‘But the police aren’t taking it seriously yet.’
‘No. But they will have to if Katti doesn’t get in touch soon. If my mother has not heard anything.’
‘Well, what about what happened last night?’ Lauren turned to face him. ‘We could go back to where that car ran us off the road, ask around, see if anyone got the number.’
‘What would be the point of that? There is nothing to connect that with Katti’s disappearance.’
‘You seemed to think there was last night.’
‘At first, maybe.’ Wolf appeared to be considering it. ‘But no, it cannot be anything to do with Katti. It makes no sense.’
‘That’s the conclusion I came to as well. But now I think… well, it’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? Anything like that ever happen before?’
Wolf gave his head a curt shake. A pulse jumped in his cheek.
‘So, it’s worth looking into then. I mean, it can’t hurt to see if we can find anything out.’
‘Verdammte, woman! Let me get this visit to my mother over with first. Have I not enough to worry about?’
Okay Keane, lay off, Lauren told herself. He’s more worried about Katti than he’s letting on. As am I. We’re both under a lot of strain.
‘If only Katti had a phone,’ she said eventually. ‘How can anyone still not have a mobile?’ She glanced over her shoulder into the back of the van. ‘How different the two of you are. You with your computer business and her still getting the hang of the Biro pen.’
‘Katti is so old-fashioned in some ways,’ Wolf said. ‘What do you call it? Retro? Vintage? She lives her life as if it is still the... the Summer of Love.’
Watching him, Lauren could not tell whether this amused him or irritated him. She sat in silence as the van trundled along the arterial road. Cars sped past in the faster lanes.
As the road curved, he swung the van to the left, driving into the low winter sun now piercing the clouds. Simultaneously, they reached up to pull the sun-visors down to cut the glare.
‘Snap,’ said Lauren.
He smiled briefly. ‘I am sorry I shouted,’ he said. ‘I did not get much sleep last night.’
Lauren managed a glimmer of a smile in return. They were both worrying and not wanting to admit it. Once Katti got back they would loosen up a bit, then maybe–
She shook herself. Stop that, Keane. Stop it right now. There was no sense in hankering after the past. It was long gone and she had no intention of reliving it.
And, anyway, Ingrid was in the picture now.
Nine
On the TV Helmut Hartmann smiled and accepted the award. Ethical travel. Businessman of the Year. Best Employer. Something like that. Bebe watched from the kitchen. If they only knew.
‘Bastard Hartmann.’ Mother swilled gin like a Hogarth whore these days. ‘Well done, you bastard,’ she said raising the green bottle in salute. ‘You million-billion-squillionaire bastard.’
Never, Bebe told herself, turning her eyes on her mother. Never drink, never take drugs. She’d seen what they could do. Of course, Hartmann was the catalyst. If not for him –
She turned away from the sight of her mother railing at the TV screen. If not for him her father wouldn’t have dribbled himself to death, her mother wouldn’t be a drunk and she, well, she’d be a whole lot better off than she is now, wouldn’t she?
Bebe gazed out at the dark canal. She’d been following Hartmann’s career for over twenty years. He first came to her notice in 1985, after Live Aid, when he set up his scheme to ship supplies to the war-torn and starving. Ha! Even as a child she could see he did that to publicise his new health food company. And his expensive safari tours.
And what about all the other projects? Sniffing around the Kohl government with his Young Entrepreneur Scheme, back in the eighties. Feeding his ambition. Wanting to be accepted into the mainstream business world. She wasn’t stupid. She’d been watching him for almost all her life.
Hatred was such a lasting emotion. Stronger than love. Hatred can wait and wait and never grow tired.
But she’d waited long enough. Baba was right. They must do it now.
Ten
Lauren hopped down to the pavement, a good-to-be-alive sensation flashing through her as she sucked in the sharp cold air. Snow smothered everything like a high tog duvet – roofs, trees, cars. But it was an overnight fall and the roadway was clear. The pavement, though slush-grey in the centre, was edged with crisp white mounds where the snow-plough had pushed the snow up off the road.
She gazed around the main street, taking in the vista of fondant-coloured buildings – sugar pink, lemon, ice blue, mint green. ‘It’s stunning,’ she said. ‘It still knocks me out no matter how many times I see it.’ A marzipan-coloured church, decorated with piped white icing, gleamed in the sunlight. ‘You could eat this place. It’s pure Hansel and Gretel.’
‘Lean on me.’ Wolf, took her elbow and assisted her in the direction of his mother’s apartment – though whether because the path was slippery or because he wanted to curtail her rubbernecking, she wasn’t sure. They went into a cream building set back off the main street and climbed the stairs.
~
‘Lauren! Liebchen!’ Clara reached out her hands, her thin fingers glittering with rings, her nails pearly. ‘What a lovely surprise. Why you not visit us before now, you naughty girl?’ Her voice was rich, husky, with a Hungarian accent. She’d been a singer, a performer, and in her fifties still had the sinuous body of a dancer, and most of the beauty of her youth.
‘Well, you know. Work. Life...’ Lauren presented her cheeks for the double kiss Clara insisted upon.
‘Work! Life! Phfuh!’ Clara’s eyebrows disappeared into the mass of henna’d curls tumbling over her forehead. ‘I know why you don’t come.’ She shot a disapproving glance at Wolf. ‘You don’t have the Ice Queen with you today?’
‘Ingrid’s away on –’
‘And where is Katti?’ She peered past Lauren and out through the open door. Wolf closed it.
‘Come and sit down, Mutti,’ he said.
Lauren followed them into the sitting room and perched on a white brocade armchair.
‘Mutti,’ Wolf said when his mother was settled on the zebra-upholstered sofa opposite. ‘Katti has disappeared.’
Nice one, Wolf, thought Lauren. Break it to her gently.
‘What are you saying?’ Clara flung her hands out, the fringes of her cut velvet blouse shimmering. ‘What do you mean, Wolfi? How can Katti disappear?’
‘I haven’t seen her since Monday, Mutti – though she probably hasn’t been gone that long. But she didn’t meet Lauren at the airport, and we don’t know where she is.’
‘What you talking about? Where has she gone?’ Clara’s voice rose higher with every question. She scrabbled for her cigarettes, fumbled with a silver lighter.
‘I’ll make us some coffee,’ Lauren said, standing. Same old Clara. The Hungarian Gypsy in her was never far beneath the surface. It leapt to centre stage at the first hint of drama.
She made the coffee and stood in the familiar kitchen letting it brew. The wails from the other room grew louder. Clara, like Katti, was volatile, expressing her highs and lows with equal abandon. Wolf was more restrained – clamping down on any hint of emotion other than anger these days, or so it seemed. Surely that wasn’t all her fault.
She thought about when they first met – that first visit to Germany. She’d been perched on Clara’s brocade chair, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a forkful of Black Forest chocolate cake in the other, when a boy appeared from the hallway, tousled hair suggesting he’d been sleeping. Their eyes met, hers with surprise in them, his with undisguised curiosity.
She’d heard all about Wolfgang –‘Katti’s little brozzer,’ Clara had called him – but Lauren had expected a German version of her own brother, Paul, chubby and pre-teen, not the beautiful chestnut-haired sixteen-year-old who appeared shyly in the doorway.
Lauren
had gasped in wonder at the vision. Her Black Forest chocolate cake languished uneaten, her coffee cooled undrunk. By the end of the day they’d held hands. By the end of the week they’d kissed and pledged eternal love.
Of course it hadn’t lasted. The romance sputtered on for a short exchange of letters once the holiday was over, then fizzled out and died a natural death – until they met again as adults some years later and it sat up like Lazarus and blazed to life again.
Ah, but she was so in love that first time. So innocently and delightfully in love. Suppressed laughter tinged with sadness tightened her throat. Where was that gentle boy now? Hell, where was that innocent girl?
Lauren took the tray and marched into the sitting room. She slid it onto the Chinese lacquered table in front of the sofa, where Wolf sat comforting his mother. He leaned forward to pick up the silver coffee pot.
‘You must telephone to Hartmann, Wolfi!’ said Clara, clutching his arm and making him spill the coffee. ‘We must tell him instantly. He will know what to do.’
‘But I hardly know him, Mutti. Shouldn’t you speak to him?’
‘I cannot speak with him, Wolfi. I cannot breathe.’ Clara clutched her chest and wheezed, holding her cigarette away from her in her other hand. ‘My heart is not good with all what is happening.’
Lauren rolled her eyes. ‘You phone him, Wolf,’ she said. ‘It’s for the best.’
Clara would never get the news across without long drawn out dramatics, and the poor man had a right to know – sooner rather than later.
After a fraught five minutes while Clara searched for her address book, Wolf made the call. Lauren watched him as he was put on hold, noticing the tenseness of his jaw, the sullenness in his eyes. He had no reason to be over-fond of Katti’s father, after all. Helmut Hartmann was the man who deserted his mother voluntarily. His own father hadn’t had a choice.
Wolf’s brow furrowed deeper as he waited. The great man was a millionaire, a hippy capitalist of the Seventies turned philanthropist, and not immediately accessible to just anyone. Wolf’s mouth tightened as he spoke into the phone.
‘Wolfgang Hauer. Tell him Clara’s son. Clara. His ex-wife.’
Lauren moved to sit next to Clara in the hope of preventing her from interrupting. It was an impossible task.
‘His deserted wife, tell them. Mother of his only daughter. Doesn’t he care about Katti?’ She flung herself back against the sofa. ‘Why should he care now? He never did before.’ She turned to Lauren, her mascara blotchy with tears. ‘You don’t know how it was, Lauren. Without him. Even if he was a bastard. I have to look after my baby all alone. My baby Katti.’
Lauren nodded her sympathy, fully aware that Clara had met Wolf’s father just a few months after Hartmann’s departure. She kept this thought to herself and sipped her coffee.
‘Mutti, please.’ Wolf flapped a hand at her. ‘They are putting me through.’
‘He should come on the phone instantly. At once! Who does he think he is? Mr Big Shot! Phfuh.’
Clara continued to mutter invective while Wolf explained the situation to Herr Hartmann. When he put the phone down, he was grave.
‘What does he say?’ demanded Clara, waving her cigarette at Wolf. ‘He doesn’t care, huh? He doesn’t –’
‘Mutti. Please.’ Wolf sank into a chair, his face pale. ‘He got a note. Just a few minutes ago. By courier. Katti has been kidnapped.’
Clara’s wail split the room. ‘Nooooo! Please. My Katti. No.’ Her hands fluttered like glittering birds. One of them clawed her left breast. ‘My heart! My heart!’
Lauren was cold with shock. ‘What’s happening, Wolf? What do they want?’
‘Money, of course. What else?’
‘He must pay! He must! Oh my Katti!’
‘How much?’ Lauren asked.
‘A lot.’ Wolf leapt up and paced across the room. He ground his heel into the rug and strode back again.
‘So, what’s going to happen?’ Lauren got shakily to her feet. ‘Is Katti’s dad paying up? What does he have to do? What does the note say?’
‘He must pay! Make him pay, Wolfi!’
Wolf ran a hand through his hair, his fingers separating the curls. ‘I cannot make him do anything, Mutti. He’s thinking about it.’
‘Thinking! When did he ever think about me? About my Katti.’
‘Has he called the police?’ said Lauren. ‘What have they said?’
‘He has been told not to call the police. As you might expect.’ Wolf’s fists were bunched into tight balls.
‘They will kill her! They will kill my baby!’
Lauren clasped her head in her hands. ‘Jesus.’
Eleven
‘That was the bitch’s son.’ Helmut Hartmann put his feet up on his desk – a slab of glass eight feet long and half as much wide. He scowled at Klaus over the pointed toes of his tooled leather cowboy boots. ‘Was hoping to keep her out of the loop a while longer.’
Of his old pals from the original overland trip to Nepal, only Klaus was still part of the company. Hartman eyed the big guy speculatively. Officially an employee – driver, assistant, gopher – unofficially a heavy in charge of sorting out life’s little problems. Well this was one more he could sort out.
Hartman looked around at what he’d achieved. To think it all started with an old VW Microbus decorated with daisies and rainbows. That very first Dreambus, jouncing along the road to Kathmandu, had led to a multimillion-euro travel company – and the rest. There was no way he was going to risk losing it all now.
‘What d’you reckon to this, man?’ he said, tossing the note down on the desk. ‘Are they fuckin serious, or what? Has some bastard seriously kidnapped Clara’s daughter?’
‘Your daughter too, H,’ Klaus said.
‘Of course. Goes without saying.’
Hartmann saw the dark eyebrows lift, the amusement in the craggy face. Klaus was a couple of years younger than Hartmann – but only a couple. It was the extra six inches in height and twenty kilos in muscle that made the difference.
Klaus had been there from the start – along with Jaap Binsbergen. Binsbergen got out – assisted by Hartmann’s boot – once the company diversified in the ’Seventies. Klaus had shown his usefulness then. Binsbergen hadn’t made a fuss despite the Guilders he’d poured into the venture. Hartmann put the little Dutch guy out of his mind. He had more pressing problems. ‘What’re we gonna do about this, man?’
‘Leave it with me, H,’ Klaus said. He pushed himself away from the wall of glass that bounded Hartmann’s office. ‘When you hear from this nutter again –’ He flicked the note with a powerful middle finger. ‘ – let me deal with him.’
Hartmann looked up into the smiling eyes. He could never shake off the idea Klaus was laughing at him.
‘Course I will. That’s what I pay you for, man.’ No harm in reminding the bastard. ‘When do I ever soil my own hands?’
Twelve
‘Hurry up, Lauren,’ Wolf said. ‘I wish to get back before it grows dark.’
With Clara clinging to his arm, he crossed the street to where the van was parked. Clara was insisting on seeing Hartmann at his office in Nuremberg. She wanted to read the ransom note for herself and find out what he was doing about it.
Lauren was busy shrugging Katti’s purple wrap around her shoulders and watching her step on the icy pavement. Further distracted by one of her earrings getting caught in the wrap, she hurried after them, disentangling herself as she went.
As she stepped into the road, looking vaguely and mistakenly, to the right, a car screeched to a halt inches from her left thigh. Startled, she lost her balance. Her bag flew across the road.
Feet sliding from under her, she lurched towards the car, grabbing the first thing to hand to save herself from falling. Legs splayed awkwardly, she clutched at the mascot on the car bonnet. As she fought to get control of her skidding feet, the car doors opened and two men leapt out, one tall and skinny, one squat and ugly.
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‘Entschuldigen Sie mich...’ Lauren began, apologising for stepping out in front of them, for touching their precious car, for dislodging the famous Mercedes three-point star.
Her heart did the high jump. A Mercedes! She opened her mouth to yell but the ugly guy grabbed her by the throat, choking her cry. Twisting in his grip, she tried to alert Wolf but he was on the other side of the van helping Clara into the passenger seat.
Lauren kicked and wriggled as the pair dragged her through the slush and threw her into the back of their car. The squat man piled in after her, the skinny one jumped into the driver’s seat.
Backseat man twisted his fist into her hair and shoved her face into the leather upholstery as the car took off down the main street.
Thirteen
In the hazy pink light of the window, Alina sits bored and dulled, watched but not watching. She’s grown accustomed to the work now. The man Zamir sold her to is not so bad, she tells herself. Kristo could be much worse. She’s seen others who are.
At least he lets her visit Katti next door sometimes. And he lets her live with him in a nice apartment. Kristo keeps her as his own. She doesn’t have to live with the other girls, in the sex centre, always available. She’s lucky in that respect. Kristo likes her.
‘I like’em young,’ she’s heard him say. ‘Younger the better.’
Zamir sneers at that but he’s just as bad. What he does is evil. Pure evil.
And the other men who use her? They are nothing. Interchangeable. At any time she could look up at the face above her and not know if it was the tenth or the fiftieth or the hundredth. Her life isn’t too bad. Some girls work every day, have no freedom, are addicted to heroin. She was clean of drugs, had time off, could go anywhere she pleased. Anywhere except away from here. She had no money for that. No money for anything.
Kristo said it was best all her money was sent home. She was working for her family, he said. Putting food in their mouths. Was she selfish, he asked, that she wanted money for herself? She was fed, wasn’t she? Fed and clothed and housed. What more did she want? Selfish little bitch.
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