Chapter 10
The thing that Severus disliked most about meeting muggle businessmen was the hotels. They always wanted to meet in the box like corporate hotels that their companies paid for. At least with wizards, you could go to some dingy bar packed full of character.
This one was not far from the University of Gottingen and inappropriately named the Garden Hotel in spite of the fact that it was surrounded by a concrete car park. It looked like a converted office block. Inside was no better, a pine and glass reception area, a dining room with white clothes covering tables with metal legs.
Severus had not, however, quibbled about the venue. This was probably his most important meeting of the year. He was lunching with a lowly member of the Kiwi Corporation. Severus knew enough about the corporate world to understand that they didn't sell fruit. He had met a sales rep of theirs a few months ago at a conference and the man had been impressed by miraculum. This meeting was the result. He could tell Kiwi were interested as they had invite him to lunch and not the other way round. Even so, Severus wished that he could have chosen the restaurant.
The appointment was the reason he had not pressed Harry to accompany him on today's investigations. He wished he had more sleep. He had to get up at 6am to polish his presentation. For a meeting of this magnitude he would normally have spend the whole evening preparing. Severus had, of course, made this pitch many times before to many companies but the size of this contract was on an entirely different scale.
Severus rang the extremely unoriginal looking bell on the reception desk.
A woman who was entirely in keeping with the hotel, blond polished, characterless and corporate, appeared.
"May I help you? "
"I am here to see Mr Victorem," said Severus.
"Ah Mr Victorem? He asked us to show you straight to the dining room."
"Damn," thought Severus. He had been expecting to make a full pitch in a conference room before lunch. Maybe they were not as interested as he thought.
In the dining room he was shown to a large table by the window. After ordering some sparkling water, he amused himself by watching the cars arrive in the carpark and trying to guess their make. Harry would probably be better at this game that he.
"I am sorry to keep you waiting," a surprisingly tall and thin looking America held out his hand. "You do speak English?"
"Of course," said Severus. "I am in fact English"
"Fabulous. Do sit down. I am sorry I was not here to greet you. I was on a conference call with headquarters. I have only been away for five days. I would have thought they could have managed until I return."
"It is not a problem, "said Severus politely. If he had been a student, Severus would have given him a week's detention. How times changed.
"Have you had a chance to look at the menu? I always order the steak in these corporate monstrosities then I can ask for it done just the way I like."
Severus allowed himself a small smile. "I will have the salmon"
Victorem beckoned to the waiter who scurried to the table immediately.
"A medium steak, the salmon, and a bottle of your merlot."
Whilst Severus preferred to pitch his product in a traditional conference room, he had made his presentation in more informal setting on a number of occasions. He took a drink of water and prepared to begin.
"Why don't we wait until the end of the meal to talk business?" suggested Victorem.
"As you wish, "agreed Severus with as little stiffness as he could muster.
"I like to get know people over lunch, "explained Victorem.
Severus ignored the warning bells in his brain and smiled as if he couldn't think of a better way to spend a business lunch.
For the next hour, Severus danced skilfully to his host's tune. Questions about his time in Gottingen were followed by an inquisition into his life in Scotland, his education and his family. His cover story had been carefully constructed by Harry and himself when he had first settled in Gottingen and even quite detailed inquires back in the UK would support his story.
Severus chose a sorbet for dessert, light and refreshing to the palate. Victorem chose the same.
"We will have coffee in my suite," said Victorem to the waiter.
The suite was on the top floor, although still office block like, it commanded a good view of Gottingen.
"Do have a seat," said Victorem as a knock on the door heralded the arrival of a coffee pot and cups.
Two arms chairs sat half facing the window and each other. Severus seated himself in the one closet to the wall.
"Black? "inquired Victorem.
"Please, "said Severus, opening his case and pulling out a folder.
"I'm sorry I expect you would have preferred epxresso?"
"Filter is fine." Severus reassured him, lifting out a printed copy of his presentation. He really must invest in one of those laptop things.
"Don't bother with the papers, it won't be necessary," said Victorem.
Severus kept his face blank. He had thought the atmospherics at lunch had been good but obviously he had misjudged the situation. He slid the paper back inside the folder and picked up his cup. At least, he would have the afternoon free to catch up with Harry and the investigation.
"You don't need to pitch me, "said Victorem. "I've already heard it and it's impressive."
Severus looked momentarily puzzled.
"I'm afraid I have not be entirely honest with you, we met a week ago in Dolce's resturant, where you spent an hour explaining how miraculum worked to George Mallet in detail."
"Frank?" Severus' face remained completely blank. Surely no muggle disguise and in case the height and.. Severus froze mid thought.
"Policyjuice potion, I assume?"
A smile and a nod. He reached into his jacket pulled out hip flask and toasted Severus.
"You are an impressive occulmens," Severus admitted.
"I am," Victorem agreed. "And I assume you are an impressive potions master?"
Severus bowed his head.
"I checked out your background after our previous encounters."
Severus remained motionless.
"I sense a story there," said Victorem "Your background checks out perfectly infact but a little too logical and ordered perhaps? Most people's lives have a few gaps and hiccups."
Severus remained silence.
"But frankly I want this product, so I just want to know. Are you wanted by the police or the aurors?"
Severus shook his head
"Did you obtain this product illegally?"
Severus shook his head again. He looked Victorem in the eye. "It is all my own work."
Victorem nodded. "That's what I thought. In which case we have a deal. All we need to do is work out how to employ enough wizards to make the stuff to supply it in the sort of quantities needed by Kiwi."
Harry was at home staring at the take away menus when Severus arrived back at the flat.
"A take away would be prefect. I ate far too much for lunch," said Severus by way of greeting.
"You're just going to order too little and then steal mine," complained Harry. He paused before adding, "How was your day?"
"Very productive," replied Severus decisively.
"Made a lucrative deal?" asked Harry who still only gad a hazy idea of what his father did.
"Very," said Severus with significant satisfaction. Then dragged his mind away from business. "More importantly how was your day. "
"Good. I've lots to tell you but shall we order first?"
"By all means," agreed Severus. "I am looking forward to an early night after yesterday."
Harry order a quarter of duck, pancakes and chicken chow mein. Severus ordered a small portion of chicken in black bean sauce."
Severus pushed all thoughts of Kiwi and contracts to the back of his mind and focused on the investigation.
"It's been a long 48 hours," said Harry "I won't bore you with all my briefing at headquarters this morning. The short version is that I made my report. They are accessing all the financial accounts for me to review. I got an update from Hanna on the auror visit to his ex-wife and family. The children were co-operative but the ex-wife refused to speak to the team without a lawyer. She's apparently angry about the widow's pension or lack of it as they had separated. Peck is going to see her personally in couple of days' time with her lawyer present. "
Severus nodded and poured himself a glass of wine.
"This afternoon I began looking into the other cases Lubricus was working on."
Severus nodded again.
"I managed to track down Leon Suche who had asked him to track down his missing father, a chap called Weber, who he thought might be in Berlin."
"You didn't have to go back to Berlin did you?" said Severus.
"No the guy is here in Gottingen he lives in Weende. He was there went I called, afternoon off apparently. It seems really straightforward, Lubricus interviewed him looked through his family documents and promised to get back to him but he never did. His father was thought to have died in the war with Grindelwald but Leon had got hold of some records to suggest he was treated in a hospital in at the end of the war."
"Dead end?"
"Probably," agreed Harry. "That's' probably why Lubricus didn't get back to him most of his father's family was killed in the war. I have got someone checking out the hospital angle to seem if Lubricus contacted them and asked for a record search."
"So what's your next steps?"
"Check out the other cases, the domestic surveillance and the security he was providing for a shopping centre, review the financial accounts of our Berlin professors, see what comes of Peck's discussion with the ex-wife," recounted Harry from his mental check list.
Severus nodded "If you can manage without me again tomorrow, my new customer wants to see round the factory.
"No problem," said Harry "This is all routine stuff and Wilhelm's attendance record is notoriously poor."
"It is an impressive operation, "said Victorem after Severus had given him a tour of the factory except for the research facility. He was not misguided enough to show him that. Goodness know what unpatented ideas he might pick up. They were now back in Severus office drinking a special brew of French coffee. Severus had added a couple of herbs of his own to give it extra zing.
Severus was relatively sure the remarks were genuine.
"But small scale, "added Victorem "My main concern is that you will not be able to scale up production. At the moment, we are talking about adding the facility to the top end of the range but in time that will probably change."
"How has this worked with other suppliers?" inquired Severus.
"We've used a number of approach with magical suppliers. In some cases, they have supplied the magic element that is patented and given us the means to complete production at our facilities. In others, the contract has enabled them to get finance to scale up their own production, in some cases we have part financed the scaling up of production."
"I will need to go through the numbers carefully," said Severus half to himself.
"When I return to the states, we will put together a draft contract setting out the sort of numbers that we will probably be looking at over the next five years. I will set out in a separate document what we might be prepared to offer in terms of any partnership in production facilities. You can then compare that against options of your own. We could also recommend a financial adviser and a legal adviser, but you might be better getting someone completely independent."
Severus nodded "Will this be a form of magical contract?"
"An unbreakable vow?" Victorem laughed. "No, we wouldn't be expecting anyone to die if they don't meet production targets, just face financial penalties. Our contracts are strictly muggle ones. Kiwi is essentially a muggle company with a little bit of magic."
"That sounds fine. I have no intention of missing any targets!" declared Severus decisively.
Victorem shrugged. "In my experience,there is always a risk that your suppliers will let you down."
Severus nodded.
It was 2 o clock when Severus finally said goodbye to Victorem. They had settled for lunch in a local café. Severus had arranged a taxi to the airport.
"I have given up transatlantic apparition, "said Victorem. "Too energy draining."
Once Victorem had left Severus returned to his office and briefed his office manager on the good news. Louis was suitably excited.
"Can I buy in?" he'd asked.
"Buy in?"
"You know reduce my salary in return for a few shares?"
"I will think about it, "agreed Severus. He did not particularly fancy being held to account by shareholders but it would be one way of raising some money."
The clock had struck four and Severus was thinking of swapping coffee for tea when Harry's patronus appeared.
"There have been significant development. Can you apparate to headquarters right away? "
Severus stood up, closing and locking his cupboards with a wave of his wand. He reached into his pocket for his hipflask of polyjuice potion.
He did not apparate straight to the front of headquarters, instead he arrived in a back alley of a public house a few hundred yards away. Grasping his pass he strode along the pavement and back into the lion's den.
Luck was not with him. He met Peck as he passed through the entrance hall.
"Ah, Wilhelm, feeling better? "
"Much better thanks, "said Severus in a suitably servile voice.
"Harry will be glad to see you, he is champing at the bit to get going."
Sounds like a substantive development, thought Severus if the head of the aurors has already been briefed. Harry was in his temporary conference room turned office. His face lit up when Severus entered.
"Great, you made good time, I was worried you might still be with your buyer. How was that by the way?"
"Very productive. I will brief you in due course." Severus was now anxious to get the investigation moving forwards. Harry needed to return to London to deal with his new responsibilities and he needed to be free of these worries so he could pursue the expansion of his business energetically.
"Grab a seat," suggested Harry "While I catch you up with developments." He gave Severus a couple, of seconds to sit down before he launched into his story. "Peck has managed to interview Lubricus's ex-wife."
"She appears a likely suspect?" inquired Severus.
Harry shook his head "Rock solid alibi,.She was out of the country during the week we believe was killed. Loads of witnesses."
"She could have long distance apparated?"
"Maybe but there are no records of it."
Severus shrugged hardly conclusive in his view.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," agreed Harry "We are pursuing that. But she had some other interesting information for us."
Harry paused for effect. Severus raised an eyebrow
"He owned another property. He rented it and pretended to his wife he was living there."
"So why did, we find no trace of it?"
"He borrowed it from a friend apparently and told his wife he was renting it. He was attempting to hide his real assets from her because he didn't want them to be taken into account in the divorce settlement. Her lawyer found it anyway."
Severus nodded, "Good lawyer. "
"I guess," said Harry dismissvely. "But that's not the point."
"You want to investigate"
"Absolutely. Want to come along?"
"Indeed", said Severus. "Let's hope it doesn't just contain Lubricus' collection of chocolate frog cards and his dirty laundry."
"It is a step down from his other apartment," observed Harry when they arrived at the cramped flat above the shop in the less affluent area of Gottingen.
"A tumble down," observed Severus drily.
Harry grinned. "The auror team opened up, so we should be able to go straight in."
Inside was more depressing than outside. It was a studio flat, bed, living room and kitchen in one. The bed was unmade. There were pots in the sink.
"Looks like he was living here at least part of the time," said Harry.
The studio flat did not take long to search. Here there were no filing cabinets just a bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers, and kitchen cupboards. The sofa, which Severus made the mistake of sitting on, was incredibly uncomfortable.
It was Harry who found the investigation book tucked under the mattress. He pulled it out with a shout of triumph.
"My opinion of this chap is going down and down," said Severus pointing to the mattress.
"Yeah, he clearly didn't expect the place to be searched," agreed Harry. "His reputation for liking the finer things in life means that people would not have expected him to be living in this part of town. "
Harry sat on the bed and opened the folder.
"It's like a journal of his investigation in diary form. I'll have a look at the last entry." Harry turned to the final pages. "Hey, listen to this!" he exclaimed in excitement. "31 August, scheduled meeting with Trank to pursue Cayman leads."
"A couple of days before his body turned up in my warehouse," pointed out Severus
Harry nodded as the flicked back through the enteries. "Ah here are the Cayman entries. I don't really understand it. It's just a series of transactions and destinations. I can't work out why he thought this was linked to Trank."
"Would you like me to take a look?" suggested Severus.
Harry handed him the journal.
As Harry has said, it looked like Lubricus had listed details of all his investigations transactions from a Cayman bank account although how he had managed to get the information from the bank was a mystery. Severus suspected bribery. Most of the transactions were money flows into the account from Berlin University funds, there were a few onward payments, mainly to a Swiss bank account but Severus doubted that would have got Lubricus anywhere. The Swiss were notoriously discreet. So what had Lubricus seen? Severus almost missed it. There was a small payment of five pieces of gold to a company called Cortina. He turned the book round and pointed to the transaction.
"What?" said Harry.
"The Zurich bank to which the funds are being transferred paid is on the same street as a world famous potion ingredient supplier in Zurich and a purchase was accidently made to the supplier from the account."
"Trank would know it?"
"Definitely "said Severus "It is world renowned. Anyone like Trank will have visited."
"Got him," said Harry with satisfaction.
Severus had assumed that they would rush off to Berlin straight away, but Harry wanted to gather more evidence. So they headed back to the flat for a relatively early night.
"I don't want to go off half cock. I want to review his normal financial accounts first."
"I never thought I would see the day!"
Harry grinned. "Auror training soon discourages you from diving in head first."
"Then this year has not been wasted," said Severus with satisfaction.
"The accounts will be available for us to view by 10am tomorrow. We'll go over them and the catch the train to Berlin."
"Are you going to make an appointment?"
"No," said Harry decisively. "I don't want him to have any warning. It is term time so he should be there."
Harry had been up sipping coffee when Severus had emerged the following morning. He was due at headquarters to review the financial papers at around 10am. They agreed that it made sense for Severus to stay at the flat and catch up on paper work. Harry promised to be back by 12 o clock, in time to catch the 1 o clock train.
It was 1.30 when Harry finally appeared. Severus had finally given up on him and was making a sandwich. His immediately reached for more bread.
"Sorry," said Harry at once, throwing his cloak on the sofa. "It has been a heck of a morning!"
"The papers weren't there?" guessed Severus.
Harry shook his head "No they were. I decided I had better go through them all not just Tranks."
Severus nodded it was wise to be through.
"And?" said Severus.
"Oh lots of interesting stuff but not on Trank's accounts. Well except for the purchase of illegal potions ingredients. But I am guessing that is pretty standard for a potions master?"
Severus nodded. "Definitely."
Harry groaned. "Don't tell me, I am in law enforcement remember."
"So we only have what we found last night to work with?" confirmed Severus.
"Yes," said Harry "Unless Ron comes up with something. He's going to come back to me by about 2 o clock"
"Ron?"
"Well , you know he has special financial training? So I sent him a copy of Trank's accounts by patronus."
"Are you allowed to do that? He's not working with the Gottingen team."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Want to talk more about those illegal potion ingredients?"
"Not really," said Severus with a small smile.
They had nearly finished lunch when Ron firecalled them.
"How you doing mate?" he asked Harry before turning to Severus "Afternoon Wilhelm," he said politely.
Severus nodded.
"Hi Ron, want a sandwich there are a couple spare," asked Harry
"Great, "said Ron. "I've been working on your stuff all through lunch. They can probably hear my stomach rumbling in the Leaky Cauldron."
"Did you find anything?" asked Harry excitedly.
Ron's head moved from side to side. "Maybe. A couple, of strange things. Have you got your copy of his current account handy?"
"Give me a minute "said Harry thrusting his plate to one side and diving into his brief case. "What am I looking for?"
"Have a look at the last six months," instructed Ron. "You will see there are two big payments to Magicum Taberna Company?"
"Yep, I spotted those, I assume they were a major purchase of some kind."
Ron nodded his head. "Yes that's what I thought. But have you noticed that each week there is a regular payment to the Mense Magicae?"
Harry nodded, "So I thought those regular payament were probably for a subscription of some kind."
"That's' what it looks like," agreed Ron "But I had a dig and they are both owned by the same man, Mr Johan Schimt and Mense Magicae is just a shell company. Money seem to be going straight to Schimt. It does not appear to make anything or provide a service or anything."
"So what are you suggesting?" asked Severus.
"I'm not sure," admitted Ron. "But it seems odd."
"What do you think it might be?"asked Harry.
"If I had to guess, I'd think that Mr Schimt was selling something illegal maybe and wanted to cover his tracks."
"Worth investigating," said Harry.
"Definetly," said Ron. He paused. "Any chance of that sandwich?" he asked hopefully.
Harry lifted one off his plate and popped it in Ron's mouth. "Least we can do after all your help."
"Illegal potion ingredient?" suggested Harry after Ron had departed.
"I doubt the large sums are," said Severus. "That's an enormous amount to pay for such ingredients. Maybe the smaller accounts might be for a supply of something prohibited."
"Maybe."
"So are you going to investigate further before interviewing him?"
Harry paused, "No. I don't want to delay any further. Once you start making detailed inquiries there is a risk that the suspect gets wind of it. It's a fine balance. I'll get the office to do some digging into this guy in Munich, in the meantime let's catch that train to Berlin."
They were just over half way to Berlin, when a patronus, a bear, arrived from Peck. It sniffed Severus suspiciously. Fortunately, they had a carriage to themselves. Severus had cast some do not disturb spells as they were leaving Gottingen station. The other occupants had felt an unaccountable need to move towards the front of the train.
"The Magicum Taberna is a dealers in magical curios. Mr Schimt is known to the police as some of the curios are thought to contain dark magic but he has never been charged. As far as we know, he does not run a subscription service. We have never heard of Mense Magicae but that might just be our lack of information."
"We'll have to go to Munich and interview him in due course, I think," said Harry. "Might be nothing to do with the case but it might give us some additional evidence about Trank's motivation. But for now we simply proceed as planned. "
"You have thought through your approach to the interview?" asked Severus delicately.
Harry grimaced. "I've thought about nothing else for the past 24 hours."
It was, Severus realised, probably Harry's first time in the hot seat interviewing a key suspect.
"Maybe you should have been accompanied by someone else. If this comes to trial.."
Harry nodded, "Yeah I know, but it would have been difficult explain why I want to swap partners at this stage. In anycase, there is no one I would rather have at my side. For one thing you're both potion masters."
Severus swelled with satisfaction in spite of himself. "Nevtheless you are taking a risk. If his lawyers were ever to find out they would have grounds for a mis-trial."
Harry nodded "Let's hope nobody find out. I'm going to owe Wilhelm big time." He added with a grimace.
The pattern of the previous visit repeated itself. They disembarked at Berlin station and caught a connecting service. It was about 5pm when they found themselves standing back in front of the university.
It took Crassus ten minutes to appear, although clearly annoyed at their unexpected arrival, he was as polite as ever.
"As we did not know you were coming, I'm afraid Professor Fudge is busy with other visitors."
"That's not a problem," said Harry smoothly. "It is Professor Trank we want to see."
Crassus relaxed, "Fine. He should have completed his last tutorial and hour or so ago. "
"Are his quarters in the university?" inquired Severus.
"Yes, east wing," said Crassus, "Follow me please."
Harry and Severus followed Crassus down one long office corridor after another. There were a number of signs for east wing and the Faculty of Science. After about ten minutes, Crassus paused to check that they had the corridor to themselves before placing his wand on the doorknob of a door labelled Chemistry store and muttering a short incantation under his breath.
"Come," he said as the door opened. It led to a much smaller, darker corridor at the end of which was a polished wooden door. Crassus rapped sharply.
"How do you know he is in?" asked Harry after a moment's silence.
"We have a series of magical wards in the building, it tells us when people leave."
"He could still be in the lecture hall or one of the classrooms," suggested Harry.
Crassus shook his head. "We past them on the way down here and in any case he is clearly inside," he gestured to a small shelf at the side of the door. On it sat a tiny pixie and next to it on a chair was a small placard bearing the legend "In."
"Meet Offy,"
"Offy?" repeated Harry.
"Short for duty officer," explained the pixie proudly.
Harry smiled at the pixie. "Nice to meet you Offy. I'm Harry. Do you have an "out" placard as well?"
The pixie wrinkled its' nose up and shot into a small hole at the back of the shelf, returning a moment later with a stack of placards. He held them up so Harry could see and then gently flicked through them.
Severus read "Out, Gone shopping, Gone to bed, Having dinner, Working, Sleeping, Knock and die."
"Ok," said Harry "So he is definetly in!"
The pixie nodded.
Crassus knocked again.
"Maybe he's in the shower," suggested Severus. "There doesn't seem to be a placard for that." he added sarcastically.
The pixie stamped his foot and held up "Knock and die."
"Apparently there is a placard for that," said Harry with a grin.
Crassus put his hand on the door and gave a sharp push. The door opened easily. "Ah, he most have opened it for us remotely when he heard us knock. Come."
Harry waved goodbye to the pixie which smiled back before scowling at Severus.
"You shouldn't have suggested its placards were inadequate," Harry pointed out.
Severus shrugged.
"I bet you've never had a pet," joked Harry as they entered Trank's quarters.
"I am not a fan of magical creature's especially small ones," agreed Severus.
"Never fancied a black cat?" teased Harry.
"Cats were not encouraged at Hogwarts," said Severus. "Albus was worried they would fight with Mrs Norris, which would upset Filch, or annoy Minerva."
Harry turned and laughed and as a result he walked right into Crassus who had come to a halt.
"Sorry Professor Crassus, shall we leave our shoes here?"
Crassus remained perfectly still.
"Professor Crassus?" said Harry again.
Severus reached past Harry and put a hand on Crassus' shoulder and pushed him gently to one side, before moving forward.
"Unfortunate," observed Severus.
Harry pushed between them.
"Shit," exclaimed Harry.
Professor Trank was sprawled across his desk and given the amount of blood, Severus judged that his throat had been cut.