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- Herausgeber: CassiopeiaPress
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
Hamburg Murder Couple: Two Cases For Inspector Jörgensen by Alfred Bekker This volume contains the following detective stories about Inspector Uwe Jörgensen of the Hamburg Criminal Investigation Department: Commissioner Jörgensen and the Memoirs: Two men are found shot to death. Both are connected by a manuscript with explosive content. And there are some people who don't like the publication at all. Uwe Jörgensen and his colleague Roy Müller suspect that the murderer received the order to do so from the Mafiosi Franze. But Sven Feldmann, who is running for the Senate, is also under suspicion. Did one of them hire the 'killer with the dent'? Inspector Jörgensen and the murderous couple: A serial killer goes around in Hamburg. Again a woman was killed in a bestial way. The commissioners Jörgensen and Müller suspect that it can only be a serial killer. They believe that it is a morbidly fanatical couple, a man and a woman, who are now murdering in ever shorter segments. But the profiler Dr. Lentor has a completely different opinion ...
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Hamburg Murder Couple: Two Cases For Inspector Jörgensen
Alfred Bekker
Published by Alfred Bekker, 2022.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Hamburg Murder Couple: Two Cases For Inspector Jörgensen
Copyright
Commissioner Jörgensen and the memoirs
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Inspector Jörgensen and the murderous couple
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Hamburg Murder Couple: Two Cases For Inspector Jörgensen
by Alfred Bekker
This volume contains the following detective stories about Inspector Uwe Jörgensen of the Hamburg Criminal Investigation Department:
Commissioner Jörgensen and the Memoirs:
Two men are found shot to death. Both are connected by a manuscript with explosive content. And there are some people who don't like the publication at all.
Uwe Jörgensen and his colleague Roy Müller suspect that the murderer received the order to do so from the Mafiosi Franze. But Sven Feldmann, who is running for the Senate, is also under suspicion. Did one of them hire the 'killer with the dent'?
––––––––
Inspector Jörgensen and the murderous couple:
A serial killer goes around in Hamburg. Again a woman was killed in a bestial way. The commissioners Jörgensen and Müller suspect that it can only be a serial killer. They believe that it is a morbidly fanatical couple, a man and a woman, who are now murdering in ever shorter segments. But the profiler Dr. Lentor has a completely different opinion ...
––––––––
Alfred Bekker is a well-known author of fantasy novels, thrillers and books for young people. In addition to his major book successes, he has written numerous novels for suspense series such as Ren Dhark, Jerry Cotton, Cotton Reloaded, Kommissar X, John Sinclair, and Jessica Bannister. He has also published under the names Neal Chadwick, Henry Rohmer, Conny Walden, and Janet Farell.
Copyright
Bekkerpublishing is an imprint of
Alfred Bekker
© by Author
© of this issue 2022 by Alfred Bekker, Lengerich/Westphalia
The invented persons have nothing to do with actual living persons. Similarities in names are coincidental and not intended.
All rights reserved.
www.AlfredBekker.de
Follow on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/BekkerAlfred
Get the latest news here:
https://alfred-bekker-autor.business.site/
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Everything about fiction!
Commissioner Jörgensen and the memoirs
by Alfred Bekker
1
He who writes, stays, so they say.
Maybe that's why so many write memoirs.
I gladly confess that I have also thought about it.
He who writes, stays - that may be true in many cases. But in some, the opposite is also true.
As in this case.
Memoirs can be killer.
Especially when there are things in it that others don't like.
But always in order.
My name is Uwe Jörgensen. I am a chief detective and belong to the 'Federal Criminal Investigation Group'. We are based in Hamburg. Together with my colleague Roy Müller, our boss Jonathan Bock and all the others who belong to our department, we mainly take care of the serious cases.
To those who have something to do with organized crime, for example.
Sometimes we have more success, sometimes less.
But with the necessary perseverance, we actually always reach our goal in the end.
But let's best start things from the beginning....
*
He entered the simply furnished one-room apartment in the southern part of Altona. The furnishings were rather sparse. There was a computer workstation, but neither a television nor any wall decorations.
The man very carefully closed the door behind him.
Almost overpenetrating.
Pedant.
He pulled a pistol from the deep pockets of his parka.
It was a soundless movement.
Sliding.
Of feline elegance.
With his other hand, he reached for the silencer in his other pocket and carefully unscrewed it.
Good preparation was half the battle.
He smiled briefly.
There was a flash in his eyes.
His hands were in skin-colored latex gloves. A quick glance at the clock, then he sank into one of the leather chairs.
A good hunter must be able to wait!, he thought.
And he was a good hunter.
A very good one.
There was no one who could escape him.
That much was certain.
2
"Hey, that's a bombshell story! For real! Believe me! It'll hit like a grenade, believe me!" Arthur Cremer had the smartphone to his ear while simultaneously trying to open the door to his apartment in Altona.
And all the while, he kept talking on the phone.
"What?"
The answer from the device seemed to irritate him at first, then his face relaxed.
"Yes, of course you'll get an exclusive preprint. But that still has to be legally clarified with the publisher first ..."
A short pause followed.
He seemed to bristle.
Frown.
"Excuse me?"
The wrinkles on his forehead deepened.
Became furrows and formed a large V.
"Any details yet?"
He shook his head.
"Absolutely not!"
He shook his head again.
"Definitely out of the question. I won't be a part of that."
Again a pause followed.
This time longer.
"Okay," he then said.
He inserted the chip card into the electronic lock three times until the door finally opened. He carried a laptop bag under his arm, which almost fell to the floor. Then he finally made it. "See you later," he said and ended the phone call.
He put the smartphone in the rather baggy jacket outer pocket. He closed the door, put the laptop bag on a dresser, and then walked toward the seating area.
He had bought the leather chairs at a flea market. He found them stylish and so out that they were already in again.
The smartphone emitted a ringing signal. It was a harmonically very reduced version of the opening chords of 'Highway to Hell'.
For Arthur Cremer, this signal meant that an email had arrived.
He took a deep breath.
He was about to reach into his jacket pocket when one of the leather chairs suddenly began to spin as if by itself.
In the next moment, Cremer froze as he looked down the barrel of a gun that had been extended with the help of a silencer. Before he had even recognized his opponent's face properly, there was a pop and the first bullet hit him in the shoulder. It whipped him around, exited Cremer's body below the shoulder blade, and then slammed into the center of the display next to the door that showed the security camera footage of who was standing in front of the door.
"Hey, what ..."
The second shot hit the thigh.
Arthur Cremer noticed that his trouser leg was turning red. He pressed one hand on the leg to stop the flow of blood. Dark red ran between his fingers a little later. He tried to stay on his feet, made a movement back towards the door and then stumbled to the floor.
"We need to talk," the man in the chair said.
"Look, I don't know what you want from me ..."
"Oh, no?"
"What..."
"The question of how quickly you die depends very largely on how quickly I get answers to my questions," the killer cut him off.
3
My colleague Roy Müller and I were sitting in an Italian restaurant, poking around the antipasti. It wasn't our favorite Italian - and we were already regretting having embarked on this culinary adventure in the first place. The menu of Alberto Arcuri's MAMMA MIA!!! in Bergedorf did not offer a real treat. The three exclamation marks, which were an essential part of the name of Arcuri's restaurant, were of no help. Allegedly, a creative director friend from an advertising agency had advised him to include these exclamation points as a distinctive feature in the name.
Well...
Until then, I had always thought that the food was the main thing at a restaurant.
But that is perhaps also rather naive thinking.
Anyway.
This brand identity did not replace the chef's sense of taste - and that's where MAMMA MIA!! was in serious trouble.
The fact that my colleague, Detective Chief Inspector Roy Müller, and I nevertheless went to Bergedorf on a regular basis to visit this pub had to do with the owner himself. Arcuri was one of our best informants. We regularly heard news from him about the Italian Mafia.
More specifically, the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian branch.
The `Ndrangheta has become one of the most powerful organized crime networks especially in Northern and Central Europe since 1990s.
There was no one else in the restaurant that night. Alberto Arcuri sat down with us.
"I hope it's to your liking," he said.
"Quite exquisite," Roy lied.
He was just polite.
Until now, our colleague Stefan Czerwinski had kept in touch with Arcuri, and we knew from Stefan that he was extremely quick to take offense if one doubted his kitchen talent. So we didn't even get into a discussion about culinary refinements and took it as it was presented to us.
"What you have in your teeth is the last remnant of Italian food culture!" declared Arcuri, sighing. "And what of it still exists?" He raised his shoulders.
"Things just change, Mr. Arcuri," said my colleague Roy Müller.
"Maybe so, but I don't have to like it, do I?"
"Hamburg is a melting pot," Roy said. "People of all different origins just meet there - but that's also the special charm of the city. Or would you really prefer it if there were only Italians and Germans?"
"I could do without the Germans. There are too many of them in the police force," Arcuri said, grinning wryly. "No, I'm just kidding."
"Well, that puts our minds at ease," I said, chewing.
Our colleague Stefan Czerwinski had already warned us about the so-called jokes that Arcuri liked to tell. He was full of prejudice against everyone and anyone, and Stefan had advised us to stay calm and not get involved in any discussions with him. Then he would only talk himself into a rage, which served no one.
But that evening, Arcuri got down to business quickly. He bent over the table and spoke in a subdued tone - even though there was no one in the restaurant except us. Today was a day of rest and not even one of his employees could have heard us.
"I assume the name Sandro Spano still means something to you," Arcuri said.
I nodded. "Of course."
Sandro Spano had been a Mafiosi who had been killed under as yet unexplained circumstances, shortly before he was able to switch sides and testify fully to the judiciary. He was a hamburger with Calabrian roots. His body had been found in a parking lot with several bullets in it - wrapped in a plastic sheet.
The whole thing had happened several years ago. Roy and I had not been part of the task force that investigated the case, but of course we had heard everything important about it. They hadn't even been able to determine where the crime scene actually was.
The only thing that was certain was that a professional killer was the perpetrator. He had already attracted attention several times in the wider organized crime environment and was responsible for a series of mafia murders. Spano had been shot with the same gun that this killer had used in other cases.
The killer with the dent - this name had become common for this unknown after our chief ballistician David Eichner had called him that.
Of course, that wasn't actually all that accurate, because the indentation wasn't the killer's, it was characteristic of the bullets that came out of the barrel of his gun. Some feature in the barrel or the silencer, when the projectile exited, caused it to burn in the form of an indentation.
"I suppose they still don't know who set the killer on Spano back then," Arcuri surmised, and unfortunately he was right on the money. There were enough suspects - if one looked at the case only on the basis of the question of motive. Spano had made so many enemies among his peers in the last few years before his death that probably half the underworld in Germany was more or less happy that he was no longer in business. Not to mention those whom Spano wanted to incriminate and who certainly regarded him as a traitor.
"At some point we will also put this killer and his backer in jail," I promised.
"I'm afraid that's pure expedient optimism, Mr. Jörgensen."
"Oh, really?"
"Unless you let me help you!"
"Just say what you have to say, Mr. Arcuri! You won't become any more interesting for us if you delay the decisive thing for a long time and only present it to us in bits and pieces. And if you think that you can get something more out of it than ..."
He raised his hands defensively.
"Not a thought!" he asserted. "Really not ..."
"So, we're listening," Roy now interjected.
"I have it on good authority who had Spano on his conscience."
"Are you talking about the hit man or the back man now?", I asked.
"The names of both were mentioned to me." He glanced nervously at his watch. "I have to take dessert out of the oven first. You'll excuse me ..."
He got up and disappeared into the kitchen.
Roy gave me an annoyed look.
"That's just a busybody! We all know that Mario Franze probably had Spano murdered. After all, he had the greatest advantages from Spano's death. That's how he escaped prosecution. Spano could no longer testify against him, and today Mario is head of the family without having to worry about justice breathing down his neck."
"Wait and see what he has to say, Roy!", I advised my colleague.
"It's true! He just wants to make himself interesting! We know that Franze is behind it, but we can't prove it. That's the problem!"
A few minutes passed - and no matter how elaborate the dessert Arcuri had prepared for us, it really shouldn't take that long to be served.
The matter suddenly struck me as strange. In the course of years of service in the criminal police, you develop a pretty unerring instinct for dangers and connections. To outsiders, this sometimes seems like a sixth sense. In truth, it's nothing more than experience coupled with a trained eye.
I rose.
"What do you have, Uwe?"
"I'll go see where that guy is!"
I routinely checked the fit of my SIG Sauer P226 pistol in its holster. With quick steps, I went to the door that led to the kitchen area.
"Mr. Arcuri? Are you all right?" I asked.
No answer. I entered the kitchen - and immediately instinctively grabbed the gun. Arcuri lay sprawled on the kitchen floor. There was a bloody bullet hole in his forehead. His features were frozen in an expression of pure horror. He was still clutching the pot holder with his left hand.
I looked up.
Roy pushed past me, circled the large table in the center of the kitchen, and reached the other side of the room. A half-open sliding door led into an adjoining room. Roy rushed in, gun in fist. After only a few moments, he returned.
"Just a slightly larger pantry," he noted.
"No access to the outside, Roy?"
"Not even a window."
I looked up at the ceiling. Just above the dead man was a raised skylight that apparently also served to ventilate the kitchen area. The gap was large enough to be able to shoot through it.
"Not to prejudge my colleagues in ballistics, but I believe Mr. Arcuri was shot from there."
"Damn - then the culprit will be over the hills!" opined Roy.
4
We alerted our headquarters. I then made sure that the police colleagues were also notified immediately.
While Roy was looking around MAMMA MIA!!! and talking to his colleagues, I ran outside. With my service weapon in hand, I looked around the small side street where Arcuri's place was located. It was a one-way street. Cars were parked on both sides, bumper to bumper. There were few pedestrians on the sidewalks and virtually no stores. A hairdressing salon and a so-called RUSSEN SHOP, as one can find them more often in Bergedorf by now, were the only stores.
The MAMMA MIA!!! itself was on the first floor of a seven-story building. The kitchen area, however, was housed in a one-story flat-roofed annex. This looked like a foreign body between the much higher buildings all around.
It had probably been a simple matter for the perpetrator to get up there, lie in wait at the skylight that was probably always open, and wait for Alberto Arcuri to show up. A simple, straightforward murder - probably carried out by a professional and commissioned by one of those Mafiosi about whom Alberto Arcuri had always informed us more or less reliably in recent years.
Through a narrow alley that was barely a meter and a half wide, I reached a backyard. A ladder led from there to the flat roof extension. This had to be the path the killer had taken. I put on latex gloves before climbing the ladder.
The flat roof was covered with gravel. I looked around the perimeter of the skylight, where I suspected the position of the shooter. It was clear that he had used a silencer. Otherwise, Roy and I should have heard something in the next room.
I looked around closer to the window.
Nowhere was a cartridge case to be seen. But instead, even with the naked eye, one could see the gunshot residue on the white frame of the skylight.
In the meantime, the sirens of the emergency vehicles that the police must have sent could already be heard in the distance.
I let my gaze glide along the rows of windows of the surrounding houses and wondered whether anyone had perhaps been home at the right time and seen something.
5
It did not take long and the police forces entered. Uniformed officers cordoned off the scene. A certain police chief Birgit Drechsler led the operation.
The first thing I noticed about her - apart from the dark eyes and the blond hair gathered into a strict knot - were the exact creases of her uniform trousers. In this razor-sharp form, this was rarely seen even among Hamburg police officers, and I assumed that she certainly performed her job with the highest degree of conscientiousness.
"Uwe Jörgensen, Hamburg Criminal Police," I introduced myself. "You can call me Uwe ..."
She did not return my offer to call me by my first name. But that suited her creases and severe hairstyle.
I summarized in brief what had happened and she listened attentively. Then I took her to the backyard and then to the flat roof and talked about what I thought had happened.
"The colleagues from the recognition service are on their way," explained POM Drechsler. "However, you probably know how long it takes to get from St. Pauli to here in Bergedorf at the moment."
"Sure."
"So we're going to have to be patient."
"Mrs. Drechsler, it would be good if you could provide enough people to systematically interview the neighborhood," I suggested. "Someone must have seen the perpetrator here on the roof, after all."
"We'll do what we can," the colleague promised Drechsler. "Do you assume that this will be a case for your special department - or will our homicide department take over sooner or later?"
I shook my head.
"Alberto Arcuri was a mafia informant and we therefore strongly believe that there is a connection with organized crime!"
She nodded. "I understand."
A little later, the first police officers began to systematically question the neighborhood. First and foremost, of course, they were to canvass those apartments from whose windows one could see the flat roof of the annex.
For Roy and me, there remained the sad duty of informing Alberto Arcuri's family of his murder.
His wife's name was Violetta and only arrived when the colleagues of the recognition service also reached the MAMMA MIA!!!!
Violetta Arcuri had been with friends in Hamburg-Mitte, while her husband had received us in his restaurant.
Her face expressed complete bewilderment when we told her in brief words what had happened. She turned as pale as the wall and at first could not utter a sound.
"I want to see him!" she finally said.
"I'm sorry, but I can't do that now," I objected. "The colleagues from forensic medicine and the identification service have to do their work now, Ms. Arcuri."
She took a deep breath.
I accompanied Violetta Arcuri to the private apartment that adjoined the restaurant.
Roy, on the other hand, remained at the scene.
Violetta Arcuri led me into a living room that was completely cluttered with rather plush furniture. The couch and the armchairs looked as if they had hardly been used. But that was probably because Alberto Arcuri spent most of his time in MAMMA MIA!!!. There had been no separation between business and private life for him.
Violetta Arcuri sank down on the couch and hid her face in her hands for a while. She still couldn't seem to grasp what had happened to her husband.
"I'm usually at MAMMA MIA every day!!!. Except today and something like this happens ..." she then mumbled. She seemed to be in a trance. When she took her hands back from her face, her eyes seemed glazed over. "I have to tell my son ... Matteo ..."
"Where is your son now?", I asked.
"At a boarding school in Bremen. He has been going there since the last school year because he had difficulties at the local school. He suffers from ADHD, if you know what I mean."
"Attention deficit syndrome. You hear about it all the time in the media."
"The school thought Matteo should take medication for it to make him calmer, but my husband and I didn't want that because we felt that taking it would change his personality. For the school, of course, it was the easiest solution. Just pop a pill and be done with it!" She sighed.
"Where is this boarding school?", I asked.
"This is Birkelhof Boarding School."
"Your son should be safe there for now."
"For now?"
She looked at me and her eyes flickered uneasily.
"There's no point in beating around the bush. Your husband had mafia contacts and provided the criminal police with inside knowledge. It could well be that someone resented him very much and set a killer on him because of that. To what extent you and your son are in danger cannot be judged for sure at this point, but ..."
"To the outside world, Alberto has always kept me out of these things," Violetta Arcuri said. "You're the first contact I've had personally with the criminal investigation department."
"But obviously he told you about his activities."
"Yes, he did. I was always against him doing something like that."
"Why?"
"Well, you can see what's come out of it now! But Alberto always said that it was best to cover yourself on all sides."
I frowned.
"What do you mean?"
She hesitated. I had the feeling that she was already regretting her last sentence and somehow had the feeling that she had already said too much.
"To all sides?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean by that?", I hammered again.
"Nothing, Mr. Jörgensen ..."
"But..."
"I was just saying that."
"Just like that?"
"It had no meaning."
"Ms. Arcuri, your husband has been murdered - and depending on the background of the crime, you may also be in danger."
"I don't think so."
"I don't want to seem insensitive, but there's no point in hiding anything right now."
"Listen..."
"No, listen to me! If you know something that can help us find the killer, now is the time to say it."
She looked at me.
Briefly only.
Violetta Arcuri then rose from her seat. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and went to the window.
Her look was hard to interpret.
The changes in her face, too.
Actually, I'm quite good at interpreting something like that.
But this time I read - nothing!
Nothing that made any sense.
"I don't know anything specific about it, Mr. Jörgensen," she said then. "But he may have had his fingers in some illegal stuff and was hoping to get out of it if it all got exposed."
"Pull out," I asked. "What do you mean by that?"
She turned around.
"Well, would he really have been the first informant to get a blind eye?"
"It always depends on what the offense is."
"As I said, I can't tell you any more. I just noticed that there was always enough money lately. I didn't ask where it came from. Maybe I didn't want to know where it came from, because after all, we needed it pretty badly because of Matteo's school. It's a good one, but it's not cheap."
I felt that I was getting nowhere with her at this point. Maybe she really didn't know any more. I decided to talk to our colleague David Richartz later. He was responsible for business administration in our office. Maybe he could find out whether the MAMA MIA!!! had perhaps served to launder money and Arcuri had received his share for it.
"Would you mind continuing the questioning later?" asked Violetta Arcuri. "I feel like I've been hit in the head and I still can't believe that this is all more than just a bad nightmare to wake up from ..." She swallowed. "But that hope is unlikely to come true, no matter how many times I pinch my ear, I'm afraid. Do you understand? Just now, more or less, my whole life so far has been shattered. I have no idea how to go on. I certainly won't be able to continue MAMMA MIA!!! on my own, and what will happen to Matteo's school ..." Her voice broke and she didn't speak any further.
"Do you have anyone you can stay with for the next while?", I asked.
She nodded.
"At my sister's. She lives in Volksdorf."
"One more question, Ms. Arcuri."
"Yes?"
"Has your husband mentioned the name Sandro Spano lately?"
Her answer came hesitantly.
"Why do you ask that?"
"So you know who we're talking about."
"Yes."
"Her husband claimed to know who was behind Spano's murder."
"Like this?"
"But just before he could tell us, he was shot."
She swallowed.
"Terrible."
"So it's very important! Has your husband talked to you about Spano?"
Tears came to her eyes.
"That's all that matters to you, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
"I already told you I have nothing to do with these things!"
"Right, but..."
"How many times have I told Alberto that he shouldn't rely on the criminal police and that he can't expect any help from the judiciary in case of emergency either. And I was obviously right!"
"Listen ..."
There was a sparkle in her eyes.
Maybe tears were glistening there, too.
"No, now you listen to me, Mr. Jörgensen! My entire life has just been shattered! My husband is sitting in the company of two policemen in his own pub, so that one could actually assume that he is safe there - and you have not managed to prevent him from being gunned down like a rabid dog! All you care about is whether you can prove the people about whom my husband has provided you with information have done their crooked business."
"No, that's not true!", I objected.
"Please leave me alone now! That was already more than I can bear today, Mr. Jörgensen!"
I went to the living room door and turned around again there.
"You should know that we will hunt down your husband's murderer with all the means at our disposal .... And as for your anger, I can well understand you."
She raised her eyes.
"Oh, really?" she then said with a very bitter, caustic undertone.
My cell phone rang. It was Roy.
"Uwe? The police colleagues have identified a witness who saw the perpetrator. If you can get loose, it might be quite good if you were present at the interrogation."
"All right," I returned.
I left Mrs. Arcuri with a sinking feeling in the stomach area. Even if her accusations were essentially based on the anger and shock she had suffered from the death of her husband, I secretly had to admit that she was actually right.
The fact that a man who was in the company of two policemen could be shot even before he could bring his decisive statement across his lips did not speak for us in any case. But it also made this case something very personal.
6
Together with Police Chief Drechsler, we searched for an apartment in one of the buildings across the street.
A young police officer was there in the apartment of a man I estimated to be somewhere between seventy and eighty. His white hair was very thin and seemed to be electrically charged. At any rate, it was standing around in constantly changing, tangled formations. The look of the sea-blue eyes seemed very intensive and when he examined me in detail, he seemed to pierce me with this look.
We introduced ourselves succinctly.
"Moin," I said. "Jörgensen, Hamburg CID. These are colleagues of mine..."
"My name is Detlef Vanderkamp," he said.
"Pleased to meet you."
"Welcome to my home. I don't get many visitors."
"No?"
"I divorced my wife forty years ago, and my daughter lives in Nuremberg."
I let my gaze wander. Everywhere stood partly giant aquariums, in which the most different fish swam around and water plants stretched up.
"Yes, I used to have a pet shop," Vanderkamp said. "That was when I lived in Hamburg-Mitte. But I eventually had to sell the store. Now keeping ornamental fish is just a hobby of mine!"
"Mr. Vanderkamp, you told our colleague that ...", I began, but was abruptly interrupted.
"I saw the terrorist," Detlef Vanderkamp declared. "Come on!"
Roy and I exchanged a somewhat puzzled look, but followed him into another room whose walls were also almost completely filled with ornamental fish aquariums. One could have thought that he had never really given up his store in Hamburg-Mitte, but had actually only moved it to this apartment.
"It's about terrorism, isn't it? If the criminal investigation department is investigating, then it has to do with terrorists, as far as I know..."
"Well, not necessarily, Mr. Vanderkamp," Roy interjected.
"Yeah but, then what are you doing here if it's not about terrorism at all?"
"The best thing you can do is just tell us what you observed, Mr. Vanderkamp," I said.
From its window front, one actually had an excellent view of the backyard and the flat roof of the annex, which housed the kitchen of MAMMA MIA!!!!
"I was feeding the fish when I noticed this guy climbing up the ladder. I immediately thought it wasn't Mr. Schmitz."
"Who is Mr. Schmitz?" I asked.
"That's the janitor. I know him quite well. He lives one floor above me. His daughter likes fish, and I've been able to give Mr. Schmitz a few tips on how to set up an aquarium properly without all the fish in it immediately suffering an agonizing death. I can tell you, sometimes you want to ..."
"Mr. Vanderkamp, why are you so sure it wasn't the janitor?", I interrupted him, trying to draw his attention back to the actual topic of conversation.
"Well, because our janitor has been in the hospital since the day before yesterday. He broke his foot. So I immediately thought, what's that guy doing up there on the roof, and I thought, maybe it could be someone who's supposed to make sure that the places where water gets through are finally fixed."
"How do you know about that?" asked Roy.
Vanderkamp shrugged his shoulders.
"As I said, I know the janitor quite well. But this guy I'm talking about, he was kneeling at the window and what he was doing there I couldn't see because his own body was covering it up. I thought he was busy at the window .... How wrong you can be!"
"We need a description!", I demanded.
"He was wearing a blue parka, I could see that. Other than that, I can't say much about it. His hair was covered with a cap, and apart from that he was still wearing dark glasses."
"Can you think of anything else? A label on the clothes and his cap, for example?"
Vanderkamp thought for a moment, then shook his head vigorously.
"No, I would have noticed that. There was nothing there. However, there was something else that didn't strike me as odd at that moment because, yes, I thought he was going to be up there doing his job."
Roy raised his eyebrows and looked at me as if to ask if there was any point in continuing to question this man.
"Well?" asked Roy, when Detlef Vanderkamp did not continue speaking at first, but looked over to the flat roof of the annex with narrowed eyes.
"The guy had AIDS gloves on. You know, those things that are in the first aid kits that you have in your car!"
"With all due respect, but you could see that with the naked eye from here?" now Police Chief Drechsler wondered.
He shook his head.
"Not to the naked eye." He took a step to the side and opened the drawer of a small desk that stood by one of the windows. The next moment he had binoculars in his hand and handed them to me.
"You can see every fly on the other side with this!"
"Did you also recognize something of this man's face?", I asked.
Vanderkamp shook his head.
