A team of five arrived, forced their way into the house and found the woman and the child bound hand and foot but uninjured. The man had been hiding in the basement. None of them was aware that Aaron had already gone down there. The light in the basement was broken. Pavlik went down with the two others in the pitch dark. She was sitting on the floor. When he shone the torch at her, her pupils didn’t dilate. The man was lying beside her, unconscious. Even though he was unarmed, she had broken three of his ribs, his jaw and one of his arms.
Pavlik saw that talking was pointless. He shouted at the squad to shut up, he sent Aaron home and wrote in his report that the man had attacked her. Lissek asked no questions.
In the evening Pavlik gave her a call, but she didn’t answer.
Now she is sitting on a sofa, and hasn’t said a word for ten minutes. He sits down beside her. More minutes pass. Then she tells him about Boenisch. Her voice slides along the groove of a record that she will hear for ever. When she has finished with Boenisch she tells him about Runge and the waitress in Delmenhorst and the two others he killed. The ones she could have saved if she hadn’t decided to save herself. Pavlik doesn’t interrupt her. In the end she cries. He hugs her and says: ‘It’s OK.’
She says: ‘It will never be OK.’
*
He can’t bear the memory any longer. He resumes Boenisch’s interrogation.
‘What do you like most about Mr Brooks?’
Boenisch’s answer is drowned out by the sound of an aeroplane.
‘I didn’t get that.’
‘The main character.’
‘Mr Brooks…’
‘Mr Brooks isn’t the main character… Mr Brooks takes him to the cemetery so that Smith will shoot him. Smith pulls the trigger!’
Cemetery? No.
‘…Why Melanie Breuer?’
‘She reminded me of someone.’
‘How did you feel when you went to her?’
‘There was always the pressure in my head. She must have noticed. She was an expert.’
Might her message be hidden in the psychologist’s notes? Unlikely. Aaron didn’t have time to study them.
‘…I silenced her. It’s so lovely when they’re quiet. Like being in a glider, when you can only hear the wind.’
‘The plastic bag was opaque. But you love seeing fear in women’s faces.’
‘…I was so disgusted with myself.’
End of the recording. That was it. Pavlik stares into the void.
Aaron, what are you trying to tell us?
*
She’s never forgotten Lissek’s last words at their first meeting: ‘We’re taking you to the most dangerous place in the world. Your mind.’
When the cable tie yields against the lashing strap hook and tears, Aaron has already played the attack through in her mind.
Since she doesn’t know if Bosch has opened his jacket, his torso can’t be a target. His solar plexus and ribcage are out too, as are his spleen, liver, gall bladder and kidneys. A three-finger jab to the hollow in his collarbone would paralyze Bosch’s breathing. But only if his collarbone is exposed.
Too risky. Aaron has opted for the neck.
She needs to take his weight and condition into account. At the station she got a sense of his size. Eye-height, allowing for her two-and-a-half inch heels. Bosch was capable of carrying a bag weighing about seventy-five kilos up a flight of stairs. So he’s about one metre eighty and at least ninety kilos, and he’s fit. Aaron will have to use maximum force.
If she’s mistaken and Bosch doesn’t have the neck muscles of a bull, her fist will kill him.
She knows nothing about his reflexes. They can’t possibly be as good as hers. Still, she advises herself to be prudent. She hears her father: Never think about winning, think about not losing.
They’ve been moving again for ten minutes.
Holm has left the freeway. Country road.
While she carefully stretches, extending her wrists behind her back to get the circulation going, Aaron is already breathing in such a way that her concentration shifts to her centre of gravity in her lower abdomen.
Her greatest worry is that there might be a window between the driver’s cabin and the cargo area. But she has made her decision. Her feet are unbound. ‘My legs have gone to sleep.’ She slips off her pumps, goes into a crouch and presses her back against the wall. Bosch isn’t concerned. Aaron has had enough time to gauge his position, and is able to locate him precisely. He opens his water bottle and drinks. After that he always taps a new cigarette from the box. She will attack him when the first deep drag leaves his lungs. A person is at his most relaxed immediately after exhaling, so that is also the perfect moment to shoot him.
She presses the tip of her tongue to her palate so that she can avoid being knocked out in the event of a counter-attack.
Aaron bends her left little finger.
Bosch lights the cigarette. He puts the lighter back in the box, inhales the smoke and blows it out again. She pushes herself away and jumps, hitting his crotch with her knee. He groans with pain, something hot flies into her face; the ember of the cigarette that she knocked out of his hand before the middle joint of her little finger finds the Yang meridian on his artery. Through stimulation of the strain sensor in the aorta Bosch’s circulation is fooled into thinking that his blood pressure is shooting like a rocket into the stratosphere. His heart sends an emergency signal to the sympathetic nervous system, which immediately brings activity down to zero thus causing a drastic drop in blood pressure. She has scored a perfect hit on Bosch. His body slumps before he can even blink.
Aaron feels his pulse. He’s unconscious.
Her triumph lasts for two quick breaths. The vehicle lurches into a sharp right turn. She is slung away from Bosch and goes flying against the wall. They hurtle along a potholed path.
The window. Holm has seen everything.
She tries to get to the door. Again Holm swings the steering wheel round. She is flung against the other wall. Tries to hold on, finds nothing but smooth steel.
Holm brakes hard. She hears the driver’s door and the passenger door flying open. Her shoulder is numb. She waits for Holm to open the cargo area. But it doesn’t happen. She creeps over to Bosch, pats down his clothes and finds the pack of cigarettes with the lighter. Not a sound outside. The pack must be somewhere on the floor. She forces herself to stay calm, to explore every square centimetre around Bosch.
So. She picks up the cigarette pack and takes out the lighter. Her hands trembling, Aaron opens the bag and digs a hole in the middle.
If I manage to destroy the money, they’ll need me to make a new demand.
She lights a bundle of notes, throws it in the hole, a second bundle, a third. She smells a pathetically thin thread of smoke. Not enough, not enough. She realizes desperately that she can’t do it without a fire accelerant. It’s so hopeless that Aaron wants to cry.
The door is unbolted. She assumes the attack position, breathes long and deeply to relax her muscles. Holm jumps on to the bed of the truck. He drops to the floor and slides towards her. She knows he wants to bring her down with a sweeping kick, and dodges him. She kicks out and catches him on the head with her ankle. She kneels down to knock him out with a one-two. But she doesn’t put enough strength into it. He blocks her fist and jabs a finger at the base of her neck.
It’s as if Aaron has a piece of meat stuck in her throat. A thin whistle escapes her lungs. For a minute she gasps for air, and convulses in such a way that her nose starts bleeding. Holm watches her. When he senses that she is losing consciousness, he grabs her and strikes her chest hard.
One breath. Two. Shallow. Hardly worth talking about. She lies on her back and has to struggle for every tiny scrap of air.
Holm drags Bosch from the cargo area and dumps him in the snow like a sack.
Three breaths. Four.
With each new breath Aaron is more exhausted.
Holm comes back and crouches
down next to her. His voice thickens smugly. ‘I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t tried.’
He holds something to his ear. She hears a very faint crackle.
‘What… happened?’ Bosch has come round.
‘Do you know how you are able to hear him?’ Holm asks. ‘Because I put a bug in his jacket. You said I’d flayed and gutted that woman. Bosch might believe something like that. But you know better: I’m not cruel. I act appropriately, you know the difference.’
Aaron pushes herself against the wall. Her pain roars at her.
‘It’s a lie to say that I’ve never shared anything, not even with my brother. You can’t understand just how deep that lie is. I have shared more with my brother than you can imagine. But looking at you I can tell. You don’t know the first thing about me, and I know all about you.’
Aaron tries to straighten up. Fails.
‘You’re speculating on your market value as a hostage? Do you actually think that your heroic courage on 17 Junistrasse was a blank cheque for your life?’
Plastic rubs against plastic, a screw top. Aaron smells petrol. Horrified, she wants to flee. She gets a little way on her knees, then Holm kicks her in the belly. She is overwhelmed with nausea. Again she is breathless.
Token-Eyes shouts: ‘What’s going on? Are you crazy?’ He jumps into the back of the truck. Groans with pain. Falls heavily on top of her. His clothes smell of cheap prison detergent. She tries to push his face away from hers, lacks the strength. Token-Eyes has stopped moving, he is unconscious or dead.
Holm pulls his brother off her. He drags him outside like Bosch and dumps him in the snow.
His silence as he comes back is a way of mocking her. He empties the petrol canister next to her. Aaron inhales the caustic fumes, unable to think clearly. She longs to give up and die.
‘I’m giving you back your blank cheque.’
A match-head scratches over the striking surface. Her heartbeat becomes the steady rattle of a machine gun.
Holm sets the bag alight. Aaron rolls away. The back of her neck is ablaze. She pulls off her coat and suffocates the flames in her hair.
Holm gets out.
He closes the door and leaves her alone in the inferno.
Aaron creeps across the floor, through hissing heat, trying to find Bosch’s water bottle. She closes her stinging eyes. Her lungs fill with soot and ashes; she chokes, coughs bitter mucus. After an eternity she finds the bottle. She pours it over her dress and holds the fabric in front of her mouth and nose. In vain. She crawls to the door, hoping to find a crack that she can breathe through, sucks in nothing but searing, stinking smoke. She realizes that she is leaving the tormented, useless bundle that was once her body. The machine gun has fired its last, the bolt is striking an empty cartridge chamber, more and more slowly, more and more quietly.
Click… Click… Click… Click… Click… Click… Click… Click…
A thousand glowing sparks dance in front of her eyes and spray into the night sky above the remains of a pyre. Ben fidgets beside her, as excited as she is; the smell is earthyherbygreasy. There are five of them and they still don’t know about the hole in the white pond. The farmer empties a big basket of potatoes into the embers. Aaron can hardly wait to grab for the first one, she already has that wonderfully soft, smoky, nutty pleasure on her tongue.
Her father, laughing, grabs her by the belt of her trousers, extends his arm and swings her back and forth as she shrieks and he pretends to throw her into the sky. The potatoes are fat and round and turn black and wrinkled. Aaron wishes she had huge hands to mash them all together into one single monster potato that belongs to her alone. At last the potatoes are taken from the embers. Hot, hot, hot. Ben and Aaron throw them from one hand to the other and count: ‘One two, button my shoe, three, four, open the door, five, six, pick up sticks!’ They scratch off the charred skin and paint their faces with their black fingers until they look like Indians on the warpath.
Aaron bites into the best potato of her life.
She is incredibly grateful to be able to die like this.
She wakes up with her face in the snow. Pain rages inside her like a hurricane. Aaron tries to claw her hands into the crunchy, icy crust, but her hands no longer belong to her. She can’t even bite into the snow to get rid of the taste of burnt petrol. She has to wait for her body to absorb her once again.
‘What have you done?’ Token-Eyes stammers.
Holm says: ‘We’re going to get another five million.’
23
The bus driver folds his arms in front of his chest. ‘Could you please turn the heating up a bit?’
Pavlik goes to the window of the interrogation room and pretends to turn up the thermostat. He knows that Heinz Schwenkow isn’t shivering because of the temperature of the room.
‘Where am I?’ Schwenkow asks for the third time.
Pavlik sits down again. ‘As I said, you’re at the police station.’
‘I was driven to an underground car park in a closed vehicle, as if I was a criminal.’
‘That was just for your safety. So Holm didn’t call his accomplice by name? Are you sure?’
The man sees that further complaints about his circumstances are pointless. ‘Yes. He barely talked to him. What he mostly did was jut his chin in various directions. The man would jump. Holm addressed him formally. Odd.’
Pavlik isn’t surprised. But Holm’s manners are nothing but a mockery. If he were sitting on the electric chair he would be polite to the man who turned on the power.
‘He quoted something from a book. No idea who the book was by. But I can’t get the sentence out of my head, as if I’d learned it by heart. “The courage we desire and praise is not the courage to die decently but the courage to live manfully.”’
‘Think very hard, Mr Schwenkow: wasn’t there some kind of hidden reference to where the men wanted to go?’
Schwenkow shrugs helplessly and warms his hands on the coffee cup. ‘I’d love to help you. Not least because of Lutz.’ His cheeks twitch.
‘The pump attendant?’ Pavlik asks.
Schwenkow nods. ‘He was divorced. But he had two children. He was devoted to them. The older one’s at university. He was so proud when she graduated from high school. He showed me a photograph. She’s pretty.’
Schwenkow tries to find words. Pavlik doesn’t press him. He wants him to move calmly from one thought to the next, talk to himself, while Pavlik waits patiently for the man to think of something he could work with.
‘All because of his tools.’ Schwenkow’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I’d been meaning for ages to give him the tool-bag back, and I kept forgetting. I could have brought him the damned thing when Holm forced me to get out of the coach at the petrol station. It was under my seat. I didn’t think about it. Just about me.’
Schwenkow’s fingers are yellow. Pavlik holds out a pack of cigarettes. He gratefully takes one. ‘I was actually supposed to have today off, but a colleague called in sick, the boss rang at six and got me out of bed, to my wife’s great relief. On the phone a little while ago she just cried. I’ll deal with it one way or another. But the children will never get over it. He just shot the teacher for no reason, he’s not a human being, he’s the devil. The other man was scared of him too, I can tell you that, he cowered away from that man Holm. He was in such a state that he counted the phones twice.’
‘Oh yes?’ Pavlik cuts in.
‘I saw him in the mirror. On the back seat.’
‘Did it seem to you at that point that he couldn’t concentrate?’
‘Yes, now you mention it. Holm wanted to know where the next petrol station was. And the other man was standing right next to him. But a few minutes later he asked Holm where we were going to fill up.’
‘Thank you, Mr Schwenkow. Now go and see your wife. Tell her exactly what happened. And take some time off.’
‘I won’t be home for long. The Criminal Police say I have to get back to Keithstrasse. They
want to show me some pictures, from their file of known criminals. To see if the guy is one of them.’
‘I’ll tell them that won’t be necessary.’
*
Ines Grauder runs into him in the corridor. ‘Email the photograph of Holm’s man to all the Berlin hospitals with a memory clinic,’ Pavlik says. ‘Or rather: tell the Federal Police to send some people.’
‘Why?’
‘There seems to be something wrong with his head. He may have been in treatment.’
‘And what if he isn’t from Berlin?’
Pavlik studies her. ‘How long have you been with us now?’
‘Two months.’
‘And you ask just like that.’ He walks away. ‘Once you’ve done it, come to the weights room,’ he calls over his shoulder.
Helmchen is waiting for him by the lift. She hands him a bowl of hot soup. ‘Eat this.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Clear soup with dumplings, very fresh.’
‘Helmchen—’
‘Or I’ll call Sandra.’
He sniffs the bowl. Where on earth did Helmchen get hold of fresh clear soup?
‘The others are all upstairs,’ she says. ‘Apart from the emergency squad up at headquarters. Just as you said.’
‘Is Demirci still in her meeting?’
‘For an hour and a half,’ Helmchen says, concerned.
‘Did you listen in?’
‘What do you take me for?’ she asks, shocked.
He takes a spoonful of soup and blows: it’s all part of her little game. ‘How much pressure is she under?’
‘It’s bad. Svoboda’s Secretary of State is saying she should step down.’
‘Who’s on her side?’
‘North Rhine Westphalia. They suggested her for the position, and in fact she came to us from Dortmund.’
‘No one else?’
‘It’s chiefly Berlin and North Rhine Westphalia who are fighting. She’s also under fire from the Federal Police. Because we’re ordering them around. But Demirci lets them go on complaining. She’s got the Federal Prosecutor on board, and no one messes with him, so that was a smart move. She’s quite stubborn; like Lissek. I like that.’
In the Dark Page 25