WOLFKAMMER - Chapters 4 & 5.
See Fic Masterpost for the header info.
Chapter 1.
Chapters 2 & 3.
Chapter 4.
That night they drove to one of the drinking places Bodie had heard of from Hilde. If it was causing her mother worry about taking trade away it must, they reasoned, be worth a visit.
“Especially,” said Ray, “as it has no skittles.” Bodie grunted agreement and concentrated on his driving. “And,” Ray continued, “you owe me the first few drinks.”
“How d’you make that out?”
“I kept playing skittles, didn’t I? Gave you the time to chat her up? And kept Horst from being competition, too. Well, I kept winning and having to pay for drinks, see. Hilde’s, too.” The logic of this was too perfect for Bodie to argue.
It was a small inn or bar on the road to Komp, and they could hear music as they parked the Taunus. The place was full, the long tables groaning with plates and beer mugs. The atmosphere was smoky and dim. Someone was playing a piano and some customers had started tapping their feet under the tables in time to the melody. One man was singing, off key.
“Imagine this lot in one of our regular pubs back home,” Ray murmured as they found a couple of spare seats, or rather, as some men good-naturedly moved closer together to accommodate them.
“I believe they sing in some places in the East End,” said Bodie.
“But not till they’re all drunk and not with foot-tapping,” said Doyle. “And they wouldn’t make room for a pair of strangers, either.”
The landlord had evidently heard them and realised they were English. “No eatings,” he said firmly, putting a full beer mug in front of each of them, “No eatings. Drinkings only.”
“That’s OK, mate,” said Bodie, cheerfully. “We’ve eaten.”
They tried to make the beer last and looked around them with interest. It was a typical local bar, what passed for a pub in this part of the world, with food served at a sensible hour then beer flowing till late. Most of the customers were men, though there were a few women, quite obviously already attached, if not married to the men they were with.
“No girls; no dancing,” said Bodie, his lips turning downwards.
“No skittles and what looks like a Wolpertinger,” said Ray, trying, not very hard, to keep the smile out of his voice. There were various stuffed animals on the walls. A resplendent stag with antlers; a smaller deer without; a hare, and another hare with twisted horns growing from his forehead above eyes that were wide and glassy, amazed at his own strangeness. There was a glass case, too, with stuffed birds artfully arranged in what the taxidermist regarded as lifelike poses. Someone had noticed them looking at the horned hare or had perhaps overheard Ray’s use of the term ‘Wolpertinger’. There was a scramble of men eager to assure them of its authenticity. In a mix of broken English (theirs) and broken German (Ray’s and Bodie's), they began to establish that the local woods were awash with Elwedtritsche if one knew where to look. A small hunt could be arranged, for a small price of course. The hens were known to be very shy nocturnal creatures but would come to investigate a lone torch. The hunter could hypnotise the creature with the beam then his friends could creep out from the bushes and throw a sack over the Elwedritsch and carry it back to the inn. There it could be humanely killed and examined at leisure. To shoot it in the woods would be to ruin the carcass of course. Of course.
Ray left Bodie happily chatting to the group and got directions to the toilets in the yard at the rear of the bar. As he returned he bought a soft fizzy drink, wanting to avoid another hangover by alternating alcohol with less potent options. He examined the metal cap, which he’d placed back on the half full bottle after filling a small glass. ‘Pschitt!’ it announced. It must, he thought, be a made-up word intended to express the noise of fizzing liquid. He wondered whether any innocent English words would have the same effect on a German tourist and walked back to the table to share the joke with Bodie. Bodie, however, wasn’t there. The group of Elwedtritsch hunters was missing, too.
“Stupid sod!” He said it aloud, wondering why his partner had gone along with the hunting prank. A couple of men further along the table were sniggering and he wanted, suddenly, to hit them. If anything happened to Bodie out there... But nothing would; it was a joke, that was all.
He felt a momentary fear that perhaps these were Wolves. This was Komp, where one of the attacks had taken place. But they were unlikely to attack a tourist so publicly when his friend was still around. And why would they? There had been no attacks on strangers. And the landlord had spoken to them all by name so they would fear recognition. Except that they knew his German was limited and that he might not have heard the names. But the landlord would surely help. Unless...
He was back to worrying again about Bodie as the victim of a practical joke, at the very least. He sat back and let his mind roam while he drank his ‘Pschitt!’, a kind of lemonade, fizzier and less tasty than he’d hoped when he ordered it. He memorised its actual name and the look of the label, intending to avoid it in future. While Bodie was gone on a mad jaunt he could at least do some thinking, make sure some names of Wolves as well as fizzy drinks were firmly fixed in his head.
They had gone over and over the profiles presented by the German police. One of the men, Axel Wolff, had caught Ray’s eye. Perhaps the name was a mere coincidence; it was a common enough surname. Or it might have added to the incentive to name the Wolves, a kind of nose-thumbing gesture at the stupid police. If they rounded up the whole gang there might well be a Wolff among them. Was this man a leader or a follower? He came from Gummersbach, not the countryside, and was well known as a political speaker at small meetings prior to local elections. Wolff preached a kind of conservatism that fell short of anything too right wing but Ray reminded himself that in Germany the right were socialists of a kind. It would be hard for an Englishman to assess anyone's politics. The name and profile gave Ray a feeling, nothing more, and the man might well be innocent.
Another candidate, fingered as a possible by Heike this time, was Peter Fuchs, a young tearaway from Bergneustadt, suspected of a rape that had never been proved and convicted of violence in a drunken brawl for which he had served a short term of imprisonment. He was sufficiently brutal, Heike thought, but hadn’t enough brains to lead the gang. He wore T-shirts with Neo-Nazi designs and slogans and had been known to play banned music loudly in his open-topped car, claiming innocence if stopped by the police and saying he’d bought the tapes second-hand and just liked the music.
There must be others. The attacks they had seen would have needed a gang of at least six to carry them out with any degree of safety and success. Six Wolves. Quite a pack. And not necessarily named to match. It was also possible for any Wolf to opt out of an attack on his home ground. So the men in the bar...
Ray cursed and started to get up but all at once the hunters were back, coming in in ones and twos, some grinning, some positively smirking. No sign of Bodie. One of the men told Doyle he could expect his friend with a catch of some importance. Ray told him to pull the other one, the one with bells, but the English riposte fell flat in the German atmosphere and Doyle might as well have gone along with the joke, showed wide-eyed impatience or offered to buy the horned hare over the bar.
After a while one of the men got up and left and they could hear shouts. A moment later Bodie reappeared, his face a picture of outraged betrayal. There was much slapping of backs and knees and the landlord brought a long tray of filled mugs. For these, it seemed, Bodie would have to pay; they were the price of the hunt.
“What? Me?” Bodie pantomimed outrage but smiled at the same time. The men nodded eagerly; the landlord wrote something in a small notebook hanging from his belt.
“What were you playing at?” Ray whispered his irritation beneath the clatter of glasses.
“Playing at being the stupid tourist. Thought I might hear something.”
“With your limited German?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Idiot!”
“All right but we've bought them a drink. Can't do any harm. And I've established my credentials.” As Bodie explained Ray sighed in exasperation.
Bodie could be right if no one already knew they were police or agents of any kind. It also assumed their German was good enough to make sense of any ensuing conversation and that the conversation might be interesting. But they could hardly do the same in every bar in the area.
Ray’s command of the language was returning. After an absence he knew it was normal to take a few days to tune back in. It would take longer before he could speak with any confidence and longer still before he could use technical jargon of any kind. His last long stay in Germany had been as a teenager, although he had tried not to lose the hard-earned language, reading magazines when he could and talking to anyone he met who spoke German. Meanwhile, the chatter at the table was making some kind of sense, though it was boring enough, and most of it centred round the cleverness with which the drinkers had put one over on the tourists.
They felt obliged to stay and drink for a while, laughing at their own stupidity and paying for drinks until Bodie made a show of having empty pockets. Ray settled their bill at the bar and they headed out to the car, acting less sober than they actually were, supporting each other and slurring their words in both languages.
They spent the drive back to Landhaus Bettin having a row. Bodie was amazed that Ray thought he might have been in any danger; Ray was furious that Bodie was so trusting that these were mere pranksters.
“We’re in the Wolves’ territory. They’re clever, and they could easily be watching us.”
“But why would they attack us? That would just put them under a spotlight. I was perfectly safe.” As Ray had already used this line of reasoning to himself he could hardly argue but did anyway.
“But you could have had an accident that looked perfectly innocent. One that would put us out of action. One that would set our work back. We need to get that surveillance set up and supervised before the next full moon.”
“If we didn’t, Heike and Reinhard would, now that we’ve all agreed and shared our thoughts. I was safe, I tell you.”
“I know that now, but I was worried sick while you were gone. I assume you didn’t go far?”
“They led me round the fields and back to near the bar. I’m sure they thought they were very clever but of course I knew exactly where I was. Anyway, we’ve ended up buying them drinks and endeared ourselves to them after a fashion.”
“You mean I’ve ended up buying them drinks,” said Ray and went on to call Bodie all kinds of names. “I paid for the drinks yesterday and it was your turn. Now I've paid again.” Bodie just grinned, a little smugly, and Ray lost his temper, which was a waste of energy. But he needed to find an outlet for the fear he'd felt while Bodie was out there in the dark hunting a non-existent hen.
The row, which was one-sided and so not really a row, ended in silence, a silence that lasted until they pulled up outside the hotel. A small shadow was crossing the road. It slipped out from the alleyway to the side of the hotel, the one that led from the yard with the rubbish bins. The shadow looked like a cat but was too big. It was carrying something in its mouth and reared onto its hind legs as the car headlights caught it. Ray’s first thought was of badgers, and it was only as it sat upright and Bodie braked to avoid hitting it that he realised what it was.
“Racoon,” he said, almost awed at seeing one of the animals for himself. He had been half inclined to lump them with the Wolpertinger despite the Germans' reassurance.
“Washbear,” agreed Bodie, and they watched it drop back to all fours and lope across the road, disappearing into deeper shadows.
Herr Bettin was putting out the downstairs lights as they let themselves in. He wished them a goodnight and bolted the door after them. They went upstairs with harmony restored by the sighting of the racoon. Bodie was safe, Ray’s fears had been groundless and there really were washbears after the rubbish.
When Ray switched the light on they gasped. On the bed lay a horned hare, or at least its head. It might have been the one they had seen in the bar. Without going back to check there was no way of knowing. It looked the same but then all hares probably looked alike except to other hares and the horns were probably taken from the same kind of deer each time. There was something different about this one, however: its mouth had been cut wider to resemble a ghastly grin then muzzled with wire. Blood, fresh blood, rapidly drying on Frau Bettin’s carefully laundered duvet cover, dripped from its jaws. Someone knew who they were and why they were there. Someone was sending an unmistakable message.
Herr Bettin came running upstairs at Ray’s shout. He stared at the gruesome object on the bed and called for his wife. Evidently his first concern was for the comfort of his guests rather than their safety. Before he could remove the head Bodie stopped him and asked for a plastic bag. They placed the hare in the bag to take to the office next day; they would learn little from it but it would be as well to let the others see it. Frau Bettin changed the cover rapidly and deftly, refusing help, and bustled off to soak the bloodstained one. The blood had not sunk through the thick cotton and the newly covered duvet was pristine. Ray managed to let the Bettins know that their nephew would talk to them the next day and together they would try to find out who could have done such a thing. Meanwhile, they would like to sleep, and no, they did not hold the Bettins responsible in any way.
They slept, but not for a while. After fruitless discussions they agreed to wait to hear what the others had to say and got ready for bed. Ray had nightmares in which Bodie was the one with the carved grin and the dripping blood, or in which he failed to come back from the woods and a scaled hen clucked mournfully by the light of the full moon.
Chapter 5
The next morning was spent investigating the hare. It annoyed all four of them that this was taking time from other lines of inquiry. Schmidt talked long and earnestly to his aunt and uncle. An inn is by its very nature open to the public and it was impossible to say how or when the intruder had left his grisly package other than that it was near the time of the men’s return; the freshness of the blood testified to that. But the front and back doors had been open, the couple who helped in the kitchen and laundry had gone home and anyone could have entered while the Bettins tidied the restaurant and got the breakfast tables ready. Ray thought the bedroom door might have been unlocked. There were no valuables inside and the staff needed access to clean. For a moment he wondered if the Germans would see the double bed the way he did, but there were no raised eyebrows or comments.
“This is ordinary police work,” said Bodie, for about the fourth time. He spoke loudly enough for the German officers to hear.
“But it is connected to the case so we cannot just hand it to others,” said Heike.
“We could for more staff ask” said Reinhard, but his voice suggested he thought that more staff would not be forthcoming.
“And in any case,” said Bodie, “why aren’t we awash with terrorism experts? Why just the two of you and two foreigners?” Heike and Reinhard sighed in unison.
“They are all busy dealing with international threats, with airport security, with huge conferences, with border control. They have nobody to spare for the small people, for the domestic issues,” Heike said. “This has become big news, yes, but still they have no more staff and to train people would take long, maybe too long. The authorities are worried, of course, but there is no progress and if their people can prevent a bomb at an airport...”
“So we asked,” said Schmidt, “and they gave us you. You are a gift from your government to ours, I think.” He smiled. Bodie muttered something about being more use to the international lot thus freeing them to deal with their internal problems, but his heart wasn’t really in it and he knew, as did Ray, that fresh, foreign eyes probably had more chance of solving this problem and that it certainly deserved to be solved, fast.
Herr Bettin brought coffee mid-morning and made suggestions about lunch but everyone agreed to go back to the office. Frau Bettin brought rolls and cooked meat wrapped to take with them, saying something about the standard of snacks in Gummersbach. She said something about ‘Kaffeekuchen’, too, and made a shocked face at her nephew’s response.
“What was that?” Ray asked. “I recognise the term ‘Kaffeekuchen’; isn’t that when you have cake in the afternoon?”
“Yes, and my aunt is horrified that we have not yet you to the custom introduced,” said Schmidt. “She is saying that today we must buy cake.” Ray grinned. Bodie would be pleased. So would he; he remembered delicious cakes from his teenage stay. They never appeared as dessert, only to go with strong coffee and stronger conversation in the late afternoon. He had loved the confections and dreaded the conversation with all the adults talking at once, making comprehension so much harder. So they drove back to their base, stopping on the way to buy carefully packaged delicacies for later. Lunch was Frau Bettin’s meat rolls, munched while they compared notes on the hare.
They assumed the blood would be from some slaughtered animal, or maybe from a butcher’s shop. It would be tested, but the outcome was not in doubt. They were going to get nowhere inquiring about access to the inn but it might be worth checking whether the hare was the same one they had seen in the bar although that would tell them little they didn’t already know. Someone was watching them, sending them a message, telling them to quit, but whether that someone had connections with the barkeeper or with the Elwedritsch hunters would be hard to establish.
“Someone knows why you are here,” said Heike. “Someone who thinks you are getting too close to the truth. But we have not spoken about your ideas outside this room.” They looked round at each other then at their notes. It was Bodie who realised his map with the spiral was missing. It would be easy to do again, but it would also be evidence of their thoughts to an interested party. Anyone could have taken it, a cleaner, a messenger, another police officer.
“I scribbled the dates on it, as well,” he said. “It wasn’t a real report, just rough workings. But someone took it seriously enough to take it away, and whoever they showed it to took it seriously enough to leave the hare.”
Ray shivered. Whoever it was must have been there, possibly watching them, as they watched the racoon leave the inn yard. Someone had been in their bedroom and then in the shadows as they parked the car. One of these self-styled Wolves. Someone with no respect for human life. He thought perhaps they should go armed in future and Heike was surprised.
“When you were given the weapons you requested it was expected that you would carry them at all times,” she said, and they took them from their desks there and then.
“It didn’t seem like that kind of case,” said Ray, but he didn’t need to say that he knew they’d been wrong. In England their carelessness would have been unpardonable. Here, it seemed to be the result of a kind of holiday spirit, one they’d better abandon at once.
In the afternoon they narrowed down the areas that might be attacked next and identified the farms most likely to be at risk, the ones with houses a long way from the main roads, the ones with animals to increase the slaughter, the ones with young or frail inhabitants who would make easy victims. They already had information about every farm in the region and it was simple but time-consuming to go through and pinpoint the ones ripe for attention. They ended with six farms and a period of three days to either side of the full moon. The farmers would be warned, but told not to move their families out of harm’s way. If they were observed doing that the Wolves might change their plans and come back another time when there was no police surveillance. It was essential, they decided, to provide at least two men to observe each farm. That meant twelve officers and they couldn’t count themselves as more than two or maybe three because someone would be needed to co-ordinate from a central base.
Then there was the question of whether the Wolves would alter their plans because of what they knew.
“I think they’re too confident, too secure in their self-righteousness,” said Doyle, and the others agreed, but they knew they were gambling with lives.
“I think we should look at a slightly wider area and time scale,” said Bodie, and they eventually settled on ten farms and five days each side of the full moon, knowing it all meant more support and more organisation.
They had three days to persuade their immediate superiors to provide the men and systems necessary, and to do it in secret. If Bodie’s map had been purloined by a policeman who sympathised with the Wolves... They agreed to lock all their notes in a filing cabinet and to take the keys home. Then they prepared a report to make sure they would get the help they needed.
Reinhard turned it into impeccable German prose, his translation skills greater than his oral English. Meanwhile Heike sent for coffee and ceremoniously unpacked the cakes. Bodie smiled when he saw the raspberry tart with whipped cream and the chocolate sponge with dark, rich butter icing.
“Tomorrow we will have cheesecake,” said Heike, as she shared out the goodies onto paper plates and poured the coffee. “Today, these are the best ones from the best bakery. But I like cheesecake so I have told the baker to have some for us tomorrow.”
“Mmmmph,” was Bodie’s agreement, emerging around a huge mouthful of raspberry filling, and Ray nodded vigorously as well.
“But these,” he said, “are delicious too.” It was a small moment of pure pleasure in the middle of a day filled with worry and work. By the time they delivered their report to Heike’s boss and left for the night they were all tired, not with physical effort but with trying to second-guess a gang who, if they outwitted the police again, would bring further grief and horror to innocent civilians. Provided they got the men they needed they could have the operation set up in time. Operation Wolfkammer, they called it among themselves, and there would be a base in Eckenhagen with back-up officers and a store of weapons. Ray would act as liaison officer at this little HQ - his German was passable, improving each day he spent immersed in the language, and he thought one of them should be in charge there. Officers Brinkmann and Schmidt would be useful leading a surveillance pair each, and Bodie, with his lack of useful German, would be paired with another English-speaking officer.
“Provided...” Ray started but Bodie broke in.
“...we get what we want, but they promised us support if and when we needed it and we’ve shown the necessity in our report. Stop worrying. We need to rest, make sure we know exactly where we’re going, who we’re working with, who the people at each farm are. That’s all we can do at this stage.”
They got back to the inn where Herr Bettin solemnly handed them their keys and assured them nobody other than his wife had entered their room. The room was clean, tidy and almost looked like home, if you could forget about the blood of the previous night. They washed, wishing there was a shower, and changed, then locked up carefully and went down for dinner, discussing where to go afterwards.
“No hunting pranks and no skittles,” said Ray and Bodie laughed, picking at a dish of cold meats and olives, evidently the German version of a plate of hors d’ouevres.
“We’ll run out of options at this rate,” he said. “but there’s a disco in Wiehl and we could give it a try. Probably just a local DJ with a load of records but there might be some local talent too.” Ray was saved from answering by the arrival of a tureen of something dark and rich, accompanied by rice and mixed vegetables. He hoped the talent wasn’t too attractive. Well, he knew it wouldn’t be attractive to him at the moment, but Bodie might well find a bird to occupy him for the rest of their stay. He wondered what he would do if that happened. He couldn’t console himself with books and music and TV and he somehow didn't want to have to sweet-talk a local girl when his mind was elsewhere.
*******
They found the disco, neon-signed, pulsing with noise and spilling out into the street. The doorman seemed to want their money more than their identity and there were evidently no membership requirements. They pushed their way to a bar where Bodie managed to attract the attention of the waiter and get a couple of beers. They were the usual lager style and they both bemoaned the lack of English beer. They drank a little then settled to watch the dancers and the rest of the customers. A couple of girls were dancing together looking around as if to tell the watching men to come and get them, but the young men lining the walls were either bashful or in awe of their dancing skills, which were accomplished. Bodie stepped forward and smoothly cut in, gaining himself a pretty blonde partner with a spirited face and a slinky, black, low-cut dress. Ray felt obliged to dance with her friend, a smaller, darker girl in midnight blue who danced well but seemed somehow less sparkling and more reserved.
They ended at a table together, and Bodie brought more beers, with Babychams for the girls. The blonde was Christina, her friend Susanne, and they worked at a local dairy. They were sweet, comparatively unsophisticated and quite unlike the girls who usually drew Bodie’s eye in London. But then so were all the other girls in the room and Bodie was evidently determined to find some fun. Susanne seemed to sense Ray’s lack of interest and did nothing to encourage him. Both girls spoke a little English, enough for the limited conversation possible in the noise, and it was easy enough to give the impression they were tourists, even though it was hardly the height of the tourist season or even the centre of the tourist area.
“You must go to Marburg,” shouted Christina. “And to Bad Wildungen, and to the Edersee. And to Fritzlar. Susanne, say to them that they must.”
“My aunt lives in Fritzlar,” said Susanne, but that was all she vouchsafed and Christina was hard put to expand on the marvels of the towns she had mentioned because the music was strident and overwhelming. So they danced instead, Bodie and Christina every dance, Ray and Susanne one or two. Eventually the sound changed from rock numbers to slow melodies designed to send the dancers into their partners’ arms. Bodie and Christina were swaying rather than dancing in a way that Ray knew meant success on Bodie’s part. Susanne had disappeared, saying she was going to the Ladies’ and Ray could see her across the room, chatting to another girl.
He didn’t want to spoil Bodie’s fun. Although he did, really, he thought ruefully. But they had to get back, or at least he did, and he thought maybe after the hare they should stick together. When Bodie came back to the table he mentioned this, and Bodie was surprisingly cheerful. He gave Christina a long goodnight kiss, right there at the table and said something about the next disco night. It was, apparently, the next night and he kissed Christina again, promising to be there. Then they left.
Bodie agreed with Ray’s idea that they should stick together. “But I can soften her up for a night on the town when it’s all over,” he said, oblivious of Ray’s silence. “She’s just a kid; I’d have to go slowly, anyway,” he added. In their bedroom he got ready for bed and was asleep almost immediately. Ray lay awake wishing futile wishes and then followed him into sleep.
*******
“You didn’t enjoy it, did you?” Bodie asked in the morning as they got dressed. “Why not, Ray? Susanne seemed a nice little thing. You got on OK, didn’t you?” Ray looked at him in some disbelief. Susanne was nothing like the kind of girls who appealed to Ray even when and if any did. Surely Bodie knew that? But Bodie was still pondering aloud. “Or there were some other girls there. Not your type maybe but we’re not talking a full-blown relationship, just a bit of fun.” Something of his partner’s silence must have penetrated and he frowned, his handsome face creasing in concentration. Then his eyes widened with surprise. “Ray, I know what it is. You’re jealous! You wanted Christina! Why didn’t you say something? We could have changed partners right at the beginning!”
Ray told himself later that he had been concentrating on fastening his shoes, that his tongue had spoken before his brain caught up. Whatever the reason, he said something he had never intended to say.
“I wasn’t jealous of you.” He heard himself then tried desperately to rescue the situation but Bodie’s face was a picture of comprehension. At the same time there was a knock on the door. They were deprived of any further private conversation by Reinhard who had arrived to tell them they had all the men and materials they needed and could set up their headquarters in Eckenhagen without delay. Their report had been favourably received and Reinhard sat in the dining room with them while they breakfasted rapidly, with enthusiasm and on Ray’s part, relief.
Chapters 6 & 7.