by Val McDermid
‘Tadeusz has shown me how your operation works. I’m impressed with how well organized the system is.’ She gave Krasic an encouraging smile. ‘I only work with people once I’m satisfied they can deliver what they promise, and I’ve seen enough now to know that’s true of you guys.’
‘We also work only with trust,’ Krasic said. ‘Do we trust you?’
‘Come on, Darko, stop being such a hard-nosed bastard. We’ve checked Caroline’s credentials, we know she’s one of us. Now, how soon can we deliver her first load?’
Krasic shrugged. ‘Three week?’
‘It’s going to take that long?’ Carol asked. ‘I thought you had a pretty streamlined operation going.’
‘Things are difficult after Osborne has died,’ Krasic said.
‘What about the ones we’re warehousing in Rotterdam?’ Tadeusz butted in. ‘Can’t we move some of them into England sooner than that?’
Krasic frowned. ‘I suppose so. You are in hurry?’
‘I’ll take delivery whenever you can arrange it. But if you’ve been warehousing the goods, I want to check them for myself before they leave. I don’t want a container-load of corpses on my hands.’
Krasic darted a look at his boss. Tadeusz spread his hands. ‘Of course, Caroline. Darko, why don’t you set up a trip for the beginning of next week. Caroline and I will meet you in Rotterdam at the weekend before you load, and she can check it out for herself.’
Krasic stared at Tadeusz in disbelief, then spoke in German. Carol wished she knew the language better. Her verbal memory only worked in English; there was no way she could reproduce conversation in a foreign language. Tadeusz replied in a tone of rebuke, then returned to English. ‘I apologize, we shouldn’t exclude you from our discussion, but Darko’s English isn’t as good as mine. He’s simply being over-protective. He’s always anxious when I step out of my administrative role and get involved in the action. But sometimes I like to see things for myself. So, are you able to come to Rotterdam at the weekend to inspect your goods?’
She nodded. ‘I’d like that. And that gives me enough time to have things in place at my end. I need to make sure my people have everything ready.’
‘How many can you take?’ Tadeusz asked.
‘Thirty, to begin with,’ she said. It was a figure she’d agreed with Morgan. Not too many for safe passage in a container, not so few that it wouldn’t be worth Tadeusz’s while. ‘Then, after that, twenty a month.’
‘That’s not so many,’ Krasic objected. ‘We can supply many more.’
‘Maybe so, but that’s all I need. If this goes as well as I expect, it’s entirely possible that I will expand my operation. A lot depends on my source for the paperwork. I’m getting top-class documentation, and I don’t want to risk that by taking the pitcher to the well too often. So, for now, it’s twenty bodies a month. Take it or leave it, Mr Krasic’ Carol had no difficulty in sounding tough. She’d spent enough hours in interview rooms with hard cases to have honed her skills in that area. She accompanied her words with a level gaze and unsmiling expression.
‘Those numbers will be fine,’ Tadeusz said. Thirty in the first shipment followed by twenty a month. Yes, we could use an outlet for more than that, but frankly I’d rather ship twenty knowing it wasn’t going to backfire than send sixty with no certainties. ‘Now all we have to settle is the financial arrangements.’
Carol smiled. She’d done it. And in record time. She wished she could see Morgan’s face when he got her next e-mail. Everything was in place. This weekend in Rotterdam they would finally nab Tadeusz Radecki and bring his empire crashing down around his ears. ‘Yes,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Let’s talk money.’
Tony had encountered plenty of clinical psychologists – and cops too – who had built walls between themselves and the distressing experiences their work exposed them to. He couldn’t find it in his heart to blame them for imposing that distance. No sane person would seek out the sights they had to see, the verbal torrents of pain and anger they had to hear, the fractured remnants of human beings they had to deal with. However he had promised himself at the start of his clinical career that he would never shy away from empathy, whatever the cost. If the price became too high, he could always do something else for a living. But to lose the capacity to comprehend the pain of others, perpetrators as well as victims, was a kind of dishonesty, he believed.
The sheaf of papers he had brought back from Schloss Hochenstein stretched that credo almost to breaking point. The dispassionate lists of names, diagnoses and so-called treatments conjured up such a vision of hell that he found himself wishing he could assimilate the material with calm scientific objectivity. Instead, he felt harrowed to his very core. Simply being in possession of this information was enough to steal sleep from his nights for a long time to come, he knew only too well.
Dr Wertheimer had been right about the obsessive record keeping of the Nazi medical establishment. There were hundreds of names, spread out across the whole country. Every child had its accompanying set of vital statistics – name, age, address, names and occupations of parents. The reason for their hospitalization came next. Most common was ‘mental retardation’, closely followed by ‘physical handicap’. But some of the explanations for removing children from their families were profoundly chilling. ‘Congenital laziness.’ ‘Anti-social behaviour.’ ‘Racially contaminated.’
What must it have been like for the parents of such children, having to stand by while their offspring were dragged from them, knowing that to protest would be to bring retribution crashing down on their own heads without any prospect of saving their child? They must, he thought, have entered a state of denial that would have destroyed them emotionally and psychologically. No wonder post-war generations of Germans didn’t want to be confronted with what had been done to their own children with their apparent consent.
At least the profoundly handicapped among the children would have been spared any real understanding of what was happening to them. But for the others, watching as their fellow inmates perished around them, daily life must have shrunk to the pinprick of relief when another day dawned and their eyes were open to see it.
The fate of many of the children was listed very simply. ‘Treated with injections of experimental drugs. Failed to respond.’ Followed by the date and time of death. It was code for euthanasia, that much was obvious. This was a rare example of a point where the arrogance of the regime had faltered. Even though they were convinced they would never be called to account for what had been done to these children in the name of Aryan purity, they’d felt the need for euphemism here.
That didn’t mean there was much residual respect for the innocence of their victims, however. The destiny of other children was catalogued in brief terms that left Tony feeling ashamed to belong to the medical profession. Some had died in agony after being injected in the eyes in a series of experiments relating to eye colour. Others had been subjected to research into sleep cycles that had driven them mad. The list went on, sometimes with references to scientific papers where the results could be seen.
And no one had been punished for this. Worse, there were cases where a tacit deal had been done between the Allies and the defeated Nazis. Research conclusions would become the property of the victors in return for the silence of the perpetrators.
If Geronimo had paid some terrible personal price for what had been done in the name of science sixty years before, it didn’t surprise Tony that he would be consumed by rage and bitterness. All those victims, and not a single person called to account. He was a rational man, and it enraged him. How much worse would it feel to be a second or third generation victim of such viciousness?
Geronimo was going for the wrong targets, it was true. He might deplore its end result, but Tony couldn’t find it in his heart to condemn unequivocally the desire for vengeance that fuelled him.
…P: you’re right, the case notes are very chilling. are there any forensic traces on the file?
M: Too early to say. It’s with the document examiner now. And I had an idea myself this afternoon. So many of our major traffic intersections are covered by CCTV now, I’ve asked for all the tapes from the day of de Groot’s murder and I’m going to get my team to go through them all to see if they can spot a dark-coloured VW Golf with German plates.
P: great idea.
M: Maybe. It will really only be any use if we can cross-match it with one of the other lists. It’s going to take ages to get anything comprehensive about the boats.
P: tony’s been pursuing the idea of victims of psychological torture. today he picked up lists of child victims of the nazis. he’s spending this evening scanning in all the names on to a master list, so he’ll be able to let you have that as well. another possible list for cross-matching of names.
M: It’s hard to feel that we’re moving forward, all the same.
P: the stories in the papers this morning haven’t helped either.
M: At least they don’t seem to have picked up on the connection to our case, so we’re being left in peace. Has it provoked more co-operation among the German forces?
P: i don’t really know. i’m too far out of the loop. you’ll probably hear before i will. but the tv news this evening ran a piece about university lecturers living in fear of a serial killer. i’m afraid he’s going to go to ground.
M: Either that or take more risks. If he can’t rely on his usual method of setting up his victims, he’ll find some other way. It’s all very depressing. Cheer me up. How are things with your other undercover operation?
P: it looks like we’ve located marlene krebs’ daughter. what we’re going to do is simultaneously raid the place where the daughter is being kept AND put marlene in protective custody out of radecki’s reach. once we have him behind bars, we’ll get everything else we need. clever, no?
M: As long as you don’t compromise Jordan in the process.
P: trust me, it’s all sorted. or it will be, anyway. i’m thinking we can organize it all for the same time. the sting goes off with jordan and we do our stuff, so nobody compromises anybody else.
M: Congratulations! I know how hard you’ve worked for this!
P: i think we need to celebrate in person, marijke. will you come to berlin?
M: I’d love to. But right now I’m too wrapped up in this case. Why don’t you take some days’ leave after you take Radecki down and come to Leiden?
P: i don’t know, it’ll be crazy here after we nail him. let’s just leave it that we’ll crack open the champagne in one city or other once we’ve both got our cases out of the way.
M: OK. But I want you to know that I feel confident about meeting face to face at last.
P: me too. scared, but confident too.
M: I need to go now, I’m actually still at work and there is more stuff I need to do.
P: ok. the harder you work, the sooner the case will be solved and we can plan getting together.
M: You think so?
P: i know it.
32
Under different circumstances, Carol would have found it hard to fault the evening. An attentive, handsome host, gourmet food, an array of remarkable wines, and surroundings that would have been the envy of the production editor of any interior design magazine. Not to mention conversation that had ranged across politics, music and foreign travel before taking roost in the more intimate territory of past relationships.
But these were not consolations enough to overcome Carol’s underlying feeling of unease. She could never afford to let her guard slip for a moment, never forget that she was wearing another woman’s past instead of her own, never react to any comment of Tadeusz’s without weighing and measuring her response. She was so close now, and a single slip could undo everything.
And at the back of her mind was the constant disturbance created by the resurfacing of Tony in her life. It made this elegantly controlled flirtation with Tadeusz feel doubly duplicitous. Knowing she would end the evening with Tony and not the man who was trying so hard to woo her gave everything strange undertones and layered meanings.
Now, he returned from another trip to the kitchen with a laden tray. He stood in the doorway of the dining room and smiled at her. ‘I thought we could take our coffee in the living room. It’s more comfortable, and the view is prettier.’
Good pitch, she thought. What he meant, of course, was that it would be easier to pounce there than across a table littered with the detritus of a five-course dinner. ‘That sounds nice,’ she said, rising and following him.
Carol checked out the room as she entered. Two sofas in an obvious conversational grouping and an armchair set off to one side. Taking the armchair would be a statement that put distance between them, and while she didn’t want to offer too much encouragement, she was still a long way from home and dry with this sting. Until they had Radecki and Krasic in the bag, she needed to keep him feeling close to her.
Tadeusz had placed the tray on a low sculpted steel and glass table that sat in the angle between the two sofas. He glanced up at her, his eyes lingering over the close-fitting lines of the cocktail dress. ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ he said, bending over to pour the coffee into paper-thin bone china cups.
Carol sat down on the sofa nearest the coffee, crossing her legs in the hope that it would send out the right signals, but failing to realize how it emphasized the smooth curve of her calf and the neatness of her ankle. Tadeusz leaned across the table, one hand on the top to balance himself as he handed over her coffee. ‘Brandy?’ he asked. ‘It can’t be too early now.’
With a slight nod and smile, she acknowledged his reference to their earlier meeting, the first time he’d hinted at business all evening. ‘I’d prefer Grand Marnier, if you have it.’
‘Your wish is my command.’ He crossed to the drinks tray and returned with a balloon of brandy for himself and a liberal Grand Marnier for her. As she’d feared, he took the chance to sit next to her. She was effectively trapped between him and the arm of the sofa. They’re so predictable, she thought wearily.
She hung on to her coffee cup. Nobody would be crazy enough to lunge at a woman clutching hot coffee. ‘That was a beautiful meal,’ she said. ‘I feel completely spoiled. Thank you for going to so much trouble.’
He put his drink down, leaving himself unencumbered. ‘It really was no trouble. A phone call, then the simple adherence to instructions. Turn on the oven at such a temperature. Insert dish A. Wait ten minutes. Insert dish B. That sort of thing.’
Carol shook her head. ‘I’d have been just as happy with a takeaway pizza, you know.’
‘That dress deserves much more than a takeaway pizza.’ His hand strayed to her thigh, his fingertips brushing the delicate linen and silk mixture.
Oh shit, here we go, she thought. ‘Both the dress and its owner are honoured,’ she said.
He shifted so he was facing her. Gently, he took the cup from her hands and placed it on the table. ‘The least I could do for the woman who has reminded me that it’s possible to laugh.’ He leaned forward and kissed her.
Carol tried to find the appropriate response. She could taste brandy on his breath and it revolted her. But she dared not show that. Equally, she dared not allow herself the luxury of relaxing into an embrace that she found hard to resist. Her body’s response to him was automatic, animal. In spite of herself, she found him attractive, and her hormones were responding independently of her brain. She was kissing him with as much heat as he was kissing her.
His hands were on her body now, pulling her closer. She didn’t resist, running her fingers over the long muscles of his back. Still they were kissing, tongues flickering in and out of each other’s mouths, breath coming harder and faster. Now he was moving on top of her, his hand moving under her dress, a burn against her skin. She didn’t want him to stop, she realized with a shock.
Her reason staged a rearguard action against her body’s desire. Images flashed across her brain. The corps
es spilling out of a shipping container. Morgan’s mouth telling her Radecki’s human trafficking had to be stopped. The assassinated man on the steps of the GeSa. Then Tony’s face, the eyes reproachful, the mouth rueful. Suddenly, Carol Jordan was back in control of Caroline Jackson. She pulled away from Tadeusz’s eager mouth. ‘No, wait,’ she gasped.
He froze, his hand halfway up her thigh. ‘What’s wrong?’ he panted.
She closed her eyes. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I just can’t.’
He leaned into her more closely, his fingers pressing more firmly into her flesh. ‘You want to, I know you do.’
Carol squirmed as far as she could get from him, thrusting his hand away from her leg. ‘I did. I mean, I do. It’s just … I’m sorry, Tadzio, it’s all too fast. Too sudden.’
He smacked the palms of his hands hard on his thighs. ‘I don’t understand. You kissed me like you wanted me.’ His voice was raised, his eyebrows lowering over narrowed eyes.
‘It’s not that I don’t. Please don’t think that. But … this is very strange for me. I’ve never had a relationship with someone I’m doing business with. I’m not sure if I can handle it. I need time to figure this out.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ He jumped to his feet and took a cigar from the humidor. He fussed over lighting it, as if making an opportunity to collect himself. ‘I’ve never wanted to do this with anyone I was doing business with,’ he said, his words far more reasonable than his tone. ‘But I don’t see why it should interfere with our professional relationship. It could make it stronger. Working as a team. We’d be great, Caroline.’
