He dreamed that his brother watched him as he slept.
That Aaron jabbed a finger between his ribs in the river and he had to rest on the floor beside the little room until the Touch of Death let go of him.
Now.
That Aaron was screaming.
He wakes up, but doesn’t yet open his eyes. He sits up, hears Aaron sobbing behind the door to the room, and knows what his brother has done.
Holm flexes his muscles, feels them obeying him, flowing, filling his tattoos.
He goes into the kitchen. Sascha is sitting at the table smoking. Holm sees his brother enjoying every drag. He’ll hold out for five minutes, maybe ten. Sascha doesn’t look up. He’s with him in three paces that might just as well be one. He bangs Sascha’s head so hard against the tabletop that smears of blood are left when he pulls his brother up by the hair and throws him in the corner. Before Sascha can reach for his Glock, Holm is kneeling beside him with the Remington in his hand, forcing him to open his mouth. He pokes in the barrel of the gun until Sascha chokes.
‘It would have been better if our father had killed you so that you could never remind me of my guilt. I’m paying off that debt now by letting you leave this house alive. Get your money. If you come back, I will choose for you one of the deaths that I dreamed up and rejected for Aaron.’
He pulls the Remington very slowly out of his brother’s mouth. His eyes are two bottomless pits.
Sascha somehow drags himself up. He dodges his brother’s eyes like a dog dodging a stick. The front door closes. Holm stands still, in a different time, until he hears Sascha driving away in the Mazda.
He goes to the door and opens it.
Aaron flies at him.
He effortlessly stabilizes her double knife hand, crashes his fists into her kidneys, grabs her and throws her back into the room. She lies next to the dead woman. Holm can see her tears.
He sits down in the corridor. His thoughts are as clear and calm as the sea after a storm. So he speaks: ‘I am following the seventh virtue by being loyal beyond death. I respect the sixth virtue by acting honourably to the last. The fifth virtue commands that the truth be told. I have always that too. In line with the fourth virtue I call you “Miss Aaron” and not by the name that I want to give you. The third I showed with the coat that I wrapped you in when you were cold. I have just discovered how heavy the second weighs. Freeing myself from my brother took more courage than anything else. But the first is the most important. Righteousness. That virtue led you to stand by the bus open-armed. It forced me to acknowledge that I loved Ilya Nikulin’s daughter. His little Natashenka, his everything. Even though I knew he would never allow me to spend a happy minute with her. He had sacrificed his son and seen his eldest daughter die. His greatest fear was that he would have to close Natalya’s eyes as well; so he concealed the fact that she was his daughter. Like the man I liquidated for him in London, she led an inconspicuous life under another name. Nikulin gave her a legal business that had nothing to do with his own dealings. He also insisted that she was only employed there for show; that was how scared he was. Righteousness also includes justice. You knew Natalya. Because she was the woman you killed in the underground car park of the Hotel Aralsk.’
34
‘The railway is just five kilometres from the airfield,’ Demirci tells him. ‘It leads through the Barnimer Heide, a huge area of woodland. Seven villages in a radius of fifteen kilometres, lots of remote farmhouses. The Federal Police are on a state of alert, but I’ve told them to keep a low profile. It would take days to comb those woods, apart from the fact that we’d just startle Holm.’
Pavlik would have done exactly the same. He knows that everything will be decided here in Finow, between the hill that he is lying on and the one on the other side, the clearing that he is endlessly staring at. His pupils contract painfully. Demirci’s voice is the only reason not to give in to the temptation of closing his eyes for several minutes. She told him how she grew up, a Turkish girl in a small town in Hessen in the seventies; about the mockery of the other children – ‘garlic eater’, ‘wog’ – about the teachers who immediately put her in the back row, her first proper friend at twelve, the daughter of an Italian guest-worker, the parents who taught her to be proud of her origins, police academy – ‘what’s someone like that doing here?’ – her colleagues at her first posting in Koblenz whose idea of a joke was to hang a headscarf in her locker, her obsessive desire to be the best.
Pavlik thinks of Aaron, and how similar the two women are.
‘My superior officer’s name was Himmler,’ she says. ‘He never considered changing it, he was above all that. Once when I had a fit of the blues, he said: “Who knows anything about you? A handful of people. No one else cares.” And I had to—’
‘Psst,’ he interrupts her. Blackbirds are chattering in the glade. Blackbirds are reliable warning signs. Pavlik turns into the path that leads to the viewpoint. No headlights, no engine noises. When he aims his sights into the glade again, a fox jumps out from under a picnic bench. It looks straight into Pavlik’s goggles; he can see how disappointed the fox is to have revealed itself.
We both know that feeling, my friend. But you aren’t going to give up and neither am I.
‘False alarm.’
‘There’s something else I’ve been wanting to ask you for ages,’ Demirci says. ‘Why were you so cold with me when I took up the job? I held out my hand, but you walked right past me without a word. Was it something personal, or did you suddenly feel wrong-footed?’
Pavlik says nothing.
‘Stupid joke, sorry.’
‘No, I tell the best one-legged joke myself.’ She hears him breathing gently.
After a long time he says: ‘In November MI5 came to us. They suspected a “Real IRA” cell of financing their war on the British presence in Ulster by arms-dealing, and created the story that a German was interested in doing a deal with them. Lissek sent me to Belfast. Have you ever been there?’
‘No.’
‘Wouldn’t bother. It says in the papers that the war is over. Not true. The cell was small, intelligent and suspicious. But my prosthesis was the perfect disguise, as it so often is. I managed to win their trust. They only talked to me about politics. I didn’t have to make too much of an effort to share many of their views, although maybe not all of them. Don’t these men have the right to fight for their homeland? What do you think?’
‘I’m a Kurd.’
‘Then we agree. The days turned into weeks. Patrick O’Byrne was their leader, eight years older than me. He wouldn’t have got through a doorway, had a chest like a Guinness barrel, a bird could have nested in his curls. I spent long evenings in pubs with him. Pat wanted to get to know me before he did any deals with me, he wanted to be sure the weapons would be used in a good cause. They weren’t the Mafia, they were patriots. He told me what had made him the man he was. Have you heard of Long Kesh?’
‘No. What is it?’
‘A jail that the British built specially for IRA prisoners. Pat spent five years in there. The warders took away his mattress, his blanket, clothes and shoes, they tied his hands behind his back. They hung a bucket of water in front of the cell window and scattered broken glass on the floor. He was forced to walk barefoot over it so as not to die of thirst. I don’t know what it’s like for Kurds in Turkish jails, but it can’t be much worse.’
‘You can’t build a global empire without a touch of cruelty. And where the Kurds are concerned – a nephew of mine would contradict you.’
A snowflake dances into Pavlik’s sights. Soon it isn’t alone, and loses itself among others. Now what he had feared is happening.
‘What is it?’ Demirci asks.
‘Enemy from above.’
She knows immediately what he means. ‘A lot?’
‘Not yet, but soon.’ His picture distorts, and he corrects his sights. ‘I told Pat about myself as well. But nothing about Sandra, the twins, the baby. I told him about
an empty villa in Düsseldorf, a failed marriage, a son I wasn’t allowed to see any more. When we staggered drunkenly out of the pub and went our separate ways I walked through the Catholic part of the city, screened from the Protestant east by an eight-metre fence. Dogs fought over rubbish. Armoured cars, patrols. I kept thinking I heard footsteps behind me. In the hotel I kept my Walther under my pillow with the safety catch off.’
‘I know about that operation.’
‘No, you don’t know a thing. Pat hugged me. He wanted to go ahead with the deal. I whispered the truth in his ear. When I saw his face I thought I would shatter into pieces. He left. I flew back to Berlin and told Lissek that MI5 had fallen for some fake information. Sandra asked the right questions: how many brothers and sisters does Pat have? How long has he been married? What sort of music does he like?’
‘Has he got any children?’
‘John, Seamus and Maria. She’s fifteen, she was with her first boyfriend.’ His mouth is dry and furry. ‘The next week it was Lissek’s farewell party. We got wasted in the Irish Pub, we dragged out all the old stories and swore never to change or forget one another. The last toast was mine: “May the dead wait for us.” At the same time an SAS team launched an attack in Belfast. Pat was killed in the exchange of fire. I heard about it the next morning. It was the day you took up your post. I drove home and chopped wood. I wanted a new cupboard in the sitting room anyway.’
For a minute he stares into the dazzling snow, while Demirci is unable to speak. Then she whispers: ‘Don’t do that to me.’
‘Chopping wood on police time?’
‘You’re thinking of stopping. But that’s impossible. I can’t get by without you.’
‘When I saw you standing beside Lissek like that with the bouquet in your hand, I thought, if I stop now, then—’ He breaks off. ‘The bouquet that you – bouquet—’
‘I hear you.’
A moment later he remembers Aaron coming to their house with Kvist for the first time. They sat in the garden. Pavlik went into the kitchen to fetch some ice. On the table was the crumpled paper from the bouquet that Kvist had brought for Sandra. He threw the paper in the bin.
He glanced at the sticker.
Eva Askamp – World of Flowers.
‘Pavlik?’ Demirci asks.
Suddenly the dazzling snow has gone. The moon winks from between ragged clouds. He hears an engine, pivots towards the path across the field and sees the transporter approaching the picnic area with its headlights turned off. The clouds part and the moon grins over the hill. ‘Contact,’ Pavlik whispers. He hangs up, takes the condom off the muzzle and puts fresh snow in his mouth.
*
Bosch first stopped to think a few kilometres behind the farmhouse. Holm was ill. Bosch didn’t know what had happened to him over the previous few hours, but he doubted that he would survive the night. Then Bosch would be at Sascha’s mercy. He wouldn’t see any of that million, and he would just have to wait for a bullet.
If he went back to the farm.
What did he cling to in life? The question sounded so simple and was so hard to answer. He couldn’t even put on his Sunday suit and buy flowers for Simone and a present for Elias, tell them everything would be fine. What was the point?
He drove on, through snowy woods that looked like the forest in one of the fairytales that he had read to Elias, and stopped for the second time. Perhaps there was still something in life that he clung to, he reflected. Because otherwise he would never have gone with Holm, he would never have taken so many risks. Yes, that seemed to have a logic to it.
He drove along the only road again, and passed through a village where people were leaving a pub. Probably a family party: someone was pulling drunken faces. A car was parked crookedly in the road and Bosch had to wait. A man was having a snowball fight with his son, who was as old as Elias would have been in ten years’ time. Bosch saw the father being caught off guard and raising his hand in mock defeat.
On the way out of the village he stopped for the third time. Suddenly he knew that he only wanted the money because he hadn’t been treated like someone who had clung to the tail of a helicopter that had been shot down, until he was rescued from the sea; whose friend and colleague Matthias had drowned beside him because his arm had been ripped off and he no longer had the strength to cling on; who had to look his wife in the face when the bandages came off, and could tell by her eyes that she was now repelled by him.
That was why he wanted the money: because it was his due.
And if he had got it, it would have been fine. Once that was clear to him, all his fear evaporated. He knew what he would do. He would collect the Cessna, rise high above the clouds, see the stars and then close his eyes and think of something beautiful. Perhaps that time on the coach when he touched the hand of the little girl with the grip in her hair and smiled at her and she stopped crying.
He stumbles along the path that he knows already because he’s been here before; at eight o’clock, he scoured tower, hangar and surrounding buildings through his binoculars and saw no sign that anyone was waiting down there.
Or were they?
He isn’t really sure any more. Has he really been here before?
*
The transporter is hidden by bushes. Pavlik sees Bosch darting through the moonlight, lying down on a bench and putting on night vision goggles. Pavlik has him in his sights. A minute passes like that. Then Bosch switches position. He searches Pavlik’s hill. Pavlik isn’t worried in the slightest: the boulder that his gun is resting on protects him from giving off a heat signal. The snow in his mouth stings his teeth but makes his breath invisible. His finger rests on the trigger, his resting pulse is twenty-eight. A doctor would be tempted to declare him dead.
Still crouching, Bosch sits up. Pavlik’s finger doesn’t move a muscle, he has merged with the gun’s hammer.
A shadow leaps at Bosch, apparently hardly touching him. The shadow kneels on him. For a long time. Its face is averted from Pavlik. But he doesn’t need to see it. Even if the ginger hair were hidden by a hood he would know who it is. Kvist kills Bosch with a swift punch. When he sprints to the transporter, gets in and turns around, Pavlik swings the barrel of the Light Fifty towards him.
He has known what his target is for hours. A tyre. Even before Kvist accelerates, the lights still turned off, Pavlik holds his breath. He can do that for ten seconds until the lack of oxygen creates a barely perceptible quiver. The bumpy path across the field is shielded by hedges, leaving him only a single spot to fire at. A forest cutting, no more than two metres wide. After nine seconds the transporter reaches the spot at high speed. Pavlik’s concentration is focused entirely on that moment. Nevertheless, he is surprised by the gunshot, which he unconsciously fired a fraction of a second earlier than planned, so that it was perfect. The bullet strikes the rear tyre of the transporter. Most sharpshooters, capable men, would swear that such a hit was impossible. Kvist didn’t notice a thing; since it was a full metal jacket, it will take several minutes before the transporter has a flat tyre. It leaves the field of vision. Pavlik runs with his rifle to the Fords and with two quick jerks pulls the camouflage netting from one of them. He pulls off his ghillie, jumps behind the wheel and reverses hard.
*
Aaron’s world is small. It consists of the room she is sitting in. Vera’s cold body beside her. The endless silence that Holm has bestowed upon her, the silence in response to her unchanging whispered questions: what kind of person was Natalya? For how long had he known that it was Aaron who shot her? What happened in Barcelona?
She has come to believe that she will never hear his voice again, that he will kill her without having told her the truth, casually, as if she were a nuisance, as if she merely got in the way of his grief.
Then Holm breaks the silence: ‘Her great beauty wasn’t the reason I loved her. She had green eyes, like you. But it wasn’t that. She revered the Russian poets as I do. But it wasn’t that. She could walk into a
room, and suddenly you would notice that it had been dark a moment before. But that wasn’t it either. It was her twin brother, Anatoly, whom her father had left alone with Ice-Eyes. She could have hated me for what happened. But on the day she found out how he had died I was standing by the shore of the lake in the grounds of the big house, and she came and rested her hand on my cheek and said: “Now you have a family.”’
Aaron sees his words skipping across the water like stones, and each time they kiss the surface it is a source of pain.
His and hers.
‘At that moment I knew what I felt for her. I hid it. Because I had never experienced love my fear of it was as great as my fear of that basement. But once I let my guard down, and my father saw the way I watched Natalya as she put a camellia, her favourite flower, in her hair. His hand weighed heavily on my shoulder. He said: “You’re not allowed to do that.”’ Time passes, then the stones start skipping again. ‘Natalya and I were very young at the time, but my father had already set out my life for me. He didn’t ask me if I had understood him. He didn’t need to tell me the price for disobedience. In later years Natalya and I saw each other only rarely, at family parties. She always stroked my cheek and smiled. Nothing more than that. But I thought she felt the same thing.’
In the Dark Page 39
