by Val McDermid
On that thought, the door of the apartment block opened and Krasic’s jaw dropped. If he hadn’t seen Katerina’s dead body with his own eyes, he’d have sworn that was her emerging on to the street. OK, the hair was different and he thought this woman had a bit more muscle about her than Katerina had ever had, but from this distance, he couldn’t have told them apart. ‘Fuck,’ he said, outraged. That’d teach him to take Tadzio’s word for things.
He was so astounded by what he was seeing that he almost forgot what he was there for. She was already well past him before he gathered himself together and clambered out of the car. She was walking at a good clip, long legs in sensible flat pumps covering the ground confidently. Krasic had to shift to keep her in sight as she reached the corner of Olivaerplatz and turned right.
As he reached the corner, he realized she had stopped at a news kiosk. He mingled with the handful of people waiting for the lights to change while she bought an English newspaper. Then she carried on to the café further along the street. Optimistically, the patron had put out a handful of tables on the pavement, but it was still too early in the spring for most Berliners to fancy their chances outside. Like them, Caroline Jackson went inside.
Krasic hesitated. She might be meeting someone, she might be making phone calls. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself this early in the game, but he couldn’t let it go. He walked briskly past the café, registering that about half the tables were occupied. Enough of a crowd to hide in, probably. He stood moodily staring into a shop window for five minutes by his watch, then walked back to the café. He took a seat at the counter, where he could see the back of her head. He quite liked the idea of not having to see her face. It was too fucking spooky by half to look at somebody who resembled so closely someone you knew to be dead.
She was doing nothing more sinister than reading her newspaper and drinking black coffee. He ordered an espresso and a Jack Daniels and made them last. Thirty-five minutes later, she folded her paper into her bag, paid her bill and walked out. Krasic, who had already settled his tab, was close enough behind her to see which way she went. Heading for the Ku’damm, he thought miserably. Women and shops. What was it about them?
Two hours later, he was still on her tail. She’d been in and out of half a dozen clothes shops, thumbing through the designer racks. She’d bought a couple of classical CDs in a record store and spoken to no one except shop assistants. It had done his head in comprehensively. Not to mention making him feel as out of place as a cherry on a dungheap. He was going to have to get somebody else to keep an eye on her, that much was clear. Ideally, a woman. But failing that, one of those lads who were more interested in Armani than Armalites.
He trailed behind her as she turned into the street where she was staying and watched as she went back into the apartment block. Well, that had been a proper waste of a morning. She was due to meet Tadzio in an hour, so he reckoned nothing much was going to happen between now and then. Time enough to get someone else on the case. Krasic got back into the Opel and took out his phone. If there was anything dodgy about Caroline Jackson, he’d find out. But someone else could do the legwork from now on.
Petra Becker was rising in Tony’s estimation all the time. She’d rung him at 9.17 to tell him that a car was on its way to take him to Tempelhof for the short flight to Bremen, where he would be met by one of the detectives on the Schilling inquiry. ‘How the hell did you swing that?’ he said, still groggy from lack of sleep.
‘I lied,’ she said calmly. ‘I said you were a leading British Home Office profiler who just happened to be doing some work with Europol and that we would be very much obliged if they would extend every courtesy to you.’
‘You’re an amazing woman, Petra,’ he said.
‘It’s been said before, but not usually by men,’ she’d responded dryly.
‘Am I right in thinking that nobody in Bremen has made the connection with the earlier murder in Heidelberg yet?’
‘The Heidelberg boys were so eager to hand off their unsolved murder to us, they sold it to the local press as a seedy drug-related murder rather than a ritual killing, so it didn’t make headlines outside the region. I’d be very surprised if anyone in Bremen had even read a news report about the case.’
‘Doesn’t it feel weird, being the only cop in the country who’s made the connection?’ He couldn’t resist the chance to probe. He’d never been able to.
‘You want the honest truth?’
‘Of course.’
‘I get a buzz from it. Oh, I know I have to come back inside the rules with these cases, I can’t go on acting like somebody in a movie. For now, though, I’m enjoying it. But I don’t think we have time for this. You have a plane to catch.’
Tony smiled. It was an obvious evasion, but he didn’t mind. ‘Thanks for sorting it out.’
‘My pleasure. Have a good day. We’ll talk soon, yes?’
‘I should have something for you before too long, but don’t expect a miracle,’ he said, guarded.
She laughed. ‘I don’t believe in miracles.’
The detective who met him at Bremen was a stumpy blond in his early thirties with bad skin and excellent English who announced himself as, ‘Berndt Haefs, call me Berndt.’ He had the slightly blasé air of someone who is incapable of being shocked. Tony had seen it in cops before. What worried him was that it was generally neither a pose nor a defence mechanism, but rather indicative of a blunting of the sensibilities that destroyed any capacity for empathy.
Certainly Berndt showed no signs of caring much about the woman whose death he was supposed to be resolving, referring to her throughout their drive to Bremen as ‘Schilling’. Tony, perversely, made a point of always giving Margarethe her title of Doctor.
They approached the city via a wide bridge over the swollen Weser, which flowed past in a swift torrent the colour of beer slops. ‘The river’s very high,’ Tony said to fill the lull that had grown in the conversation once Berndt had run out of nuggets of largely irrelevant information about the murder.
‘It’s not as bad as the Rhine or the Oder,’ Berndt said. ‘I don’t think it’s going to flood.’
‘What about the barges? How do they cope?’
‘Well, they can’t cope, can they? Haven’t got the horsepower to deal with it when it’s flowing like that. If it gets any higher, the river will be closed till the water level subsides. That’s already happened on the Rhine. The boats are all tied up in basins and backwaters. The skippers will be tearing their hair out at the thought of the money they’re losing, and the crews are all getting drunk.’
‘Not much fun for the local cops, then.’
Berndt shrugged. ‘It keeps them off the street,’ he said with a high-pitched giggle at odds with his squat frame. ‘That’s the cathedral over there,’ he added with a degree of redundancy. It was impossible to miss the twin towers. ‘Schilling was in the city centre the afternoon of the day she died. She ate alone in a little bar off the main market square.’
‘Are we far from Dr Schilling’s house?’ Tony asked.
‘About ten minutes.’
‘Has her partner been able to remember anything about his attacker?’
‘The boyfriend? About as much use as a eunuch in a brothel. He didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything. All he knows is that there was a strange car on the drive. A VW Golf, either black or dark blue. I mean, he didn’t even notice if it was a local registration. Have you any idea how many black or dark blue Golfs there are in Bremen alone?’
‘Quite a few, I should imagine.’
Berndt snorted. ‘So many we can’t even think about pursuing that line of inquiry.’ He turned off the main road into a quiet tree-lined street. ‘This is the start of the suburb where she lived. Our man would have had to drive in this way, it’s the only logical way in and out.’
Tony looked out of the window, imagining the street in darkness. Houses set back behind small, neat lawns. Private lives going on behind clo
sed front doors. No reason why anyone should pay attention to the dark outline of a car making its way to a fateful destination. He wondered if the killer had scouted the area out ahead of his crime. Often they did, staking out their ground, stalking their victim, learning their lives, getting to know the gap that their deaths would leave. But he had a feeling that Geronimo wasn’t that kind of killer. His need was of a different order.
Tony pictured him nosing down the darkened streets, making sure he was taking the correct turns. It was a complicated route with lots of potential to end up at the blind end of a cul-de-sac. ‘I wonder if he lost his way? Annoyed somebody by turning round in their driveway?’
Bernd looked at him as if he was mad. ‘You think we should do a door-to-door to see if he pissed anybody off?’
‘Probably pointless,’ Tony agreed. ‘But you never know. People can be very possessive about their property, especially if strangers make a habit of using their drive as a turning circle.’
Berndt had the expression on his face that Tony had seen from cops before. It was the physical manifestation of the thought that went something like, Fucking shrinks, haven’t got a clue about police work. He resolved to keep his mouth shut and save his ideas for Petra and Carol.
The car turned into a small road of a dozen houses that dead-ended in a tarmac semi-circle. They pulled into the drive of a house identical to every other in the road, save for the police tapes across the front door. ‘This is it.’ Berndt got out of the car and headed for the house without waiting to see if Tony was behind him.
Tony stood by the car for a moment, looking at the other houses in the street. Anyone glancing out of any of a dozen windows could have seen him clearly. ‘You’re not afraid of being seen, are you, Geronimo? You don’t mind if somebody catches a glimpse of you. You think you’re so insignificant they won’t remember anything about you.’ Nodding in satisfaction, he followed Berndt, impatient in the doorway, foot tapping and arms folded.
They walked in, both automatically attempting to wipe their feet on a doormat that wasn’t there. ‘Forensic took it away. Like they’re going to find some rare mud that only exists in a particular quarry somewhere in the Ruhr,’ Berndt said sarcastically. ‘It happened through here.’ He led the way to the kitchen.
Under the film of fingerprint dust, it all looked surprisingly domesticated. Tony even remembered the table. They’d sat around it discussing the possibilities of writing a paper together, drinking endless cups of coffee and glasses of cheap red wine. The thought that it had become the stage for Margarethe’s death made him feel queasy. He prowled around the room, taking in its neat order. It didn’t look like the scene of a brutal murder. There was no visible sign of blood, nor were there any of the smells associated in his mind with violent death. It was impossible to imagine this mundane kitchen as the location for so deliberately violent an act.
‘Nothing much to see,’ Berndt said. ‘Most murders look like a slaughterhouse. But this? Clean up the print powder and you could do dinner for six.’
‘Any indication that he went anywhere else in the house?’
‘Nothing was disturbed, according to the boyfriend. So no, he didn’t go through her knicker drawer and wank on the bedspread, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
345
Tony could think of nothing polite to say in response. Instead, he went to the window and looked down the garden to the woods beyond.
‘Nothing there either,’ Berndt offered. ‘We checked to see if he’d been watching her from the woods, but there was no sign that anybody had been near the back fence.’
‘I don’t think he stalked her. Not physically, anyway. It was her mind that interested him, not her physical presence,’ Tony said, half to himself. He turned back and smiled at Berndt. ‘Thanks for bringing me out here. You’re right, there’s nothing much to see.’
‘Detective Becker said you wanted to look at the crime-scene photographs. Is that right?’
Tony nodded. ‘If that’s possible.’
‘They’re running an extra set off for you. We’ll have to go down to headquarters to collect them. And then, if there’s nothing else, I can drive you back to the airport. There’s a flight just after two, but if we don’t make that, there’s another one an hour later.’ No offer of lunch, Tony noted. Co-operation with Europol clearly only went so far.
‘That would be fine.’ He smiled. ‘I look forward to being back in Berlin in time for tea.’
Berndt looked at him as if he had just confirmed everything he thought about the eccentric English. Which was exactly what Tony had intended. If Berndt was going to remember anything about this visit, better that than anything else.
Petra bounced into the squad room on the balls of her feet. So far, the operation against Radecki was going to plan. And she had great expectations of what this morning would bring. Even the sight of The Shark staring gloomily into a computer screen wasn’t enough to dampen her good spirits.
‘What are you doing?’ she said, crossing to her desk. ‘I thought I told you to check out Krasic’s associates?’
He looked up, his narrow pinched face expressing indignation. ‘That’s what I’m doing,’ he said. ‘Somebody told me that Krasic has relatives around the city, and I’m trying to track them down through official records. With something like this, Krasic might trust family more than his fellow crims.’
It wasn’t a bad idea. Petra was both surprised and impressed. Maybe they were going to make a cop out of him yet. ‘Good thinking,’ she said. ‘Any joy?’
‘Not so far. I’m having to cross-check all sorts of stuff, it takes ages. How’s your operation going?’
‘Fine.’ She booted up her computer and headed straight for the Europol section of their database. This was where any bulletins from Den Haag ended up. To her satisfaction, there was a message with that morning’s dateline.
‘You want a coffee?’ The Shark asked.
‘Are you making fresh?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Then I’ll have one.’ She opened up the bulletin. There was some boring admin stuff at the beginning. She scrolled through it and halfway down the second page she found what she was looking for. REQUEST FOR INFORMATION FROM POLICE IN REGIO LEIDEN, HOLLAND, she read. ‘Yes,’ she hissed softly.
It was short and straightforward:
Detectives in Leiden, Holland, investigating a murder are concerned that the killer may be a possible serial offender. They have asked us to circulate member forces with details of the offence with a view to comparing any similar crimes in other jurisdictions. The victim was Pieter de Groot, a professor of psychology at the University of Leiden. His body was found in his home, bound and naked. He had been tied to the desk in his study, on his back. His clothes had been cut away from him. The cause of death was drowning. The method appears to have been by insertion of a funnel or tube into the mouth, into which water was poured. There was post-mortem mutilation, which took the form of the scalping of the victim’s pubic area. The genitals themselves were undamaged.
Member forces of Europol are requested to check their files of unsolved homicides to see if there are any similar offences outstanding in their jurisdictions. Information should be passed directly to Hoofdinspecteur Kees Maartens at Regio Leiden, with a copy to the Europol Intelligence Section.
Petra couldn’t help smiling in satisfaction. She was rereading the text when The Shark loomed up at her elbow. ‘What’s that, then?’ he asked, placing the mug by her left hand.
‘Europol bulletin,’ she said.
‘You’re the only person I know who bothers with that bumf.’
‘That’s why I’m the only one around here who’s going places, Shark.’
He leaned over her shoulder, reading the bulletin. ‘Wow. That sounds nasty. Typical of the Dutch, though. Too dumb to solve their own murders so they try to play pass the parcel with them.’
Petra scowled. ‘You couldn’t be more wrong. It’s extremely smart of the Dutc
h to read the message of this crime and understand that this has all the hallmarks of a potential serial offender. And very courageous of them to ask for help.’
‘You think?’
She tapped a key to print out the relevant page of the bulletin. ‘I don’t think, I know. And you know what’s most interesting about this murder, Shark?’
‘I’m about to find out, right?’ He moved to one side and perched on the edge of her desk.
‘You should know already. Because we’re all supposed to read the stuff that is referred to us by our regional colleagues here in Germany. Just like we’re all supposed to read whatever Europol sends us.’
He rolled his eyes back in his head and groaned. ‘Yeah, yeah. Look, I skim it, OK?’
‘Sure, we all do that sometimes. But there’s stuff in there that we should be paying attention to. Like a murder five weeks ago in Heidelberg? Ring any bells?’
He frowned. ‘Some small-time drug dealer, wasn’t it?’
‘That was their excuse for handing it on to us. But it was obvious that it wasn’t a drugs hit.’
‘That’d be why I didn’t pay much attention,’ The Shark interrupted defensively. ‘No interest to us.’
‘Murder should always interest a cop. I did read it, Shark. And that’s what makes me think that the man who killed in Leiden had done it before in Heidelberg. And he’s done it since in Bremen.’ She got busy with the mouse and pulled up the Leiden report, then sent a command to the printer to make a hard copy of the file. ‘Which is why I am going to earn myself some Brownie points by bringing it to the attention of the boss.’ She got to her feet, picking up her coffee, and walked across to the common printer. She gathered together the sheets of paper and waved cheerfully to The Shark. ‘Don’t let me keep you from Krasic,’ she offered as a parting shot.
