by James Craig
‘Oh God.’ Large salty tears rolled down his cheeks, splashing into the dust.
‘Shut up, Bodo,’ Fei shouted.
‘Carolina,’ the condemned man whimpered as his ex-employer inspected the nasty bruises evident on Grozer’s face. The accountant didn’t smell too good and there were some nasty-looking stains on his trousers. His shirt had been torn and he had lost his shoes. He looked worse than pathetic. But he was lucky, really. He was getting off easy.
‘Sssh,’ Barbolini put a finger to her lips. ‘Be quiet now. Don’t say anything, Bodo. It’s too late for talking.’ Sickened by the sight in front of her, she was seriously tempted to cut the guy down just to watch him take another beating. But time was against her. There was other business to attend to. ‘You know why I’m here, don’t you?’
The accountant nodded through his tears and sniffed.
‘This is a very serious matter,’ Barbolini continued, ‘very serious indeed.’ She turned away from her victim, staring at her patent leather shoes as if lost in thought. ‘Which is why,’ she said quietly, ‘I’m going to kill you myself.’
‘No.’
‘Yes, Bodo. I want my face to be the last thing you see before you start on your journey to hell.’
‘Oh Jesus,’ Grozer wailed, ‘please.’ He started pissing himself again.
‘Bodo.’ Barbolini grimaced as she stared at the broken man, ‘I thought I told you to stop.’
‘Pleeeassse.’
‘I will not tolerate people stealing from the family.’ Barbolini growled, as much for the benefit of the others as for the victim himself. She was trying to stay calm, fighting the temptation to take Fei’s pistol and shoot the little thief’s balls off before she kicked the chair away. ‘We are trying to do a job here. That money was for investment.’ She took a half-step to her left to avoid the pool of urine spreading slowly across the floor. ‘Where is it?’ Grozer’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish; no sounds came out. ‘This is your last chance to avoid a slow, painful death. I suggest that you take it.’
Still nothing.
Barbolini stamped her foot on the concrete. ‘You are a stupid, greedy little man, Bodo. We make you rich, yet you have to steal from us. What was the point of that? Did you really think you could get away with it?’
Once again, the man opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Bodo had gone into shock, his brain had frozen. That was a shame, Barbolini reckoned, seeing as it would take the edge off the pain he was about to feel. But there was nothing that could be done about it at this late stage. ‘You don’t even know where the damn money is, do you?’
All that Grozer could manage by way of reply was more goldfishing.
Hovering on the sidelines, Kooy spoke up. ‘If he knew anything, I would have got it out of him by now, for sure.’
Barbolini gave him a look that said Don’t speak until you are spoken to before glancing down at the pool of urine, which was still expanding. The smell was pungent and disgusting.
‘Christ.’ Fei exclaimed, ‘How much piss does he have in him?’ Then a new smell reached his nostrils. ‘Oh fuck,’ he giggled, ‘he’s shat himself too.’
Barbolini wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘I’m afraid that you’re embarrassing us, Bodo. You should be able to control it, even now.’ Ignoring Grozer’s continued whimpering, she gestured to Fei. ‘You know, Dante, I seem to remember from my studies that the anal canal is a masterpiece of intelligent design. It’s surrounded by two bands of muscle, an internal and an external sphincter, both in a continual state of contraction. They push inwards to keep the anus tightly closed. It’s just another example of how our bodies are amazing.’ She looked back at Grozer. ‘Of course, as with so many things, the quality of that design only becomes truly apparent when something goes wrong with the machine.’
‘Well,’ said Fei, ‘something has most certainly gone wrong here.’
‘What do you think we should do?’ Barbolini asked.
‘Let’s just finish things off.’
‘My sentiments exactly. Goodbye, Bodo.’ Barbolini stepped forward and gingerly kicked the chair away, trying to avoid stepping in the puddle of piss. With little more than a gurgle, the doomed Grozer began thrashing about in mid-air, his eyes bulging as if about to pop out of their sockets. Her job done, Barbolini turned and headed briskly for stairs, without waiting to see the man die.
Outside, she took a deep breath and put her sunglasses back on. After a moment, she became conscious of the migraine building at the base of her spine. Instinctively, she knew it was going to be a bad one, regardless of how many pills she chewed. Resigning herself to the pain, her mind returned to the root cause of the current anxiety. The money; we’re as far away from recovering it as ever.
7
Sarah Rahn appeared in the doorway and gave him a tired smile. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ T-shirt. Even from this distance, he could see that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her feet were bare and her toenails had been painted an arresting shade of cobalt blue. Pushing a stray strand of blonde hair behind her ear, she leant against the frame of the door.
‘Would you like something to eat, Max?’
Sitting at the kitchen table, playing with a half-empty packet of HB, the Kriminalinspektor shook his head. At the moment, food was the last thing on his mind.
‘Nah, I’m fine.’
Sarah’s smile took him back to the first time that he had ever seen her, sliding up and down a pole in the Green and Red Club, not far from the small apartment on Luckauerstrasse where he was sitting right now. Max and Michael had been looking for a low-life drug dealer called Hector Brunning. They had been trying unsuccessfully to extract some information from a surly bartender, when Sarah Gal took to the stage to begin her act. Five minutes later, completely naked, she blew a kiss to the two policemen who had by now installed themselves at a table by the front of the stage, all thoughts of Brunning completely forgotten, before proceeding to do things with a beer bottle that hadn’t been seen in Berlin since the glory days of the Weimar Republic.
For Michael Rahn, it had been love at first sight.
Max had been quite impressed too.
Sarah and Michael had married in the Gedächtniskirche little more than a year later. A decade on, and two kids later, Sarah still looked fantastic. In the gloom, Max liked to imagine a resemblance to Stevie Nicks, all sweet curves and sad eyes. Right on cue, ‘Say You Love Me’ started playing in his head. Music was hardly a great passion of the Kriminalinspektor’s, but even he had to admit that Fleetwood Mac was a great band.
‘Are you sure?’ Sarah asked. ‘It’s not a problem. I can throw a couple of pizzas in the oven or something.’
Max held up a hand. ‘No, thank you. I’m good.
‘Okay.’
‘A beer would be great, though.’
‘Sure.’ Sarah gestured towards the small back garden. ‘Why don’t you go out onto the patio and have a smoke.’ Stepping over to the fridge she pulled out a bottle of Beck’s bier and handed it to him. ‘There you go.’
For a moment, Max was transported back to the Green and Red Club all those years ago. He smiled widely.
Sarah studied at him quizzically. ‘What are you grinning at Max?’
‘Uh?’ The Kriminalinspektor felt himself blush ever so slightly. ‘Nothing.’
Frowning, Sarah pointed at a drawer next to the sink. ‘There’s a bottle opener in there.’
‘Thanks.’ He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and fumbled for the lighter. ‘I’ll be outside.’
Sitting in one of the white plastic chairs that were arranged around a white plastic table that stood under the kitchen window, it was simply impossible to get comfortable. Max spent a couple of minutes shifting uncomfortably in his seat before Michael finally appeared. The sergeant had a bottle of Beck’s in each hand and he placed each one carefully on the table before pulling up a chair of his own and sitting down. ‘I thought you might need another.�
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‘Thanks.’ Max sucked down on his cigarette before draining the last of the beer that Sarah had given him. Letting out a small burp, he placed the empty bottle on the table and took the fresh one from his colleague.
‘These chairs are terrible.’
‘I know. Sarah got them from Woolworths.’
‘Ah,’ Max nodded, as if that explained it. He dropped the stub of his cigarette into the empty beer bottle and reached for a fresh one from the packet on the table. ‘How are the kids? Gone to bed?’
‘Yeah,’ Michael smiled, ‘the little devils are becoming more and more of a handful with every passing day.’ Glancing up at the window, he lowered his voice. ‘I’d never say this to Sarah, but I wish we’d had at least one girl. I miss not having a daughter.’
Sticking the unlit HB between his lips, Max thought of the couple of occasions when he had made a half-hearted attempt to play with Michael and Sarah’s boys, Paul, aged eight, and Dieter, six. Their non-stop energy had tired him out after less than five minutes. ‘It’s a case of swings and roundabouts,’ he remarked. ‘Boys might be harder work right now, but when they get to being teenagers and start getting drunk and staying out all night, they’ll be a lot less hassle.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘Of course, I’m right,’ Max chuckled, reaching for his lighter. ‘You can sit back and let them sow their wild oats. And, God knows, this is the place to do it. I certainly did.’
‘Hm.’ Michael looked at him doubtfully.
‘Isn’t that what you did?’
Michael thought about it for a moment. ‘Not really.’
‘Ha.’ Max teased. ‘Serves you right for growing up in the sticks.’
‘It’s not my fault,’ Michael protested, ‘I didn’t ask to be born in Aachen.’
‘Anyway, at least the boys won’t have that disadvantage. They’re Berliners, born and bred. When they reach sixteen – watch out. In the meantime, you should enjoy them while you can.’
Michael brightened slightly. ‘Yes.’
‘As Don Corleone said,’ drawing on his limited English, Max dropped his voice a couple of octaves and launched into an appallingly bad Marlon Brando impersonation, ‘a man who doesn't spend time with his family can, urgh, never be a real man.’
‘Like you would know,’ Michael laughed, downing his beer in three quick gulps and quickly jumping to his feet. ‘Another one?’
Max nodded. ‘Sure.’
Disappearing inside, Michael quickly reappeared with a couple of fresh beers, placing the bottles on the table, he dropped back into his seat. ‘I hear that you managed to put in the briefest of appearances at the Beerfeldt crime scene.’
‘Yeah,’ Max nodded as he finally lit his cigarette and took a hearty puff.
‘Thanks for coming to say ‘hello’.’
‘I had other stuff to do. Anyway, Gerber said that you had it all completely under control.’
‘Hardly,’ Michael groaned. ‘Six bodies, what a mess. And, as you can imagine, Marin wants swift results.’
Max bridled at mention of their boss, Kriminalkommissar Martin Marin. ‘Marin can go fuck himself,’ he groused, through a cloud of cigarette smoke. ‘All he cares about is getting the case off is desk as quickly as possible. It’s always the same. Close it down, declare victory and move on.’
‘Sure,’ Michael agreed, ‘but, regardless of all the usual political bullshit, this is a really nasty one, Max.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Starting on his third bottle of Beck’s, Max could feel the beer buzz beginning to build. He wasn’t in the mood to talk shop but, then again, what else did they really have to talk about. ‘So,’ he sighed, taking another drag on his smoke, ‘what have we got, so far?’
‘The victims,’ Michael explained, ‘have been identified as the father, Carl Beerfeldt, the mother, Sylvie Beerfeldt, and four kids – Adam, Maggie and Nathalie, plus a half-sister, Dinara Semin, from the mother’s first marriage.’
‘What did the neighbours have to say?’
‘Not a lot,’ Michael sighed. ‘No one saw anything. No one heard anything. No one had any idea why such a ‘perfect’ family would be slain in their own home.’
‘Typical,’ Max snorted. ‘The general public are completely useless.’ Taking a final drag on his cigarette he dropped it into an empty beer bottle.
‘There are still a few doors to knock on.’
‘Waste of time. You know we’ll never get anything that way. If we’re going to drive this thing forward like Marin wants, we’re going to have to move faster. What do we think about what went on there?’
Michael took another swig of his beer.
‘As always,’ the Kriminalinspektor observed, ‘we should start with the most obvious explanation and go from there.’
‘Yes.’ Michael didn’t venture an opinion on what the most obvious explanation in this case might be.
‘We know that statistics show that the only people who hate you enough to want to kill you are other family members.’
‘Yeah, but in this case, all the family members were killed.’
Max pondered that for a moment. ‘But the wife was married before?’
‘That’s right.’
Sitting back in his chair, Max lifted his hands behind his head. ‘So, how about the ex-husband went crazy with rage, shot them all,’ he postulated hopefully, ‘and left his bloody fingerprints all over the house, along with a forwarding address?’
Michael shook his head. ‘Sadly not. Tobias Semin, husband number one, is not a likely suspect.’
‘Why not?’
‘He’s a professional golfer on the US PGA circuit.’
‘And golfers can’t kill?’ Max asked, not wishing to dismiss his initial idea so quickly.
‘He has a decent alibi; he was playing the second round of the Los Pollos Hermanos Texas Open in El Paso at the time of the killings. He shot a 78, apparently. Missed the cut.’
Max grunted. ‘He could still have hired someone to do it.’
‘By all accounts,’ Michael responded, ‘Semin had a cordial enough relationship with his ex-wife. They had been divorced for well over ten years.’
‘People change.’
‘For the moment at least,’ Michael said firmly, ‘Semin is not a suspect. He was on the other side of the world, he got on with his ex- and why would he kill his own kid?’
‘Okay,’ Max reluctantly agreed with his sergeant’s assessment.
‘Anyway,’ Michael continued, ‘the whole thing was way too spectacular for a simple domestic. All of the victims were shot at close range by some kind of semi-automatic. There was no sign of a struggle from any of them. There was no sign of a forced entry. And the place was tossed – whoever did this, they were looking for something.’
Max raised an eyebrow. ‘More than one guy?’
‘One shooter.’
‘A professional hit?’
‘Professional hit.’
‘But not ordered by the ex-husband,’ Max mused, cautiously coming back to his original thesis like a dog returning to his own vomit.
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Michael said patiently. He was familiar with his boss flogging his theories to death. ‘We’re still looking into it but, as far as I can tell, Semin had no motive. The El Paso police interviewed him; they say he seemed pretty distraught.’
‘But he’s a golfer,’ Max persisted. To his mind, this was clear evidence of extreme moral turpitude and the possibility of homicidal leanings.
Michael just shrugged. ‘It’s not against the law.’
‘Maybe it should be,’ the Kriminalinspektor harrumphed.
‘What have you got against golfers? Bernhard Langer’s great.’
‘Semin doesn’t sound much like Bernhard Langer,’ was all that Max could come up with by way of response.
‘That doesn’t necessarily make him a killer.’
‘Okay, okay. So we don’t think the wife is the key to this.’
‘Th
ere’s nothing to suggest that, so far,’ Michael agreed.
‘So the guy who got whacked, what was his name?’
‘Carl Beerfeldt.’
‘Carl Beerfeldt. What about him? Does he have any ex-wives? Ex-girlfriends?’
‘No ex-wives. Nothing about any ex-girlfriends has come up, so far.’
‘Anyone pissed off enough at him to waste his whole family?’
‘Someone was, obviously.’ Michael took another sip of his beer.
‘But who?’ Max persisted, trying to build up a bit of momentum, bit of enthusiasm. ‘Did he have any shady dealings? Was he a crook?’
‘Not as far as we know.’
Max began picking the label off his beer bottle. ‘Not as far as we know?’
‘He ran a bookshop.’
‘What kind of bookshop?’
Michael shrugged. ‘Just books, all different kinds, I think.’
‘Porn? Sport? Politics? Crime?’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as I know.’
‘Okay.’ Max chugged on his beer. ‘Even in this city, no one is going to get so annoyed by a bookshop that they take out the owner and his whole fucking family in a hail of bullets.’
‘I guess not.’
‘So maybe the bookshop was just some kind of façade. What was Carl Beerfeldt really up to?’ Max gave his sergeant a sly look. ‘That’s what we’ve got to find out. Maybe he had some kind of double life.’
The window directly above Michael’s head opened and Sarah’s head popped out. ‘Dinner’s ready,’ she trilled.
‘I’ll be right there,’ Michael replied, careful to keep his voice down because of the kids. He turned to Max. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to join us?’
‘Nah.’ Max finished his beer. He was beginning to feel nicely wasted now, and in the mood for some serious drinking. ‘Thanks for the beers, but I need to get going.’
Michael looked at him doubtfully. ‘Okay, if you’re sure.’
‘I’m sure.’ Max got to his feet. ‘I’ve got things to do.’
Michael raised an eyebrow. ‘Planning a big night?’
