A Slow Death (Max Drescher Book 1)

by James Craig

‘Lucky you.’

  ‘What do you hear?’

  Volkan shifted in his seat. ‘Why do you ask, if it’s not your case?’

  Wearied by the boy’s inexhaustible supply of hostility, Max changed tack. ‘I’m here about Kaspar Wuffli.’

  A look of genuine bemusement spread across Cin’s face. ‘Who?’

  ‘Kaspar Wuffli. He was assaulted coming out of the Sugar Lounge the other night by a couple of your guys.’ Max gestured at the two clowns sitting at a nearby table, Cin’s omnipresent teenage lieutenants, Resul Keskin and Serhat Khedira. ‘Maybe it was those two.’ Taking his cue, the skinny Khedira simultaneously flipped Max the finger and let rip with a loud fart.

  ‘Serhat,’ Volkan scowled, ‘for fuck’s sake.’

  Keskin, a fat kid with a teardrop tattoo under his left eye, giggled like an overgrown schoolgirl.

  ‘Kaspar Wuffli,’ Max repeated.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ Volkan downed his coffee in one rapid jerk and carefully placed the cup back on its saucer. ‘Surely, Kriminalinspektor, you have more important things to worry about than this? The city is collapsing about your ears – fascists have the run of the streets, people are being murdered all over the place – and all you are worried about is some little fag who got a bloody nose.’

  ‘He ended up in hospital.’ The girl appeared at the table, placed the coffee and pastry in front of him and beat a quick retreat as Max mumbled ‘thank you.’

  ‘These things happen,’ Volkan continued airily, ‘it’s the fascists who’re into that kind of thing. I’m no history student, but didn’t your lot gas the queers during the war? And they say that the Nazis were all bad.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Max groaned, ‘if it had been a Turkish fag who had been beaten up the other night, you would be more co-operative.’

  ‘There are no Turkish fags,’ Volkan laughed, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, ‘apart from maybe those two.’ Ignoring the protests from the table behind him, he returned his gaze to Max. ‘And you know perfectly well that a Turkish fag could be found face down in the gutter with a bullet in his head and no one at Stresemannstraße would lift a finger to do anything about it.’

  ‘The point is,’ Max said patiently, ‘I want you to back off.’

  ‘I told you,’ Volkan hissed, ‘it was nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Max held up a hand. ‘But I would have thought that you would have more important things to be getting on with as well, Volkan. I mean, surely you have better things to do than kick the crap out of the likes of poor Kaspar and rob him of a few marks.’

  Putting on a look of mock surprise, the leader of the 36Boys, spread his arms wide. ‘Kriminalinspektor, you know that we run nothing more than a social club here.’

  ‘Please,’ Max looked around the dingy café, as if looking at it for this for the first time, ‘spare me the bullshit. You lot are responsible for at least half of all the anti-social behaviour around here.’

  ‘Hear that boys?’ Cin turned to his associates, his grin growing so wide that it looked like his entire face might disappear inside it. ‘We’re anti-social. Who’d have thought it?’

  Keskin and Khedira grunted their amusement, while keeping their eyes firmly on the cop in their midst.

  ‘And here was I thinking we were just poor immigrants, trying to stand up for our rights.’

  That was your parents, Max thought glumly. You lot are just a bunch of idiots. In the face of Volkan’s childish play-acting, he felt his last reserves of patience and humour quickly evaporate. A dark thought clouded his brain: maybe the boy wouldn’t manage to grow out of this nonsense after all. He jabbed an angry finger across the table. ‘No more muggings, alright?’ Grabbing his cup, he downed his coffee in one.

  Picking up his fork, Cin toyed with his pastry. ‘Or what?’

  Keskin let out another giggle.

  Or I’ll stab you in the heart with that fucking fork. ‘Or we’ll come down on you hard.’

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll call my boys off when you catch Hakan Yaman’s killers. How about that?’ Shovelling a piece of pastry into his mouth, Volkan eyed Max defiantly.

  ‘I didn’t come here to do a deal.’ Pushing back his chair, Max got to his feet.

  ‘Hey.’ Volkan waved at him with his fork. ‘You didn’t touch your baklava.’

  ‘It’s not my kind of thing,’ Max shrugged. He dropped a handful of coins in Neslihan’s tips jar, before heading for the door. ‘I don’t have a sweet tooth.’

  ‘Too bad,’ Cin shouted after him, ‘it’s really good.’

  13

  Walking out of Kazan’s, Max crossed the road and headed two blocks west, slipping into a soulless bar – all chrome and mirrors – filled with over-excited office workers in no hurry to go home. Fighting his way through the crowd, the Kriminalinspektor waited the best part of five minutes for one of the over-animated staff behind the bar to acknowledge his existence and bring him a beer. ‘Remind me to find a reason to raid this place,’ he mumbled to himself as he handed over a truly extortionate amount of money in exchange for his half litre of Berliner Weiße.

  Still standing at the bar, he was three-quarters of the way through his drink before a Türkiyemspor Berlin baseball cap appeared amidst the throng.

  Inconspicuous.

  Giving him a nod of acknowledgement, Serhat Khedira leveraged a grumpy looking secretary out of the way and commandeered five centimetres of space next to Max.

  ‘What took you so long?’

  ‘It was only ten minutes,’ his sometime informer pointed out.

  ‘Ten minutes with this lot,’ Max complained, ‘feels like a lifetime.’

  ‘It’s the future,’ Serhat mused, ‘get used to it. Bastard yuppies are taking over everywhere, even in Berlin. Soon they’ll be no ordinary working people left.’

  ‘And when did you get a job?’ Max said drily. ‘I must have missed that.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ Taking off his cap, Serhat looked at the Kriminalinspektor’s drink with some dismay. ‘You’re not drinking that crap, are you?’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Max said evenly. Tagging himself as an eclectic drinker, there wasn’t much in the way of alcoholic beverages that he wouldn’t consume quite happily. ‘I quite like it.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Serhat sniffed. Catching the eye of the bartender, he ordered a double brandy for himself and another beer for Max. ‘You get these,’ he said, ‘and I’ll go and find us a table.’

  After paying for the drinks, Max laboriously maneuvered his way across the room, to find Serhat sitting at a table next to the bogs. ‘Nice spot,’ said drily, placing the drinks down. ‘Smells nice too.’

  ‘It was the only table that was free,’ Serhat pointed out. ‘Unless you want to start flashing your police ID about to see if you can free up something better.’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’

  A look of disgust passed across Serhat’s face as he scanned the room. ‘I bet at least half of this lot are carrying.’

  ‘Unlike you.’

  ‘If they knew that you were a cop,’ the snitch continued, ignoring the barb, ‘they would be out of here in a shot.’

  Pulling up a chair, Max sat down. ‘You’re forgetting that I’m undercover and we’re here for a clandestine meeting.’

  Serhat scowled. ‘A what?’

  ‘Never mind.’ Max nodded at the baseball cap that had been placed on the table. The logo on the front was in the shape of a shield. On one half was the Turkish flag, on the other, a silhouette of a bear walking on its hind legs. ‘How are the Kreuzberg Gençler Birliği doing these days?’ The Kreuzberg Youth Union had started the Türkiyemspor Berlin football team back in the 1970s. More recently, the Union had become a fruitful recruiting ground for the 36Boys.

  ‘Not bad,’ Serhat nodded. ‘We’ve got a good bunch of lads at the moment, in the main. Nothing to worry about.’

  Max took a sip of his beer and winced. When it came to Berliner Weiße, half a lit
re was really enough. Sitting forward in his chair, he leaned across the table, lowering his voice despite the hubbub. ‘So who attacked Kaspar Wuffli?’ he asked.

  Mentioning a couple of names, Serhat lifted up his drink. Inspecting it carefully, he swilled the cognac around in the bottom of the glass a couple of times. ‘You’re not really interested in that, though, are you?’

  ‘Keeps me busy,’ Max shrugged.

  ‘By the way, next time you’re going to show up at Kazan’s it would be good to know in advance.’ Tipping back his head, Serhat downed the brandy in one.

  ‘How could I have done that?’

  ‘You’ve got to be careful. Volkan is a suspicious little sod.’

  ‘When is he going to grow up and move on?’

  Serhat was temporarily distracted as a pretty blonde girl wandered past their table, heading for the loo. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Volkan,’ Max repeated. ‘When is he going to get bored of the 36Boys and start learning how to run his father’s business?’

  ‘You know what?’ Serhat stared at his empty glass. ‘I don’t think that he is.’

  ‘Eh?’ Max reached for his beer then thought better of it.

  ‘I think he sees the two things coming together.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Max snorted. ‘What could the 36Boys bring to the party? They’re a clueless bunch of losers.’ Serhat gave him a dirty look. ‘No offence. Present company excluded, of course.’

  ‘It’s already happening,’ Serhat persisted. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Max.

  ‘Thanks.’ L&M was a long way from the Kriminalinspektor’s favoured brand but he took one anyway.

  Sticking one of the nails between his lips, Serhat took out a cheap plastic Bic and lit up, taking a long drag before offering the lighter to Max. ‘The 36Boys are making some very interesting friends these days.’ Exhaling, he sent a stream of smoke in the direction of the blonde who was returning from the toilets suspiciously quickly. Scowling, she made her way back towards her friends.

  Max grinned at the woman’s retreating backside. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as, Volkan is getting very cosy with a woman called Carolina Barbolini.’ Taking another drag, Serhat tapped the lengthening cigarette ash into a small ceramic bowl on the middle of the table.

  ‘And who’s she?’

  Serhat raised his eyebrows. ‘She is an Italian ‘businesswoman’ who first appeared in Berlin about eight months or so ago; a no-nonsense operator who seems to have a lot of cash behind her. Volkan says that she’s looking to develop real estate opportunities in our shattered city.’

  Max thought about that for a moment. ‘Mafia?’

  Serhat nodded. ‘I would assume so. I’ve never actually met her, but the way Volkan talks about ‘the family this’ and ‘the family that’, you’d think he was auditioning for a part in The Godfather.’

  Max laughed. ‘So how did he hook up with this –’

  ‘Barbolini. Carolina Barbolini. They met at some nightclub. It was a case of lust at first sight. He started banging her and now he’s talking about folding the family business into the Italian operation.’

  ‘It looks like I overrated the boy.’ Max took a final drag on his smoke before stubbing it out in the ashtray. ‘People always disappoint you, don’t they?’

  Serhat grunted.

  ‘I didn’t think he would be that stupid.’

  ‘He’s thinking with his dick.’

  ‘Kerem Cin’s not going to like that,’ Max mused. ‘He’s really not going to like that at all.’

  ‘The old man’s out of the picture.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He’s not been well. Cancer. Volkan’s having it all handed to him on a plate.’

  ‘And then he’s going to throw it all away.’

  ‘Kids.’ Serhat shook his head. ‘Who’d have them?’

  ‘Quite.’ Picking up a beermat, Max rummaged around in his pockets until he found the rub of a pencil. ‘How do I spell the woman’s surname?’ Serhat gave it his best guess. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?’

  Serhat shrugged. ‘You haven’t been around for a while.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ Stuffing the beermat into his pocket, along with the pencil, he offered up a conciliatory smile. ‘Anyway, thanks for the tip.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ Smiling, Serhat pushed his empty glass across the table towards Max. ‘Worth another drink, don’t you think?’

  Hannah Leicht stepped away from the body and gave Michael Rahn a tired smile that said What are you doing here? Pushing thirty, the pathologist from Hansaviertel was a solid technician but she liked to take her time over a crime scene and didn’t like distractions. She was the type of colleague that you tried to hurry along at your peril. ‘So you’re chasing me all the way out to Lichtenberg now?’

  ‘To the ends of the earth,’ Michael grinned, ‘or at least as far as Marzahn.’

  ‘I’m touched.’ Lifting a latex gloved hand to her face, Leicht wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. ‘I know that you’re still after the Beerfeldt report, but I got side-tracked by this guy.’ She gestured towards the middle-aged suit, hanging from the beam. ‘The call came in a couple of hours ago. Penzler’s leading the investigation.’

  Michael nodded. Manfred Penzler was a detective from the Genslerstraße station. ‘I saw him downstairs talking to the kids that found the victim.’

  ‘Little buggers,’ Leicht muttered, pointing to the bloody tyre tracks on the concrete floor. ‘They’ve completely messed up the scene.’ Placing her hands on her hips, she shook her head in disbelief. ‘How did they get their damn bikes up here anyway?’

  Michael nodded in the direction of the stiff. ‘How long has he been up there?’

  ‘That’s one of the things I need to work out.’ Leicht made a face. ‘Twenty-four hours maybe.’

  ‘The poor sod. Who is he?’

  ‘No idea. Someone didn’t like him, though. He was hung and stabbed.’

  Michael let his gaze linger on the pool of congealing liquids underneath the body. ‘Nice.’

  ‘A bit over the top if you ask me.’

  ‘Messy.’ Even though it wasn’t his case, Michael felt the cogs begin to turn in his head. ‘Presumably they were torturing him for a reason.’

  ‘Too right. I mean, how many times do you have to kill someone?’

  Realising the futility of his trip, Michael began edging away from the corpse. ‘I suppose it’s gonna take a while to sort this one out.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ the pathologist groaned. ‘Looks like I’m gonna be here for the rest of the evening. Meanwhile, the bodies continue to pile up at the Institut. Bloody Raimond Gerber certainly picked a great time to keel over with a heart attack.’

  ‘I’m sure it wasn’t quite what he had in mind.’

  ‘These things happen,’ Leicht said philosophically. ‘They say that it’s gonna be maybe three months before we get a replacement. In the meantime, I wouldn’t count on getting that report any time soon.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Michael, already retreating back down the stairs, ‘I won’t.’

  14

  Dropping a small plastic bag containing groceries on the kitchen table, he threw his jacket over the back of a chair and padded over to the fridge. Retrieving a can of Veltins, Max cracked open the ring pull and took a healthy drink. Tossing the ring pull into the sink, he kicked off his shoes, slouched back into the living room and dropped onto the sofa. Aside from a small television in the corner and a pile of newspapers on a cheap wicker coffee table, the space was largely empty. A thin layer of dust covered every flat surface, the place not having seen a duster since his last cleaning lady had quit, which was more than three months ago now. Finishing the beer, he crushed the empty can in his fist and stared aimlessly at the ceiling. He knew he should be thinking about something – anything – but his mind was empty. The adrenalin of the last few days had well
and truly worn off and he felt completely shattered.

  After a while, the conversation with his lawyer started running through his head. Maybe Clara’s right, Max thought. Maybe, I should just take the money and run. But run where? He looked out of the small window at the unforgiving grey sky. From the street below came the relentless hum of traffic, punctuated by the odd angry shout and the occasional blast of a horn. ‘There is nowhere else to go,’ he said quietly to himself. ‘This is where I live and this is where I die. This is home.’

  Yawning, he contemplated another beer. In the kitchen, the phone rang and he listened to the answering machine kick in.

  Max, it’s Michael. I’m just back from Charlottenburg.

  For a moment, Max thought about struggling to his feet and picking up. In the end, he just rolled back onto the sofa and let Rahn continue leaving his message.

  The old bookshop owners were quite helpful once I convinced them that I wasn’t the tax man. It looked like Beerfeldt paid over the odds when he bought the place. And he paid in cash. It’s like you said, it looks like The Last Word was a front for something. It’s a start I suppose. Don’t bother calling back tonight; Sarah would be mad if you woke the kids. See you in the office tomorrow.

  The call clicked off and the apartment was returned to its relative silence. Okay, the Kriminalinspektor thought, trying to focus on the case, where do we go from here? Still his mind refused to engage with work. Even the thought of the dead kids couldn’t rouse him; realising he was spent, he let his eyelids droop.

  Sometime later, he awoke with a start, initially confused by the darkness, a sour, metallic taste in his mouth. Getting up, he stumbled into the kitchen and switched on the light. At the sink, he splashed some water on his face and dried himself off with the cloth he normally used for drying the dishes. From the window, he could see a couple of cars crawling down Prinzessinnenstraße under the sickly glow of the street lamps. The small travel clock on the sill told him that it was almost three a.m. Yawning, Max considered his options: bed or an early breakfast at the Café Mir, a couple of blocks away on Reichenberger Straße. Each had its attractions. His eye caught the flashing red light on the telephone answering machine sitting on the work top, next to the fridge. It told him that he had three messages. Shuffling over, he hit the ‘play’ button.