ShortCrimes is my buzzword for short crime stories from the world of Kiran Mendelsohn and Lloyd’s Pub & Diner.

Lloyd’s is the favourite pub of Kiran Mendelsohn, protagonist of my first crime novel Rancor

The background to this idea is my habit of writing not only profiles or biographies of characters for my novels, but often also short texts about people, situations and individual settings for chapters. Since I found this to be an exciting exercise for myself I thought it might also offer the reader a better insight and new perspectives. So this blog will be the platform for these ideas, storylines and downright experimental writing.

The setting: At Lloyd’s, characters from the novels meet and interact with each other. This can be a short story about the protagonists , it can be a view of them from other characters or simply an entire self-contained story worth telling. The setting, however, is always the pub. As in the book themes are therefore the same as those familiar from the pub: politics, society, culture, food, drink and sport. And of course crimes. After all, this is where Kiran and his team spend their off-time.

The following story is about one of the smaller cases the team encounters between novels. I was inspired by an evening at the Black Pearl, a pub modelled on Errol Flynn’s pirate ship here in Malta. I came home late from band practice and ran into my wife and one of her/our best friends. The two of them had a head start on the alcohol and were planning to rescue our friend’s grandmother. From the cemetery. Read on to find out what happened next.

Enjoy.

Trail of Ashes

She stared into a stony face. Dark shadows where there should be eyes, the face dead pale, the skin disfigured. Sina screamed briefly and was immediately punched in the back.

“Shut the fuck up! You stupid or what?”

“Sorry, I thought it was real…”

“This is a cemetery or loaded people, there are only statues here, come on now. And quietly, damn it! Or we’re screwed.”

Sina stumbled after her friend Lissy, who was finding her way between graves and mausoleums with the help of her mobile phone light. Not an easy task, the whole thing was a maze. The moon only shone through the clouds from time to time. You were constantly running into something, the ground was somehow very uneven anyway. No wonder, after four bottles of Prosecco and various Avernas, both of us had a proper sit-down. Shitty idea, the whole thing. But somehow also pretty cool.

Two hours ago, Lissy had made an important decision. She’d been harbouring the idea for a while until she’d been sitting with Sina again, drinking and venting her frustration. About the loss of her beloved grandma, her mother’s indifference, her stupid sister’s ice-cold stuffiness. And about how she wanted to be close to her grandma until the end of her life. Not just spiritually, but also physically. Not an urn, but something with style. As classy as her grandmother, who had taught her everything a timeless modern woman needed to know about life. How could this brilliant woman have such a colourless daughter and produce a bundle of energy like Lissy alongside another snoring daughter?

She was a doctor, knew pain and death, saw it with different eyes. One step further. Into another, disembodied existence. What remained was a memory and a decaying body. Or just ashes. Grandma’s last and absolute wish: scattered in damp peat, around a young tree seedling that she would help to grow. Or part of a work of art. But no, not with mum. Family honour, status, what should people think, I’m not thinking of implementing such esoteric nonsense, Mum is going to the cemetery, which is our right, and so on and so forth. Arrogant, mindless snipe talk. Typical mum. And now Grandma lay locked up in a kitschy urn, buried in a swanky grave in the cemetery of Berlin’s nobility – or all those who thought they were by virtue of their bank account.

After a litre and a half of bubble, Lissy had accumulated enough anger and Sina’s support. They had ridden their bikes through dark Charlottenburg to Westend, climbed over the cemetery wall and were now looking for the grave.

“You know where to go?”

“Yes, I do. We’ll be right there…”. Lissy walked forwards and ran straight into a small statue. It hurt like hell, but it was also the sign that they had arrived. Sina took over the lamp, Lissy crouched down and dug around the flowers. That’s why it had to be today. The gravestone had to be chiselled first, Grandma was still within reach.

Then she found the urn, lifted it out and prised it open with her Leatherman.

“You got the tin?”

“Tin, what tin? You rummaged in your cupboard, how am I supposed to…”

“Shit. Got anything else?”

“Just an Aldi bag.”

“Give me that”

“You wanna to put your granny in a shopping bag! Really?”

“Hell yeah…” Lissy decanted the ashes, then closed the urn, dug it in, threw back the soil and threw away a stone that had been in the ground.

A sound made them swerve. Some kind of high-pitched call, an animal perhaps.

“What was that?” shouted Sina, who had jumped a metre to the side.

“I don’t know, it came from over there”. Lissy shone her light in the direction indicated. Something red flashed.»Keine Ahnung, kam von da drüben«. Lissy leuchtete in die angegebene Richtung. Etwas Rotes blitzte auf.

“What’s that?” She stumbled in that direction. She felt quite nauseous, but she wasn’t afraid. The alcohol somehow made her strong, brave, curious. She shone her light at the gravestone. Damn, where did that acid in her stomach, in her mouth, come from….

“Wait, are you crazy?”

“Nonsense, this can’t be a gardener, surely…”

Lissy half fell forwards, leaning on the gravestone and vomiting soup, pasta, dessert and half her soul out of her body. It screamed again, a dark mass with light-coloured spots moved in front of her. It clapped, the mass gasped and disappeared.

Sina came running towards it. “Did you see that? A bloke! Why is he running away?”

Lissy didn’t really care. She leant on the gravestone, still breathing heavily. Then she straightened up, picked up her mobile phone and dialled the taxi.

“Let’s get outa here.”

*

The pint glass hit the bar counter. Bolko Blohm was angry. And thirsty. Dierdra, bar manager at Lloyd’s, had already tapped a fresh pint and placed it gently in front of the chief inspector with a fine smile. Her husband Nestor Lloyd, owner and chef of the establishment, served the men next to Bolko their fifth cappuccino. The first thanked him in French, the second nodded in a friendly manner.

Kiran Mendelsohn, profiler and Bolko’s partner in the BKA’s international department, sipped the cappuccino and looked at his colleague from France. Captain René Clairmont had contacted the BKA Berlin the previous evening. Kiran had already had his jacket in his hand when the phone rang. Bolko had long since left for training with his strange boxing team. The rest of the team, the two chief inspectors Enzo Moretti and Alenka Motte, had also left for the evening. Kiran had picked up the phone, cursing quietly, as the number on the display was that of his boss.

“Ah, you’re still here, Kiran. Very good. I’ve just had a message from SPHP France, they want to have a video conference with us in five minutes.”

“From whom?”

“Service de protection des hautes personnalités, senior personal protection and also part of international cooperation. Do you actually read the memos that are sent around?”

“Sure, yes.”

“Great, then I’ll see you soon.”

Captain Clairmont had introduced herself perfectly in German and got straight to the point. At the French accentuation of her name, Kiran had seen a cat-like smile slide across his boss’s face.

“Madame Halbach, we have an urgent emergency here and need the help of your department. An hour ago, a message was received on a contract crime channel that we have been monitoring for a short time. The text was: “The rooster is coming to the bear tomorrow and must die. Notify the fox in the usual place at dawn.” The message came from a German IP address, which we were able to attribute to a Berlin lawyer despite considerable security barriers. We have known for some time about a planned attack on a high-ranking figure in French industry, but not who the target is. Now, however, we at least know who the client is and are certain that the attack is to take place tomorrow in Berlin. Probably a local contract killer. I already have a machine waiting and need a team.”

Not a man of many words, Kiran had thought. Just like his boss. Three hours later, Clairmont had been on site and had briefed the German team that had gathered at the BKA headquarters in the meantime.

For around three months, his special commission in France had been on the trail of an underground group that was offering its problem-solving specialists to select circles. Now that informants were warning of an imminent attack, this new piece of news had sent the leadership of the Police Nationale into a frenzy. Clairmont had been entrusted with the task of tailing the client in Berlin with the help of the BKA and arresting him at the meeting with the contract killer.

Siegfried Lensmann was a financial lawyer, co-owner of a medium-sized law firm with a few, but all the more important clients, a member of various select circles in Charlottenburg and Grunewald and therefore not necessarily a candidate for contract killings. At least it was surprising that he had initiated this himself and not through an intermediary. However, the IP number of the message had actually come from his laptop, which Alenka, as the Berlin team’s IT specialist, had found out quite quickly. The next morning, she and Enzo had taken up position outside the lawyer’s flat and then monitored him throughout the day. A test of patience, because apart from a quick lunch, Lensmann hadn’t been seen outside his office. He had finally left the house at eleven o’clock in the evening, with three cars in tow that shared the pursuit.

They had followed him to the Westend, where he had parked the car in the car park of the hospital and headed towards the Charlottenburg waterworks. They had lost him there.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Clairmont said. “The surveillance was professional, we couldn’t cover such a large area so quickly.”

Kiran nodded gratefully, Bolko grunted into his beer. The friendly words did them good, even if the frustration was still gnawing at them. Even a melt-in-the-mouth carpaccio hadn’t helped much, although Clairmont’s respectful praise for Nestor had at least eased the culinary rift between France and Great Britain.

Bolko went outside the door at regular intervals whenever the police radio broadcast something over the airwaves or Enzo and Alenka called in. Nothing happened in Berlin at night. Lensmann remained missing.

Clairmont’s mobile phone beeped and he turned to Kiran. “The list of people who travelled to Berlin is here. Three high-ranking business officials have been identified, as well as five other lobbyists from Paris and Brussels. We can’t possibly secure them all, can we?”

Kiran shook his head. “We can’t, but my boss can. Send her the list, she’ll organise the surveillance herself. But that doesn’t really get us any closer.”

Loud laughter from the other side of the bar made them both look up. There sat another regular customer, Alistair Campbell, chatting to a very fat and very cheerful Berliner.

“…whole trolley full of shit, eh? Earth, ashes and the chicks totally hammered. Babbling on about a red dude…”

Kiran turned back to his colleague, they ordered another coffee and mourned together. Bolko arrived with a non-alcoholic beer in his hand, followed by Alistair with his usual diabolical grin.

“My condolences, honourable civil servants. While you’re mulling about here, alcohol-free, the women of Berlin are even celebrating in cemeteries. That’s amazing. In the East, the right-wing thugs meet there, in the West the women get drunk at the graves. We should all be taxi drivers At least you guys get etertained.”

Kiran wasn’t in the mood for Alistair’s crazy jokes. Nor was he after anecdotes from the veterans of Berlin passenger transport. On the other hand, there was something. Taxi, west, ashes, red, cemetery…

A light switched on in his head. He jumped off the bar stool and ran over to the Berlin taxi driver, who was now laughin

“Kiran Mendelson, BKA, what’s this story about the drunk women at the cemetery?”

The taxi driver stared at him suspiciously, then looked in the direction of the innkeeper. He nodded.

“Two women. Completely wasted. My colleague picked them up at the cemetery. Messed up the whole taxi.”

“Did one of them have an Aldi bag with her, where was it, which cemetery, where were they going, names and addresses?”

“What, what? Anything else, laddie?”

“Call your colleague on your radio cube there,” said Bolko, who had joined them with his ID card drawn out. Clairmont had also followed him.

The taxi driver spoke his strange taxi gibberish into the radio. After a while, even more incomprehensible gibberish came out of the small radio. The taxi driver looked at her. “First to Kaiser Willem Cemetery, Westend, then get in at the hospital and off to Wilmersdorf. One of them always said Lissy and talked about the cemetery, the undead and red guys. That’s all he knew. He’s still cleaning.”

Kiran thanked him and took his colleagues aside. “When we were standing at the DRK hospital car park, two women staggered into a taxi, one of them was carrying an Aldi bag.”

“And how does that help us?” asked Bolko.

“Lensmann might not have left us behind, he went to the cemetery.” He looked at two uncomprehending faces. “Jeez, two drunk women come out at night from the direction of a cemetery right next to our position and talk about zombies and red blokes. Lensmann has reddish hair.”

Bolko and Clairmont looked bank, then wide awake. They took their jackets, said goodbye and left the pub. Bolko was already on the phone.

“Enzo, you stay at the flat. Send Alenka to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Cemetery. And tell her to bring her little magic bag.”

Meanwhile, Kiran had a word with Clairmont. “The two of us will visit the ladies. Lensmann is certainly no longer at the cemetery. If he had met the murderer there too, the two women would be dead now. He left a message, Bolko checks. The two of us will listen to what the women saw.”

Clairmont raised his eyebrows. “Drunk women? You’re an optimist, Mr Mendelsohn.”

*

“Madame, can you tell me what you saw in the cemetery?”

Clairmont’s strong accent and Roman profile didn’t really help the two women, still quite drunk, to concentrate any better. They had only just recovered from the sight of two police ID cards and now they were sitting in the kitchen, trying to look unsuspicious and not fall off their chairs despite the tell-tale dirt on the floor. Kiran looked at the two women, who were looking at Clairmont. One of them was trying to remain calm, the other with her mouth slightly open and her eyes squinting. Great. Kiran joined in the conversation.

“Mrs Karnik, we’re not at the cemetery because of your burglary. As I said, we’re looking for a suspect who was probably there too. And you talked about red guys in the taxi. Did you see a red-haired man in the cemetery?

Elisabeth Karnik was a tomboyish and, in her own way, very attractive woman. Blonde, mischievous face, voluptuous yet wiry figure. She tried to concentrate. According to Alenka’s quick research, she was a doctor in a rather exclusive clinic in Zehlendorf. So she must have been able to think halfway logically despite her mega-buzz. Then she looked at Kiran and had obviously made a decision.

“My mother is an arsehole.” Pause.

Kiran waited, Clairmont made an extremely Gallic face.

“She buried Gran. I want my gran here, though.” She pointed to her neck. Kiran understood. The two of them had plucked up their courage and broken into the cemetery to steal Elisabeth Karnik’s grandmother’s ashes. They must have come across Lensmann in the process.

Clairmont tried again with charm. “Madame Karnik, please, we’re investigating an important matter. It’s about an imminent attack, we have to find this man. I’m sure my colleague will protect you and your grandmother’s ashes, won’t you, Kiran?”

Kiran sighed inwardly and was about to nod when her friend regained her speech. Sina Ulbrink was shorter than Elisabeth Karnik, with short dark red hair and a beautifully curved mouth, her sea-green eyes just as beautiful, but now looking in two different directions.

“She threw up all over him”

“Ehm, what?”

“The redhead. Right in the face. She was leaning over the gravestone and…”

“Ok, can you tell us roughly where that gravestone is?”

Twenty minutes later, they were on their way to the headquarters. Bolko and Alenka hadn’t needed any more directions at the cemetery. In the pale light of the dawning morning, a fine and clear trail of ash led from the entrance gate directly to a devastated urn grave. Behind the neighbouring gravestone they had found the remains of Elisabeth Karnik’s dinner, a kind of crayon and traces of a panicked attempt to escape. Alenka had recognised the pencil immediately and started to search the gravestones with her UV lamp. Then she found what she was looking for and called her boss.

Kiran’s mobile phone rang. Bauer, Garn & Dyke – Bolko.

“We have the message. Four rows of numbers, photographed and sent to the codebreakers in Wiesbaden. But the torpedo was probably already here too.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep. The women were raging in front of the gravestone, behind Lensmann slipped on the vomit and fell on his face. A small stone with some blood, a laceration I think. A fourth trail went about five metres further to the right to the gravestone with the message and then back again. Understandable, the sun has been up for a while. We must have just missed him. I’ve called in our KTU specialist in plain clothes anyway. I’ll see you in a minute.”

Kiran hung up and grinned mischievously at Clairmont. “Maybe we’re really lucky today after all…”

*

Birte Halbach looked up from the report and gazed at the group of overworked faces.

“Please tell me this is one of your lousy jokes. The tip came from two drunken chicks who desecrated a grave and threw up on our suspect. And our hit man has either seen this bullshit comedy or at least been warned, don’t you think?”

“Madame Halbach,” Clairmont began, smiling in an inimitably subtle manner without appearing the least bit obsequious. “I’m sure the situation hasn’t changed. The gravestone with the message is a few metres away from this strange collision. He may not even have seen the tracks. There was no abort message in the channel we were watching, neither from Lensmann nor from the organisers. For me, that means everything is going according to plan”

“And what plan is that, are we any further forward with the numbers, Alenka?” Halbach was not moved an inch by the Frenchman’s charm.

Bolko jumped in. “Everything’s been cleared. It wasn’t encrypted, they probably didn’t think we or anyone else would get to the gravestone. The first row is a French passport number, probably the target. The man’s name is Charles Auberjonois, a consultant in Brussels for the French energy lobby. Row two is coordinates, pointing to the hotel centre. Row three is the time, or a time span from seven o’clock this evening to ten o’clock. We checked and there is a seminar taking place, chaired by Auberjonois. Row four is the bank account and routing number of a bank in the Caymans, plus the password.”

Halbach nodded, impressed. “That means the hit is happening tonight?”

Nodding all round

“And of course you have a plan that I won’t really like, right?

Another nod. Clairmont took over after nudging Kiran.

“There’s no way we can move in with any special forces, a professional will notice that immediately. That’s why we have to work incognito. I’ve briefed Mr Auberjonois. He’s willing to work with us.”

“You mean he has no problem with a contract killer turning up at his seminar cornering him and maybe a few others?”

Clairmont smiled. “Of course he’s not exactly thrilled about the event, but he already knew there was a threat. So he’s rather relieved because now he can do something about it. And he’s a veteran of the Legion, he’s not afraid. He just wants security for the participants.”

“As do I. How can we be sure that the whole seminar won’t be blown up?”

“We can’t be completely sure, madam. But then this organisation we are shadowing is very professional and attaches great importance to inconspicuousness. They will want to avoid any publicity, so I’m sure it will be a targeted attack on Auberjonois. My boss thinks so too. If you like, I can have him call your boss to make sure you’re covered.”

“Very obliging of you, Captain. But I know who I’m dealing with here and I’ve already informed our president. And your boss has already phoned them too.”

“So we have green light?” asked Enzo, barely suppressing a grin.

“Basically, yes. And no. Whatever, I’ll be there and monitor the whole thing from the hotel’s security centre. That was the condition from above.”

Bolko rubbed his hands together. “Family outing. Always nice.”

*

The seminar room in the Hotel Zentrum was filled with expensive suits, surrounded by waiters disposing of canapés and glasses. Throughout the day, the team had endeavoured to check on all participants and service providers involved in the event. This had gone more or less smoothly, no warning light had gone on anywhere in the system. Nevertheless, it was impossible to be sure. Halbach had therefore distributed her team throughout the attendees, and a small plainclothes SEK team was also on standby. That was all they could do for the time being.

Kiran, who had sat in the last row of the audience as a seminar participant, had been observing and profiling all the participants since the beginning of the event, so far without any success. Alenka working as part of the staff kept coming round with drinks and shaking her head imperceptibly. No one was behaving or moving around in a suspicious way. But then. they were looking for a pro.

Auberjonois entered the room with Enzo, who was acting as his bodyguard, close beside him. They both took the podium and Auberjonois spoke into the microphone. He introduced his co-speakers, one of whom was Captain Clairmont, who was to take part in the panel discussion as an expert on economic policy.

Halbach’s voice rang out in Kiran’s ear, monitoring the whole event from the security centre as threatened. “The man seriously wants to discuss politics? As a policeman? This is going to end badly. Have you seen Bolko, Kiran?”

Before Kiran could shake his head slightly, Bolko’s voice came through. “I’m at the catering in the back corner right next to the event manager. Everything’s quiet here, perfect overview, good food.”

“I should have guessed. Good, everyone in position. Well then…”

The event began. Auberjonois’ presentation lasted about three quarters of an hour, during which absolutely nothing happened. Then the panel discussion began.

In the meantime, Kiran had mentally run through the various theories of inconspicuous murder attempts and became increasingly impatient when an audience member asked Clairmont a question and he replied in English.

While Kiran was still marvelling at his colleague’s eloquence, a shrill whistle sounded from the loudspeaker. A sound technician entered the stage, went to Clairmont and fiddled with his microphone. The next moment, events came thick and fast.

Enzo’s arm shot forwards and knocked the sound engineer over. He rolled as he fell and threw his arm forwards in a slinging motion. Whatever he had thrown, however, seemed to have been intercepted by Clairmont, who also reacted with lightning speed, because the sound technician turned and sprinted down the centre aisle, straight towards Kiran.

Kiran breathed calmly, saw the attacker running as if in slow motion and kicked hard at the right moment, directly into the assassin’s knee. He flew to the side and immediately scrambled to his feet, but Kiran was already on top of him. The palm strike came to nothing, Kiran grabbed his wrist, twisted his arm and at the same time kicked him in the lower back. His opponent’s breath escaped with a whistle.

Then Bolko and Enzo were on the scene, Alenka secured the scene with her weapon drawn, Clairmont had meanwhile taken Auberjonois into the next room. After a short eternity, Halbach’s voice rang out again in the chaos of the confused guests and called the SEK team to remove the prisoner.

While the event manager calmed the guests and asked them in vain to switch off their mobile phones and refrain from notifying the network world, the team gathered in the lobby and also left the hotel.

*

“And now please explain that to me again, Enzo. You recognised the assassin by his inappropriate persona? I found him completely unremarkable.” Clairmont asked the question that had obviously been on his mind since the final meeting while he poured new wine for the group.

They were back at Lloyd’s Pub & Diner. Clairmont had also taken the team’s favourite pub to his heart and, surprisingly, had even persuaded Nestor to let him enter the kitchen and prepare a coq au vin. He had also ordered three cases of the finest Burgundy wine from a wine merchant. Enzo toasted him along with the others and found himself the centre of questioning attention.

“That wasn’t a sound engineer. Never ever. I used to do that for a while. They don’t wear designer jeans, freshly laundered polo shirts from a luxury brand and they’re not perfectly coiffed either.”

“But that can’t be all of it, can it?”

“Nope. The whistling wasn’t real feedback. That only happens when someone holds the microphone up to the loudspeaker. The technician created this himself, simply turned up the treble And then sound engineers never turn up on stage because of something like that, at least not straight away. This one was there immediately, grabbed your chest, the other arm went towards Auberjonois’ water glass. There was nothing wrong with the sound, but the approach was perfect. As I said, everything but a sound engineer.”

Bolko looked sardonically admiringly at his subordinate. “So, stage technology. You’re going to have to explain a lot to me, mate. Keeping that a secret from me, even though I’ve been despairing about my guitar amplifier for months. It’s going to be expensive…”

In the meantime, Birte Halbach had finished her lengthy phone call with the president, who always seemed to call just when the team wanted to celebrate a closed case at Lloyd’s.

“Listen up, everyone. Our hit man is currently being shipped to Paris. Yesterday, the stupid lawyer turned up at a doctor’s in Neuruppin, and now he’s sitting in our doctor’s den with a severe concussion. So everything is wrapped up. There’s praise from both presidents of our police services, but no-one up there wants to know anything about it. The report is written by our colleague here in France. As for the rest of you, you’ve had two uneventful days. That’s especially true of conversations in the canteen. Now bring on the wine.”

“Well spoken, Madame.” Clairmont stood up and raised his glass. “My dear friends, it was a pleasure to meet you all.”

Kiran toasted with the others, a lively fusion jazz sounded from the speakers and Kiran saw Alistair coming over from the bar.

“I hear there’s Gallic rooster in wine and something to celebrate?”

“Yes of course, sir. Come and join us.”

“Merci mille fois, Captain. Well then, tell us…”