The Killer Waits: Thriller

By Alfred Bekker

The Killer Waits: Thriller

by Alfred Bekker

 

 

Norbert Wolf froze as he looked down the barrel of the pistol.

"Don't move," came a muffled sound from under the motorcycle helmet. The man who seemed to have suddenly appeared out of the darkness was wearing a black leather outfit. The helmet visor was down, so that not even his eyes were visible.

"What do you want?" asked Wolf. "The box office is already gone. I just have thirty marks in my wallet..."

"Shut up!" the masked man replied coldly. He pointed the barrel of his pistol at the front door of the Dörner hardware store, which Norbert Wolf had just locked behind him.

"Open up again!" came muffled from under the helmet.

Wolf stared at the stranger, stunned. With his shoulder, he leaned against the inscription THE BIG LÜDENSCHEID DIY STORE - THE NUMBER ONE IN SOUTH WESTPHALIA. A slogan that had long had nothing to do with the truth.

A slight tremor gripped Wolf's hands as he finally hesitantly put the key back in the lock and turned it around.

"Get inside!" the masked man ordered.

He painfully poked Wolf in the side with the hard barrel of the pistol.

Wolf turned deathly pale. He swallowed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alfred Bekker
• Release date: Mar 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215013182

Alfred Bekker

Alfred Bekker wurde am 27.9.1964 in Borghorst (heute Steinfurt) geboren und wuchs in den münsterländischen Gemeinden Ladbergen und Lengerich auf. 1984 machte er Abitur, leistete danach Zivildienst auf der Pflegestation eines Altenheims und studierte an der Universität Osnabrück für das Lehramt an Grund- und Hauptschulen. Insgesamt 13 Jahre war er danach im Schuldienst tätig, bevor er sich ausschließlich der Schriftstellerei widmete. Schon als Student veröffentlichte Bekker zahlreiche Romane und Kurzgeschichten. Er war Mitautor zugkräftiger Romanserien wie Kommissar X, Jerry Cotton, Rhen Dhark, Bad Earth und Sternenfaust und schrieb eine Reihe von Kriminalromanen. Angeregt durch seine Tätigkeit als Lehrer wandte er sich schließlich auch dem Kinder- und Jugendbuch zu, wo er Buchserien wie 'Tatort Mittelalter', 'Da Vincis Fälle', 'Elbenkinder' und 'Die wilden Orks' entwickelte. Seine Fantasy-Romane um 'Das Reich der Elben', die 'DrachenErde-Saga' und die 'Gorian'-Trilogie machten ihn einem großen Publikum bekannt. Darüber hinaus schreibt er weiterhin Krimis und gemeinsam mit seiner Frau unter dem Pseudonym Conny Walden historische Romane. Einige Gruselromane für Teenager verfasste er unter dem Namen John Devlin. Für Krimis verwendete er auch das Pseudonym Neal Chadwick. Seine Romane erschienen u.a. bei Blanvalet, BVK, Goldmann, Lyx, Schneiderbuch, Arena, dtv, Ueberreuter und Bastei Lübbe und wurden in zahlreiche Sprachen übersetzt.

Book preview

1

Norbert Wolf froze as he looked down the barrel of the pistol.

Don't move, came a muffled sound from under the motorcycle helmet. The man who seemed to have suddenly appeared out of the darkness was wearing a black leather outfit. The helmet visor was down, so that not even his eyes were visible.

What do you want? asked Wolf. The box office is already gone. I just have thirty marks in my wallet...

Shut up! the masked man replied coldly. He pointed the barrel of his pistol at the front door of the Dörner hardware store, which Norbert Wolf had just locked behind him.

Open up again! came muffled from under the helmet.

Wolf stared at the stranger, stunned. With his shoulder, he leaned against the inscription THE BIG LÜDENSCHEID DIY STORE - THE NUMBER ONE IN SOUTH WESTPHALIA. A slogan that had long had nothing to do with the truth.

A slight tremor gripped Wolf's hands as he finally hesitantly put the key back in the lock and turned it around.

Get inside! the masked man ordered.

He painfully poked Wolf in the side with the hard barrel of the pistol.

Wolf turned deathly pale. He swallowed.

Sure thing, he said. Take it easy, will you? Take it easy, I'll do anything you say!

Fear sweat beaded on Wolf's forehead. He went through the door.

The masked man followed him, pulling the key out of the lock.

Inside the hardware store, there was a kind of semi-darkness.

The only sources of light were the lanterns in the parking lot, shining in through the large windows.

Shall I turn on the light? asked Wolf.

No, no light.

There's only change in the cash registers!

Fuck the cash register! came out like a threat from under the helmet. The masked man gestured nervously with his gun. Come on, let's go! he then growled.

Where?

I'll tell you!

They walked past the checkouts, of which there were a total of three in the Dörner DIY store. The masked man drove Wolf between the high shelves, past the huge rolls of cheap carpeting and the plug-in elements from which the skilled do-it-yourselfer could make shelf walls. This hardware store had a good five hundred square meters. And it was a kind of labyrinth.

At some point the masked man reached into the shelf.

He pulled out a roll of extra-wide fabric tape.

Metal colors. Wolf saw it out of the corner of his eye. He could see how much the question of what this meant was bothering him. No one would make such a fuss to steal a roll of insulating tape.... Norbert Wolf knew that, too.

There was an information booth by the wood department.

The masked man let his eyes wander.

Then he looked behind the counter.

Sit on that chair there! he instructed Wolf in no uncertain terms.

Wolf took a deep breath. Listen, what do you actually want. I'm not giving you any trouble... I...

I don't want to hear your talk! the masked man replied coldly. Get on the chair...

Wolf gasped. Panic seized him.

It was you, wasn't it? You called me and sent those letters.... You...

Get in the chair!

Wolf obeyed. He sat down on the already rather worn swivel chair. It squeaked as he did so.

Hands behind your back! came the masked man's command.

Wolf obeyed. And in the next second he got a brutal blow with the pistol barrel against his temple.

Dazed, Wolf slumped down. The masked man put the gun on the counter and took the insulating tape out of the foil. And then he started to wrap Wolf up. He tied his arms back and taped them to the chair. Then he roughly bent his legs under the chair and laced his feet together with his hands. Wolf groaned. He seemed to come to again.

Before he could get any louder, however, the masked man had also taped his mouth shut.

Then the masked man turned the wheelchair around.

Wolf looked at him blearily. Fear shone from his pale blue eyes.

The masked man eyed his victim for a moment through the closed helmet visor.

Then he gave the chair a kick.

There was a step about two meters away. The chair fell to the floor with a crash. A muffled groan came from under the tape. Wolf's eyes widened in fear. He lay helplessly on the floor, desperately trying to move. Like a cocooned insect in a spider's web.

The masked man took the weapon back and looked at the man lying on the ground.

Then he raised the gun, took aim and pulled the trigger.

Wolf closed his eyes.

It clicked.

The pistol was not loaded. A muffled laugh boomed from under the helmet, while beads of sweat glistened on Wolf's forehead.

2

Moeller put the saxophone to his mouth. A rough, creaking sound came out and formed the first element of a shimmering cascade of tones.

Moeller closed his eyes.

Over the lightly swinging bass line of the Miles Davis standard SO WHAT, he developed his improvisation. A steady flow of raw, edgy tones bubbled out of his horn.

Appeggi, which were sometimes a bit off key.

In between, there were also a few squeaks and overtones, of which it could only be assumed to what extent they were actually intended in this form or were only accepted.

But what had been allowed for a John Coltrane, Moeller was also allowed to do. In this respect Moeller was an anarchist. He knew no respect. Not for the living or the dead, and not for the ears and nerves of his contemporaries and neighbors. Perhaps Moeller played a little crookedly, but it sounded interesting for that. Moeller played with more inspiration than some highly acclaimed jazz greats. At least he thought so himself.

His solo developed. More and more daring tone jumps and runs followed one another. Moeller played himself into a kind of frenzy. Apart from himself and his instrument, there was only the headphones with the thick shells on which he heard the bass, piano and drums, which he had previously recorded digitally with the help of a Roland sound module and a keyboard. Only the saxophone he recorded acoustically and mixed the soundtrack with the rest afterwards. All the really great ones are long dead!, Moeller sometimes used to say, thinking it was a bon mot. And he thought of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and maybe Duke Ellington. And he regularly wondered why he himself was actually still alive. Maybe because you chose a healthier profession, he thought.

At some point in the distant past, Moeller was faced with an alternative: Either an insecure life as a musician or a secure job in public service.

And because somewhere deep inside he had known that he was not as great as Coltrane after all, he had chosen the safe path. He had become a policeman.

But wasn't the fight against crime also something worth living for? Helping justice win and protecting the weak? In this context, Moeller always had to think of the Batman comics he had read as a boy. The enthusiasm for Batman was there rather than that for John Coltrane, the passion for law and justice rather than that for jazz.

So now he was a policeman. Criminal investigation officer, to be precise.

And deep down, Moeller knew that he could better serve humanity with this work than with the involuntary squeaks from his saxophone.

In the meantime, he had completed 15 years of service with the Lüdenscheid Criminal Investigation Department. And he was still a detective superintendent at salary level A12. That was as far as he had ever gotten. Even from his appearance, Moeller seemed rather maladjusted. His long hair pulled back in a ponytail, his three-day beard, and his broken jeans. Moeller considered himself a nonconformist and attributed the fact that he had never made it further than detective superintendent in the department for homicide, commonly called Homicide, to this circumstance.

But if he was honest, he had never shown any particular ambition. In any case, his heart did not belong to the job. Not the thick files with the meticulously listed evidence and clues. Not the pages and pages of expert opinions on hair residue and traces of blood and fibers of some sweater. His heart belonged to jazz, the freest and most non-conformist of all musical forms. Jazz was like him, he often felt. And the jazziest of all instruments was the saxophone, an instrument that had a completely different, very personal sound for each player.

Moeller played as if in a trance.

He was carried away into a world of his own. A world of tones and sound and freedom. Because nothing was prescribed. Everything could happen. The music arose from the moment. A creative act that could not be repeated. Either it worked or it failed. There was no security, no notes to cling to.

At most, a harmonic framework or a bass line. And even this framework could be broken through. Moeller's fingers moved with breathtaking speed over the keys of the instrument, an alto saxophone in E-flat. His tones now became softer, more lyrical. Emotionally phrased passages replaced the jerky, angular notes. Moeller had long forgotten what key he should have been in. He simply played. Someone else seemed to be moving and coordinating his lips and fingers.

Maybe the god of jazz himself or the saxophone spirit of John Coltrane. Those were the moments Markus Moeller lived for. And then something else suddenly mixed into this deep feeling.

A dissonance against which every squeak by Coltrane would have sounded like a revelation.

A shrill sound that cut ever more insistently into Moeller's music.

Even through the headphones with the thick shells it was now unmistakable.

A siren!

Moeller cursed quietly to himself about what his ancient four-track recorder would document for posterity.

He took off the headphones and plopped them down on a rather saggy armchair he'd left in his home studio. Then he sighed and went to the window.

The sirens were not caused by his colleagues from the protective police, nor by ambulances.

It was the fire department.

Moeller recognized this by the sound.

He looked out into the darkness, saw the flashing lights and heard another siren approaching before the first had faded.

Moeller counted. Three, four, five vehicles.

This had to be a major operation.

He opened the window. His apartment was on the third floor of an unadorned gray four-story house in Lüdenscheid-Brüninghausen. One of the numerous former factory apartments of the Plate-Stahl company. Auf'm Aul was the name of the street on which these houses were located - whatever this street name might mean.

Meanwhile, on the nearby main road, one fire truck after another roared along.

Something