André, you and I were the sixth lane. How often have I heard you half-inhaling. But when you exhaled again, I wasn’t with you. What did you mean that last time, with that kiss on my forehead that was supposed to be for ever?
‘Klaus couldn’t cope in the west. It was – how can I put it – like planting a palm tree at the North Pole. He was desperate to get to the west, but once he was there he wanted to go back, and by then it was impossible. We didn’t know the Wall would come down two years later. I didn’t have the strength to be strong for both of us. We got divorced and I was very sad for a long time. But life goes on, and I’m not the type just to break down and cry. I met a good man and married him. He wasn’t the sweetest man in the world, but everybody has their foibles, I’ve always said. Having our daughter is the best thing I’ve ever done. She lives in Innsbruck and is six months gone. I’m about to be a grandmother, can you believe it? I gave up acting when I fell pregnant. After a few years I happened on the idea of looking for old chewing-gum dispensers; you wouldn’t believe how many of those there still are, rotting away in attics and basements. And I sold them at the flea market on 17 Junistrasse. Not for the money, my husband had a very good job, he was an engineer, but it was a lot of fun. It could be that it was my father’s fault because of what he said about the Franconian accent.’
When did Holm give up sleeping? He can’t have gone to bed last night. He followed Aaron to the party, and at four he came after Pavlik. He was in Eva Askamp’s apartment early in the morning. But maybe he needs no sleep at all. An okapi only sleeps for five minutes a day. No, Holm isn’t an okapi, he’s a beast of prey. Lions sleep for twenty hours, the world is unjust. Maybe he’s a shark. Sharks never sleep.
Vera is an okapi.
‘One Sunday someone behind me asks how much I want for the chewing-gum dispenser that I’m particularly fond of. I dusted it down from the props department of Babelsberg film studio, it’s decorated with little cosmonauts and rockets, and it takes East German 10-pfennig coins. I turn around and there stands Klaus, right in front of me. We were both lost for words at first. We had divorced nineteen years ago and never heard a word from each other in the meantime. He had lived in Berlin, in Friedrichshain, near the Märchenbrunnen, he had a small taxi company and was also married, but childless. He had just inherited the farm from an aunt. In fact he had always dreamed of living in the country, not least because of the hunting. We went for a coffee. When he told me he wanted to start an ostrich farm because that was the future, it seemed perfectly sensible to me. He could have been telling me he wanted to emigrate to Bongo-Bongo Land, and it wouldn’t have mattered. Everything was somehow always good the way it was, I thought. But when we were about to say goodbye, we kissed rather than shaking hands, and he tasted like the best chocolate in the world. Then I knew that this time it was right. And he knew too. We both got divorced and moved here, and we’ve been breeding ostriches for eight years now. The chewing-gum dispenser hangs in the kitchen. You might think that cosmonauts and rockets aren’t really appropriate for an ostrich farm, but I think they are. Those creatures are as thick as two short planks, they can’t even tell the difference between food and your hand. You should see my hands, your eyes would pop out; they’re covered with welts because I’ve been pecked so often. But one thing is certain: every day I’ve been happy. Not many people can say that.’
The sudden silence wakes Aaron out of her slumber. She can tell by the twitching beside her that Vera is crying in silence.
‘We aren’t going to die,’ she whispers. ‘What’s up with your mobile phone, did he take it from you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where’s the landline?’
‘In the hall. He cut through the cable.’
‘You showed him the weapons cabinet. Where did he put the ammunition?’
‘He threw it in the pond behind the house,’ Vera struggles to say.
‘Is there any ammunition anywhere else?’
‘No. I don’t know. Are you really a policewoman?’
‘Yes.’
‘A blind one?’ Vera asks dubiously.
‘Yes.’
‘What do they want?’
‘They want money, one of them wants to kill me. The one you took to the weapons cabinet.’
‘I’m not rich.’
‘They’ll demand a ransom for me. I’m valuable, Vera, and I’m sure we’re very remote here. Your husband is a hunter. An uncle of mine used to go hunting. Apart from the rifles he always kept a loaded revolver in the house, just in case.’
‘A revolver is no use to us. You’re blind, and I don’t know how to fire it.’
‘Where is the revolver?’
‘I’m not crazy.’
‘We need to find a way of getting at the gun. You just need to give it to me, not fire it.’
‘I’m not doing that. I wouldn’t have a chance against them.’
‘I can tell by your voice that you’re a lot braver than you think.’
*
Ten brave things that Aaron has done:
crossing the street for the first time as a blind woman
standing up to the brother of a Turkish classmate
going to the meeting in Tangier
eating in Cambodia
flying to Moscow
stepping on to the pond in the winter after Ben’s death
riding with Pavlik on the Agusta
not opening the window in the clinic for three weeks
refusing to shake hands with a Minister of the Interior
waiting for Niko at Schönefeld
*
‘You know absolutely nothing about me.’ Vera is crying again.
Aaron doesn’t want to force her. She struggles to her feet to get her circulation going. Her feet are bare and icy cold.
Holm wants me to stay awake. To concentrate.
She puts her ear to the door and listens, hears quiet voices but can’t make out a word.
*
Holm watches his brother attacking the ostrich steak, which he found in the fridge and fried for just long enough for it to turn grey, tearing it to pieces with his knife and fork, and then gulping them down without chewing them properly. Holm knows that for five years Sascha wolfed down institutional food in exactly the same way as he had eaten every one of his meals since he had known him. If he had asked his brother what he missed most in jail, decent food wouldn’t have been high up the list. Just women, guns, some houses. But Sascha tortures women, empties magazines, lets houses go to rack and ruin. Just as he has let himself go to rack and ruin. Because he means nothing more to himself than a piece of meat that he gulps down.
Bosch eats his steak with patience and concentration. He cuts it into identically sized pieces. He chews every mouthful until the tap drips again. Before each bite he breaks off a bit of bread. As he does so he thinks. Holm said: ‘We’re going to get hold of another five million.’ How? Bosch won’t ask him; he barely dares to look at him. Holm just sits there. He experiences time in his own way. When Bosch raises his head, he looks into Sascha’s eyes. He finds nothing there that he hasn’t known for ages. Sascha will kill him at his first opportunity. The way he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Would Bosch be a match for him? Of course not: he wouldn’t have a ghost of a chance. And yet he’s not afraid of him. It’s impossible to be in the same room as Holm and be afraid of someone else.
Sascha dips bread in the blood on his plate. ‘How much longer are we going to be sitting around in this place?’ he asks his brother.
‘That’s entirely up to you.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘That if I were you I’d start wondering about what the demands are going to be, what terms I’m negotiating, and where and when the money’s going to be handed over.’
‘So you’re not interested in that any more?’
‘No. The money’s yours.’
‘And there speaks someone who sent five million up in smoke.’
‘Today Jenny Aaron saved a school class and sacrificed herself. The blind heroine. That’s what the media will call her, something like that. She’s the most valuable hostage in Germany. That’s worth three or five or ten million. They’ll pay up.’
Sascha takes the Glock from the belt of his trousers and aims it at Bosch’s forehead. ‘And I don’t have to share.’
Bosch puts down his knife and fork. There is one thing that won’t leave him in peace. He shouldn’t have brought Elias that toy fire engine. Maybe a scooter. Then everything might have been different.
‘Bosch, ask our hostess which railway line we can hear.’
The words are enough to keep Sascha from firing. Bosch goes outside. He’s just as happy to stay alive as he would have been glad if Sascha had pulled the trigger.
‘That wouldn’t be a clever move,’ Holm says when he’s alone with his brother. ‘You need him for your getaway. After that you can kill him whenever you like. Although how many million you have is irrelevant. You wouldn’t know what to do with one million any more than you would with a hundred.’
Sascha is holding the cocked gun. His finger is only a millimetre from the pressure point. No, less.
A thin film of sweat is all that lies in between.
A twitch would do it.
‘Maybe you’d be happy for a second or two,’ his brother says, reading his mind. ‘And then? You wouldn’t even be able to enjoy that.’
‘Why can’t I have Aaron?’
‘What do you want to take revenge on her for? For that woman you slept with? Who was pregnant by you? You’d have slit her belly open if you’d known. Because Aaron put you in jail? She didn’t. I put you there. No, there’s only one reason: because you lay in front of her bleeding. Because she saw you as you are, weak, and still the child pleading with me to kill our father. Who do you hate more? Her or yourself? The fact that she’s blind has aroused you for five years. But today she even took that away from you. Because she isn’t helpless. Because she’s fighting for her life more than you could ever have done. That drives you so crazy that you would bite your fingers off if it was the price you had to pay to be able to kill her. But the same emptiness, the same hatred, the same pain would still be inside you. Because the one you really want to kill is yourself. It’s the only way you can defeat the monster within. But you lack the courage. Nothing will ever free you, not a thousand screams or an ocean of money. On the other hand I have more of a right to my revenge than you could imagine. I can end something and you can’t. I can forgive myself, and you can’t. I can be redeemed. I won’t explain it to you because you wouldn’t understand. But be sure of one thing: my punishment for Aaron goes far beyond anything you could comprehend.’
He stands up.
‘Either you shoot me in the back right now, or you’ll cry all the way to your grave.’
Holm walks to the door.
Sascha aims the Glock at his brother, closes his eyes and hears the shot. He sees him collapse, sees that he wants to say something else, looks down at him, enjoys the blood pouring from his mouth, smiles and lets him slowly suffocate in his own blood.
No wish is as great as this, no quiver as great as his, when he opens his eyes again and stares at the door that his brother has closed behind him.
*
The icy west wind hisses in the juniper bushes and the rowan trees, beyond which the raging sea breaks against the cliffs. The man stands on the terrace of his house and huddles into his warm lambskin jacket, while in the bay the beam from the Svingrund lighthouse circles among the low clouds and the winter rain washes his face. He and his wife have just eaten the fish that he caught today, and then sat down in front of the television to watch the German news. Aaron’s name wasn’t mentioned, and neither were the names of the men who took a blind woman hostage. But none of that was necessary.
He set down the wine glass, picked up his jacket and went out on to the terrace without a word. His wife is sitting in the house, he knows she is crying. Two days ago, Pavlik called and told him about Sascha and the dead psychologist in Boenisch’s cell. He said that Aaron wouldn’t be coming to Berlin. That Demirci was bracing herself for the worst. Tacitly she hoped that he would call her.
But he didn’t. When he took up the job all those years ago, he would have been grateful if his predecessor had initiated him into the tasks at hand. Of all the mistakes he has ever made, that is the one he regrets the most.
His mobile phone vibrates. In no great hurry, he takes it out of his pocket, never showing nerves or anxiety. Not even when he is alone.
‘Hello, Lissek.’
‘Hello, Pavlik.’ His voice is calm and confident. The kind of voice to which men would entrust their lives.
Like Pavlik’s own voice. ‘Have you heard?’
‘Yes.’
Pavlik is crouching under a solar panel. This time he went on his own; he didn’t want to share the cold and wind with anyone. ‘She’s still alive. Holm pressed for his brother’s release.’
‘What have you got?’
‘I’m in Finow. There’s a Cessna here. Apparently they want to fly to Vilnius tomorrow. There’s no seat in the plane for Aaron.’
Lissek sees her coming through the door at the Interior Ministry. He thinks: she shines. And years later, when she has pulled him lightly from an abyss: she shines from within. He realizes that he’s already starting to remember her. He mustn’t do that. ‘I would gladly piss blood for ever if I could just turn back time by two days.’
‘You couldn’t have prevented it. You know Aaron. You’d have been throwing yourself in the way of a leaping tiger.’
‘Is she there of her own free will?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did she manage that?’
‘Kvist.’
The terrace door opens. Lissek turns towards his wife. She sees that he is making a phone call and watches him, trembling. He gestures to her not to bother him. Controls his breathing. ‘Where is he?’
‘Suspended. We’re keeping him under surveillance.’
On Fårösund the wind whips up the sea, in Finow it shakes the snow from the pines.
Pavlik sees a shadow sliding away under the clouds and reflecting the moonlight. ‘Stay on the line.’ He puts the conversation on hold and activates his throat mic.
‘SET 6 to technical department.’
‘Technical support here,’ Krampe replies immediately.
‘There’s a drone buzzing around the place. If it flies any lower I can bring it down with a stone. Those idiots should take it higher.’
‘Got you. Over and out.’
Pavlik switches back to Lissek. ‘I’ve got to ask you something, I wanted to ask you the day before yesterday.’
‘Yes?’
‘That invented pen-pal’s name was Eva Askamp. Does the name mean anything to you?’
Lissek thinks for a second. ‘No – was?’
‘Holm killed her today.’ His eye follows the drone, which is gaining altitude and disappearing into the clouds. His voice plummets. ‘And three of our men.’
‘Who?’
‘Blaschke, Clausen. And Butz.’
Lissek gave up smoking thirteen years ago. But he knows he will have to go down into the village later and buy a pack of filterless Gitanes in the Värdshuset. He thinks of the eight o’clock plane from Visby via Stockholm to Berlin that he will board tomorrow, of Blaschke’s wife, Clausen’s children, Butz’s sister. He thinks about the words he will have to find to tell them how he was connected with those men. Of course Pavlik and Demirci will already have paid their condolences. But it was Lissek who recruited them for the Department. That responsibility remains. That and a call he didn’t make.
Pavlik knows all that. He waits patiently. At last Lissek clears his throat. ‘Why are you asking me about the woman?’
‘Because her name is driving me mad.’
‘I’ve never heard it before.’ The rain trickles down his collar, reminding him of a different rain man
y winters ago and making him shiver. ‘How’s Demirci coping?’
‘Outstandingly, like you.’
The undertone doesn’t escape Lissek. ‘But?’
‘She’s asked to see the Internal Affairs report on André.’
‘I’d have done that in your place too.’
‘Bullshit,’ Pavlik growls.
‘How long have we known each other?’
‘A few days.’
‘And how many times have we been wrong?’
Pavlik doesn’t need to answer.
‘So don’t say it’s impossible.’
‘Enjoy your retirement, old man.’
‘Who are you raging at, Demirci or yourself?’
‘The whole world.’
‘Rage isn’t a useful counsellor.’
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘One more thing, my friend: we’ve always sorted things out in our own way. If it’s true and you find yourself up against him, don’t give him a single chance. He’s too good for that.’
31
Holm opens a door. Even before she feels her way down the steps with her hands bound, even before she notices the musty smell, even before her bare feet touch the icy floor, Aaron knows they lead to the basement.
‘A suitable place for the two of us, don’t you think? Put your hands above your head.’
She does it. Bumps into something dangling above her. Holds it tightly.
‘You see: the lightbulb is cold. I’m as blind as you are. It will help us both to concentrate. You are longing for a cigarette. Those days are gone. You should be aware that you will never again have that taste on your tongue. It’s time to talk about loss.’
The cold gnaws its way through her body like an animal.
‘I’ve taken your coat away. You are barefoot, you are freezing.’ He takes her hands and presses them against his naked chest. ‘Another thing we share. You have lots of questions. I want to answer them. The first is: what link was there between me and Ilya Nikulin?’ Holm lets go of her hands but stays close in front of her. ‘And I need to see him with the eyes of the twenty-year-old boy. He lived in a big house on Lake Geneva, he had a lot of servants, a beautiful boat, elegant cars. I saw him issuing a cheque for a hundred million dollars. But all his possessions, the industrial subsidiaries he acquired, the politicians he bought, were not the result of greed. Nikulin didn’t accumulate these things to fill a void. Do you know why he did it?’
In the Dark Page 35
