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NEW AUTHORS SHOWCASE
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12M p2 |
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A Wicked Device by Jack Thompson |
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Chapter 1. The car rattles down the darkest street in Berlin. But the din can’t hide the shot. Maguire brakes hard, spins the wheel and hares back to the crossroads. “What the hell are you doing?” I bawl.
“Didn’t you hear it?” “Of course I bloody well heard it. So what?” “Someone in trouble.”
“Mac, please. If there’s a maniac loose with a gun, I do not want to meet him. Not here. Not anywhere.” I prattle on. I’m young - well, relatively young. I want to go on living.
He takes no notice of course. He parks the car at an awkward angle and staggers out into the night. “Stay there,” he says.
“You’re kidding. If you’re going to get yourself killed…” “Listen,” he says. And we listen. To the clear air and the rumble of traffic in well-lit streets just a few blocks away.
Someone moans. Maguire shuffles his big flat feet as fast as his bulk allows — into the gloom near to where the Wall used to run. He kneels. “Chap’s in a mess,” he says. “Mac, all I wanted was my bed.”
Another shot pings off the building behind us. I flatten myself to the flagstones. Another moan. Someone’s running.
“Bugger’s scarpered. We can take a proper look now.”
Maguire rolls the man on to his back and lifts his head. He’s in his early forties, short and slim. His rimless glasses hang from one ear. The front of his denim shirt is soaked in blood.
I grope for my mobile. “Hell, what’s the number for the ambulance?”
Maguire holds up a hand and the man slumps into the cradle of his arm. I bend lower.
“I know him, Mac. I fucking know him.”
And if I hadn’t known him, I wouldn’t be sitting on this balcony looking at the ocean and the setting sun.
Chapter 2 Axel cruises the airport bars. His favourite haunt is The Pavilion. It’s all self-service and decked out with copies of old German film posters bearing the faces of stars long gone. Axel sidles up to unsuspecting travellers. They’re smoking, sipping coffee, slurping beers or chewing rolls, stuff they don’t want but it helps to pass the time.
“Your photo?” Axe! pretends to press the button on his digital. A smile and a nod. The wife giggles. “Hey, Bernd, what about it then?” And Bernd, dewy-eyed with alcohol, grunts his approval. “Let’s try another one, shall we?” Axel presses again. “Five euros, please. Won’t be a moment.” He retreats to his printer, parked on a nearby table.
The regulars have seen it all before. And sometimes he pushes his luck. “Shove off.” He never takes offence. He doesn’t care.
Today is Monday. I am flying to London. I watch him pack his cases. Everything in its place. No straps dangling. A fashionable little mobile, what the Germans call a Handy, pokes from his shirt pocket. He catches my eye and takes off his specs.
“No,” I say. “No pictures.” “You’re a regular,” he replies. “You were very rude to me once.” “For which I apologise. And, yes, I am what the airlines call a frequent flyer. It’s very boring.”
His Handy trills. The smile fades. He excuses himself but stays within earshot. “I have pix of the people you asked me to watch out for,” he tells his caller. “I will see you tonight.” He stiffens and frowns. It’s the first time I’ve seen him angry. And he’s trying to master a stammer. He stuffs the phone back in his pocket. His eyes water with a deep melancholy. My flight is called and I bid him good-bye.
A week later, I land back at Tegel. And he’s there on the concourse. I wave. He’s smiling again. I head for the taxis. There’s a queue but I know it’ll clear soon enough. I feel a tap on my shoulder. It’s Axel offering me a lift into town.
Why I accept, I don’t know. And it doesn’t occur to me to ask how he knew I’d be on a certain flight. We wander out to the car-park.
“I don’t know your name. I’m Charlie Barrow by the way.”
We’re hurrying because it’s drizzling.
“Axel. Axel Dreissig. Get in, please.”
I dump my bag on the back seat of his little red Polo. Not new, but clean and spruce. We shake hands at last.
Taking a left a kilometre from the airport, he follows the narrow road along the Saatwinkler Damm and Seestrasse and on into the depths of Wedding. He’s a careful driver. And courteous, even when others cut him up or blare their horns.
He wants to talk and he wants me to listen.
“Do you smoke?” he asks.
I tell him I gave up years ago although the craving sometimes returns.
“Me too,” he says. “I used to get through forty a day. But I stopped. It was an act of defiance.” He glances at my puckered brow.
“You’ve seen them,” he snorts. “Those people in The Pavilion. Addicted. Addicted to almost everything — cigarettes, drink, junk food, TV game shows and Bild. Weak.” Another snort. “Germans are weak.” And for once he hits the horn and scowls at a passing cab.
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to react. “You’re not weak,” I say. “And you’re German.” But he’s not in a mood for poor jokes. “Look at them all,” he cries with a sweep of his hand. “The uneducated mass. Kept in their place by corrupt politicians. Dumb them down. Feed them the lowest common denominator. They won’t protest. Not even the five million out of work.”
I get more of this as we dive into Wedding. It’s dark now. The rain turns the road surface into a light-show, a million reflections from shops, pubs and apartments.
“We’ve had two world wars, we’ve been laid to waste and we’ve been cowed into submission by dictators. And we still do as we’re told,” he rants.
I don’t want him driving me all the way into central Berlin. But before I can ask him to drop me at a convenient rank, we’re turning into Ruegenerstrasse and pull up outside a soulless modem block.
“Have you time for a drink?” Axel asks. I accept and again wonder why. We climb the stairs to the first floor.
“Remember that phone call you took at the airport?” I say. “The first time we spoke?” I’m hoping to catch him off guard but he says nothing until we’re inside and he’s handing me a glass of white wine.
“My one indulgence,” he says. “A nice, clean Kreuznacher from the Nahe valley. I wish I could retire to somewhere like that.” He raises his glass and sips.
I look round. Axel has hung blown up stills from Riefenstahl’s film of the ‘36 Olympics, sunny shots of Aryan maidens and a sepia replica of Furtwaengler conducting the Berlin Phil in front of the Nazi hierarchy. But no swastikas. And no pictures of a manic Fuehrer. He ignores my curiosity.
“The call came from my minder,” he explains. “I have to see him again tonight. With some more photographs. He’s a fool. He talks about ‘meets’ and ‘drops’. He’s picked it up from trashy novels.”
I push my luck a little further. “And your stammer?”
“I have a hard time controlling it,” he sighs. “It comes on when I get angry. Having to take orders from that bastard. Look, I’ve got an arts degree. And what am I? A bloody photographer making half a living snapping the idiots at Tegel and the other half spying for fools in The Movement.”
I prick up my ears and he notices.
“Don’t get excited,” he says. “All I have to do is stay alert, keep an eye open for certain people.”
“But The Movement? Funny sort of outfit to be working for.” I’m trying to be disingenuous but he doesn’t respond. He goes into his kitchen.
I examine his bookshelves. There are copies of ‘The Storm of Steel by Ernst Juenger and Goebbels’s very own ‘Michael, the Diary of a German’s Destiny’. In the corner sit piles of newspapers and magazines, CD’s and a laptop.
He brings in a light meal, a salad he’s prepared earlier in the day.
“All salads these days,” he says. He sets it down on the low table in front of me. “No meat. No fish. No eggs. No dairy products. Herr Lenz has decreed it.”
The healthy German is evidently a vegetarian or, better still, a vegan.
“Herr Lenz?”
“Heinrich Lenz. Our Leader.” He suddenly stands up straight, back stiff as a pencil... |
