Pavlik strokes her hair. ‘I’ve got you.’
She opens her eyes. Can hardly move her tongue. ‘How’s the boy?’
‘He’s alive. Under anaesthetic.’
‘How did Holm get into the house?’
‘Over the wall in the courtyard.’
‘Why were none of your men there?’
She feels Pavlik shivering. ‘Butz. Holm killed him.’
Butz.
‘Who called you?’
‘No one. I knew you were here.’
‘Where are the men who were outside the house?’
He doesn’t answer.
Please don’t say it.
‘Two point-blank shots to the head.’
14
Pavlik guides her down the corridor of the Department. Not a sound. But Aaron knows that they’re walking between two lines of silent men. Three dead comrades. Pavlik deployed her without telling Demirci. Only now does she realize what that means. Means for him. ‘Pavlik—’ she whispers.
He goes with her to the toilet and closes the door. His voice is gone. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
Aaron sinks down the wall. Pavlik crouches facing her. ‘How did Butz die?’ she asks.
‘Broken neck. No marks.’
One of the best. He didn’t even see Holm coming.
‘He was on leave. But he volunteered for your sake. He didn’t give a damn about Demirci.’
She sees herself reaching towards her father’s garden gate. Men walk by carrying some kind of load.
A familiar voice says: ‘It’s me, Butz.’
When he was still with the BKA, he saved the life of one of Jörg Aaron’s men on an operation and put his own life on the line. Even though there was almost thirty years between them, they became friends. As far as Aaron knows, her father only had three. The two men recognized one another, whenever they were in danger they never let their feelings take over.
Except in Antwerp.
*
That’s one of the memories she wrote down before they were lost: Aaron flew to Antwerp with Butz for a ‘virginity test’. There they handed two submachine guns with filed-off serial numbers to the men they wanted to buy fifty kilos of heroin from, to prove they were trustworthy. They assumed that their contacts were working for Eyck de Fries, the biggest drug dealer in Europe. He was the target, the one they wanted to trap.
The submachine guns were their tickets, the heroin deal was supposed to play out in an old army barracks. The evening before, Butz was nervous. Aaron didn’t recognisze him like that. He ordered jenever, even though he never normally drank. Butz thought their cover was blown. He couldn’t explain it. ‘This one time I’m listening to my belly.’ They’d invested a lot in the case. Aaron talked away at Butz, and she managed to persuade him to go to the barracks as planned the next day.
When they parted in the hotel corridor she felt him watching after her. She turned around. ‘I’m gay,’ he said. ‘Your father knows. No one else. Now you do.’ He didn’t expect her to answer and went to his room.
She stood there motionless for a long time. Butz, the beau, the great womanizer, as everyone thought, even though he didn’t make a big deal about it. He had never been closer to her than he was in that corridor. She knew she could have told Butz he didn’t need to pretend in the Department, but it would have been a lie. Aaron was ashamed about that. And she was ashamed on behalf of the others as well.
She had had a mute conversation with her father.
I couldn’t have imagined you being friends with a gay man.
Why not?
Because you’re bursting with testosterone.
Engage your brain before you speak. But I’ll tell you one other thing: when Stefan opens his mouth, you should listen.
That night in Antwerp she fell into a sweaty sleep. She was dreaming that she wanted to put on a cheerful summer dress, but when she opened the cupboard all her dresses were black.
At dawn she suddenly knew why Butz had confided in her: because he thought he was going to die today. If Aaron ever got out of the barracks, he wanted her to remember the man he had been, and tell their comrades so that they would remember him that way as well.
She knocked at Butz’s door and could see that he hadn’t slept. She said: ‘We’re not going.’ She contacted the Police Fédérale, who were in charge of the investigations into Eyck de Fries. There was a shoot-out with three dead, one of them a policeman. There was no heroin in the boot, but a load of Semtex that killed another two officers. De Fries had found out from a Belgian spy that there were two undercover agents on his back. Aaron owed Butz her life.
*
It must have been exactly like that, because I wrote it down. But your face has gone. Your laugh. Your eyes, which I think were sad. And one day I will stand empty-handed in front of you.
The toilet door opens. Pavlik says: ‘Not now.’ Door closed.
‘Will you ask Butz’s sister if he was with anyone?’ Aaron asks.
‘No, he was on his own. You know he did date a lot, but nothing serious.’
‘He was gay.’
Pavlik snorts: ‘Nonsense.’
‘Butz was gay. He wanted you to know.’
‘OK,’ Pavlik says curtly.
‘Who were the other two?’
‘Blaschke and Clausen. You don’t know them.’
The door opens again. Peschel. ‘Yes, Demirci is there now.’
Pavlik gets up. Slow, weary, heavy.
Aaron gets to her feet as well. ‘I’m sorry I dumped you in it at the hotel,’ she says to Peschel.
‘Yes, but they were already dead by then. Pavlik, one thing is clear, we all stand by that. Just don’t get it into your head to blame yourself for the whole damned thing.’
Peschel leaves her alone.
‘Wait.’ Pavlik runs some water, washes Aaron’s face. The only person apart from her mother who’s ever done that was a nurse in Barcelona. She hated both of them doing it. But she feels Pavlik’s touch as warm, careful, thoughtful. He dries her face. Takes her hands in his. ‘Never forget what you mean to me.’
She says: ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No, you won’t.’
‘Off you go. But you can be sure of one thing: I’ll be sitting beside you a minute later.’ Aaron puts his hand to her cheek. ‘Never forget what you mean to me.’
*
In Demirci’s waiting room she is welcomed by a voice that she likes a lot. It belongs to Astrid Helm, the head secretary, who everyone calls Helmchen – ‘little Helm’. Only Pavlik is allowed to address her informally. She’s been here for ever, and she’s the soul of the Department. Her radar can always tell the right thing to do for someone, whether it’s a smile or a bar of chocolate or a silence.
*
Ten things that Aaron misses:
Charlie Chaplin films
puppies playing
Sunday afternoons in the C/O photo gallery
being able to avoid dogshit
Al Pacino’s smile
driving a ’64 Ford Mustang
cherry blossom
de Chirico
looking at orangutans
Helmchen’s concern
*
‘Jenny – thank God.’ She strokes Aaron’s arm. ‘I’m very glad nothing’s happened to you.’
‘Thanks, Helmchen.’
‘I was in Bremerhaven at my brother’s silver wedding anniversary yesterday, and didn’t get back till late, otherwise we’d have seen each other at Ulf’s birthday.’ Hesitantly she adds: ‘That’s what you say, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, that’s what you say, Helmchen.’
Aaron hears the woman’s deep sadness. The lads are her sons. She’s been to a lot of funerals over twenty-five years.
‘But heavens, you need to wear something else. I’ll have your things fetched from the hotel. And I’ll clean that coat quickly.’
‘Thanks.’ She takes off her coat.
‘Show me your fingers.’
‘Just some scrapes.’
‘Nonsense. We’ll clean them with iodine.’
Helmchen turns to Pavlik. ‘I called Stefan Butz’s sister and his father. And Matti Clausen’s ex-wife. She’ll have to tell the kids. Tom Blaschke’s wife doesn’t know yet. I thought you might want to go and see her.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve informed the youth welfare office about Miss Askamp’s son.’
Aaron’s stomach feels hollow, and Helmchen says: ‘In a minute you’ll get a croissant and a strong coffee. Black, no sugar, I know.’
How has Aaron managed without Helmchen?
Demirci’s door opens. ‘Mr Pavlik – please come in.’
‘I’d like to be there for that conversation,’ Aaron says.
She expects Demirci to refuse, she wants to add a resolute ‘I insist’, but Demirci says: ‘Of course.’
They go into the office and sit down at the conference table.
‘Do you need medical assistance?’
‘No.’ Aaron straightens her legs. ‘The surveillance of Miss Askamp’s house and my personal security were both authorized by me. I invented an instruction from the BKA and I take full responsibility for that.’
‘Forget it,’ Pavlik mutters. ‘Aaron knew nothing about it.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Pavlik is about to start speaking again, but Demirci says: ‘That’s enough.’
There’s a knock at the door. Helmchen comes and sets down a tray. She guides Aaron’s hand to the coffee cup. ‘The croissant is on the right.’ She goes and closes the door very quietly.
Aaron can’t drink any coffee right now.
‘Miss Aaron, I admire your strength of character. But the BKA don’t have to issue us with instructions. Even though I haven’t been here very long, I know how the Department works, believe me.’
Aaron nods mutely. She tried.
‘Mr Pavlik, the day before yesterday we had a conversation in which you requested personal security for Miss Aaron. You explained that in great detail. Still, I doubted that it was necessary and refused.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you chose men to go behind my back.’
‘Yes.’
‘How many were involved in that operation?’
‘Six.’
‘And how many were watching Eva Askamp?’
‘Another six.’
‘Because you knew there was a chance of Holm contacting her.’
‘Yes. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that she was in danger after Aaron and I went to her shop.’
‘Twelve. A third of all the available men. And I never even noticed.’
A clasp snaps open beside Aaron.
Pavlik sets something heavy down on the table.
His gun.
He gets up. Demirci says: ‘The conversation isn’t over.’
Pavlik sits down again.
The sentences that follow are the most surprising thing that Aaron has experienced since she’s been a policewoman.
‘Three men down. That’s bad, I don’t know how I’ll be able to justify that. But you, Mr Pavlik, doubtless did the right thing. I would like to apologize for not listening to you. Otherwise I would have deployed more men and perhaps prevented the deaths of those three.’
Aaron can’t breathe.
Pavlik is a quiet man. But she’s never known him so silent before.
‘Bear in mind that those men were acting on my orders,’ Demirci goes on in a tone that tolerates no contradiction. ‘I will outline the reasons to my superior and am confident that he will understand my decision in view of the events.’
For at least thirty seconds no one says a word.
After its creation immediately following the reunification of Germany, the Department was based on a single idea: it was to be a team of elite police officers who could, unlike the detectives of the BKA, operate without loss of energy through bureaucratic friction. The Wiesbaden office is a huge, sluggish tanker that’s constantly being freighted with new responsibilities. The Department, on the other hand, is small, quick and accurate. It is ultimately run by by the Conference of State Ministers and Senators of the Interior, operating in rotation. Demirci is answerable to whichever regional minister or senator is in charge of the committee at any given time.
As Aaron knows, this year he’s the Senator of the Interior of Berlin.
She is putting her career on the line. Three dead policemen. The Senator is put under considerable pressure by the media. He might choose someone to blame to save his own skin. Then she’ll be finished. She’s braver than anyone I’ve ever met.
‘So we’ve sorted that one out,’ Demirci says. ‘And the smoking ban in the building is lifted forthwith.’ She lights a cigarette and pushes the pack across the table.
She smokes as if she’s smoking for three who really need it.
‘I’ve studied the “Chagall” file,’ says Demirci, coming straight to the point. ‘There’s remarkably little about Holm in it.’
‘He grew up in Kaiserslautern,’ Pavlik says. ‘His father was a forestry worker, his mother a housewife. They had a terraced house. They had no contact with their neighbours. The shutters were usually down. The woman never exchanged a word with anyone in the street.’
Demirci is as startled as Aaron. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I called a former teacher of Holm’s. He lived a few houses away at the time. He’s an old man now, but he clearly remembers Holm and his brother.’
My Pavlik.
‘He says Holm was the most intelligent student he ever had. But he was held back twice, he took no interest in lessons. He wasn’t particularly known for violence or cruelty, but no one ever picked a fight with him. When he was nineteen, his father disappeared without a trace. His car was found in the forest. Presumably he was murdered, but there was no corpse; investigations led nowhere. Holm took his eight-year-old brother off with him and was never seen again.’
‘He can hardly have been given custody?’
‘No. And here comes the remarkable part: Sascha never went to another school, at least not under his real name, and Holm never showed up in the German social system. He paid no taxes, had no registered address, no driver’s licence or ID card. He simply disappeared with Sascha. To Barcelona.’
‘So what you’re saying is: at the age of nineteen Holm became a professional criminal, since then he’s been living a life outside of all social norms, while bringing up his brother at the same time?’
‘Yes. After he was arrested on one occasion Sascha refused to give a statement. But when he went into hiding with Holm, an aunt placed a missing-person advertisement, in which she mentioned the port-wine stain on the back of his hand. That was still on the INPOL file. That’s the only reason we know their real names.’
Aaron picks up her coffee cup. Sets it back down again. ‘I wounded him with the knife. Did he wipe away the blood?’
‘No,’ Pavlik says. ‘It’s with Forensics.’
‘We may be able to link him with other crimes through prints or DNA, and establish some kind of movement profile for him.’
A knock at the door. ‘Come in.’ The door opens. ‘Mr Kvist – take a seat.’
Niko sits on Pavlik’s left.
Thank you for not touching me. Not asking me how I am, or showing me in any other way that you’re concerned about me. I couldn’t bear it.
‘Mr Kvist, you negotiated with Holm in Bruges. What sort of man is he?’
‘Presumably he already knew that I was an undercover agent. But he still met me on his own. He was completely relaxed.’
‘Where would you put his intelligence on a scale from one to ten?’
‘Eleven.’
‘And his physical condition?’
‘It was perfect at the time.’
Aaron says: ‘He’s fifty, but his reflexes are still first-class. He aimed between my chin and my lower lip, which means that he has expert knowledge of the theor
y of acupuncture. He must be at least a third Dan in karate. He can lift a hundred and twenty kilos lying down. He looks after his body, but he doesn’t worry about doing it harm. He can blank out pain, but if he wants it to, pain stimulates him. He’s cultivated and speaks several languages. He’s completely insensitive to the pain of others. In his world he’s the one who makes all the rules. He likes beautiful things. But he doesn’t own anything that he couldn’t leave behind without a thought. He can never enjoy anything, apart from his own pain or the pain of others. He despises death and yearns for it.’
A cigarette burns out. A watch ticks.
‘You say he never does anything superfluous. Why did he kill the florist? What did he get out of that murder?’
A heart thumps.
‘Miss Aaron?’
‘How did he do it?’ she asks Pavlik.
‘She has cuts to her torso, but they wouldn’t have been fatal. Presumably he suffocated her.’
It takes a long time for someone to suffocate. She was already dead when he started counting.
Aaron’s voice is strange and remote. ‘He wanted to show me that he’s the master. That he’s God. I’m supposed to acknowledge him. The three men he killed are a message to the Department: “I don’t negotiate with anyone.” Soon he’ll make contact with us and tell us his plans.’
‘What do you think he’s going to do?’
‘Holm wants to get his brother out of prison.’
‘He needs accomplices for that,’ Demirci says.
Nico says: ‘No, he’s a loner.’
Aaron disagrees. ‘In Barcelona he used Sascha’s lover. Holm knows how to exploit people. After that he throws them away.’
Pavlik breathes from his belly. ‘I’ve seen Sascha. He was transferred to Tegel a month ago, but he’s already in charge of Block Six. He’s grinning like someone who’s just passing through, and meanwhile picking other people’s fear out of his teeth.’
Aaron still hasn’t eaten anything. She feels dizzy. ‘Sascha is scared of his brother, that was obvious in Barcelona,’ she says. ‘Holm has trained him like a dog. I assume that’s also the answer to the question of why he waited five years.’
In the Dark Page 15
