Prutzmann was waiting for them in his office. As they went through their debrief, Wenzel sensed a certain agitation from his superior, the way he fidgeted and shuffled about. Eventually, he raised his hand to interrupt them.
“Yes, I’m sure everything went well. Perhaps we can skip the details tonight, I will read your full report when you present it in the morning.”
Then he clasped his hands together and smiled broadly, the most animated that Wenzel had ever seen him. He and Hirsch exchanged a glance.
Reaching out, he pulled out a slip of paper from his desk drawer, and fluttered it in the air before them. “Another communiqué from Berlin,” he explained.
Wenzel and Hirsch waited.
“Our blue-print for Swift Strike II has been sanctioned.” He rocked back and forward, his shoulders shivering in barely-suppressed excitement. “Unternehmen Werwolf!”
Unternehmen Werwolf, Wenzel thought.
Operation Werewolf.
CHAPTER 5
WORKING THE CASE
The location of the body – still inside the urinal – made it impossible to cover it over with a white forensic tent, and so a number of dark boards and sheets had been erected around the spot, both on the pathway and the canal side, blocking the view of the ghouls and gawkers.
Pieter made his way across the cobbles of Oudekerksplein, which were wet and glistening, not from early morning rain but from the road sweeper which was making its slow way around the square. He noted the time on his mobile – 06:42am. Approx. thirty minutes since he’d received the call, and nearly ninety minutes since the body was found. As he watched the cleaners go about their task he could almost visualise them cleaning and scrubbing away any forensic evidence right before his eyes, and he shook his head, not for the first time bewildered by the incompetence of the Amsterdam Police Department.
Across the other side of the canal, on the corner where the bridge was, he saw Daan Beumers standing and talking with a young couple, and he raised a weary wave which his colleague returned. Then, after showing his pass, Pieter ducked through the narrow gap in the wooden boards and entered the crime scene.
A pair of forensic techs were working around the periphery of the urinal. They may have been the same two from the murder two nights ago, but clad in their white get-up and with hoods and masks covering their faces, they had the appearance of NASA astronauts, and so it was impossible to tell. At the moment they were busy using what looked like a tiny hand-held mini-vacuum, sucking up microscopic detritus from the ground. To the side was a large silver crate which was opened out a little like a fishing-tackle box, filled with vials and brushes and fancy gizmos.
The body was still in-situ, as of yet not disturbed apart from two plastic bags covering the deceased’s fingernails.
Pieter stepped forward to take a closer look.
The male victim was crammed unceremoniously inside the urinal, all crumpled up and folded into the cramped space near the ground. One of his legs was folded underneath him, the other one sticking straight out into the open, so that he was squatting just above the small drain cover that people pissed into. Pieter immediately saw the dark, damp patch around the man’s crotch area, and the ripped trousers there, as well as the huge loss of blood from what was quite obviously a large stab wound in that part of his anatomy. Much of the blood from the ugly-looking rent would have splashed straight into the drain and been lost forever, but there was still a large pool of it staining the cobbles. The victim’s hands hung loose at his sides, and his head lolled back to rest against the back of the metal urinal, the face already starting to turn a blackish colour from the first signs of decomposition.
Pieter moved sideways around the urinal, intending to pass around the back and look down into the canal itself, his mind already thinking about where any murder weapon might have been disposed. But the boards there went right up the edge of the canal, stopping his circumnavigation, and anyway he didn’t much fancy risking an early morning dip. Coming back round he took note of the forensic guys scowling at him, no doubt fretting over their precious crime-scene, and so taking the hint Pieter squeezed back through the opening and made his way across the bridge.
As he approached, Daan Beumers was still speaking to the couple, but on seeing Pieter heading his way he broke off from their conversation. The man and woman waited patiently.
“Morning boss.”
He was wearing a bright white tracksuit with matching plimsolls, sticking out like a sore thumb. He looked very self-conscious.
“What’s with the gear? I never had you down as an early-morning jogger.”
“Ah, this? The girlfriend bought it for me last Christmas. She’s currently on another health push, which means by default that I’m also on another health push, and so some mornings I wear it when I leave for work to let her think I’m taking it seriously. I normally park up around the corner and change clothes, but I never got the chance this morning before I got called over here.”
“Looks expensive,” Pieter nodded at the fancy running shoes.
“You’re telling me.”
“Give me the run-down then.”
Beumers leaned on the bridge railing, the early-morning sun behind his back casting his shadow on the water below. “The body was spotted just after five this morning by those street cleaners. They were doing their usual rounds when one of them, an enterprising young guy who is new
