The Last Temptation (51 page)

She was leaning against the wall feeling sorry for herself when one of the civilian clerks walked out of the police station f looking tentative. He peered around him and, when his eyes lit on her, smiled and headed towards her. ‘You’re Brigadier I. van Hasselt, right?’ ^

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Marijke nodded. ‘That’s right.’

‘I’m Daan Claessens? I process the traffic tickets?’ He had the irritating habit of making every statement sound like a question.

‘Pleased to meet you, Daan,’ she said wearily.

‘Only, I was in the canteen this morning? And we were sitting with some of your detectives, and they were talking about the de Groot murder and the other killings? And they said you’d told them to look at all the CCTV film from the traffic cameras on the day of the murder? To try and spot a Golf with German plates?’

‘That’s right. It’s a line of inquiry we’re pursuing.’

‘So, I thought it might be worth looking at traffic tickets?’ He stood waiting for encouragement.

‘Yes?’ She was too weary to manage more than polite interest.

‘So I went back and checked? And I found this -‘ With a flourish, he produced a sheet of paper from the folder he was carrying. He handed it over with the pride of a dog delivering a very slobbery stick.

It was a speeding ticket generated by one of the automatic cameras on the outskirts of the town. The date and time corresponded to Pieter de Groot’s murder. The photograph showed a black Volkswagen Golf with German plates. Like the one Margarethe Schilling’s partner had seen on her drive. Marijke felt her palms sweating as she read the details. The car was registered to Wilhelm Albert Mann. Twenty-six years old. His address was given as the Wilhelmina Rosen, care of a Hamburg shipping company. ‘Unbelievable,’ she breathed. It looked as if Tony had been rigjit all along.

‘Does this help?’ Daan asked eagerly.

‘Oh yes,’ she said, amazed that she could still sound calm. ‘Yes, this helps a great deal. Thanks, Daan. Oh, and can you keep quiet about this for now? Confidentiality, and all that…’

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He nodded. ‘No problem, Brigadier.’ He scuttled off, turning back at the door to give her a little wave.

The question was, what should she do now? Somehow, she had the feeling that the German detectives might be reluctant to see this as a high-priority solid lead. For one thing, it appeared to be nothing more than a combination of hunch and coincidence. There were plenty of innocent reasons why a German barge skipper’s car might have been in Leiden. There wasn’t even any proof that Mann himself had been driving it. More importantly, she understood only too well the politics of policing. No matter how eager the detectives were to clear their cases, there would be a reluctance on the part of their bosses to accept guidance from the Dutch police. They’d want the murders solved, sure, but they’d want the cases cracked by their own people. So while they might be glad of a lead on such a tough case, she didn’t think it would be treated with the urgency she thought it deserved. Besides, this had been her case from the beginning. If it hadn’t been for her and Petra, the German police would be a lot further behind than they were now. If anyone deserved the credit for solving these murders, it was them. She wasn’t ready to give it away yet.

What she needed was for one of her unofficial allies to track down the Wilhelmina Rosen and check out Wilhelm Albert Mann. If Tony was right about the killer’s boat being trapped by the floodwaters, it couldn’t be too hard to search the Kohl area for Mann’s barge.

She walked back inside, mentally composing the email.

Krasic looked down at the chubby young man who loomed over his keyboard like a miniature Jabba the Hurt. ‘What do you think? Can you find out about this Dr Anthony Hill for me?’

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Hansi the hacker smirked. ‘Piece of piss. The public stuff I can get in minutes, but the private stuff, like address, bank details, that’ll take me a bit longer. Leave it with me, I’ll get you everything that’s out there in a matter of hours.’

‘Good. Oh, and while you’re at it …’ He read out the address Tony had taken a cab to that morning. ‘I want to know who lives there. And what they do. OK?’

‘And I get paid when?’

Krasic patted him on his greasy head. ‘When I see the results.’

‘I’ve never let you down yet,’ the hacker said, his mouse pointer already moving across the screen.

‘Now would not be a good time to start.’ Before Krasic could say more, his phone rang. He stepped to the other side of the high-ceilinged room of the apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, where counter-culture wannabes rubbed shoulders with the real thing like his man in the corner. ‘Hello?’ he grunted.

‘Darko, it’s Arjouni.’ The heavy Turkish accent was unmistakable, Krasic thought, wishing his new middle man would remember not to use names on the phone.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘We’re short. The supplies that were due, they’ve not come in.’

‘I know that. Don’t you have enough to be going on with?’

‘I’m nearly out. There’s no way I can make it through the weekend.’ I

‘Shit.’ Krasic muttered. ‘OK, leave it with me.’ He ended the call then dialled Tadeusz. ‘BossiWe’ve got a problem with supplies. With the river being^ closed, there’s a shipment still en route.’ }

‘Is it far from home?’

‘Koln. I can get there in four, five hours,’ Krasic said.

43i

Til come with you.’

‘There’s no need. I can manage.’

‘I know you can manage, but I’d like to come along. The last couple of days have given me a taste for seeing what goes on in my business.’

CI thought you were doing a live TV interview tonight on Business Berlin? Krasic objected.

‘That’s not till ten o’ clock. We’ll have plenty of time to get there and back, the way you drive.’

‘What about your new business partner? Aren’t you supposed to have a meeting today?’ Krasic said, trying to keep the sneer out of his voice.

‘She could come too. She likes to see how things work.’

‘No way. This is too close to the bone. Telling her is one thing, showing her is another. You come, if you must. But she stays away.’

He heard Tadeusz sigh. ‘Oh, all right. Pick me up in half an hour, OK?’

Krasic replaced the phone in his pocket and headed for the door. ‘Let me know when you have what I need. Call me, OK?’

‘OK, Darko.’ The hacker looked up from his screen. ‘I love working for you. It’s never the same thing twice.’

Tony clicked on his e-mail in-box again. He’d been checking every fifteen minutes or so, trying to fool himself that he was pursuing the investigation. The truth was he wanted to hear from Carol. But still there was nothing from her. He wondered what she was doing. She’d said nothing about her plans for the day, other than that she was waiting to hear from Radecki about the arrangements for their Rotterdam trip. Oh well, at least Marijke had got back to him.

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Hi, Tony

I have some very interesting news. No point in copying it to Petra, because she’s on surveillance today, and Carol is of course involved in her undercover. But I wanted to talk to you about this.

We have a speeding ticket issued to Wilhelm Albert Mann on the date of de Groot’s murder, just after nine in the evening. It was a camera that caught him, not a cop, and we have a photo of the car, a black Volkswagen Golf with Hamburg plates. Mann’s address is a boat. The Wilhelmina Rosen. I checked with someone in a shipping registry and this is a big Rhineship, they go all over Europe. What do you think? Is this worth checking out? I am reluctant to call the police in Koln, they will think it’s crazy. If you agree it is worth checking out, I have a list of possible places in and around Koln where a Rhineship could be waiting for the river to subside.

You can call me, I think.

She was right, he should call her, but first he needed to check something. He reached into his bag and pulled out the papers from Schloss Hochenstein. Of course, if Mann was their killer, it was possible that the person who had made him suffer didn’t share his surname. His maternal grandfather, for example, would probably be called something completely different. But if his luck was running, there might be an illuminating correlation in there somewhere.

He hastily looked down the alphabetized^ists. It was a fairly common name, and he found eight/children whose surname was Mann. Five he dismissed at once. ‘They had been euthanased on the grounds of either mental or physical handicap. A sixth,

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Klaus, had died of pneumonia within a couple of weeks of being admitted to one of the feeder hospitals in Bavaria. Gretel, the seventh, had been admitted to Hohenschonhausen, but the records said nothing about her. The eighth name was the one that leapt out. Albert Mann, from Bamberg, had been taken to Schloss Hochenstein aged eight, diagnosed with chronic anti-social behaviour. The only comment under his treatment regime was Wasserraum.

Tony grabbed the phone and rang the number Marijke had given him. ‘Marijke?’

7a?’

‘It’s Tony Hill here. I got your email.’

‘You think it is something?’

‘I think it’s a huge something. It ties in very neatly to a discovery I’ve just made in the Schloss Hochenstein records. Can you send me a list of places where I should be looking in Kohl? I’m going to see if I can get on a flight and I’ll hire a car at the other end.’

‘OK, I will e-mail you the directions immediately.’

‘Don’t you think you should get your German colleagues on to this now?’ he asked.

‘I want to be more certain. And it’s still my case. If it wasn’t for me and Petra - and you, of course - there would be no leads to follow. I think we have the right to chase this ourselves. And I want to thank you for all you are doing for us,’ she said, her English competent but slightly stilted.

There was, Tony thought, little that was more powerful than naked self-interest. But he didn’t have a problem with that. In his experience of nailing serial killers, when it came to the endgame, it was always better to keep the team as tight as possible. ‘Listen, I haven’t felt so alive for ages. It’s me who should be thanking you. I’ll keep you posted.’

Within fifteen minutes, he was running out of the apartment,

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laptop swinging from his shoulder. He had forty minutes to get to the airport for a flight to Bonn. Luckily, he got a taxi almost immediately.

He was so excited it never occurred to him to check if he was being followed.

Carol couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so long. She’d crawled into bed just before midnight, emotionally drained but still buzzing with excitement that she thought would keep her awake for hours. In spite of that, she’d crashed out as soon as her head hit the pillow, and when she’d opened her eyes it had been after ten.

As soon as she realized the clock hadn’t stopped the night before, she’d leapt out of bed and raced to the shower. She hadn’t written a single word of her reports from the previous day, and that was going to take hours. At this rate, Morgan and Gandle would be convinced she was either dead or rucking Radecki. She’d better send them a quick holding e-mail to warn them what was coming. ? ť

‘Bugger, bugger, bugger,’ she shouted as the water cascaded over her. She wanted to laze in bed, hugging last night’s encounter with Tony to her heart, replaying his every word. Instead, she was going to be stuck in front of a keyboard all afternoon, hammering out the details of her meetings with Radecki and Krasic.

She was barely out of the shower when the apartment phone rang. It could only be Radecki, she thought. Petra would never call her here, nor would Tony. And nobody else knew where she was. She dashed naked and dripping across the living room and grabbed it on itye fifth ring. ‘Hello?’

‘Caroline, how are you today?’ Hii familiar voice sounded formal. \

‘Very well, thanks. And you?’

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‘I have to chase off on some urgent business that’s come up. I’m going to be out of town all day.’

‘You sound pissed off with me, Tadzio,’ Carol said, keeping her own tone cool.

‘Not at all.’ His voice softened a little. ‘I’m only sorry because I’d hoped we could get together, maybe talk things over, but it’s just impossible. Please believe me, this is nothing to do with last night. Darko and I really do have to deal with something very important.’

‘That’s fine, Tadzio. Business is important, we both know that. And I’ve got plenty of work to keep me occupied here.’

‘OK, I didn’t want you to think I was being funny with you after what happened last night.’

Carol smiled to herself. She could almost believe she really did have him right where she wanted him. Always leave them wanting more, that was obviously how it was done. ‘I wouldn’t want us to be uncomfortable with each other,’ she said.

‘Good. Oh, and if you want to borrow the Z8, just come round to the apartment. It’s in the underground garage. The attendant has the keys. I’ll tell him you might show up, yes?’

‘Thanks. I don’t think I’ll have the time to go out gallivanting, but it’s nice to know the offer’s there if I need it. Give me a call when you get back, OK?’

‘I will. And when I get back, we’ll sort out our unfinished business, no?’

‘I hope so. Bye, Tadzio.’ She replaced the handset and smiled. It couldn’t have worked out better. With Tadeusz out of the way, she wouldn’t have to find an excuse to buy the time to write her report. And even better, she might be able to spend the evening with Tony. Life was going to be very good from now on. She felt it in her bones.

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If it carried on raining like this, there wasn’t much prospect of anything moving on the Rhine for a very long time, Tony thought as he peered through the windscreen of the hired Opel into the gloomy afternoon. According to the maps spread out over the passenger seat, he should be approaching a small canal basin up ahead. He’d already covered hah0 a dozen sites around Koln without any luck, and he was growing tired of alternately soaking in the rain and steaming in the car.