Frannie bit her lip. This man looked bad. She had to photograph this before she got emotional. It was imperative she had evidence.
She gulped, stepped closer. Could it really be him?
Lying down, he looked different. His youthful grace was gone; even in sleep this man was tense with pain. He was pale and had lost a lot of weight, but it was Tomek.
With a cry, she rushed to his side.
‘Tomek!’ she said, crouching down awkwardly by his side. ‘It’s Frannie, I’ve come for you.’ She stroked his hair.
Tomek’s eyes flickered open. Rather than speaking, at first he seemed to gurgle at her. She jumped back. His eyes blinked rapidly as if he was seeing a ghost. When he spoke, she had to bend near his face to hear him.
‘Soon, Stefan’s coming back soon. Go, now.’ Tomek’s face turned slack at the effort and he lay back exhausted on the pillow.
Frantically Frannie untied his hand, tried to drag him to his feet. But every time she bent and put any weight on her stomach it hurt so badly she felt as if she was being cut in half. She could have sobbed with frustration. There was no way she could carry Tomek even a few steps, never mind the whole distance back to the car. She banged her head with desperation. What had they done to him?
Tomek tried to sit up, but, although his face tensed with effort, he was too weak. His hair was lank and matted. He licked his lips, tried to speak.
‘Frannie, go now, call the police. It’s the… Druckwunde…’ Seeing her blank face he grasped for the English words. ‘Push sores?’ he said, smiling shyly. Frannie, red-faced and panting, frowned. When she realised what he meant, she gave a nervous titter.
‘Oh, pressure sores?’
Tomek nodded. ‘He comes to move me every two hours. You have to leave before he find you. Go, hide. Call the Polizei.’ He looked grateful but waved his hands at her. ‘Go, go.’
Trembling, Frannie squeezed his hand. ‘I’ll get help, I promise,’ she said. She tied his hand back up again so that his captor would not get suspicious and ran out of the room.
Frantically she scanned the outhouse. Nothing. She bolted for the exit, and pressed herself against the building, her heart beating furiously. On tiptoe she crept against the side of the farmhouse. Through the lighted window she could see the men, more agitated now. While she watched, Hugo roughly pushed the other one and he reacted angrily back. Frannie trembled at the crude violence. She couldn’t stand being here another minute.
She bolted into the woods as fast as she could, banging into trees in her haste. The pigs startled in her wake again, and she heard their throaty squeals of alarm long after she was out of sight.
In the woods her hands got battered and scratched. She was probably making too much noise, but she didn’t slow down. She was panting and her sides were heaving. Her belly was on fire with pain. Even with her fear, she could not run much more. All her reserves of energy were spent.
She ran to a little clearing, crouched down and grabbed her mobile. She had to call the police right away. Swiftly she dialled 110. She sat, panting, as she waited for them to answer. Although she could see nothing in the dark woods, she kept all her senses trained in the direction of the farmhouse. The animal commotion might bring them out.
A man answered and spoke to her in polite German.
‘Polizei, was kann ich für Sie tun?’
Frannie panicked. She could barely breathe through her stomach and back pain. Hesitantly she gave her name and address. When he asked her to spell out the letters of her name, she couldn’t do so efficiently. Desperately, she tried to describe her location.
‘Where is this Müllers Hof?’ said the policeman.
‘It’s on a small country road west from Barsinghausen, near the country park…’ Frannie hesitated. ‘Weserberg-something… Schaum-something-Hameln.’ She struggled to remember the full name. The policeman gave a snort. She had no street names and was sure her pronunciation was off. It was one thing to sound cute at dinner parties because she couldn’t say ich properly, but when it really mattered she was screwed.
‘Wie bitte?’ said the policeman. She could have cried with frustration. In panic, she spoke more quickly, ‘Müllers Hof, west from Barsinghausen. There’s a huge park, names together.’ The more she tried, the worse her German got. She tried to explain about the organ trafficking, but as she didn’t know the word for trafficking. It was impossible. He asked her questions she couldn’t follow. Frannie felt her cheeks furiously blushing.
‘They have Anna and Tomek Kalinowski…’ She didn’t know the word for ‘prisoner’, so she used ‘prison’ and hoped it would make sense. The tone in the policeman’s voice was changing. She could feel him beginning to tune out. The men could turn up at any minute and she was getting nowhere.
‘Is there someone who can speak English?’ she said. She should have said that at the beginning. Sweat and tears were trickling down her face. The policeman laughed, and she couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.
‘Kleinen Moment, bitte,’ he said and put her on hold. She felt relieved – she’d be able to make herself understood in a minute. She looked in the direction of the farmhouse. Nothing. It was nearly over.
With a nervous smile, she waited patiently, still trying to catch her breath, but after a few minutes the tone changed. ZZZzzz. She’d been cut off. ‘No, no, NO!’ she shouted. Once again she’d failed to get help from the police. Despite the humidity, she shivered. If she started feeling the full force of the fear that had been creeping up on her, she’d crumble.
‘Ow!’ A weird stitch started in one side. She massaged it. Then it happened: the contractions that had been twinging on and off and which she’d been ignoring were suddenly closer together, and the pain was unimaginable. She threw her head back and screamed. It felt as if a whole tribe of little people were inside banging their way out. There was no doubt labour had started. She groaned. With both hands she clutched her tummy. She tried to stand, but the pain was too intense. She slid down. There was no way she could get back to the car. She should have listened to her body before.
Frantically, she dialled home. It was after eleven. Kurt should be asleep in bed. If she told him everything in English, he could phone the police for her. She just had to make one phone call, then wait. She got a dialling tone. ‘Come on, pick up!’ she shouted to the trees. But it was no good. She tried his mobile which he always left by the bed in case work called. But he was not there or chose to ignore her. She didn’t know which option was worse. Alone in the dark, she realised she hated him.
The next contraction smashed into her like a tidal wave. She was whimpering now.
She dialled Dorcas’s phone. She started gabbling her distress as soon as the phone was picked up.
‘Dorcas, it’s Frannie, I’m at Müllers Hof, west of Barsinghausen. They’ve got Tomek here. Phone the police, send help, DORCAS. SCHNELL! SCHNELL!’ She paused for breath, waited. She had to resist screaming, she shouted again, ‘Dorcas?’
But a man answered who spoke thickly as if he was talking through his nose. In a nanosecond she was on to him. Lars.
‘Ich komme!’
‘NO!’ She let out a shrill scream.
She tried to get to her feet. If she had to, she’d crawl back to the car. But suddenly, she felt a gulp, like the moment when all the bathwater gets sucked out the bath. Her waters broke and gushed copiously over her shoes.
Sobbing, she collapsed on the grass. She was in the worst situation possible and it was all her fault!
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
She’d expected it to feel like intense period pain, but each wave kneaded her stomach with a giant’s touch. She was shaking, crying, shocked. Why had no one said anything, prepared her? All those times she’d gone to Dr Kanton’s for check-ups and she’d said nothing, zilch, about this, the most important bit: the end. Bitch. She shrieked again.
She needed a doctor, midwife, anyone. As usual she was parched. She could have downe
d a pitcher of beer in seconds. In the ridiculous dark, she couldn’t even see properly. A part of her she didn’t recognise was taking over. She removed her pants, hitched up her skirt and sprawled out her legs so she was bare to the night air. She didn’t care. Her quest for Tomek, her fear of the men, was forgotten. Nature was taking over.
She tensed and screamed again. It was like being summoned by a higher power, some merciless god that took you over. Perhaps it was hell. She closed her eyes and breathed into her screams. Whether this was pushing or not, she had no idea. Being in darkness made it worse. She couldn’t even see if she was bleeding. It felt like dying a thousand deaths. All she wanted was for this goddamn, motherfucking torture, the unbelievable insanity, to be over.
When they shone the torch into her face, she was barely capable of speech. She grunted as the two men she’d seen in the farmhouse grabbed her by her hands and feet. Hugo took her legs. He was stronger and held her feet higher than her trunk. She couldn’t stand that, cried out. She needed gravity to help push. Viciously, she kicked at him and he dropped her.
She needed water, light, and a comfortable place to lie down. She attempted to move towards the farmhouse to get them. She was half-carried and dragged back to the farmhouse over the other man’s shoulder. When they got near a gate Frannie squatted down with her back to the men and held on to the rail.
Her screams were unearthly now; full-throated cries of agony. All the animals were snorting or mooing in unison. As she crouched she tried to remember that her mother, grandmother, everybody before her had been through this too. It didn’t help.
‘Water,’ she said loudly. In a voice like a demon she demanded it, over and over.
The two men were arguing again. She didn’t know what they were saying; every German word she ever knew was gone. All she wanted was the goddamn water.
‘Water! WATER.’ The other guy, Stefan it must be, ran and brought her a litre bottle. When Hugo saw him he grabbed it and emptied it in front of her on the grass. Stefan just stood there with his mouth open. He looked as though he wanted to help but was frightened of Hugo’s reaction.
Hugo walked up to her and pulled her by the hair, twisting her head, so she could see his fat face. Frannie screamed, her fear penetrating even her primal directive.
‘You stupid interfering bitch!’ he said in broken English. ‘Why the hell you come sniffing around? Now we can’t let you go.’ He kicked her brutally in the back. She slammed into the fence with full force on her swollen stomach, and the pain, both in her kidneys and stomach, was agonising. For a second everything went dark. She thought she would pass out.
She clutched at her back and wailed so loudly it reverberated down the whole valley. It was a struggle for her just to breathe. Frannie sobbed. Everything had ended in failure, and now her innocent baby was paying the price. She put a hand on her tummy. It was over. She couldn’t push any more, or focus. Her body seemed to collapse on itself.
She was so wrapped up in her own private agony that she’d stopped paying attention to the men. But she looked up when one of them approached. Hugo stood over her with a pitchfork held threateningly in his hand. She looked at him blankly, her eyes glassy. When he raised the implement high, his T-shirt pulled up and she saw his bloated stomach spill over his jeans. She could smell his sweat, his nastiness. The spikes were pointed directly at her head.
‘Time to go to sleep, bitch,’ he said. His eyes looked small in his overfed face. Frannie closed her eyes, too horrified to even cry. She did the only thing there was left to do and prayed silently.
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
She lay there waiting, all still like an injured bird that knows its time is up. Any second her world would go blank. She anticipated the pain, wondered whether it would be so quick it would be like turning off a TV. Ping. You’re dead. There was a dull roaring noise that she was not sure she was imagining. The sound came closer.
Then – BOOM! A big truck raced towards them, blindly crashing through a fence in the process. It screeched noisily to a halt. Frannie opened her eyes, saw Lars getting out, advancing at a run. She almost wanted to laugh. What could be worse than death? Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Here he was, her nemesis.
She rolled hastily to the side. Hugo stood frozen, the pitchfork still ready to strike. Lars was almost upon her. The bastard wanted to finish her off himself! She yelled as another contraction struck. The last few seconds she saw in slow motion. This was it – she was about to die.
But Lars seemed to change his mind. Like a charging bull he knocked Hugo to the ground, seized the pitchfork and used the wooden handle to knock him unconscious. Frannie flinched at the sickening blow.
Stefan’s eyes darted nervously like a frightened rabbit. Lars pushed him in the direction of Frannie. She didn’t understand what he said exactly, but it was something like, ‘Medic, do your job.’
Stefan rushed over and put his hand on her belly. He got her to lie down with her legs up. He put on a latex glove and inserted a finger. He nodded, spoke to her but she shook her head.
‘How many?’ she asked in English.
He put up eight fingers. She fell back, groaned. He held her hand and made little panting noises. Expertly he examined her and gave her the thumbs-up. Out of the truck she saw Dorcas rushing up with a bottle of water.
‘Frannie, you poor thing! I’m sorry I left you!’ said Dorcas, her face tense with worry. Frannie grabbed the water thankfully, sucked it greedily down.
Lars turned to Stefan. ‘How many you got here?’
‘One,’ said Stefan, he pointed in the direction of the outhouse. Within minutes Lars was wheeling a disorientated Tomek out on his hospital bed and untying his hand. Tomek stretched himself out, smiled.
Lars pulled out his mobile and quickly ordered two ambulances.
‘Danke schön,’ said Tomek weakly. ‘Danke schön.’
Frannie held Dorcas’s hand tightly. She was still in agony but felt safe at last and somehow eased into her pain, cursing every contraction. With Dorcas teasing her, now and then, she was even able to smile.
‘Wait till it’s your fucking turn!’ said Frannie.
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
When he’d driven up to Stefan’s shithole of a farmhouse he’d been up for it, in the zone. But when he raced up, saw that dick Hugo holding a pitchfork over a woman about to drop, well, it brought it all back. Erna, the pregnancy she’d aborted. The fact that Dorcas was up the duff. Women – they were essential. And he didn’t fucking do women.
He could have killed Hugo out of anger. But he didn’t want to waste his time. Better to let him rot in jail and let the other inmates show him a thing or two. Once he’d done the rescue bit, he went back to his truck. He had something very important to do, and he had to get his shit together before the emergency services arrived. He grinned and rubbed his hands.
He took out a piece of cleanish paper, found a well-chewed pen and began to write. At the top he wrote grandly Last Will and Testament in confident strokes. He left everything to Dorcas. That made him chuckle. He had more money than he cared to think about. She’d have so many flowers she wouldn’t be able to breathe.
He put it in an old envelope and tossed in the key to a safe deposit box he had at the Volksbank that was stuffed with cash. He wrote the location on a separate piece of paper. Then he opened the dashboard, which was stuffed with brown envelopes bulging with hundred-euro notes. He put everything together in the briefcase and snapped it shut. He was looking forward to seeing her face. Who’s the Daddy now, then?
He leaned out of the window. ‘Dörchen, come here a minute, I have a surprise for you,’ he shouted.
She was crouched on the ground, holding on to the English woman for dear life. It looked as though they were stuck together.
She frowned. ‘Lars, can’t it wait?’
‘Just a few minutes and then I’m gone,’ he said airily, as if he’d be seeing her around as usual.
; She stood up and came to him, her dark eyes wary. ‘What?’ she said, her eyebrows shooting up.
‘You’ll need this,’ he said, putting the briefcase solidly in her hands.
She opened it and gasped. He explained about his shares in his club, the whereabouts of the safe deposit box and told her to keep all the paperwork safe. ‘You know what the officials are like,’ he said with a wink.
‘But, Lars…?’ she said, still not getting it.
‘I don’t need it where I’m going,’ he said with a smile. Then he frowned, licked his lips. Might as well get it over and done with.
‘I killed Hans, back at the club,’ he said quietly with downcast eyes.
Dorcas put a hand to her mouth and made wide eyes. This was the bit he’d been dreading.
‘I’m sorry, but it was necessary,’ said Lars, ‘He would have carried on doing it – this. And worse, probably. And now your child has no father, so this is compensation.’
She looked at him dazed and he could see the pure woman in her. She’d never looked so beautiful. He leaned forward and she fell into his arms. He embraced her tightly and felt soothed by the wafts of her exotic perfume. Gently, he gave her a kiss on the cheek.
‘I think someone needs you,’ he said, pushing her towards Frannie, whose breathing was now frantic.
‘Sorry,’ he called to Frannie in a low voice. She turned her head and smiled at him wearily.
He wound up the window and roared off in seconds. As always, he felt more at ease when the truck was moving. He dialled Inspector Koch. He had a few things to get off his chest; there was nothing he would leave out. When he wanted to, he could be as meticulous as any pen-pusher.
‘Koch,’ he said, ‘I have a confession to make. This will be the making of your career, so make sure you bloody record this…’
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