‘Those aren’t preschool sayings, those are important, psychological insights into the human soul.’
‘Yes, I mean, yes.’
Beate sat down next to him on the stairs and he felt enveloped in her energy like in a cocoon. He’d have bitten his tongue bloody before he’d admitted it, but he felt safe. He laid his head on his wife’s shoulder and she whispered. ‘It’s not even really directed at you. I don’t think she even mentioned you. They’re really after Ann Kathrin.’
Rupert was offended. If the press would at least have a go at him, then that’d be something. The more danger, the more honour, he thought. But no, regardless of how much he worked himself to death, in the end they went to Ann Kathrin Klaasen, and she raked in the rewards when a case was solved.
Professionally he felt like he was on a downward slope, but at least his wife didn’t know anything about Agneta Meyerhoff.
He unscrewed the lid on the bottle of whisky and went to take a sip. It always looked so good went movie stars did that. He could remember legendary scenes with Bruce Willis or Nicolas Cage. They wore vests when they drank whisky from the bottle and seemed unbelievably manly. But none of them had a perm and let their wife scratch their neck.
Beate put a hand on his arm when he lifted the bottle. ‘That won’t help,’ she said. ‘But I could treat you to reiki.’
‘Can’t I have both?’ he asked, willing to compromise.
‘I don’t think that’s good for you.’
‘Oh, please, just a little sip.’
‘You have to know for yourself what’s good for you.’
As he drank from the bottle, she said, ‘You look like a little boy sucking on a bottle of milk, but would prefer to have Mummy’s breast.’
Rupert choked and spluttered a couple swigs of whisky through the bannisters. He asked himself if Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage or his heroes Humphrey Bogart and James Bond, played by Sean Connery, ever had to hear such things. Surely not, he thought. What is the world coming to?
Beate hugged him and murmured. ‘If you want to cry, you can let your tears flow. Crying is liberating.’
Oh man, Rupert thought. It was only a small step from action hero to crybaby. But by no stretch of the imagination did he want to leave.
*
David Weissberg sat by the fireplace in the romantic Menzhausen hotel with his wife Bianca, who was ten years younger than himself. He loved having breakfast in these comfortable armchairs rather than on hard ones. A spot just for two. The fire blazed.
It was just before twelve. A late riser’s breakfast!
The coffee tasted good, the boiled eggs were just the way he liked them. Hard on the outside and with soft yolks.
He was already on his third egg. He had read that eating more eggs in the morning and less bread kept you fit and trim. Looking at his beautiful wife, he wanted to stay fit for a long time.
They’d married in this hotel. They’d met in Uslar, a little town in the Weser Uplands, and had fallen in love with the place, not just with each other. There were still cobblestones here. The streets gave you the feeling that the post would still be delivered by horse and carriage.
There were massages available in the hotel and everything was calm. Although several shops were empty on Langenstrasse, when the market stalls were opened up they filled the place with a peculiar charm.
David Weissberg and his wife Bianca were very fond of the good life. They only travelled first class and only stayed at good hotels. They didn’t really have to watch their spending, but despite or maybe precisely because of that they were planning to eat soup at a café belonging to the local food bank. That’s also what they’d done on their first date.
Naturally they wanted to give a good donation. Whoever ate there was supporting the food bank’s work, and Bianca was emphatically of the opinion that people who were doing well had a responsibility for those who weren’t having such a good time.
David Weissberg ordered another coffee. He intended to leave a generous fifty euros at the soup stand of the food bank because that was the way to his wife’s heart. She couldn’t stand stinginess or narrow-mindedness.
They’d had a wonderful night and there were still another two days awaiting them at the romantic spa hotel. They’d booked massages and wanted to go to the sauna that evening. The large bathtub in their bedroom was also beckoning. Bianca loved bubble baths.
David Weissberg stretched out his feet and felt like a million dollars. He didn’t sense that his death had already been decided and that his killer had just parked behind the hotel.
*
He didn’t need the parking sensors, but he didn’t know how to turn off that annoying beeping sound that was telling him: ‘Careful, there’s a wall behind you.’
He had heard the same news that had made Ann Kathrin Klaasen furious, but he laughed bitterly.
A five thousand euro donation to the child protection association! Well, that’s what I call a punishment! You certainly took drastic measures this time! How about giving him a bouquet and a box of chocolates? Perhaps you could fund a couple of hours of therapy? Just keep it up, the killer thought. I’ll be working as executor for a will before you fools can catch me.
He suddenly had the feeling of having lots of time, and even if they did catch him one day, the people would elect him chancellor before they’d agree to convict him. Public opinion would shift soon enough and then they’d all be on his side.
You, David Weissberg, will be next.
He drummed out the rhythm from a crime show theme tune on his steering wheel.
No, he wouldn’t take him to Emden and stick him in jail. The drive was too long. Too much could happen. The cops might set up roadblocks. He didn’t want someone else to take the credit for his work.
*
Eike was continually astonished by his mother. He watched as she withdrew money for him from the bank’s ATM. He’d almost forgotten, even though he’d grown up with it. She was talking to the ATM as if she were dealing with a nice, but slightly dull-witted human.
‘Yes, my PIN. Wait. Zero seven zero seven – oh no, wrong, that’s my birthday.’ She laughed, as if she were joking with the machine. ‘But that is the code for my phone. I have a different number for you. People shouldn’t always use the same PIN code. I have Eike’s birthday for you.’ She turned around and smiled at him. ‘At least that way I don’t forget it.’
‘You’re afraid you’ll forget my birthday?’
‘No, Eike! My PIN. A mother would never forget her child’s birthday.’
He hoped she wouldn’t start retelling the whole story of his birth again. He knew it by heart. Back then on Juist, in winter, four weeks too early, and a helicopter had to come because there were complications.
Typical of my mother. She doesn’t do normal, he thought. At least some stress and fuss had to be involved. Why just have a home birth when you could have a helicopter?
She typed in the number and withdrew five hundred euros. Eike hadn’t asked her for so much cash, but she first thanked the ATM, then she gave Eike all of it. He was glad, but at the same time he emphasised that it wasn’t necessary.
She suggested they go for a coffee together, but to him it sounded half-hearted, and he feared he would have to explain how and why he’d got into this stupid situation.
‘You’re probably in a hurry,’ he guessed.
She shrugged her shoulders and nodded simultaneously. That meant: unfortunately yes. I’d prefer it wasn’t so, but that’s the way it is.
‘Are you chasing another stupid killer?’
‘Yes, but I’m afraid he’s not stupid, as you put it. He’s highly intelligent, but unfortunately mentally ill. And he’s already selected a new victim.’
‘Well then, I don’t want to keep you waiting, Mum. I know what it’s like. My mum is always busy saving the world.’
‘Nice that you see it that way, Eike.’ She held him by the shoulders, looked him in the eyes, and asked, ‘Are you OK? Are
you happy?’
He grinned inside. Yeah, that’s exactly how she is: my mother. She doesn’t just casually ask like other people. ‘Hey, how’s it goin’?’ No, she really wants to know. He laughed at her. ‘Yes, Mum, I’m happy with Rebekka. She’s a wonderful woman. Has a lot of you in her. She doesn’t catch any killers, but as a doctor, she tracks down and fights illnesses, without mercy.’
Ann Kathrin regarded this as a huge compliment. She kissed her son.
They were still standing in front of the ATM when a large man wearing a peaked cap asked, ‘Would you mind if I . . .’
The two of them made some space and apologised. Minutes later, Ann Kathrin left the car park in her rickety green hatchback. Eike watched her go. As if she couldn’t afford a new car. He knew it was a question of loyalty for his mother. He recalled the last few minutes. My mother, he thought, had thanked the ATM more convincingly than I thanked her.
He was a little ashamed by the thought, but he knew that he was simply glad that she’d helped him. In a way, he’d even done her a slight favour with his request for financial support. Now she felt good. Needed as a mother.
*
Svenja Moers lay on the damp bed. Her clothes clung to her body and her breathing was flat and sounded as if air was being pushed through a narrow pipe. Her body was ravaged by a high fever.
Everything inside her resisted the thought of having to die there. She wanted to survive. But her strength was dwindling. She didn’t know how long she’d been alone. When had she last seen him? Was it hours? Or days? What is time if you’re living in a room without an outside world?
She wished so much that he’d turn on the radio again. They’ll probably, yes certainly, be looking for me by now, she convinced herself. They’ve surely already reconstructed my last few days. It’s certain that Agneta would have told them that I got a lift home with Yves Stern because my bike had been stolen. Or hadn’t Agneta caught that? She’s hot to trot for him . . . Surely they’ll talk to everyone in the class. I was last seen in Emden on Wednesday. Is that a week ago? Or more? Has the class taken place without me? Have I been forgotten? Is he after his next victim? Maybe even Agneta?
She began to shake. Her legs jerked back and forth on the bed, as if someone were sending little electric shocks through them.
His name wasn’t even Yves Stern, she thought. Of course not. He’d planned everything long in advance. He’d registered for the class using the fake name and it’s certain that his address wasn’t right either. Which is why no one has found me. I’m lost. Completely and utterly at his mercy.
At least she had water. The basin was still full.
Her dry, chapped lips hurt. They were covered in small bloody cuts. She would have liked nothing better than to plunge her head into the basin, but at the moment she didn’t have enough energy to get out of bed.
The spasms in her legs subsided.
Dear God, let him make a mistake so they catch him! I don’t want to die here! Not now. Not like this.
*
David Weissberg made him furious. All day long he’d been all over his Bianca. Couldn’t they ever be apart? Such symbiotic relationships were simply not conducive to an execution.
He hadn’t planned to kill Bianca too. Yes, it was about David, but how could he spare her if she was always stuck to him?
First the two of them participated in a historic city tour, holding hands, and then they took a stroll through the museum district. It occurred to him that they would probably go to the Potash Mining Museum and the butterfly park.
When they then went to the park, he was almost at the point where he’d happily kill her too. How idiotic love must make you, he thought, driven by hate, if it can bring you to walk barefoot over a forest floor, over colourful balls, squealing with glee when you feel the tilled soil under your feet. Being in love, he thought, is a form of insanity, and he was glad that he had been spared that fate.
Cheery Bianca didn’t know that the man next to her had murdered his brother because he’d resisted the sale of the pharmacy and the two rental houses in Aurich and Esens.
At the time, Ubbo had even presented a signed confession from David Weissberg. But a clever lawyer and a psychological assessment had made an innocent person of David Weissberg, who in an emotionally stressful situation had supposedly been put under such great pressure by Ubbo Heide that he ultimately confessed to a murder he’d never committed. Everything was blamed on the big, anonymous burglar who, according to Ubbo Heide, had never even existed.
In his retelling in the book, Ubbo Heide had called David Weissberg ‘Mr Silver Fox’. That was a sign from heaven. When he’d read that name, he knew that he had to do it for his mother. In her honour! She so enjoyed wearing that silver fox jacket. An heirloom. But by the mid-nineties she hadn’t dared to wear it on the street, because of animal rights activists.
He reached inside his pocket and let his hand run over the bushy fur. He’d cut a piece out of the collar. He’d put it in David Weissberg’s mouth. Once he was dead.
Ubbo Heide would get the message, and the source of the silver fox would be impossible to trace. His grandfather had purchased it in 1914 for sixty gold marks. At the time it was a fortune, as everyone in the family claimed, again and again. The piece had been hanging in his mother’s wardrobe for twenty-five years.
The fur smelled a little musty, and would soon find a function as a bloody message to Ubbo Heide.
Now the couple were kissing. He could hardly stand it. They were acting like teenagers. Terrible! How could adults make such spectacles of themselves, he thought.
But as annoying as it was, the embarrassing smooching was saving Mr Silver Fox’s life.
I’ll get you. Just wait, I’ll get you!
He stayed at least fifty metres behind the lovebirds, and when they bought ice creams, he looked at his phone to check on Svenja Moers. She lay lifeless on the bed staring at the ceiling.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, as if he were talking to her on the phone, ‘perhaps I should have left some provisions in the cell. This is taking longer than I thought. Hold on, Svenja. Don’t let go now. As soon as this Bianca leaves her David alone for a second, I’ll carry out the sentence and come back to you. I could cook us spaghetti. A few carbs wouldn’t be too bad right now, would they? But it’s three or four hours from Uslar to Emden, baby. I don’t think I’ll get it done today. As long as they’re kissing, you’ll stay hungry.’
*
Ann Kathrin parked her hatchback right in front of the Bootshaus Hotel, between two black BMWs. Inside, she had a coffee and looked out at the Ueser Marina and the River Weser. She wanted to lose some weight so she ordered asparagus salad with crayfish tails and walnut oil.
Two men were engrossed in a conversation at the next table. They both wore light-blue summer suits. One of them sat with his back to Ann Kathrin, the other couldn’t concentrate on the conversation, but constantly stared over at her instead. At first he only smiled in her direction, then he winked.
She thoroughly enjoyed his attention but when she stood up and walked past him to get a newspaper she pointed out her wedding ring. The papers on offer were Die Welt, Achimer Kreisblatt and the Achimer Kurier. Ann Kathrin trusted the local papers more than the national broadsheets. She looked in the Achimer Kurier. Before her asparagus with crayfish tails was brought from the kitchen, she had found a report that provoked her interest. Volker Janssen was mentioned.
He wrote poems. His first self-published collection had just appeared. The sixty-four-page collection was called Goethe Is Dead, Schiller Is Dead, and I Already Feel Terrible.
She looked at the picture. Was this the same man? He’d moved to Achim to start a new life. Janssen is a popular surname in Northern Germany. Did he really become a poet?
She googled him with her phone and although he didn’t have a website, there was a review of his book. He hadn’t done too badly. There was talk of a new, fresh tone in poetry.
Ann Kathrin enjoye
d her meal, let the sun shine on her face and did some relaxation exercises after eating. She made her right arm heavy, and then her left.
The man on the next table got really nervous because he couldn’t understand what she was up to.
She felt the rays of sunlight on her skin and imagined the sun’s energy was wandering through her entire body and reanimating it.
When she got up, she stretched and yawned as if after a long, restful sleep.
Both men stared at her as she left.
She drove into the city centre and went to the Hoffmann bookstore. There she looked at the children’s books, and when Veit Hoffmann spoke to her and asked if he could be of help, she immediately found him likable.
‘I’m interested in a poet,’ Ann Kathrin said. ‘He’s just published his first book with a funny title.’ She acted as if she had to think.
‘Volker Janssen. Goethe Is Dead, Schiller Is dead, and I Already Feel Terrible?’
‘Yeah, exactly. Can I get a copy from you?’
‘Sure. You can get everything from me except a map of Achim that isn’t available anymore.’
He took the book from the shelf. ‘Volker Janssen brought me a couple of copies. He doesn’t have a publisher, does it all himself. His poetry is funny and completely original, but he himself is much more reserved. I wanted to organise a reading with him. He lives here in Achim, on Breslaustrasse. I think he inherited the little house from his grandma. Most of the houses there were built after the war for former refugees from the East.’
‘Is there going to be a reading?’
Veit Hoffmann shrugged his shoulders.
‘An author who avoids his audience?’ Ann Kathrin asked.
‘There are many of those. Salinger, Patrick Susskind—’
He wanted to list more, but Ann Kathrin said, ‘That’s too bad. I would’ve liked to have him sign my book. So that won’t happen.’
‘Unless you meet him here by chance.’
‘Does he sometimes shop with you?’
‘Sure, he doesn’t just write poetry, he reads it too. And yesterday he bought tickets for the concert at Kasch.’
‘What kind of concert?’
The Oath Page 27
