Damnation Read online

  Such an impression only told half the truth – intentionally so – for Meister was section head at Fedpol, the Federal Office of Police in the Swiss Department of Justice and Police. From his desk he ran the division that dealt with organized crime.

  Winter had met him years ago when still with the Enzian unit. Meister worked in the background combating the same crimes that Winter’s special unit was deployed against: international organized crime, abduction, the drug trade, counterfeit money and corruption.

  Meister, a lawyer by training, had also helped set up the money-laundering reporting office a few years back. An authority that no bank could dare ignore. This is why, after his switch to the private bank, Winter had kept up their relationship. The geographical proximity helped: Fedpol was within walking distance. Winter nodded to Meister and took out the key that would open the heavy wooden door. ‘Are you coming in?’

  After all these years the two men still addressed each other formally as ‘Sie’. There simply hadn’t been any reason up till now to switch to the informal ‘Du’. Winter was comfortable with that.

  ‘No thanks, I ought to have been home long ago.’

  Winter had no idea where Meister lived and found it difficult to imagine him as a husband, in spite of the wedding ring.

  ‘How did you know I’d be coming to the bank this evening?’

  Smiling sheepishly, Meister tapped the breast pocket of his shirt with his newspaper. In it was a slim mobile phone. Meister had followed the movements of Winter’s own mobile. Good to know. Technology was both a blessing and a curse.

  ‘Doesn’t that infringe my constitutionally guaranteed rights?’ Winter said with an ironic grin.

  ‘I’ve heard that a helicopter crashed with a client and employee of the bank.’

  ‘You heard correctly.’ Winter wondered where Meister was going with this.

  ‘The helicopter crashed for reasons as yet unknown. The Federal Aviation Safety Investigation Board is working in conjunction with the forensic officers of the Central Swiss cantons to identify the causes. The Valais lot are there because of Strittmatter. The Saudi embassy was informed by the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. The laboratory in Spiez is investigating whether explosives were involved. I’ve said that we’ll take care of the bank. The name Al-Bader set a number of alarm bells ringing in our office. Money laundering and terrorist financing cannot be excluded.’

  ‘Al-Bader was one of our best clients and we’re very sorry about his death. As far as I know he never did anything wrong. And personally I liked the guy.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But that’s irrelevant. By our criteria he was on the radar. Do you have any idea why he disappeared?’

  He hadn’t ‘disappeared’, he’d been burnt alive. But Winter was too tired to argue the point. ‘No idea. He was one of many clients.’

  ‘Did you spot anything unusual at the crime scene?’ Meister could be a real pain, but that was his job. He’d clearly tracked all of Winter’s movements electronically.

  ‘A wrecked helicopter, a policeman out of his depth and a local fireman. Three charred bodies. That was no accident. Someone deliberately planted a bomb on board.’ Sooner or later Meister would come to the same conclusion.

  ‘Do you have any proof ?’

  ‘No, but I do have a hunch.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Winter looked first at the key in his hand, then at Meister, who said, ‘Call me if you find something.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  A few seconds later Meister had vanished. It was a pleasant Saturday summer’s evening. The offices were deserted. Winter went up to Anne’s office on the first floor and unlocked the door with his skeleton key.

  To begin with Winter just stood by the door, then he sat in Anne’s swivel chair. The windowless room was neat and tidy. No papers on the desk. No personal items. Nothing. Anne was scrupulous about the security procedures. Just a single, family photo on the desk: Anne’s parents and the three girls laughing in a pizzeria. The photo had doubtless been taken by the waiter, the family huddled tightly to fit into the picture.

  Deep in thought, Winter opened the desk drawers. In the top one he found Anne’s large address book. He leafed through it. Under ‘W’ Anne had jotted down his birthday. Underlined twice. With a sigh, Winter tore himself away, locked the door and went into his own office next-door.

  Winter’s office had a window onto a dark inner courtyard. It was above the pizzeria kitchen, at the back of which the extractor pipe hummed. The rooms for receiving clients were higher up in the building; the more important the client, the more natural light they were granted.

  But he rarely sat at his desk. Nor was he dependent on impressing the people he met with a prestigious office. Desk, telephone, computer, printer, cupboard and wall safe were enough. His only luxury was the crumpled leather sofa, where he went to think. Piled on the limited shelf space was an assortment of magazines, old newspaper cuttings, miscellaneous books, travel souvenirs, boxes and all manner of odds and ends.

  Winter got a coffee from the machine in the corridor and made a to-do list. The most important and urgent tasks first, everything else later.

  Then he booked his flight to Cairo and browsed the internet and the bank’s databases. Orafin was a not particularly transparent conglomerate that invested in everything imaginable. There wasn’t much in the client database, but he did find some contact addresses. Most of these were in Egypt, but there were some in Kuwait, Washington, Delhi and Beijing too. The database had been carefully updated by the CEO’s office. Winter printed out the list. He was unable to find any detailed client documentation, and after half an hour he gave up. He emailed an urgent request to the head of the analysis and research department, asking for a comprehensive report on Orafin.

  Realising how tired he was, Winter decided to study Al-Bader’s dossier at home. He was just about to close down his computer when someone crept in silently.

  ‘Hello, Winter.’

  Winter gave a start and saw Dirk in the doorway. Dirk was the head of IT and one of Winter’s favourite colleagues. Both of them had the COO Känzig as their superior, both worked cross-departmentally and from time to time both liked to stray from the strictly conventional way of doing things. For a bank employee Dirk had remarkably messy hair and tested the dress code to its limits.

  ‘Hello, Dirk. What are you still doing here?’

  ‘The trading platform is playing up again.’ The usual. Then, with an expression of concern, he said, ‘I heard about the helicopter crash. How are you?’

  ‘Not so bad. I’ve got to go to Cairo tomorrow. On a mission for the big boss.’

  ‘Why the hell did it have to be Anne?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not yet.’ A pause. ‘It ought to have been me in that helicopter.’

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it. The ways of the Lord are unfathomable,’ Dirk said, raising his eyes and hands to the heavens.

  ‘Like at Microsoft?’

  ‘No. I’m being serious here. There’s really nothing you could have done.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Thanks.’

  ‘That’s what friends are for.’ Dirk grinned.

  ‘Dirk, could you find out who Anne spoke to on the telephone over the last few days, yesterday in particular?’

  ‘No problem for the landline. We have all the VOIP records saved on hard disc. Secured and mirrored twice. Here and in the bunker. For her mobile I’d need a bit of time as I’m reliant on the provider. I hope my contact isn’t on holiday.’

  ‘And while you’re at it, could you check Al-Bader’s numbers too? Who did he call at the bank?’ Winter opened Schütz’s dossier, jotted Al-Bader’s numbers onto a Post-it and gave this to Dirk.

  ‘You don’t believe it was an accident, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just in case. Very few people on our side knew that Al-Bader was coming, let alone when and how. I just want to be sure we don’t have a mole.’

  Dirk nodded, waved the Post-it note
by way of a goodbye and left the office. Winter stretched. It had been a long day. Wrapped in his thoughts, he walked to the car park and drove home.

  The whole affair was a puzzle. Who benefited from the crash? Al-Bader was a businessmen and must have enemies as well as friends. But why here and now?

  As he turned off the main road and drove cross-country, the hamlet with his house came into view on the horizon. Once again Winter couldn’t help thinking of Anne. Yesterday evening he’d fantasized about how wonderful it would be if they were together. Today his plans for the future lay in ruins in the Höllentobel. He was overcome with grief again.

  He stopped, switched off the engine and remained bent over the steering wheel for a moment. He was tired, hungry and needed a shower.

  Tomorrow was another day. Picking up Schütz’s documents and his small rucksack, he got out and walked across the muddy area in front of his farmhouse. When it rained, this was boggy; when the weather was dry, it was dusty. Ever since he’d moved in he’d had the same thought each time he crossed this space: I really ought to gravel it over. But now this recurring thought was joined by another: unfamiliar footprints.

  JULY 25 – 21:58

  The footprints were fresh and Winter couldn’t place them. He knew those of the farmer who cultivated the land around his house and always wore Wellington boots. He knew the prints of the postman who drove his motorbike as close as he could to the front door. But these were from someone wearing large trainers.

  Although his neighbours ensured that the comings and goings were closely observed, Winter had installed a rudimentary security mechanism: he’d drilled a small hole into the edge of the door and the jamb. Beside the door hung a bunch of dried flowers. Whenever he left the house for a considerable time he would place a dry stem in the hole. Now he saw that the stem was broken. Someone had opened the door.

  Setting down his rucksack, Winter took out one of the Orafin pistols, silently released the safety catch and crept around the house. If the burglar was still here they would surely have heard his car being parked. Winter ducked and peered into the sitting room.

  In the dim light he saw the silhouette of a figure scuttling to the balcony door.

  Winter slid along the exterior of the house, moving his way down the slope, and crouched beneath the wooden steps by the entrance to his wine cellar. Above him somebody was hurrying across the balcony. Whoever it was, wasn’t making any effort to stifle the noise of the ancient wooden planks. The intruder dashed down the steps and found himself staring into the barrel of the pistol.

  ‘Good evening,’ Winter greeted his uninvited guest.

  The man was about Winter’s size, between fifty and sixty years old, wearing jeans and a roll-neck sweater. He had a small sports bag, but no weapon as far as Winter could make out. His face showed no fear, only apparent irritation that he’d been caught.

  A professional, Winter thought. ‘Drop the bag and slowly put your hands on your head so I can see them,’ he instructed. ‘It’s been a long day and I’ve no desire to dispose of a corpse.’

  The man obeyed without hesitation, but Winter could see his eyes scanning the area for an escape route.

  ‘What are you looking for here?’

  ‘Nothing, I was just on a walk and hoping to find something to eat around the house.’

  ‘Poor joke. Right, now you’re going to take a few steps back – slowly!’ The intruder carefully moved backwards in the direction of the stable. ‘That’s it. Now stay where you are.’

  Winter crouched down and opened the bag with his left hand: technical eavesdropping equipment. Not the latest model. Winter stood back up. ‘Move!’ he barked. ‘We’re going for a walk.’

  On their way up to the stable some distance away, they passed the dung heap with the slurry pit. With his right hand Winter gave the intruder a karate chop to the neck. As the man struggled to keep his balance, Winter kicked him in the knee.

  There was a crack.

  Screaming, the intruder tried to keep himself on his feet, but tumbled into the slurry pit. The exchange of pleasantries was over.

  The slurry pit had been built after the Second World War with cheap concrete mixed with sand. The round tank was seven metres deep and two metres in diameter. The farmer regularly pumped the stinking, but nutrient-rich, liquid from the pit to fertilize the surrounding fields.

  Today the tank was half full and Winter had to take a few swift steps back to avoid being spattered. He heard the man’s cries of pain being choked. The slurry in his windpipe muffled the screams.

  The visitor spat, cursed and tried in vain to push himself up.

  Winter returned to the house, taking his guest’s bag with him. He turned on the lights and made a quick search of all the rooms. Nobody. He fetched the rucksack with Al-Bader’s documents, put some coffee on and embarked on a more thorough inspection of his sitting room, which also served as a study.

  He checked the low-hanging lamp, unscrewed the receiver and base station of the telephone and followed the cables leading from his computer. Behind the router he found a small nondescript box that he hadn’t put there. He left it where it was.

  Time for a little chat. He took his coffee and went back to his guest. ‘As I said, I don’t have any time. Either you can tell me the truth in the next sixty seconds or I’ll let you perish down there. If I cover the pit, in a few minutes you’ll be knocked unconscious by the methane and then you’ll drown. But at least you’ll serve a useful purpose as fertilizer.’

  ‘Get me out of here. Please!’ came the grunted plea from the pit.

  ‘What were you doing inside my house?’

  ‘I’m a private detective. This evening some guy rang me, gave me your address and asked me to monitor your computer. Internet’s my speciality. He said you weren’t at home.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘The guy called himself Müller and he rang from a pre-paid mobile. I checked. He paid immediately. The first ten thousand were transferred to my account within five minutes.’

  ‘What were you supposed to give him?’

  ‘Everything I could get, especially your emails.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Until he called again. He promised me two thousand a day plus my set-up expenses.’

  ‘How were you going to deliver the information?’

  ‘He gave me an email address.’ The detective spelled out an anonymous-sounding address. ‘He ordered me to send him all the files straightaway.’

  ‘Did you notice anything unusual? Did your client have an accent?’

  ‘No, he spoke Swiss German. No particular dialect. From Zürich perhaps. I somehow got the impression that this wasn’t the first time he’d commissioned a job like this.’

  Winter drank his coffee and mulled over the situation. As he couldn’t think of anything else to ask the detective he fetched a tow rope, attached it to a hook and threw it in. The private detective clambered out. He looked pitiful and he stank to high heaven.

  After Winter had taken a few prudent steps back he said, ‘I’m going to let you go now. I found your address in your bag. You’ll go home and carry out the assignment as requested. Give him what you agreed. If I find that you haven’t done that, I’m going to pay you a visit. Is that clear?’

  The filthy man just nodded and hobbled off into the darkness.

  Winter sat in one of the two loungers and stared into the night sky. Shooting stars. But he wasn’t in a position to wish for anything. After an hour he got up, sent a few emails, lay down to sleep for five hours, packed his foldable toothbrush in his rucksack and flew to Cairo.

  JULY 26 – 10:02

  The full aeroplane landed late. Winter had been forced to make do with a middle seat. The sandwiches wrapped in perforated plastic film had been unpleasant. He hated flying. And when he ducked his head to step out of the plane and into the tube connecting them to the airport, he was assaulted by the heat. Cairo in July. Not a good idea. He went through customs with his express
visa and when asked, ‘Tourist or business,’ he replied, ‘Business.’

  He was one of the first passengers from the flight to enter the air-conditioned terminal with its slightly curved, steel roof and real palm trees. Winter wondered whether Orafin had been responsible for the building.

  The fifty metres in the dry, dusty heat to the taxi rank were enough to make him break out into a sweat. On the way to the city centre he switched on his phone, which gave him the choice of three Egyptian mobile networks. He decided against the Orafin one, called Dirk and told him about the bugging installation at his house. ‘Double-check the bank’s firewall. Our friends appear to have deep pockets.’

  ‘Absolutely. There hasn’t been any suspicious activity recently. The hackers are on their summer holidays too.’

  Winter asked the taxi driver to drop him at the Shepheard on the Corniche. It was the only hotel he knew in Cairo. Centrally located: it was a few hundred metres from Tahrir Square, near the Egyptian Museum and with a view of the Nile. The name wasn’t from a breed of dogs, nor a shepherd, but an Englishman who’d established the hotel. The Shepheard had cold mineral water in the minibar, air-conditioning that worked and an empty computer room in the business centre.

  Winter went for a walk. He changed money, bought a city map from a peddler with his Egyptian pounds and dived into the chaos of Cairo. Millions of Egyptians lived in this city by the Nile. A good number of them were honking their horns in cars manufactured in the factories of the former colonial powers. Young people on Japanese motorbikes with cool sunglasses and Western clothes snaked their way perilously through the traffic. Groups of elegant women with colourful headscarves walked the pavements, along with fully-veiled women – and corpulent businessmen trying not to sweat in their suits.

  The streets around Tahrir Square were freshly cleaned. It was patrolled by new policemen, or soldiers who were barely old enough, wearing their excessively large uniforms – or at least armbands – with pride. And amongst them a farmer in traditional white robes smoked on a donkey-cart piled high.