03.The Last Temptation

by Val McDermid

  She reached for her drink and took a sip. ‘That’s what I’d like too. But I need a little more time to get used to the idea. I’m not saying never, I’m just saying not tonight.’ She looked away. ‘And there’s another thing too.’

  ‘Oh? What might that be?’ He glared mutinously at her.

  ‘Katerina,’ she said softly.

  His face closed down in the tight mask she’d seen the first time they’d met. ‘What about Katerina?’ he eventually said.

  ‘You’re the one who said how much I look like her.’ Carol tried for a pleading expression. ‘I need to be sure it’s really me you want to sleep with, not another version of Katerina.’

  His eyes clouded and his shoulders drooped. ‘You think I haven’t asked myself the same question?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Realizing she’d found the button to push that had turned his anger to vulnerability, Carol let herself relax a fraction.

  ‘The first time I saw you, once I got over the shock, I told myself I would never lay a finger on you because it would be sick. But the more I’ve got to know you, the more I’ve got to like you. Now when I look at you, I see Caroline, not Katerina. You have to believe that.’

  ‘I want to believe it, Tadzio. But I think I need a little more time.’

  He folded his arms across his chest. ‘I understand. Take the time you need. It’s not like there’s any rush. I’m sorry if I came on too strong.’

  She shook her head. ‘There’s nothing to apologize for. At least it’s made us clear the air. Find out where we stand.’

  He managed a faint smile. ‘I have a good feeling about this, Caroline.’

  ‘Me too, Tadzio. But I want to be sure.’ She straightened her dress and stood up. ‘And now I think I should go home.’

  His light was still burning, the curtains wide open. It had been the first thing Carol had checked as she stepped out of Tadeusz’s Mercedes and said good night to his driver. She felt dishevelled and faintly dirty from her scramble on the sofa, but she didn’t care. The need to see Tony was too strong for her to want to waste time restoring herself to a pristine state.

  The door opened so swiftly she could almost have believed he was waiting for her knock. Tony smiled appreciatively at the sight of her. ‘You look stunning,’ he said, ushering her through to the living room. ‘How did it go?’ he asked as he followed her through. They stood inches away from each other. She looked breathtaking, he thought, her hair gleaming against the darkness of the window, her lips slightly parted in a tentative smile. There was an air of arousal about her that gave him a pang of distress. He recognized it as jealousy. He wanted her to feel that way about him, not a creep like Radecki who was nothing more than a gangster with a veneer of sophistication.

  ‘It couldn’t have gone better earlier in the day. He took me out into the country and showed me how he runs his trafficking operations on the waterways. And this afternoon, we had a meeting with his sidekick, Darko Krasic. God, he looks a total brute. Now there’s a man who would make a girl think twice about breaking her cover. And he hates me. He’d snap my neck as soon as look at me if he thought I was going to do anything to damage his precious Tadzio.’

  ‘God preserve us from male bonding. That must have been scary,’ Tony said.

  ‘It was. But it helped me concentrate on being Caroline. And it worked, Tony, it really worked. We’ve got a deal. We’re off to Rotterdam at the weekend to check out the illegal immigrants he’s going to supply me with and we can nail him in the act. Morgan will be like a dog with two tails when he gets my report!’

  Tony nodded. ‘You’ve done really well.’

  She shrugged. ‘I couldn’t have done it without your help.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, of course you could. So how did this evening go? Were you celebrating your new business relationship?’ He couldn’t keep an edge of bitterness out of his voice.

  ‘He tried to jump me,’ she said, with a moue of distaste. ‘But I managed to fend him off. It’s tricky, making sure I give him enough rope to hang himself without me getting entangled in it too.’

  ‘It can’t be easy,’ Tony agreed, the words dragging out of him.

  She took a step forward. ‘He’s an attractive man. My body seems to find that harder to resist than my head does. And that’s very confusing.’

  Tony stared at the floor. He was afraid to look at her. ‘Just as well you’re so thoroughly professional,’ he muttered.

  Carol put a hand on his arm. ‘It wasn’t my professionalism that got me out of it. It was because I kept thinking of you.’

  ‘You couldn’t stand my disapproval, huh?’ His familiar lop-sided smile crept out of hiding.

  She shook her head. ‘Not exactly. It was more about reminding myself what I really want.’ She moved closer to him. He could feel the heat rising from her body. Without thinking, he opened his arms and she stepped into their circle. They stood together, hugging so tight they could feel the thud of each other’s blood. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling the sweet smell of her. For the first time since his visit to Schloss Hochenstein, his mind was freed from the images of horror it had generated.

  The reprieve didn’t last for long. Carol ran her fingers through the hair on the back of his head and spoke softly. ‘I’m sorry. All I think about is me. How has your day been?’

  His body stiffened in her embrace, and he gently moved away from her. ‘You don’t want to hear this stuff,’ he said, crossing to the table and picking up the bottle of Scotch sitting there. He raised his eyebrows at her and Carol shook her head. He poured a stiff drink and dropped into the upright chair by his laptop. He sipped at the whisky and shook his head. ‘Trust me, you really don’t.’

  Carol perched on the end of the sofa, only a few inches separating their knees. ‘I’m not exactly a horror-story virgin,’ she reminded him. ‘You know how this stuff eats away at you. So come on, share the burden.’

  He stared down into his drink. ‘Kids. They were just kids. It’s not like I don’t know in graphic detail what gets done to children.’ He frowned. ‘But that’s individuals. One sick bastard preying on kids. So that’s manageable, because they’re beyond the pale. They’re not like us. That’s what you reassure yourself with.’ He swallowed more whisky.

  ‘But the terrible thing about this, Carol, the thing that makes me feel like I’ve swallowed some corrosive poison just by knowing about this stuff, is that it was a collaborative effort. Dozens, probably hundreds of people were involved in what was done to those children. Their parents hid behind their own sense of powerlessness and let those bastards take their kids away. And for what? Because they were physically handicapped. Or because they were mentally deficient. Or just because they were difficult little buggers who didn’t stick to the rules.’ He ran a hand through his hair, his face revealing his troubled bewilderment. Carol put a hand on his knee and he covered it with his own.

  ‘And then the doctors and nurses. Not ignorant peasants, educated people. People like you and me. People who went into this line of work presumably because they had some desire to heal the sick. But an edict went out from on high and suddenly they stopped being healers and started being torturers and murderers. I mean, how can you get your head round that? I’ve never had a problem understanding the self-deception involved in being a concentration camp guard. When you feel vulnerable, demonizing some outsider grouping like Jews or gypsies or communists isn’t such a big step for most of us. But these were German children. Most of the people who destroyed their lives were probably parents themselves. How could they dissociate what they were doing for a living from their own domestic lives? For some of them at least, it must have wrecked their heads.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m good at empathy. I’m good at feeling the pain of people who can only function by transferring their own pain on to other people. But I’m damned if I can find a shred of pity for anybody who was involved in committing the acts I’ve read about today.’

  ‘I’m so
sorry,’ Carol said. ‘I shouldn’t have brought you into this.’

  He forced a tired smile. ‘No need to apologize. But, if I’m right, and our killer is a victim at one remove from what happened in those so-called hospitals, then I’ve got to say, he’s not the only one who’s to blame. The people who really carry the responsibility for these murders are way beyond the reach of our justice.’

  In the street below, Radovan Matic couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d spent a boring evening outside Tadeusz Radecki’s apartment block, fully expecting to be there till the early hours at least. No red-blooded male would let a woman like that leave his apartment without giving her one. And from everything his Uncle Darko had said about Radecki, the man was no monk. He’d been mildly surprised when Radecki’s familiar black Mercedes had pulled up outside the building just after ten o’clock, and astonished when Caroline Jackson had emerged alone a few minutes later.

  He’d followed the Merc back to her place, and been lucky enough to find a parking space directly opposite as she walked inside. He decided to wait until he saw her light come on, then call his uncle in the hope he’d be allowed to go home to bed. Rado got out of his car and moved into the shadows of a florist’s doorway so he could better see the apartment block.

  Minutes ticked past, and no light appeared at the windows he knew to be hers. What was going on? He knew from watching her previously that as soon as she walked in, a glow from the hall could be seen at the living-room window. Yet the rooms remained in darkness. Had he made a mistake? Was he watching the wrong window? He counted them off from the first-floor corner window, just to be sure.

  That was when he saw her. Unmistakably. But she was in the wrong place. Instead of being on the third floor, she was on the first. And she was with a man who definitely wasn’t Tadeusz Radecki. As he watched, they moved closer together, clearly having some sort of intense conversation. Then they were in each other’s arms.

  The bitch had come straight from Radecki’s apartment to this other man’s embrace. Rado reached for his phone. This was something his uncle needed to know about. And fast.

  Krasic was there inside twenty minutes. He’d run every amber light the length of the Ku’damm in his eagerness to discover Caroline Jackson doing something she shouldn’t be doing. He parked across somebody’s garage entrance and barrelled up the street to his nephew’s vantage point. ‘What’s happening?’ he demanded.

  Rado pointed up to the oblong of light on the first floor. ‘That’s where she was. Her and this bloke. Tadeusz’s driver dropped her off and her lights didn’t go on. Next thing was, I spotted her in the first-floor window with him. They were talking, then they were snogging. Then they disappeared. So I’d say at a rough guess that they’re shagging, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I told him not to trust her,’ Krasic growled. ‘So what number is this apartment?’

  ‘It’s two floors below hers. If she’s 302, he must be in 102.’ As he spoke, the man came into view again. ‘That’s him, Uncle. That’s the man she was with,’ he exclaimed excitedly, pointing up to the window as Tony crossed from one side to the other before disappearing again.

  Krasic chopped Rado’s arm to his side with a savage blow. ‘For fuck’s sake, Rado, do you want the whole street to see us?’

  Rado clutched his aching arm and squirmed with the pain. ‘Sorry, Uncle.’

  ‘Never mind. You did a good job, spotting the bitch. Now I need to find out who her fancy man is. It’ll have to wait till morning.’ He was speaking to himself more than to his nephew. Krasic stared up at the window like a moonstruck hare, an intent frown on his face.

  Time passed. Rado fidgeted, but Krasic stood immobile as stone. His military training had taught him the importance of being able to watch without being seen. Then, his life had depended on it. He wondered if that might be the case again.

  At last, his patience was rewarded. There was no mistaking Caroline Jackson with her poignant echo of Katerina Basler’s beauty. She stood near the window, her mouth moving in silent speech. Then, right next to her, the man popped up again. His hands came up to the side of her head, holding her as they kissed. It wasn’t, he thought, the sort of casual good night kiss friends might share. As they parted, Caroline rumpled his hair in a gesture of easy affection. Then they both moved out of Krasic’s line of sight.

  A couple of minutes later, the man reappeared. He walked across to the window and stared out. Krasic shoved Rado even further back into the dark recess, crushing him against the shop door. But the man showed no signs of noticing their presence as he gazed up at the sky.

  Peering over his uncle’s shoulder, Rado said, ‘Look, she’s back home.’ A light had gone on two floors above. As they watched, the woman they knew as Caroline Jackson drew the curtains.

  Five minutes later, the man on the first floor turned his back on the street and his light went out. ‘Go home, Rado,’ Krasic instructed him. ‘There’ll be work for you in the morning. I’ll call you when I know what it is.’

  He watched the boy leave, glad that he’d had the presence of mind to keep a tail on the two-faced bitch. Whatever she was up to with the man on the first floor, it wasn’t something she had chosen to mention to Tadzio. In his book, that meant it had to be something she didn’t want them to know.

  Krasic didn’t like other people’s secrets. In his experience, they spelled danger. Before too long, he was going to uncover whatever skeletons Caroline Jackson was keeping hidden in Apartment 102.

  33

  The Shark hadn’t been exaggerating about the pigs, Petra thought grimly as she shuffled along on her stomach in a muddy ditch beneath a thorn hedge. The stink was overpowering, and they definitely did seem to head deliberately in her direction before delivering up their wind with a satisfied grunt. What he hadn’t mentioned was the rats. She’d already come eye to beady eye with one, and she could swear she felt them running over her lower legs. Just the thought of it made her flesh crawl.

  Before Plesch would authorize a full-scale liberation operation to rescue Tanja Krebs, she had insisted on corroboration of The Shark’s sighting. ‘It’s not that I doubt your abilities,’ she’d lied. ‘But it’s easy to make a mistake, to see what you want to see rather than what is actually the case. So before we make a big song and dance about this, I want Petra to go out there and confirm that the girl is being held there. If you’re right, we’ll mount a formal surveillance and prepare a hostage release strategy’

  She’d never seen Plesch in such a good mood. She’d even agreed without quibble to Petra’s suggestion about putting Marlene into a witness protection programme, and that they should move fast and aim to co-ordinate their raid with Radecki’s arrest in Rotterdam. Even the rats and pigs couldn’t dissipate Petra’s feeling of imminent triumph.

  And in spite of Marijke’s pessimism, she couldn’t help but feel they were making some progress on the serial killer front, thanks in part to Tony Hill. He was a strange guy, she thought. There was obviously some kind of history between him and Carol. They both had that slight awkwardness when they talked about each other, and Carol had been much more relaxed since he’d arrived in Berlin. Well, good luck to them. She knew what a difference it made to have a relationship with someone who spoke the same professional language.

  She adjusted her position, making sure she could get her binoculars to her eyes with the minimum of movement. She’d been here for hours, and the only thing that had happened was that old man Matic had fed the pigs. She glared at a heavy old sow who was lumbering towards her in a purposeful way, and held her breath.

  At least it wasn’t raining.

  Yet.

  Tony lay on the comfortable bed, enjoying the feel of the cool white cotton on his body. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so genuinely at peace. Certainly never in the middle of a serial killer investigation. But this morning, he felt like a swimmer who has finally arrived at the shore after an interminable battle with the waves. Ever since he’d first met Carol, h
e’d been struggling to make sense of the feelings she provoked in him. At first, he’d tried denial, since he knew he was incapable of giving her the sexual satisfaction she deserved. Then he’d tried to force it into the box marked ‘friendship’ because he feared the work they’d done together had laid too great a burden of emotional baggage on them. Finally, he’d opted for distance on the basis that what the eye doesn’t see, the heart can’t grieve over.

  Each of these strategies had failed. But now the combination of a little blue pill and his experience with Frances had overcome that first objection. The second objection had fallen to the realization that what they had endured together could make them stronger rather than damage their intimacy. And now the distance had been shattered, and the world hadn’t ended.

  In all his working life, he had never found it possible to talk openly to another human being about his feelings when confronted with the appalling things one person could do to another. Yet the night before, he’d spilled out the anguish in his heart to Carol without a second thought. Even as he’d spoken, there had been an admonitory voice in the back of his head, warning that he was saying far too much. But he’d ignored it and, instead of revulsion, he’d found compassion. After the horrors of the Nazi records, he’d feared a succession of sleepless nights, afraid to close his eyes because of what dreams could do to him. Somehow Carol had acted as balm, releasing him from the terrible power of his imagination.

  For the first time in years, he had something to look forward to beyond the closure of the case that currently occupied his mind. It was a tantalizing prospect. But before then, he had work to do. Tony pushed himself into a sitting position. Something was niggling at the back of his mind and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It was something he’d seen or heard in Bremen, a detail that hadn’t seemed relevant at the time but which should mean something to him now. ‘Where are you, Geronimo?’ he said softly. ‘Are you planning the next one? Where is it going to be next? Where is the water going to take you next?