‘We’re going down to the street?’
‘Of course. I’ll take you home to your parents or wherever you live.’
‘Where’s Erden?’
‘Lying in the front hall. Unconscious. We had to knock him out.’
‘And that fat bastard?’
‘Beside him.’
Marieke stared at me for some time, then unfolded her arms and began massaging her hands, which were probably numb with tension, and looked down at herself.
‘I’d like a glass of water. My throat is sore after all that throwing up.’
‘Did they give you drugs of any kind, or …’
‘No, no, I stuck my finger down my throat. I thought that might turn him off.’
‘Wait a minute.’
I went into the kitchen and ran a glass of tap water. I listened for a moment, in case Marieke was taking her chance to run for it. But when I went back she was still sitting on the bed, now with the bedspread wrapped round her body. Only then did I notice that her lips were swollen.
She drank the whole glass, and said, ‘Thank you.’
‘Would you like to shower before we leave?’
Once again distrust flickered briefly in her eyes. Was this just a trick? Did I simply want her clean and smelling nice before I attacked her?
‘We can go like this if you’d rather. I just thought … well, so that maybe you can forget a bit of what happened here.’
‘I won’t forget it.’
‘Of course not …’ I hesitated. ‘May I ask you a few quick questions?’
She looked at me expressionlessly and then looked away at the window. ‘Okay, and then, yes, I would like to shower after all.’
‘That’s fine.’ I went to the window to open it and let in some fresh air. When I reached for the catch, Marieke said, ‘Forget it.’
The window was specially made: soundproof armoured glass, mirror glass on the outside, with a safety lock. I shook the catch in vain.
‘Why do you think they could leave me alone here?’
I tried to ignore the stench.
‘First, could you tell me your name?’
‘Marieke de Chavannes.’
‘How long were you shut up here, Frau de Chavannes?’
‘Since just now when that fat bastard attacked me.’
‘Judging by your swollen lips you defended yourself.’
‘I did.’
‘And then?’
‘Then Erden was suddenly totally normal again, and he said he’d get something to relax us. After that they locked me in.’
‘When did you realise what they were planning to do to you?’
She looked away and pulled the bedspread more tightly around her shoulders. After a while she said, ‘When that fat bastard leered at me in such a funny way. I tried to run for it. I still thought he was just trying it on, do you see? Between old buddies. That was how Erden introduced him: “Meet my old friend Volker, he wants to get to know you.” So I thought I could just get away quickly, I even went to get my bag.’ She shook her head. ‘And then the fat bastard was after me — incredible!’
‘Was there anyone in this apartment but you, Erden and the fat man?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Just a routine question.’
‘What’s happened to the fat man?’
‘Something’s the matter with his heart. My colleagues are just ringing for an ambulance.’
‘Hopefully he croaks!’
‘Hmm. And Erden?’
‘What do you mean, “and Erden”?’
‘Do you hope he croaks, too?’
She hesitated, opened her mouth and looked inquiringly at me, until her thoughts seemed to go elsewhere, and her eyes still lingered on me as if by chance.
‘I don’t know. He’s so …’ She stopped, and cautiously felt her lips with her fingertips. ‘Until just now we were still friends.’ For a moment she looked as if she might burst into tears, but then she just sighed sadly. ‘We had fun, I don’t know how else to put it.’
‘Hmm-hmm.’
Her glance was sharp again. ‘Not the way you think. You see, Erden’s a photographer. That was what mattered most to both of us. Art. He takes wonderful photos, photos with a political message. One series is called: Frankfurt in the Shadow of the Bank Towers. Portraits of desperate, sad faces, but so beautiful. And there were other pictures of Frankfurt …’ She hesitated, and then added, with a precocious air: ‘The city of little men in suits and roast beef sandwiches.’
‘Did Erden say that?’
‘No, my father.’
‘What else did you talk about?’
‘Oh, how should I know? All sorts of things: music, hip-hop, our origins, what our parents do, what films we like. For instance — and now that I think of it I can’t make it out — we went to see The English Patient together, and he said it was one of his favourite films. Do you know it?’
I knew about ten minutes of the film, and after that I’d gone to sleep on the sofa beside Deborah. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘It’s such a romantic love story! Imagine — and then this!’
‘You said you were friends until now.’
She hesitated, suspicion in her eyes.
‘Yes?’
‘Were you a couple?’
There was a pause. She looked at the sheet in front of her. After a while she said, ‘I’d like to shower now.’
‘Okay, then I’ll leave you alone. You know where everything is. Meanwhile I’ll go and see how my colleagues are getting on with the fat man and Abakay.’
She looked up. ‘I don’t want to see him now.’
‘Of course not. Don’t worry, my colleagues have probably taken him away.’ I nodded to her. ‘Call me when you’re finished.’
She watched me head to the door.
‘Tell me …’
I turned. ‘Yes?’
‘Will my parents hear about this?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think you’ll be needed as a witness. Nothing really happened to you — forgive me for putting it like that, but I have to say so from the legal point of view — and there’ll be plenty of other women to give evidence.’
‘You mean there were other girls before me?’ she asked, and I had the disagreeable impression that she’d have liked to be the only one.
‘Frau de Chavannes, in case this isn’t clear to you yet: Abakay is a pimp. And if girls didn’t want to go along with him he pumped them full of heroin. You can forget about art and romantic films. You happened to be lucky.’
And with that little lecture I left her alone. Abakay, Abakay, I thought on my way along the corridor, you really have a knack for it: a little social kitsch, cheap drinks, terrible films, and great big gold rings on your fingers, and the girls come running! I wondered whether Valerie de Chavannes herself had landed in those white satin sheets after a couple of glasses of Aperol.
When I reached the front hall of the apartment Abakay’s mouth was open, he was groaning, and he was clearly about to come back to his senses. I hit him on the head again with the pistol, and then I searched his pockets. In his trouser pocket I found one thousand two hundred euros in hundred and two-hundred-euro notes, along with some fives and tens. Presumably there had been exactly one thousand five hundred there an hour ago. Maybe Abakay had made out that Marieke was a virgin; that would have explained the high price. Then Marieke had been difficult, and to calm her down Abakay had gone to buy heroin with some of the money he had obtained in advance from fat Volker. One thousand two hundred and a few squashed notes were left.
I took the bigger bills and stuffed them into the pocket of fat Volker’s jeans.
Then I went into the kitchen and searched the drawers for a sharp knife. The shower was running in the background. I hoped Marieke would never tell her mother that she had slept with Abakay.
I returned to the entrance hall of the apartment with a butcher’s knife about thirty centimetres long, knelt down beside Abakay, and cut and
stabbed him lightly in the chest and the stomach. Not deep wounds; I just wanted it to look as if there had been a fight, and I wanted Abakay’s blood on the blade. Abakay groaned again and twitched, but he didn’t come round. I crawled over to fat Volker, wiped the handle of the knife on my T-shirt, and closed his cold hand round it. The small wound, level with his heart, had stopped bleeding.
I took a roll of parcel tape from the office, a teacloth from the kitchen, gagged Abakay and bound his legs together.
After that I went back into the office, turned on the computer, and typed ‘Marieke’ into the window of the search engine. The name appeared on a list of various girls’ names with pseudonyms after them. The pseudonym Laetitia, in brackets, followed Marieke’s name, and then it came up in a kind of catalogue. The file was entitled ‘Autumn Flowers 2011’. The photographs were simple snapshots of fully clothed teenagers in the street or cafés, usually laughing. Laetitia was described as: Clever, demanding upper-class girl, political interests, likes conversations, will go to great lengths in her search for adventure if the tone is right, ready for almost anything, exotic, milk-coffee colour, very well developed, still fourteen for several months.
Fourteen; that accounted for the price.
Another girl with the pseudonym of Melanie was described as: Happy, natural suburban girl, loves horses, likes to have fun — laughter above all. More for the conventional ride than delicate games, blonde, fresh, youthful type. Sixteen.
Probably eighteen.
And then there was Lilly: Super special! Sweet little mouse in knee-length socks, still plays with dolls, virgin, to highest bidder.
I deleted all the data about Marieke, typed de Chavannes into the search engine, brought up Valerie de Chavannes’s address and a few photos of her taken secretly in the café. I deleted those as well. In the bookshelf I found a carton of photographs labelled Frankfurt in the Shadow of the Bank Towers. With the carton under my arm I went into the front hall and kicked Abakay as hard as I could between the legs. In spite of the gag he grunted out loud, fluid ran from his nose, and he doubled up before falling on his side unconscious again.
‘That’s from Lilly.’
As I waited in the kitchen for Marieke, I leafed through the photographs. Most of them were black-and-white photographs of devastated, wrinkled, old or prematurely aged faces against the background of the high-rise bank buildings of Frankfurt. An old Roma woman with a toothless grin and a cigarette end in the corner of her mouth, a dark-skinned youth with an Elvis quiff, a child’s guitar and only one eye, a junkie whore with an entirely vacant expression and an I Love Frankfurt button on her blouse, and so on. Not so bad, but not so new either. I felt as if I’d seen these photos many times before.
I put the carton aside and wondered what weapon, or what tool, could make such a narrow but deadly wound.
Chapter 4
We reached the inner courtyard by way of the back stairs, and went through the gateway to the street. The aroma of grilled meat wafted out of the kitchen windows of Café Klaudia. It was lunchtime, and I felt hungry.
‘We must find a taxi. My colleagues used our car to take Abakay away.’
‘How about Volker?’
‘There’s a doctor with him in the stairwell.’
‘Why didn’t you want us to go out the front?’
‘So that he wouldn’t see you again. There are cases where the customer, or rapist or whatever you like to call someone buying underage girls for sex — anyway, there are cases where the man tries making advances to his victim later, especially when it went wrong the first time. Naturally we want to avoid that. I don’t want him to get a chance to imprint your face on his mind.’
‘I don’t think he’s feeling very well.’
‘He’ll soon be better.’
We were standing on the pavement, and I was looking out for a taxi. My bike was gleaming in the sun twenty metres away.
‘Won’t he have to go to prison?’
‘What for?’
I looked at her. After her shower, the blonde Rasta braids tied behind her head with a blue velvet bow, in jeans and a white blouse, the square-framed designer glasses on her nose, she looked just like the stern and slightly condescending girl in the photos on Valerie de Chavannes’s glass-topped table. She’d been in shock half an hour ago, but it was clearly wearing off.
‘Attempted rape?’
‘It’s always rather difficult to prove that kind of thing. Particularly when the alleged victim has previously had a voluntary relationship with the pimp involved.’
Marieke’s features froze. For a moment she looked as if she were about to turn and march away, maybe spitting at my feet first, or something like that.
‘You’re wrong!’
‘Am I?’
‘Erden isn’t a pimp, he’s a photographer, and what’s more he’s a good friend of my mother!’
‘No, you’re wrong there. Maybe he’s a friend of your mother, but if so he’s not a good one.’
She shook her head in annoyance.
‘Erden’s far from being a pimp! He just wanted to do Volker a favour, he needed money and Volker has plenty of it. And to be honest, if he hadn’t behaved like such a pig with that nasty talk, and wanting me to get undressed at once and so on … I’m not usually such a prude.’
She gave me a brief, inquiring look, to see if I was shocked, and then went on, ‘And that’s why there weren’t any other girls before me. You just thought that idea up to make it all worse. Because you’re a policeman and so that you can put Erden in a cell. Maybe you’ll get a pay raise or a medal or something!’
‘My God! If people got medals for arresting little bastards like Abakay, I’d have gone into the metal trade long ago.’
‘Very funny.’
‘Apart from that — well, I don’t know how you imagine a pimp, but pimps with any intelligence at all will of course go to great pains not to resemble the image of their profession.’ As I said that, the big gold rings on Abakay’s fingers flashed into my mind, and I thought that either he was less intelligent than I had assumed, or I had less of a grasp of the subject than I thought. Maybe pimps with any intelligence at all played about with the familiar notions because that sort of thing turned some women on. The way Deborah had first turned me on in a bar at three in the morning: high heels, a generous décolletage and an eloquent smile, speaking in an affectionate whisper — ‘You’re something special. I can see that right away, and I’m something special too — together, darling, we’ll fly through paradise all night, only four hundred marks.’
‘That doesn’t make Abakay’s profession other than what it is … It’s like petrol stations that advertise their concern for clean air.’
Marieke did not reply. She was staring furiously ahead, both hands clutching the straps of her leather bag, presumably deep in thought about my coarse and heartless nature. Compared to Abakay: cuddles, sweet talk, sensitive films, sympathy, artistic talent, social responsibility — why had she freaked out like that when he said: ‘Darling, I’m sure ours is a great love, we’re so lucky, but to live with that great love we need money, sad to say those are the facts of society, so be nice to Volker, he’s a good friend who needs a little affection, and kissing a stranger can’t affect our great love, can it?’
Maybe we ought to have left through the front door after all, I thought. Volker’s corpse and the gagged body of Abakay would presumably have been impressive enough to keep Marieke away from the apartment for some time.
‘How are your lips?’
She kept her eyes on the ground.
‘I expect Abakay might not have hit you so hard but for those rings …’
‘Stop it! It was a scuffle! Don’t you understand? An accident! And we were all a bit drunk.’
‘If you carry on in that vein you’ll end up in court as a witness after all, but for the defence.’
‘Do you know what he needed the money for?’
‘No idea. Golden ornaments for his prick?’
‘You’re just disgusting! For a Roma family in Praunheim. He wants to film a photo-documentary about their daily life. Dreadfully poor people, no social support, not even health insurance, nothing at all, with five children — and people are always complaining about beggars, but what else can they do? And do you know the worst of it? The grandparents were murdered in a concentration camp. This is Germany! I know what I’m talking about … My family’s relatively prosperous, but look at the colour of my skin, my father is black, so for the people around here I’m like a Gypsy, a foreigner! And that’s what Erden wants to achieve with his photo-documentaries: he wants all the foreigners, people of other colours, from other places, of other faiths, all the outcasts to get together and form a movement and later a political party. The Foreigners’ Party! Wouldn’t that be wonderful? I mean you’re an Italian or something. Magelli, wasn’t that it?’
‘What’s the name of this family?’
‘What?’
‘The name of the Roma family in Praunheim. A family with five kids and no medical insurance — well, of course that won’t do. I’ll call social services and make sure they get insurance as quickly as possible.’
There was a pause, and Marieke stared at me, taken aback.
‘Is that meant to be another joke? Are you laughing at them?’
‘Not in the least. But to help them I’ll need their name or their address.’
‘I suppose you think they haven’t tried everything already?’
‘Then some social worker may have committed an indictable offence by refusing them insurance. Medical insurance is obligatory in Germany. In the interests of and for the protection of the community as a whole. Imagine if the children are incubating some dangerous infectious disease and not getting treatment. Or the family is living here illegally — in that case I’d get in touch with an organisation that helps refugees and knows all about such cases.’
Marieke was still looking at me as if I wanted to stamp the Roma family’s papers as ‘to be deported’.
‘Or maybe this family doesn’t exist at all? Could it be just a symbol? The Roma family in Praunheim with forebears murdered in a concentration camp, shunned today as they always have been? I can easily imagine that as a photo-novella.’
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