‘What about you boys? You wanna fuck with Anna?’
Bull-Neck’s companions held up their hands and backed away for a few paces before breaking into a run. Anna turned back to Bull-Neck and rammed the muzzle back into his nose, twisting and rotating it as if toying with it. His face started to smear with the blood that had begun to trickle from his nose. Anna made a girlish, disappointed face.
‘They don’t want to fuck with Anna …’ She dropped the cute voice. ‘What about you, dickless? You wanna play?’
The skinhead shook his head vigorously. Anna’s eyes narrowed and darkened.
‘If I ever hear you’ve laid hands on a woman like that again, I’ll come after you personally. Where’s your ID?’
He scrabbled in the pockets of his jerkin and took out his identification card. Anna released his crushed testicles and examined the card.
‘Okay Markus, now I know where you live. Maybe I’ll come visit and we can play some more.’ She leaned forward into his face and hissed. ‘Now fuck off!’ She threw his ID onto the ground so that he had to stoop to pick it up, clutching his bruised groin, before running off in the opposite direction to that taken by his companions. Anna holstered her sidearm and turned to the stallholder.
‘Is there a problem, tubby?’ she said, smiling her sweetest schoolgirl smile.
The stallholder shook his head and held up his hands. ‘No problem at all, Fräulein.’
‘Then give me another coffee, fatboy.’ Anna turned back to look at the apartment block. MacSwain’s lights had gone out. She scanned the exits and the street outside. Nothing. She slipped her radio out from her jacket pocket.
‘Paul … I think MacSwain is moving … you see him come out?’
‘No. You?’
‘No. Got tied up.’ She released the button on her radio and depressed it immediately again when she saw a silver Porsche angle up and out of the exit of the Tiefgarage. ‘We’re on the move. Pick me up, Paul, and
zack, zack!
’
In a matter of seconds, Paul pulled up in the battered old Mercedes used for surveillance. Battered on the outside, tuned to peak performance under the hood.
The muscles of Paul’s usually expressionless face were struggling with a wry grin as Anna climbed into the car. With her spiky hair, her meticulous make-up and her oversized leather jacket, she looked like a schoolgirl not yet accustomed to the subtleties of cosmetics, going out on her first night clubbing.
‘What’s so funny,
Schlaks
?’ she asked, using the north-German dialect word for ‘lanky’.
‘You’ve been playing again, haven’t you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Anna said, keeping focused on the silver Porsche, two cars ahead.
‘While I was parked down the road, two skinheads came running past as if they’d seen the Devil. That wouldn’t be you, would it?’
‘I have absolutely no idea what you mean.’
They pulled up behind a queue at a set of traffic lights. Paul craned his long neck to check if the Porsche had already gone through. It hadn’t. He turned to look at Anna and saw, through the passenger side window, a thickset skinhead, bent over, hands on knees, trying to catch his breath. His face was smeared with blood. He was looking back down the road as if to check he was not being pursued. His eyes came round and met Paul’s. Then he saw Anna. She blew him a long, sensual kiss with her full, fire-truck-red lips, punctuating it with a smacking sound. The skinhead froze with terror, then looked around for an escape route. The lights changed and the Mercedes started to move. Anna crinkled her nose at him and waggled her fingers in a cute ‘bye-bye’.
‘Absolutely no idea at all,’ said Anna, her face an expression of exaggerated innocence. Paul checked his rear-view mirror. The skinhead was standing in sag-shouldered relief, gazing blankly after the car.
‘Anna, just be careful. One of these days you’re going to end up biting off more than you can chew.’
‘I can handle myself.’
‘And one of these days you’re going to end up with a harassment or brutality claim against you.’
Anna barked a laugh. She gestured with her hand for Paul to take the next left: the Porsche’s indicator was blinking. ‘No self-respecting neo-Nazi skinhead fuckwit is going to admit to having his ass kicked by a one-metre-fifty-eight Jüdin. And if they did, it would be laughed out of court.’
Paul shook his head. Anna, he knew, came from a survivor family: Hamburg Jews who had been hidden by a sympathetic family until the British and the Canadians took Hamburg. She had grown up spiked with defences; defences that had been honed by martial-arts training and three years’ service in the Israeli army.
The sky had turned a velvet blue. Paul focused on the silver Porsche; MacSwain led them out onto Hallerstrasse. The municipal high-rise flats of the Grindelhochhäuser loomed into the darkness. They could have been in an estate in London, Birmingham or Glasgow. The flats had, in fact, been built after the war to hold the families of the soldiers of the British occupying forces. When the British moved out, they handed the flats over to the Hamburg authorities. Now the Grindelhochhäuser, shunned by the population of Hamburg, were occupied mainly by immigrant families. Ukrainian gangs were rumoured to hold sway in this imported concrete jungle.
MacSwain crossed into Beim Schlump and passed Sternschanzen-Park. He turned into Schanzenstrasse.
‘He’s heading towards St Pauli,’ said Anna.
‘Where the second victim was found.’ Paul gave Anna a quick look. ‘But he’s probably just off for a night out …’
It is almost as if St Pauli lies dormant during the day, absorbing the sun’s energy. At night it explodes into supercharged life. As well as the sex trade and musical shows, it has one of the most vibrant club scenes in Europe with venues like The Academy, PAT, Location One and Cult attracting clubbers from all over the city and beyond. Even on a Tuesday night, one of the least pleasure-focused days in the north-German psyche, the party goes on until dawn.
MacSwain parked in the Spielbudenplatz Parkhaus. Paul dropped Anna at the entrance to watch for MacSwain coming out and parked further down the street. He then took up a position opposite the entrance, in front of Schmidt’s Tivoli. MacSwain emerged from the Parkhaus. He was dressed casually but expensively and moved with a relaxed assurance. He didn’t notice Anna, who turned away and crossed the road before making a U-turn to follow on behind. In the meantime, Paul had picked up MacSwain and was walking about three metres behind him, but on the opposite side of the road.
MacSwain led them out of Spielbudenplatz, diagonally crossed Davidstrasse in front of the Davidwache police station and into Friedrichstrasse. Anna caught up with Paul and linked her arm through his, a simple gesture of intimacy that instantly transformed them into a couple. They passed the Albers-Eck, with its landmark corner doorway. Somewhere, one of the pubs was having a
Schlager
night, and the enthusiastic blandness of German middle-of-the-road music spilled out into the street. MacSwain crossed Hans-Albers-Platz and walked into a dance club, receiving a nod of acknowledgement from one of two doormen who looked as if between them they kept the German steroid industry in business.
‘Shit,’ said Anna. ‘What do you reckon?’
Paul drew air in through his teeth. ‘Don’t know … it’s going to be heaving in there. If we go in he could come out before we even lay eyes on him. And if we hang around out here, we’re going to stick out like a sore thumb.’ He quickly surveyed the square. ‘We could get some back-up to park themselves out here, but we’re exposed while we wait … Let’s go in and see if we can find him. If we can’t, we meet back at the door in fifteen minutes. Okay?’
Anna nodded her assent. She led the way up the steps to the nightclub. One of the huge doormen looked at Anna’s leather jacket and laughed derisively. As she passed him he placed a restraining hand on her left shoulder. Anna’s right hand shot diagonally across her body and grabbed the bouncer’s beefy thumb. The doorman tilted sideways, singing an ‘ahhhh’ song as he stared at his thumb, amazed that it could bend that far.
‘No touchie!’ said Anna sweetly.
The other hulk moved forward. Paul stepped in his way, holding his Kriminalpolizei shield in the doorman’s face. The heavy stepped back and swung the door open for Anna to enter. She let the doorman’s thumb go and he cradled it in his other hand.
‘She’s taking anger-management classes …’ Paul said to the swollen-thumbed doorman, and chuckled at his own witticism.
The dull bass throbbing they had heard outside the club exploded into an ear-splitting blast of dance music as they swung open the doors from the hall into the main dance area itself. Strobe lighting and lasers pulsed with the music. There were hundreds of clubbers on the dance floor, which was sunk lower than the walkways that circled it. The seething mass of bodies was not as impenetrable as it would be later in the week. Still, it was a daunting task to find one person in this throng.
Anna turned to Paul and shrugged the too-big shoulders of her leather jacket.
‘What’s the first thing you do when you come into a club?’
‘Get a drink?’
Paul nodded, scanning the periphery of the dance floor. There was a wide, sweeping bar slightly elevated at the far side. They split up and made their separate ways on either side of the dance floor, each scanning it for any sign of MacSwain. They arrived simultaneously at opposite ends of the horseshoe bar. There is an art to sweeping a space for a suspect without drawing attention to yourself: Paul didn’t have it. Nature and northern-German genetics had conspired to make him look as if his natural attire should be a SchuPo uniform. Here, surrounded by trendily and often scantily attired clubbers, Paul knew his best bet was to shrink as far back as possible into the undergrowth the environment provided. He squeezed his way to the bar and ordered a beer.
From his vantage point, Paul could see Anna. She was a master at this. She managed to make it appear that her attention was focused on the music and the dance floor, while glancing only occasionally and disinterestedly at the bar. She was coming towards Paul when she spotted MacSwain. The first thing that struck Anna was his looks; she had never seen MacSwain close up before and had used an identity photograph Fabel had secured from immigration as a reference. He had a broad, strong face with a heavily caged jaw and broad, pronounced cheekbones. His eyes were a glittering emerald.
MacSwain was engaged in a conversation with two blondes at the bar, who seemed to hang on his every word, laugh on cue and gaze hypnotised into the green jewel eyes. Anna was aware she had been staring at him a little too long and turned her back to the group. She let her eyes drift slowly across the dance floor until they came to rest on Paul. A subtle movement of her eyes signalled MacSwain’s position and Paul nodded acknowledgement. Casually, she turned back to check MacSwain was still there. He was. And his green, penetrating gaze was fixed on her. Anna felt an internal flutter of shock but sealed it tight inside, making sure nothing showed in her face. She looked away from MacSwain, everywhere and anywhere other than at Paul, which would give MacSwain a signpost to his other observer. Her heart thudded in her chest, yet she maintained an outer cool.
She allowed her gaze to return to MacSwain. His eyes were still fixed on her. The two blondes were engaged in a giggling conversation with each other. Shit, she thought, he’s sussed me. The corners of MacSwain’s lips curled in a knowing smile. All Anna could hope for was that if she slipped out of the picture, Paul could stay on him while she radioed up a new set of faces. She cursed silently to herself. They’d fucked up another surveillance. Fabel was lying in that hospital bed and when he got back to the Präsidium he’d discover she’d allowed MacSwain to eyeball her. The knowing smile on MacSwain’s face grew to a grin. Go on, you smart-assed bastard, thought Anna, rub it in. Then she realised: Shit, he hasn’t sussed me at all … the bastard’s hitting on me!
She smiled back. MacSwain said something to the two blondes and made an apologetic gesture; it was clear that they were not at all pleased and drifted off in search of less evasive prey. MacSwain took a few steps towards Anna and, without looking, she knew that Paul would have set himself on an intercept course. She stepped forward to the bar, wrong-footing MacSwain by passing him and leaning against the counter. She asked the bartender for a rye and dry. MacSwain turned back to the bar and smiled.
‘May I get this for you?’
‘Why?’ Anna responded in a cool, unimpressed tone. Over MacSwain’s shoulder she could see Paul approaching. She made the most subtle movement of her eyes which Paul read instantly, turning to conceal himself once again in the foliage of designer clubwear.
‘Because I’d like to.’
Anna shrugged and MacSwain paid when the drink arrived. She tried to make her movements relaxed, almost careless, but her brain was running on overload, playing catch-up with the situation. Surveillance had turned into undercover. And she hadn’t been prepared for that. All she had for backup was the tenuous line of sight that Paul maintained on her and, for all she knew, MacSwain could be the madman who was ripping women apart for kicks. Focus, Anna, she told herself. Keep breathing slow and easy. Don’t let him spot you’re scared. She sipped the bourbon and ginger ale.
‘I’ve never seen you here before,’ MacSwain said.
Anna turned to him, her face mocking. ‘Is that the best you can do?’