by Bragelonne
‘No, I don’t think he was Linnéa Blix’s lover,’ she calmly answered, looking straight into his eyes.
‘Have you got time for a bite?’
‘I’m not hungry.’
Pearce finished his beer and rose. He waited for Emily to slip her parka on, and then followed her out of the pub. There was a slight drizzle, and they walked silently through it to Hampstead High Street, where Pearce had parked his car. Saying their goodbyes, Emily walked home to Flask Walk, just a stone’s throw away.
Once her front door had closed, she leaned back against it, slipped a hand into her pocket and took out the little black box. She opened it, stared inside it for a few minutes, then closed it again and lowered it to the sideboard, next to her keys.
Now, she was indeed hungry.
Lancashire Court, London
Friday, 17 January 2014, 12.00
A STRONG WIND had cleared the sky of clouds and it was now lit with an almost summery glow. Delighted to be able to shed their umbrellas, Londoners crowded the streets of the West End, taking advantage of the more clement weather.
Alexis had installed herself at Hush’s heated terrace, just a few steps away from Alba’s office. She waved to her friend, who was cautiously making her way down the gentle but still-wet slope.
Joining Alexis at her table, Alba hooked her handbag over the back of the chair and unbuttoned her coat. ‘I’m just getting away for a quick snack and everyone looks at me as if I’m decamping to the end of the world, can you imagine?’ She sighed loudly. ‘How about you? Are you OK – not too tired?’ She took a grissini stick from the bread basket.
‘All fine. I had Peter on the phone this morning. It’s a good thing he’s able to stay at yours for a bit.’
‘My God, it’s awful, just awful, this whole story … He’s totally wrecked. Paul encouraged him to get back to work. I’m not sure that was the right thing to suggest, but then … We couldn’t just let him stay in the flat he shared with Linnéa. It was absolutely out of the question.’
Alba raised a forefinger in front of her face for a moment, as if she was pausing a metronome. Seeing her sign, the waiter came over to take their order. They both chose a burger with chips, with Diet Cokes to wash them down.
‘Any news about the investigation?’ Alba continued, nibbling away at another grissini.
‘No,’ Alexis lied, smoothing out the white serviette folded on the table.
Alba shook her head. ‘I just don’t get it,’ she said, shaking the bracelets on her arm. ‘You know that silly expression, “Pinch me, I’m dreaming”? Well, that’s the way I feel. It’s all so monstrous it feels unreal. I still get the feeling that Linnéa is about to run into my office, skipping along, crying out “Hola Sangria!”, the only two words of Spanish she knew…’ Alba closed her eyes and bit her upper lip in a bid to hold back her tears.
Alexis slumped in her chair, her back heavy with shame. Her friend was badly in need of a comforting embrace, but she just didn’t have the energy. It was as if trying to help Alba would only serve to increase her own burden of sadness.
Alba opened her eyes again and expelled a theatrical sigh. Then began speaking again, loudly this time. ‘If you could only see the office, Alexis! People sniffling in every corner; it’s unbearable. All these girls who are turning it into their own personal drama and moaning non-stop when they barely even knew Linnéa – it’s making me sick.’
The waiter brought their hamburgers. Alba pecked at a few fries with no sign of an appetite.
‘Did you know they’ve told Peter they have no idea when they will be able to release Linnéa’s body? She’s still in Sweden, you realise. We can’t even bury her. How can we be expected to have any form of closure? How can poor Peter ever get over this? Will we ever get over it?’
‘I don’t think anyone does,’ Alexis said curtly.
Alba looked up, clearly realising how selfish and tactless she had been.
They both began eating, one mouthful at a time, not saying a word. The silence became as weighty as a stormy sky.
Alexis finally broke the atmosphere. ‘What’s this you mentioned in your text about a memorial?’
‘Little House Mayfair contacted Peter; well, it was Paul who took the call. They want to organise a function tomorrow evening in honour of Linnéa’s memory. I wanted to know what you thought of the idea.’
The Little House Mayfair members’ club had almost been Linnéa’s second home. Alexis had often lunched and dined there with her friend. The last time she had met her friend, they shared a few glasses of mulled wine there, just before she had left for Sweden.
‘It’s an excellent idea, Alba.’
An evening to honour Linnéa, in her favourite place, with her friends, her colleagues … and maybe even her killer.
Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany
October 1944
HESS PUSHED HIM through the door and into Block 46.
Exhausted, Erich fell to the ground. The SS officer’s baton immediately thundered against his back.
‘That’s enough!’
A younger voice, full of authority, made itself heard, sharp as a bullet hitting a wall. Erich looked up and noticed a man wearing white overalls standing by a grey steel door at the end of the corridor.
‘That will be all, thank you, Hauptscharführer Hess. You can leave number 20076 with me.’
A grimace of contempt curled the lips of the SS officer. He walked down the corridor and handed over the form the Doktor had given Erich at the Revier.
‘Sturmbannführer Fleischer,’ Hess said, with a military salute, and turned on his heels.
With a wave of the hand, Fleischer invited Erich to follow him.
The room Erich entered was as large as the crematorium; its walls were painted white and the floor was covered with brown tiling. A strong smell of formaldehyde rushed towards his nose.
Fleischer stood in front of four shiny dissecting tables. He unfolded the piece of paper and read it attentively. His blond, elegantly slicked-back hair was in total contrast to this room, marked by the presence of death.
‘It appears you are in good health,’ he said, his pale-blue eyes settling on Erich. ‘Well, at any rate, you were last time you were in the infirmary. I see Hess has messed you up a little on the way here.’
He gazed at the bloody, torn, mud-stained rags Erich was wearing.
‘You smell of shit. Throw those tattered garments into the incinerator behind you.’ Fleischer’s chin was pointing to the other end of the room.
Erich turned round. When he had walked in he hadn’t caught sight of the oven, the dissecting tables having seized his immediate attention. The oven was only small in size, just large enough for a single body. It couldn’t compare with the industrial ovens in the main crematorium.
Erich painfully hopped over to the incinerator and undressed as fast as he could manage, as if Hess was still hurrying him along.
‘Wash yourself with that hose over there, by the cabinet.’
Frozen to the spot for a moment, Erich stared at the piece of black soap which lay on an upturned bucket. He switched on the tap and sprayed his face. As the water ran over his lips, he opened his mouth wide and swallowed whole gulps of it, pacifying the soreness of his dry throat.
‘I said wash yourself. Use the soap.’
Even though the water was ice-cold and his cuts burned like hell, Erich managed to enjoy every single second of this unexpected shower, washing away months of accumulated filth, regaining a semblance of humanity.
‘Use the sheet to dry yourself.’
Fleischer’s voice made Erich jump. He had totally forgotten he was there. He picked up the sheet, which hung from a stool, and carefully unfolded it. It was white. Clean. Thick.
Leaning against one of the dissecting tables, Fleischer watched Erich dry himself.
‘You know it wasn’t at all easy to have you brought here, Erich. Not simple in any way. I was wondering why a brilliant medical student
and surgery intern had landed in the quarry, then the crematorium. You should have been assigned to the Revier, to Block 50, or at any rate to the pathology block. But no. Someone preferred to have you sweating in the forest or facing the ovens.’
Erich set the sheet down on the stool. Fleischer straightened his jacket collar.
‘You must appreciate the irony of the situation, no? A man trained to save the life of his own kind finding himself having to burn them instead. And I’m well aware you haven’t just been burning the dead. The news goes around, you know. It was only last week that I got the answers to my questions. I was dining, in the camp, with Doktor Ellenbeck. He explained things to me. What a truly stupid set of circumstances … But these are the sort of things that happen in times of war, no? A mistake that can change the course of a man’s life … SS Sturmbannführer Ding-Schuler had offered his colleague sets of paperweights. But your father, Doktor Reinhard Ebner, didn’t appreciate the gift. He was even bold enough to become rather angry.’
A knot of pain and sadness tightened Erich’s chest.
‘I must confess it was a tasteless sort of gift: the paperweights in question were made out of human heads, or at any rate, Jewish ones – mummified, boneless and shrunk by methods once used in some islands in the Pacific, then fitted onto marble stands. So, naturally, when Ding-Schuler learned that Doktor Reinhard Ebner’s son had miraculously reached our camp, he was busy arranging the best possible welcome for you.’
A door slammed, probably the one allowing entrance to the block.
‘Sturmbannführer Fleischer!’ The loud voice echoed through the corridor. The SS always carried such an extraordinary weight of anger in their voices.
‘Come in, Hans.’
A wide-shouldered SS officer walked into the room, followed by an inmate pushing a wooden cart ahead of him.
With his finger, Fleischer indicated one of the dissecting tables. One by one, the man pulled four bodies from the cart, then carried them across his back and, avoiding eye contact, delicately laid them out in the centre of the steel tables.
Fleischer indicated that Erich should approach.
Erich moved towards the tables and saw the bodies of four children, all terribly broken following abominable violence. He gazed at the inhuman wounds that had been inflicted on the small boys.
‘Thank you, Hans,’ said Fleischer.
The officer gave the obligatory regulation salute, then took off at a rapid pace, with the inmate and his cart at his heels.
Fleischer expelled a tired sigh. ‘The Reich does not believe in my research. All they’ve provided me with is this laboratory in Buchenwald and free labour I have to pick from a bunch of weaklings and cripples. It’s not as if I’m asking much. Between you and me, I don’t give a damn if my assistant is German, French or even Jewish. All I need is someone with the right skills for what I am hoping to achieve here. Now, I have to check if my choice has been the right one.’
Fleischer picked up a stainless steel tray and handed it to Erich. On it lay a scalpel.
‘Show me what you can do, Erich.’
Home of Alexis Castells, Hampstead Village, London
Friday, 17 January 2014, 17.30
ALEXIS DELETED THE PARAGRAPH she had just written.
The afternoon had proven anything but productive. Whatever she did, the words were dislodged by her thoughts; like a swarm of bees hounded from their hive, they scattered erratically, unable to organise themselves. They converged in the direction of Torsviks småbåtshamn and the photographs of Linnéa’s mutilated body, then they fluttered above the chapter she had to write about the teenage years of the killer Rosemary West, only to drift back to Hampstead and the bodies of the two children buried in the woods, so close to where she lived.
She shook her head from side to side in an attempt to banish the parasitical images and distractedly picked up the cup standing by her laptop. She grimaced as she swallowed a mouthful of the cold milky tea, and rose irritably to walk to the kitchen to warm the drink up yet again.
If only she could switch off and ignore all these irrelevant thoughts that were laying siege to her mind. But she couldn’t help herself experiencing a terrible and unhealthy obsession with the murders that had taken place around her. It was as if thinking about them, and perhaps assisting with the investigation, she would ultimately be able to leave behind her the sorrow and the pain caused by the loss of her friend.
She went back to sit at her desk, the cup of now-steaming tea held in her hand. She read again the pages she had written in the morning, consulted her notes and closed her eyes in frustration. She wouldn’t be able to write any more today.
There was no alternative but to allow her thoughts free rein.
Friday, 17 January 2014
Following a day when the sun sat in a sky of cerulean hue, he didn’t expect a starless night. Compact. Opaque.
As early as dusk, he picks up his equipment and goes for a stroll.
Darkness already took a hold of Hampstead Heath an hour ago and the humid cold runs through his running gear, turning his thighs to ice.
He enters the park from the north-east, near Highgate, and begins to run like all the other doughty joggers, hood down over his face, ergonomic bottle in hand. Few people venture into the woods on such a dark night, but he has no wish to take unnecessary risks.
In the initial weeks following the discovery of Cole’s body, Scotland Yard posted staff close by the scene of the crime in the hope of catching him, should he return there to pay Cole and Andy a visit. He calmly installed himself, unseen, for hours on end, just yards away from the plodding cops who were supposed to keep an eye on the area. Not for a second did the idiots suspect his presence. They neither saw nor heard anything. All he had to do was wait until they gave up their vigil to begin his recce again.
He stops behind a line of thick trees, takes his night-vision binoculars from his backpack and raises them to his face. Tomorrow he will be bringing his fresh little one along, but he hasn’t yet decided where he will bury him.
He zips up his bag and gets on the move again. He’s going to treat himself to a small visit. To please himself. He makes his way through the bushes, steps round two enormous tree trunks draped across the ground and cautiously descends the muddy path snaking its way to his right. He stops behind two leafy trees, just twenty metres away from Cole’s grave.
Of course, he would rather the small boy was still where he left him, peaceful and quiet. Gazing down at his burial place, outlined by the white-and-blue police tape, is terribly exciting, nevertheless. His grave looks like a stage. A grandiose stage with the Y-shaped trees leaning against each other, springing from the earth like titans, reaching up to tear at the sky. A crown of spines for his defunct little prince.
All of a sudden, his heartbeat accelerates wildly, banging against his chest like a prisoner struggling against the bars of his cell. Alexis Castells is there, as if admiring what is left of his work, her torchlight slowly washing across the contours of the grave. She’s accompanied by another person whose face he can’t see, hidden under a loose hood. She, too, is gazing at the resting place of his treasure.
Excitement courses through his body, dilates his pupils, hardens his sex.
He will tell the Other of the interest he is stirring up. He will tell him how much his work is appreciated. Maybe then he will allow him to continue his journey in peace.
The Freemasons Arms pub, Hampstead Village, London
Friday, 17 January, 20.00
THE FREEMASONS ARMS was crowded, hushed conversations and muted laughter just about reaching Alexis’ ears. The sandstone fireplace and bruised leather fabric of the chairs gave the pub the feel of a comfortable and welcoming country cottage.
Alexis set the two glasses of Mouton Cadet and the potato crisps down on the low table. She opened one of the packets, offered it to Emily, who turned it down with a shake of the head, and began to chew indifferently on the crisps.
Two hours e
arlier, having exhausted every single scenario that might have led to her working properly, she had resolved to call the profiler and ask to be taken to Hampstead Heath and the crime scenes. Much to her surprise, Emily had immediately agreed. She was on her way there herself, and had even suggested she come round to pick Alexis up.
Alexis had never envisaged going there after dark, but there was no point being awkward. She’d dressed up warmly and stepped into her wellies, in readiness for a trek through the mud, the cold and even the rain, if that regular London companion were to manifest itself again that day.
Equipped with powerful torches, the two women had walked for twenty minutes until they had reached the first grave, where Andy Meadowbanks had been found. Emily had told her the whole story, her light moving between the photographs she was holding and the actual pit. She had gone through a similar process as they stood at the edge of the second grave, that of young Cole Halliwell.
They had then crossed the Heath and come out onto Downshire Hill. Frozen to the core, Alexis had suggested they have a drink before returning home. Once again, Emily had accepted.
Swallowing a mouthful of Bordeaux, Alexis reckoned she had finally managed to regain her composure. While Emily had been detailing the tortures inflicted on the young victims, Alexis had found she was able to render the horror abstract, concentrating on the technical and factual aspects of the murders. She was also able to keep at a distance the seven-year-old images that flashed before her eyes, ugly and painful. Her ‘investigative’ mode was switched on at last and was holding her memories at bay, blocking her emotions.
She looked up. The profiler had set her glass down and was staring at her, frowning.
Alexis again recalled the heat of her hand on her back a few days earlier. A hand that had felt reassuring and motherly, providing consolation and comfort.
‘My partner died seven years ago. Almost eight now,’ she whispered.