The hallway is dark, but I can make out a light from one of the rooms. And I can hear muffled voices. I creep further into the apartment, my entire body pounding. This time I’m going to get Mark. The pain simmering in my chest says it might be the last thing I ever do, but that doesn’t bother me. This time, Lenchen, I’m not going to let you down. For the last few steps I try to stay as close to the wall as possible to avoid casting a warning shadow which would alert Mark to my presence. The voices are clearer now.
“We can still be a family.” That must be Jasmin Grass.
Someone gives a drawn-out sigh, a man. Mark.
For a second it is totally silent. Then, without warning, so sudden that my legs almost give way in shock, there’s a clatter, a shrill scream mingles with a crash and I leap out from my hiding place, ready to take Mark down.
JASMIN
This is the end, we all know that.
My kitchen, our kitchen, which used to be a place of laughter, conviviality, the heart of our home, has become a site of pain, a sphere full of anger and fear and despair and sorrow. There’s no longer any way out, not the one envisaged by God when he intruded into my apartment tonight to take me away. It’s as if this moment has become disconnected from the normal course of time; inside this room the world stands still.
It all happened in quick succession.
He shoved me from the dark hallway into the kitchen, where Hannah was sitting at the table, drawing by candlelight. A still life—Kirsten, silent, contorted and motionless on the kitchen tiles. With a checked drying-up cloth gagging her mouth and blood on her face. Blood running from her temple and across her closed eyelids. She could have been dead or unconscious. As I know from experience, you can’t always tell by first glance.
Hannah, by her standards sounding jolly when she greeted me with a “Hello, Mama!” Me, rigid in the door frame, my entire body quivering, shuddering as if in extreme cold, a cold that would not allow me to breathe, gripping me tightly and shaking me.
“Sit down,” he said, before disappearing around the corner. I heard him at the fuse box, returning the little levers, one after the other, back to their original position.
“Kirsten,” I whispered.
Kirsten didn’t react.
“I told you to sit!” He came into the kitchen, praised Hannah for her drawing and switched on the light above the cooker.
“I’m not going to tell you a third time.”
I hesitantly went over to the table and sat down. To my left, at most a foot and a half away, lay Kirsten, contorted, motionless, bleeding.
“That’s a good girl,” he said with a smile of satisfaction.
I tried holding his gaze, not to allow myself to get distracted by the knife block on the work surface behind him. Not to allow myself to get distracted by Kirsten, whose pulse I ought to have checked, who I ought to be saving or mourning. She must have unsuspectingly opened the front door to him while I was asleep in my bed. And he’d struck her down.
“Nobody had to get injured,” he said, as if reading my thoughts.
“I know. It’s my fault.”
“Absolutely right.”
“It’s not so bad, Mama,” Hannah said, looking up from her pad. I could see the almost imperceptible upward curve of her lips—Hannah’s way of smiling. “It was just a stupid accident.”
I sniff.
“Yes, Hannah, it was.”
A soft groan: Kirsten.
“You see.” He’d heard it too. “The tough little cookie’s still alive.”
“Please, leave her alone,” I said with difficulty. “This is about us. I made a mistake, lots of mistakes.” From the corner of my eye I detected a movement: Kirsten, lying no more than an arm’s length from the doorway to the kitchen. I shifted around on my chair to conceal her from him.
“I disappointed you all. I’m sorry.”
“Is that so?”
“Perhaps I can make it up to you. We can still be a family.”
I don’t know when he noticed Kirsten trying to crawl out of the kitchen. Whether he’d been watching her pitiful attempt the whole time, maybe even secretly having a good laugh about it. Whether he’d just been waiting for the right moment when her trembling fingers touched the threshold. Or whether the realization was sudden, because he’d been focusing not on Kirsten, but on my blatant attempt to play for time. In the blink of an eye he dived around the table, pounced on Kirsten and dragged her by the hair back into the middle of the room. In the blink of an eye I’d jumped up from my seat and was pounding my fists on his back, kicking his legs, screaming. In the blink of an eye I was lying beside her, simply shaken off like a bothersome insect. Only now did I notice the second man collapse to his knees in the doorway, his hand clutching his chest, eyes wide open, his face like colorless wax with deeply etched features distorted by shock. This man hadn’t been attacked, there had been no need for that. It was the realization that had wrestled him to the floor. “Rogner?” he gasped.
A feeling washed through the room and hit me like a huge, icy wave. I recognized the name, but couldn’t remember where from.
“Herr Beck,” was all Rogner said, then, “Oh well.”
This is the end, we all know that.
Probably even Rogner himself, who now opens the top button of his shirt, as if the collar has become too tight. Matthias Beck, Kirsten and I are sitting in a row along the left-hand wall of the kitchen, all three of us impotent, passive, weak. Rogner doesn’t even have a weapon to keep us quiet. He doesn’t need one. Matthias Beck is feeling faint; I’m worried it might be his heart. His face is still as white as a sheet and pinched, while he has clenched his right hand into a fist and is pressing it to the left of his chest. Kirsten, who was struck down by Rogner, has a head injury that won’t stop bleeding. I press the cloth which was gagging her mouth to the wound, while her head rests wearily on my shoulder. And me, the cause of all of this, the cause of all the pain, I’m not in any state to rise up and launch myself at him, do something, try at least. After Rogner threw me to the ground in both the bedroom and the kitchen, my ribs are as sore as they were after the car accident, the pain as acute; every breath feels like I’m being stabbed by a knife. And I hate myself for it. I should be the one rescuing us, even just for the sake of making amends, even if it means me sacrificing my own life.
Rogner is pacing up and down. I can tell he’s thinking. He’s thinking about the end. He will have to kill Matthias Beck and Kirsten, there’s no other way out. As for me, I’m not sure. Maybe he still intends to take me with him, for Hannah. I ought to have known. I can’t help thinking that I ought to have known. That I wasted precious time feeling sorry for myself and suspecting the children. I ought to have known, everything. After all, I know this man.
“Listen.” I try again. “I’ll come with you, okay? I can be your wife and a good mother. But in return you have to let Kirsten and Herr Beck go.”
Rogner spins around. Gives a joyless, dry laugh.
“Don’t be so ridiculous. Of course you’ll come if I want you to.” He wanders over and looks me in the eye. “The question is whether I still want that, Jasmin.”
I swallow hard several times while Rogner continues his brooding stroll around the kitchen. From right to left and back again, time after time, a caged tiger, an unpredictable wild animal. My gaze remains fixed on the microwave. Maja, I suddenly think. Maja, who I’d completely forgotten. Maja, who was going to come after work. Who will come, because she has no idea that the point of my telephone call was merely to lure her into my apartment to tear a strip off her. She must think I was intending to pour my heart out, provide her with the material for the article of her life. Although she’s late—she mentioned nine o’clock or half past nine, and it must be almost eleven by now—she will come, absolutely, she just has to. Maja, who can save us. In my excitement my breathing gets shallower. The moment I hear her at the door I will have to scream, scream at the top of my voice. I realize I’ll only have seconds befo
re he beats me or shuts me up some other way, maybe with one of the kitchen knives. But I’ll make use of those few seconds. I’ll direct all my strength into this cry for help and hope that Maja’s reaction is the right one and she alerts the police. I’m startled from my thoughts when Rogner’s hand suddenly grabs my chin and moves my gaze from the clock to him.
“I’m sorry, Jasmin,” he says, grinning. “But she’s not going to come.”
I try, but fail, to grasp the sense of what he’s saying. He appears amused by the confusion on my face. He lets go of my chin and pats my head as if I were a stupid little puppy.
“I know you had an appointment with Maja. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to continue to make do with me.”
“I don’t understand…”
“Oh dear, such a disappointment, isn’t it? And I thought you were smarter than that. But if it’s any consolation, Maja didn’t understand to begin with, either. She had, after all, been allowed to stand in for me when I was unwell. Apart from some articles—which, by the way, I disapproved of just as much as you did, Herr Beck, but which I’m afraid slipped through somehow—I have to say that she’s done a really good job. Under my guidance, of course. First she made friends with your neighbor. Old … what’s she called? Oh well, it’s not important. She was very chatty and immediately told her that she was cooking for you because there was nobody else looking after you. When she’d arranged to go and see her son she was worried about you. Who’d cook for you now? Well, of course Maja was only too happy to take on the responsibility.”
This is like a torrent of cold water right in my face. He’d set Maja on me. Remotely, he knew how I was all the time. Had a laugh at my expense.
“Are you saying—?”
“Lars Rogner,” he says very formally, not without a hint of disappointment. “Editor-in-chief, Bayerisches Tagblatt. You really ought to read the papers more, Jasmin.” He grins again and now I realize where I know his name from. He wrote lots of articles about you, Lena. Perhaps even most of them. What a gruesome pleasure it must have been for him.
“In Maja’s defense,” he continues, “she thought the whole time it was about getting an interview. It was her job to get friendly with you, win your trust and keep an eye on you. When you rang up today and asked to meet her, the sweet little mouse was so excited. But in the end she had to appreciate that this was a job for the boss.”
I imagine an open-plan office with people behind thin, gray partitions, telephoning animatedly. I can hear the noise of all those fingers clattering away feverishly at the keyboards. I see Maja in her starched white blouse with its raised collar, which she was wearing for the photograph on the online editorial page, and can scarcely believe that Kirsten and I would have just had to click a few more times before stumbling upon a photo of Lars Rogner. We’d have notified the police and now he’d be handcuffed in the cells. Then I picture him in my mind, slinking down the corridors of the editorial offices, on the hunt for someone he could set on me, selecting Maja because she’s dedicated, ambitious and, to cap it all, perhaps susceptible to his charm. And she has no idea that rather than furthering her ambitions she’s just part of his game. And I fear she’s delighted, she feels honored. He has chosen her.
“Did you…?”
“Oh, please!” He raises his hands defensively. “Right now Maja’s in the office doing overtime. Unfortunately she wasn’t the only one at the Becks’ house yesterday after Hannah was discharged from the psychiatric clinic. And once you’ve lost the exclusive claim to a story, you then have to make a bit of an effort if you’re going to distinguish yourself from the competition. I suggested she get in touch with your ex-boss at the advertising agency. They met this afternoon. As I hear, you were sacked three weeks prior to your disappearance because one day you failed to turn up to work. He said you didn’t get over the breakup with your girlfriend. Or maybe your problems go back further, they’re deeper-rooted. You didn’t have an easy childhood, did you? After your father died, you lived in a home for a few years until your mother came and took you back in. Nice woman, by the way, your mother. Nice, but quite damaged. You really were—how did she put it?—a difficult child.” Rogner clicked his tongue disapprovingly, while I gasped for air a few times. “A good upbringing is so important, isn’t it? Anyway, the article is scheduled to appear in tomorrow’s edition, so I imagine Maja’s still got quite a bit to do. Let’s say she sends her apologies.”
“If I were you, I’d bugger off as quickly as possible,” Kirsten says soberly. As injured as she is, she’s still strong and defiant—nobody can change that. Not even an angry god. “Because if Maja knows you’re here…”
He waggles his hand grumpily.
“And? Who’s saying I did the interview with Jasmin this evening? Perhaps in the official version of events, I don’t turn up here till tomorrow morning and find a few corpses. I’ve got lots of options.”
“You’re going nowhere until you tell me what happened to my daughter,” Matthias Beck growls. It’s the first thing he’s said since he recognized Rogner and slid limply down the wall. Your father, Lena. I can’t begin to imagine how painful this discovery must be for him. He’s quoted in many of Rogner’s articles and must have been in permanent contact with him, his daughter’s abductor, unaware, unsuspecting, full of hope.
“Quiet!” Rogner thunders, before immediately regaining his composure. With a sigh he moves his chair and sits facing us, like a ruthless general who’s taken three prisoners. There’s a furtive expression on his face. “I’ve always had respect for you, Herr Beck. Respect of the highest order. I might even go so far as to say I’ve admired you. The way you fought like a lion for Lena and your family. You failed, obviously, and often what you did was nothing short of idiotic.” He laughs. “But you never gave up. How I enjoyed reading your emails, the anger in them, the determination. The threat, repeated a hundred times over, that you’d never talk to me again. But then you had no choice. You kept coming back to me, with complaints, with information, clues, always in the hope of some development. You’re a father, Herr Beck, a real father. You must understand me, surely? A real father doesn’t have a choice.”
“You are perverted,” Beck pants, clutching his chest again.
“And you are here, Herr Beck! What does that say about us? You know full well that you won’t get Lena back. But now you’ve replaced her with Hannah.” Rogner salutes him. “We’re not that dissimilar, Herr Beck.”
“Tell me what you did with my daughter, you monster!”
One side of Rogner’s mouth twitches into a smile.
“You have no idea, Herr Beck. The daughter you spent all those years defending never existed. We had an affair. Your daughter was that kind of girl. She had an affair with a married man.” His smile becomes broader, provocative. “What do you think about that, Herr Beck?”
“That’s a lie!”
“No lie,” Rogner protests. “It’s the truth. Can you cope with that, Herr Beck?” He puts his head to one side in feigned sympathy. “Can your sick heart keep up?”
From the corner of my eye I see Matthias Beck grinding his teeth.
“Well?” Rogner bares his teeth. Then, as if at the flick of a switch, his face darkens. I know this look. It’s the last thing you see before his fist slams into your face, his foot starts kicking you mercilessly; before the pain explodes and everything turns black. “A lying, spoiled brat, stuffed with Papi’s cash like a plump Christmas goose. Irresponsible, fickle, lacking any respect. That was the daughter for whom you beat up a man so badly he had to go to hospital and whose reports you faked.” Now he leans his head on the other side to see what effect his words have had. “Surely you remember our first meeting, Herr Beck? How proudly you showed me Lena’s reports. A straight ‘A’ student! My photographer even took pictures of them and I didn’t doubt her achievements for one second until I had an interview with her tutor. Your daughter’s average grade was a ‘C’ bordering on a ‘D.’ But you knew that, did
n’t you?” Rogner shakes his head, smirking. “You lied for your daughter from the beginning. And so I suspected we’d have great fun together, which we did, didn’t we, Herr Beck? I mean, I had a lot of fun at least.”
“Go on,” Beck growls. “I want to know it all.”
Rogner mutters something. Looks at Beck. Seems to be thinking.
For a moment I feel a spark of hope. I pray his next reaction will be the right one. Someone intending to escape doesn’t have time for long stories. Someone with something to lose keeps the unsayable things to themselves.
“So be it, Herr Beck,” I hear him say and close my eyes.
This is the end.
“We met when Lena was in her second semester. When she turned up at our office inquiring about an internship. Maybe she was motivated by the fleeting desire to stand on her own two feet, or at least to escape her mother’s pesky criticism. In the interview, I already guessed that Lena was no journalist. There wasn’t a world around Lena Beck. Lena Beck was the world. Or at least so she thought. Nonetheless I gave her a chance. I asked her to write an article on a particular topic by the following week.” He laughs. “She didn’t, of course. When I called her, she said she’d changed her mind and wanted to concentrate on her studies instead. What a dreadful girl, I thought. And yet I just couldn’t get her out of my mind. Her lightness, like a delicate little bird. Her carelessness, which both fascinated and repelled me.” Rogner shakes his head again, this time deep in his memories. “One thing led to another. But we had to be careful—after all, I was a married man. I’d been married to Simone for twelve years and had never been unfaithful. I’d pledged my life to her and I meant it. Until Lena came on the scene. In the beginning we’d just meet for a few hours, but soon that wasn’t enough. So we started spending weekends together. I told Simone I was away for work. As a journalist you spend a lot of time away, so there was no reason for my wife to doubt me. I took Lena to the cabin, which had existed when I was a child. I originally come from near Cham, you see. The cabin … I’d played there as a child. Pretended I lived there. It’s really lovely. Sadly, you’ve never seen it by day,” he says to me. There’s a hint of melancholy in his voice, but I don’t buy it. “The cabin is at one with its surroundings, it exists outside of time and space. You can’t get there by car. At least you couldn’t until the police came and made access paths that nature had never intended. Before, you had to park almost a half mile away, near a footpath, and walk the rest of the way through the woods. There was always something so primordial about that for me. Something romantic, even, when I walked hand in hand with Lena, when we made our own paths to the secret, enchanted place that belonged to just the two of us. Here we existed only for each other; we were secure and far away from the world. Back then the cabin was really run-down. Together we renovated and furnished it.” He looks at me and grins. “Lena chose the carpet in the sitting room.”
Dear Child Page 28