DON'T LOOK DOWN

by Barbara Scott Emmett

  Thirty-three

  Ingrid stalked into the Meisengeige café and glared down at Wolfgang’s mother from her great height.

  ‘I don’t understand why you wanted to meet here, Clara,’ she said, sitting down quickly before Clara could attempt to kiss her. Overt demonstrations of affection were not her thing.

  ‘Hello Ingrid.’ Clara’s smile was saccharine. ‘Lovely to see you also.’

  Ingrid glanced around the dim café, peering past the bar to the door marked‘Kino’. The Meisengeige – or‘Fiddling Mouse’ as it was called – was attached to a small arthouse cinema. The black walls were decorated with film posters and mirrors. Three or four round metal tables topped with marble were squeezed into the tiny space at the front of the café.

  She hunched her shoulders. ‘I find this place unnerving.’ It attracted types she preferred not to mingle with – artists, students, old hippies.

  ‘It is Katti’s favourite café,’ said Clara, lighting a cigarette. ‘Perhaps some of her friends are here.’ She blew out a long stream of smoke.

  ‘Would you know them if you saw them?’ Ingrid wafted the smoke away, her mouth downturned. Wolfgang’s mother was too much of a Bohemian for her taste. Too flighty. And her clothes–

  Clara fluttered a hand. ‘That is not the point.’ She drew her leopardskin coat more tightly around her throat and leaned forward. ‘I thought we should speak together, Ingrid. Wolfi would wish me to explain what is going on. To tell you why he is not here to see you.’

  ‘Thank you, but I have already spoken to him myself,’ said Ingrid, patting a stray blonde hair back into place. ‘He rang early this morning.’ She flicked her glance away. ‘He said he’d found a mobile phone somewhere. Belonging to this other woman, this friend of Katti’s.’

  Catching the barman’s eye she pointed at Clara’s empty cup and held up two fingers.

  Clara released a long, shuddering breath. ‘My poor poor Katti. What can be happening, Ingrid?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure there is nothing to worry about. You know what Katti’s like. She’ll turn up in her own good time.’

  ‘Ingrid. You have no sympathy. For Katti or for me. I thought now, at least, you would not be so cold.’

  ‘Just because I am in control of my emotions, doesn’t mean I don’t care.’

  Ingrid moved back to allow the barman to place the two coffees on the table. She aimed a tight smile up at him then turned away. Peering down her cleavage as usual. Men were so stupid and predictable.

  ‘Of course I care. I would hate to think anything had happened to Katti. But I don’t see why everyone has to get so wound up, when you all know perfectly well she’s done this sort of thing before. Wolfgang told me –’

  ‘But the note,’ Clara said. She clapped her hand over her mouth and swivelled her eyes from side to side. ‘The note,’ she went on in a whisper. ‘That is proof enough, no?’

  ‘Are you sure there was a note?’

  ‘Of course there was. I saw it. And what about Lauren?’ Clara drew herself up, her lips trembling. ‘She is kidnapped too.’

  Ingrid frowned. ‘This Lauren... she was bundled into a car, Wolfgang said. Did you see this happen? Are you sure she didn’t get in of her own accord?’

  ‘Phfuh! You are just like the police.’

  ‘You have informed the police, I take it?’ Ingrid looked up. ‘About Lauren being missing? What about Katti?’

  Clara sniffed. ‘The kidnappers say not to tell the police.’ She brought out a lace handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. ‘And that is not all. I have spoken to Hartmann again, a few minutes ago.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He has had a phone call in the night. Wolfi doesn’t know this yet. I have tried to phone him but his mobile is switched off.’

  ‘A phone call? From whom?’

  Clara raised her cup. Her mouth had left a lipstick-stain on the rim. ‘Hartmann thinks it is different people this time. Not the same ones as before.’

  ‘Different people?’ said Ingrid. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘He says the man who phoned does not know about the note. There are two kidnappers now.’

  ‘He must have become confused. Are you positive there was a note?’

  ‘Confused?’ Clara dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief again. ‘Senile more like. Phfuh! And he has a girlfriend younger than my Katti.’ She stubbed her cigarette out violently in the orange glass ashtray. ‘There was a note. I told you. I saw it myself.’

  ‘And it was a demand for money?’ Ingrid said. ‘What did it say?’

  ‘It said only that they had Katti and to wait for instructions. And not to call the police. It was very clear about that.’

  ‘And the phone call? Was anything else mentioned?’

  Clara twisted her mouth. ‘Hartmann did not say. He will not tell me. But there must be something. He is very angry. Serve him right to lose his money.’

  ‘Does he intend to do what they have asked?’ Ingrid stirred her coffee. ‘Pay the ransom – or ransoms, if there is more than one?’

  ‘He says he will think about it. What is there to think about? He should pay at once. Old goat. Thinks he is still so hip.’

  ‘But if there really are two sets of kidnappers, what will he do? Will he pay both of them?’

  ‘I don’t know! Maybe he won’t even pay one of them. He is so mean, Hartmann.’

  ‘They cannot both have Katti. But it might be wise for him to pay off both sets of kidnappers, since he doesn’t know which are the genuine ones.’ Ingrid picked up her cup but did not drink. ‘It’s very likely they will harm Katti, if he doesn’t do what they say. They may even kill her.’

  ‘First you say Katti is gone off somewhere by herself,’ Clara wailed. ‘Now you say they will kill her.’

  Ingrid peered over her shoulder. ‘Keep your voice down, Clara. People are looking at us.’

  She scowled across at a couple sitting on a black leather bench seat in the window. ‘What does it matter what I say, anyway? I don’t know what’s going on. I just hope for Katti’s sake her father does everything he’s been asked to do. If she has been kidnapped, she must be terrified, poor girl. Getting her home safely is surely more important than money.’

  ‘You are right.’ Clara sniffed. ‘If Hartmann lets anything happen to my Katti, I will kill him.’

  Ingrid reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. ‘Call him again, Clara. Find out what he intends to do. Set your mind at rest.’

  Clara smiled weakly, her mascara’d eyelashes wet with tears. ‘You do care for us, don’t you, Ingrid? For our little family? Ah, you look so strained. You are worried too.’ She reached a hand across the polished tabletop.

  Ingrid watched the pearly talons creep towards her. Pushing the phone into Clara’s hand before she could make contact, she drew back. ‘Of course I care. She is Wolfgang’s sister, after all. And I know how fond he is of her. I’ve grown fond of her myself but I’m no good at expressing how I feel. You know that by now.’ She forced a smile. How difficult it was to show sympathy, empathy, or any emotion at all, but she must try.

  Steeling herself, she touched Clara’s arm. ‘Call Herr Hartmann, Clara. Call him now. Put both our minds at rest.’

  Thirty-four

  The wodge of blanket parched the moisture from her mouth, the prickly hairs caught in her throat. Lauren coughed and croaked and tried to force it out, pushing it with her tongue. She rolled around, trying to get her arms free, panic rising within her. She couldn’t breathe. She would choke.

  The van doors slammed and the vehicle started up and sped across the motel car park. Lauren bounced around in the back as it jounced over the hard snow. She skidded to the right and banged her hip against a wheel-hub as the van presumably turned onto the road. As the speed increased, a wave of anger burned through her. How dare they! How bloody dare they! They must surely know by now she wasn’t the person they wanted.

  She struggled over onto her side and managed to unwind h
erself from the blanket a little. Another roll, and another, and she was more or less free of it. Jerking her arms outward, she threw it off and sat up. Her lip was bleeding again.

  Hot from her exertions as well as her rage, she swivelled around to look to the front of the van, expecting to see through a gap or a window into the driver’s cab. What she saw instead made her overheated blood run cold as ice.

  A man sat with his back up against the cab wall grinning at her. From his hand poked the greyish barrel of a Luger pistol, which she recognised from films. This was her very first encounter with a gun of any kind, never mind one pointed directly at her.

  The man was new, not one of the previous goons – though his tanned skin suggested he was the same nationality as Brains and Muscle – whatever that was. Albanian perhaps, like the cleaner. His shining scalp was naturally bald, not shaven. His yellow eyes flat, dead. Lauren stared at him, transfixed. Had she seen him somewhere before? There was something familiar about him...

  Without taking her eyes off him, she reached up and pulled pieces of blanket fibre out of the split in her lip. She spat out blood and lint, watching the gunman all the time, her breathing ragged. He watched her in return, a lazy grin hovering about his mouth. Lauren was overcome with hatred. Hatred of the gunman, hatred of all of them, whoever they were. Bitter seething hatred.

  ‘I’ve already told the other two clowns I’m not Katti,’ she said. ‘Can’t you get it into your thick skulls? You’ve got the wrong person.’

  ‘But it is not Katti we want this time,’ said the man, his German more fluent than either Brains’ or Muscle’s. ‘It is you, Lauren. You.’

  Shocked that he knew her name, Lauren fell silent. She shivered and briefly considered drawing the blanket around her again. She didn’t have her fleece on, and it was bloody cold. Checking her movement as foolish – she needed to be free of encumbrances in case an opportunity for escape materialised – she glanced around the van.

  ‘No, no, no, Lauren,’ said her captor. ‘No way out for you this time. This time, the professionals are on the job.’

  Lauren was aware of a mad drummer doing paradiddles in her chest. ‘How did you find me? How did you know where I was?’

  ‘Ways and means, Lauren.’ He lifted the Luger. ‘Ways and means.’

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  ‘Lauren, Lauren,’ he said, shaking his head, like an indulgent father who is not prepared to put up with any more nonsense. ‘You are not in a position to ask questions, to demand answers.’

  ‘I only want to know why you want me. Why me? What have I ever done to you?’

  The grin vanished from his face. ‘It is not what you have done, Lauren,’ he said. ‘It is what you know.’

  ‘But I don’t know anything! What do you imagine I know? I haven’t a clue why you’re doing this. Or who the hell you are.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you know too much about us. You have seen faces. Faces can be recognised. That is not allowed.’

  ‘Not allowed?’ Lauren knew her voice trembled and did her best to prevent it. ‘But that’s not my fault. They should have covered their faces. So should you.’

  ‘You are absolutely right, of course. Nevertheless, you will have to pay for the foolishness of others.’

  ‘What are you going to do? Erase my memory?’

  The man smiled. ‘In a manner of speaking.’ The grin spread across his face; even the dead eyes flickered. ‘We are going to erase all of you. That will include your memory.’

  Lauren knelt on the ribbed rubber floor of the van, facing her executioner. She was very much afraid she was about to beg. Beg for her life.

  ‘Look,’ she said, as calmly as she could manage. ‘I have no idea who you are, who your organisation is, or what all this is about.’ She shrugged, reasonableness itself. ‘I don’t even want to know. It’s nothing to do with me. I’m only here to visit my friends. I’m British, for God’s sake!’

  The gun pointed directly at her. The man’s smile no longer reached his eyes. Lauren steadied herself as the van sped on.

  ‘I just want to go home. Please. I don’t care who you are. I couldn’t care less.’ She knew she was cowardly, but who said she had to be brave? Not her. She never claimed heroism. ‘Why don’t you let me go? Drop me off somewhere. Anywhere will do. And I’ll go home and you’ll never see or hear of me again.’

  His smile broadened. He shook his head. A look of genuine regret entered his yellow eyes. ‘If only that were possible, Lauren. If only I could do what you ask.’ A sigh escaped his lips.

  ‘But you can. You can. You don’t want to shoot me. Think what a mess it’ll make of this nice clean van. And it’ll only be more evidence. These days, you know, DNA, forensics.’ Lauren heard the desperation in her voice. She knew she was failing. But she had to keep trying. She owed herself that.

  ‘Lauren,’ he said, as though to an obtuse child. ‘If it was my intention to shoot you here in this van, do you not think I would have done so by now?’

  He shook his head, disappointed in her it seemed: a father studying a bad school report, unable to reconcile it with the bright child he knew.

  ‘No, Lauren. Not here. Somewhere private, quiet. Somewhere lonely. I know just the place. And Lauren,’ he added, viewing her over the top of his gun. ‘Do not trouble yourself about the mess. It will be very very clean.’

  Thirty-five

  BANG!

  The gunman is thrown on top of her and together they sprawl on the floor.

  BANG. The van veers off course as it is hit from behind for a second time.

  Lauren and the gunman, intimate now, roll together, this way and that, bouncing first off one wheel hub, then off the other. The gun is somewhere. Lauren knows this but does not know where. She hopes it is not still in the gunman’s hand, pointed towards her and his finger still on the trigger.

  Whatever is attacking the van attacks again. A loud thunk to the offside rear.

  They roll again, in perfect partnership, the gunman and Lauren, perfectly co-ordinated, rolling as though they are dancing, as though they are making love.

  The van skitters over the icy road. If Lauren wasn’t so terrified of the gun going off, she would be terrified of the van leaving the road, overturning, perhaps tumbling down a steep incline, landing upside down.

  Another clunk. Another crash-thud-bang. The tearing of metal. The swinging left, then right, then left again, the back end of the vehicle fishtailing wildly. Then a rush of cold air and a clang as the back doors burst open. The van hits a barrier, bounces off it, spins like a skater in a competition, back doors flapping, and comes to a rest, crashing side-on into something hard.

  Glass shatters, the van rocks, then settles, a sort of silence descends, the lull after the storm, nothing but the clicking, pinking, ticking, hissing of the engine and the sound of one back door creaking in the wind. The stink of diesel fills the air.

  The gunman is tangled in the blanket, his face hidden, his legs kicking. Lauren is up and out of the van before she knows what she is doing.

  She hits the ground, sinking up to her calves in snow. The hillside slopes away and she slips, slides, tries to get her balance. To climb up to the road is too difficult, so she goes with the momentum, crashing, skidding, flailing downwards, until the ground levels and she starts to run, putting as much distance between herself and the van as possible.

  She steadies herself by clutching first at one tree then another. Gathering speed, throwing herself from trunk to trunk, she hurtles through the forest. Worms of snow, shaken from the branches, flop to the ground in her wake. Behind her someone calls her name. ‘Laau-aauren!’

  ~

  Running. Running, without thought, in a primal, animal state. Flight.

  Someone is panting loudly, a rasping breath coming short and fast. It must be her. She hopes it’s her. That the gunman isn’t so close she can hear him breathe. Her steaming breath condenses on her face. Every step is harder than the last. The snow g
rabs her, sucks her down. She’s not running any more, she’s staggering, sweat clammy on her forehead.

  Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus.

  Pine trees tower above, cold and majestic. Such austerity could be beautiful, inspiring, if she had time to notice. All she notices is their oppressiveness. They loom over her, dark and demonic. Their nobility escapes her. One of them, more impish than the rest, sticks a root out and trips her up.

  Over and over she tumbles, tumbling in cold eternal purgatory. Rolling down the snow-soft slope, in slow motion, a rolling that goes on forever and ever.

  Until it ends. Smack, hard against a tree-trunk. Winded, she sprawls, whimpering, dazed.

  After a while, she rises slowly, feeling her way up the tree that broke her fall, that may have broken her ribs. She stands unsteadily. A stab of pain shoots through her right side.

  She looks up to the top of the bank she rolled down. There is no head peering over the edge. No gun aimed directly at her. She imagines her pursuer high above her, still and waiting – waiting to hear her crashing through the trees. Hearing only silence. Waiting for her to move again. Hearing nothing.

  She sucks in a sobbing breath. But he doesn’t need to hear her, does he? Plain and deep in the pure white snow, her tracks will lead him to her. He can follow them to the edge of the steep slope where she tripped and tumbled, leaving a broad swathe cut into the bank.

  And then a head will appear. A gun will point directly at her.

  Thirty-six

  Alina combed her hair. Kristo had gone out early, leaving her to sleep. She was grateful for that. She was spared his attentions at least. He would be back later though, to take her to the Frauentormauer, the street where she worked. Where all the girls worked. Every week new girls came – younger even than her.

  She’d seen Kristo look at them hungrily. But they belonged to other men. Kristo couldn’t touch them. Many came from Shqipëri like her, from villages near hers, also tricked by men like Zamir.

  A tear ran down her cheek and she brushed it away remembering that night, that ride across the Adriatic to Italy.