by Marc Raabe
Liz and Gabriel jump with fright.
Gabriel quickly sits up and stares in shock at the small chamber revealed behind the broken mirror. ‘My god, you?’
David nods silently. His chest rises and falls. His face is ashen and he’s holding the black aluminium tripod with the camera at the end.
‘Where have you been? And how in the world did you get in there?’ Gabriel asks.
‘Sarkov,’ David says. ‘After you were gone, I walked through the villa . . . I found him upstairs in the study. Valerius had knocked him out.’
‘Yuri is here?’
David nods. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ he says flatly. ‘I . . . I knew there was a chamber behind the mirror because . . .’
‘How . . . how long were you in there?’
‘I don’t know. I think I got here just after you arrived.’
‘Did you see everything? The whole time?’ Gabriel gasps.
‘Everything. The whole nightmare. I didn’t know what to do. I thought that if I broke through the mirror, then . . . then he would cut her . . .’ He stops, looks over from Gabriel to Liz. ‘I saw where the knife . . . I mean, it would have been enough just to startle him . . .’
Gabriel looks at him and then suddenly realises. ‘The camera!’ he says. ‘That was you. You turned off the camera.’
A crooked grin comes across David’s face.
Liz looks at him with infinite gratitude.
‘I should have done it much sooner,’ David says. ‘But I had no idea that you could see the red light. It was only when he pointed to the mirror and asked if you could see it that I had the idea to turn the thing off. I thought it was the only thing that could throw him off and give you a chance.’
Gabriel stares at David in disbelief. ‘That . . . that was . . .’ he stammers and then hugs his brother so abruptly and so hard that David can barely breathe.
‘. . . Thank you.’
Gabriel can feel David’s face, wet with tears, and his own eyes well up. He lifts his head, and thinks about a blue sky beyond the crypt.
Light blue.
Without clouds, like on the sloped ceiling of our old room.
He knows all too well that the sky today is cloudy. But it doesn’t matter now.
He looks at Liz, her round stomach and her eyes, and he wishes for the first time that he will have a future.
Chapter 57
Berlin – 28 September, 8.47 a.m.
The motor starts with a low growl, then the wooden hull speeds forward out of the open boathouse and onto the Wannsee. Icy rain shoots horizontally into Gabriel’s face. David is at the helm of the motorboat and steers it in a ninety-degree angle away from Schwanenwerder Island. The bow hits hard against the choppy water.
Gabriel sits on the floor of the boat and squeezes up next to Liz, who is wrapped in a blanket, crouching beside the helm. Her teeth chatter and her lips are turning blue. She is still wearing the dress.
No one says a word.
Once Valerius and his father lay dead in the crypt, there wasn’t much time left for them to decide their next move.
‘I want to get out of here,’ Liz had stammered. ‘Please!’
‘What about the police?’ David asked, uncertain.
‘Police?’ Gabriel looked at Liz.
‘Just get me out of here, OK?’ Liz repeated. ‘As quickly as possible.’
David nodded. Without a word, he got up and took the tape out of the video camera. ‘We can’t go through the house. Unless we get lucky, the first members of the staff will already be there and wonder where von Braunsfeld is. It’s just a matter of time before they find the dogs and think to call the police.’
‘Down by the lake there’s a boathouse with a private dock,’ Liz said. Her voice was shaky, but still sounded strong. ‘Von Braunsfeld showed it to me back when we were filming. But the door to the greenhouse is closed.’
‘It’s broken. I jammed the lock before I came in,’ Gabriel said.
In the tunnel on the way to the greenhouse, Liz’s legs gave out. Gabriel picked her up and carried her the rest of the way, walking sideways through the narrow hallway. Outside, large raindrops landed on them. After about a hundred and fifty metres, they reached the boathouse. Gabriel broke open the door, hot-wired the ignition and within seconds they were out on the open water, which was now splashing against the hull.
The roaring diesel engine speeds them down the canal to Pichelsee, through the small harbour and they continue on down the Spree River, which winds through the city. David slows down and the rain suddenly starts falling.
Beneath the metro bridge near the riverbank at Helgoländer, they get into a taxi in front of the train station, which takes them to David’s flat. No one has said a word the whole time. It’s all unreal, so strangely peaceful, so calm, like something was bound to happen at any moment.
But nothing happens.
The day passes without event and that night, they sleep like the dead.
Chapter 58
Berlin – 29 September, 9.56 a.m.
The next day starts like the last one ended: with constant rain, eerie calm and the worry that the police will be knocking at David’s door at any moment. No one turns on the television. Or the radio. The telephone is unplugged and the flat looks like it’s been hit by a tornado.
Just before nine, Gabriel went to the bakery around the corner to get sandwiches and croissants and caught a glimpse of the newspaper headlines: Victor von Braunsfeld Dead. Mysterious Drama in Billionaire’s Villa.
While Gabriel waited for the sandwiches, he skimmed the article. Apparently, Yuri had been found by the cleaning staff in von Braunsfeld’s study and was now lying in a hospital bed. The dead dogs, the crypt and the bodies of von Braunsfeld and his son next to a stone sarcophagus with iron chains caused great speculation. When Gabriel was handed his food, he put down the paper; he didn’t want to bring the story into the house.
Liz sits on one of the grey sofas, wrapped in a blanket and staring at the wall with the missing painting.
‘You should go to the doctor,’ David says.
She shakes her head, pulls the blanket tighter around her legs and warms her hands around a mug of tea. But it doesn’t do much for the coldness she feels inside.
Gabriel moves to sit next to her. There is a copy of his file from the clinic on the table; nightmares written up as protocol.
Liz takes a sip of tea and clears her throat. ‘How come you never told me you were in a psychiatric clinic?’
Gabriel shrugs. ‘Probably for the same reason that I forgot what happened that night.’
‘Suppressed,’ David says softly, ‘not forgot.’
Gabriel looks at the floor.
‘Hey – sure, you shot him, but you didn’t kill him. That was Valerius. You were eleven. And you were in a fucked-up situation.’
‘I might just as well have killed him. The fact that I only hit Dad in the side was just chance,’ Gabriel replies.
‘With what happened to you, there is no right or wrong. Not in that moment,’ Liz says. ‘It doesn’t make it better, but maybe easier.’
Gabriel nods, even though he doesn’t believe it could ever feel easier.
For a moment, a heavy silence falls over them.
‘Why did Sarkov actually get you out of the clinic? I thought he and von Braunsfeld were in cahoots,’ David finally asks, ‘and as long as you were in the locked ward, there was no real danger from you any more.’
‘What kind of danger could there have been anyway?’ Liz asks.
‘I was the only witness to all of this madness. Von Braunsfeld knew from his son that I had seen how Valerius shot my parents. And he must have been afraid that I had seen the film. Von Braunsfeld probably found out very quickly that I couldn’t remember anything, but he couldn’t have been completely sure that I wouldn’t turn into a problem in the future.’
David shakes his head. ‘What would you have done? Gone to
the police? The story is so outrageous that no one would’ve believed you anyway. And there was no more evidence.’
‘To be honest, I had plenty of other reasons not to go to the police,’ Gabriel said, ‘but that probably wasn’t enough for von Braunsfeld.’
Liz shakes her head. ‘Well, from what I’ve come to know about von Braunsfeld, he was more of a strategist and liked to hedge his bets. He had a lot to lose. And as a mega celebrity, when something like that really gets going, then the press is suddenly on your doorstep and the whole thing takes on a dynamic that’s impossible to control. And that would’ve been it for him.’
‘There’s some truth to that,’ David says, nodding. ‘But then Sarkov taking Gabriel out of Conradshöhe makes much less sense. Why did he do it?’
‘Probably because of Dressler,’ Gabriel says. ‘There’s a note in my file from shortly before my release. It says that Dr Wagner was my new attending psychiatrist. From then on, all of the reports are co-signed by Wagner. I still remember Dressler getting into trouble because of his treatment methods.’
‘You mean the electroshock?’ David says.
Liz’s eyes widen. ‘Shit, they gave you electroshock?’
Gabriel nods. He gets up, walks over to the window and looks out at the iconic television tower, magnificent in the rain. ‘At the end of the eighties, it was leaked. There was suddenly a huge scandal and Dressler was sacked.’
‘And what did all of this have to do with Sarkov and von Braunsfeld?’
‘I looked at the file again,’ Gabriel says. ‘Dr Wagner took a different direction with his treatment. It looks as if I started to remember with him.’
‘You mean von Braunsfeld sent Sarkov to prevent Dr Wagner from successfully treating your trauma?’ David asks.
‘He could well have,’ Liz says. ‘Von Braunsfeld probably had Dressler in his pocket. But then when Dressler was sacked and Wagner began to dig into your memories, it was all too precarious for von Braunsfeld.’
‘Ultimately, it was brilliant,’ Gabriel says bitterly. ‘From the moment I was out of Conradshöhe, Yuri was my guardian for a while. So they had me perfectly under control. At the time, I would’ve done anything for Yuri, if for the sole reason that he got me out of that hell. And Yuri kept me so busy that I never really questioned it all that much.’
‘I wonder what they would’ve done if you’d suddenly started asking questions and thinking about your past,’ Liz says.
‘Well,’ Gabriel replies, ‘that’s essentially what happened. Only, it was after almost thirty years of nothing happening, and they had probably already considered the topic closed for a long time. That’s why Yuri reacted so strangely.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It started with Valerius triggering the alarm at the house on Kadettenweg. Yuri had no clue as to why it happened, but the way he wanted to keep me away from the house seemed odd. And later, when I asked Yuri about my file, he blew a fuse. The fact that he kicked me out that day was probably more of a rash decision.’
‘It must have been,’ David mutters. ‘A little while later, he was at my doorstep and wanted to find you at all costs.’
‘Why?’ Liz asks.
‘Because he wanted the film,’ Gabriel explains. ‘I guess von Braunsfeld put pressure on him. The house on Kadettenweg had been broken into and when he found out about the hidden safe in the fireplace, then he remembered the film. Valerius had threatened him with it, saying that he’d hidden it in a secure location. And von Braunsfeld and Yuri immediately thought that I’d found it and taken it with me.’
‘But why,’ David asks, ‘didn’t anyone think that Valerius was connected to all of this? The two must have found out that he escaped.’
‘Not at all,’ Liz says and pulls on the blanket. ‘Valerius was just as much of a clever bastard as his father. He locked up his prison guard, Yvette, and made her obey him. Yvette was terrified of him. And the few times when von Braunsfeld called, Yvette pretended that everything was in tip-top shape. And apart from that, Braunsfeld avoided the chalet like the plague.’
‘What happened with those women he mentioned? The ones he killed?’ David asks.
‘One of them was probably a model. Yvette told me that there were others locked in the cell before me. Valerius had already been free for a year – so he just picked up where he left off.’
‘A model?’ David asks and stares at Liz. ‘Not that model Kristen? The one who disappeared without a trace along with a sack of haute couture dresses?’
Liz goes pale. ‘Oh god, the dresses. Of course.’ She groans. ‘Ciara Kristen. I should’ve thought of that.’
‘Maybe we should go to the police,’ David suggests.
‘Forget it,’ Gabriel refuses. ‘They won’t believe a single word I say. They’ll just send me right back to the clinic.’
‘Well, this time you have a couple of witnesses,’ David says and smiles. ‘And then there’s also the film.’
Gabriel stops. ‘Of course. You’re right. That should be enough – there isn’t a better confession.’
A crooked grin forms across David’s face and, for a brief moment, Gabriel recognises himself in it. ‘That’s the real irony,’ David says. ‘Valerius had the camera running just to take revenge on you. And now the film is going to save your skin.’
Gabriel looks out of the window again. ‘Hmm. Yes and no. After all, I took a hostage and broke out of a police station. And I doubt Dr Dressler will look past the fact that I made him walk stark naked with his hands taped together in public.’
Liz snorts and some tea runs down her chin. ‘You did what?’ She looks at Gabriel in disbelief. When she starts to laugh for the first time in weeks, it’s an immense relief. ‘That’s great!’ she chuckles. ‘A belated thanks for the electroshock.’
David’s smile grows wider. ‘It gets better. My dear brother also taped a gun into the psychiatrist’s hands. It was on the news. The police approached with their sirens wailing, and the special commando unit, too, and apprehended the naked assassin. It took them a while before they realised that they didn’t have a runaway madman in custody, but instead a runaway mad doctor,’ he says, smirking.
Gabriel laughs too, and even if it isn’t totally liberating, it feels good. ‘Well, in any case, it won’t be easy if we go to the police.’ He quickly becomes serious again. ‘Tell me, though,’ he says, turning to David, ‘what really happened with Yuri?’
‘I . . . had a little disagreement with him,’ David says hesitantly.
‘You? A fight with Yuri? And you survived?’
‘To be honest, I wasn’t sure he’d survived until recently,’ David says awkwardly. ‘I pounded his head against the floor. Many times.’
Gabriel looks at his brother, stunned.
‘I was really furious,’ David adds.
Gabriel nods and looks at him for a long time.
‘What are you looking at? He’s in the hospital, you said it yourself.’
Gabriel smiles. ‘I’m just seeing a new side to my brother.’
‘Oh,’ David says.
‘And what about that . . . that girl?’
‘Shona?’ David asks. ‘That girl is over thirty.’
Gabriel rolls his eyes.
‘Well, all right. I’ll call her and try to meet up,’ David says. ‘But only if you,’ he points at Gabriel, ‘aren’t anywhere nearby! I’m going to have to anyway, so I can explain a few things and also talk to her about Bug.’
‘I don’t understand a thing,’ Liz mutters. ‘What does Bug have to do with the whole mess?’
‘Don’t worry about it. That’s my deal. I’ll settle it on my own.’
‘“My deal!” Good for you. I know that sort of answer well. You can tell that you’re brothers.’ Liz yawns and leans her head back. Then she looks at Gabriel. ‘Please just think about it,’ she says softly and rubs her stomach.
‘What?’ Gabriel asks.
‘The whole matter of whether we call the
police. I don’t want you to be on the wanted list for the next few years. And she,’ she points to her stomach, ‘certainly doesn’t either.’
‘She?’ Gabriel asks.
Liz smiles. ‘I have a feeling.’
‘And if it’s a he?’
She shrugs and an exhausted smile flits across her lips.
David gets up, goes over to the wardrobe and rummages through his jacket pockets. When he comes back, he has a dark videocassette in his hand that’s about the size of a matchbox. He hands it to Gabriel. ‘Your decision,’ he says.
Gabriel looks at the breakable, nondescript plastic tape in his hand. It weighs no more than a pack of cigarettes. And the film was so close to becoming his lift to hell.
Thanks
This book would never have existed without the many people who helped me with inspiration, criticism, praise, uncomfortable questions, honesty and patience.
For that, I thank my wife Mieke, my toughest critic and my emotional backbone. I would also like to thank my boys Rasmus and Janosch for their patience with me, as I was often ‘away’ with my mind between the pages.
Thanks to Norik for his praise, which was always given when it counted – and never when it didn’t. Thank you Annette for the parallel reading as I wrote, so I always knew where I stood. Thanks to all of my friends and acquaintances who read this book in its different stages; it always gave me the opportunity to improve it.
Special thanks to Sabine Schiffner, as her recommendation on the right location took off. Additional thanks to Ms Eichorn from Agentur Graf for her quick, unerring mediation.
A big thank you to the book professionals at Ullstein Verlag, especially Katrin Fieber, for the house-wide positive energy and for standing behind this book as I’d always hoped a publisher would.
And finally, thank you to each and every reader who made it up to this point – and therefore knows: I did not do it alone.
Marc Raabe
