrangements, Bettina B. was portrayed as an overtaxed mother and alcoholic. For her, too, the broadcast had unpleasant consequences: She received a visit from Child Welfare.