A Slow Death (Max Drescher Book 1)

by James Craig

  ‘Tempted?’

  ‘Just to walk off with it.’

  ‘Nick it?’ Max frowned. The idea had not entered his head until now.

  ‘Why not?’ Michael’s voice dropped so low that Max had to really concentrate on listening. ‘Make it disappear.’

  ‘What am I going to do with two and a half million bucks?’

  ‘You could have even just taken a chunk of it,’ Michael persisted.

  Laughing, Max shook his head. ‘You‘ve given this some serious thought, haven’t you?’

  ‘What’s to think about? You couldn’t have set it up better yourself. No one knew the cash was there, did they? Not even Volkan’s father.’

  ‘True, but –’

  ‘And it’s criminal money, who’s gonna claim it?’

  ‘I think we know the answer to that, don’t we?’ Rolf Terium gave Max a nod of acknowledgement as he appeared at Michael’s shoulder.

  ‘We sure do,’ Max chuckled. Relieved that the conversation had been nipped in the bud, he got to his feet and placed a paternal hand on his sergeant’s shoulder. ‘How many people have been killed so far because of that damn cash? A dozen? Fifteen?’ Michael started to say something, but, building up a head of steam, Max talked straight over him. ‘And that’s even before we think about where it came from, what it was used for, before it arrived in Berlin. Sure, we’ve got our problems, but so has everyone else. This isn’t the only city in Europe struggling against the rise of organised crime. How many people died so that this Kappel guy could raise his three million stake money in the first place?’

  ‘Good point,’ Terium murmured.

  Blushing, Michael looked at his shoes. ‘I was only joking.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Max piously. ‘If ever anything deserved the tag ‘blood money’, this is it. Only a fool would try and hold on to it. We should burn it.’

  ‘Or use it as bait,’ Terium quipped.

  ‘Yes,’ Max conceded, ‘or use it for bait.’

  ‘Bait?’ Michael looked at each of them in turn.

  ‘That’s the plan.’ The phone on his desk started to ring. Max looked at it for a moment then slowly raised his gaze to inspect Marin’s office. Through the glass walls, he could see the Kriminalkommissar sitting behind his desk, a massive cigar in one hand, telephone receiver in the other. The look of constipated frustration on his face did not suggest that he was ringing to offer his congratulations. ‘C’mon.’ Pulling on his jacket, Max began heading for the stairs at an accelerated pace. ‘We’re heading off to inspect the trap. I’ll explain it all to you on the way.’

  This is much nicer than my place, Max thought. Lübecker Straße 93 might not be much to look at from the outside but the interior was clean and tidy. Flat 8 had been decorated in a light, minimalist style, all off-white walls and wooden floors, which made the most of the light flooding through the windows, even on a dull and overcast day like this.

  Feeling pleased with himself, the Kriminalinspektor looked round the room. It had been his decision to start at the top of the building and it looked like they had found the right place at the first time of asking. Volkan had clearly taken the best apartment in the block.

  I wonder how much this place would cost? Max wondered. Maybe, when all this was over, he could talk to Kerem Cin about taking over the rental. What was it the old man had said? A good, long-term tenant is far better than an extra fifty marks a month. Surely, they could reach a suitable arrangement, assuming, of course, that the old man lived that long. The idea cheered him. His current flat was beginning to get on his nerves. And a change of scene would coincide nicely with his departure from the Police Service. And, from the old man’s point of view, having an ex-policeman keeping an eye on the building would have to be a big plus.

  ‘Max?’ Michael gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder as Rolf Terium appeared in the bedroom doorway.

  ‘Huh?’ Pushing thoughts of real estate to the back of his mind, Max focused on his colleagues.

  ‘It’s all very neat and tidy,’ Terium observed. ‘There’s no sign of anyone living here.’

  ‘Other than the magazine.’ Lifting the toe of his sneaker, Michael gestured towards the figure of Batman staring up at them from the floor.

  ‘Volkan liked his comics,’ Max mused.

  ‘Who was supposed to be living here?’ Michael asked. ‘Who was renting it?’

  ‘We’ll have to check with the agency.’

  ‘Whoever it was,’ Terium joked, ‘let’s hope that young Volkan didn’t kill them, too.’

  Max took another look around the room. ‘If there were any bodies hanging around we’d be walking round with handkerchiefs over our mouths.’

  ‘He could have killed them somewhere else,’ Michael offered, ‘dumped them somewhere else.’

  Max held up a hand. ‘Let’s just stick with the likeliest explanation for now, shall we? The place looks like it’s been empty for a while. All Volkan needed was somewhere that would be available now and again – remember he was shacked up with Carolina Barbolini most of the time – it would have been easy for him to tell the lettings agency to keep the place off the market for a while.’

  ‘So if this was his secret bolt hole, why would Volkan not just stash the cash here, rather than leave it with his dad?’ Michael asked, leaning casually against the window.

  ‘Dunno. Maybe he feared that too many people knew about this place. Maybe he thought that the cash was safer out in the suburbs.’

  ‘He was putting his father at a bit of a risk though,’ Michael persisted, ‘if someone came looking for it. An old guy, living on his own.’

  ‘When someone came looking for it,’ Terium corrected him. ‘Even now, with the cash out of the house, it’s only a matter of time before someone pays the old man a visit.’

  Shit, Max thought. Why didn’t I think of that? ‘I’ll make sure he’s properly looked after,’ he muttered.

  ‘Poor bastard,’ Michael shook his head. ‘This whole business must have really hit him hard.’

  Max shrugged. ‘Father and son weren’t that close. I don’t suppose Volkan cared too much. Assuming that he even thought about it at all.’

  ‘Happy families,’ Michael sighed.

  ‘Kids,’ Max grinned, ‘what is it that they say? They bring greatest joy and the greatest sorrow. They can be ungrateful little sods.’

  ‘You being the expert, of course.’ Shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Michael shuffled into the middle of the room. ‘So what do you want to do? We can’t stay here all day.’ A grin spread across his face. ‘And you can’t get young Oster to stake it out either.’

  ‘Ha.’ Max chuckled. ‘How is young Theo doing?’

  ‘Still off sick,’ Michael replied. ‘I heard that he’d started sessions with some private shrink out in Lichtenberg. He’s being regressed back to his childhood.’

  ‘It’s not like he has to go back too far.’

  ‘The whole thing is proving extremely traumatic. Marin’s getting increasingly worried that his bright young thing might not ever make a return to frontline duty.’

  ‘The police force would never recover,’ Max said sarcastically.

  ‘Apparently the poor kid is still in a bad way,’ Michael continued. ‘He isn’t sure any longer if he’s cut out to be a cop at all.’

  ‘I could have told him that,’ Max snorted.

  ‘Nothing like looking down the barrel of a loaded gun to clarify your thinking,’ Terium observed.

  ‘Better to find out now,’ Max pointed out, ‘than ten years down the line.’

  ‘I suppose,’ the sergeant agreed.

  ‘This way he still has plenty of time to discover his true calling,’ Max mused. ‘His inner social worker.’

  ‘Or yoga teacher,’ Terium giggled.

  Michael frowned. ‘What’s wrong with being a yoga teacher?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’ Max brought his focus back to the matter in hand. ‘Let’s get the word out about this
place. Make sure that people know that this was Volkan’s crash pad. Drop a few hints that there’s a load of cash that’s gone missing. Let the word get back to Kappel’s people and then we’ll see who comes to visit.’

  Michael nodded doubtfully. ‘This Kappel guy, do we even know what he looks like?’

  Max looked at Terium.

  ‘Nope.’ Terium shook his head. ‘Not really.’

  Max frowned. ‘Not really?’

  ‘There’s only one picture in his file,’ Terium explained. ‘A crappy mug shot that’s more than thirty years old.’

  ‘Great,’ Michael groaned.

  ‘The only time he’s been in police custody, was when he was arrested for vagrancy in Paris in the 1950s.’

  ‘Vagrancy?’ Max mused.

  Terium shrugged. ‘He’s obviously gone up in the world. Anyway, given the quality of French record keeping, it might not even be him. On top of that, we know that he’s had at least three rounds of plastic surgery over the last ten years or so, in order to modify his appearance. So, to answer the question, God alone knows what he really looks like.’

  ‘That’s very helpful,’ Max snorted, ‘thank you.’

  ‘It is what it is,’ Terium shrugged. ‘I’m afraid, when it comes to dealing with Arnold Kappel, we’re dealing with a bit of a phantom.’

  32

  ‘Look at me.’

  Slowly surfacing from the depths of her near catatonic state, Carolina Barbolini shivered against the cold.

  ‘Do not worry. I am not here to inflict more pain.’ The voice sounded distant and distorted, but she could make out each word clearly. Opening her eyes, Barbolini cautiously turned her gaze towards the face hovering in front of her, like a predator waiting to pounce on its dinner.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’

  Blinking, she forced herself to establish eye contact with the wizened old man. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ Ghosting out of the shadows, the man bent forward slightly, in order to better inspect the bruise that was blooming on her left cheek. Extending an arm, he used his index finger to trace along the line of the split lip that Floris Kooy had bestowed upon her when he had dislodged two of her teeth.

  ‘Such a shame.’ Straightening up, Arnold Kappel turned to his henchman, sitting in the corner of the room, grinning like a naughty schoolboy. ‘All this mess; all this unpleasantness and you still couldn’t get her to tell you where the money is?’

  ‘No.’ Losing the smirk, Kooy glanced at the semi-automatic resting on his lap. ‘I didn’t want to push it too far, for obvious reasons.’

  ‘Obvious reasons.’ The look on Kappel’s face mixed dismay and disgust in equal measure. ‘Still,’ he grunted, ‘I’m sure that it was a painful experience.’

  Keeping her eyes fixed on a spot in the middle distance, Barbolini did not respond.

  Kappel took a step backwards. ‘You wanted to see me?’ Tall and thin, he was dressed in a traditionally cut, single-breasted three-piece suit.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So here I am.’ He lifted his right hand. Between his thumb and forefinger, he casually held a cane, a varnished wooden walking stick with a bulbous silver top. Barbolini imagined the damage the cane could inflict and gritted her teeth.

  Kappel released the cane from his grasp, letting the end hit the concrete floor before catching it on the bounce. ‘As Floris here has pointed out, there is the potential for lot more pain here. What happens next – that’s down to you.’ His lips parted in something approximating a smile, revealing a set of uneven, almost vampire-like teeth. Pulled back over his cheekbones, his skin was stretched to its limit. Receding into his skull, a pair of watery blue eyes radiated a sense of barely controlled malevolence – a simmering hatred of his fellow human beings, of life itself – that forced Barbolini to look away. ‘If it was me,’ Kappel speculated, ‘if I was sitting in your position, I would seek to mitigate the pain, to minimise my suffering.’ His smile widened. ‘I would take the pragmatic view. Get this over with. Move on.’

  If the Devil walked the earth, Barbolini imagined, this would be what he would look like. Almost overwhelmed by a noxious brew of fear and self-doubt, it took every last gram of strength to stop herself from making the sign of the cross.

  Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Give me the strength to survive. All I ask is that I get out of this alive.

  ‘Pragmatism, enlightened self-interest, whatever you want to call it, is very important.’ The old man inspected the end of his cane. ‘As an entrepreneur – like you – I have come to appreciate over the years that it is the only guiding principle that you should follow. Business is about taking risks. Sometimes these risks do not pay off. A sensible business leader knows when to terminate a project that is going off the rails. I will recover my capital and refocus my resources on other initiatives. I am not going to waste time and emotional energy on blame. I will learn the lessons of this endeavour and move on. I want to reassure you that I have no interest in vengeance.’

  ‘Cesare.’ The word was out of her mouth before the thought had registered in her brain.

  Clasping his hands together as in prayer, Kappel gave a small bow. ‘I can only apologise for what happened to your father.’ He glanced at Kooy. ‘That was a failure of communication.’

  You lying bastard. Keeping his eyes lowered, Kooy said nothing.

  ‘And Volkan?’ Barbolini demanded.

  ‘Pure common sense,’ Kappel grunted. ‘I hope you learnt you lesson with him. Only employ the best, like Mr Kooy here. ‘But enough of this shop talk. I have met your request.’ Kappel wiped loose strand of silver hair from his face before toying with the knot of his silk tie. ‘I have shown you respect. I have come a long way, in order to meet you face-to-face.’

  ‘I am very grateful,’ Barbolini responded, intoning the words with a solemnity worthy of High Mass. ‘And I appreciate what you have said.’

  Kappel nodded. ‘So, I believe you have something to tell me?’

  Barbolini glanced at Kooy. The smirking sadist had not let her out of his sight for one moment in the terrible, slow hours since Volkan had been shot.

  If, by some miracle, I get out of this alive, I will make sure that you endure the slowest, most painful death possible.

  Like a ham actor, Kappel looked at his watch, blinking as if unable to comprehend the lateness of the hour. ‘Now that I’m here, I’m afraid that I don’t really have much time. You need to start talking.’

  Barbolini cleared her throat. ‘First we need to reach an agreement.’ She hadn’t washed in the last twenty-four hours and was conscious of her increasingly unpleasant body odour. Apart from anything else, three million dollars would be a small price to pay for a nice hot bath.

  ‘An agreement?’ Sticking out his bottom lip, Kappel mimed thinking about what she had said, nodding his head vigorously. Then he stepped forward and slapped her hard across the face, twice.

  ‘Ow.’ Carolina blinked way the tears. Off to the side, Floris Kooy’s grin grew wider still.

  ‘Who are you to try and offer me a deal?’ Kappel hissed, his cheeks reddening faster than hers as the mask of reasonableness fell from his grotesquely sculpted face. ‘Do not mistake my pragmatism for weakness. Your father is already in the ground. You can still join him.’

  ‘If you kill me,’ Carolina said simply, ‘you will never see your money again.’

  ‘We will find it, with or without you.’

  ‘Why come at all, then?’ she countered. ‘Why not have your boy kill me already, as he did with Volkan and my father?’

  ‘We will find it,’ Kappel repeated.

  ‘Maybe you will, maybe you won’t.’ Sensing a shift of power within the room, Barbolini sat up a little higher. Closing her eyes, she imagined sinking into her wonderful bath and smiled. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘I say you are in a very weak bargaining position,’ Kappel hissed.

  ‘I have nothing to lose.’ Carolina opened her eyes and gave him a defiant stare. �
�You have killed my father. You have killed my lover.’

  ‘And we will kill you too,’ Kooy chuckled.

  Kappel shot him a look that said Leave the talking to me.

  ‘Time is not on your side.’ Barbolini continued. ‘Half of Berlin is trying to get their hands on your cash.’

  Kappel gripped his cane tightly. ‘Don’t try and bluff me.’

  ‘It’s not a bluff. The cops are closing in on us.’

  ‘The police? Pah.’ Kappel waved the can in the air, making a cutting motion as if he was trying to swat a fly.

  ‘It’s true.’ Barbolini glared at Kooy. ‘Tell him.’

  Letting the cane fall to his side, Kappel eyed his lieutenant suspiciously. ‘Tell me what?’

  Kooy shrugged. ‘That genius Volkan Cin left a trail of bodies all over the city. It was inevitable that the police would get involved. Then they found another one of her men yesterday. An idiot called Dante Fei. He had been shot in the head.’

  Kappel gave a little shake of the head as he raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘This really is the Wild West isn’t it? What did we do, getting into bed with these damn cowboys?’

  ‘A third one,’ Kooy continued, ‘Stefan Hug, is missing. Our sources at the Polizeipräsidium, say that Hug may have been an undercover cop. That would seem to make sense, insofar as he was the only member of the crew who appeared to be remotely competent.’

  Wha-at? Barbolini struggled to keep the confusion from her face. What sources? What cop? ‘That’s rubbish,’ she muttered. ‘Stefan couldn’t be a cop. He saw too much; he did too much.’

  ‘Where is he then?’ Kooy demanded. ‘Why has he disappeared? Why isn’t he trying to protect his boss?’

  ‘He hasn’t disappeared,’ Barbolini retorted, ‘we have.’ She gestured around the windowless room. ‘For all I know, we’re not even in Berlin.’

  ‘For all we know, you don’t know where Volkan hid the cash either.’ Kooy looked to Kappel. The old lizard, however, refused to express any view. Kooy grabbed the pistol from his lap and gestured towards Barbolini. ‘We have to assume that Isar Services has been completely compromised. Her organisation is falling apart. All her men are gone.’