Sternberg In the shadow of the house wall

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-64268-549-7
Verlag: novum publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 270 Seiten

A female corpse on a sidewalk on the outskirts of town. One of the women who is already causing a stir, of all people. It is immediately clear that she must have jumped - if it weren't for the Lusatian coroner - and another person who takes a closer look. A person who is trying to come to terms with his own past. But will it catch up with him again? Young police officer Benedikt Ayari is confronted with a world he actually wanted to escape from. Will he be able to keep a level head?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sternberg, Carolin

Leseproben

Chapter 2

Benedict

While Benedikt struggles to thread his way into a parking space after the weekend, he catches sight of a pair of sunglasses out of the corner of his eye, momentarily snatching them away from his previous attention. The wearer of these opaque frames, a shaven-headed guy, gesticulates between a disposable cup and a phone call. He seems to be in a bit of a rage and loses a few drops of the cup's contents in the process.

Benedikt leaves it at that, only parking half-straight and moves towards the entrance to the Presidium. He tries to look friendly at the stranger, gives him a meagre "Hey ..." as he asks himself about the importance of the conversation and is met with a one-sided greeting. The way the person on the phone presses his receiver to his right ear seems ridiculous, but Benedikt assumes that this is probably one of his top priority phone calls and leaves this encounter without making any major judgments.

Above the presidium, the sky loosens its cloud cover, as if it were giving this day only peaceful moments. Benedikt looks up briefly into the clear blue, absorbs a spark of warmth and opens the front door using the automatic opener.

Overcome by this feeling, he calmly ignores the walk to his locker because he has prepared himself to sit at his desk in civilian clothes today. He wants to be mobile as he glides between his phone and PC on his office chair. Completely at ease and free from this constricting outfit that he hasn't worn out of conviction for a long time. This is exactly the motivation he needs today. Then he settles leisurely into his now familiar swivel chair and presses the start button on the PC.

But shortly afterwards, its low-threshold rhythm is broken.

"Mr. Ayari! It's good to see you here too."

Benedikt clearly hears a reproachful undertone in the voice of the man in charge. He gives a similar impression to the stranger with the thermo mug, agitated and surrounded by special importance.

"I'm here now," the trainee detective clearly tells his superior colleague. And he still sees no reason for any excitement. He tries not to be impressed by all this and, as he does every time before starting work, pours himself a kind of Turkish coffee, stirring it around in the container several times with a teaspoon until the coffee grounds disappear into the liquid darkness. Then he sits down on the only free chair in the office with his personal coffee cup between both hands. Everyone else is already present, but not all of his planned colleagues have actually turned up, he notices. The chief commissioner's seat is taken by another person.

And at this moment, he wonders where his colleague Reiter is this morning. Reiter, who always started work before everyone else. Sometimes, you might think, he spent the night at his desk.

After the first word welcoming the team has been spoken, the office door is energetically flung open, interrupting the proceedings. It's the bald man from the entrance area, still pressing the phone close to his ear like a signal-jammed radio.

"Yeah, all right. We'll take care of it..." whispers the now composed man, who is obviously on duty, then puts a pile of stapled papers on the edge of the table and lets his smartphone slide into his trouser pocket.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he greets all those present from the department. Although there are ladies among them, he doesn't seem to mind using this backwoods greeting. Most of his colleagues refrain from commenting, if they hear it at all. Benedikt, however, is confirmed in his assumption that he has met an unpleasant person, he visibly shakes his head and endures the procedure. He still hopes to be able to open the writing program in the next hour or so and work on the file he has been given.

But this idea is quickly taken away from him.

"As you already know, Mr. Dietmar Reiter has taken himself out of circulation. He is now taking a break, albeit at very inconvenient times, I think. But good! It doesn't help! Now you have my support. I won't be turning the department upside down, most of you will carry on working as usual. Oh yes, my name is Jörg Wilfried Heyer, I'm a chief inspector from the Cottbus control center and I'll be investigating the current case, who knows if it's a crime at all. As you know, we're a bit more experienced in this area."

He ends his speech with a ponderously arrogant grin that doesn't seem to seriously impress anyone in the audience. After all.

Actually, in Benedikt's opinion, he could have just blurted it out. What he obviously thought of the small-town precinct. Because Heyer hadn't coded his message very skillfully just now.

Benedikt feels excess heat, an impulse that forms his hand into a ball. To appease it, Benedikt places his left hand over it and uses the coffee spoon to crush the remaining sentence in the bottom of the cup instead. And he tries to remind himself that his personal opinion has too often led to unsuccessful arguments. And that he had vowed to do everything differently here. Here in his new home.

After a few minutes, and with the coffee grounds still serving to cool him down, he listens to the group again. Now the head of service from his own department speaks again. He assigns the responsibilities to the respective field offices, adds some more up-to-date information, compares a few matters from the previous week and the weekend shifts. The usual stuff. But Benedikt Ayari is not interested in the usual, because he still feels disturbed in his recently created peace by this one inappropriate person. And this person has now taken the seat of the person standing at the other end of the pushed-together tables and is looking at the young policeman as he pensively pokes around in his coffee pot.

Jörg Heyer raises his voice once again.

"We have some preliminary information here, a few documented transcripts from Mr. Reiter. However, they are not conclusive. But one of you has already been on the trail with Reiter. That is of the utmost importance."

Heyer squints both eyes, it seems he has long since reached presbyopia, yet he obviously does not use any visual aids. As he tries to read something, his vanity becomes his adversary. He says something he doesn't seem convinced of himself, "Ayiii?", and runs the ends of his fingers over the area around his eyes. "Do we have an ayari here?"

Benedikt looks up. He has heard something that makes him pay attention again. His name, in this room, conveyed by lips that had not previously uttered particularly polite phrases.

The chief inspector, who has grown to around one meter and sixty-five, looks back and forth between the seated listeners at . Like an eagle, scenting prey. Apparently his visual sense is fully available to him again, at least as far as distance is concerned.

"Mr. Benedikt Ayari, please," he now repeats himself in full. Benedikt hesitantly stretches a hand into the air.

How is he supposed to get around this? He has long been in the middle of it.

Reiter was happy to take him along because he saw something in him. A true potential, a decisive curiosity and conscientiousness that he himself knew from his days as an inspector, and he wanted to be involved in shaping him. But at that moment, Benedikt Ayari cursed his good-natured colleague. The colleague who had presumably fallen so ill that this pathetic replacement had now turned up for him.

"Yes, please?" Benedikt announces in a weak voice. It's more of a hoarse whisper, his hand still hanging in the air above him as if he's making a report.

"So you are Mr. Ayari? Of course, I thought so," the chief inspector assures himself once again, his statement tinged with unmistakable disappointment. Benedikt Ayari confirms his identity again and nods. Then you sense that there is something in the room, a brief moment of secrecy. For just a tiny moment, their dislike of each other forms the focus of the Monday morning meeting. It seems as if the staff can hear the tension between the two as they swing from man to man, engaging in an eye fight that is quickly interrupted by the less experienced of the two. Benedikt looks down at his coffee mug, mentally saying goodbye to being able to sit comfortably in front of the screen with another hot drink. It looks very much like the opposite, after an overloaded working day at the side of a man whose ability also consisted of evoking the past.

Even before the police chief superintendent intends to leave the room, he adds to his disappointment. "Come on, you're coming with me, Ayari!" As if this were an order.

The two are close together in the car. Too close, so that Benedikt lets the sweltering heat sweep into the interior of the vehicle. He rolls down the window glass to lean his elbow on the frame.

"Keep the window up, it'll only make you sweat," instructs the driving chief inspector. Benedikt catches a strong breath of the airstream, as if trying to neutralize his negative attitude. Just for the moment of confinement. When he gets out of the car, his contempt will be bearable.

The Chief Crime Commissioner turns to his passenger. He has prepared himself perfectly for an analysis on the move. To minimize the work steps to the bare minimum.

At this...