Cut

by Marc Raabe

  She repeats the whole procedure several times until the infusion bag is three-quarters empty, always anxious that the needle couldn’t possibly remain sterile with what she was doing. An infection was really just a matter of time.

  Then she begins training. One step after another. Slowly, from cellar wall to cellar wall. She holds the IV with its rolling stand in one hand like an elderly person using a walker, and the catheter in her other hand.

  Liz’s legs are like jelly. She suspects that the infusion not only provides her with drugs and medications, but also with liquid nourishment. But if she has to choose between nourishment and a clear head, then the decision is easy.

  She touches the wall in front of her, turns and goes in the other direction. Step by step. Please don’t let him ever think to come here at night.

  Another two steps to the wall.

  Why doesn’t he strap me to the bed? Why risk my running away?

  Turn and go back again.

  He is very sure of himself. Damn sure.

  She forces herself to go more slowly to keep from falling.

  Is he overestimating himself? Or am I overestimating myself?

  The exertion makes her sweat.

  What does he know about me? And what does he want from me? Why did he ask if the baby is Gabriel’s?

  Chapter 30

  Berlin – 15 September, 11.37 p.m.

  Gabriel peers across the street through the tinted rear windows of the Chrysler Voyager and sips on his cold coffee.

  Nothing.

  Five days have passed since he found Verena Schuster’s body. Five days with no sign of life from Liz or word from the kidnapper. The only thing he’s had to hold on to in this time is the search for Jonas.

  He purchased the dark-blue Chrysler van on the very same day that he found Verena Schuster. He paid the used-car dealer in cash without negotiating. The van had only three months left on the MOT and a mileage of just over 130,000, but none of that mattered. He didn’t need it for driving.

  Everything is quiet in front of the kiosk on the other side of the street. In the bright, open shop window, Mr Moustache leans against his elbow on the counter, smokes and leafs through a magazine. Between puffs, he glances alternately at the television inside to his right and at his mobile, presumably to check the time. It is 11.38 p.m. In twenty-two minutes, he will roll down the exterior shutters and go home on time, like every night.

  An elderly gentleman passes behind the Chrysler on the street and goes up to the kiosk. His dachshund sniffs at the street lamp in the very same spot as yesterday and the day before and lifts his leg.

  Then the man buys a beer at the news stand and disappears.

  Mr Moustache looks at his mobile again.

  Five days of nothing . . . the wait is killing him, but he has no choice. This is his only and best lead so far.

  On the other side of the street, someone approaches from the opposite direction with the dragging gait of an elderly man.

  Just another pensioner.

  As the man approaches, Gabriel tries to make out his face, but he has a hood pulled over his head that casts a shadow over his features. A sports bag hangs at waist-level.

  Pensioner?

  The man goes up to the kiosk counter and gets a surprised smile from the Mr Moustache. Gabriel reaches for his binoculars and tries to make out the man’s face again, but he only sees the edge of the hood.

  Mr Moustache hands him a bottle of spirits over the counter, takes his cash and rummages through the till.

  The man with the hooded jumper turns around, first to the left, then to the right in Gabriel’s direction. For a brief moment, the light from the street reveals the pale features of a twenty-something with a crooked nose.

  Jonas.

  Gabriel puts the binoculars aside and unlocks the van’s sliding door. With a grinding metallic noise, the door opens.

  Jonas turns his head in his direction and looks suspiciously over at the van. Mr Moustache puts the change on the counter. Gabriel climbs out and walks casually towards the kiosk, as if he wants to buy one last beer for the evening. There are about thirty metres between him and Jonas. There is a light drizzle.

  Jonas stands there, frozen, his eyes hidden by his hood. A fox in his hole.

  Another twenty metres.

  Jonas doesn’t move, clutching his bottle of spirits.

  There’s something about Gabriel’s appearance that Jonas doesn’t like. All of a sudden, his body jolts into a run.

  Gabriel sprints after him like a jungle cat. The drizzle lands on his face in a wet film. Jonas is clearly younger than him – and clearly in worse shape. He turns the next corner, looks around, spots Gabriel – who is rapidly catching up – and hurls the bottle at his feet. The momentum of the throw makes Jonas lose his balance and he stumbles, losing valuable time. With a loud crash, the bottle smashes on the asphalt. Gabriel jumps over the shards, reaches into Jonas’s hood and pushes him against the building with all of his weight. The rough plaster scrapes Jonas’s cheek.

  ‘Ow. Shit, man. Let go!’ Jonas squirms around like an animal trying to free himself. He is shaking; his chest is pounding with exertion. Gabriel wrings the fabric of the hood into his fist, constricts Jonas’s airway and forces him to his knees.

  ‘What’s this about? What do you want?’ Jonas pants. ‘I didn’t do nothing.’

  ‘Sure, that’s why you ran off.’

  Gabriel guides him a few metres back into a dark doorway, shoving him into the corner. The pungent odour of the spilled spirits on the pavement rises in his nose.

  ‘Ow! Man, shit,’ Jonas howls. Whaddaya want?’

  ‘Are you Jonas Schuster?’

  Clearly afraid, Jonas squints up into Gabriel’s eyes and tries to assess his pursuer. ‘And if I am?’

  ‘I have a few questions.’

  ‘I ain’t saying nothing, man.’ Jonas pushes out his chin. ‘You can forget it. Only with a lawyer.’

  ‘Lawyer, right.’

  ‘I won’t let anything get pinned on me.’

  ‘So you’re some kind of smart arse, eh?’

  Jonas looks at him, unsure.

  ‘You can forget about a lawyer, it wouldn’t help anyway. I’m not a cop, the cops always show up in pairs. Someone like you should know that.’

  ‘Not a cop?’ Jonas asks suspiciously. ‘Really?’

  A light turns on inside the building. They hear footsteps on the stairs.

  Gabriel pulls the hood tighter. ‘Listen,’ he hisses, ‘I know you’re in trouble. I can help you. Or I can beat the shit out of you. Your choice.’

  Jonas’s expression flickers. The steps from inside grow louder. ‘Help,’ he mutters hoarsely.

  Without a word, Gabriel grabs him by the armpits and pulls him up onto his feet. He puts his right arm around his shoulders and pushes him along the pavement. Shards of glass crunch under their feet, the street lamps glow like fog lights in the drizzle. On the other side of the street, the Chrysler peers out of the darkness. ‘Over to the van.’

  He manoeuvres Jonas into the passenger seat and starts the engine. In silence, he steers out of the side street and turns onto Kottbusser Strasse, the main road. The windscreen wipers squeal. Jonas droops in his seat, misery personified.

  ‘If you’re not some pig,’ he asks feebly, ‘then what?’

  ‘Private investigator.’

  ‘A snoop?’

  ‘Private investigator,’ Gabriel repeats flatly.

  ‘And what are you investigating?’

  ‘I’m looking for the person,’ Gabriel says, ‘who did that to your mother.’

  Silence.

  He isn’t asking what had been done to her, Gabriel thinks.

  Jonas bites his lip. His pupils dart restlessly from one point to the next. ‘She – she’s dead, isn’t she?’

  Gabriel nods.

  ‘How do you know –’

  ‘I saw her.’

  Jonas’s eyes glaze over. ‘That fucking arsehol
e,’ he says with a shaky voice and wipes his nose with his palm.

  ‘It wasn’t even about her at all. He was after you, wasn’t he?’ Gabriel asks.

  Jonas looks to the side. His chin is trembling, but he clenches his teeth so that Gabriel doesn’t notice and nods silently.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I . . . I got home in the afternoon –’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last week, Friday. Eigh . . . eight days ago.’

  Gabriel counts back. So, on September 7th, three days before he’d found Verena Schuster.

  ‘So, around three, I heard . . . something, outside, at the door. I thought she had a visitor, some guy. It happened a lot. So I quietly opened the door and went into my room. And then I heard it. I . . . I recognised the voice. And the door to the kitchen was open and I . . .,’ he swallows and wipes away a whitish string of mucus from his nose, ‘I saw the knife, as he . . .’ He goes silent and stares out through the windscreen at the wet street.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He kept repeating the same thing. Kept saying, “Where is your son? Tell me where he is.” And then he . . . the knife was inside of her and he turned it,’ Jonas sobs.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I ran. I . . . I was scared shitless, I ran away. He didn’t notice me.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘What do you mean?

  ‘Did you go back, or. . . ?

  Jonas shakes his head. ‘He’s waiting there for me,’ he whispers. ‘He’ll kill me. I can never go back.’

  ‘Why haven’t you called the police?’

  ‘I . . . because –’ He stops short and stares at the windscreen wipers as they swing from side to side and sniffles loudly. ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘What does he want with you?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Jonas whispers like a broken record.

  Gabriel turns slightly left from Kottbusser Damm onto Sonnenallee. The drizzle envelops everything in a hazy black soup with flecks of light floating on top.

  ‘Listen,’ Gabriel says gruffly, ‘the man’s a psychopath. He didn’t just kill your mother, he literally slaughtered her. He slit her open from below and then pulled out her guts. She was probably still alive at the time and had to watch. What do you think he has planned for you if he catches you?’

  Jonas’s face is white as a sheet.

  Silence spreads and surrounds them. The damp asphalt whooshes softly and the rubber from the windscreen wipers scrapes across the glass.

  ‘So,’ Gabriel starts, ‘if I am to help you, then you have to talk to me. Understand?’

  Jonas chews on his lip for almost a minute. Finally, he quietly says, ‘I already . . . I already saw him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In Friedrichshain. He . . . killed my friend Pit. But I got away. That’s why he’s looking for me.’

  ‘Because you know what he looks like?’

  Jonas nods. He wipes his nose with his hand again and then wraps his arms around himself, as if he needs to hold on tight. ‘He was wearing some kinda mask or hat, but Pit ripped it off. He . . . his face is . . . one half looks like a zombie.’

  ‘A zombie?’

  ‘I don’t know, like after an accident or something. The other half was totally normal.’

  ‘Which half?’

  Jonas shrugs. ‘I think the . . . right?’

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘His hand was weird. It didn’t look real, like plastic or something.’

  ‘A prosthesis.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  ‘Which side?’

  ‘. . . Also the right.’

  ‘What else can you think of?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Jonas says with a hoarse voice. His eyes stray out the windscreen. ‘He’s blond. Maybe fifty. Roughly as tall as you.’

  The headlights of an oncoming car illuminate the narrow strip of grass between the trees. ‘Will you . . . catch him?’

  Hopefully, since you can’t seem to shake him! Gabriel thinks. And otherwise, I’ll probably have to serve you up on a silver platter . . .

  ‘Will you?’

  Gabriel’s hands clutch the steering wheel more tightly. He thinks about Liz and can feel his self-restraint turning to rage. ‘Why didn’t you call the police when you were in the park?’

  ‘I . . . what?’

  ‘What happened in the park? Why did he kill your friend?’

  ‘I, I don’t kn—’

  ‘Don’t lie to me.’

  Jonas stares at him. A glaring beam of light from another car shines on his face and he blinks uncontrollably.

  ‘Spit it out. What happened in the park? Something must’ve happened, or else you would’ve called the police. What are you afraid of?’

  Jonas groans. ‘There was . . .’ he mumbles, ‘there was also a woman.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She had red hair. She was just lying there.’

  Liz! Gabriel’s stomach ties into knots. ‘What does that mean, she was just lying there?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  Silence.

  ‘She was just lying there on the ground. Something was wrong with her.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Well,’ Jonas squirms around. ‘She was giving us shit. Earlier, on the train. She was all worked up, tryna start something. She needed a real thrashing, so we gave it to ’er –’

  Gabriel abruptly slams on the brakes and turns the steering wheel all the way to the right. The front wheels of the van slam against the kerb and the vehicle jumps and then comes to a screeching halt on the edge of the street, just before the crossing. Thirty metres further, a flyover hangs above the street like a concrete guillotine.

  Smash his skull in – now, right now! the voice in Gabriel’s head encourages.

  Stay out of this, damn it. Just stay out of this.

  Gabriel swallows and tries to get his seething emotions under control.

  Just bloody do it. Then we’ll finally have this behind us. You’ll feel better.

  ‘Thrashing?’ Gabriel asks. His eyes bore into Jonas. ‘Did you say thrashing?’

  Jonas shifts away from him and leans against the door. ‘Well,’ he mumbles. ‘So, she was, I mean . . . she really insulted us . . . anyone would have –’

  He doesn’t get any further.

  Gabriel’s fist lands square in the middle of Jonas’s face. The back of his head slams against the window and his upper lip splits. Jonas howls and spits blood into his hand along with something white. ‘Shit,’ he whines, ‘my teeth.’

  ‘That was for the thrashing. Enough of this shit. Come clean. What exactly happened?’

  Jonas is deathly pale. The pain drives tears into his eyes. ‘I . . . I didn’t want to,’ he stammers. ‘It . . . it was Pit’s idea.’

  ‘What was Pit’s idea?’

  ‘The girl really laid into us on the train earlier, like I said, threatened us and wanted to get the cops and everything. Pit thought she needed a beating.’

  ‘She was lying there on the ground and you beat her up?’

  Jonas swallowed. The tears run in dirty trails across his face. He sniffles. It sounds like a blunt saw.

  ‘You . . . you’re not really an investigator, are you?’

  Gabriel’s hand shoots out and grabs him by the throat.

  Squeeze, Luke. Squeeze!

  Jonas lets out a desperate gurgle, his eyes bulge out and he starts turning blue. Helpless, he grabs Gabriel’s arm. A dark wet spot spreads across his trousers.

  A twisted smile comes across Gabriel’s face.

  More, more! the voice whispers in his head.

  I still need him – I can’t.

  An eye for an eye, Luke. Do it. If you don’t do it, no one will.

  I need him to find Liz, he’s my decoy!

  Stop thinking and just do it!

  Gabriel closes his eyes – and let
s go.

  Jonas groans and gasps for air like an asthmatic. His whole body is shaking.

  ‘And then?’ Gabriel asks. ‘What then?’

  ‘Then,’ Jonas wheezes and his face changes back from blue to red, ‘then this guy came out of the bushes. Wearin’ a black hat with holes in it like in a horror film,’ he pants. ‘He came towards us and we thought, let’s get out of here. Pit was already moving, but I wasn’t as fast. He . . . he was after us and had me . . . and Pit saw and came back. He dived at the guy and pummelled him, and then pulled off his hat . . . but the man was stronger and . . . and had him,’ Jonas sobs and stops, his chin trembling. ‘He had a knife, such a little thing, not a real knife, and used it to slit his throat . . .’

  Jonas’s hands nervously grope around for something to hold on to, but he can’t find anything to give him support.

  ‘I . . . I didn’t want to,’ he stammers. ‘I’m sorry, man. Really . . .’

  Suddenly he hooks his right hand into the door handle and instinctively pulls on it until it clicks and the passenger-side door swings open. Jonas falls out of the Chrysler onto the pavement.

  Gabriel reacts quickly and grabs him by his lower left leg. Panicked, Jonas tries to pull away and kicks with the other leg. His foot hits Gabriel’s chin with a thud. Gabriel sees stars. Jonas sees his chance and immediately kicks again, hitting Gabriel’s already injured shoulder. Gabriel growls in pain and lets go. Jonas flails his arms, squirms the rest of the way out of the Chrysler, falls and pulls himself together again right away.

  Gabriel opens the driver’s side door in a daze. The wind from a car speeding by nearly rips the door out of his hand, a horn blaring angrily in his ears. He looks at the crossroads, sees Jonas staggering away in the direction of the flyover. Gabriel takes off his seatbelt and jumps out of the van.

  Jonas turns around in a panic and trips further in the direction of the train tacks. The opening to the underpass is gaping ominously. Eyes wide, he stares over at Gabriel, who is catching up and crossing the street when the blood-curdlingly loud sound of a horn approaches behind him.

  Jonas snaps his head around. The forty-ton lorry bursts through the underpass like a monster and shoots into the crossing. The Mercedes star is as big as Jonas’s head and directed right at his chest. Jonas’s mouth hangs open with fright; it looks grotesque, almost as if he’d hoped to swallow the lorry at the last minute. It’s too late to scream. The impact sounds like hitting plastic, like kicking a dustbin.