Heidelberg Requiem: A gritty crime thriller for fans of Donna Leon and Ian Rankin

By Wolfgang Burger

A gritty crime thriller from one of Europe's bestselling authors. Perfect for fans of Donna Leon, Andrea Camilleri and Ian Rankin.

FOR FANS OF DONNA LEON AND IAN RANKIN: A GRITTY, PAGE-TURNING CRIME THRILLER FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR WOLFGANG BURGER. Most first days in a new job go well - some don't . . . Alexander Gerlach assumes that his promotion to Police Chief of Heidelberg will bring with it a quieter life. A widower and a single parent raising twin teenage daughters, Gerlach is slowly beginning to rediscover not only himself, but also the dating scene again. On his first day in his new job, however, the body of a chemistry student is discovered, and what at first seems to be an open-and-shut case with a clear culprit quickly changes into something more complex. When another murder casts doubt on all previous assumptions, Gerlach must unravel the conspiracy, before it's too late . . . If you loved Commissario Brunetti, you'll love this first book in the highly-praised Alexander Gerlach series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zaffre
• Release date: May 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781499861747

Book preview

1

Only weeks later, when we were already in dire straits, did I realise that I first saw the woman with the pearl necklace during those same minutes when Patrick Grotheer opened the door to his murderer.

Liebekind, head of the Heidelberg Police Department, had organised a small reception in my honour on the third floor of the modern building, in the big reception room, whose old-fashioned black chairs had been stacked along the wall to make room for those attending. It was Wednesday, 27th August. After a summer of extensive flooding, it had finally become dry, sunny and hot after all. For several days now the temperature had not dropped under twenty-five degrees during the night. My twins were still on school holidays and were bored most of the time.

There were even a couple of local government representatives there: two town councillors who kept looking at their watches, and Mayor Schreber, responsible for road construction and municipal order, which was mostly threatened by missing Japanese tourists or students running riot in Heidelberg. At least this is what I thought up until this moment. It was hellishly hot, and the champagne grew warm in the glasses faster than you could drink it. There was a lukewarm buffet to go with it, which was not bad at all. Witty speeches were given; I picked up sound bites such as ‘rapid rise’, or ‘the right man in the right place’, ‘continuation of a great tradition’, and spent most of the time wiping the sweat off my forehead.

I was dreading the moment when I had to do the thing I never wanted to do: introduce myself, make myself important, and give a speech. Just a short one, Liebekind had told me with a benevolent pat on the shoulder, but still a speech, in front of far too large an audience.

‘This is going to be the case more often from now on, Mr Gerlach,’ he had mumbled smilingly. ‘That’s just the way it is when you’ve made your way to the top. You’ll get used to it. Nobody ever died of it.’

His own ‘words’ were pleasantly brief and temperature-appropriate. He praised my predecessor Seifried, who, to all intents and purposes, had lost his life while carrying out his duties. However, at this point, I already knew that he had smashed his metallic gold-coloured Opel Calibra against a bridge pillar doing 93 mph on the dead straight Speyer Strasse just beyond the town sign after a particularly enjoyable Christmas party. They had even had to get rid of a photo taken by an automatic speed camera, so that his widow would not be cheated out of her pension claims.

Liebekind said a few more words about the brilliant people in the police department in general and the crime squad in particular. Then I heard it in public for the first time: ‘Detective Chief Inspector Alexander Gerlach, the new head of CID of our city, which is admired all around the world for its history and traditions.’ Now it was my turn.

I fumbled my notes out of the back pocket of my trousers, approached the lectern and allowed my hand to be shaken at length and exceedingly firmly by my future boss, who with his pleasant and thoughtful manner, I had liked right from our first meeting.

I don’t know whether Patrick Grotheer was surprised when the person who stood before him was not the one he had expected. I don’t know what he thought in those few seconds before his guest closed the door behind himself. He must surely have been very surprised when he finally understood what his guest’s deadly intention was.

The lectern was too wobbly to lean on or cling to. To compose myself, I looked around, hopefully expressively. It became quieter and quieter. A few people cleared their throats. The twins stood at the back near the buffet with full mouths, red cheeks and shining eyes: their dad on a podium with a microphone in front of his mouth . . . cool!

‘Dr Liebekind, Mayor Schreber, council representatives, future colleagues.’ My voice did not sound as shaky as I felt. The twins dared to continue chewing and nodded towards each other complacently. Some people smiled up at me. Others didn’t. Not all my future subordinates were happy about the fact that their new boss came from Karlsruhe and not from Heidelberg. While the position was being filled provisionally during the last few months, one or two of them had worked out how strong their own chances might be. Liebekind had mentioned plenty of applications, and I had no idea why they had ultimately chosen me. By then I had only been a detective inspector for fourteen months and could look back on just three years’ experience as head of a small group of criminal investigators. Not a career that necessarily qualified me for a job that I was in the process of accepting. And anyway, I was only forty-three and therefore too young, really.

Some of my colleagues from Karlsruhe had also turned up, which to my surprise I was delighted about. Petzold, not to be missed, given his size, was lingering at the buffet as usual, next to him blond Malmberg, whom he had been going out with for some time, and Schilling of course, who had immediately told me that he had finally been promoted to chief inspector.

‘In view of the heat and the dwindling oxygen, I would like to be brief,’ I began, and bravely recounted something about responsibility, of which I was well aware; of big boots to fill, and was surprised that all this did not sound any more stupid than many other speeches that I had had to endure at similar events.

And then I saw her. She was tall, her loose hair shimmered between dark blond and brunette, and she was neither slim nor plump. As far as I could see from this distance, she wore an elegant fir-green trouser suit and an old-fashioned pearl necklace, like the one my mother liked to wear on special occasions. She stood next to the mayor with a half-full glass of champagne in her hand and looked at me intently with a smile on her face. A bit like the way a teacher looks at her model pupil who has practised and recited his poem time and again. She has encouraged him, suffered and practised with him, and now the big day has come, the auditorium is full and, as she expected, he makes a good job of it. That was exactly the way she was looking at me.

I lost my train of thought for half a second, then I forced myself to look in a different direction, concentrated on Petzold as one of the less familiar faces and told him with an ever more confident voice that he did not need to fear any significant changes, that existing structures should not be broken up unnecessarily, that I was willing to learn and that I would always have an open door and ears for everyone. With a united effort we would strive to uphold the success rate. No, we would make sure to. Yes indeed.

‘A boss without his team is worth as little as a house without walls,’ I proudly declared, using the image that I had thought up at four thirty this morning. Naturally I once again thought of Vera. Asked myself what she would think of me if she were still around. She would certainly have been proud of me, her Alex, who was finally having the success that she had always wanted for him.

The twins, no longer listening, were chewing contentedly on salmon and caviar canapés. It did not escape my attention that they occasionally hid the odd morsel that had not been to their liking behind the flower arrangements. I decided to read them the riot act later.

When my gaze once again wandered in the direction of Liebekind, the unknown woman was observing me with an unchanged expression. I quickly looked away so as not to be put off again.

Finally my notes came to an end, I folded up my piece of paper, people clapped politely. Liebekind once again shook my hand heartily, somebody passed me a full glass, and I had to clink glasses with all kinds of complete strangers. A timid girl introduced herself as a journalist from the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung and asked me a couple of banal questions about my background and my plans. That was also new to me; I had never given an interview before. But I seemed to find the right answers.

Then the group from Karlsruhe pushed their way through to say goodbye. Birgit Malmberg handed me a green bottle without a label and Petzold told me that it contained a cherry brandy of a not entirely legal production. Malmberg stood on her tiptoes to give me a kiss on the cheek. Schilling held my hand, which was beginning to hurt, for a long, long time and told me all sorts of stuff about old colleagues and his new career plans. And furthermore, that they were all very unhappy about the fact that I was abandoning them now. Strangely enough, this touched me so much that I almost took him in my arms and gave him a hug.

Suddenly the twins moved back into the limelight.

‘What are your delightful daughters called?’ an elderly lady with a lavender rinse and dressed for the opera asked me.

‘Louise and Sarah,’ I responded politely.

The order was extremely important, as, if said the other way around, one would inevitably be asked by some joker whether they were named after the city of Saarlouis. To the question of how in God’s name I was able to tell them apart, I answered truthfully: ‘I’m not.’ Vera had been able to recognise them from a hundred metres; I never could. Only at very close range was I able to differentiate between them by means of a small scar that Sarah had got from a bicycle accident when she was four. I was sure that they occasionally swapped places at school, in order to reciprocally boost their grades. But nobody could do anything; they were simply too similar and refused, since they’d been able to talk, to dress and behave anything other than identically. I had heard of twins that at some point strived to develop their own identities. My daughters did not appear to feel this urge, even though they were already thirteen.

When I came back to my senses, the woman with the pearl necklace had disappeared. And around nine, the event ended abruptly.

This must have been around the time when Patrick Grotheer died. Slowly, bleeding to death, drop by drop. For around ninety minutes.

2

I passed the days until I was due to take up my new job in preparing the sale of our house in Karlsruhe and thinking about the upcoming move. I drove to Heidelberg almost daily with my daughters to look at neighbourhoods and to view schools from the outside, as they were all still closed because of the summer holidays. I had engaged an estate agent weeks ago to find us a nice big flat in a historic building, but had not been offered anything yet. The twins behaved maturely, maybe because they sensed that I could not cope with much at the moment.

I was continually terrified by the thought of all the changes and unknown demands that were relentlessly coming my way. I was neither sure of being up to the job, nor was I sure that I really wanted it. I had actually applied in a bit of a quandary, thinking that it could do no harm and would be good practice. Then, to my surprise, I had received an invitation to come for an interview and just two weeks later the job offer, combined with the prospect of immediate promotion to detective chief inspector.

I had always enjoyed being a police officer. I did not mind carrying responsibility, heading up a team. There was only one thing I never wanted to become: a pen-pusher whose world view was formed by the reports of his subordinates, and this was precisely what was awaiting me now.

I spent Saturday clearing out the cellar, pulling all sorts of things out of shelves and old cupboards, making a huge pile in the hallway of things that would not survive the move. Suddenly I was looking forward to a new start in an unfamiliar environment that was not weighed down by memories. I enjoyed the physical activity and resolved to finally pay more attention to my health, to do some exercise, take the bike every once in a while and leave the car behind.

My new job began on 1st September, a Monday. Without having breakfast, I left Karlsruhe at seven in the morning, so as not to be late on the very first day. I had already put out my daughters’ Nutella and toast, so that they would not feel too lonely when they woke up around midday. The neighbours, who had looked out for them a little ever since their mother was no longer there, had been on holiday in Madeira for the past two weeks. As my parents had retired to southern Portugal three years ago, I was forced to leave the children on their own. School wouldn’t start for another two weeks, and the girls would probably spend the day at one of the quarry ponds as per usual, with people who I did not know and maybe shouldn’t know. Having a cop as a father was considered totally uncool in certain circles. Finally, I had stuck a ten-euro note under the Nutella jar, so that they could buy themselves something to eat. I hoped it would not only be spent on Big Macs and Coke.

I already felt lonely after just a few minutes in the – for my taste – uncomfortably large office. Until half past eight I aimlessly sorted out my old-fashioned and musty-smelling desk, placed a few books that I had brought along into the dark brown, even more old-fashioned bookcase with a weirdly creaking door, and tried to work out whether the office smelled more of floor wax or furniture polish.

All in all, I now had twenty-two officers under my command, including four women. It would take me a while to remember all their names.

One of the women was my secretary, Sonja Walldorf. She was already at her desk before me, wore a flowery summer dress and strangely seemed to be even more nervous than me. My question as to whether it might be possible to swap these horrendous antiques for something more modern embarrassed her, as she was unable to answer it. She was obviously used to having an answer to everything. I decided to talk to Liebekind about the furniture at the next opportunity. I definitely didn’t want to work in this museum.

My next problem was the coffee. The whole police department now smelled of freshly brewed coffee, but I did not dare to ask Ms Walldorf to fetch me one, for fear that she might be offended. After all, she was my first secretary and I had heard that some of her sort could be mortally offended if asked to carry out such lowly tasks. On the other hand, I had absolutely no idea where the source of this damned delicious smell was. Only when she asked me, embarrassed and dismayed, ‘Do you not want any coffee?’ did I find out that my predecessor had insisted upon having a steaming pot of coffee, along with two fresh croissants, on his desk punctually at eight thirty each day. We agreed that one should not break old habits without good cause.

The croissants from the bakery round the corner were delicious. The arabica coffee was freshly brewed, especially for me, as Ms Walldorf pointed out. We sat together for a further ten minutes and she gave me an initial overview of the current topics in the rumour mill. The sun was shining outside, and through the open window came birdsong and pleasantly cool air that smelled of summer and holidays. I felt at home. Evidently one could live here. Had I made the right choice after all? The twins would settle in, find new friends. At their age people quickly forget.

Ms Walldorf had prepared a small summary of the pending cases. At present, my people were working on a hold-up on the Volksbank in Eppelheim. Two fourteen-year-old boys had been missing since the beginning of the summer holidays, not daring to return home because of their bad grades. The university had been struck by a series of break-ins since the beginning of the summer break; it was mainly expensive laptops that had disappeared, which could easily be turned into money on eBay. Pickpocketing was also on the increase in the city, where the victims were almost always tourists. That was all. Even criminals have to take a holiday occasionally.

Finally it was nine o’clock, the coffee was finished, and I asked my secretary to accompany me on my meet and greet of the troops. We met Commissioner Lamparth, the head of the uniformed police. He had been on holiday in Tunisia last week, he explained, which is why we had not yet met. Lamparth was ten years older than me, had an open smile, an angular chin and strong teeth, and seemed to be an affable guy. After just three sentences, he explained to me that there had never been the usual petty jealousies between CID and uniformed officers in this station. I promised him that I was not thinking of changing this and, off the cuff, repeated about one third of last Wednesday’s speech. It had turned hot again in the meantime.

CID had almost the entire top floor of the extensive building. I knocked energetically on the first door and entered. I had heard somewhere that as a superior you should not wait for an ‘Enter’. A purposeful presence creates respect. I had read two names outside on the door: DCI K. Vangelis and DI S. Balke. The two of them jumped up when I entered, Balke a lot faster than his colleague. I went towards the woman, to shake her hand. Her gaze was cool, if not dismissive. Liebekind had told me in confidence that she had been one of my closest rivals for the role, and Ms Walldorf had made it clear that DCI Klara Vangelis sadly wasn’t always the easiest person to get along with.

Given her rank, the woman was surprisingly young. She had to be extremely ambitious. She extended her hand very reluctantly, and it was apparent that she would have had absolutely nothing against me going to hell, right now, in front of her large dark eyes.

To her apparent relief, the phone rang. She turned away and left me standing with my hand outstretched, although Balke could have taken the call. While she was on the phone, I had a chance to size her up. If she had been a few centimetres taller she could have worked as a model. Thick black shiny hair, a figure as if cut out of a fashion magazine, combined with a light-coloured blouse and a dark suit, which even I could see was in no way commensurate with a detective’s salary.

The conversation only took a few seconds. She took notes without changing expression and hung up with the comment: ‘OK. Ten minutes.’ She ripped the note off the pad and shot a glance at Balke. ‘Murder out in Emmertsgrund.’

Perplexed, Balke looked from her to me. He obviously didn’t know who was calling the shots right now. With her left hand she grabbed a large black leather shoulder bag, while her right fished a bunch of keys out of her desk drawer.

‘I’m coming along,’ I said firmly.

Balke looked baffled, Sonja Walldorf blushed.

‘You’re the boss,’ Vangelis said, shrugging her shoulders.

‘This way I can get to know the city and your way of working a little,’ I explained to Balke, as Vangelis steadfastly stared the other way.

‘I’ll inform forensics,’ Balke mumbled, somewhat confused.

‘Colleagues from the station have already done that.’ Vangelis walked away without giving us a further glance. We were hard pushed to keep up with her. Ms Walldorf watched us with a pained expression and obviously feared the worst.

In the car, a 7-series BMW, which Vangelis drove like the devil incarnate, she explained to us that the call had come from a patrol car that had in turn been informed by the caretaker of a high-rise in Emmertsgrund. I hadn’t heard of this neighbourhood before. Going by the comments made by my subordinates, it lay in the south and was not exactly one of the best areas in Heidelberg. Due to an increasingly unbearable smell, the caretaker had opened the penthouse flat this morning and found the body of the resident. He was a young man called Patrick Grotheer, Vangelis read from her note, while the BMW thundered along the bumpy Rohrbacher Strasse at 75 mph.

Balke finally found the button for the siren and put the blue emergency light on the roof. ‘Grotheer?’ he asked with raised brows.

‘Yes.’ Vangelis shifted up a gear. ‘Why?’

I had somehow managed to land in the back seat, but decided, however, that this didn’t bother me.

‘Doesn’t have to mean anything,’ Balke answered evasively. ‘There is more than one person with that name.’

Sven Balke was the type that my daughters had recently begun to categorise as ‘totally cute’. You could see and hear that he came from the north. He wore tight jeans and a T-shirt that emphasised every curve of his torso. I counted three silver rings in his right ear and five in his left. His skin colour revealed that he liked to spend a lot of time outdoors and that, like most fair-haired men, it did not agree with him. A sort of designer stubble adorned his bald head; he didn’t seem to bother much with shaving.

In a perilous manoeuvre, Vangelis overtook a bus and just managed not to collide with the approaching tram.

‘Hey, take it easy, girl! It’s not like he’s going to do a runner,’ Balke griped. His mobile bleeped.

‘Oh, oh,’ he said quietly, having read the text message.

‘The one from last night?’ Vangelis asked airily and indicated again to overtake.

He shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Still the same one from Tuesday.’

‘One of them is going to get you at some point,’ she said with a shrug.

‘Not before I’m forty.’

Seventeen minutes after