She works out what she has in her hand.
Sixteen years go up in smoke. Aaron is a trainee working in Fourth Homicide, sitting in the tiny office that’s been assigned to her. At this point no one knows about the basement in Spandau.
*
She reads the statement from the husband of one of the missing lawyers. In the morning she gave me aftershave. It was our wedding anniversary. I’d completely forgotten. Her eye goes to Boenisch, who has squashed himself onto a chair in the corner and is waiting for his third witness interrogation. He hasn’t moved a finger for ten minutes. A drop of sweat hangs from his nose as if frozen there. Aaron goes on reading. She’s sad at work. Now I may never see her again.
She notices that Boenisch is watching her and looks up.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. But that dress really suits you.’
He says it so nicely that she suddenly has a guilty conscience because she didn’t ask him if he’d like anything to drink. ‘Are you thirsty?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
She goes into the kitchen and comes back with a glass of water. Boenisch drains it in one. ‘Thanks.’ He is invited into the next room. She watches after him for a moment, a huge man with sandals and flesh-coloured socks, who pauses in the doorway, looks back and says for the third time, ‘Thank you.’
The next day Aaron searches in vain in the desk drawer for the locket that her mother gave her. She put it away because the clasp is broken. The locket means a lot to her. Even though she and her mother often have little to say to each other she knows it’s a special present, because it belonged to her grandmother.
When she got it, the locket was empty. Perhaps her mother hoped Aaron would put a small picture of her in it. She could of course have given it to her with a picture already inside but preferred the thought of her daughter putting one in – that’s how she is.
Recently Aaron has started to take an interest in Eastern philosophy. For her locket she chose the two Japanese signs for life and death.
A storm darkens the window, the first fat drops splash against it. Suddenly she’s no longer certain that she put the locket in the drawer. She makes a note to check when she gets home.
But not today. In the late afternoon she reads Boenisch’s third statement, compares it with the two previous statements and knocks on his door. But nothing is as it was before.
She clutches the locket in her fist. The memory was lost. For the third time since she came back from Berlin something is pulled from the fire. Aaron remembers what Pavlik looks like. She shot Token-Eyes in the neck. She holds in her hand the locket that Boenisch stole from her back then; a momento that he kept very carefully for all those years.
The flames have not destroyed the memories, she suddenly finds herself thinking. Perhaps the library has an infinite number of doors, each one heatproof, and the memories have hidden behind them, just waiting for the doors to be opened.
But that thought is immediately swept away by the realization that Boenisch is thinking about her at that very moment. He knows what she is holding in her hand. That amuses Token-Eyes. He wants to turn her into a rubber doll with which Boenisch can satisfy himself. She puts the locket in her pocket, lights a cigarette and blows the smoke in Token-Eyes’ face.
*
Demirci and Niko stand in front of a two-way mirror in the next room, watching the interrogation. Büker comes in with Majowski. They were both responsible for Sascha’s transfer.
‘What’s up?’
‘Have you talked to the prisoner?’ Demirci asks.
‘No. Why?’
‘He knows about the three dead cops,’ Niko says. ‘Did you blab about them? Did he listen in on you?’
‘Do you think we’re crazy?’
Demirci exchanges a glance with Niko. ‘I want to know if anyone was in his cell after he was put in solitary.’
Niko leaves with Majowski and Büker.
The phone rings. She picks it up. ‘Yes? Stream the video from the interrogation room to my tablet.’ Demirci takes her iPad with her and puts a headphone in her ear. By the time she enters operational headquarters three doors further on, she can already see Aaron and Sascha on the screen.
‘There’s only one coach-load of Scandinavian children in the city,’ Giulia Delmonte tells her. ‘Some year sixes from Aarhus in Denmark. Twenty-seven pupils and two teachers. We’ve tried to call the driver but he didn’t answer. His phone is switched off.’
‘Have the police in Berlin been informed?’
‘A minute ago. We’re trying to locate his mobile.’
‘Put the make, colour and registration on all online media and Berlin radio stations, without mentioning the hostage-taking. We’re looking for this bus, that’s all they need to know. Do we know where he picked up the children?’
‘The Holocaust Memorial. At a quarter to ten.’
‘It’s patrolled by guards, have them questioned. And the people working at the snack bars and souvenir shops. Did anyone notice anything between eight and a quarter to ten? The American embassy opposite is watched by surveillance cameras. Contact them.’
Demirci looks at the tablet. Aaron says: ‘I doubt that your prison career will be over today. I’d have thought you were smarter than that.’
Sascha spreads his legs and smirks.
Demirci turns to Majowski. ‘Keep the two SETs ready for an attack.’
‘You mean we’re to go in as soon as we’ve located the coach?’
‘No. The getaway car with the money is being prepared. You take care of that.’
Demirci hurries back to the room behind the mirror.
*
Pavlik sets a saucer down in front of Aaron. She stubs out her cigarette. Token-Eyes snorts his words back like snot. ‘How can a coward like you be so arrogant?’
‘You’re calling me a coward? A man who suffocates a defenceless woman with a plastic bag to give Boenisch a hard-on?’
‘You know that wasn’t the reason. You’re here, and I’m here. That’s what it’s about, you whore.’
She hears Demirci on her headphones. ‘We’re taking a break.’
Aaron says to Pavlik: ‘He wants to go to a cell.’
‘Cowardice can break you, or it can help you grow. Sometimes that decision is made on the first day of the tree in the month of affection,’ Token-Eyes continues.
Pavlik rises from his chair. ‘Right, show’s over.’
‘No, wait,’ Aaron says.
The month of affection.
That was the name for January in the age of the Samurai.
Today is Thursday. The day of the tree.
It’s not Token-Eyes who’s talking to me.
His brother.
‘Exactly six years ago today.’
‘What’s he talking about?’ Demirci asks.
Six years. The first Thursday in January. What happened?
‘There’s another name for the day of the tree,’ Token-Eyes says in his brother’s words.
The day of Jupiter.
Now she knows: the Ukrainian woman. Pi.
For weeks she had put up two Ukrainian women in a supposedly safe house in Frankfurt an der Oder. They were the chief prosecution witnesses against the head of a people-smuggling ring. The women were protected by a complete Special Enforcement Team, five strong. Even though the curtains were closed, a sniper in position four hundred metres away from the house managed to locate one of the two women with a thermal sensor. He used armoured-glass-piercing ammunition and killed her with a single shot to the head. The surviving witness was brought to safety. They had only a night to get through because the trial was due to begin in two days’ time. Aaron’s colleagues chose the Hotel Jupiter. They arrived in the evening. Five men circled the Ukrainian woman as they left the limousine. Another shot was fired from the roof of a building opposite.
Ralf Paretzki, known to everyone as Pi, threw himself in front of the witness. Two bullets struck his torso, but bounced off his bulletproof jacket
. The third caught him in the temple. Pi lost a lot of blood, but survived. Three cartridge cases were found on the roof. The gunman was never found.
Token-Eyes says: ‘I see you remember.’
Was he the killer? No, it was Holm.
‘He saved the woman’s life and paid off his debt.’
The hum of the fluorescent tube is the only sound.
Demirci holds her breath in the next room.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Aaron says.
And knows very well. Pi had failed in Frankfurt an der Oder. He had been alone in the room with the Ukrainian woman and seen the red dot of the infrared sensor on the curtain. But he had thrown himself to safety and not dragged the woman to the floor as he should have done. It had been a reflex, none of his colleagues would have reproached him for it. But he couldn’t forgive himself. They had all expected Pi to be removed from the unit. But their boss decided otherwise after a long conversation with him. In front of the Hotel Jupiter Pi confirmed that they had made the right choice.
How does Holm know it was the same man? No, that’s simple. Pi was just a metre seventy-five, the only terrier.
‘He was cowardly on the day of Mercury, but brave on the day of Jupiter. His sacrifice was not in vain.’
The day of Mercury. Wednesday.
‘Is the film playing out right now?’ Token-Eyes asks.
An image flashes in front of her: Aaron is waiting for Niko outside a cinema, she can’t remember which one. He kisses her on the cheek, so they aren’t yet together. He buys two tickets for a film, but she doesn’t know which one. She seeks and seeks.
Suddenly she stumbles into the memory.
*
She is leaving the cinema with Niko. They’ve just seen Avatar and still have their 3D glasses when they get to Alexanderplatz. They fool about. Niko buys her a bag of hot chestnuts. Stars sparkle in his eyes, and she kisses him for the first time. She takes him home and afterwards the windows are misted up. In the three hours that Niko is asleep she looks at him as if he is the most wonderful Christmas present she ever had. How could she have wasted those years? In fact she wanted Niko from the moment she saw him, and it was some kind of stupid pride that made her keep him dangling for so long.
She doesn’t sleep a wink, makes breakfast at seven and is a bit worried about waking him. But he pulls her to him in bed again, and they enjoy each other like two people who have done the right thing.
They go separately to the Department. Serious faces. She learns what has happened in Frankfurt an der Oder during the night. The Ukrainian woman is brought down the corridor. Aaron sees the fear on the woman’s face, but it isn’t her case, and all morning she feels butterflies in her stomach every time she thinks of Niko.
In the staff room she bumps into Pi. He avoids her eye. ‘I know what you’re all thinking. And it’s true.’
He has to see the boss.
Niko has booked a table in an expensive restaurant on Kollwitzplatz that evening. She wears the black cashmere dress that he liked so much at their boss’s birthday party. Aaron can hardly wait for him to take it off her.
Icy rain smears the windscreen, Peter Gabriel is on the car radio. She turns the music up as loud as it will go and taps out the stamping rhythm of ‘Solsbury Hill’ on the steering wheel. There’s a traffic jam on Potsdamer Strasse. No one dares to go faster than twenty. Her phone vibrates. Pavlik. Only one sentence. The Santas in her belly immediately sit down nicely. She plants the blue light on the roof and shoos the other cars aside. The car careens along the mirror-smooth thoroughfare, and she balances it out with her bottom. Aaron likes it when she can balance things out. But maybe not when ploughing past three kilometres of stationary vehicles all the way to the Hotel Jupiter.
Pi is put in an ambulance outside. He takes her hand and whispers: ‘Now I don’t have to be ashamed any more.’
*
She remembers all of that in a matter of seconds. Within that pain she looks for the number that represents what she has lost, and is afraid of that other number which she never allows to come near her.
The number three.
Knowing that something’s pointless and doing it anyway.
The locket.
According to Zen, you must always have the signs of life and death in your mind’s eye, and you should even draw the sign for death on your forehead. Only then do you have the energy to fight to the end.
Holm knows what it means. The locket wasn’t a present from Boenisch. It’s from him.
Pavlik hasn’t said a word yet. But Aaron feels him looking steadily at her. He’s too clever not to see what’s happening to her.
‘The Ukrainian woman refused to address the court, and she knew why. My client was acquitted, it was pure maths,’ Holm says to Aaron in Token-Eyes’ voice. ‘But I don’t like to leave things unfinished. For a while I considered punishing that officer. When he came out of the clinic I kept him under observation. I saw his little life with his wife and his baby. I gave him his second little life. But only because of his courage. If he had been cowardly again I would have killed him. Just as surely as you know the number of steps to the graves of your father and your mother.’
Words like ashes. When Holm left her alone with Eva Askamp’s corpse, it meant: not yet. She knows what she has to do. Basically she’s known for five years, and everything that she has hoped for and suffered through and feared since Barcelona acquires a meaning at that moment.
‘We’re finished.’
‘See you,’ says Token-Eyes.
Pavlik brings him out. Aaron taps her watch: ‘Eleven o’clock, fifteen minutes, eight seconds.’ Demirci comes in and closes the door. ‘Have we got the coach?’ Aaron asks.
‘No. But you were right. A Danish school trip.’
Aaron gets to her feet. ‘Put Sascha in the car with the money. His brother will call in twenty-five minutes and tell us where he is. Holm will cut it so fine that we can’t make any preparations. If Sascha turns up a second too late, Holm will kill the first hostage.’
‘What was he just talking to you about?’
‘That was just play-acting.’
‘Miss Aaron, back in your office when I said, “Now we share an enemy”, we both thought the same thing.’
‘Yes.’
‘We thought, “and we’ve gained a friend.”’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you still think that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Me too. Two hours ago I asked you why Holm let you get away in Eva Askamp’s flat. You said: “That was only the warm-up.”’
‘I was mistaken.’
‘Do we have different understandings of the meaning of friendship?’
The door opens. Pavlik. ‘Leave me alone with Aaron.’
‘No,’ says Demirci.
‘I must insist.’
‘No need,’ Aaron says. ‘She knows what Holm wants.’
‘How many steps is it to your parents’ graves?’
‘I don’t count them.’
‘Show me the locket.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m asking you to.’
She gives Pavlik the locket.
He snaps it open. ‘What do the characters mean?’
‘Truth and authenticity,’ she lies.
‘You know where the coach is,’ says Demirci.
‘You’re mistaken.’
Pavlik gives her back the locket. ‘No, you do.’
‘I wish that was the case.’
Demirci’s voice is frosty. ‘Under no circumstances am I going to let you be a hostage swap. Even if Holm starts killing children: You. Aren’t. Going. Have I made myself clear?’
‘Of course.’ Aaron takes her coat off the back of the chair and feels her way to the door. She leaves the room with Pavlik and Demirci and turns towards the lift.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To the roof. I need some fresh air.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Pavlik
cuts in.
‘No. The two SETs are in the underground car park. You’re in charge of the unit,’ Demirci says.
‘I’m not leaving Aaron alone for a second.’
‘She won’t be on her own.’ Demirci shouts: ‘Mr Kvist, take Miss Aaron to the roof terrace. You are personally responsible to me for her protection. I’ll wait for you both at operation headquarters.’
*
The minutes fly by. The coach driver’s phone has been located. It was found on the banks of the Spree in a plastic bag along with the others. Novak turns up with a new piece of information. ‘The corpse of a filling-station attendant was found on the VUS-Nordschleife. The CCTV tape is gone.’
‘Cause of death?’ Demirci asks.
‘Still unclear. Haematoma on his neck.’
Seven.
‘When was he found?’
‘At 9:39. The body was still warm.’
A minute before Holm’s second call.
‘Did anyone notice the coach at the petrol station?’
‘The Criminal Police are on to it.’
Demirci drives into the underground car park. Thirteen men have taken up position by a black Ford Transit. Pavlik has already issued the two most important orders: the lives of the hostages have priority. He’s the only one who can give the order to shoot.
Demirci says: ‘The man who’s challenging us has killed three of your comrades. We will take time to mourn. But not yet. Anyone who has a problem with that will be replaced.’ Her eye runs over the balaclava-covered faces. Thirteen pairs of eyes gaze back. ‘Some of you were here when Jenny Aaron belonged to the Department. You may be friends with her, or at least hold her in high esteem. You know that Holm is responsible for her blindness. You must also get that out of your minds. One single error could lead to disaster. Whoever is responsible will wish he’d never met me. I will be standing behind everyone else like a wall, whatever happens. Off you go.’
Sascha sits handcuffed in the getaway car, enjoying himself. Demirci opens the car door and speaks loudly enough for all the men to hear. ‘I’d like to give you something too. It’s 11:37. Within twenty-four hours you will be either back in jail or dead.’
She knows what it looks like.
Sascha’s grin becomes a mask.
In the Dark Page 19
