Craig Russell - The Carnival Master

‘What’s the story?’ Scholz asked.

‘Ukrainian,’ Kris said at last. ‘A kitchen worker. More than likely an illegal. There were three other staff in the kitchen at the time. Two Ukrainians and a Somalian. The Ukrainians won’t say a word… scared shitless. But the Somalian said that three masked men came in and started shouting at the victim. Not in German, so I’m guessing they were Ukrainian too. Specially as the two Ukrainian kitchen staff have been struck dumb. One of the masked men picked up a meat cleaver

…’ Impossibly, the young detective’s pale complexion paled further. ‘Anyway, he did that to him.’

Scholz moved over towards the body. Simone Schilling stopped his progress with another cute scowl.

‘I suppose it’s too early to ascertain a cause of death?’ Scholz grinned. It was difficult to see the features of the figure on the floor. One side of the face gaped open where the meat cleaver had sliced cleanly through skin, muscle, sinew and bone. Similarly, a straight-edged flap of flesh had separated from the upper arm, just below the cuff of his T-shirt. The cleaver’s sharp edge had made the wounds unnaturally rectilinear. Scholz reckoned there were at least a dozen slashes on the body. ‘But I’m guessing it wasn’t a gunshot.’ Scholz laughed at his witticism. Simone Schilling didn’t. She stood up.

‘You’ll get a full report from the pathologist. Herr Dr Ludeke will be carrying out the autopsy.’

‘He’s got his work cut out for him…’ said Scholz and laughed, alone, at his joke.

Simone Schilling cast her eyes around the floor, where her team had tent-flagged various bloody smears. ‘His attackers certainly didn’t care about leaving evidence. We’ve got half a dozen bootprints in the blood. Clear patterns.’ She looked at Scholz with disdain. ‘Mind you, half of them are probably yours by now.’

Scholz looked at the body again. Four or five of the slashes on the forearms. Palm split open, exposing bone. Defensive wounds.

‘Do we have a name?’ He called to the two detectives by the door.

‘Slavko Dmytruk,’ said Kris. ‘Or that’s the name the restaurant have for him. The owners reckon he’s about twenty-three or -four.’

‘Are you okay?’ asked Scholz.

‘Never been good with this side of the job…’

‘What’s not to be good with?’ Scholz nodded to the corpse. ‘That’s not a person any more. It’s nothing but meat. Whoever Slavko Dmytruk was, whatever made him who he was, has got nothing to do with what’s left here. You’ve got to get past that. If you don’t, you’ll walk into a murder scene and find some little kiddie dead and you’ll go to pieces. It’ll be your last day on the job.’

Kris was looking at the partially dismembered corpse and did not look at all convinced.

‘Have you had anything to eat?’ asked Scholz. ‘It’s always worse if you’ve got an empty stomach.’ He turned and dipped a ladle into the still-warm soup. He held it out to the young detective. ‘Try some of this… it’s really good. Split pea…’

Kris turned suddenly and bolted out into the restaurant, in the direction of the toilets. Tansu Bakrac scowled disapprovingly at her boss. When Scholz turned back to Simone Schilling, she was staring at him in disbelief.

‘What?’ he said defensively, the ladle still extended. ‘I was trying to help him feel better…’

‘Not everyone is as insensitive to human suffering as you, Herr Scholz.’

‘Call me Benni.’

‘Okay. You can call me Frau Doctor Schilling.’ She nodded in the direction of the departed detective. ‘Shouldn’t you check that he’s okay?’

‘He’ll be fine. If not, he’s in the wrong job. Anyway, I’m not insensitive to human suffering. I feel for the victim. Horrible death. But I don’t lose my lunch every time I look at a stiff. Like I said, they’re not people any more. Just meat. No one knows that better than you.’

‘You’re right,’ said Simone Schilling. ‘A corpse isn’t a person to me. It’s a store of evidence. But it took years to become accustomed to it. Now I look at them professionally, not emotionally. But you… you’re just an insensitive pig.’

Scholz smiled. He liked it when she insulted him. ‘I’m not insensitive. Just practical.’

The young detective reappeared.

‘You okay, Kris?’ asked Scholz. He turned to Simone Schilling. ‘See? Sensitive.’

‘I’m fine,’ said Kris. But he still looked pale.

‘Right, then tell me about what happened here. Were you able to get any more out of the Somalian or the restaurant owners?’

‘Not a lot,’ said Tansu. ‘The Somalian was being very helpful but then he suddenly dried up. I reckon the two Ukrainians told him who they thought the hatchet men were. Probably Ukrainian Mafia. Anyway, the three of them have been taken into custody by Immigration. The restaurant owners aren’t too chatty either. Immigration is all over them as well.’

‘So the answer’s nothing?’ Scholz asked impatiently.

‘Not completely,’ Kris said. ‘Before the Somalian shut up, he said that there had been a woman around talking to Dmytruk. Tall, thin, expensively dressed. He got the impression she was Immigration. Or police.’

Maria woke at six a.m. and listened to the sounds of the city sluggishly stirring in the dark winter Tuesday morning. She hadn’t eaten since her binge on Sunday evening and her gut ached from having been force-fed and then forcibly emptied. She still felt chilled. But something had changed.

She placed herself in another place and another time. Maria never fully understood why she did this. So much of her recent past had been devoted to trying to put what had happened behind her. But she did this regularly: lay in the dark and imagined herself back in the field that night near Cuxhaven.

Until that night they felt they had been pursuing a ghost. The team had succeeded in cornering Vitrenko and a couple of his key henchmen. Vitrenko had escaped by throwing himself through a window and into the night. Maria had been in the field with two local Cuxhaven officers. Spread out. Vitrenko had probably not even broken step as he had sliced open the first officer’s throat. Maria remembered Fabel screaming warnings to her down his radio. She had seen nothing. Heard nothing. But Vasyl Vitrenko had been brought up since boyhood to be a soldier of stealth. There had been a sound behind her and she had spun around but still had seen nothing. Then Vitrenko had suddenly loomed up from the long grass less than a metre away from her. She had swung her gun round but he had caught her hand with insolent ease and held her wrist in a crushing grip. It had been then that she felt him punch her in the solar plexus. But when she looked down she realised that he hadn’t punched her. The handle of a broad-bladed ritual knife had jutted from her body, just below her ribcage. She had looked into Vitrenko’s face. Into his cold, glittering, too-bright green eyes. He had smiled. Then he was gone.

The night had been cloudless and she had lain gazing at the stars. The pain had subsided, although she was aware of the knife as an alien object in her body. She had found she could only breathe in rapid, shallow gasps and had felt that terrible, gradual chill fill her being. It had seemed an eternity before she heard Fabel’s voice calling her name. It could only have been a couple of minutes, but to Maria it had seemed so long that she had actually begun to wonder if she was dead: if this was what death was like, your final moment stretched out infinitely. But then Fabel had been there, bending over her, touching her, talking to her. He had been her link to the living. Fabel her boss. Fabel the father of his team.