by Marc Raabe
‘And what do you think now? Was it coming from the cellar or from outside?’
David takes a long look at him and then shrugs. ‘I’m not sure.’
Gabriel nods. Slowly, as if he were carrying a heavy burden on his shoulders, he straightens up. ‘Thanks,’ he mumbles awkwardly.
David shakes his head. ‘You really can’t remember anything?’
Gabriel shrugs.
‘And in the clinic?’ David asks. ‘They sure as hell tried to give you therapy. Is there no record or anything?’
Gabriel grimaces. ‘The file is gone. Why do you ask?’
‘Just because,’ David evades giving an answer. ‘I thought they had to save things like that.’
Gabriel’s eyes look at him piercingly. David seems to regret having said anything. Maybe, Gabriel thinks, it would be worth asking at Conradshöhe. At that very moment, he feels his stomach cramp; he would do anything to avoid going to that place. Maybe the police would be waiting for him there anyway. ‘No,’ Gabriel says. ‘Even if you don’t believe it, I can’t remember. I’ve had a lot of dreams about it lately. Nightmares. But I’m not sure what really happened and what didn’t.’
‘What exactly happens in your dreams?’
Gabriel shrugs. ‘Messed-up stuff. No idea.’ He goes over to the counter in the open-plan kitchen, picks up a pen that’s sitting there and scribbles something on the edge of the newspaper.
David watches him and can feel his anger fade into a deep resignation, as so often has been the case.
Gabriel taps on the newspaper. ‘If you think of anything else, this is Liz’s number. You can reach me there.’
‘OK. And what’s going on with Liz? Has she resurfaced?’
Gabriel hesitates a moment.
Forget it, Luke, he won’t believe it. He never believes you. Not even that you can’t remember anything.
‘Forget it,’ Gabriel says. He opens David’s refrigerator and looks inside. ‘Do you have a beer? For the road?’ It is entirely empty. ‘Do you always eat out or don’t you eat at all?’
‘That’s none of your business,’ David replies icily. A hint of red appears in his cheeks.
‘All right, I’ll go,’ Gabriel says.
David doesn’t say a word.
When Gabriel has gone, David sinks down on the sofa and stares at the stain on the wall where the Dali used to hang. But instead of Dali, he’s busy with another mental image – the image of Gabriel’s hotel key that had fallen on the floor. The heavy key chain had looked like it was from the seventies and had a large ‘37’ and the words ‘CAESAR’S BERLIN’ written on it in ancient-Roman-style letters.
Chapter 34
Nowhere – 21 September
Liz is lying on her back, semi-conscious. The light has been back on for quite a while now. It’s the morning of September 21st, that is, if she’s counted each time it switches from dark to light correctly. The fluid from the IV steadily drips into her veins. Now she is certain that the side effects are making her mouth feel dust dry.
There is also the urgent need to urinate. Ever since her catheter was removed, she has had to wait to go to the toilet, but at least now it is easier to train at night.
She impatiently squints towards the door. Yvette should have been there long ago to help her onto the toilet seat after breakfast, as she does every morning.
Breakfast.
It sounds good, so pleasantly normal. In reality, it’s a bitter porridge with fruit and water. Healthy, but disgusting.
At least he’s not letting me go hungry.
The key clicks in the lock and Yvette enters the room. As she has been doing for the past few days, she first makes sure that Liz is lying quietly in bed. Then she puts the commode next to the bed, places a bucket under the oval cut-out in the seat and closes the door from inside.
She looks over at the empty bowl of porridge and then she helps Liz up silently, as always, and heaves her onto the toilet seat.
Liz feels as heavy as lead. The effects of the drugs take away much of her muscle control and conceal her nightly training. For the past eleven nights, every time the drugs from the IV wear off, Liz struggles with every barefoot step, pacing in the absolute darkness of her cell from one wall to the other. In the beginning, she counted by step, then by wall lengths and last night, for the first time, in kilometres.
Yvette straightens up with a groan when Liz is finally sitting properly above the bucket. The nurse has strong arms, but her back clearly hurts when she has to lift Liz.
The cool surface of the toilet seat presses against Liz’s naked skin. As before, she’s wearing nothing more than a thin, open-backed hospital gown. Her thighs stick out from under the white edge of the fabric like stilts. For a brief moment, she is outside of herself, looking down from above, at how she’s crouched there, naked, over a bucket, degraded and at the mercy of a psychopath. She closes her eyes, feels the cool air between her legs and the pressure on her bladder. She immediately squeezes her legs together. Not yet.
Liz knows that this is one of the few moments she can control. For some reason, Yvette always waits until Liz is finished, maybe to keep her from falling from the seat and seriously hurting herself. And she knows that she has to talk to Yvette. She went over the conversation the night before, just as she has always done with her interviews in the past. Now she is thankful that the drugs only impede her motor skills.
‘Yvette?’
She shakes her head.
‘Yvette, can you . . . I would like to be alone.’
She shakes her head.
Good. Liz has to make an effort not to smile.
‘You’re not allowed to leave me alone?’
A nod.
Very good! Liz turns slightly towards the dark panel and grill that she suspects has a camera behind it and then she turns back. ‘Is he watching us?’
Yvette considers this for a moment and then she whispers: ‘I don’t think so. He doesn’t like watching when . . .’ Her eyes drift down to the bucket beneath Liz’s seat.
‘Then he also can’t see if we talk now.’
Yvette doesn’t nod or shake her head. ‘Keep going,’ she says flatly. ‘I have to finish up.’
‘I can’t, like this.’
Silence.
‘Why are you doing this, I mean . . . this here?’ Liz asks.
Yvette remains silent and looks off to the side.
‘Is he paying you?’
She shakes her head.
‘Then why?’
She shakes her head again. ‘Please keep going.’
‘What has he promised you, Yvette?’
Yvette is silent, presses her lips together and peers at the bucket. The pressure on Liz’s bladder is getting stronger. The seconds pass like minutes. It’s just an interview, Liz. Just an interview. Press on! ‘Do you think he will keep his promise? I mean, is he someone who keeps his promises?’
‘Leave me alone.’
‘He has promised you something, hasn’t he?’
Tears fill Yvette’s eyes.
‘Yvette, what has he promised you?’
She looks around and turns her head so that her back is facing the dark panel. ‘He . . . he said,’ she whispers, ‘that he would let me go.’
For a moment there is a crushing silence. ‘Are you done now, finally?’ Yvette asks with a shaky voice and leans forward to get a better look in the bucket.
Liz shakes her head. Her bladder feels like a watermelon, but she continues to squeeze her legs together. ‘He won’t let you go,’ Liz says slowly. Her mouth is dried out and her tongue sticks to her gums.
‘Yes,’ Yvette says softly. ‘He will.’
‘Yvette. Whatever he is up to, he can’t let you go. You’ve seen everything, you know too much.’
‘He will.’
Liz tries to moisten her cracked lips with no success. Keep going. Stay with it. ‘How long have you been here?’
Yvette looks at the bucket.
‘When –’ Liz urges and then has to cough. Her bladder is burning. ‘When did he kidnap you?’
Yvette winces. Her grey face is as hard as stone.
‘He did kidnap you, didn’t he? Just like me.’
No reaction.
This goddamned bladder!
‘How long have you been here, Yvette? How long has he had you locked away?’
Yvette’s chin trembles. ‘October,’ she says under her breath.
October? Liz gasps. It’s already September! ‘Does that mean . . . you’ve been here . . . almost a year?’
Yvette clenches her jaw and does not respond.
‘Alone? For a year?’
‘There . . . there were other women . . .’
‘Other women? Where?’
Yvette’s eyes drift over to the bed.
Liz’s heart stops. ‘Here? In here?’
No response. The silence is like a vacuum, like someone was pumping the air out of the room and out of her lungs.
‘How many?’
‘Three,’ Yvette whispers. ‘A model and two others.’
‘And you still think,’ Liz asks, ‘that he’ll let you go?’
Yvette nods stiffly. ‘I help him. He needs me.’
‘My god. He doesn’t need you, he’s using you, wake up.’
She shakes her head like an angry child. ‘You’re the last, he said.’
The last. Liz can feel her fear crawling down her throat, into her guts and lodging itself there. Without the drugs, she would be panicked out of her mind. ‘Yvette, he’s a psychopath. He will kill you, just like he probably did with the other women who were in this room.’
The corners of Yvette’s mouth twitch. ‘Just finish up! Now!’
Liz sits on the toilet seat as if it’s burning into her backside. Easy, take it easy. Don’t annoy her! ‘Yvette?’
She shakes her head nervously.
‘Why am I here?’
No reaction.
‘Does it have something to do . . . with Gabriel?’
Yvette quickly glances at Liz from the corner of her eye and then looks away again.
‘So, it does have something to do with Gabriel.’
Yvette looks like she is desperately trying to avoid saying something.
‘Is it?’
‘He says that someone is coming,’ she whispers gruffly. ‘Because of you.’
‘Yvette, help me, please! We have to get out of here. Together.’
Yvette shakes her head. Her eyelids flutter. ‘He said you would say that. He promised me . . .’ She lowers her eyes.
Liz takes a deep breath to calm down. It’s as if the dust in her mouth has fully absorbed any moisture in her lungs. ‘He can’t let you go,’ she says as gently as she can with her raw, dry throat. ‘You know what he is.’
‘He certainly won’t let you go,’ Yvette hisses.
‘Do you know his name?’
Yvette looks at her, almost hostile. ‘If I knew, I would never tell you.’
‘Yvette,’ Liz continues, ‘if you know his name, then he’ll never let you go. You know what he’s capable of.’
Yvette’s teeth are grinding audibly.
‘What would you do in his place?’
Pink blotches form on her cheeks.
‘Would you let you go? Would you –’
‘Shut up!’ Yvette shouts. ‘His name is Val. Got it? Val!’
Liz winces in fear. For a moment, she loses control of her muscles and a stream shoots into the bucket. She quickly presses her legs back together.
Yvette suddenly leans forward, now red in the face, reaches between Liz’s legs and forcefully pushes them apart. Liz lets out a startled scream. She immediately feels everything start to rush out of her without being able to stop it.
‘So now you know,’ Yvette says. With watery grey eyes, she looks at Liz. ‘And now you know that he will also never let you go. Never! Since you know his name, too.’
Liz can hardly think any more, the sounds beneath her make her want to die of shame. She tries to ignore the smell, but it’s impossible, even after she’s finished.
Yvette grabs her roughly under her arms, pulls her up and over onto her bed without cleaning her up. Her grey eyes are full of rage. ‘You filthy ginger witch. He’s been warning me about you this whole time.’ She takes the seat and the bucket to the door and unlocks it. ‘I thought you were different.’
She leaves the room, slams the door shut and a second later Liz can hear the lock click into place.
Exhausted, Liz stares up at the ceiling.
Val.
Finally, a name. It’s almost as if her tormenter is a bit less terrifying now that he has something as common as a name.
What makes her uneasy is the feeling that she’s heard the name already.
Maybe I’m deluding myself, she thinks, and gives in to her exhaustion.
Chapter 35
Berlin – 23 September, 8.23 p.m.
David hangs up the phone and looks out into the rain, which is pelting against his office window in the gusts of wind. The section of the building across from where he sits is blurred behind a waterfall. As he puts the business card with the phone number back into his wallet, his hands tremble. He has a throbbing headache. He digs two aspirin out of the drawer of his desk and swallows them with a sip of cold coffee. Then he checks his phone for the time. It’s 8.24 p.m., so he still has a good hour before it happens.
He would much prefer to lock the door to his office, curl up like a cat and go to sleep, deep and long for the rest of the year, but with the guarantee that he won’t have any dreams. David rubs his eyes and sighs. As if he could sleep a wink now.
He looks outside at the storm again and shudders.
The sky is letting it all out.
If he could just get rid of the image. It follows him like a permanent nightmare and appears again and again in his mind. His father’s facial expression, lifeless and contorted. The grotesque bullet hole in his mother’s head, the sticky red puddle on the oak floor . . . If someone were to scan his brain, this image would be there.
He tries to imagine Gabriel, Luke Skywalker on his chest and a gun in his hand, tries to understand why he would have shot them. He does not succeed.
If only the rain could wash it all away.
He thinks of Shona. He stood her up at Santa Media a few days ago and still hasn’t apologised. His entire life has been set on fire, a fire that was lit by Gabriel’s match.
He picks up his mobile, and is dialling Shona’s number when the telephone on his desk suddenly starts ringing. He curses and hangs up his mobile as he picks up the landline. ‘Naumann.’
‘Bug,’ trumpets in David’s ear.
Of all people.
‘Why haven’t I heard anything from you?’ Bug asks. ‘We agreed that you were going to work on proposals for a crime show.’
‘I’m still working on it,’ David says lifelessly.
‘Ah, and that probably means you have nothing.’
‘Nothing that’s finalised yet,’ David lies.
Bug sighs, annoyed. ‘Listen, David, while you’re farting about, don’t get any high hopes. I just had a very direct phone call.’
‘What kind of phone call?’
‘The old man called me about you.’
‘Von Braunsfeld? Why would he call you about me?’ David asks, taken aback.
‘You met recently. Outside my office. You remember?’
How could I forget? David thinks. That was the day that Bug announced to him that he was now the entertainment director and, thus, his boss. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Well. Von Braunsfeld places a huge amount of importance on integrity. He enquired about Treasure Castle again and now is rather irritated. He asked me why we’re employing someone who’s been convicted of copyright fraud.’
David gasps. ‘Copyright fraud? Convicted? It was a bloody settlement. That is a very different thing to a conviction.’
David’s palms are sweaty. ‘And . . . what does that mean in plain language?’
‘He wants to fire you.’
Fire. The word hangs in the air. David slumps back into his chair. Rain hits the window in a gust of wind. It sounds like nails hitting the glass.
‘You can’t be serious,’ David says.
Bug is silent, which is worse than anything he could say under these circumstances.
‘He . . . he can’t do that.’
‘He can, David. He owns the station.’ Bug clears his throat. ‘Listen, David, whether or not you believe it, I also don’t particularly think this is right. You’ve got a creative mind – when you’re not being a pussy or a moralist. And, quite frankly, I don’t give a shit if you steal ideas. The main thing is that we get something out of it. The only problem is: we’re getting nothing from it at the moment. So, I don’t have anything to make a case for you to von Braunsfeld right now. You follow what I mean?’
‘I . . . yes, understood.’
‘So it’s time you delivered.’
‘When will it all be decided, the termination?’
‘It’s already decided,’ Bug says. ‘The letter will be in your mailbox tomorrow morning. You are relieved of the rest of your duties starting now.’
David closes his eyes. This can’t be true.
‘Now don’t go making a big fuss,’ Bug says, as if he can read David’s thoughts. ‘Use the time. If you come up with something good before it’s too late, von Braunsfeld may rescind the dismissal.’
‘Is that what he said?’
‘No, I’m saying that.’
David is silent for a moment. ‘You would talk to him for me?’
Bug sighs theatrically. ‘I would always stick my neck out for someone who brings me a few good ideas for show formats.’
‘You fire me and I’m still supposed to deliver you more ideas?’
‘Now don’t be melodramatic. If you can’t handle it, I’ll have to find someone else. So, think about it. Good night.’
‘What do you think?’ David asks angrily. ‘That I can just spit something out in three days?’
But Bug has already hung up.