215Barely had I left the firm when a new text from Toni came in: ‘00035247315.’
After the ‘Where’s Dragan?’ text and the hand grenade in Ms Bregenz’s apartment, this was truly shameless. Who did this guy think he was? I certainly wasn’t about to call him on any prepaid number; he should be calling me. These formalities still mattered. I decided to let him stew a little longer before I sent him the cypher for my new prepaid phone.
At that same moment, my official mobile rang: Peter Egmann. He wanted to meet, right away. We arranged to meet at McDonald’s – I hadn’t gotten much further from the office than that.
Within ten minutes, Peter walked up to the table where I was calmly nibbling a McMuffin and enjoying an imaginary lake shimmering behind the McCafé counter. Peter, on the other hand, looked very upset for a copper who usually kept his cool.
‘Björn, what is all this shit?’
‘This? This a very successful fast-food restaurant.’
He sat down. ‘I’m not talking about this place, but the state of your Ms Bregenz!’
I shrugged. ‘Apparently she had a little fainting spell.’216
Peter glared at me, furious. ‘After I told her that a hand grenade was tossed through her living-room window. Who’s behind this?’
‘How would I know?’
‘You sent Toni a text saying that Dragan was in her apartment!’
‘And was he?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Setting aside for a moment the legality of you having read my text – did you seriously believe what it said?’
‘You know we have to follow up on every lead.’
‘If you really want to know what this shit is about, why don’t you ask whoever threw that hand grenade?’
‘He’s on the run.’
‘Oh really? I thought the SCO19 unit was already on site because of the text. Did the SCO19 unit call another SCO19 unit to catch the guy?’
‘Björn, this situation is serious. In four days, there’ve been three deaths and two grenade explosions – and all of them directly connected to Dragan.’
‘But I’m not.’
‘You’re not? One day after you spent the night at the lake house with your daughter, both Dragan’s ring and his ring finger turn up on his neighbours’ patio table. Can you explain that?’
‘Are you even sure it is Dragan’s finger?’ I countered.
‘It’s obviously the signet ring Dragan is wearing in the video, a bespoke piece. It’s as tasteless as it is unique.’
‘Wait a minute,’ I objected, ‘Dragan’s ring is not unique, 217but one of a bespoke pair. Boris had the exact same ring made at the time.’
‘Yet Boris has informed us that he’s still in possession of all ten fingers.’
‘Fingers that haven’t worn that ring for years.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Well, if you don’t even know whose ring it is you found, how can you be sure whose finger it’s on? Who’s to say that at this very moment Dragan’s not sunning on some beach with his tasteless ring on one of his ten intact fingers, while you’ve got an evidence bag with Boris’s ring on some unlucky other person’s digit?’
As a criminal defence lawyer, you don’t have to stick to the truth, you just have to sow doubt. I’ve always been quite good at that.
‘Granted, that point still has to be clarified, yet the DNA report will certainly help us do so. Unfortunately, the laboratory is completely backed up, but I hope to get the results by the end of the week.’
‘For a DNA examination, you would need a sample of reference DNA from Dragan. Let me give you a little expert tip: take a saliva sample – those stand up best in court. But … if you’re poking a cotton swab in Dragan’s mouth anyway, you can just ask him yourself if any of his fingers have gone walkabout.’
As a lawyer, I’d always been able to talk circles around anyone. Admittedly, my entire argument would fall apart the second an incontestable sample of Dragan’s blood, sperm or saliva could be compared to the finger’s DNA – but 218no sooner than that. Right now, however, Peter was clearly itching to get back to safer ground.
‘Don’t you want to know what we found during our search of the lake house?’
Had I failed to wipe out all traces of the corpse disposal? A chill came over me, my throat felt parched, my neck tensed up. I tried to go over it all again in my mind.
‘Oh, right, sure. What did you find?’
‘In front of the boathouse, divers found a gold watch and a belt buckle, both also visible on the video.’
Boundless relief surged through me: both watch and buckle were mass-produced. So, except for the finger thing, I didn’t seem to have made any mistakes getting rid of the body, all thanks to my intentional centring.
‘Congratulations. And if the divers had kept on their search, they’d probably have discovered some antique amphoras, or relics from Atlantis. What does this have to do with Dragan?’
Peter looked at me like I’d lost my marbles.
‘Björn, your client is the focus of a murder investigation. And it’s not entirely impossible he has become the victim of a crime himself – at a time and place that puts a spotlight on you! I really don’t understand how this could leave you so cold.’
‘Mindfulness.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Breathing exercises, time islands, mindful action: you should give it a try some time.’
‘I’ve got no time for that.’219
‘At some point, you’ll be ready to make time for mindfulness. Until then, let’s summarise: you’ve got nothing concrete on the finger yet. As soon as Dragan reappears, he can pay you a finder’s fee for a watch and a buckle. What else? No leads on who threw the grenade?’
‘Only that it was probably the same type as the one in the lay-by on Friday.’
‘I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, Peter, but the attack can only have been committed by someone who knew what my message to Toni said. So you should probably first clarify whether anyone among your ranks might’ve passed it on to Boris.’
Peter was about to object, but I continued, ‘And if that would prove not to be the case, the only remaining suspect is Toni.’
With that, I got up. I picked up my tray. Peter stayed seated. He looked exhausted and emaciated.
‘You should really eat something,’ I said. ‘I can recommend the Happy Meal. The toy of the week is a parrot that talks – your son’s sure to enjoy it. Watch out, though, it’s not very sturdy. But then, nothing’s perfect.’
The copper just growled and waved me off. By the time I’d dropped off my tray and made my way to the door, he was already gone. I hadn’t told him about leaving the firm, but that wouldn’t be official until the next week anyway.
I set off for home. As I strolled through the city centre, I decided to pay Boris a visit that evening. I had to talk to Toni beforehand though: I’d ignored his message long enough. I sent him an eleven-digit text and promptly got a 220call on the prepaid phone. I sat down on a bench facing a frothily babbling but otherwise unadorned 1970s fountain.
‘Björn, why didn’t you call sooner?’
‘Mum, is that you?’
‘Cut the crap, mate. It’s all hitting the fan up here. Dragan’s not around, and you’re the only one in touch with him. Decisions need to be made right fucking now, you hear?’
‘Sounds like you’re under some pressure.’
‘Pressure? Fuck right off with you. It’s all going to blow up in our face if Dragan doesn’t make some decisions, and sharpish too.’
‘There will be an officer meeting on Thursday, that’s when Dragan will tell you what we need to do.’
‘Fuck Thursday. Thursday is a long fucking way off. We don’t have that kind of time! I need to talk to him right now. Right fucking now!’
My mindfulness guide had a few very helpful things to say about time pressure:
Time is relative. How we perceive it depends on our subjective assessment of the situation we find ourselves in. Time pressure, therefore, is nothing more than an expression of tension.
Or a sign that someone had fallen flat on his face trying – for the second time – to kill his boss and was furious with himself about it. I could imagine how he must be feeling. Still, I had succeeded at what he had screwed up – and 221on my first attempt. That’s why I was on that bench feeling zero time pressure as I watched the bubbling fountain with its crown of foam, a stray floating chip and a random pigeon.
‘Tell me, Toni, is it possible that you are feeling a bit tense?’
‘Of course I am!’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because … because … because for the second time in four days, my boss was almost blown up… Because my closest employee was shot in the head in the woods … Because Boris is massacring our whole operation … Is that enough for you?’
I followed the small, dirty-white crown of foam along the edge of the fountain as it drifted away from the chip.
‘Try to set up a time island, it really helps.’
‘Are you kidding me?’
‘I just want to be helpful.’
‘You want to be helpful, mate? Take me to Dragan, right now.’
I had no intention of letting myself be pressured by Toni’s pressure. As the pigeon tried to peck the soggy chip out of the fountain, I went on the attack.
‘Maybe you can explain to me how this apartment blew up less than an hour after I texted you.’
‘Of course I can. Even a numpty would understand: the police intercepted our fucking texts.’
‘And then tossed a hand grenade in there?’
‘Boris obviously has a mole that passed it on to him, and 222then one of Boris’s people threw the fucking hand grenade. We need to act against Boris right now.’
I was reaching my quota of right nows. ‘That’s still Dragan’s call, and Thursday at the earliest.’
‘No, take me to him first!’
‘That’s definitely not up to you.’
‘Excuse me, mister lawyer man. You spent a peaceful weekend at the lake with your little one, fishing, swimming and toasting fucking marshmallows, while I’m up to my neck in shite here, trying to save the business. I’ll tell you one thing: if you don’t set up a talk with Dragan right now, next weekend your daughter will be splashing around ten centimetres below the surface of the lake. Have I made myself clear?’
The foam around the edge of the fountain was suddenly nothing compared to the foam starting to form around my mouth.
Of course he had made himself clear. By threatening my daughter, he had just clearly made himself my enemy for life. In the last four days, others had died for less. In addition, Toni had just revealed to me that he obviously had a mole with the police, otherwise he wouldn’t know so much about my weekend. And if this mole also had access to my voicemail, they would’ve also told Toni that Murat wanted to meet with me. And if this mole knew that a finger wearing Dragan’s ring was found on the neighbouring property, then sooner or later Toni would find that out as well. The fact that Toni hadn’t mentioned the finger led me to conclude that either he didn’t know about it yet or he wanted to keep it up his sleeve.223
But above all, my by-now-familiar mindfulness routine kicked in:
‘Did you make yourself clear, mister barman? Let me sum it up: you want me to tell Dragan you don’t give a fuck about his explicit order to stand down and wait for his instructions. You want me to tell Dragan to get in touch with you ASAP. And you want me to tell dear old Uncle Dragan that you’ll kill his favourite lawyer’s daughter if he doesn’t do exactly what you want. If I understood all that correctly, then the best advice I can give you as a lawyer is to cut off your own dick and cook it up however you prefer before sticking it down your own throat. Otherwise, it’ll be up to Dragan to determine the time and the recipe. Have I made myself clear?’
Toni had never met this Björn. But then he’d also never threatened my daughter before.
After a long silence, he finally said, ‘I … Well … It’s just that … Maybe you can just ask Dragan to be considerate of the circumstances we’re in over here. I just want …’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I just want …’
‘You don’t get to “want”, you “would like”.’224
‘OK, well I would just like Dragan to tell me what I need to do.’
‘There’s a good boy. And now just wait for Dragan’s instructions – or you can insert the next hand grenade as a suppository.’
‘I … I …’
‘Anything else?’
‘Listen, Björn, if Dragan is alive and you speak to him, then I would like to formally apologise to him.’
That’s how it’s done. Unusually compliant for that muppet, but unfortunately, he didn’t leave it at that and struck up a much less compliant tone. ‘But if Dragan is no longer alive or you’re not speaking to him at all, then you are dead. You have until the end of the month to take me to Dragan. If you don’t, you’ll be in pieces by the first of May.’
I hung up.
Now I had another ultimatum to deal with. By 30 April, I also needed to secure a preschool spot. Somehow, my new mindful lifestyle was putting me under a very centred time pressure.
The first possible solution that occurred to me was: Toni needed to go.
I didn’t have to make that decision just yet, however. First, I had to pay a visit to Boris.