Craig Russell - The Carnival Master

‘Do you have any information on when he will next be back here? The next time…’

Malarek turned to face Buslenko. ‘There won’t be a next time. Vasyl Vitrenko moves like a ghost. He has so many contacts and informers here that if he does come back, he’ll have evaporated into thin air again before we even know about it. That’s where you come in, Major Buslenko. Vasyl Vitrenko’s reign is an embarrassment to Ukraine. We cannot expect the world to take our new democracy seriously while we are seen as the cradle of the new Mafia. We need Vitrenko stopped. Dead. Do I make myself clear?’

‘You want me to go to Germany without the knowledge or approval of the German government? That’s illegal. Both here and there.’

‘That’s the least of your worries. I want you to take a Skorpion Spetsnaz unit with you. And just to make sure there are no misunderstandings, this is a seek-and-destroy mission. I don’t want you to bring Vitrenko back to face justice. I want you to put him in his grave. I take it I have made my wishes completely unambiguous?’

‘Perfectly. And I assume that if we get caught you will deny all knowledge of us? That we will be left to rot in a German prison?’

Malarek smiled. ‘You and I have never even met. There is something else… I want it done quickly. The longer it takes to organise, the more chance there is for Vitrenko to find out about it. Unfortunately he has more militia in his pocket than I care to think about.’

‘When?’

‘I want you to be ready to go in a week or so. I know that gives you practically no time to select and brief a team, but it also gives Vitrenko less time to compromise it. Can you do it?’

‘I know someone who can help me put a team together. Discreetly. But not just Skorpions. I want a mix of background and skill.’

Malarek shrugged. ‘That’s your thing. I just need to know if you can do it.’

‘I can do it.’

After the Deputy Interior Minister and his bodyguards left, Buslenko sat alone in the steam bath and gazed again across the bath at the image of Cossack Mamay. Mamay stared out somewhat melancholically from his steam-wreathed porcelain panel, giving nothing away about how hard it was to be the Great Protector of the Ukrainian people.

‘This is a big step for you, Jan. I want you to understand that I do appreciate that.’ Roland Bartz sipped the sample of wine, swirled it in his mouth and nodded to the waiter who then filled both men’s glasses. ‘And I understand that resigning as head of a murder squad is a lot more complicated than most job handovers…’

‘But…?’

‘I’ve been waiting a long time now, Jan. I agreed to hang on till you tied up that last case of yours, but I really need someone to take over the foreign accounts now.’

‘I know. I’m sorry for the delay. But, as I told you, I now have an official end date and I’ll be sticking to it. You won’t have to wait any longer.’ Fabel forced a tired smile.

‘You okay?’ Bartz frowned with what Fabel thought was overdone concern. Bartz was the same age as Fabel. They had grown up in Norddeich in East Friesland together, gone to school together. Back then Bartz had been a gangly awkward youth with a bad complexion. Now his skin was bronzed, even in midwinter Hamburg, and his awkwardness had been transformed into urbane sophistication. To start with, Fabel had seen Bartz through childhood’s eyes: recognising the similarities with the boy he’d befriended. But it had quickly become clear to Fabel that the Roland Bartz of today was a different person from Bartz the schoolboy. Fabel knew that Bartz had become a multi-millionaire, but it had only been since their chance encounter and Bartz’s offer of a job – and a way out of the Murder Commission – that Fabel had discovered just how vast his schoolfriend’s wealth was. And now he was getting to know the businessman. Fabel preferred the awkward, spotty youth of his memory.

‘I’m fine,’ said Fabel unconvincingly. ‘Just been a tough day.’

‘Oh?’

Fabel related brief details of his encounter with Georg Aichinger, without giving any information that the press wouldn’t already have by then.

‘God…’ Bartz shook his head in disbelief. ‘Not me, Jan. I could never do that job in a million years. You’re well out of it. But sometimes, to be honest, I don’t know if you feel that way.’

‘I do, Roland. I really do. When I was there today there was a young MEK trooper with me. Just itching to squeeze off a few rounds. You could almost smell the testosterone and gun oil in the air.’ Fabel shook his head. ‘It’s not that I blame him. He’s just a product of the times. What police work’s become. It’s time I got out.’

The restaurant was in Ovelgonne and its vast picture windows looked out onto the Elbe. Fabel paused to watch as a massive container ship drifted silently past with unexpected grace. He had been here before with Susanne, on special occasions. The prices made it a special-occasion kind of place, but clearly not for Bartz and his expense account. It had been here that Fabel had had the chance encounter with Bartz that had led to his dramatic decision to change career.

‘It’s time for me to be someone else,’ he said at last.

‘I have to say, Jan,’ said Bartz, ‘you still don’t sound one hundred per cent convinced that you’re making the right move.’

‘Don’t I? Sorry. Being a policeman’s been my life for so long. I’m just adjusting to the idea of putting it all behind me. It is a big step, but I’m ready for it.’

‘I hope you are, Jan. What I’m offering is no sinecure. Admittedly it doesn’t involve the stress or trauma of being a murder detective but I assure you it’s just as demanding… just in a different way. It needs someone with your intelligence and education. Most of all someone with your sense of people. I just worry that you’re having second thoughts.’

‘No second thoughts.’ Fabel hid the lie behind a smile.

‘There’s one thing about the job – a benefit we haven’t discussed – that you should think about.’

‘Oh?’

‘What do you think being an international sales director for a software company means to people? I mean when you meet them at a party or a wedding or in a bar and they ask what you do. You know what it means?’

Fabel shrugged. Bartz paused to take a sip of wine.

‘It means nothing. It’s your job: it’s not you. It doesn’t define you. And people don’t have an opinion about it. But if you say you’re a policeman everyone has an opinion. Say you’re a policeman and a whole lot of prejudices and expectations fall instantly into place. And they don’t just see it as what you do, they see it as what you are. I’m offering you a way out of that, Jan. A chance to be yourself.’

At that moment the waiter arrived with their main courses.

‘Ah…’ Bartz smiled appreciatively. ‘Now that the food’s arrived, we can talk about your future… not your past. Eating and business, Jan. You can’t separate them. We think we’ve come so far, that we’re so much more sophisticated than our ancestors. But there’s still some kind of fundamental intimacy that comes from sharing a meal, don’t you think?’ Fabel smiled. He couldn’t remember Bartz talking so much as a boy. ‘Think of all of the alliances forged, all of the deals done across the centuries, all discussed, bartered and sealed over feasts. It’s something you’ll have to get used to, Jan. You’ll carry out most of your important negotiating across a dining table.’

They spent the rest of the meal discussing a life that somehow Fabel still couldn’t see himself fitting into: a world of travel and meetings, of conferences and entertaining. And, for some reason, he couldn’t get Georg Aichinger’s desperate tirade against the futility of his life out of his head.