by Gisa Klönne
Contents
Part One: Stifling
Sunday, 24 July
Monday, 25 July
Part Two: Burning
Tuesday, 26 July
Wednesday, 27 July
Thursday, 28 July
Friday, 29 July
Part Three: Smouldering
Sunday, 31 July
Monday, 1 August
Tuesday, 2 August
Wednesday, 3 August
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Silent Is The Forest Extract
Copyright
For my parents, with love
Part One
Stifling
Sunday, 24 July
At first there is only her fear. She opens her eyes and sees the pale early morning light, her familiar room. For a while she lies there, listening to the blackbirds courting and bickering outside her window. Then she thinks of Barabbas, and her tired body tenses up as she strains to hear him. Silly old fool, she tells herself, you worry about your dog the way another woman might worry about a man. But she has to convince herself that the barely audible rasp from the passage is Barabbas’s breathing before she can muster the courage to sit up.
Pain shoots into her arms and shoulders even before her feet touch the threadbare weave of the wool runner. Pull yourself together. Don’t let yourself go. The morning’s always the worst, but you know you can get up if you want to. She presses her lips together. Wear and tear, decades of bad posture, too much work and stress – that’s all the doctors have to say. Take a painkiller, try to take it easy. They hide what they are really thinking behind cold, youthful smiles and sanctimonious questions. You live alone? How old are you, Frau Vogt? Eighty-two? A large garden to look after? And an Alsatian? Isn’t it all a bit much for you? There’s the open-cast mine too – Frimmersdorf isn’t what it used to be. You’re old – what do you expect? Time to kick the bucket. That’s what the doctors really mean, but she won’t do them the favour.
The heat of the new day hangs over the vegetable patch like a hint of what’s to come. I ought to see to the courgettes and beans, and pick the strawberries before the blackbirds get at them, she thinks. Later it will be too hot. The kettle whistles, she pours water over freshly ground coffee, spreads a slice of toast with butter and honey, fills Barabbas’s bowl with water and throws him a few dog biscuits. He nuzzles up to her and she fondles his ears, ignoring the shooting pain – her body’s punishment to her for stooping. Inside, Barabbas laps his water; outside, she sips her coffee on the veranda. Half past four. If there’s a bad omen in the air, she senses nothing.
It should always be like this, she thinks instead – a beginning rather than an end, a day so clean and new, it feels as if it’s been made just for us. Blackbirds fly up, and longing gleams in Barabbas’s brown eyes. When did they last have a decent walk? When did he last run around the fields? The day before yesterday? A week ago? She can’t remember. Another curse of old age, these memory lapses. You need an awful lot of optimism to stop life from getting you down, and the older you get, the more you need. She carries her empty cup into the kitchen and puts the Alsatian on the lead, suddenly buoyed up by the thought of a long ramble. She’ll just have to pick the strawberries when they get back. The veg can wait until the evening.
She decides to go through the village, and although it’s early she doesn’t let Barabbas off the lead. As long as she sticks to the rules, no one can say she’s too frail for such a big strong dog, that she’s a danger to others, that the creature should be put down and his mistress stuck in a home. On the outskirts of the village, beyond the playing fields, she lets Barabbas run free. The colossus of a power station never sleeps. Steam hisses into the morning sky; the plant siren wails, the conveyor belts carrying brown coal rumble and shriek. She takes the road through the tunnel and crosses the river, where men will later sit and fish. Barabbas is on good form; he hares around like a puppy. After a while he leaves the road and makes a beeline into a wood. She follows slowly, careful not to trip. The sun is higher in the sky, but not too hot yet, and the scent of wild camomile fills the air.
The sudden roar of an engine makes her start and she wheels round in confusion. What was that? The engine roars again. Then there’s a discordant rattling. Rowdy youths, she thinks. No respect. But aren’t young people sleeping off their hangovers at this hour on a Sunday morning? Another rattle and a flash of light, back towards the road, and for a second she’s afraid that whoever’s making all this racket is coming straight for her. Then the sound of the engine moves away and all is silent again.
Where is Barabbas? Last night’s fear grips her again. Where would I be without him? What would I do if he died? She calls him and finds him rolling ecstatically in a dirty hollow; it will take ages to brush the dust out of his coat. She hears her daughter’s voice. The entire house reeks of dog – you might as well admit that it’s months since you last managed to wash the animal. Elisabeth Vogt shakes her head in a futile attempt to forget.
‘Here, Barabbas. Here, boy!’ Her call is the hoarse croak of an old hag.
‘Barabbas!’
At last the Alsatian deigns to obey, wagging his tail with an almost roguish look on his face. She can never bring herself to be cross with him, not even now as he slips her grasp and tears back to where the rattle and the flash came from. Oh well, it doesn’t really matter which way they go. She follows him. The ground is sandy. Dirt gets in her Birkenstock sandals, and she has to keep stopping to extricate herself from the undergrowth. She hears the dog’s throaty growl before she sees him, and a shudder runs down her spine. The woven leather of the lead hangs limply from her hand like a dead eel.
‘Bara—’ Her voice gives out. In all the sixteen years of their life together she has never been afraid of her dog; he has never given her reason. Now she wants to run away; she doesn’t want to see what it is that has turned her friendly companion into a slavering hellhound. But something stronger than her propels her forward between the stunted trees.
At first all she sees is Barabbas’s hunched back, his fur bristling, his muscles tense. He’s got his teeth sunk into something, and he’s tearing at it, a constant rumbling deep in his throat.
‘Drop it, Barabbas!’ In her outrage she finds her voice, and brings down the leather on his back. Never has she given him more than a slight tap with a rolled-up newspaper, but now she’s thrashing him like a madwoman, with a strength she didn’t know she still possessed, tugging at the dog’s collar and choking him until at last his growl gives way to a whimper and he opens his bloody maw.
Limp and destroyed, his prey lies in the dirt. A wire-haired dachshund. Images flicker in front of Elisabeth’s eyes. The boy from down the road with his little dog, both of them with shining eyes. Her grandson with his arms around Barabbas, begging his mother to please, please let him have a dog – just a small one. It didn’t have to be an Alsatian; a dachshund would do just as well. He’d never ever ever ask for anything else again – not for Christmas or Easter or his birthday – and he’d always take it for walks. I promise, Mummy, I promise. Please, please, please.
Still holding Barabbas in the stranglehold of his collar, she closes her eyes for a few moments’ respite. She doesn’t want to know what’s lying there; she doesn’t want to stay here – she won’t, she can’t. Barabbas’s panting and the intrusive buzz of a shimmering greenfly bring her back to reality. We must go home, she thinks. We can’t stay here. If they find us and see what Barabbas has done, they’ll take him away from me. She clips the lead onto his collar and drags him away step by step. Her back is screaming with pain; she can suddenly feel it again. Barabbas’s energy seems spent too; he’s cowering, trembling, at her side, a confused old dog. How could she go and
beat him like that? Home, she thinks again. We must go home. It’s safe there; everything will be all right once we’re back.
The sun is climbing quickly; Elisabeth’s dress clings to her thighs and back, and every breath hurts. No one will find out what you’ve done, Barabbas – I’ll take care of you, my friend, my companion. They won’t put you to sleep. I won’t let them. Forgive me for what I did to you.
Forgive me. Forgive me. With all her remaining strength she forces herself not to think anything but that.
*
The villa in Bayenthal, one of the more upmarket districts of Cologne, stands listless in the heat. The media are talking, with rapidly waning enthusiasm, of ‘a record-breaking summer’. Even the trees lining the streets look exhausted. Judith Krieger, a detective superintendent who is on leave at her own request, throws back her head and stares up at the sky through the open soft top of her 2CV. She wishes she could leave the engine running, put her foot down and drive with the wind in her face until she gets to a lake. She can see the lake if she shuts her eyes; cool and almost picture-postcard turquoise, the water close enough to touch.
A dark Mercedes draws up behind her 2CV. The man who gets out is familiar and yet strange, just like the house she is parked outside. He approaches her with steps too small for his body, as if he weren’t using his legs at all, but shuffling towards Judith – an overweight, blue-eyed crab in pale leisurewear, trained not to move sideways. Something flutters in Judith’s stomach. It was a mistake to come, she thinks. This is my last week of leave. I shouldn’t have let him talk me into it, not even for old time’s sake. Better to leave the past alone.
‘Judith Krieger, thank God!’ Judith’s former schoolmate reveals teeth which would make a packet for the orthodontist who got to put them straight.
‘Berthold Pretorius.’ Judith gets out of the car. She withdraws from the warm, clammy handshake as soon as she can.
He beams at her. ‘I knew you’d come.’
‘You knew more than I did.’
He runs a hand through mousy strands of hair in a nervous gesture. At school his fingers were bitten and ink-stained, the nails practically non-existent. Now only the broad, fleshy fingertips betray data-processing expert Dr Berthold Pretorius as the one-time nail-biter and class freak.
‘Please, Judith. I told you Charlotte’s in danger. You have to help me.’
Berthold’s call had come as a complete surprise. He had almost begged Judith to meet him at Charlotte’s villa. Their old classmate, he told her, had been missing for several weeks – since the end of May, to be precise. No, she wasn’t on holiday. Charlotte often went birdwatching by the Baltic, but not this time. It was as if the earth had swallowed her up. He was afraid something might have happened to her, but his hands were tied, and he knew nothing about anything except computers. The police didn’t understand what he was worried about – and wasn’t Judith a detective? OK, she had said in the end, I’ll have a look at the house, but on a purely private basis. Maybe we can find something out.
She watches him fumbling in his trouser pockets until at last, with a sigh of relief, he pulls out a key and dangles it in front of her face.
‘Will you do the honours or shall I?’
‘You’re Charlotte’s friend, not me.’
He nods and puts the key in the lock. The coolness in the hall is a shock; the air is stale. Dead, thinks Judith, although there is no hint of the unmistakable whiff of decomposing human flesh. It smells of dust and mothballs and a little of disinfectant. Berthold pulls the front door shut and Judith feels as if she has stepped into a mausoleum.
‘Isn’t there any light?’ She feels along the wall for a switch.
‘The blinds are down. Hang on.’ Berthold pushes past her and opens a door. She finds the light switch just as he pulls up the blinds. Fabric wall coverings in pale old rose are suddenly visible, a coat stand, a mirror and an old-fashioned telephone table.
Berthold Pretorius sets off down the hall and Judith follows him into a living room with heavy oak furniture. This room too is in semi-darkness until Berthold raises the blinds to reveal a view of a park-like garden framed by tall conifers. Light floods the room, but there is at first nothing warming in the shafts of sunlight that assail their eyes.
‘The lawn looks as if it’s been recently mown,’ says Judith.
‘Charlotte has a gardener.’
‘How does she pay him?’
Berthold shrugs. ‘Standing order? No idea.’
Judith looks about her. Above the studded leather sofa is an oppressive oil painting in a gilt frame – red-coated jockeys reining in hysterical-looking horses; hunting hounds with bloody chops; a fleeing stag.
‘It isn’t a very youthful house.’
‘It’s all as Charlotte’s father left it.’ Berthold sounds as if he’s trying to defend Charlotte. Unlike Judith, he has kept in touch with her – ‘stayed friends’, as he puts it.
‘Is her father dead?’
‘Yes, he died nine months ago.’
‘Enough time to make some changes.’
‘Charlotte’s rooms are upstairs. Feel free to have a look around. I’m going to have to leave you now, I’m afraid.’ He doesn’t look at her.
‘You’re leaving me to look for the corpse by myself?’
His rosy face grows a touch paler; his fleshy right hand moves to his chest. ‘There’s no corpse here. I’ve searched the whole house, even the cellar.’
‘That’s reassuring.’
‘As I said, the idea is to find out where Charlotte might have gone.’
‘And you really don’t know . . .?’
‘I’ll take you upstairs. Then I really must be going. Got a system error to fix. I couldn’t have known when I rang you. The company’s stuck without me.’
‘Didn’t you say you were always free on Sundays?’
‘I’m sorry. For computers, it’s a day like any other.’
He shows her upstairs, deeper into the darkened world of Charlotte Simonis. A brown carpet, secured with brass stair rods, deadens their footsteps. The smell of disinfectant and mothballs grows stronger; the lake Judith was dreaming of only a few minutes before seems more and more like a mirage.
‘Here.’ Berthold opens a glossy white door. The room is gloomy, musty and warm. Judith finds the light switch and starts. Glassy dolls’ eyes stare out at her, catapulting her into a time she would prefer to forget and reminding her that she has amends to make, although it is probably too late. Berthold’s concern about Charlotte suddenly grips Judith, seeping into her body like poison. Why has Charlotte kept her dolls? What does that say about her life? Judith feels a twinge in her belly, which isn’t helped by the stuffy heat of the attic.
*
Bluebottles buzz. A cricket rasps away. The sun bites mercilessly into Elisabeth’s neck and lower arms. She leans on her spade for a moment to catch her breath, and red and black circles dance before her eyes. She must be mad to be digging a grave in this heat. But she had no choice, of course. Ignoring Barabbas’s whimper of protest, she had shut him in the house and set off for the woods again, this time armed with spade and suitcase. She resumes digging, pleased to see that the hole will soon be deep enough. There’s no alternative, she thinks. I must finish this job – make sure that Barabbas’s sin is forgotten.
The wire-haired dachshund lies beside her in the sand; its glassy eyes seem to watch her. A fly lands in the corner of one eye, and Elisabeth raises her spade to shoo it away. But the fly is persistent and keeps coming back. Of course it does, Elisabeth thinks. It wants to eat – eat and provide for its brood. That’s life, isn’t it? The thought that there will soon be maggots feasting on the dachshund’s eyes turns her stomach, although she grew up on a farm and, goodness knows, isn’t squeamish. She drives the spade into the sand and sinks to her knees with a groan. Come on, little dog, let’s get this over and done with. This will keep the flies off you at least.
She opens the lid of the children’s sui
tcase and takes out one of the old terry sheets to use as a shroud. She pulls the dachshund onto it. It looks so small, but it’s heavy. Elisabeth tastes bile on her tongue. Barabbas’s bite marks are hardly visible in the soft dishevelled coat. Another shimmering greenfly tries its luck. Quickly Elisabeth lifts the dachshund into its red-and-green checked coffin. It is still watching her. But it isn’t the staring eyes that make Elisabeth begin to shake uncontrollably. The dachshund’s right ear is missing. Somebody must have cut it off with a knife, not long ago; there is blood clinging to the neat gash.
*
Detective Inspector Manfred Korzilius is sitting in the beer garden when his weekend off is brought to an abrupt end. He is wondering whether or not to approach the cat-eyed blonde in a pink dress who is loitering at the bar with a rather less attractive friend. If he throws himself at her, he risks being given the brush-off. On the other hand, the pair of them look as if they might be glad of a distraction. And nothing ventured . . . The question is always, of course, whether it’s worth the effort. Miss Cat’s Eyes pushes a silver clip into her hair and fans herself with the drinks menu. Very pretty. But Manni’s Nokia is vibrating more and more insistently, demanding instant attention. Sod it, he thinks, flipping it open. It’s too hot for sex anyway.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ a voice barks – Thalbach, his new boss.
‘I’m not on call today.’
‘I know, but I’ve just spoken to Millstätt and we agreed that you’re the right man for this operation.’
‘Aha,’ Manni says, annoyed that nothing more articulate occurs to him. Why, for Christ’s sake, has Thalbach been discussing him with the head of the murder squad? Is Manni going to be transferred back to Criminal Investigation Division 11 at last, after months of trying? But then why doesn’t Millstätt ring himself?
‘A boy’s been reported missing,’ Thalbach announces in his sonorous voice. ‘There are inconsistencies in the parents’ statements. Looks as if it might turn out to be a homicide within the family; that’s where your experience at Division 11 comes in. The boy’s parents are unable to say exactly when their son went missing. Sometime this weekend while he was camping with his dad – who isn’t his biological father, by the way.’