Hunter's Rain Read online

  Some of the customers gaped when they saw the gun. The young woman put a hand to her mouth. A customer by the utensil counter who had been putting sugar into her coffee, dropped the full cup. It smashed explosively, sending sprays of hot coffee in all directions.

  Pappenheim was at the door. He flung it open.

  The policeman, hearing the noise, darted his head round. When he saw Pappenheim, he moved with astonishing swiftness. He immediately stopped in the act of taking out his weapon, pushed himself off the BMW, and ran back to the police car. He got in and with lights flashing, reversed at speed against the traffic. Cars came to sliding, panicked halts.

  The police car swung backwards into the nearest side street. It did a rapid U-turn, and raced away as oncoming traffic parted like the Red Sea to let it through.

  Pappenheim, at the BMW, lowered himself to peer anxiously down at Carey Bloomfield.

  “Are you alright, Miss Bloomfield?”

  “Yes. I’m okay. What the hell was that all about, Pappi?”

  He slowly put his gun away, turning his head to peer through the rain, in the direction the police car had gone. He was silent for some moments.

  “I’m not sure,” he said quietly as he turned back to her. “We’ll talk in the car. Did you bring your artillery?” he added.

  “No. This is not an…official visit. You invited me, remember?”

  “So I did.” But Pappenheim did not look as if he believed there was nothing “official” tagging along. “In there.” He pointed to the glove compartment. “One of your favourite guns. Beretta 92R. In case he comes back…”

  “You’re authorising me to shoot a policeman?”

  “That,” Pappenheim began with certainty, “was not a policeman. Now I’m going to finish our order. I’ve seen some nice chocolate cake.”

  “Chocolate cake? At this time of the day?”

  “Are you saying I’m big?”

  “Hey,” she said. “I can’t talk.”

  “I think there’s a difference between us, Miss Bloomfield. Many women would kill to look like you and…Jens likes you the way you are.” Pappenheim paused. “And if you tell him I said that…” She smiled at him.

  “You’ll shoot me. I know. Now go get our order, Pappi. You’re getting soaked.” He glanced upwards. “It’s easing off, and it’s getting brighter.”

  Two

  Berlin-Wilmersdorf.

  Müller had decided that though his clothes were now virtually dry, he would go home to change anyway.

  His home was the penthouse of a classical three-storey building that had been reconstructed in the fifties to its former glory, upon its bombed-out shell. The entire building was his, having inherited it from his parents. Its three vast floors had been converted by his father - who had inherited the rebuilt family home from his father - into huge luxury apartments. The apartments on the lower floors were rented out, each with its own, separate entrance. All apartments shared the underground garage, each with three wide, allocated parking bays.

  Müller waited for the steel door at the entrance to roll itself upwards. A bright red light switched to green as the door locked into place. He drove down the gentle slope of the entry ramp and into the spacious parking area, the main lights coming on as he did so. The door began to lower itself and by the time he had parked next to a Porsche Cayenne that gleamed its newness, the entrance was again secure. Most of the cars in the other bays were sleek BMWs.

  Müller got out, locked the car, and left the garage via a solid steel door with a keypad entry lock. As with the access from the street, this was his own private entrance from the garage. Each apartment had the same form of separate access. Only the garage itself remained communal.

  A marbled staircase took him upstairs. He entered the high-ceilinged apartment, which boasted a large colonnaded hall with a glistening, polished floor.

  He smiled as he entered, suddenly thinking of Carey Bloomfield, and remembering a jumble of her words when she had first seen the place.

  “If I ate off this floor, it would get sick.” “This hall would not be out of place in a Roman villa…and those paintings…Müller, you’d give a thief a heart attack. Living room…sitting room…dining room… Persian rugs…bedroom one, with a bathroom suite. Gawd. This is huge. Look at these walls. Müller, this is a palace…” “Don’t you get lost in this place? “The kitchen! Oh wow! Stainless steel temple. I know of two apartments that would fit in here and leave room for an airfield. Do you cook? You can’t have a kitchen like this and not cook. You do! God. I hate guys like you. I can’t boil water...”

  He smiled again to himself. “Miss Bloomfield, you are an original.”

  He went into his bedroom and quickly changed; then he got out his mobile, and decided to call Pappenheim.

  Pappenheim brought the car to a halt on a short, wide avenue, not far from the left wing of the Bundestag, on their right. To their left, was the glass-rich structure of the Paul Lobe building.

  “Are you supposed to park here?” Carey Bloomfield asked.

  “I’m a policeman;” he replied. “I’m conducting an investigation.”

  “Yeah. Right.” Carey Bloomfield peered out. It was still raining heavily. “Still raining, Pappi. And it’s not getting brighter.”

  “So who said I was a weatherman?”

  “Didn’t you grow up on a farm?”

  “That was a long time ago. And anyway, the weather people get it wrong all the time.” He looked at the package she carefully held on her lap. “Time to eat,” he added with undisguised anticipation.

  “Did you stop by that place just for me? Or for you?”

  “I cannot tell a lie. I would almost kill for their chocolate cake.”

  She smiled at him. “Müller goes for Black Forest cake, and you like chocolate. As I’ve said, you two are a pair of something. Coffee smells pretty good, though.” She handed over the package. “Enjoy.”

  “There’s one for you too,” he said, taking it. He opened it, and began to pass her coffee and cake over.

  “Early for cake,” she said, “but what the hell.” She glanced over to her right, at a long queue of people, waiting on the steps of the parliament building. “They must be nuts, standing in line in this rain.”

  “All waiting to go in to see the glass dome,” he said. “They come from all over, in all weathers. The Chancellor’s cube is just behind us, to the left.”

  “Better them than me.” She took a sip of the still-hot coffee. “Mmm. That’s good.” She peered through the drenched windscreen. “The Spree is just out front, right?”

  “It is. A river runs through the government buildings,” Pappenheim added with dry humour. “Want to see?”

  “In this stuff? The Spree can stay where it is. I don’t go to the mountain, and the mountain does not come to me. Besides, someone said I could leave my coat.”

  “Someone did,” Pappenheim confirmed with a straight face. He bit into the rich chocolate cake with obvious pleasure.

  “When your mouth’s not full, Pappi,” Carey Bloomfield said, “you can start telling me what the hell’s going on, and why that policeman tried to shoot me. And don’t forget, he actually addressed me by name.”

  “That creature was not a policeman,” Pappenheim reminded her, eating through his words. “His car had the Berlin index letter, but the numbers seemed wrong. Good enough to pass first and second glances, though. That means good organisation, and access. And he knew your name. Considering you just got here, it makes things…” He continued eating.

  “It makes things what?”

  “More exciting.”

  “More exciting,” Carey Bloomfield repeated. “Great. I nearly get blown away by a wannabe cop and you say…”

  The sound of a mobile phone interrupted her.

  Pappenheim paused in the middle of a second bite of cake. “Yours?”

  “It’s coming from your direction, Pappi.”

  “Ah. Of course. Mine. Must be Jens.”


  “How do you know?”

  “Very few people have this number. I would not be insane enough to give it to Kaltendorf. But it’s Jens. He will have tried my office first.”

  Pappenheim put the cake down with a sigh, and got out the mobile. “Yes, Jens.”

  “Where are you?” Müller’s voice said in his ear. “I just tried your office.”

  “Having some coffee and cake.” Pappenheim gave Carey Bloomfield a glance that said, told you.

  “Cake? At this time of the day?”

  “Don’t you start.

  “Somebody told you already?”

  “My. We are sharp this early in the day. ‘Somebody’ told me, and ‘somebody’s’ having cake too. Chocolate.”

  “It’s early for your riddles, Pappi.”

  “So…” Pappenheim went on, “what pleasures await me with this call?”

  “The contact was helpful.”

  “Ah.”

  “I’m going to check something out in Kreuzberg.”

  “I think you should come back to the office,” Pappenheim advised.

  “Why? The Great White throwing one of his fits?”

  “Haven’t seen him as yet today, thank God.”

  “Then…”

  “Hang on. Someone you should speak with.” Pappenheim handed the mobile over to a startled Carey Bloomfield.

  She took the phone and stared at it, while Pappenheim made urging motions at her.

  “Hello, Müller,” she said into the phone.

  Pappenheim gave a little smile and went back to the serious business of finishing his cake.

  A silence from the other end greeted Carey Bloomfield.

  “Miss Bloomfield,” Müller said at last. “I was just thinking about you.”

  “All good, I hope.”

  He ducked the remark. “This is unexpected.”

  “I had some free time. Why not see my two pals in Berlin, I thought.”

  “You miss us?”

  “That’s a way of putting it.”

  “Nothing…official?”

  “Nothing official.”

  “Can I believe that?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement, as you would say.”

  “I never say that. That’s attorney-speak.”

  There was another silence.

  “I won’t be long,” Müller said. “Do you have somewhere to stay?”

  “Is that an offer?”

  “If you have nowhere to stay.”

  “I’m checked into a hotel, but I can uncheck. You still got your Hammonds?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Here’s the deal…I’ll take you up on your offer, if you play one piece for me.”

  “That’s almost like the family thing we both remember from childhood, and hate. You know…play your recorder for grandmother…”

  “I know. But that’s the deal.” She was smiling.

  Pappenheim finished his cake and raised an eyebrow at her.

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” Müller said. “Can you hand Pappi back, please? Good to know you’re in town.”

  “Sure,” she said, meaning both. She handed the phone back.

  “Something she hasn’t told you,” Pappenheim said into the phone.

  “Which is?”

  “A fake colleague tried to shoot her.”

  “What?”

  “Thought that would get your juices flowing. So? The office? Or Kreuzberg?”

  “The office.” Müller ended the call.

  Pappenheim put the phone away, and turned to Carey Bloomfield. “You two should get married. You behave like a couple already.”

  “I don’t marry unless I’m asked.”

  “You’ve been asked before?”

  “Yep.”

  “And?”

  “I said no…each time. I’m very picky.”

  “Each time? How many?”

  “Three. Maybe four. Suddenly you’re a matchmaker, Pappi?”

  Pappenheim smiled again, and started the car.

  “It looks as if we won’t have time for our private talk, after all,” he said to her as he slowly drove to where he could turn round. “And as you have explained your presence here so well, I don’t have to think of a believable excuse to give to Jens.” He gave a smile that was one of relief. “He never told me until last May, that he’d learned about the death of his parents.”

  She stared at him. “He took all that time before telling you?”

  “He wanted to sort it out within himself first. I can understand that. Not an easy thing with which to come to terms.”

  “I was with him on Rügen when he found out from the dying Russian, Rachko. I really thought he would tell you.”

  “As I’ve said…I can understand his reasons. After all, I had a guilty secret of my own that I’d kept from him.”

  “Oh?”

  “it was about the time we had flooding in the east…”

  “The Romeo Six case.”

  Pappenheim nodded as he turned the car round and headed back the way they had come.

  “When it was all over - the Romeo Six thing and the kidnap of Kaltendorf’s secret daughter…”

  “The beautiful Solange who was seventeen-going-on-eighteen at the time…”

  “You say her name with teeth,” Pappenheim remarked, a little slyly.

  “She has a thing about Müller.”

  “She’s just a child with a bad case of hero worship.”

  “She’s not a child anymore. She’s a woman. Trust me.”

  Pappenheim grinned, but made no comment about that. “And you and Jens went down to the south of France,” he continued, “my dark secret was that I intercepted a note to Jens while you two were down there. No sender, and just a simple message. ‘You may think you have won, Müller. But you haven’t. Your father was Romeo Six.’ A direct quote.”

  “Jesus!”

  “I sat on it for a long time. I confessed after he told me about what he’d found out on Rügen. All things considered, he was very good about it. I think he was feeling a little guilty about not telling me what Rachko had said. I’ll give you a quick background picture on the way,” Pappenheim went on, “about what we’ve found out since then. Many…let’s say…exciting things…”

  “’Exciting’?”

  “As in interesting, and blood-chilling. Some of it concerns you.”

  “Me?”

  “Oh yes. It will also explain why that fake policeman tried to take you out. Jens will fill in the details.”

  She was again staring at him.

  “Finish your coffee,” Pappenheim said.

  Müller put his phone away, frowning.

  Carey Bloomfield had barely arrived in Berlin and already, someone had tried to kill her.

  “She’ll have to stay here,” he said to himself. “It’s secure.”

  Which was true enough. The massive wooden door at the street entrance was reinforced within by two full-sized sheets of steel, each ten millimetres thick. Its immovable handle, with splayed ends, was welded between the steel inlays. Infrared and movement sensors guarded the entire building. The management company -under contract from Müller and not far away - had a landline connection with monitors in their offices, which were manned 24 hours a day. They also had a direct connection to Müller himself.

  He went into the large, almost empty room that served as his study. The two, pristine Hammond drawbar organs, lids down, were highly polished islands in the vast space. One was a tone wheel B3, the other its electronic twin, the XB3. Each had a full pedal keyboard. On one wall, were just two portraits: of his father, and of his mother. There were no other pictures in the room.

  “She wants me to play for her,” he said to the portraits. “Apart from the two of you, I don’t normally play for anyone. But I think this time, I’ll make an exception.”

  In shirtsleeves, with shoulder harness on and the Beretta in its holster, he stood with legs slightly apart, h
ands in pockets.

  “I’m getting closer,” he went on, “and they don’t like it. They’re under pressure, and are beginning to react more aggressively. They shot Pappi in May. They could not have known that he would have decided on impulse that night, to wear body armour. They were trying to get to me, via Pappi.

  “Today, they tried to kill Carey.” A small, reflective smile lived briefly upon Müller’s face. “She came into my life unexpectedly, and was not particularly welcome. Now…” He paused. “She’s becoming part of it. Won’t tell her that, of course.”

  The smile flitted on again, as he went out.

  They were just passing the Chancellor’s residence, when Pappenheim’s mobile rang. He pulled in to the side of the road, and stopped. A car honked in annoyance as it went past.

  “Go play with yourself,” Pappenheim said with a scowl.

  “Pappi!” Carey Bloomfield admonished.

  “He should have been more alert,” Pappenheim grumbled as he fished out the mobile. “Must be Berger,” he added, putting the phone to an ear. “Yes?”

  “Boss? Where are you?”

  “Why are you whispering, Berger?”

  Silence greet this.

  “I understand,” Pappenheim said to her.

  “Better come back,” Berger whispered.

  “On my way.”

  They ended their brief conversation.

  “Kaltendorf,” Pappenheim said to Carey Bloomfield, as he put the phone away.

  “How do you know?”

  “Berger was whispering,” he replied, driving off. “That meant he was prowling

  around. I did hear something, after all, when we were leaving. We must have missed him by seconds.”

  “How are you going to explain me?”