wan attempt at humour, Til have to settle for something small and defenceless. Furry or feathered. You bring the guns?'
'They're in the boot. Where are we headed?'
'A nice bit of forest on the edge of the Schorfheide. That's the great thing about nature reserves. The wildlife doesn't recognize the boundaries. An old friend of mine owns a piece of land that butts right up against the protected area. And the ducks from the wetland don't know any better than to fly over his woodland. We should bag some good stuff. He's lending us a couple of his gun dogs so we can do the thing properly.' Tadeusz reached inside his jacket and pulled out a burnished pewter hip flask. He unscrewed the top and took a swig of Cognac. He held the flask out to Krasic. 'Want some?'
Krasic shook his head. 'You know I always like to keep a clear head round guns.'
'Speaking of guns and clear heads, what's the news on Marlene?'
'Some bitch from Criminal Intelligence has been sniffing around her. She spoke to her in the GeSa, and she's been back to see her in jail. Marlene's playing dumb and keeping her mouth shut, but it's winding her up.'
'You're sure we can trust her?'
Krasic gave a lazy smile. 'As long as we've got the kid, Marlene won't put a foot wrong. Funny how women get about their kids. You'd think they could only have the one, the way they go on about them. They seem to forget that all they're going to get from them is heartache. Especially someone like Marlene. She should have the sense to realize that any daughter of hers is going to grow up using, or selling herself. But it doesn't seem to matter to her. She still thinks the sun shines out of the kid's arse.'
'Just as well for us,' Tadeusz said. 'Where are we keeping her?' 'I've got a cousin who has a smallholding on the outskirts of Oranienburg. The nearest neighbour is half a mile away.
He's got a couple of kids of his own, so he knows how to deal with the little buggers.'
'And Marlene is convinced this isn't just a bluff?'
Krasic curled his lip in a sneer. 'Marlene believes I'm capable of anything. She's not going to play games with her child's life. Don't worry, Tadzio, it's all boxed off.'
'I wish I could say the same about the English end of things. The people who are trying to fill Colin's shoes, they're nothing but a bunch of clowns. They're too small-time to run a competent operation. I don't trust them to deliver. Meanwhile, we've got a bottleneck in Rotterdam. We can't go on warehousing illegals indefinitely.'
'Can't we just take them over to England and dump them?' Krasic sounded like a petulant child who can't understand why the world doesn't turn to suit him.
'Not in the sort of numbers we've got stockpiled. It'd be far too obvious that something on a large scale was going down. The last thing we want is to attract the attention of the immigration authorities. I've been successful for so long precisely because I haven't done things like that,' Tadeusz pointed out. 'We had such a convenient arrangement with Colin. I can't believe he was stupid enough to get caught in some minor league gangland shootout.'
'It should be a warning to you,' Krasic said. 'That's the kind of thing that can happen when you get too close to the action. You shouldn't have made that trip the other week. I don't like it when you're exposed like that.'
Tadeusz glowered out of the window. He knew Krasic was right, but he didn't like being told what to do by anyone, not even his trusted assistant. Now he felt mean. 'It doesn't hurt sometimes to remind people who's in charge,' he said.
'Tadzio, it could have blown up in your face. If they'd got Kamal to talk... Well, we might not be so lucky next time.'
'There was no element of luck there. We've got all our bases covered.' He turned and gave Krasic a hard stare. 'We do have all our bases covered, don't we?'
'Of course we do. That's why we keep cops on the payroll.'
'And speaking of the cops on our payroll, why haven't we heard anything more about the investigation into Katerina's accident? This has been goingnftn far too long. I want to know about that fucking motorbike. Lean on them, Darko. Don't let them think they can ignore me on this.'
Krasic nodded. Til chase them up,