by Val McDermid
“It is only for twenty-four hours max,” Petra pointed out.
“That’s about twenty-three too many for me. She’s been bleating since she arrived. She wants a lawyer, she wants to use the toilet, she wants a drink. She seems to think this is a hotel, not a detention centre. She acts like we should be treating her like a hero instead of a criminal.” He pushed himself to his feet and made for the door. “I’ll send someone for you in a few minutes. You can take a look at the paperwork—it’s in the tray over there.” He gestured with his thumb to a pile of files stacked high above the edges of a filing tray.
He was as good as his word. Within ten minutes, she was sitting in the Anwaltsraum, facing Marlene Krebs across a table bolted to the floor. Krebs could have been any age between thirty and forty, though Petra knew from the report she’d read that the woman was only twenty-eight. Her hair was dyed a harsh black, tousled from a night in the cells. Her make-up was smudged, presumably from the same cause. Krebs had the puffy face and hands of a drinker, and the whites of her pale green eyes were tinged with yellow. However, she also possessed the sleepy sensuality of a woman who is attractive to men and who knows it.
“Marlene, I’m Petra Becker from Criminal Intelligence.” Petra sat back and let the words sink in.
Krebs’ face revealed nothing. “Have you got any cigarettes?” she asked.
Petra took a half-empty pack from her pocket and pushed it towards Krebs. She snatched at it and thrust a cigarette between full lips. “What about a light, then?” she demanded.
“The cigarette was free. The light will cost you.”
Krebs scowled. “Bitch,” she said.
Petra shook her head. “Not a good start.”
“What’s this about, anyway? What have I got to do with Criminal Intelligence?”
“It’s a bit late to be asking that, Marlene. That really should have been your first question.”
Krebs took the cigarette from her mouth and flicked the tip as if there was ash to be deposited. “Look, I admit I shot that dope-dealing bastard Kamal.”
“It’s not like there’s much room for doubt.”
“But I had good reason. He sold my Danni the junk that killed him. What can I say? I was crazy with grief.”
Petra slowly shook her head. “You’re never going to cut it as an actress, Marlene. That routine needs a lot of work before you go in front of a judge. Look, we both know your story is bullshit. Why don’t we cut the crap and see what I can do for you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I told you. Kamal killed Danni. I loved Danni. Something in me snapped when I heard Kamal had been arrested and I wanted to take revenge for what he had taken from me.”
Petra smiled. It was the lizard smile of a predator who smells the first hint of blood. “See, Marlene, there’s the first problem. The guys who brought Kamal in, they didn’t hang around. They went straight to his restaurant, they pulled him out of the front door and into their car. Then they drove here. I’ve seen the logs. There was barely enough time for you to hear about the arrest, never mind get hold of a gun and get to Friesenstrasse in time to put a bullet in his head.” Petra let Marlene think about that. “Unless of course someone tipped you the wink that the arrest was about to go down. Why would anyone do that, unless they wanted Kamal dead? So, how did you hear about Kamal’s arrest?”
“I don’t have to answer you.”
“No, you don’t. But you do need to listen to me, because everything I’m saying to you is a stick of dynamite blowing a hole in your mitigation. Marlene, this isn’t going to play the way whoever set you up for it said it would. Your story is going to fall to bits as soon as the KriPo start poking around. Now, I know you think they’re not going to bother too much with this because it’s saved them the hassle of a difficult prosecution with Kamal, not to mention one less scuzzy middle-ranking dealer on the streets. But me, you see, I’m bothered. Because I’m interested in the people above Kamal.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Krebs said obstinately. “Are you going to light this fucking cigarette or what?”
“I told you. Not for free. Come on, Marlene. Face it, you’re going away for a very long time. This wasn’t a crime of passion, it was an assassination. And we’re going to prove it. You’re going to be a grandmother before you see freedom again.”
For the first time, there was a flicker of something behind Krebs’ cold eyes. “You can’t prove what isn’t true.”
Petra laughed out loud. “Oh, please, Marlene. I thought your sort believed that’s what us cops do all the time? OK, proving what isn’t true can sometimes be…demanding. But compared to that, proving what we know to be true is a piece of piss. I know you were put up to this. And I know the people who did that gambled on us not caring too much about who took Kamal down or why. But they weren’t gambling with their own stake. They were using you for chips. So, we already have a hole in your story about time. I think the next hole will be where you got the gun from.”
“It was Danni’s gun,” she said quickly. “He left it in my apartment.”
“Which is about ten minutes drive from Kamal’s restaurant and a good twenty-minute drive from here. But the cops only took thirteen minutes to get here from Kamal’s. You couldn’t possibly have made it here in time, even if someone had called you the minute the cops took Kamal into custody. So calling it Danni’s gun makes a second hole in your story.” Petra picked up the cigarette packet and put it back in her pocket.
“Right now,” she continued, “I’ve got a team out in Mitte talking to everybody who knows you and who knew Danni. I’d put money on us not finding a single person who can put you and him together. Well, maybe we’ll get one or two. But I’d put money on the fact that they’ll be tied in as closely to Darko Krasic as you are.”
At the sound of Krasic’s name, Krebs reacted. Her thumb flicked the end of the cigarette so hard she broke the filter tip clean off. For one brief moment, something sparked in her eyes. Inside, Petra rejoiced. The first crack had appeared. Now for the crowbar.
“Give him up, Marlene. He’s thrown you to the wolves. You talk to me, you can save yourself. You can watch your kid grow up.”
Something shifted behind Krebs’ gaze and Petra realized she’d lost her. The mention of her daughter, that’s what had done it. Of course, she thought. Krasic has the kid under wraps. That’s his insurance policy. Before she could break Krebs, they’d have to find the daughter. Still, it was worth one last throw of the dice. “You’ll be going in front of the judge soon,” she said. “You’ll be remanded in custody. No matter how smart-mouthed your lawyer is, no matter how many times he plays the card that you’re no risk to the public, they’re not going to bail you. Because I’m going to tell the prosecutor we’ve got you on our books as someone with links to organized crime. You’re going into the general prison population. Do you have any idea how easy it will be for me to make it look like you’re co-operating with us? And do you have any idea how little time it will take Darko Krasic to make sure you never talk to anyone else again? I mean, think about it, Marlene. How long did it take him to set up Kamal?” Petra got to her feet. “Think about it.” She crossed to the door and knocked to indicate that the meeting was over.
As the WaPo outside opened up, Petra looked back over her shoulder. Marlene Krebs was leaning forward, her loose hair shrouding her face. “I’ll be calling on you, Marlene.”
Krebs looked up. Hate blared across the room at Petra. “Fuck you,” she said.
I’ll take that as a yes, Petra thought triumphantly as she walked back to the Wachte for her gun. She had finally lit a low flame under Darko Krasic that might eventually cook Tadeusz Radecki.
Carol had always enjoyed the ambience of Soho. She’d seen it shift from the seediness of the porn industry’s hub to the stylish, gay-orientated café society it had become in the 1990s, but there had never been a time when she hadn’t found it fascinating. Chinatown rubbed shoulders with theatreland, leat
her men shared the pavements with shifty-eyed prostitute’s punters, media gurus battled wannabe gangstas for taxis. Although she’d never policed its narrow, traffic-choked streets, she’d spent a lot of time there, much of it in a drinking club on Beak Street where one of her oldest friends, now a literary journalist, was a founding member.
Today, everything was different. She was looking at the world through a different lens. From the perspective of a drugs courier, nothing was quite the same. Every face on the street was a potential cause for concern. Every dodgy doorway could pose some unnamed threat. To walk down Old Compton Street was to tiptoe into the danger zone, antennae bristling and every sense quivering with alertness. She wondered how criminals coped with these levels of adrenaline. Just one morning and she was jittery at some deep level, her stomach clenched and her skin clammy. Simply trying to keep her pace down to a stroll took every ounce of effort she had to give.
She turned into Dean Street, her eyes scanning the pavements and the roadway, constantly checking to see if anyone was taking an interest in her. Something tricky was bound to be lying in wait for her, and she wanted a sense of what that might be.
Carol spotted Damocles up ahead of her on the opposite side of the street. It looked like a typical Soho café-bar, all designer chairs and marble tables, exotic flower arrangements visible through the smoked-glass window. She kept on walking till she reached the next corner, then circled the block so that she came back down Dean Street in the opposite direction.
She was almost level with them when she saw them. She’d never worked Drugs, but she was familiar with the plain clothes cars they used. This one looked like a bog-standard Ford Mondeo, but what gave it away were the twin tail pipes of the exhaust. This had a lot more under the bonnet than the standard engine. The stubby radio aerial sticking out of the rear window was confirmation enough if she’d needed it. The driver sat behind the wheel, ostensibly reading the paper, a baseball cap pulled down to shield the top half of his face.
Where there was one, there would be more. Now she had a better idea of what she was looking for, Carol carried on ambling down the street. There was another car she was fairly sure was Drugs Squad, again with the driver in place behind his newspaper. Directly opposite Damocles, two men were making a very thorough job of cleaning the window of a newsagent’s. A third man was bending over a bike, pumping up the rear tyre very slowly, checking the pressure with his fingers every few seconds.
Two car loads, she thought. That meant six or eight officers. She’d clocked five, which meant there were probably another three she hadn’t spotted. If she was their target, the chances were that the others were already inside the café. Fine. So be it.
Time for a little improvisation.
What Carol hadn’t registered was the battered white van parked behind the Mondeo. Inside, it was fitted out with state-of-the-art surveillance kit. Morgan, Thorson and Surtees perched on swivel chairs, headsets clamped to their ears. “That’s her, isn’t it?” Thorson said. “She’s changed the way she looks, but it’s her.”
“You can always tell by the walk,” Surtees said, reaching across her to snag a Thermos he’d had filled with café latte from his favourite Old Compton Street bar. “The one thing it’s almost impossible to disguise.”
Morgan stared intently into one of the video monitors. “She’s carrying on to the corner. That’s two passes. She’ll go in next time.”
“She handled those two thugs well,” Surtees said, pouring out his coffee and pointedly not offering any to his colleagues. Morgan, he knew, would have his inevitable bottle of San Pellegrino stashed somewhere. Thorson he’d never liked enough to want to share anything with.
Thorson glared at him as the rich aroma of the coffee hit. She never seemed to manage to be as prepared for things as that anally retentive bastard Surtees. He always made her feel inadequate. She suspected that Morgan knew that, and that it was one of the reasons he kept them working together. He always liked to keep people on their toes. It meant he got results, but she couldn’t help feeling that it was sometimes at the expense of the nervous systems of his team members. She craned her neck to look at the monitor over Morgan’s shoulder. “All units in place, target entering,” she heard through the crackle in her headset. “On my word, not before.”
Carol had come back into sight, this time moving with a determined stride towards the heavy glass and chrome doors of Damocles. Morgan clicked the mouse linked to the video display and the picture changed to the inside of the café. Another click and the screen split into two images. One showed the whole of the interior, the other focused on the man sitting reading and smoking at a table in the rear. They watched as Carol walked in and made straight for the rear. She chose a stool towards the back of the room, a little distance from the man she’d been told was her contact. But she made no attempt to catch his attention. She said something to the barista, who supplied her with a mineral water.
“A pity we couldn’t get audio in place,” Surtees said.
“There’s far too much background noise,” Thorson said. “We tried a mike under the table, but the marble blocked out anything worth hearing.”
Carol reached into her bag and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. She took one out and put it between her lips.
“I didn’t think she smoked,” Thorson said.
“She doesn’t.” Morgan frowned at the screen. “What is she up to?”
Carol made a show of searching in her bag and pulling a face in disgust. She looked around her and her eyes lit on the man at the corner table. She hitched herself off the stool, leaving her bag on the bar, and walked across to him. Now her body was between the man and the camera and they couldn’t see what was happening. She bent down, then eventually stood up, the lit cigarette between her fingers. “A long time to light a fag,” Morgan said, suspicion in his voice. “She’s not following the script.”
“Good for her,” Thorson said softly as Carol returned to her bar stool. She sipped her drink and toyed with the cigarette, stubbing it out before it had burned halfway down. Then she was on her feet in a blur of movement, grabbing her bag and heading for the toilets. As she opened the door, her contact jumped to his feet, leaving his magazine, and followed her.
“Oh shit,” Morgan said. “Is there an exit out there?”
Surtees shrugged. “I’ve no idea. It was Mary who checked the place out.”
Thorson coloured. “There’s a fire exit. It’s alarmed…”
As she spoke, the peal of a security siren screamed. At the same moment, all hell broke loose in their ears.
Carol ran down the narrow service alley between the tall buildings. She didn’t have to look over her shoulder to check her contact was behind her; she could hear his heavy footfalls closing on her with every step. They emerged on a narrow side street, the pavements busy with people returning to their offices after lunch. Carol slowed to a brisk walk, her contact falling into step beside her. “Fucking hell,” he said. “You trying to kill me?”
“I spotted a geezer from the Drugs Squad sitting outside the café in a car,” she said, still firmly in character. “Him and his storm troopers turned over a mate of mine’s place a couple of months back. They didn’t get anything then, and I’m fucked if I was going to let them get anything now.” A nearby police siren swirled through the air. “We’ve got to get off the street.”
“My motor’s over in Greek Street,” he said.
“They might have clocked that an’ all,” Carol said impatiently. She jinked across the road between the traffic-jammed cars, heading for a dingy corner pub. She pushed open the doors. It was still busy from the lunchtime crowd and she squirmed her way to the rear of the room, checking he was still with her. They squeezed into the angle between the bar and the back wall. Carol’s hand was in her bag. “Have you got the money?”
His hand was inside his jacket pocket. He came out with an envelope folded to the size of a twenty-pound note, thick as a London A-Z. Their hands were low,
his body blocking them from any curious eyes. Carol passed him the drugs and took the money. “Nice doing business,” she said wryly, then pushed past him. She looked around for the ladies’ toilet, made her way through the throng and dived into a cubicle. She sat on the toilet, head in her hands, shaking. What the hell sort of assignment did they have lined up for her if this was their idea of an exercise?
Gradually, she got her breathing and her heart rate under control. She stood up and wondered if there was any point in trying to change her look again. She pulled off the leggings and replaced them with the skirt, then jammed the baseball cap down over her hair. She might as well give it a try. Now all she had to do was get back to Stoke Newington in one piece. That shouldn’t be beyond her, she thought grimly.
Out on the street, there was no sign of pursuit. She made her way by a circuitous route to the Tottenham Court Road underground station and tried not to think about what could still go wrong. At least now she didn’t have any drugs on her. Money was always explicable. The only dodgy thing in her possession was the CS gas canister. When nobody was looking, she pushed it into the gap between the seat and the bulkhead of the tube. Not the most responsible thing she’d ever done, but she wasn’t thinking like Carol Jordan any longer. She was thinking like Janine Jerrold, one hundred per cent.
Three-quarters of an hour later, she turned back into the street where the day’s mission had begun. There was no sign of anything out of place. It was funny how, in just a few hours, normal could seem so rife with potential threat. But at least now the end was in sight. She took a deep breath and marched up to the front door.
It wasn’t Gary who answered the door this time. The man on the doorstep had the bulky upper torso of a weightlifter. His reddish hair was cropped close to his head and the glare from his prominent pale blue eyes was unnerving. “Yeah? What do you want?” he asked belligerently.
