by Marc Raabe
‘Gabriel?’ David’s eyes widen.
Gabriel nods and tries to control his breath. He wants to say something, but nothing comes out. He can feel his hands trembling and clenches them into fists in his jacket pockets. It helps.
David stands in front of him and stares at him like a ghost. Twenty years, Gabriel thinks. He could’ve sworn that he would feel more in this moment.
‘What are you doing here?’ David finally asks. ‘I thought you were in jail.’
‘It’s sorted,’ Gabriel mutters. ‘Where is Liz? Have you found anything?’
David looks at him and then opens the door the rest of the way. ‘Come in.’
Gabriel nods. Suddenly, the exhaustion comes over him fully. Swaying, he follows David into a long bright hallway.
‘How did you get out so quickly?’ David asks, leading him into the kitchen.
For a brief moment, Gabriel considers whether he should tell him the truth.
What then, Luke? You want to listen to Mister Law-Abiding-Citizen’s next sermon?
‘My psychiatrist stepped in,’ Gabriel mumbles. His eyes glide across the hallway’s powder-blue painted walls with a series of three framed Star Wars movie posters. The middle one is of Luke Skywalker.
‘Do you have any coffee?’ Gabriel asks.
‘I’ll make it now,’ David says.
The living room of the penthouse flat is large, but sparsely decorated. Beside the door is a cherrywood bureau. In the middle of the room there are two grey sofas that form a corner, one of which has a pillow and a crumpled blanket on it.
‘Visitor?’ Gabriel asks.
David seems strangely embarrassed. ‘She’s in the toilet and is leaving soon.’ He clears two empty red wine bottles and two glasses from the coffee table, places them on the counter in the open kitchen and gestures to the free sofa. ‘Sit.’
Gabriel shakes his head. ‘Where is Liz?’
‘Unfortunately, I have no idea . . .’
‘What does that mean, you have no idea? I thought you were going to ask around?’ Gabriel stares at David angrily. Two bottles of red wine, a woman in the toilet. David couldn’t have gone to much trouble.
‘I have. I asked around. But she’s gone, disappeared off the face of the earth.’
‘That can’t be,’ Gabriel says heatedly. ‘She must be lying in some hospital. Where did you try?’
‘First at Vivantes Hospital in Friedrichshain. Then at the emergency call centre, where they also knew nothing, and then finally the police. Again, nothing. No Liz Anders and also no attack on a woman Liz’s age or anyone with red hair. No woman has been admitted anywhere that fits her description or anywhere near it, let alone a Liz Anders.’
‘That can’t be,’ Gabriel insists. ‘I mean, she was attacked . . .’
‘Won’t you just take a seat?’
‘Enough with your fucking seat.’
‘OK, OK. Fine.’ David raises his hands calmingly. ‘Are you sure you understood everything correctly? Maybe the connection was bad? It was also really late, maybe you – or she – was drunk?’
‘She wasn’t drunk, damn it,’ bursts out of Gabriel’s mouth. ‘She’s pregnant.’
David looks at him, dumbfounded. ‘Pregnant? By whom?’
Gabriel turns around and looks out the window. The silver Berlin television tower pierces the sky.
‘By you?’ David asks. ‘You and Liz Anders?’
Gabriel makes a sound that is somewhere between a growl and a groan. ‘In any case, she wasn’t drunk. I know what I heard.’
But he doesn’t believe you, Luke! the voice whispers in Gabriel’s head. Your fine brother is letting you down once again.
‘Leave me alone!’ Gabriel replies quietly.
‘What was that?’ David asks.
‘Nothing, forget it,’ Gabriel says and makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. Somewhere in the flat, a mobile phone is ringing very softly, as if it were in a drawer.
‘Listen David, I’m –’ Gabriel stops. The ringtone. He knows the melody. For a brief moment, he even thinks he hears Liz’s steps on the parquet flooring in the Cotheniusstrasse flat and her voice as she picks up the phone, until it occurs to him that millions of people probably have the same ringtone.
He blinks and then continues. ‘I am sure that something’s happened to her. Liz was neither confused nor drunk. She was scared, scared to death. She begged me to help her, she said there was blood everywhere, she could hardly speak.’
David looks at him in silence for a while. The ring of the mobile stops. ‘Could it possibly be,’ he asks gently, ‘that it has something to do with her pregnancy . . .’
Gabriel shakes his head angrily. ‘You don’t believe me,’ he exclaims.
Ah! the voice in his head rejoices. Why would he, anyway? It’s David. David’s never believed you. Have you already forgotten, Luke?
Gabriel doesn’t answer. He’s turned around and is now staring at the wall across from the two sofas. There is a pale rectangle, clearly indicating where a picture once hung.
‘I don’t know what I should believe,’ David says and goes into the kitchen. ‘And you know what makes it particularly difficult to believe you?’ He opens a drawer and pulls out a brown padded envelope. ‘Something like this here,’ he says and throws it to Gabriel.
Gabriel catches it and furrows his brow as he reads the scrawled red writing.
Urgent! For Gabriel Naumann
From Liz Anders.
‘Where did you get this?’ Gabriel asks, perplexed.
‘From the attendant at Vivantes Hospital, it had been dropped off there.’
Gabriel turns the envelope over, looking at it from all sides. ‘And? Did you open it?’
David shakes his head. ‘It’s not my name on it.’
‘When it’s something hard to deal with, it’s never your name on it,’ Gabriel says.
A doorknob turns in the hall and then a woman’s voice calls out. ‘Jesus, is my head pounding. I would’ve done better to stay away from the second bottle of wine.’ An attractive woman wearing only underwear and a man’s white shirt steps into the living room and rubs the back of her head as she turns into the kitchen. Her brown, curly mane bounces along with her. ‘Is the coffee already – oh, uh.’
She stops short when she sees Gabriel and David.
‘Shona – this is Gabriel, my brother. Gabriel – Shona,’ David introduces them.
Gabriel looks her up and down icily.
‘OK,’ Shona says slowly. ‘I’m off.’
‘No need,’ Gabriel says. ‘I was just going to leave anyway.’
Shona and David exchange glances.
‘But do at least one damned favour for me. If anyone stops by here and asks if you’ve seen me, just say no. And if you’re not going to do it for me, then do it for yourself.’
‘And what’s that about?’
‘Just in case,’ Gabriel mutters. ‘And don’t believe anything they say.’
‘Can you be more clear? Who’s going to stop by? And why the hell would they come here?’
‘You’ll see,’ Gabriel says, nods to David and runs down the hall.
‘What in the world have you been up to?’ David calls after him.
Gabriel slams the flat door shut behind him.
Five storeys down, he steps out the front door, looks around and hurries down the street to the right, and then turns onto a quiet side street. He stops in the shadows of a small courtyard entryway. He looks at the envelope in his hand, at the sloppy red letters. It’s not Liz’s handwriting. He rips open the side of the flat brown package and looks inside. No letter, no note; just a mobile phone.
He fishes the phone out of the envelope and stares at it. The casing is dull and scratched and the plastic is cracked in several places. Nonetheless, he recognises it immediately.
As if the device could feel his touch, it begins to ring. The broken casing buzzes nervously in Gabriel’s hand.
He also recog
nises the ringtone immediately. It’s the same ringtone he heard in David’s flat.
This is Liz’s mobile.
Chapter 22
Berlin – 3 September, 8.52 a.m.
‘Wow,’ Shona exclaimed, as the door fell shut behind Gabriel. ‘He could really scare somebody.’
‘My brother, as he lives and breathes,’ David says. Resignation resonates in his voice.
‘Has he always been like that?’
David shrugs. ‘Actually, yes. At least since our parents’ deaths anyway.’
‘What actually happened back then with your parents?’
David sighs. He stands in the kitchen, turning an empty red wine glass in his hands. Then he opens the refrigerator and pours orange juice into the glass.
‘Sorry,’ Shona says. ‘I don’t mean to . . .’
David clears his throat. ‘They were murdered. Shot, to be specific.’
Shona stares at him in shock. ‘Oh god, how awful.’
David tries to smile, but fails entirely. ‘The night was one big horrifying trip.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Seven. I was woken up by the commotion downstairs. It sounded like a hippo was storming through the house. I wanted to go down and look around, but the door was closed. Locked.’
‘You were locked into your room? Is that what your parents always did?’
David shakes his head. ‘Never. I panicked and rattled the handle, but then suddenly I heard a shot. And then three more shortly afterwards. Then it was dead silent. For an eternity. I crawled under the bed and didn’t move.’
‘Where was Gabriel?’
David goes silent for a moment and then quietly says, ‘No idea. Not in our room, at least.’
Shona looks at him, dumbfounded. ‘You mean you were locked in your room all alone and Gabriel was somewhere else in the house when your parents were shot? Did he see who it was?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have you never spoken about it?’
‘No. I mean, yes. The problem is that he can’t remember that night.’
‘You mean something like a memory lapse?’
‘A trauma,’ David says, nodding. He takes a sip from his glass and the juice is cool as it runs down his throat. The sour taste spreads in his mouth. ‘A severe amnesia-causing trauma. As if he’d obliterated the night from his brain entirely.’
‘Oh god,’ Shona repeated, shaking her head. ‘And who let you out of your room?’
‘Gabriel.’ David takes another big sip. ‘After half an eternity. It suddenly smelled of burning and then I heard someone run up the steps and unlock the door. Then Gabriel was there, looking totally distraught and haunted. He just grabbed my hand and pulled me down the stairs. They were both in the living room . . .’ David stops. ‘The image still haunts me.’ He puts down the glass and pours more orange juice. ‘Anyway, Gabriel pulled me out of the house and out to the street. At some point, the fire brigade came.
‘The fire brigade?’
‘The house burned down. All the way to the foundations. Nothing could be saved, literally nothing.’
‘Oh – you . . . Shit,’ Shona whispers.
David nods and stares out the window. Rain clouds are forming over the TV tower, heavy and impenetrable. Suddenly, the flat buzzer sounds.
David sighs and runs his hand through his hair. ‘Damn it, he’s back.’
He lumbers over to the door, to the intercom.
‘David? Hang on,’ Shona says. ‘You don’t have to open it for him – you know that, right?’
David nods, resigned, and then pushes the button on the intercom. ‘Yes, hello?’
‘Good morning,’ a voice crackles on the speaker. ‘My name is Grell. I’m from the Berlin Criminal Investigation Department. It’s about your brother.’
David can feel his knees go weak.
‘I have a few questions.’
‘Could you tell me what this is about exactly?’
‘That would be better discussed in person – can we come up?’
‘I . . . can’t we? –’
‘Mr Naumann, please just open the door.’
David groans. ‘My . . . what was your name?’
‘Grell.’
‘Mr Grell, I am no longer in contact with my brother. It’s been twenty years since –’
‘Listen, Mr Naumann, I know that your brother called you from prison. Your number was saved in the telephone. The point is, your brother escaped police custody this morning, armed and with a psychiatrist as a hostage. So, please open the door. Or do you want to share this with the whole street?’
David stares at the speaker in silence. It feels like time has been turned back twenty years and everything is starting up again exactly where it left off.
‘Mr Naumann? Hello?’ David buzzes them in.
Shona stares at him with her mouth agape. ‘Hey,’ she says. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll just say that he wasn’t here and you haven’t seen him in a long time.’
‘And the phone call?’
‘Well, and so what? Then he just called you. But they don’t know why. And you had no idea. The only thing that they can ask of you is to let them know if he shows up here again.
There is a banging on the flat door and David flinches. ‘I am fed up,’ he says softly.
Chapter 23
Berlin – 3 September, 8.53 a.m.
Gabriel looks at the display on Liz’s mobile, mesmerised. A hairline crack stretches across the middle of the digital characters. Unknown number. He hesitates briefly and then presses the button to pick up. ‘Hello?’
Silence.
‘Who’s there?’
Soft laughter comes from Liz’s mobile. ‘It’s taken you a long time, Gabriel, very long!’ It’s a man’s voice, frosty, muffled and neither high nor deep.
‘Who are you?’
‘Oh, you’ll find out who I am soon enough. What’s much more important to you is who I have here with me.’
A shiver runs down Gabriel’s spine. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘What,’ the man whispers, ‘do you miss the most?’
The voice enters Gabriel’s ear chillingly. A single word forms in his mind. Liz!
‘Do you love her, Gabriel?’ the voice whispers. ‘Can you actually love anyone after everything that’s happened? Isn’t that much too dangerous?’
He has Liz! Gabriel thinks.
And he can see into your head. Be careful, Luke!
Gabriel’s heart is racing. It really is as if someone far, far away can actually see his innermost thoughts.
‘So, you love her,’ the man whispers excitedly. ‘I had hoped so, Gabriel. I had hoped so . . .’
‘What have you done with her? Where is she?’
‘Slowly. Everything in due time. Let’s start with your last question: where is she?’
‘If you hurt a single hair on Liz’s head . . .’
‘Shhh! Slowly! Let’s stick with your question, Gabriel. Where – is – she? Since that is the only useful question if you want to save her.’
‘All right. Where is she?’
‘Bravo, now we’re getting somewhere,’ the voice says. ‘She’s with me!’
‘And what do you want?’
‘You really haven’t got a clue?’
‘I have no money. If you want money, you’ll have to look for someone else.’
‘Haven’t you seen the photo? You just have to think of the photo and then you’ll know.’
‘Photo?’ Gabriel asks, dumbfounded. ‘What photo? The mobile was the only thing in the envelope.’
‘The photo in the cellar,’ the voice says indignantly, ‘that was hanging on the black dress . . . isn’t the similarity amazing? Doesn’t she look almost exactly like in the video?’
The black dress. Did he mean the dress in the house on Kadett-enweg? ‘I don’t understand a word,’ Gabriel says in a husky voice. ‘There was no photo. And what video? What
’s this all about?’
Silence. Gabriel can hear the man on the other end of the line breathing.
‘I’ll say it again: if you want money, then you’ve called the wrong man.’
‘It’s not about money. It’s about you! It’s about what you did to me.’
A psychopath! The guy is a damned psychopath, Gabriel thinks. Maybe it’s someone from Conradshöhe who was in the closed ward at the same time as him? ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘You still haven’t guessed?’
‘Is that supposed to mean we know each other?’
‘Oh yes. We do indeed,’ the voice says. ‘Think of the video. Think of the night of October 13th . . .’
Gabriel freezes.
October 13th! The night his parents were killed. He immediately feels sick, as if someone has rammed a fist into his stomach. His hands begin to shake.
‘A special night, Gabriel. A night that bound us to each other.’ The man laughs coldly. ‘And the thirteenth! Apt, don’t you think? You’d know right away that it was not a good night. It was hell!’
Gabriel’s throat closes up.
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘I . . . I have no idea,’ Gabriel says with a trembling voice. ‘I can’t remember that night.’
‘You can’t remember?’ The voice breathes in and out several times. ‘Of course you remember. You’re lying.’
‘No, I –’
‘You’re LYING!’ the man roars in a distorted voice. Gabriel automatically pulls the phone away from his face a bit, but the man is already silent. His hand trembling, Gabriel presses the phone back up to his ear. ‘I have amnesia,’ he says. ‘I only know that my parents were shot and that the house burnt down. But I can’t remember what happened that night for the life of me.’
The man’s breath rushes into the telephone. ‘But you should,’ he finally whispers. ‘You really should. This is your only chance! If you want to find her, then you’ll have to find me.’
‘What’s this supposed to be?’ Gabriel hisses. ‘A game?’
‘Call it what you will, but one thing is certain: on October 13th, she is dead. And I will give you a gift you’ll never forget. I don’t want you to ever forget me again. I want you to suffer as I’ve suffered. No. More. I want you to suffer more.’