He was in a good place to achieve what all older police officers found necessary: purging his memories. He went through them, analysed them, took the failures and gave himself no credit for successes. The corralling of a group of Albanian cigarette smugglers, operating in Hohensch?nhausen . . . The identification of a Ukrainian bank-robbery team, targeting branches in the Treptow area, shots exchanged at the arrests . . . And – more recently – the delicate investigation he had headed in which two local politicians had been on a monthly wage from a Camorra group and peddling the contracts for the building of three new schools in Reinickendorf . . . Each of those in the last four years had been a success, but he did not consider them while he smoked in the darkness and silence. He was drawn to failure. He was, his wife said, a ‘miserable crow of a man’.
Failure haunted him. A four-month-long operation to intercept a shipment of Moldovan children being brought to Berlin for paedophiles: the van was tracked from the Czech border and north through Erfurt and Halle; the operation had been close-guarded by the KrimPol in the capital, and the van had been lost among a confusion of roadworks short of Potsdam. It had disappeared. That had hurt, as had an arrest request from Palermo for a Mafia fugitive holed up in Siemensstadt; the building had been under surveillance and magistrates had queried the warrant the Italians had issued. The Sicilian was required to answer three counts of murder: the wife, father and child of an informer. Would the informer give evidence against a prominent gang leader after three killings in his family? The killer should have rotted in a high-security Italian prison, but the magistrates had rejected the warrant and an opportunity was lost. That was failure.
More recent failure: in the week he had just escaped from a young man had reported extortion. Fred had made a few calls, and put together a little profile. No action had been taken although a girl had been scarred hideously – perhaps because his focus had been on a weekend in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
She slept; he watched the shore. A principle: consequences ruled and clocks could not be wound back. He had failed that girl and doubted he could put it right. Leaving open his laptop was poor recompense for failure.
They’d set off for home in the late afternoon. The past gave no second chances. He might take another look at the matter, but doubted it.
Carlo was on a bench behind Sandy’s greenhouse, where her tomatoes ripened. A spit of rain was in the air but he wore only pyjamas, with an anorak round his shoulders. He smoked, felt empty. The hope that he could sit in the darkness unnoticed was daft. Any time he tried it, the dogs were roused. Two were with him; others would have woken her.
She came silently. A whispered question: ‘Who said and did what? Why?’
He had never had been sure what role he played in Sandy’s life: not intellectual, not financial security. He was as useful as an old waxed coat. Carlo said, ‘The woman who spoke to us at Dooley gave us the usual pep talk. There’ll be no new money, no new people, no new kit, but they’re all unimportant because “You make a difference.” It’s simply untrue. I know it, and if she doesn’t she’s a fool.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘I suppose it does – lies count.’
‘You have to believe.’
‘It was a lie, that we make a difference.’
‘Then you’re wasting your time. Perhaps it’s the moment to step aside. Leave it to others.’
‘I can’t. Other than you, it’s all I have.’
‘Carlo, if you, with your savvy, can’t keep faith with it, who will?’
‘The youngsters treat it like it’s a duty, a vocation.’
‘You must believe you can make a difference.’
‘I have to try.’
She left him, and the dogs followed her. He lit another cigarette. Kind words from her, but he couldn’t imagine that an individual might ‘make a difference’. That wasn’t life as he knew it – as he had seen it. Plenty trying, all failing. As he laughed sharply to himself, he saw steam rising. A man had opened his flies, a battle raging around him, and pissed on the slots into the water-cooling system around the barrel of a Vickers machine-gun. He might have had his pecker shot off, but he was keeping the barrel cool enough for the weapon to go on firing. He loved it – the importance of the little man who had pissed to keep the defensive line intact and wouldn’t get a medal or a mention in despatches. Carlo’s sort of man. He had been in Rome when a junior Treasury minister had swanned through and asked Carlo whether he felt his work was sufficiently valued. He had probably asked the same question fifty times on that tour. He’d told her about the value of the man who pissed on a machine-gun to keep the barrel cool, then added, ‘Everyone has worth, not just the glory boys. He was that sort of man.’ The minister, a smart young woman, had blushed and turned on her heel. He’d skipped the ambassador’s reception for her that evening – he’d been at his desk, working.