Cut

by Marc Raabe

  Gabriel feels affronted. The vortex stops. ‘No idea,’ he says slowly. ‘When you see him, you should ask.’

  For a fleeting moment, Gabriel thinks he can see disappointment in Dressler’s eyes. A false sense of triumph comes over him. ‘Is that good enough to convince you of my mental health?’

  ‘Well,’ Dressler says, ‘just to give you an idea of the situation: your file describes you as mentally unstable, highly aggressive and paranoid, and attests to your having a personality disorder. All in all, the best recipe for a murder. So, if I were you, I would try to be a bit more cooperative. Otherwise you will only damage your reputation further.’

  The feeling of triumph fades. Instead, he suddenly thinks of Liz. The fact that he is still stuck here and doesn’t know what happened to her. He clears his throat. ‘Listen, I don’t know what’s going on here. And I have no idea what happened to this Pit Münchmaier guy. I only know that my girlfriend is missing. In the park, she was –’

  ‘– attacked,’ Dressler adds softly. ‘I know.’

  ‘If you are really here to help me, then find Liz.’

  ‘Well, the point is, there is no evidence of this attack at all.’

  ‘She is missing, damn it. Call her, go to her flat at Cothenius-strasse, ask her editors. After that, if you still think that –’

  ‘The police have already done that, Gabriel. But your Liz Anders is a journalist and, as far as I’ve heard, she’s known to disappear, often for days and weeks to conduct her research.’

  ‘She’s not conducting any fucking research. She was attacked!’

  ‘Did you have a disagreement?’ Dressler asks.

  Gabriel stares at Dressler as if the psychiatrist had slapped him across the face and clenches his fists. ‘You goddamned fucking arsehole.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dressler smiles. ‘Is Luke actually still somewhere in there?’

  Gabriel takes a deep breath and forces his fists to open up. Dressler leans forward across the table and drills into Gabriel with his watery eyes. ‘You don’t seem clear on the fact that I hold the keys. And I don’t mean to the cell. I am here to decide whether you need to be transferred into the closed ward. It seems from this you haven’t grown.’

  Gabriel stares at Dressler. At the same time, his knees begin to tremble under the table. Anything but that! he thinks. The psychiatric hospital – never again. Never strapped to a stretcher again. Never given electroshock again. He nervously wipes his clammy palms on his trousers.

  I say yes, Luke. I say yes. Beat the shit out of him! Or do something else. The main thing is that you do something!

  Gabriel puts his hands back on the table, breathes in and out deeply several times, leans forward and makes eye contact with Dressler. The dented lamp pours light over their stony faces, which are now hardly even thirty centimetres apart. It is dead silent. Even the burly officer has stopped chewing on his gum.

  With a sudden movement, Gabriel reaches for Dressler’s keys with his right hand. His other hand grabs Dressler’s very groomed grey hair and pulls his head down, so that Dressler moves awkwardly like a marionette, then groans and falls to the table on his back. In a flash, Gabriel presses one of the sharp, jagged keys against his outstretched throat.

  The burly officer looks at him with his mouth agape as he gets up in slow motion.

  ‘The gun,’ Gabriel says, ‘with two fingers, very slowly. If you fire, I will slit his jugular.’

  Dressler groans. The police officer fishes his weapon out of the holster with two fingers. The chewing gum hangs in his open mouth, a shiny white lump.

  ‘Now remove the magazine and put it in your trouser pocket.’

  The brawny man stares at him blankly. ‘Do it, goddamn it,’ Gabriel insists.

  Without taking his eyes off Gabriel, the officer removes the magazine from his gun with a quiet click and then puts it away in his pocket.

  ‘Now put the gun on the floor and kick it over to me.’ It makes a hollow scratching sound as it scrapes along the floor and stops in front of Gabriel’s feet. It is a SIG Sauer 226 with fifteen rounds – when there’s a magazine in the grip. Gabriel hesitates and stares indecisively at the weapon.

  Are you insane, Luke? Do you really think you can get out of here without a gun?

  I know what you want, but you can forget about it.

  Take the damned thing! And have him give you the magazine. Do you think they hesitate to shoot for even a second out there?

  I can’t change it. That’s just how it is.

  You and your fucking fear, man. It could be so easy. But Lucky Luke is afraid of guns.

  Gabriel grits his teeth, lets go of Dressler’s neck, bends over quickly and picks up the matt black weapon. His trembling fingers close around the rough, hollow grip. It smells of gun oil and feels red-hot.

  The policeman looks at Gabriel’s shaking hands, then into his eyes. He slowly begins chewing again as his brain starts turning. It’s clear that he is thinking about the magazine in his trouser pocket. His lips curl into a smirk and he dives at Gabriel with a heavy and clumsy movement. Gabriel doesn’t have to do much. One hard and well-aimed blow to the officer’s solar plexus does the job. The air escapes his throat and sounds like a can of beer being opened. Then the burly man slumps to the ground.

  Dressler has crept away from the table. His now chalk-white face stares back at Gabriel and he falls back against the wall.

  Gabriel takes two steps towards him and drags him back into the middle of the room, where he slams him on the table, the back of his head hitting the lamp, making it swing violently back and forth. The light beam wavers across the room, casting wild shadows over the walls. For a moment, Dressler seems as if he is about to topple over.

  ‘Take off your jacket and lay it on the table.’

  Dressler obeys, staggering.

  Gabriel rolls the jacket into a bundle, picks up Dressler’s keys again and then pulls back on Dressler’s pink tie like it’s a bridle and wraps it around his left hand.

  Dressler groans as Gabriel pushes the hard metal into his back beneath his ribs.

  ‘Now take your jacket from the table with both hands and hold it tight. If you let go of it, whether it be with one or two hands, you’re done,’ Gabriel says. ‘Let’s go.’ His heart beats into his throat.

  The walrus and another officer are standing in the hall. They both stare at them as if frozen.

  ‘Help me,’ Dressler groans. The tightly pulled tie is cutting off his airflow and the SIG Sauer seems to be piercing a hole in his back. ‘He’s bluffing! His gun isn’t loaded.’

  The officers’ eyes are fixed on the black metal in Gabriel’s hand, but neither of them dares move.

  Gabriel can feel the sweat dripping down his chest and neck as they pass the policemen. Suddenly, Dressler slows down. Gabriel gives him a hard jab in the kidneys and Dressler howls like a kicked dog. ‘Shut up and keep moving.’ Gabriel pulls on Dressler’s tie as a warning. ‘Otherwise I’ll break your neck.’ With hurried steps, he pushes Dressler onward past a dozen doors, down a flight of stairs and then through the main entrance of the police station. Cool, damp air greets them.

  ‘Where is your car?’

  Dressler gestures to the far left corner of the car park. There is a black Porsche Cayenne roughly a hundred metres away. The SUV towers over the surrounding vehicles.

  Three officers get out of a police car and look over at him suspiciously; they are not even ten metres away. One of them instinctively pulls his weapon. Gabriel pushes Dressler to move faster. The psychiatrist turns to the officers. ‘Shoot,’ he cries. ‘The gun isn’t loaded, there is no magazine inside.’

  The officer holds his weapon at the ready with an uncertain expression and follows Gabriel with the barrel of the gun like a metal rabbit at a shooting range. More officers funnel out of the main entrance of the police station.

  ‘Why won’t anyone do anything?’ Dressler cries. His voice cracks. ‘Shoot, damn it! Do something! He has no ammo. I sa
w it myself. The guy is a lunatic!’

  No one moves.

  ‘Help,’ Dressler screams again. ‘Why won’t anyone shoot him?’

  Nobody responds. Gabriel and Dressler’s steps crunch against the asphalt. Otherwise, it’s dead quiet.

  ‘Open it,’ Gabriel says when they reach the Porsche Cayenne.

  ‘How?’ Dressler asks. ‘You have the key.’ Gabriel shoves Dressler against the SUV, lets go of the tie, gets the key from his trouser pocket and presses the button to open the electronic locks. Then he shoves Dressler into the passenger seat, ties the loose end of the pink tie tightly to the headrest of the seat and then gives Dressler a warning punch in the stomach. The psychiatrist is too tightly bound to writhe in pain so, tortured, rolls his eyes.

  Gabriel climbs into the driver’s seat and puts the weapon on the dashboard above the glove compartment, right in front of Dressler’s nose. The psychiatrist stares at the object, paralysed. It was not a matt black gun labelled SIG Sauer in front of him – it was the microphone from the interrogation room.

  The eight-cylinder engine of the Porsche starts with a controlled roar. Gabriel’s heart is pounding. He steps on the accelerator and speeds past the police officers. They are finally stirred into action. In the rear-view mirror he sees the three officers jump into their patrol car and his tyres squeal as he rushes out of the car park. He heads east out of Berlin, only to immediately turn left at the next corner. Sirens howl nearby. His eyes dart over to the rear-view mirror.

  Still no police car in sight.

  The officers probably wasted too much time changing direction. At the next corner, Gabriel turns left again, manoeuvres around two more corners and drives west towards Mitte. He can no longer hear the siren. After looking back into the rear-view mirror once more, he feels just the slightest bit less tense.

  Dressler sits beside him and doesn’t say a word. His grey hair is a mess and he continues staring at the dashboard. The fact that he was kidnapped from a police station using an old microphone clearly bothers him. ‘Where . . . where is the gun?’ he finally croaks, almost fifteen minutes later.

  Gabriel gestures to Dressler’s jacket, which the psychiatrist is still clutching with both hands as if it were the last thing to hold on to in a world turned upside down. Dressler gropes around the dark blue bundle of fabric and groans when he feels the weapon. For the first time in his life, his fingers close around the handle of a gun. He longingly touches the slightly curved trigger and it’s clear how much he wishes that the weapon were loaded.

  Gabriel continues driving in silence. His heartbeat has calmed down a bit, but Dressler’s presence is enough to keep him uneasy. For him, the time he spent in Conradshöhe is like a thick fog in front of an all-devouring black hole. Dressler awakens in Gabriel the unsettling feeling of being at his mercy, as if the psychiatrist could still now – and at any time – pull a straitjacket over his innermost self. In vain, he tries to concentrate on Liz, tries to plan his next steps, but as long as Dressler is sitting beside him, he won’t succeed.

  Without hesitating, he spins the steering wheel sharply to the right and turns into a courtyard. The centrifugal force throws Dressler to the left and the tie presses on his throat. Gabriel turns off the motor, gets out, opens the door for Dressler and loosens the tie from the seat.

  Unsure, the psychiatrist stares at him and then climbs out of the Porsche. The courtyard is empty and there are garage doors on the left and right.

  ‘Undress,’ Gabriel says.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Undress. Everything.’

  Dressler turns red under his tangled grey hair. ‘What . . . what’s this about? What do you think you’re doing?’ he stammers angrily.

  ‘Undress or I will break your neck,’ Gabriel hisses. His anger is like thick, old oil that should have been discarded long ago. ‘Or do you doubt that I’m capable of that?’

  Dressler opens his mouth, but Gabriel cuts him off. ‘What was still in my file? That I suffer from paranoia and am highly aggressive? If you really believe that, then you should be desperately doing as I say.’

  Dressler’s lips tremble with indignation. Slowly, like a child who wants to protest but knows it’s useless, he begins to strip down to his underpants. His skin is pale and has pink spots.

  ‘The underpants and glasses, too,’ Gabriel says. Dressler stares at him. Desperation mixes with his indignation. His eyes are pleading, asking why Gabriel is doing all of this to him.

  ‘You know exactly why,’ Gabriel says.

  Dressler’s expression flickers. ‘I . . . I was just doing my job. That’s what everyone did at the time. I didn’t invent the treatment, I –’

  ‘Take off the glasses.’

  ‘But . . . without . . . that is, without my glasses I can’t see very well, I’m –’

  ‘Glasses and underpants!’

  Dressler tilts his chin forward. He reluctantly puts the glasses on the other articles of clothing and then, with his fiery red face, he pulls down his underpants and stands naked in front of Gabriel. He genitals are reminiscent of a thin branch with dead leaves. The cool September morning makes him shiver.

  Gabriel fishes Dressler’s wallet out of the jacket and takes the cash, which is about 350 euro. The he opens the back hatch of the Cayenne, throws in the clothing and rummages around in the boot for something that he can use to restrain Dressler. The only useful thing he finds is a thick roll of packing tape.

  Gabriel closes the boot and throws the SIG Sauer to Dressler. ‘Hold that tightly with both hands, index finger on the trigger.’

  Dressler stands there like an old man escaped from a home. ‘I . . . I have to . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have to . . . go to the toilet,’ he groans.

  Gabriel rolls his eyes. ‘In a few minutes, not now. Hands around the gun and then hold it out.’

  Dressler’s last attempt at resisting is over and he obeys silently. Gabriel wraps the sticky masking tape around Dressler’s hands and the black SIG Sauer several times, so that both of the psychiatrist’s hands are bound in a shooting position around the weapon, as if he were brandishing it threateningly. Finally, Gabriel tapes Dressler’s mouth shut, manoeuvres him onto the back seat, forces him to lie down and leaves the courtyard in the direction of the city centre. Dressler shuffles around anxiously with his naked body on the beige leather upholstery of the Cayenne.

  There is busy morning traffic on Budapester Strasse and Gabriel keeps a lookout for police vehicles. There is probably a search out for him by now. When he reaches the station at Zoologischer Garten, he stops at the side of the road.

  The black Cayenne attracts a few fleeting, mostly envious glances. When a stark-naked man steps out of the rear seat of the SUV with a gun in his hands at the ready and staggers across the station square, the unease spreads rapidly. Several passers-by photograph the man with their phones. Two girls scream loudly and run away. The people scatter, unsure of what is happening. There are the first signs of panic, which splash over the square in a circular wave with Dressler in the centre. The anger and shame over his immense humiliation that is visible in Dressler’s eyes only make him seem more threatening. No one notices the tape around his hands or mouth.

  And no one notices the Porsche, which joins the traffic only to be parked on the side of the road a few hundred metres further down with the motor running, the door open and the key on the leather driver’s seat.

  Chapter 21

  Berlin – 3 September, 8.12 a.m.

  Gabriel shivers. The gusts of moist wind encourage him to quicken his pace. His worry for Liz, the persistent lack of sleep and the events of the last thirty-three hours eat away at him.

  When he reaches the building, he stops in front of the door for a moment. His hot breath rises in thin bright clouds.

  D. Naumann is written in small black letters on the uppermost of the eleven brass nameplates beside the buzzers. Gabriel has
stood in front of this buzzer a thousand times and never pressed it.

  Gabriel presses the button with his thumb. The metal is cool. He waits a while and then rings a second time.

  Open up, damn it!

  He was always a late riser. Have you forgotten, Luke?

  He’ll hear the buzzer.

  He probably shut it off just in case his brother stopped by.

  Gabriel bites his lip.

  Then he pushes the buzzer beneath David’s. A moment later an old woman’s voice creaks over the intercom. ‘Hello? Who’s there?’

  ‘Good morning,’ Gabriel says. ‘Your neighbour ordered fresh bread, but now isn’t answering. I’d like to leave it in front of his door. You know how it is, people take everything these days . . .’

  Instead of an answer, the lock buzzes open and Gabriel enters the stairwell. It smells of cleaning products. He ignores the shiny door to the lift and sprints up the steps two at a time until he reaches the top. David’s door is the only one on the fifth floor. He pushes the doorbell and can hear a low buzz in the flat.

  So much for the buzzer being switched off. Still, no one answers. Where the hell is David?

  Didn’t I tell you? You are and remain alone. It is a fundamentally good thing, Luke.

  All right, all right, leave me alone.

  Gabriel turns on his heel and goes to the stairs. At that moment, there is a soft metal click behind him. He stops and turns around. The flat door is open just a crack. The man looking back at him is blond with groomed stubble, messy hair and green eyes. They are Gabriel’s mother’s eyes.

  An image flashes through Gabriel’s head for a second. His mother is lying on the floor, twitching. Her left eye is wide open and the iris is surrounded by white, like a dead green sea. Where the right eye once was is a dark bloody crater with rough edges. He can see inside of her head. It’s all so real. The air seems to taste like blood, as if there were a fine red mist lingering in it. The shock makes him gasp. Then the flashback is over, just as abruptly as it began.

  ‘Gabriel?’ David’s eyes widen.