The Last Temptation Read online

  “And you’re going to put a stop to that, right?” She cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “That shooting over at the GeSa on Friesenstrasse—I want you to do a bit of digging, see what you can come up with.” Plesch leaned past her and pressed the button for a black coffee.

  Petra stirred her coffee thoughtfully. “It’s hardly our area, is it? I heard it was being written up as a personal thing. The shooter was the girlfriend of one of the doctored heroin victims, wasn’t she?”

  Plesch gave a sardonic smile. “That’s the official line. Me, I think it stinks. She’s on our files, you know, the woman who did the shooting. Marlene Krebs. We had intelligence that she was dealing in Mitte. Small fry, so we left her alone. But we heard she’s tied in to Darko Krasic.”

  “Which means she might be a way through to Radecki,” Petra continued. “So you want me to talk to her?”

  Plesch nodded. “It could be worth our while. She probably thinks she’s looking at a light sentence if she plays the sympathy card—woman insane with grief takes revenge on the evil drug pusher who destroyed her lover. If we can persuade her that’s not going to happen…”

  “She might just give us something we can use to build a case against Krasic and Radecki.” Petra sipped her coffee, wincing at the heat.

  “Exactly.”

  “Leave it with me,” she said. “I reckon as soon as she finds out who I am and what I know about her, she’ll realize she hasn’t got a cat in hell’s chance of making the deranged lover defence work. Can you let me have whatever we’ve got on her?”

  “It’s already on your desk.” Plesch began to move away.

  “Oh, and Hanna…?”

  She paused and glanced over her shoulder. “You want something else.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Someone else. I need someone out on the street in Mitte. We need to establish that the dead guy really wasn’t Marlene’s man.”

  “Hard to prove a negative.”

  “Maybe so. But if we can nail down who Marlene has been shagging, it might rule out a connection to the dead guy. Likewise, if we can establish whether he was involved with anyone on a long-term basis…”

  Plesch shrugged. “Probably worth a try. The Shark’s got nothing pressing on his plate. Send him out for some red meat.”

  Petra’s heart sank as she walked back to her desk. The Shark was an ironic nickname for the most junior member of the squad. He’d earned it because he had no taste for blood and was incapable of moving backwards to reassess new data in the light of experience. Nobody thought he would last long on the squad. He wasn’t the person she would have chosen to trawl the bars and cafés of Mitte, probing their sources to find out what was to be learned about Marlene Krebs. It showed what a waste of time Plesch thought that was. Still, it was better than nothing. And she could always head out there herself that evening if she’d not managed to pry something useful out of Krebs in exchange for a deal on her sentence.

  It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do.

  Even though it was a raw, damp day, Carol was sweating. She’d carried out the first part of her assignment without a hitch, but she knew she was a long way off being home and dry. The detailed brief had arrived by courier just after seven. She’d ripped open the thin envelope, almost tearing the contents in her haste. There was a single sheet of paper inside. It informed her that she should be at the address she had previously been given by ten a.m. There, she would be provided with the rest of her instructions.

  Her first instinct was to arrive right on time at the rendezvous, an anonymous terraced house in Stoke Newington. But that might be the first test in itself. Perhaps she was supposed not to do what was expected of her. Hurriedly, she showered and dressed in the clothes she’d decided Janine Jerrold would have worn for such an assignment. A short black lycra skirt, a white T-shirt with long sleeves and a scoop neck under a fitted fake leather jacket. In her shoulder bag she carried everything she needed to change her look. A baseball cap, aviator frames with clear glass lenses, a pair of denim leggings and a lightweight waterproof kagoule in a nasty shade of pale blue. Also in the shoulder bag was an illegal CS gas spray and a metal comb with a sharpened tail. They were both relics of her days in CID in the port of Seaford, items she’d confiscated and never got round to handing in. She wasn’t quite sure how her watchers would react if she had to resort to them, but she was supposed to be showing initiative and acting like a real drugs courier. She could always argue the point afterwards.

  Having decided to arrive early, Carol set out from her flat just after eight. She took a circuitous route to her destination. There would, she was sure, be followers, but she had no intention of making it easy for them. Taking advantage of the rush-hour commuters would be one way of improving her edge. Even so, she still jumped off the tube at the last possible moment, doubling back three stops before emerging at street level and catching a bus.

  When she turned into the quiet side street, there was no one on her heels. But that didn’t mean there weren’t keen eyes on her. She climbed the three steps to the front door she’d been directed to. The paintwork was filthy with London grime, but it looked in reasonably good condition. She pressed the doorbell and waited. Long seconds passed, then the door opened a couple of inches. A pale face smudged with stubble and topped with a spiky crest of black hair peered at her. “I’m looking for Gary,” she said, as instructed.

  “Who are you?”

  “Jason’s friend.” Again, following her orders.

  The door swung open, the man taking care to stay out of sight of the street as he let her in. “I’m Gary,” he said, leading the way into the front room. He was barefoot, wearing faded 501s and a surprisingly clean white T-shirt. Dingy net curtains hung at the window, obscuring the street. The carpet was an indeterminate shade between brown and grey, worn almost to the backing in front of a sagging sofa that faced a wide-screen NICAM TV complete with DVD player. “Take a seat,” Gary said, waving a hand at the sofa. It wasn’t an appetizing prospect. “I’ll be right back.”

  He left her alone with the home entertainment centre. There was a stack of DVDs by the player, but that was the only personal touch in the room, which otherwise was about as welcoming as a police interview room. Judging by the titles, Gary was a fan of violent action movies. There wasn’t a single movie Carol would have paid money to see, and several she’d have parted with hard cash to avoid.

  Gary was gone less than a minute. He returned with a plastic-wrapped package of white powder in one hand and a roll-up trailing a streamer of unmistakable dope smoke in the other. “This is the merchandise,” he said, tossing the package towards her. Carol grabbed it without thinking, then realized this meant her fingerprints were now all over it. She made a mental note to wipe the surface as soon as she got the chance. She had no idea whether she’d be carrying the real thing, although she doubted it. But the last thing she needed was to get a tug from some eager copper who wasn’t part of the operation and be nailed with a half-kilo of cocaine with her prints all over it.

  “So where am I supposed to deliver it?”

  Gary perched on the arm of the sofa and took a deep drag from the skinny joint. Carol studied his narrow face, itemizing the features as she habitually did. Just in case. Thin, long nose; hollow cheeks. Deep-set brown eyes. A plain silver ring through the left eyebrow. A jutting jaw with a definite overbite. “There’s a café-bar in Dean Street,” he said. “Damocles, it’s called. The guy you’re meeting will be at the corner table at the back by the toilets. You hand over the package and he’ll give you a wad. You bring the cash back here to me. That clear?”

  “How will I know it’s the right guy? I mean, what if he can’t get that table.”

  Gary rolled his eyes. “He’ll be reading Q magazine. And he smokes Gitanes. That enough? Or do you want his inside leg measurement?”

  “A description would help.”

  “Dream on.”

  “Or a name?”

&n
bsp; Gary’s grin was crooked, revealing even teeth stained ivory. “Yeah, right, that’ll happen. Look, just do it, huh? I’ll be expecting you back here by two.”

  Carol tucked the drugs away in her shoulder bag, placing the package between the folds of the denim leggings then rubbing the surface clean through the cloth. She didn’t care if Gary saw her. It wouldn’t hurt to have a witness to her prudence if he was, as she suspected, one of Morgan’s watchers. “See you later, then,” she said, trying not to show the antagonism she felt. After all, there was no point. He was almost certainly someone like her, a cop thrust into an alien role for some purpose neither of them was allowed to know.

  She returned to the street and shivered as a chill gust of wind cut through her thin clothes. The quickest way to Soho would mean turning left and heading back to the main road where she could pick up a bus. Which would be what they were expecting her to do. So she turned right and walked briskly towards the end of the street. From her earlier reconnaissance, Carol knew she could cut through the warren of back streets to a short alley between some shops that would bring her out on the other side of Stoke Newington, from where she could catch a train. They wouldn’t be expecting that, she reckoned.

  At the corner, she quickened her pace to a trot, hoping to make the next corner before whoever was on her tail could catch up with her. She crossed into the next street, pulling the kagoule out of her bag as she went. Her next turning was almost upon her, and she swung quickly into a gateway, pulling the kagoule over her head and jamming the baseball cap over her blonde hair. Then she walked back into the street, this time adopting a slow, swaggering walk, as if she had all the time in the world.

  When she reached the junction, she glanced over her shoulder. Nobody in sight apart from an elderly man clutching a supermarket carrier bag and shuffling down the opposite side of the street. Which meant nothing, she knew. She couldn’t allow herself to act as if she’d shaken off her pursuit.

  Now the entrance to the alley was in sight. It was a narrow passage between high brick walls, easy to miss if you didn’t know it was there. With the adrenaline surge of relief, Carol turned into its gloomy mouth.

  She was about a third of the way down when she realized she’d made a bad mistake. Heading towards her were two young men. There wasn’t quite enough room for them to walk side by side, but they were so close together she couldn’t possibly pass them. They looked like thugs; but these days, most men in their late teens and early twenties did. Carol found herself wondering, idiotically, when exactly it had become fashionable for respectable lads to look like potential muggers. This pair fit the identikit mould perfectly. Heads shaved to stubble, waterproof Nike jackets over football shirts, chinos and Doc Martens. There was nothing to distinguish them from thousands of others. Maybe that’s the point, she thought as they approached inexorably.

  She desperately wanted to look behind her, to check her avenue of escape, but knew that would instantly be seen as a sign of weakness. The gap between her and the two men closed by the second and she could see their gait change almost imperceptibly. Now they were moving more cautiously on the balls of their feet, a pair of predators sizing up the prey. She had to assume they were part of the game. Which meant they’d stop short of doing her serious damage. To think otherwise was too disturbing. Carol was far too accustomed to being a woman in control of her environment to contemplate how easily she’d turned herself into a potential victim.

  Suddenly they were upon her, jostling her from either side, backing her into the wall. “What have we got here, then?” the taller of the two said, his voice a guttural North London taunt.

  “Yeah, what’s your name, darlin?’ the other leered.

  Carol chanced a look at the far end of the alley. It was clear. There were only the two of them.

  Her moment’s inattention had given them their chance. The taller one grabbed at her bag. “Give it up,” he demanded. “Save yourself a beating.”

  Carol clung on grimly, leaning against the wall and adjusting her weight. Her left leg shot out in a savage kick, catching him on the inside of the kneecap. He howled in pain and rage, stumbling back and away from her, releasing the bag strap to grab his knee as he crumpled to the ground.

  “Fucking cunt,” the other one said in a low voice that was far more frightening than a shout. He sprang towards her, right arm pulling back for a punch. Carol saw it all with slow-motion clarity. As he brought his fist towards her, she let herself drop and his momentum carried him forward into the wall.

  It gave her a couple of precious seconds to grab the gas canister from her bag. As her first assailant scrambled to his feet, she let him have the CS gas straight in the face. Now he was really howling, screaming like an animal in a trap.

  His mate swung round, ready for a second attack. When he saw her grinning like a madwoman, the spray can at arm’s length, pointing straight at him, he raised both hands, palms facing her, in the universal gesture of surrender. “Fucking take it easy, bitch,” he shouted.

  “Get out of my fucking way,” Carol snarled.

  Obediently, he flattened himself against the wall. She edged past him, careful to keep the spray pointing at him all the time. His friend was still yelling, his eyes streaming and his mouth contorted in pain. Carol walked backwards in the direction of the street, never taking her eyes off them. The one who had punched the wall had his arm round the other now, and they were staggering towards the far end of the alley, all the bravado knocked out of them like the air from a punctured balloon. She allowed herself a small, private smile. If that was the best Morgan could throw at her, she was going to come out of this with flying colours.

  She turned her back on her assailants and walked out into the busy street. It was hard to believe that only a matter of yards from this mid-morning bustle of shoppers and strollers she’d stared physical danger in the face. As the adrenaline surge receded, she became aware of the state she was in. Her upper body was drenched, the double skin of the vinyl jacket and the kagoule acting like a sweatbox on her skin. Her hair under the baseball cap felt plastered to her head. And she was starving. If she was going to complete this mission, she’d be crazy to ignore her body’s messages.

  Up ahead, she saw the golden arches of a McDonald’s. She could get something to eat then use the toilet to clean herself up and switch from the skirt into her denim leggings. With luck it would have a functioning hot-air hand drier. She could maybe even alter her hairstyle, thanks to the sweat of panic.

  Twenty minutes later, Carol was back on the street. Her hair was off her face, slicked back with a smear of hair wax. The aviator frames subtly altered the shape of her face. The jacket was zipped up, hiding the T-shirt underneath. She looked different enough from the woman who had rung Gary’s doorbell to confuse most casual observers. She knew it wasn’t enough to fool the sort of scrutiny she expected to be under, but it might be sufficient to buy her a few extra seconds when it counted.

  She took her time getting to the station, browsing shop windows as if she was just another idle shopper wondering what to buy for dinner. But once there, she trotted up the steps to the platform just in time to catch the train. Good thing I checked out the timetable, she congratulated herself as she slumped into a corner seat in a carriage that smelled of dust. It was a breathing space. Time to figure out what came next.

  12

  Petra walked into the squad room of the GeSa. It was as depressing as every other one she’d been in. The net curtains that blurred the bars over the three windows were the dirty yellow of second-hand nicotine, the walls and floor the same graded shades of grey that characterized the rest of the GeSa. That fascinating gamut from dove to anthracite, Petra thought wryly. The Wachpolizisten stationed at the GeSa had tried to brighten up the room with the usual kitsch array of postcards, cartoons and photographs of their pets. A couple of tired plants struggled to cope with the absence of any direct sunlight. It only served to make the place even more depressing.

  The
room was empty except for a solitary female WaPo who was putting a plastic box full of a prisoner’s personal effects on one of the shelves. She turned as Petra leaned on the counter and cleared her throat. “I’m Petra Becker from Criminal Intelligence. I’m here to see Marlene Krebs,” Petra said. “You’ve still got her, right?”

  The WaPo nodded. “She’s due to see the judge in a couple of hours, then she’ll be transferred, I guess. Don’t you want to wait till then?”

  “I need to talk to her now. I can use the lawyer’s room, yeah?”

  The WaPo looked uncertain. “You better talk to the boss. He’s in the report room.”

  “That’s down at the end of the cell block, right?”

  “Behind the fingerprint room, yes. You’ll need to leave your gun here.”

  Petra took her pistol from its holster in the small of her back and locked it into one of the lockers for visiting officers. Then she headed out of the squad room towards the cell corridor. She glanced up at the electronic alert system the cops sarcastically called the room-service board. None of the alarm lamps was lit; for once the prisoners were being well-behaved, not driving the GeSa team crazy with constant summonses.

  The cell block itself was surprisingly sterile and modern. The usual linoleum gave way to red brick tiles on floor and walls. Most of the doors were closed, indicating that they were occupied. A couple were open, revealing a small vestibule, beyond which wall-to-wall bars enclosed four square metres of cell equipped with a bed and a rectangular hole in the floor covered with a chrome grid in case the inmates decided not to ring for a toilet visit and just fouled the cell. It was a mistake most of them made only once; the cost of cleaning the cell after such acts of defiance was billed directly to the prisoners.

  Petra wondered which door concealed Marlene Krebs, and how she was coping. Badly, she hoped. It would make her job that much easier.

  She found the shift commander in the Schreibzimmer, frowning at one of the Berliner Modell computers. She explained her mission, and he asked her to wait while he organized an interview. “We shouldn’t really have her here,” he grumbled. “She should have gone straight to KriPo, but since it happened on our doorstep, they told us to hang on to her.”