A shadow falls, p.10
A Shadow Falls, page 10
part #2 of Jenny Aaron Series
Aaron feels her way to the sink.
Sandra asks: ‘How’s Lissek?’
‘If he carries on sailing so close to the wind, he’ll soon have to commission the Unsinkable III.’
They laugh.
And Aaron thinks: I have no right.
Pavlik is tinkering with his motorbike in the garage. Country music reverberates through the thin wall.
‘I’ll let you in on something,’ Sandra whispers. ‘But you have to promise not to tell anyone.’
‘What?’
‘He secretly listens to Eurovision song contest compilations.’
‘Never!’
‘I swear! I found his CDs. Nicole, Roland Kaiser, Nana Mouskouri, the full works.’
‘New depths are being plumbed.’
‘Deeper than you can fathom!’
And Aaron thinks: I have no right.
After the meal they sit at the full table, drink red wine, grappa, espresso, gossip about this and that. Her friends are fluctuating pixels in a grey fizz, as if Aaron was sitting close to a television that is set to the wrong frequency.
Still not a word about yesterday. There’s so much that connects them, including the little things. She had completely forgotten how much happiness lies in the mundane.
She has the devil in her when she hums the melody of ‘Marble Breaks and Iron Bends’.
‘I knew it,’ growls Pavlik. ‘Woman, can’t you keep anything to yourself at all?’
‘Dum, dum – dum, dum,’ Sandra joins in.
All of this feels so good.
And Aaron thinks: I have no right.
She hears a loud bawling. Baby monitor.
‘Bang on time,’ says Pavlik. He goes upstairs while Sandra warms up the milk. When he comes back with Jenny, he asks without much ado: ‘Can you hold her a moment?’
Before she can even reply, a kicking, wailing warm bundle is lying in Aaron’s arms. She barely dares to breathe, she’s so scared she might do something wrong. But then a tiny little hand grabs her thumb and holds onto it tight, and everything is perfect. Suddenly Jenny goes quiet and pats at her nose.
Sandra touches Aaron’s shoulder. ‘She recognized her godmother straight away.’
Tears well in her eyes.
‘We would have asked you of course,’ says Pavlik. ‘But that wasn’t possible. You can always say no. It’s quite a responsibility. If anything were to happen to both of us, you’d have to be there for her.’
‘Of course,’ is all that Aaron can manage.
For a minute they listen to the gurgling and cooing of the baby. A unit so tight it seems impenetrable.
I have no right.
Pavlik clears his throat: ‘Who’d have thought that our daughter will have such a rich godmother.’
Sandra laughs.
‘It’s true. She’s inherited unexpectedly.’
‘Has she now. How much?’
‘About two billion.’
Sandra laughs again. When the others remain silent, she realizes it isn’t a joke. ‘Holm?’ she asks.
Aaron nods.
‘Why?’
‘Good question.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘The account is in Marrakech. We’re going to fly over there,’ says Pavlik.
‘When?’
‘Tuesday.’
I have no right.
Nobody knows what they will find there. Ludger Holm is dead and Pavlik has settled all his scores. He has three children and a wife who would fall to pieces at his graveside.
Aaron will board the plane.
Without him.
Thoughts can speak louder than words. Aaron shivers because she knows that Sandra can see into her innermost being.
Her friend says: ‘A long time ago, Ulf had to promise me three things. Never to lie to me. Never to walk out of the house or come home without a kiss. And never to abandon you. He’s not going to break any of those promises, otherwise he wouldn’t be the man I love.’
These are the big things.
7
Three important days in the life of Inan Demirci:
When she was seven, her parents travelled to Turkey with her for the first time. An uncle was getting married and there was going to be a celebration in the Anatolian village that her father had left as a young man. She remembers how she got frightened on the dusty road, because men and women she’d never seen before were tugging at her and pinching her. She remembers that a dead goat was carried past and there was a cloud in the sky that looked like a fist. That she burnt her mouth on sweet milk and wondered why the bridegroom was standing on the roof of the house, dropping apples down onto the bride. That the village kids ogled her disparagingly and laughed at her red patent-leather shoes and that she only understood every other word. That she ran behind the house, where a boy with protruding ears and buckteeth pushed her about. That she cried because she didn’t know what she had done to him. That an aunt gave the boy a slap and cradled Inan on her lap and sang a song that she still remembers today.
Another was the day her father left the house very early to wash her mother’s body. From above, Demirci saw how her father suddenly crumpled on the pavement and the prayer beads dropped from his hand. She ran downstairs and led her father back into the apartment. His arm was so thin she could feel the bone. When she sat him down on an armchair and left, she knew he wouldn’t get up until she came back.
Demirci asked the Imam to tell her how a body should be washed. She scribbled everything onto a slip of paper. In the end it was so densely packed she could barely read her writing.
Much had to be observed, and none of it was familiar to her.
She anointed her mother’s forehead, palms and knees and still has the smell of musk and camphor in her nose. Sometimes she hears her voice, whispering and empty, as she reads the verse of the thirty-sixth surah from the slip:
‘Indeed, it is we who bring the dead to life and record what they have put forth and what they left behind, and all things we have enumerated in a clear register.’
She felt ashamed then, because she hadn’t enumerated anything, hadn’t written anything down, ever. Friends and relatives and neighbours came and went. What they said was like smoke, by the evening she had already forgotten it all. She secretly slipped a tablet into her father’s tea. He fell asleep without having spoken a single word that day. She took pen and paper and sat until sunrise, listing everything that her mother had been for her. She started with the sentence her mother had said to her when she decided to become a policewoman: ‘But never forget where you come from.’
The third day was many years later again. Demirci had met her former classmates from Hiltrup College of Policing in a restaurant to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of their graduation. They seemed carefree, as if they were still the same as back then. But that wasn’t the case.
It was already late when Lennard Palmer came and sat down next to her. He had been one of their lecturers at Hiltrup and he’d been invited because he had risen to the rank of BKA Commissioner and some of her peers wanted to fraternize with him. Demirci hadn’t been among his favourite students, although her achievements had been exemplary. Of course it had occurred to her that Palmer was so distant towards her because of her background; it often happened to Demirci. But he had never hinted at anything; the reason may have been a different one altogether.
On that evening in the restaurant, he stiffly raised his glass to her and indicated a smile which his eyes contradicted. Congratulations, presumably she already knew, he’d said. Puzzled, she asked him what he was talking about. That’s how she learnt that the Interior Ministers’ Conference was going to appoint her as Lissek’s successor. She remembers to this day what music was playing: Bruce Springsteen, ‘Streets of Philadelphia’.
‘I could hear the blood in my veins, it was just as black and whispering as the rain.’
That was her.
Palmer eyed her and said: ‘There are quotas for everything.’ He stood up and jovially went to mingle with others, where he still was when Demirci left without saying goodbye.
*
This is what she recalls as the three armoured limousines head towards the Treptower on the banks of the Spree. The high-rise building isn’t situated on the actual BKA compound opposite, but it is home to the Berlin office of the BKA Commissioner, who shuttles between the capital and Wiesbaden. The five bodyguards who make up Demirci’s personal security escort her into the foyer in diamond formation. She enters the external glass lift on her own. Silently it glides skywards above the river. Swans are perching on grey ice floes; a dusting of snow floats from the sky.
Upstairs are men with submachine guns. Their faces say: We know what you’re carrying under your suit jacket. Demirci is waved past the body scanner, one of the few people permitted to approach Palmer with a loaded gun in her shoulder holster.
‘Ms Demirci.’
‘Commissioner.’
He indicates two leather seats and comes straight to the point. ‘You’ve requested information from me about the Banque Sayed du Maroc. May I ask why?’
‘We want to check up on an account. I’m keen to know whether the bank is involved in criminal activities.’
Palmer reaches over to the bowl on the table and laboriously selects a boiled sweet, which he tosses about in his mouth like a pinball, before he says: ‘According to an evaluation made three years ago, one quarter of the loans were bad loans, which couldn’t be reclaimed because the debtors were linked to terrorism and organized crime.’
‘Which source?’
‘One of the fund managers confided in the CIA station chief. He was prepared to provide a legally valid statement on the condition that he would be included in a witness protection programme. It never came to that – he was shot dead in his house. The Americans had the bank investigated by the Financial Action Task Force. Among other things, they found connections to Abu Sayyaf and the Russian Mafia.’
‘And then?’
‘The Moroccan government didn’t fancy picking a quarrel with the FATF; that would have impacted on aid payments. The loans were written off and the management was replaced. The bank hasn’t attracted any further attention since then.’
‘Do you have a man in Morocco?’
‘In Rabat, in the embassy.’
Which she knew of course. She was just following procedure. ‘Two of my people are flying to Marrakech tomorrow. I need logistical support.’
‘In what way?’
‘Weapons, equipment, a vehicle.’
‘Which prosecutor’s office?’
‘None.’
Palmer runs his hand over a flawless crease, tugs on the handkerchief in his breast pocket, crunches up the sweet.
Demirci expected this reaction. In the grey zone outside the official channels it’s a case of give and take, and in that respect she is currently in debit. Palmer recently helped her out in Mexico and India. She needs to return the favour.
She decides to lay something big on the table.
‘Your liaison officer in Islamabad is suspected of selling internal information from Western intelligence services to Pakistan’s secret service and the Taliban,’ she says. ‘I’ve been asked to send a team.’
Palmer tenses his jaw. ‘Why haven’t I been informed of this?’
‘I have no idea, but it came from the Chancellery. It seems to me, you don’t only have friends there.’
Palmer is ashen-faced. Demirci knows what’s going on inside him right now. One of his people is being investigated behind his back. There could be packing cases standing in this office very soon.
‘Will you help me in Morocco?’ she asks.
He stares into empty space, nods mechanically.
‘Thank you. My logistician will sort out the details with Rabat.’
He nods again, without actually listening.
‘I’d also like to discuss a personnel decision. It’s about Jenny Aaron.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m recalling her to the Department. I’m very keen for this to go through without delay.’
He turns his gaze to her. ‘You want to take away my best woman and you just announce it as a done deal?’
‘I’m sorry, Ms Aaron has already agreed.’
Palmer straightens up. ‘One day it will be your turn to wonder whether your key will still fit the lock when you arrive for work in the morning. I don’t wish it upon you. No matter how many times you think of it, it still comes out of the blue.’
‘We are but temporary guardians of power.’
‘Don’t debase yourself with platitudes.’
Demirci has a caustic reply on the tip of her tongue. But she swallows it, stands up and stretches her hand out to Palmer.
He doesn’t take it. ‘You think I don’t like you. You think that I didn’t acknowledge your achievements in Hiltrup. And you’ve never forgiven me for what I said to you at the anniversary get-together.’
‘Are you surprised?’ she asks coldly.
‘My comment was wrong and stupid, I apologize for it. And the fact that I’ve always been rather reserved towards you has nothing to do with your Turkish heritage. At least not in the way that you think it has. You were an outstanding student, it was clear that you would go on to do exceptional things. But you want to prove something to yourself and the world. We both know what it is. Eventually it will crush you, because no matter what you achieve, you will never be rid of the fear that it isn’t enough.’
Demirci looks out of the window. A coal freighter is pitching through the ice floes. Swans take flight. Waves slap against the enormous steel sculpture on the river.
‘It’s called Molecule Man,’ says Palmer.
Demirci remains silent.
‘The sculpture. A man made up of molecules.’
Her head shoots round. ‘What on earth makes you think you have the right?’
‘I haven’t been this honest in a long time. It feels good. You should try it sometime.’
She walks to the door.
‘Lissek left big shoes to fill,’ she hears Palmer say behind her. ‘I know what I’m talking about, Richard Wolf was my predecessor. It isn’t easy to succeed a legend – especially when you inherit their foes.’
Demirci stops and turns round.
‘Svoboda is giving you a hard time,’ he continues. ‘In case you think it’s personal: it isn’t. There are some who claim that he wants to abolish the Department. Personally, I doubt that. He wants to own it. And that would be dangerous.’
The tone of Palmer’s voice makes her shiver.
‘Last year, I investigated Svoboda.’
A chill comes over her. ‘Why?’
‘Some of my agents were following a Croatian who specializes in corruption services for the Mafia. The Croatian was in talks with the manager of an arms manufacturer in Munich, probably with the aim of smuggling automatic rifles for Iran past the Federal Security Council. The following day he flew to Bremen. There he met Svoboda in a restaurant. Unfortunately we had no way of listening in to their conversation. But it was interesting that Svoboda had turned up without bodyguards. He normally uses every opportunity to surround himself with his super-commando; he places great importance on security level 1. Yet when he went to Bremen, he went alone.’
‘Did you arrest the Croatian?’
‘We assumed they were just at the initial contact-making stage, so we let him leave the country. It was a mistake. As far as we know, he has never returned to Germany.’
‘And Svoboda?’
‘I had to be careful. You know that my predecessor brought down a Federal Minister of the Interior and paid for it with his job. I only kept a very select few in the loop. We took a close look at Svoboda. We checked his travel expenses, account movements, tapped his phone.’
‘Without a court order?’
‘And this I’m asked by the head of the Department?’ he says sardonically.
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary. For three months. Then Svoboda flew to Croatia for a weekend. Again without bodyguards.’
She steadies her voice. ‘With company?’
‘I was already skating on very thin ice, I didn’t want to fall through. Sending investigators abroad without a prosecutor’s backing would have meant crossing the Rubicon. I’ll leave such operations up to you.’
‘So that was it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why are you sharing this with me?’
‘Divide and rule.’
‘Don’t debase yourself with platitudes.’
‘As yet I remain in office. I chair the commission that prepares the resolutions for the Interior Ministers’ Conference. Keep me posted about Pakistan, and I’ll inform you of Svoboda’s activities against you.’
Demirci tries to read Palmer’s expression. It’s a tempting offer. But what if there’s an entirely different reason for his interest in their operation in Islamabad?
Was it a mistake to tell him about it?
How much does he really know?
He smiles bitterly. ‘I don’t blame you for being suspicious; too much honesty can come across as a lie. You said that the Chancellery is involved. The Intelligence Service coordinator is a protégé of Svoboda’s. Did you know that? I wouldn’t be surprised if your people in Islamabad find evidence that I am covering up or even involved in these supposed dealings of my liaison officer.’
‘You think that Svoboda has found out about your investigations against him? That Islamabad is a plot to bring you down?’
‘Is that so far-fetched?’
No.
‘Do we have an agreement?’
You never know until afterwards whether a deal was fair.
She nods.
‘I don’t want any details on Morocco,’ Palmer says. ‘That’s how I did it with Lissek too. But I never looked away. Your men follow a code. You think you know it. But do you really?’
‘What are you trying to say?’
It suddenly grows dark outside. Ice rain drums against the windows. ‘Does the name Bas Makata mean anything to you?’ he asks.
‘The butcher of Kinshasa?’
