Read Online The Black Madonna by Peter Millar - Free Book Online

yes, that had been the whole point of the exercise.
    ‘But unfortunately it didn’t match anything on any of the Bavarian databases.’
    God, these people could draw out statements of the bloodyobvious. Time to go back to his own office, fill in the paperwork, then do a few perfunctory interviews in Altötting before consigning the case to the ‘dormant’ files.
    ‘We drew a blank on the national database too.’ Yes, yes, surprise, surprise. ‘However,’ Wenger emphasised the word looking down her nose at him as if his scepticism was a bad attitude in a sulky schoolboy about to be given detention, ‘as we already had to get in touch with the boys from the federal Kripo up at Wiesbaden, we asked them to run it through their international records too.’
    Weinert frowned: he had never had direct dealings with Interpol himself, but he was well aware that international cooperation, even between the EU countries, was seldom as straightforward as might be hoped. There were always human rights hurdles to jump to get access to other forces’ national DNA records.
    ‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking,’ said Wenger. ‘That sort of thing can take days if not weeks. Not in this case, however.’
    ‘You’re not going to tell me we’ve got an identity match? That we know who the victim is.’ Weinert had noticed a suppressed smirk of satisfaction on the forensic scientist’s lips. Now it broadened into almost a smile:
    ‘Oh yes. In fact we’ve been able to ascertain more than you might have expected. A lot more.’
    Weinert grunted. If he was about to be impressed by this long-winded self-important woman in a white coat, he was damned if he was going to let it show.
    ‘To be precise, in theory we know exactly where and when he died.’
    ‘You do?’ Weinert could scarcely restrain a look of extreme scepticism . Even presented with an intact corpse, pathologists in his experience were seldom eager to volunteer a time of death to within less than a period of several hours. Forensics could usually be relied on to give some clues as to where a murder had been committed if the body were not found in situ : there were things like fibre samples, pollen, stuff like that. But self-confidence on this scale was something new to him. There again, he wondered what that ‘in theory’ bit meant.
    ‘You look surprised,’ Heidi Wenger said. ‘You should be. Apparently he died at 00:18 hours yesterday.’
    Weinert physically felt his jaw drop. It was not the unusual– almost unheard of – precision of the timing that astonished him. It was the date. ‘But … but … the … the “thing” was delivered twenty-four hours earlier.’
    ‘Quite. Do you want to know where we believe he died?’
    Weinert nodded: talk about a question of the fucking obvious. But there was no stopping her relishing her moment of glory.
    ‘Would you believe a place called Erez?’
    Weinert shrugged. He could believe almost anything. ‘Never heard of it.’
    ‘I’m not wholly surprised. It’s an Israeli checkpoint at the northern end of the Gaza Strip.’

12
    The man behind the wheel of the black Mercedes cursed under his breath. It was not in his nature to blame others but he was sorely tempted. If anything went wrong he would take the retribution alone. He was in charge and failure was not suffered gladly.
    When his older colleague had pleaded the need to relieve himself, it didn’t seem like much of a risk. He would only be a minute or two and would go into the seedy-looking hotel itself and make discreet enquiries at the same time: find out which room they were staying in. The girl and her big friend, whoever he was, had only just arrived. They would not be leaving immediately. They were probably rolling together in carnal lust already, the old man had spat, although the note in his voice was more of envy than disapproval. The girl was a looker all right, and obviously a hussy.
    But barely seconds after the old man had gone into the hotel,