In the Dark

by Andreas Pflüger

  When we have shooting competitions the sixth lane is left empty, the lads decided that without even bothering to talk about it. So you’re always there with us.

  In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve only disappointed me once. You thought I hadn’t noticed about you and Kvist. I didn’t say a thing. He wasn’t right for you, but it was your business in the end. I’m not your father, even if I’d like to be.

  He was probably the only person prouder of you than I was. Our paths often crossed professionally. I saw his eyes light up when I talked to him about you. But he was worried about you. Once he suggested that it would be better if I put you in shallower waters. I couldn’t do him that favour.

  He was a legend. But if I had had the choice between taking on him in his prime or you – I would have opted for you without hesitation.

  I wasn’t there in Barcelona. I have read a lot of reports in my life. (I’m weary of them all.) Some I approved, others not. But this one was less truthful than any other I have come across. It may all have been like that. With one exception: that you were a coward. Whoever wrote that never knew you. The only one who can assess a situation is the person in that situation. No report can explain why you acted one way and not another.

  Maybe there’s also something you’re keeping to yourself. You’ll have your reasons for that. If you feel like it, let’s go fishing together and you can tell me all about it.

  I’m retiring in two years. My successor has already been chosen. Inan Demirci. A woman, just think! (Well, you got the ball rolling.) She’s pretty good, she just needs to loosen up a little. They’re giving me a watch, and I’m sailing my boat to Sweden. The house is always open to you.

  Right now I’m sitting here on the veranda. I’m enjoying a few free days with an old friend. He’s sleeping in the hammock. You know him, he runs the terrorism section in the BKA. Last night I was delighted when he said you were working as a case analyst for them. (Before you come to the wrong conclusion: I didn’t intervene.)

  You impressed him. But that much was obvious.

  How should I explain to you what I felt at that moment? When my son told me I was about to be a grandfather it was fantastic. Waking up after my heart operation. (Last year, but I’m fine.) And my thirtieth wedding anniversary. Because I can’t get my head around the fact that I’ve survived all that and am still allowed to love this wonderful woman, even today. (I’m to send hugs!) This belongs in that category.

  We can’t change the direction of the wind, but we can set the sail differently. You did that. You are what you are. There is no situation so hopeless that you can’t take control of it. You will always make the best of everything. That’s who you are.

  Now I also know how I should have started this letter. Welcome back, Aaron. That’s what I should have said.

  Your old friend, Lissek

  *

  For forty minutes she has been counting the seconds while thinking at the same time. They are on the freeway. Aaron can tell by the quiet vibration of the floor of the car, the low-noise asphalt, the lack of turns and traffic lights. Right after leaving Wannsee station she was thrown into the unheated cargo area. Holm told Bosch to bind her hands behind her back with a cable tie. He took the Uzi from him, he’s taking no risks. ‘Don’t be deceived by her blindness. If you give her the slightest chance she’ll break your neck like a matchstick.’

  Holm addresses him formally. Of course. He would never put anyone on the same level as himself.

  The cable tie cuts deep into her skin. As they drove off she clicked and worked out that she is in a transporter or a lorry. Bosch sits on the floor facing her. The bag of money is between them, she can poke it with her feet. The brothers are up front in the driver’s cabin. She doesn’t know if there’s a window or not.

  She worked out a long time ago that Holm doesn’t want to leave her alone with Token-Eyes. She has his phrase in her ear:

  You’re not allowed to do that.

  Aaron inconspicuously shifts her position for the third time. She has already explored the floor twenty centimetres to the right. She slips slightly to the left and tries to find something to rub through the tie that binds her wrists together. Nothing. Another ten centimetres.

  Her fingers brush only grooved metal.

  Bosch unscrews a water bottle. Drinks. Puts the top back on. Lights his sixth cigarette. She hears the click of the disposable lighter, smells the smoke.

  ‘Can I have a drag?’

  He doesn’t respond, smokes hastily, ignores her. Aaron remembers his voice and tries to assign it a physique. She’s not very good at that. Sometimes she thinks a voice is attractive and masculine and learns later that it belonged to someone fat, thin or bent-backed. A young voice can belong to an old person and vice versa. A life, the sum total of everything that shapes a voice, is not a matter of years.

  Bosch’s vocabulary is limited, he mumbles his words sloppily, treats them without love; the rhythm of the syllables is monotonous. His voice always goes up slightly at the ends of his sentences. As if he felt he had been treated unfairly, and always felt that he had to defend himself. There’s a rage in him that he isn’t allowed to express.

  His fear of Holm is plain; he is completely subordinate to him. But there can’t be anyone who isn’t afraid of Holm, Aaron included. Bosch responds to instructions with a brusque ‘yes’ or ‘good’. She concludes from this that he has spent a long time in a system based on orders and obedience. He is used to the company of men who aren’t repelled by it. The army, she suspects, but not an officer.

  It’s clear what Holm needs him for; Bosch gave it away in the BMW when Token-Eyes asked again: ‘So, what’s the point of you?’ Could be that he’s good at stress situations, but today’s events have been far too much for him. Bosch’s nerves aren’t under control, or he wouldn’t have turned to face the camera on the station platform.

  She needs to build up a relationship with the man. He’s the only one who stands between her and the brothers. Could stand between them. ‘Just a drag,’ Aaron says again. She looks past him, pretends to be searching for his face, trying to arouse his pity. Again Bosch doesn’t react. ‘They’re my brand.’

  He leans forwards. She feels the cigarette between her lips and sucks greedily on it, Chesterfield. ‘What’s your first name?’ she asks. ‘Mine is Jenny. Actually Jennifer. But no one has ever called me that.’

  ‘I know what you’re trying to do.’ He opens the zip of the bag. Counts money. Trying to distract himself.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Sweet-talk me.’

  He is speaking downwards, looking at the money. Aaron exploits the fact to slide over a few more centimetres. She grips something and carefully examines it. A hook for a lashing strap. ‘I just want us to get to know each other a bit better,’ she says, and starts rubbing the cable tie against the hook. ‘So that you listen to me when I tell you who Holm is. You don’t seem to know.’

  ‘I don’t care what’s up between you two.’ He closes the bag.

  ‘And even if you count the money ten times, you won’t see a penny of it. Holm has never shared anything with anyone. Not even his brother. He can kill a human being in lots of different ways.’

  ‘He said you would try this.’

  ‘Did he also tell you we bumped into each other earlier today? Ask him.’

  ‘Be quiet.’

  ‘In the flat belonging to the florist. He mentioned it to my colleague. You remember?’ She concentrates hard on the cable tie, holding her arms still, just moving her hands. Bosch lights another cigarette. She hears him trying to stick the lighter into the pack. He bungles it the first time, manages it the second. ‘Holm said: “Tonight you will be dead, and my brother and I will be five million richer.” He didn’t mention you.’

  ‘You must think I’m an absolute idiot.’

  ‘I think you’re someone who doesn’t want to die. Who should have a think about whether he has a place in Holm’s plans. Do you know what
he did with that florist? He flayed and gutted her like an animal. He threw her little child out of the fourth-floor window.’

  Bosch opens the zip again.

  They are slowing down. They stop. Aaron’s pulse is going at full speed. If Holm drags her from the truck with her hands tied in the middle of nowhere, she’ll be defenceless.

  No, we haven’t turned off. It’s the freeway.

  Sirens are coming closer. Police and fire brigade, they wail right past her, getting quieter until they’re a mere whisper. An accident far ahead.

  Aaron checks her breath. ‘Why do you think his brother asked what the point of you was? If you help me you might stay alive.’

  She’s working away on the steel hook. Her skin tears. Her wrists are burning.

  There is no situation that you can’t master.

  Aaron hears Bosch taking off his jacket. The cigarette smoke comes closer. She feels Bosch’s breath. Something touches her cheek. Moves along it, feels chapped, then sweaty. She recoils. He strokes Aaron’s other cheek. She realizes that it’s his forearm.

  Scars. A landscape of pain.

  ‘I’ve killed a lot of people,’ Bosch whispers. ‘I’ve been told my price. That would only be fair. It’s a shitty business.’

  He sits back down facing Aaron and counts the money. His smell stays in her nostrils.

  Aaron seeks protection in her inner room. The vibration of the vehicle. The smoke from the cigarette. The rustle of banknotes. The memory of Lissek’s letter. Her bleeding wrists. This hook. Her fear.

  That’s all she has.

  And the question: Will Pavlik understand my message?

  *

  Helmchen brings him Aaron’s mobile. ‘It’s turned off. Do you want me to get someone from technical support to sort out the PIN?’

  ‘Not necessary. Where’s the bus driver?’

  ‘He’s up at Keithstrasse being questioned by the Criminal Police.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to him.’

  ‘I’ve sorted that out already.’ Helmchen sets a little box decorated with a ribbon down on Pavlik’s desk.

  ‘You’re not proposing to me, are you?’ he says.

  ‘Your birthday present. I wasn’t here yesterday.’

  He picks up the box and turns it around.

  ‘Eighteen years ago, when you turned up on your first day, and came and sat in the waiting room ahead of your interview with Lissek, I had some things on my mind,’ she says. ‘A good friend of mine was very ill. Usually I’m able to hide such things, and you didn’t know me. But you smiled at me and said: “For every rotten day there are ten good ones.” I was grateful to you for that.’

  Pavlik remembers.

  ‘All the new recruits sat in my waiting room,’ she goes on. ‘They were all very preoccupied, they were wondering what to expect, whether or not they were about to be thrown into icy water, whether they would be up to the job. You weren’t. You were quite calm and had time to address my worries. Even then it occurred to me that you might be the only one who would still be working in the Department when he was fifty.’

  Pavlik fiddles with the ribbon, can’t open it with his fat fingers and finally pulls it apart in the time-honoured male fashion.

  The box contains a cartridge case.

  ‘I asked the range attendant to give me the case from your first bullet. Congratulations, Ulf. And thanks for always being a friend, a brother, and even a father to the others.’

  Pavlik doesn’t know what to say.

  ‘I’ve only ever had that thought twice. You know who the other person was. That cartridge case is in my desk drawer. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.’ She looks at him for a long time. He has never seen that expression on her face before. ‘You’re all she has.’

  Pavlik merely nods. Helmchen leaves the room.

  He studies the cartridge case, rolls it between his fingers. It looks like many thousands of others. And yet it’s precious. Pavlik puts it gently back in the box.

  Aaron still has a white phone. ‘A girly mobile,’ he used to tease her. He tries the last four digits of her old ID number. Invalid. When did Marlowe come into her life? He doesn’t know. The date of her father’s death? Invalid. He has one more go before the phone is locked.

  1905. Sandra’s birthday. Accepted.

  Two folders of speech recordings. ‘Interrogations’ and ‘Personal’.

  ‘19 June. What happened in the bar in Paris?’

  ‘20 June. Was I really with Butz in Antwerp?’

  ‘21 June. What colour are Pavlik’s eyes?’

  ‘22 June. What was the name of the hotel in Barcelona?’

  ‘23 June. Did I have piano lessons as a child?’

  ‘24 June. What does Sandra’s laugh sound like?’

  ‘25 June. Where did I learn Russian?’

  ‘26 June. Which dress did Niko like me to wear?’

  He flinches.

  ‘2 December. Back to Barcelona. The most important questions: how long was I in the warehouse for? What happened during that time? What state was Niko in? Did he touch me? Did I touch him? Did we speak? What did we say? Why didn’t I try to eliminate Holm? Why did I flee, leaving Niko behind? Why didn’t I call the MEK, why didn’t I call an ambulance?’

  He stands up and opens the window. The cold stings his face. Houses stand out against the low sky. Essentially, he knew the moment Aaron asked him what he looked like outside the Hotel Jupiter. But he hoped he was wrong. No, he was lying to himself.

  That’s why she handed herself over to Holm: because he knows the truth. She’s prepared to die for that.

  Outside, a discarded Christmas tree rolls around on the street. The phone rings. Pavlik gives a start.

  ‘You wanted to know if anything was going on with Kvist. He’s clearing his desk,’ he hears Fricke say when he picks up.

  ‘Is the bug in his car?’

  ‘Yes. Claus put it here. A mic under the headrest.’

  ‘We’ve got two men on him.’

  ‘Just like that. Why? Are they going to have a beer with him?’

  ‘He was alone with her. He may know more than we do.’

  ‘He’ll notice. Just as he did yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday it wouldn’t have mattered. Today it will. Peschel and Nieser are doing it in two cars. They can keep their distance, we’ve got the GPS. Call the BKA and send Kleff and Rogge. Tell them they need two cars from the Set of Eight.’ The vehicles from the BKA’s Set of Eight have registration plates from the eight big German cities. ‘But not Berlin, Munich or the Ruhr. An old jalopy of some kind. Take over from Peschel and Nieser as quickly as you can.’

  ‘Just a second.’ A murmur. Then Fricke again: ‘We’ve got those two tourists. A guy selling city tour tickets at the zoo recognized them from the descriptions on the radio. The Federal Police are taking prints off the phone. If they haven’t wiped it since the photograph was taken, we could be lucky.’

  ‘Compare with AFIS straight away.’ He shuts the window, sits down at the desk and starts to play the Boenisch recording.

  ‘I’m so sorry that you’re blind. So sorry.’

  ‘…You work in the laundry. Do you get on with your colleagues?’

  A laundry van as a getaway car? No, they couldn’t have known that at Wannsee station.

  ‘…One of the guards beat me up.’

  Mr Uzi: a warder from Tegel? Possible.

  ‘…Is the reception on your transistor radio good?’

  Electrical goods shop?

  ‘…I’m ashamed that I watched that film. I shouldn’t have done.’

  Video rental?

  ‘…I’m so glad you came that time. So glad. You saved my life.’

  Pavlik shuts his eyes. He tries to imagine the young woman standing in the dark outside the house in Spandau. The young woman Pavlik never knew. She was twenty, her future a big lucky dip. Certainly the trainers didn’t give her an easy time because of her name. If anything it made them tougher on Aaron than t
hey were on the others. Did she have friends among her colleagues? Maybe not. People like her attract people and unsettle them at the same time; you have to be able to tolerate their company.

  Had she been in love with a nice boy, one of the tall, dark ones she likes so much? What were her dreams? Was she carefree? Arrogant? Happy?

  When Aaron began her six months’ probation with the Sixth Homicide Unit on Keithstrasse, Pavlik had been with the Department for two years. They were only five hundred metres apart. And yet a whole world. His work had nothing to do with the everyday running of the Criminal Police.

  He went to the Sixth every now and again because they had the best canteen. Sometimes he wonders if he ever saw Aaron there. No, he’d have noticed. You can’t help noticing her wherever she is. At first that was a problem for Lissek. He was unsure whether he should send her undercover. She could hardly make herself invisible. But he quickly realized that Aaron’s appearance was a plus. No one would ever think a woman like that could be a policewoman.

  Pavlik had heard of Boenisch sixteen years before, of course; the papers were full of him. There had been talk of a ‘brave police trainee’ who had hunted down the serial killer all by herself. No picture of her. He wished he could have hugged and comforted her then, rather than only being able to do it so much later.

  ‘…My angel. Thanks for knocking at my door.’

  Pavlik looks over at the sofa. Aaron is sitting there.

  *

  They have known each other for two years now and have been friends for ages. She and Marlowe come to their house. They play Scrabble and Barricade, have barbecues on Saturdays. If she hadn’t been in that bar in Clichy, his children wouldn’t have a father right now.

  She works like clockwork.

  But yesterday she did something that startled him.

  They’d gone training at the Mill. The LKA called. A man was holed up in a house with his wife and small son because his wife wanted to leave him. He was threatening to kill her and the child. Normally it would have been a case for the Brandenburg police. But the Mill was only two kilometres away, and the Department was asked for help.