‘One moment.’
Pavlik joins Demirci. Frantic activity in the room. For a moment the two of them are able to talk. ‘Thanks for the Five,’ he says quietly.
Demirci presses his hand for a moment, a surprising, warm touch that does him a huge amount of good. She turns to a colleague, asks precise questions in telegraphese, requiring similar replies. Pavlik gives her a furtive glance. All of a sudden, deep wrinkles have formed on her face. For the first time he notices how slender she is. Strong-willed rather than beautiful, her eyes two big blue splinters broken from a rough sapphire. The first silver threads in her fox-red hair, her nose curved like the beak of a bird of prey. Crows’ feet reveal that she likes to laugh. But Pavlik has never seen her laugh.
‘The U-Bahn towards Brandenburg Gate,’ the policemen tell them. ‘Three local trains: Westkreuz, Wartenberg, Potsdam. Four regional trains: Eisenhüttenstadt, Dessau, Rathenow, Nauen. The Hamburg InterCity. No, it was late. That’s it.’
Pavlik has a think. Regional trains don’t make sense. Too few stops, too risky. The underground is out of the question as well. What would Holm want at the Brandenburg Gate?
Demirci and Pavlik say at the same time: ‘The local train.’
The camera pictures from the station are fed into the video wall. They show the platforms from four perspectives. Not a trace of Aaron.
Fast forward.
‘There they are!’ cries Ines Grauder.
Potsdam. 12:55. The train is already pulling in. Holm has his arm around Aaron’s hip, he holds his phone in his left hand. They run from the escalator to the platform.
Sascha and Mr Uzi are right behind them. Pavlik turns his attention to Mr Uzi. He is carrying the money. A gun bulges under his zipped-up jacket. He has a baseball cap pulled over his face, his head is lowered.
‘Come on, let’s have a look at you,’ Pavlik murmurs.
Aaron taps Mr Uzi on the shoulder. He turns around and looks straight into the camera.
Good girl.
‘Stop!’ Demirci says. The man’s face fills the screen. Mid-forties, fleshy, doughy skin, breathless. ‘Biometric match with INPOL,’ she tells Krampe.
They make a screenshot.
‘What’s Holm got there?’ Büker means the box.
‘A gun of some kind?’ Demirci asks.
Pavlik shakes his head. ‘Too short for a rifle, too flat for a submachine gun, too big for a pistol.’
The video runs on. Two Asian tourists speak to Holm. He removes his right glove with his teeth and takes a photograph of them with their mobile phone as the train comes to a standstill.
‘Miss Grauder, put out a search for these two on the media, Holm’s fingerprints are on the phone.
‘They set off exactly twenty-five minutes ago,’ Pavlik says. ‘How long does the train take to get to Potsdam?’
‘Forty minutes,’ is the answer from the Federal Police.
‘If they’re still on the train – where would they be now?’
‘They’ll be pulling in to Wannsee in a minute.’
‘Do you have any officers there?’
‘Not right now.’
‘Could you send a drone?’
‘No. They’re all in the city and they’ve only got a range of fifteen kilometres.’
‘Do you have access to the cameras in Wannsee?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then hurry up.’
‘Where else does the train stop?’ Demirci asks.
‘Griebnitzsee. Babelsberg. Potsdam Central.’
‘Get plain-clothes officers to the stations right now. If they spot them, they’re just to observe.’
Instructions are given out at the other end.
The pictures from Wannsee come in. The train is already by the platform, the doors open. A man with a dog. Three cyclists taking their bikes off the train. Two women with shopping bags.
Aaron.
Pressing her tightly to his left hip, Holm and walks swiftly, but not too fast, to the exit. Sascha and Mr Uzi follow.
‘Next camera,’ says Pavlik.
They see the station concourse. The three men appear with Aaron. The display is being rearranged in front of a newspaper kiosk. A parcel of papers thumps to the ground.
Aaron stops and speaks to the newsagent.
In mission control the temperature suddenly drops ten degrees.
The newsagent shakes his head. Holm pulls Aaron on. They leave the building and are gone.
‘Are there cameras in front of the station?’ Demirci asks.
‘No.’
‘Get some people over there. I want to know what she said to that man. Dig up some witnesses that you’ve seen leaving the station. They’ll be getting away by car. I want the registration.’
‘There’s a marina three hundred metres away,’ Pavlik adds. ‘Check it too. Just in case they’ve taken a boat.’
Demirci looks at him. ‘Get some sleep.’
‘Don’t need to.’
‘You do. I need you rested.’
*
Niko sits motionless on a chair. His head dangles on his chest. Demirci comes in. She sits down opposite him. He looks up. His nose is swollen, his cheek burst. His mouth is covered with encrusted blood.
‘I see Mr Pavlik has already told you everything you need to know,’ Demirci says coldly.
‘Get over it.’
‘I’m trying to understand what you’ve done. But however hard I try, I can’t quite get there.’
‘That’s between Jenny and me.’
‘The decision about your life.’
‘She begged me to let her go.’
‘It was your damned duty to stop her!’ Demirci bellows.
‘It’s because of Barcelona.’
Demirci lights a cigarette. She takes five deep drags before her voice calms down. ‘What does that mean?’
‘She thinks she lost her honour there. That she was a coward. I couldn’t persuade her otherwise.’
‘I know what you said back then. And what Jenny Aaron said too. There’s just the two of us here, no one’s recording the conversation. What was it really like?’
‘That doesn’t matter any more.’
‘I’ll decide what matters.’
‘Holm and Nina Deraux had hidden guns in the station concourse. His brother shot the three Catalans outside. I took two bullets from Holm. Jenny was able to get away. She killed Deraux and gave Sascha that scar on his neck. Jenny wanted to get me out of there. I was too heavy, I couldn’t help her, I thought I was about to die. She was wounded. Holm was shooting at us. It was impossible. I sent Jenny away. There’s no secret about it. She lives with a guilt that no one else can understand.’
‘No. I understand it. It would have been her duty to eliminate Holm and save you.’
‘You’re talking as if you’d learned it from a handbook.’
His nose is bleeding again. Demirci hands him a tissue. He doesn’t take it. Blood drips down his chin and on to the table. ‘Did you see Gaudí’s cathedral in Barcelona, the Sagrada Familia?’ she asks.
‘What about it?’
‘This is our cathedral. In our family there are laws that aren’t written down anywhere. Some of them I had to learn. But one of them I knew already, because it’s sacred: we don’t abandon a comrade to a certain death.’
‘I’ve freed her from her duty.’
‘That’s not within your authority.’
‘She was panicking.’
‘She never panics. If I’d been in Internal Affairs at the time I’d have brought a case against her. Maybe it never happened because of her achievements or because of her name.’
‘You heartless piece of shit.’
‘I’d have done it until yesterday morning,’ Demirci continues, unmoved. ‘But now I’ve met Jenny Aaron. Whatever led her to do what she did in Barcelona, it must have been highly significant. Something more significant than our code. What would it have been?’
‘I don’t know.’
; The sun is gone. The snow is coming back.
‘There’s something missing,’ she insists.
‘She can’t remember anything about the warehouse. She told me that yesterday.’
Demirci stares at the blood drying on the Formica. Niko’s jugular pulses. His voice breaks. ‘The only thing that isn’t in the report is my fear and her fear and her face before she ran for her life.’
The neon lights flicker. Footsteps patter by outside. Demirci’s phone rings, she picks it up. ‘Yes? I’ll look into it.’ She gets to her feet. ‘Tell me what I’m supposed to do with you.’
Niko looks up. ‘If what I did was a crime, then it’s one that isn’t on the law books.’
‘You’re suspended,’ says Demirci.
*
Pavlik has a sofa. Old and threadbare it stands in his office, occupying half of the small room. Ten years ago he found it by the side of the road and dragged it to the Department. It looks as if it has moths. Once he caught Aaron spraying it with disinfectant. But he does his best thinking on this dirty old settee. It’s notorious in the Department. Anyone who’s cocked up has to sit on it. And then when they’re seen slouching disconsolately down the corridor, someone only has to say, ‘He’s been on the sofa,’ for everyone to understand.
Pavlik can sleep anywhere and at any time, five minutes or five hours, and he’s wide awake a second later. He slept in a hailstorm while his SET waited for the go-ahead. He slept standing up on the U-Bahn on the way to his colonoscopy. He slept when his daughter was getting her first teeth, and woke up immediately before her attack of croup, and calmed her by the open window. In the winter he slept under leaves in the forest, at a Rolling Stones concert and in a stream.
But now he’s been lying on the sofa for twenty minutes staring at the ceiling. The door opens. Demirci. Pavlik immediately sits bolt upright.
‘No witnesses in Wannsee. No one has seen anything.’
He was prepared for that. Much more important is: ‘What did she say to the newsagent?’
‘Verbatim: “Excuse me, don’t you live on Bübingweg?”’
He looks blank.
‘Boenisch used to live there. It was in his file.’
Pavlik thinks for a moment.
‘She was trying to tell us something,’ Demirci says. ‘The information we need must be hidden somewhere in the record of yesterday’s interrogation.’
There’s a quick knock at the door. Helmchen peers in. ‘Forensics have extracted Holm’s DNA from the blood on the knife, but there’s nothing in the database. And the prints have been wiped.’
We still have the two tourists whose picture he took, says the look that Pavlik gives to Demirci.
‘Sorry, I can’t put the conference off any longer,’ Helmchen continues gloomily. ‘I need to at least give them a time for the video link.’
‘In fifteen minutes. Thank you, Miss Helm.’
‘From now on I’m Helmchen to you. If you like.’
Demirci smiles for a second. ‘That’d be great.’
‘Helmchen, where is Boenisch’s interrogation?’ Pavlik asks.
‘I don’t know.’
‘On her phone,’ Demirci remembers. ‘She was going to copy the recording but didn’t get round to it.’
‘It was on the coach, and now it’s in my office. I’ll bring it right down.’ Helmchen withdraws quietly.
Pavlik points to a spot on the sofa beside him. Demirci glances with disgust at a large stain. ‘Is that blood?’
‘No idea.’
‘Right.’ She sits down, but keeps stiffly to the edge.
‘He knows we’re on Budapester Strasse,’ Pavlik says. ‘And he knows our tactics.’
‘Yes. That’s concerned me too.’
‘How did he find out? We don’t give anything away.’
‘A mole?
‘I’ve been through all our people. I can’t imagine any of them doing such a thing. But I don’t want to pretend it’s never happened before. We need to look into them, one by one. But apart from the fact that we don’t have enough time, I think Holm’s source is someone at the top.’
‘The Conference of Interior Ministers…’
‘It needn’t be a minister; maybe a secretary of state,’ Pavlik says. ‘Holm banks on fear. He might have managed to blackmail somebody. There are other possibilities too. He’s a Mafia contract killer. He buys political contacts. If I had to dine with big shots like you do, I’d be very careful who I raise a glass to.’
Silence.
‘Don’t you want to know what Kvist said?’
‘Why?’
‘He calls her “Jenny”. I’ve seen them dancing. How long were they together?’
‘A year.’
‘Would he lie for her?’
‘He’d do anything for her.’
Demirci hesitates. There’s a question she’s itching to ask, but she lets the itch pass. ‘What have we got to work with?’
‘Holm knew I was seventy-five metres away from him. He can determine distances very precisely.’
‘He studied the situation.’
‘Of course. But he didn’t use a tape measure. “Between the eyes from two metres away.” Remember? That was irony.’
‘You think he’s a marksman?’
‘We know of two attacks carried out with rifles. Once in Frankfurt an der Oder, when a Ukrainian woman was killed. And once outside the Hotel Jupiter. Sascha hinted at that one. He was speaking not on his own behalf, but on his brother’s. We’re not talking large distances. But I bet Holm can deal with different ones. It’s a science, you have to learn it. Usually in the army, like I did. Where? He wasn’t in the forces. If we can get prints from him, I’ll compare them with the ones on the Pavlik list.’
Demirci looks at him quizzically.
‘My private archive. I’ve documented the shots from snipers who left clues at the scene of the crime. What about the third man? Did the biometric comparison throw anything up?’
‘No. He’s not a wanted man, no previous, no record on INPOL.’
‘He’s bound to be on some system somewhere. And one more thing: Sascha wanted to get into the back with Aaron. But Holm said: “You’re not allowed to do that.”’
They exchanged a long glance. ‘He’s not letting his brother take his revenge on her,’ Demirci murmurs. ‘Is that good or bad news?’
‘Bad. It means he’s got a punishment in mind for her that’s worse than anything Sascha could do to her.’
‘You said something to Holm a little while ago.’
‘I’ve said a few things to him.’
‘That she’s going to kill him and his brother. You gave your word. Did you mean it?’
‘Yes.’
There isn’t a hint of doubt in the reply. As if Demirci had asked if there was a sofa in his office.
‘What sort of physical condition do you think she’s in?’
‘I gave her a hug. Every muscle is toned. She’s at her fighting weight.’
‘What good is that? She’s blind.’
‘They were at the firing range. It was Aaron’s lane. There’s a notch in the gun rest, right in the middle, so that she was able to take her bearings. Still: a shot like that is a miracle. But that wasn’t the real sensation. She knew it was a nine and not a ten. Do you have any idea what sense of space and physicality you need to have to be able to work out something like that if you’re blind?’
‘I can’t even begin to.’ Demirci’s thoughts are lost in the previous afternoon. A metaphor? Personal experience. ‘She saw the armour in my office.’
‘In what sense?’
‘I don’t know how she did it, but she knew there was something there that she didn’t know from before.’
He lights a cigarette. ‘Holm doesn’t give his enemies a chance. But she still wounded him with the knife. I wouldn’t worry about Aaron’s physical condition.’
‘Does she want to live, or does she want to sacrifice herself?’
‘She le
ft us a message at Wannsee station. So she wants to live.’
‘She thinks she was a coward in Barcelona. Could she regain her honour by saving the children?’
‘No. There was only one way the Samurai achieved that.’
They both know. Only through death.
His breathing is calm but he isn’t. ‘She once said: “If there is still time at the end I don’t want to ask myself why I must die, I want to know why I have lived.”’
22
Fårösund, December 2013
How should I start this letter?
‘Dear Aaron’ sounds strange. We all call each other by our surnames, that’s what we’ve done as long as we’ve known each other. Perhaps because it makes it easier when it comes to giving the ferryman his coin. It’s never worked for me. And not for you either. There was only one that we called by his first name. And we don’t talk about him any more.
I still remember them giving me your file and saying, ‘You should take a look at this one.’ I’d never held an appraisal like yours in my hands before. But I want to be honest: in the meeting at the Ministry I asked you your name, more out of curiosity than anything else. I didn’t want a woman on the squad. Big balls sit uneasily with short skirts. Forgive an old macho man, you know what I mean.
I’m sure you thought I was a snooty arsehole. I just had to see you coming through the door. The rest was idle chatter.
Apart from what I said to you right at the end. You’ll remember.
You were with us for six years. You wore even shorter skirts than I had feared, and turned all heads. Even Pavlik’s, of course. But everyone would have walked through fire for you. I don’t need to tell you why.
A few times the fossils tried to stitch you up. You won’t have known this, but the lads came to me one after another and said: ‘If Aaron goes I’m going too.’ Pavlik and Butz even put their guns on the table. The truth is: if I’d been forced to throw you out, I’d have gone ahead of you.
Because you were the best with a pistol? That too. Because of your intelligence? And that. Because you knew how to kill somebody with the frame of a pair of sunglasses? (Yes, Pavlik told me.) That as well. But basically just because the Department wouldn’t have been the same without you. (And it isn’t.)
In the Dark Page 23
