Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(165)

“Brilliant,” Barbara said fervently, and thanked him for returning her call. She quickly made clear to him all of the circumstances surrounding her having tracked him down.

He made a grave clucking sound on his end of the phone when she told him about the trip wire, the old concrete steps, and Haytham Querashi's fatal fall. “When I had a look at his phone records from the hotel, the number for Hamburg police was among them. We're checking into every possible lead. I'm hoping you can help us out.”

“I fear I have little that would be of help,” Kreuzhage said.

“Do you remember your conversations with Querashi? He phoned Hamburg police more than once.”

“Oh, ja, I do remember quite well,” Kreuzhage answered. “He wished to share some information about activities which he believed to be ongoing at an address in Wandsbek.”

“Wandsbek?”

“Ja. A community in the western sector of the city.”

“What sort of activities?”

“That, I fear, is where the gentleman became rather vague. He would describe them only as illegal activities involving both Hamburg and the port of Parkeston in England.”

Barbara felt her fingertips tingle. Bloody hell. Could it actually be possible that Emily Barlow was right? “That sounds like a smuggling operation,” she said. Kreuzhage coughed phlegmily. He was a brother smoker, Barbara realised, but heavier on the fags than she. He held the phone away from his face and spat. She shuddered and vowed to ease up on the weed.

“I would be hesitant to limit my conclusions to smuggling,” the German said.

“Why?”

“Because when the gentleman mentioned the port of Parkeston, I arrived at the same conclusion. I suggested he phone Davidwache an der Reeperbahn. This is the harbour police here in Hamburg. They would be the ones to deal with smuggling, you see. But that, I am afraid, he was loath to do. He wouldn't even entertain the notion, which suggested to me that his concerns did not revolve around smuggling at all.”

“Then what did he tell you?”

“He would say only that he had information about a felonious activity that was ongoing, operating out of an address in Wandsbek, although he did not know that it was Wandsbek, of course. Just that it was in Hamburg.”

“Oskarstrafie 15?” Barbara guessed.

“You've found the address among his things, I take it. Ja, that was the location. We looked into it, but found nothing at all.”

“He was on the wrong track? Did he have the wrong German city?”

“There is no real accurate way to know,” Kreuzhage replied. “He may well have been correct about the illicit goings on, but Oskarstrafie 15 is a large apartment building with some eighty units inside, behind a locked front door. We have no cause to inspect those units and could not do so on the unfounded suspicions of a gentleman phoning from another country.”

“Unfounded suspicions?”

“Mr. Querashi had no real evidence to speak of, Sergeant Havers. Or if he had it, he was not willing to share it with me. But on the strength of his passion and sincerity, I did place the building under surveillance for two days. It sits on the edge of Eichtalpark, so it was easy enough to place my men in an area where they could not be seen. But I have not the manpower to …how do you call it …sit out a building?”

“Stake out a building?”

“That American term, ja, this is it. I have not the manpower or the financial resources to stake out a building the size of Oskarstrafie 15 for the length of time it would take to ascertain if illegal activity is going on there. Not, I am afraid, with so little to go on.”

It was hardly an unreasonable position, Barbara thought. Doubtless, stormtrooping one's way into people's private homes and apartments had gone out of fashion in Germany after the war.

But then she remembered.

“Klaus Reuchlein,” she said.

“Ja? He is …?” Kreuzhage waited politely.

“He's some bloke living in Hamburg,” Barbara said. “I don't have his address, but I have his phone number. I'm wondering if there's any chance that he lives at Oskarstrafie 25.”

“This,” Kreuzhage said, “could indeed be ascertained. But beyond that …” He was good enough to sound regretful. He went on to tell her—in the sombre tone of a man with a thorough knowledge of the evils that other men do—that there were many arenas of misbehaviour which could possibly span the North Sea and tie England to Germany. Prostitution, counterfeiting, gun running, terrorism, extremism, industrial espionage, bank robbery, art theft …The wise policeman did not confine his suspicions to smuggling when two countries were connected in a criminal way. “This I tried to point out to Mr. Querashi,” he said, “so that he might see how difficult was the task he wished me to perform. But he insisted that an investigation of Oskarstrafie 15 would provide us with the information we needed to make an arrest. Alas, Mr. Querashi had never been to Oskarstrafee 25.” Barbara could hear him sigh. “An investigation? Sometimes people do not understand how the law regulates what we as policemen can and cannot do.”

How true. Barbara thought of the police dramas she'd seen on the telly, those programmes in which the rozzers regularly wrestled confessions from suspects who went from defiant to compliant within the convenient space of an hour. She made noises of agreement and asked Kreuzhage if he would check on Klaus Reuchlein's whereabouts. “I have a phone call into him as well,” she explained, “but something tells me he's not going to return it.”