There was something intoxicating about these ideas and he saw himself as Ubbo Heide was: a recognised, beloved authority whose advice was valued, and who made that wheelchair he sat upon into a royal throne.
He drank cocoa, like his grandma had made him and watched Svenja Moers on the screen. She was using the exercise machine and pedalled away for a good twenty minutes. Sweat pearled on her forehead.
Did she know that he was watching her, could even read the level of difficulty? The machine was set at sixty and she rode at a speed of twenty-three kilometres per hour. That was already pretty good for her, he thought.
He turned on the loudspeakers and said, ‘You’re doing really well. Keep going. And don’t forget those nutritional drinks: they were expensive!’
She looked up into the camera, nodded and smiled at him.
Yes, he thought, maybe you’ll be my fighting machine. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll give you the chance to atone for your sins by fighting on our side.
Then he heard something again. They were driving and the police radio was on.
There’d been an accident with several injuries on Issumer Strasse in Wittmund. A driver was out of control. Apparently it was a criminal who had been wanted for a long time.
But they were going to the police station in Norden, on the market square and not to Wittmund. He heard Ann Kathrin saying, ‘The officers in Wittmund will have to deal with that by themselves. Everyone from K1 is gathering in Norden.’
A shiver ran down his spine. Everyone from K1. That meant the homicide squad was getting together, and he’d be there, live.
It must be about him. What else? An accident in Wittmund was meaningless by comparison, even if a criminal was involved.
He felt good and drank his cocoa, leaning back in his chair, stretching out his legs. Ubbo Heide is with them, he thought. My activities have brought him back into the line of duty and made him the head of the Kripo. In the end, that wimp Büscher will have to either get in line or go back to Bremerhaven.
Ubbo Heide is the key to everything. Whoever has Ubbo on their side has won. Ann Kathrin will be the first to toe the line, and in the end the whole gang will too.
He heard Weller crackling over the police radio. ‘I’m almost at Werner Jansen’s place in Oldenburg Ofenerdiek. Should I turn around and come to Norden or—’
Luckily Ann Kathrin spoke loudly and clearly, ‘No, Frank, it’s important that you talk to him.’
‘But the police in Oldenburg could do that.’
‘I would prefer for you to be there. He has to have police protection so just arrest him if he doesn’t cooperate.’
‘I can’t just do that.’
‘Work it out, Frank.’
He laughed loudly and called out, as if his voice could reach the car. ‘How stupid are you? Do you really think Werner Jansen is next? I killed Michael Jansen so his brother would run to you. He will be terrified and will surely retract his statement. Then that damn Volker Janssen will no longer have an alibi and you can finally catch that animal.
*
Werner Jansen was listening to Sandra Droege on Radio Lower Saxony. She was covering the murders and had made a clear connection to Ubbo Heide’s book. She reported that the body in Oldenburg’s castle gardens had a playing card in his mouth. Although the police hadn’t said which card it was, Sandra Droege assumed it was an ace because there was a lengthy chapter in the book where witnesses were described as ‘poker brothers’. Droege claimed that their statement had undermined Ubbo Heide’s detective work, reducing it to absurdity.
She read a passage aloud from the book, describing how the culprit still had two aces up his sleeve and had produced them during the trial. Two witness who in Ubbo Heide’s opinion had lied and then stuck to their statements despite interrogation.
Werner Jansen immediately broke into a cold sweat and knew that the game was over. Even back then he’d had a bad feeling about it, but you couldn’t abandon a friend in a situation like that, and his brother had been insistent. They were friends, after all, and you have to help each other out. It had only taken a court deposition to free their friend.
He had already received a call notifying him about his brother’s death and he’d been invited to identify the body, but the police officer hadn’t mentioned a playing card in his mouth. He had thought it had sounded like a mugging gone wrong. Of course his brother, a fighter by nature, wouldn’t just hand over the money and avoid a struggle, that’s not the way he was.
But it all looked very different now. The playing card was a clear sign.
There was something in the recent press speculation. It seemed as though someone was trying to solve Ubbo Heide’s cold cases.
He didn’t want to think about the future; he just wanted the whole thing to end before it was his turn. Should he go to a lawyer first or straight to the police?
Once he had worked out exactly what he needed to do and was ready to get the ball rolling, it felt as if he was nailed to the chair. His arms and legs were heavy and his body became inert and lame while thoughts raced through his head faster and faster.
Had he had a stroke?
His brain sent out orders, but they didn’t arrive at his muscles and joints.
The sound of the doorbell ringing shocked him out of it and it was as if his body was acting independently.
He watched himself open the door. There was a man standing there in a light summer blazer. He wore jeans and an open-necked shirt. He held up his ID in his left hand. He was in his mid-forties and had a friendly manner, like someone who had popped over for a coffee.
‘My name is Frank Weller. I’m from Aurich Homicide. Your brother is—’
‘I know, I know. Did you really find a playing card in his mouth? I just heard it on the radio.’
Weller nodded.
‘It’s the man who’s trying to solve Ubbo Heide’s cases. Please help me, Detective Weller! I made a terrible mistake when I gave Volker an alibi. We weren’t playing poker at the time of the crime. I don’t know if he tried to rape that woman but I don’t think he did. He’s actually a nice guy. We only wanted to help out a friend, not cover for a criminal, but then that crazy guy came along and—’
‘I’d like to record your statement. Then you can sign it. I don’t think you need to fear any additional punishment if you help us voluntarily and freely. But I would suggest that we go to the police station now. You need to be safe. We can’t guarantee that the killer won’t—’
‘Yeah, sure, arrest me, damn it! Please take me in! I don’t want to end up like Mikey.’
He was crying like a child.
Weller thought about the executioner when he saw the picture of misery in front of him, asking him to arrest him and finally confessing. Whoever you are, he thought, your methods are damn successful.
*
Rupert walked up the narrow stairs in Norden’s police station, following Marion Wolters. He thought that her behind had become wider and she had finally really earned the name fat arse. He grinned to himself. She could be called double fat arse. There wasn’t a seat big enough for her bottom.
Rupert reached for his back – climbing stairs really made it ache. The pain raced up his spine, all the way to his head.
If I threw away my badge and had them guess my age, I bet I’d be able to retire, he thought.
Rupert was upset because he had to sit upstairs in the office with Marion, while all the others met down in the big conference room with Ubbo Heide. Downstairs there were smells of tea and baked goods, like when Ubbo Heide had run the place, always good to his loyal followers and careful to create a pleasant work environment.
Having arrived upstairs, Rupert found the room far too small for the two of them. He needed at least three metres distance from Marion.
Rupert had understood that he was supposed to start an ‘innocuous conversation’ with Marion Wolters, in the hopes that they would be listened in on. The conversation only served one function: to distract the kille
r from what was being planned downstairs.
Rupert didn’t mind the task – meaningless conversation wasn’t a problem for him – but he’d have preferred a different partner. Anyone but Marion Wolters.
Rupert looked at her very closely. She didn’t like being here with him either. She had wrinkles on her neck and face and crow’s feet around her eyes.
Rupert wondered whether he should tell her that it was possible to have liposuction on the buttocks and then use what was extracted to smooth out the wrinkles on your face and neck. Rupert had heard that it was far better than that poisonous Botox stuff.
Although he hadn’t even said anything yet, she was ready for a confrontation.
Their conversation had yet to begin. The bug would be brought up to them so the killer wouldn’t get suspicious. If Rupert had understood correctly, the thing was in Ubbo Heide’s wheelchair, and he asked himself who would have to carry Ubbo and his wheelchair up the stairs.
Why don’t we have our conversation down there and they have their meeting up here, Rupert thought? But then the world was simply mad, and not everyone in the police station was as clever as he was, not by a long way.
He had no desire to be constantly giving instruction and pointing out their mistakes. It was up to them to realise the mess they were making of everything.
*
One storey below, Ann Kathrin was pouring Ubbo Heide a cup of tea, and Büscher was happy to note that Ubbo had left him the executive chair and positioned himself in the wheelchair next to it.
Despite that, Ubbo opened the meeting. ‘We have plenty to discuss. But,’ he picked up the tin of mints from Bochum, shook it once, making them clatter, ‘these are addictive, friends, and I’ve been putting on weight since I’ve been in this wheelchair. Could somebody get rid of this?’
‘Those are Marion Wolters’ favourite sweets, I’m sure!’ said Sylvia Hoppe, following the plan. Ann Kathrin thought it all sounded a little too staged.
Ubbo Heide made a sweeping gesture, like a king in an operetta who was giving land to his nobility. ‘Then give them to her.’
Sylvia Hoppe took the tin and left the room.
Büscher wanted to get started as soon as the footsteps on the stairs had faded away, but Ann Kathrin interrupted him with a gesture.
‘I think we should continue our meeting after the lunch break. I suggest we all need to eat.’
Then she wrote on the flipchart with a red marker: ‘The Galley or Ten Cate’?
Rieke Gersema pointed to ‘The Galley’ and silently communicated that she’d already rung them and everything was sorted.
They left and silently walked across the market square towards Osterstrasse. Ubbo Heide was embarrassed to see an entire display window in the Hasbargen bookstore of his books. There was also a large portrait of him on display. He pretended not to see it.
Ann Kathrin walked next to Ubbo’s wheelchair. She knew that the decisive minutes were approaching. She wanted to be close to him, was moved by an odd urge to protect him.
It wasn’t the first time that a K1 work meeting had taken place in The Galley. They wouldn’t be disturbed around this time. Although there were still people down below in the restaurant, breakfast had long been finished and Ann Kathrin’s friend Melanie Weiss enjoyed serving everyone coffee and tea. She was considered very discreet.
Büscher found all this strangely foreign. Maybe it was an East Frisia thing. Having a meeting in a hotel and a retired boss who led the investigations without question while drinking tea in his wheelchair.
Melanie Weiss hugged Ann Kathrin, and the two of them whispered something.
What a tight-knit community, Büscher thought. Love it or leave it.
He assumed that once you’d won them over, they’d let themselves be torn to shreds for you. At least that’s how he gauged the relationship between his colleagues and Ubbo Heide, and with Ann Kathrin Klaasen.
Ann Kathrin said, ‘Dear colleagues, we’re working on the assumption that the killer has installed a bug in Ubbo Heide’s tin of mints. Now he can use it to listen to Rupert and Marion. We probably won’t be disturbed here. We’ve left the police station because we can’t be certain that there aren’t any bugs hidden in Aurich or in Norden.’
She nodded and gave the floor to Büscher. He cleared his throat. ‘Yes, I’m honoured to open the gathering here. It’s a little strange to me to be meeting in a breakfast room, but there you go. Needs must.’
The smell of lunch rose up from the restaurant. Rieke Gersema’s mouth started to water, and she wished she could order a lamb burger, but repressed the impulse by putting her glasses very low on her nose and trying to focus.
Sylvia Hoppe asked, ‘Has he been listening to us the whole time, damn it? That means it doesn’t even have to have been one of our colleagues. He got his inside info by—’
She clenched her fist and then extended her middle finger, as if she wanted to show the killer what she thought of him.
‘This whole thing is a big chance for us,’ Ubbo Heide explained. ‘Now we can pass false information to the killer and maybe trap him.’
The police psychologist Elke Sommer lifted her hands in defence. ‘No we can’t. That’d mean pointing him towards a new victim and then trying to catch him there. That’s not ethical!’
Büscher looked to Ubbo Heide for help.
Ubbo Heide reassured her. ‘It’d be unethical if we had a chance to get him and didn’t use it. We have the advantage now, we know something that he doesn’t. And we know that he has let his actions be directed by our conversations.’
Ann Kathrin took over. ‘Weller has visited Werner Jansen and it is exactly as we predicted. Jansen has now admitted to lying and even asked to be arrested. This means Volker Janssen’s alibi is gone. However, the question is whether he can be put on trial again. Once acquitted—’
Büscher asserted himself by speaking more loudly. ‘I’m a little uncertain about this. For example, if the killer could hear us right now, he’d have to – to be consistent with his logic – try to get that young poet. We could catch him—’
‘And what if he succeeded?’ Elke Sommer asked, incensed.
Ann Kathrin didn’t like what she was hearing. ‘People, how’s this supposed to work practically? Of course we can set a trap for him. But that would mean we were giving him a new victim. And then? Such surveillance of a potential victim is very personnel-intensive. We could maintain it for twenty-four hours, maybe two or three days. But what if he doesn’t strike during that time?’
Büscher took over. ‘Exactly. We don’t have the staff numbers. What if he waits three weeks or a month, then the whole police service would be paralysed. Here at the Aurich-Wittmund police department we’re responsible for a quarter of a million people. We can’t drop everything to—’
‘On the other hand,’ Ann Kathrin said, ‘he’s always struck very quickly in the past.’
‘The question is also whether we should inform the bait beforehand,’ Büscher cautioned.
‘Bait, my God,’ Elke Sommer groaned and grimaced in disgust. ‘We’re talking about people’s lives here and not about fishing!’
Ann Kathrin emphasised, ‘Naturally whoever is playing the decoy has to agree and actively support us, otherwise the plan’s off.’
Rieke Gersema couldn’t stay seated any longer. ‘Good heavens, I feel sick when I think about what could happen. We’re laying a trap for him and the next person dies! Then it’ll come out that he basically followed our lead. I can already see the headlines! This could cost us all our heads, people.’
‘You’re right,’ Büscher said. He was calm and seemed like he had complete control of the situation. ‘Unless the next victim is a former police officer.’
For a moment it seemed as if the air had been sucked out of the room. The buzzing of a fly became audible. A bird was twittering somewhere outside.
Ann Kathrin’s mouth opened, but it still took a couple of seconds before she spoke. ‘You think Wil
ly Kaufmann would play along?’
Ubbo Heide pointed to Büscher. ‘That’s a brilliant idea.’
Thanks, Büscher thought. If my plan works, they’ll finally accept me. If not, I’ll be glad to return to Bremerhaven.
*
Marion Wolters was transformed since Sylvia Hoppe had deposited the tin of mints on the table. She no longer looked morosely at Rupert, and she also no longer drummed nervously on the table. Instead she acted as if she was head over heels in love with him and wanted to impress him.
It seemed to Rupert that she didn’t have to search long for a topic. It was as if she knew exactly what she should talk to him about. She liked the fact that someone else was listening, regardless of whether it was the killer. This whole thing would probably be played in court, or heaven forbid, be broadcast on the radio, like the exchange of words Rupert had had with that journalist, Faust, on the beach in Norddeich.
Everything had been strange recently. The police department was under scrutiny. If Rupert wasn’t mistaken, the increased media attention meant that his female colleagues had been arriving at work far better coiffed than they had in a long time.
‘You know what, Rupi?’ Marion Wolters said. ‘The women’s’ police choir are working on a song about you.’
He leaned back, looking interested. ‘Yes, I’ve caught wind of something like that going on. Recently everyone has been calling me Rupi and not Rupert.’
Then she began to sing. Rupert considered her singing voice far less annoying than her speaking voice.
She positioned herself as if the tin was a microphone and there was an attentive audience listening.
‘Rupert is East Frisia’s top
Super-duper cop
A specialist at livin’ large
If you ask him, he’s in charge
What’d they do without that cat
They’d have nothing to laugh at.’
The song pleased Rupert so much that he would have liked nothing more than to jump up and dance after hearing it, but his sacroiliac joint didn’t permit any circular hip movements at that moment.
The Oath Page 36
