Make Them Pay (13 page)

Milner shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine, Mr Brock,’ he said.

‘Any idea why your phone number was in his address book?’

‘That was one of those funny things that sometimes happens.’ Milner stopped to offer us cigarettes and light one for himself. ‘After he packed in the army, I got a Christmas card from him out of the blue and we exchanged them from then on. It became a sort of ritual. Every now and then he’d ring me up and ask how I was getting on and how the lads in the battalion were. Not that I could tell him; I hadn’t seen him in years and I’d been out of the army for a long time by then. But I got the impression that his mind was going a bit, so I humoured him by telling him that everything in the garden was lovely. But he did come down here to Aldershot – to Browning barracks – for a reunion in about, what, nineteen ninety, I suppose, but I never actually met him again after that. We kept meaning to make a meet, but somehow it never came off.’

‘Thanks for your time, Mr Milner,’ I said, as Dave and I stood up. I gave him one of my cards. ‘If you think of anything else, perhaps you’d give me a bell.’

‘Yes, I will. If you hear when the funeral is, I’d be grateful if you’d let me know. I’d like to see the old boy off.’

‘Yes, of course, and thank Mrs Milner for the tea.’

The next two old soldiers we visited in the Aldershot area had each been in the Parachute Regiment, but neither of them was able to tell us as much as James Milner had done. And neither of them appeared capable of killing anyone. Not now. That left the one in Bordon.

It was about thirteen miles from Aldershot to Bordon and Dave covered it in a terrifying twenty minutes.

The woman who answered the door must’ve been at least seventy, and was grey-haired and stooped.

‘Yes, what is it?’

‘Would you be Mrs Crabtree, by any chance?’

‘Yes. What d’you want?’ Mrs Crabtree peered closely at us, as though she was short-sighted but too vain to wear glasses. Or had forgotten where she’d put them.

‘We’re police officers, madam,’ I said. ‘Is Mr Crabtree at home?’

Mrs Crabtree gave a humourless cackle, revealing that she’d lost a few of her teeth. ‘You’ve missed him.’

‘Oh, is he likely to be back shortly?’

‘Shouldn’t think so,’ said the woman. ‘I buried him five years back. Is there anything I can help you with?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I was wondering if he’d known a sergeant major called William Rivers. He was in the Parachute Regiment and later in the SAS.’

‘My Sid was a Para, but he never mentioned anyone by that name. He never talked much about his time in the army. He only did his National Service and couldn’t wait to get out, so he said. He hated the army.’

‘I see. Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you, Mrs Crabtree.’

‘That’s all right, dear. I hope you find that Mr Rivers what you’re looking for.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘I wonder why Crabtree was in Billy Rivers’s address book,’ said Dave, as we drove away.

‘Anybody’s guess,’ I said, ‘but Milner did say he thought that Rivers’s mind was wandering. One thing’s certain though: Crabtree couldn’t’ve topped our three victims.’

‘What about Milner, guv?’ asked Dave. ‘Or the other two. D’you think they could’ve had anything to do with the murders.’

‘No chance, Dave. Milner’s an ex-copper, and although a murdering policeman wouldn’t be a first, I very much doubt it. And like the other two, he’s too old to go about topping people.’

‘Perhaps so,’ said Dave reluctantly.

We drove on for a while and then I said, ‘I think we’ll let the SAS know about Rivers’s death, Dave, and then we’ll go the funeral. It’s just possible, if my theory is correct, that a closer friend of his than we’ve discovered already might turn up.’

‘Are you thinking that one of those friends might be our killer, guv?’

‘Funnier things have happened, Dave,’ I said.

‘Yeah, and right now we need something to happen.’ Dave swung on to the A31, put his foot down and overtook a Polish articulated lorry.

Horst Fischer called back early on Friday morning.

‘We have searched the apartment at Glockestrasse in Kettwig, Harry, the address you found for Trudi Schmidt on the bank statements that were in Adekunle’s safe.’

‘Anything of interest, Horst?’ I asked.

‘Nothing to connect her with the fraud, Harry.’ Fischer chuckled. ‘But we did find three or four DVDs featuring Trudi doing naughty things. It would appear that she’d been a pornographic actress at some time, and from what I could see, she was quite good at it.’

‘D’you think that she was an innocent party in this fraud?’

‘I don’t think so, Harry. I spoke to the manager of the bank that issued the statements, and he told me that she had opened the account a year ago. Of course, she produced her passport and other identifying documents in accordance with the law, but she never visited the bank after that. All transactions were carried out electronically.’

‘It looks as though she opened the account on Eberhardt’s instructions, and that he or Adekunle handled it thereafter.’

‘That was my thinking. She must have known why the account was being opened and why she wasn’t to have anything to do with it,’ said Fischer. ‘I spoke to the official who deals with the opening of new accounts and he told me that Trudi Schmidt was accompanied by a man at the time, but this official didn’t know who he was. He couldn’t describe him either. I also learned from the bank that every month they sent an email to Adekunle in the UK informing him that account-holder Schmidt’s latest statement was available online.’

‘Didn’t the bank query why those emails should be going to the United Kingdom?’

‘I asked the manager about that. He told me that it wasn’t the business of the bank to query a client’s instructions and that the account holder could have the emails sent wherever she wanted. I also raised a query with our Vice Squad about the DVDs that Schmidt appeared in.’

‘I presume they weren’t able to add anything useful.’

‘Nothing at all really, apart from a few comments about her performance,’ said Fischer, with a guttural laugh. ‘They told me that the company was quite legitimate. They also checked with the tax authorities and that the company that made the DVDs paid its taxes, which is all that seemed to worry the tax people.’

And that, I thought, showed how similar Britain and Germany were when it came to fiscal matters. And pornography.

I told Horst Fischer that Detective Sergeant Flynn was working on the bank statements and that I’d let him know the results as soon as possible.

‘I doubt they’ll tell us much, Harry,’ said Fischer. ‘The money will be out of reach now anyway.’

We were now getting desperate in our search for the killer, and I wondered if there was anything in either Hans Eberhardt’s house or Trudi Schmidt’s apartment in Germany that would shed some light on our murders. I decided that only a personal look at those residences would satisfy me.

Horst Fischer had proved that he was undoubtedly a capable detective, but he was concentrating his interest on the investigation of the frauds insofar as they affected Germany, rather than searching for something that would point to a killer in England. It might be that some item of evidence that had meant nothing to him might mean something to me.

Taking a metaphorical deep breath, I tapped on the commander’s door.

‘Yes, Mr Brock?’ The commander peered at me over his half-moon spectacles and closed the file on his desk with, it seemed, a degree of reluctance.

‘I have come to the conclusion that it will be necessary for Sergeant Poole and me to go to Germany, sir.’

‘Whatever for?’ The commander’s face assumed a suitably appalled expression, and he took off his glasses.

I explained about the complexity of the murders that, I suggested, had been made even more complicated by the death of Samson Adekunle, and wrapped up my submission with as much CID gobbledegook as I could muster. I trotted out the usual phrases like motive, means and opportunity and threw in a bit about scenes of crime and scientific evidence. I was pleased to see that the boss didn’t understand a word of it, even when I mentioned the pornography.

Nevertheless, he pretended that he’d followed what I was talking about, and appeared to consider my request for some moments before coming to a decision. Of sorts.

‘I think it’s a matter that the deputy assistant commissioner will have to decide upon, Mr Brock,’ he said eventually. ‘Leave it with me and I’ll let you know.’ Oh well, no change there.

Ten minutes later I was summoned to return to the presence. Why the hell won’t he use the phone other than to send for me? It was too much to hope that he’d descend from his paper mountain and actually come into my office.

‘The DAC has agreed that it is necessary for you and Sergeant Poole to go to Germany, Mr Brock.’

I got the distinct impression that the commander was quite put out that the DAC had given the necessary authorization. The boss is well known for his parsimony, a miserliness that extends as far as the Commissioner’s money. Even trying to extract a small amount of cash each week for his coffee was a monumental task. It’s just as well he’s unaware that our coffee machine is illegal in the eyes of the Receiver, an official who regards the unauthorized abstraction of Metropolitan Police electricity as one of the most serious offences in the criminal calendar.

I returned to my office and telephoned Horst Fischer in Essen.

‘Horst, Sergeant Poole and I are coming to Essen.’

‘Excellent,’ said Horst. ‘When can I expect you?’

‘I’m afraid it’ll have to be tomorrow,’ I said.

‘What’s wrong with tomorrow, Harry?’

‘Well, it is a Saturday.’

‘I work on a Saturday,’ said Horst. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Most of the time, Horst, yes. And even on a Sunday sometimes.’

My ex-wife Helga’s uncle had been a superintendent in the Cologne police, but he had a cushy office job that required him to work only on weekdays, nine-to-five, with Saturdays and Sundays off. Consequently, Helga’s parents didn’t believe that I frequently had to work over the weekends and thought that I was seeing another woman. At least, Helga’s mother did.

‘
Ja
, me too. I suppose you’ll be arriving at Düsseldorf Airport.’

‘Yes, that’s so. I’ll send you an email with my ETA.’

‘Good, I’ll be there to meet you.’

Walking out to the incident room, I asked Colin Wilberforce to get in touch with the department that arranged travel and to book flights for Dave and me for the following day.

A
fter an early start, much too early for my liking, our flight touched down at Düsseldorf Airport at just before ten, local time.

As the door of the aircraft opened, we were confronted by a German police officer in uniform.

‘
Herr
Brock?’ he enquired. He had a grave expression on his face and his hand rested lightly on his pistol holster.

‘Yes, that’s me. I’m Brock.’

‘You are to come with me,
mein Herr. Herr
Fischer is waiting for you. Please to make no trouble so that I don’t have to use the handcuffs.’

It was a statement that caused the previously self-assured, pretty young flight attendant to lose some of her cool. She raised her eyebrows and forgot to say that she was looking forward to seeing us again. In the circumstances, she probably assumed that she
wouldn’t
be seeing us again.

Horst Fischer, a rotund, jolly man with huge moustaches, was waiting at the end of the jetway. His hands were on his ample stomach and he was laughing uproariously. He looked rather like an out-of-control Father Christmas.

‘I hope you didn’t mind my little joke, Harry,’ he said, still chuckling as he shook hands.

By this time I was laughing too. ‘This is Dave Poole, my sergeant,’ I said, pleased to discover that there were some German policemen who shared our sense of humour. But over the years I’ve found that most coppers do have a rather bizarre sense of the ridiculous.

Fischer shook hands. ‘Welcome to Germany, Dave,’ he said. It seemed that he spoke a little English, but I was sure that I’d finish up interpreting most of what he said for Dave’s benefit. And so it proved as the day wore on.

‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ said Dave.

‘You must call me Horst, Dave.’ Fischer waggled a finger of admonition. ‘And now I have a car waiting.’ With a few terse words he brushed aside the low-key immigration and customs controls that existed at the airport, hurried us through to the concourse and out to a waiting police car. Telling the driver to turn on the blue lights and the two-tone horn, he glanced over his shoulder. ‘I’m in a hurry for my first beer of the day, Harry,’ he said, by way of explanation.

We covered the twenty-three miles to Essen in considerably less than twenty-three minutes.

Our first stop was at Horst’s favourite
Gasthof
in the centre of Essen where he was greeted like an old friend and valued customer. Both of which I’m sure he was.

‘Hello, Horst.’ A bosomy young waitress appeared at our table. She was attired in a sort of Bavarian costume; but the skirt was much too short to be authentic and I doubted that high heels were a part of the traditional outfit. ‘I see you have brought some friends with you today.’

‘These gentlemen are from the famous Scotland Yard,
liebchen
.’ Horst turned to me. ‘This is Nadine, the sexiest waitress in all of Nordrhein-Westfalen. Three beers, Nadine, there’s a good girl.’ As she turned away he gave her a playful slap on her bottom.

‘Coming right up,’ the girl replied, and paused to glance at me. ‘Are you English policemen the same as Horst?’ she asked, with a giggle.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We’re all quite terrible people, especially him,’ I added, pointing at Dave.

My comment produced another giggle and Nadine hurried away to fulfil the order.

Once three huge steins of
Bräu Hell
beer were in front of us, we got down to business.

‘I thought we would go first to my office, Harry, where you can see exactly the evidence we have accumulated. Then I think it will be time for lunch, and in the afternoon you would like to have a look at the house of Eberhardt and the apartment of Schmidt,
ja
?’ Horst laughed. ‘And then dinner somewhere and a few beers, eh?’ He seemed to regard our visit as a bit of a jolly.