by Lars Schutz
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
For my father
A
‘ “A”, the noblest, most primordial of all sounds, resonant in the chest and throat; children learn to produce it first and most easily; it is justly placed at the head of the alphabet in most languages.’
The Grimms’ Dictionary
1
2nd December, morning
Whirring.
A burning pain ran down Tugba’s back.
She knew that sting. Two years ago, she’d had her philosophy of life tattooed on her left arm: There’s no shame in not knowing, only in not learning.
In Turkish. To commemorate her father.
But the man at the studio was trained.
He knew what he was doing.
Not like her torturer.
Again, he drew down the tattoo gun. The needle scraped across her skin. The whirring died away, and something warm trickled down her ribs.
She wrenched at the cable ties holding her to the heating pipe. No use. The nylon merely bit deeper into her wrists.
The man behind her snorted, giving her a kick in the kidneys. She screamed into the gag: her own underwear, which he’d stuffed into her mouth. She swallowed. Coughed. Choked.
Abruptly he rammed a hunting knife into the ground right in front of her eyes.
He was going to end it.
The certainty sent her mind spiralling back into the past, to memories of her father.
Not to the emaciated ghost the cancer had made of him, at the last – but to the man she’d always idolised.
It was he who’d persuaded her to become a teacher.
How proud he would have been to see her pass her exams with flying colours and earn a place at Montabaur.
She stretched and craned her neck back, trying to catch a glimpse out of the window above the radiator. The first light of morning was filtering through the blinds in her apartment. How many hours had he kept her prisoner?
The whirring again.
Tugba closed her yes. Friday night had started quietly. Putting off checking through her coursework until the next day, she’d made pasta and settled down in front of the TV. The movie, The Notebook, now lay a few feet away on the coffee table. The aroma of spaghetti bolognaise still hung in the air. Innocent reminders of the normality this stranger had so abruptly torn from her.
The whirring faded. Her back was on fire. A wave of nausea. She controlled herself, using all her willpower. If she vomited into her gagged mouth, she’d probably choke.
Why hadn’t she been more cautious? Why had she opened the door?
All night long she’d been asking herself those questions. As he tore the clothes from her body. As he hit her again and again. As he drew the tattoo gun across her back.
Her skin itched, as though the pain were forcing sweat from every pore. She bit down on the gag, which had long since become soaked with saliva.
Her torturer jerked the knife out of the linoleum and wrenched her head back by the hair so hard it felt like he was trying to scalp her.
Tugba’s breath came in spasms. She expected him to cut her throat. She expected pain. Darkness.
Nothing like that.
He didn’t draw the knife across her exposed throat – instead he cut the cable ties, unbinding her wrists.
What was he thinking?
She wanted to turn her head. To see him. To look into his face. But he bored his fingers into her neck, pressing her to the ground.
He lowered his mouth to her ear. His heavy breath smelled of peppermint chewing gum, and something else. Something barely perceptible. It made her think of cemeteries. Of decay.
‘The alphabet hasn’t got to you yet.’
His hoarse voice. Trembling with excitement.
What alphabet?
She screamed into the gag, but all that came out were inarticulate noises. She writhed.
Something hard struck her in the back of the head. The pain was eating into her brain.
‘A!’
The next blow.
‘B!’
He sounded like an obsessive priest, the letters like a prayer. Like the pain, they echoed for several seconds inside Tugba’s head.
‘C!’
A dull throbbing clouded her thoughts.
Her father’s words flashed across her mind: There’s no shame in not knowing, only in not learning.
2
3rd December, morning
‘The bison are going crazy!’ The ranger came running up to the window of Enno Buck’s jeep before he could even switch off the engine.
‘Calm down, Mirco—’ Buck knocked back the last gulp of black tea from his thermos.
When he got out, his wellington boots sank up to the ankles in the fresh snow. The icy wind drove thick flakes into his face, which melted on his cheeks.
He never got to the park on time in weather like this. Work started at half seven. By that time the council had barely cleared a fraction of the Westerwald roads.
Picking up his broad-brimmed leather hat from the dashboard, he pulled it down over his forehead. A habit from his year in Canberra. It was the only item of fashion he really cared about.
‘Okay, let’s take a look. Did you see anything?’
The young ranger shook his head.
Switching on their torches, they tramped off towards the bison enclosure, which was near the car park. Only gradually was
the darkness receding, dragging itself through the forest like a dying animal.
Even from a distance they could hear the lowing and stamping of the bison. The torch beams flitted across muted brown hides, making the animals’ small eyes glitter. Most of the herd was clustered towards the back of the enclosure.
Buck’s heart began to beat faster. Despite the subzero temperatures, he was sweating. The European bison – as tall as a man and weighing up to a tonne, related to the American bison – always filled him with respect. Not fear, respect. He drew a clear distinction.
‘Can you see anything?’ asked Mirco.
‘No.’ Buck leant against the fence. ‘Unlock it, we’re going in. Me first.’
‘Shouldn’t we wait until they’ve calmed down?’
Buck ran both hands through his beard, which was turning increasingly grey year by year. ‘No time. I want to know right now what’s wrong in there.’
His took his keepering job seriously. His job was to protect the animals. From sickness and weather. From greed. From visitors. Sometimes even from each other.
And from whatever was happening in the enclosure.
Clamping the torch between his teeth, Mirco unlocked the gate. It squeaked as he pushed it ajar.
‘After you then, boss!’
Buck clapped him on the shoulder and stepped into the enclosure. The snow crunched under his heels with every step.
He stretched out his arm as far as he could, holding the torch fixed on the group of bison.
‘Make yourself look big! Don’t make any sudden movements!’ called Mirco behind him.
One of the bison trotted in their direction, planting itself in front of the herd. It gave off a powerful reek of musk, and it stank of dung. The creature stamped its hooves, lowering its head. It snorted. Thick clouds poured from its nostrils.
‘Eeeeasy now!’
Buck raised his palms soothingly and slowly edged around the animal, as though in slow motion.
‘Boss, over there!’
Mirco was pointing his torch at the fence to the left. Buck peered over.’
‘Bloody hell!’
A hip-height, semi-circular hole. Probably done with a bolt-cutter. Somebody’d been inside – was there still, perhaps.
The bison kept its eye on him; but let them both pass. As they approached the herd, the animals scattered, fleeing into the corners of the enclosure.
Something was lying in the middle of the churned earth where the European bison had gathered. Their torches bathed it in white light.
‘Is that a miscarriage?’ stammered Mirco.
The bundle of blood- and dirt-spattered skin fragments, exposed flesh and organs had made Buck wonder the same thing.
Until he looked more closely.
Until the metallic, slightly sweet stench of fresh blood eclipsed even the bison’s musk.
His stomach turned. The black tea surged back up his gullet. Choking, he forced it back down. He was a keeper; he knew the interplay between life and death. The stinking, bloody reality of existence. Yet he’d never seen anything like this.
What lay before him had once been a human being.
3
3rd December, afternoon
‘Where are you?’ asked Miriam down the phone. ‘I’ve been standing outside your door for half an hour!’
‘In the car.’ Jan sighed. ‘Work rang.’
‘On a Sunday?’
He didn’t answer straight away; he was concentrating on moving into the outside lane. In half an hour he was expected at the police headquarters in Montabaur, where he had a meeting with the Superintendent. Lucky for him the A3 was so empty today.
‘My deepest apologies for not informing you,’ he said ironically. ‘I didn’t imagine my day turning out like this either.’
‘Is it a murder?’ The sixteen-year-old rarely sounded so euphoric.
Jan didn’t reply.
‘That’s a yes, then,’ said Miriam. ‘But what do they want with you?’
‘That, dear Anarchist, is what I’d like to know.’
‘Stop calling me Anarchist.’
‘Then stop acting like one.’
He squinted. He could almost see the outline of Montabaur Castle on the horizon. The exit couldn’t be far.
‘To what do I owe the honour of your abortive visit?’ he asked.
‘I’m in trouble,’ she said, sounding extremely sheepish, by her standards.
‘I expected nothing else.’
Miriam was a runaway who’d been eking out an existence on the streets of Mainz for two years. He’d questioned her once as a witness in a missing persons case. During his career as a behavioural investigative advisor – or profiler, as most people called his job – he’d only been called in on a few murder investigations. Until today, at least.
At first, he’d tried to make Miriam go back to her parents, but she’d given him very plausible reasons – mainly because of her dad – why that was impossible. She still baulked at the idea of a home or a foster family.
Yet Jan had won her trust, and ever since she would occasionally drop by to sleep on his sofa, work through his film collection or empty his fridge – complaining about his all-vegan selection.
He wasn’t a father figure, and he didn’t want to be. He was simply a friend who looked out for her.
As they talked, he had taken his foot off the accelerator slightly: not a good idea in the outside lane. An Audi was tailgating him, flashing its headlights to indicate that the driver thought he was going too slowly.
Jan rolled his eyes and pulled back into the inside lane. He had to take the next exit anyway.
‘What’s happened this time?’ he asked.
‘There’s these two guys I owe money to,’ she said, pausing. Evidently, she was waiting for a reproof.
His silence was enough. She knew exactly what he was thinking.
‘I can pay them back next month, just not right now. And I spent it on something decent, by the way . . .’
‘I don’t want to know what you spent it on, okay?’
A year ago, he’d found a bag of magic mushrooms in her leather jacket. He’d never been so furious with her as at that moment. So furious and so disappointed. Although he couldn’t tell whether he was more disappointed in her or in his abilities as a psychologist.
‘Anyway, they’re after me,’ continued Miriam. ‘They don’t know I stay at your place sometimes. I just have to keep my head down for a couple of days. Please!’
He steered around the roundabout at the train station. The last time he’d been here, it hadn’t existed. He didn’t even want to know how much had happened elsewhere in the Westerwald.
You always thought home wouldn’t change. That it would stay like it was in your memory. But sometimes it changed more than you did yourself.
‘So?’ Miriam jolted him back from his reverie.
Jan jumped, almost taking his hands off the wheel. Driving always tired him. He put ‘Get coffee!’ at the top of his mental to-do list. ‘Sure’ he said. ‘Key’s under one of the big white stones to the right of the path.’
‘Not exactly burglar-proof,’ replied Miriam. He heard stones clattering in the background. ‘Aha, got it!’
‘Don’t complain. You wouldn’t be able to get in without it.’ He’d been planning to invite her over for Christmas anyway – who else could he spend the holidays with? He liked it when she came to stay. She drove away the silence. ‘But don’t let anybody in. Put the blinds down at night. And don’t turn up the stereo again! The neighbours—’
‘Oh, the line’s getting bad,’ she fobbed him off. ‘Talk to you later. Byeeee!’
‘Miri—’
All he could hear was the dialling tone. She’d hung up. He smiled and removed the phone from between his shoulder and ear. ‘You little beast—’
Both hands back on the steering wheel, he turned into the train station car park. It was so big it could have belonged to a stadium for a second-division football clu
b. During the week, commuters left their cars there before taking the express trains to work in Frankfurt or Mainz. Now, it was yawningly empty.
Sighing, Jan looked at the radio clock. 3.26 p.m.
Rabea would have arrived on the train from Basel twelve minutes ago.
When he thought about the awful mood she must be in right now, that was definitely twelve minutes too long.
4
Delayed. Obviously.
Goddammit, what else had she expected?
The train had been in the tunnel for half an hour.
Rabea puffed the air out of her cheeks and sank deeper into her seat. For the umpteenth time she flicked through her newspaper, so bored by now that she was reading the financial pages.
That weekend, she had been to visit her family in Switzerland, for the first time in six months.
As if some higher power were pranking her, the Rheinland-Pfalz State Office of Criminal Investigations had ordered her and Jan to Westerwald today of all days.
Accordingly, Jan had sounded apologetic when he’d phoned and woken her that morning. ‘I’d be happy to do it by myself,’ he’d muttered, ‘but I can’t manage without your gift for observation. You’re the best assistant out there.’
Despite the flattery, she’d chucked her phone into the corner of the room.
Maybe she should have flipped Jan and the department the bird and simply continued her long weekend in the Emmental. Yet something about this case had caught her attention. Something she couldn’t explain to her mother as she dashed pell-mell out of the house.
A jolt. The train was back in motion. In her second-class compartment there was a murmur of surprise. The bald man in the pinstripe suit, who’d been asleep since Freiburg and had a thread of spittle dangling from his mouth, gave an indignant snort.
‘About time,’ muttered Rabea, putting the paper down.
She really needed her own car.
Rabea stood up, although after the long journey she’d practically fused with the seat. Balancing on her tip-toes, she reached for her suitcase on the luggage rack.
A wiry man, a classic wannabe alpha type, came over and stood in front of her. ‘Pretty lady like you doesn’t have to do that by herself,’ he cooed.
Rabea demurred, pulled out the handle of her suitcase and fled towards the exit.
She’d been on a diet since the beginning of the year – which for her basically meant drastically reducing her consumption of chocolate. Men had been approaching her more and more recently, including ones like that guy – easily twenty years older than her – whom she could have done without.