by Marc Raabe
‘Take a good look at that finger,’ Sarkov whispers, noticing Gabriel’s gaze. ‘It’s yours. Your finger on the trigger. You decide if I pull it or not.’
Gabriel’s tongue is a dry sponge. It’s as if his hands are bound and his eyes are locked on the gun. Your finger on the trigger. Like before. Blurry mental images flicker before his eyes. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Yuri,’ he hears himself say. ‘I don’t have the slightest idea what film you’re talking about.’
‘Why are you such a fucking stubborn dog?’ Sarkov growls. His index finger bends around the trigger, he aims from the wrist – and fires.
The muffled shot sounds like a knife being driven into a pillow.
David screams, falls back against the wall and slides to the ground. Horrified, he stares down at himself and presses his hand against the wound. Blood seeps out between his fingers on the inner side of his thigh. ‘Shit! Fuck!’ David shouts and looks up at Gabriel. ‘Do you want him to kill me?’
Gabriel blinks. He can’t look away from the wound; its feels like he shot him himself. A vortex grabs him and pulls him upwards, backwards in time, like leaves being blown back onto the branch.
The shot is still ringing in his ears.
‘Is this still not enough for you?’ David cries. ‘First your parents and now your brother? Is this what you want?’
‘It . . . I don’t want this,’ Gabriel stammers. There is a black hole in front of him. The stairs are beams that get progressively darker as they lead down into the cellar.
The next shot is like a hole in Gabriel’s brain. A dot the size of a tiny pinhead. The dot at the end of a sentence as the letters are slowly combining to form words and make sense.
Where is the film? The film.
The words echo in his head. He’s heard the question Where is the film? before. Previously. In another life. It’s one of the last questions of his old life. The life that ended when he was eleven years old on October 13th.
The police officer had asked him that.
Where is the film?
And then he went down the stairs with him – into the lab . . .
‘Gabriel, damn it!’ David screams.
Gabriel looks through him. ‘The lab,’ he whispers. ‘Of course! We went into the lab.’
Suddenly, there is silence.
‘You were in the lab?’ David says in disbelief. ‘In Dad’s lab?’ His eyes drift over to Sarkov, who still has the weapon aimed at him, but is looking at Gabriel. The red blotches radiate on his grey cheeks.
‘I . . . no, we! We went to Dad’s lab together. He rummaged through everything!’
‘He? Who is he?’ David asks.
‘There was a policeman, he wasn’t wearing a uniform, but he was a police officer. He searched like crazy.’
‘And he found it and took it with him, didn’t he?’ Sarkov says softly. ‘He took it with him and hid it at the house on Kadettenweg in the safe. And then you found the film. Are there copies of it or only the original?’
David looks at Gabriel and then Sarkov and back again. ‘What the hell is going on here? And why can you suddenly remember?’
‘Copies?’ Gabriel asks, confused.
‘Yes. Copies of the film that he took,’ Sarkov says.
Gabriel looks at him, puzzled. ‘He didn’t take anything.’
‘What the hell is all of this?’ David asks and looks at Sarkov. ‘Who are you?’
‘He must have taken it,’ Sarkov says, ignoring David.
‘No, he didn’t,’ Gabriel insists. ‘He couldn’t, because I killed him.’
‘You what?’ David stares at Gabriel like he’s a monster slowly stepping out of the shadows.
‘I locked him in the lab,’ Gabriel says. It’s as if his forehead is going to burst from the strain of trying to remember the details. ‘He used . . . some chemical to set the lab on fire. There was suddenly a huge burst of flame, like with alcohol or petrol. I don’t think he was even expecting it. At that moment, I pushed him into the flames and ran out, closing and locking the door behind me . . .’
‘You left him inside to burn?’ David groans. ‘A police officer?’ His hand is still pressed against the wound. There is a growing bloodstain on his trousers.
‘I . . . I think so,’ Gabriel says softly, ‘he must have burned in there. I heard him screaming, even upstairs, when I was back on the ground floor. You heard him, too, you know. You told me just recently. He beat against the door, again and again, and yelled and screamed like an animal.’
David sits there and stares into space. ‘The pounding on the door,’ he mutters, ‘I remember it. I heard it, too. I didn’t know where it was coming from.’
‘Enough of this,’ Sarkov growls and points the gun at David’s uninjured leg. ‘I’ve had enough. I’m only interested in one thing: where is the film now?’
Gabriel narrows his eyes and looks at Sarkov as if it were his first time seeing him. For a moment, Gabriel’s thoughts shift inward. They float. Until they suddenly click into place on the image of his pyjamas. Luke Skywalker and the bloody handprint that Val mentioned on the bottom of the shirt. And suddenly everything is very clear. Val was there on the night of October 13th. He went into the cellar with Val. That’s why Val knows about the bloody handprint.
Val was the one that had asked him: Where is the film? Val was the police officer. And he, Gabriel, had killed the police officer.
But Val is alive, he thinks. Why is he still alive if I killed him?
Gabriel looks at Sarkov, who is smiling. A mean, cold smile with something else behind it, a smile that was always hiding any number of things. And suddenly, Gabriel’s heart begins to race. ‘You know him, don’t you?’ he says quietly to Sarkov. ‘The police officer. You saw him after he escaped the cellar. That’s why you’re so sure he took the film with him. Did he tell you?’
‘It doesn’t matter any more,’ Sarkov smiles. ‘It was all a long time ago.’
‘Tell me his name,’ Gabriel says.
‘What name?’
‘Val’s. His real name.’
Sarkov looks at him and turns pale. ‘Where did you get that name?’
‘Val? Is that his actual name?’
‘Where the hell did you get that fucking name?’
‘Because the prick with that fucking name kidnapped Liz, my girlfriend,’ Gabriel snaps. He immediately wishes he’d said nothing. Not a word to anyone, you hear? But it’s too late for that.
Sarkov stares back at him with his mouth agape. He is paler than David and David is still as pale as chalk.
‘Don’t do that,’ Sarkov says. ‘Don’t make fun of me.’
‘I wish I were,’ Gabriel replies. ‘The prick is a psychopath. He mailed me her mobile three weeks ago. He’s been calling me since then. He calls himself Val and he wants to kill her on October 13th.’
‘Bullshit,’ Sarkov rumbles. ‘You’re lying. And besides, what girlfriend?’
Gabriel goes silent.
‘He’s not lying,’ David suddenly adds.
Gabriel thinks he misheard. ‘You believe me?’
David gives him a slight nod. ‘The telephone. I just remembered the mobile in the envelope and the scrawed handwriting on the front: For Gabriel Naumann from Liz Anders.’
Sarkov looks past David at the wall. His grey eyes quickly move back and forth as if they were concentrating on a chessboard. ‘When did this happen?’ he finally asks quietly.
‘On Liz’s birthday, on September 2nd.’
Sarkov stares at him. ‘Shit,’ he mutters. ‘Shit.’
‘Tell me his name, Yuri. You owe me that,’ Gabriel demands.
Sarkov’s lips form a straight line that not even air could pass through, let alone a name. He slowly starts moving backwards.
‘Yuri! Tell me the name. Who is the bastard?’
The barrel of Sarkov’s gun switches back and forth between Gabriel and David as he backs into the hallway and on until he disappe
ars through the front door. The door closes with a soft click.
Chapter 43
Wassen, Switzerland – 26 September, 9.46 p.m.
Liz’s hands tightly grip the leather steering wheel. Control! Finally, back in control! The accelerator feels cold against the sole of her bare foot as the motor of the BMW 3 Series Touring drives her frighteningly quickly down the street. The digital display of the speedometer says it’s 9.46 p.m.
Victor von Braunsfeld. When she heard the name, a cold shiver went down her spine. The house where she’d been imprisoned for several weeks belonged to Victor von Braunsfeld! But what did Victor have to do with all of this? Did he even have something to do with it? Maybe it was all a coincidence, maybe Victor is totally clueless.
She stares through the windscreen past the bonnet at the section of road that the headlights are keeping brightly lit. The centre strip runs out in front of the car like tracer bullets.
Boulders on the side of the road flit past like grey ghosts in the headlights. Victor von Braunsfeld. She can still remember the day she’d got consent for the documentary. Three days with one of the richest and most powerful men in the country. She goes through his villa again in her mind, the exquisite furniture, the priceless paintings on the walls . . .
Suddenly, houses start to appear. The entrance to the town of Wassen has a tight curve right behind it. She slams on the brake to keep from drifting out of the turn. Her abdomen hurts as the seatbelt cuts into her stomach.
When she reaches the town centre, she takes the first exit to the left and then speeds down Sustenstrasse to get back out of there. The halogen headlights beam past the edge of the street. She catches a glimpse of an opening between the trees. Liz slams on the brakes and throws it into reverse. After about seventy metres, she reaches the turn-off, a bumpy forest path, and steers the car into the pitch-black woods. Her heart beats into her throat.
With the engine running, she stops, turns on the interior light and turns up the heating. Just don’t turn out the lights, she thinks. The headlights make the undergrowth in front of the car glow. In front of her on the left and right, there is deep black darkness. A darkness where anything can hide. She tries to focus on the soothing purr of the engine, but it doesn’t help. She feels her throat constrict very suddenly. The inside of the car is claustrophobic. She wants nothing more than to get out of this tight space, but she knows that she can’t, not alone in this darkness.
Do something, she thinks. Anything! Her eyes land on the glove compartment and she opens it. She finds peppermint chewing gum, crumpled receipts, a few Swiss francs . . . and then she closes her fingers around something cool and heavy.
Her hand trembles as he pulls a silver pistol from the glove compartment and clumsily turns it back and forth. The grip is reddish brown and has SIG Sauer written on it with something sticking out of the bottom end. It takes a while until she manages to pull the magazine out. No cartridges! The weapon isn’t loaded. Liz is disappointed, but also relieved. The heaviness of the pistol in her hand still gives her a sense of security, despite the lack of bullets.
She eyes the peppermint chewing gum. Ideally, she would stick them all in her mouth at once, but she knows that it would only make her hungrier. She takes a deep breath and thinks. She won’t get far with the stolen car. In this horrible get-up, she won’t get anywhere at all. In the torn black dress, beneath which she isn’t even wearing underwear, she feels helpless and vulnerable. Underwear would be like a suit of armour.
Without a second thought, she puts the car in reverse. In the glow of the tail lights, she jolts back over the forest path to the street and steers the BMW back to the centre of Wassen. After five minutes, she finds what she is looking for: a small boutique on a deserted side street. She parks right on the pavement outside the door.
The anxiety makes her heart race as she opens the car door and gets out. She feels like a skydiver jumping out of a plane for the first time. The cold air burns on her skin.
And now?
She opens the hatchback of the BMW and her heart skips a beat. There’s a toolbox there. Even though she understands very little about tools, the chisel and the hard rubber mallet look like exactly what she needs to break open a door.
When she puts the chisel between the door lock and frame, she breaks out into a sweat. The deserted street sends chills up her spine, as if Val could show up at any time.
The first swing of the hammer makes a muffled echo in the entrance. She quickly swings two more times and drives the chisel into the wood. She carefully places the hammer aside and then pushes with all her might against the chisel, trying to pry the door open. The wood around the lock sounds like a dry tree trunk bursting apart when it splits. Startled, she pauses and holds her breath for what feels like an eternity, but nothing happens. Then she swings open the door without a sound. When she enters the store, however, her black dress gets caught on the splintered door and the delicate fabric tears audibly.
Liz curses silently and pulls the fabric from the split wood.
She wastes no time inside the store. She grabs everything she can that’s a dark colour: underwear, shirts, jumpers, jeans, shoes and socks – all of it in piles, because she doesn’t want to take any time checking the sizes – and throws it all on the back seat of the BMW. Lastly, she takes a cap and dark-brown jacket with a Swiss emblem on the sleeve. Then her eyes catch sight of the telephone on the counter.
She quickly puts away the clothes and dials Gabriel’s number. When she gets his voicemail, disappointment drives tears into her eyes. ‘Hey, it’s Liz. Where are you, damn it. I’ve got a . . .,’ she sobs briefly, ‘fucking horror trip behind me. I – I was kidnapped and . . . ran away. Please call me . . . oh, shit, my mobile . . . I have no phone. So please, leave your mobile on and set it to loud. I need to reach you, please! I will call again.’
She tries calling both Gabriel’s and her own flat, but no one picks up. She hangs up, takes a deep breath and tries not to be overwhelmed by the feeling of bottomless loneliness.
She is about to go back to the car when her eyes land on the till. For a moment, she stops as if she were trapped and unable to decide. After all of the lines she’s already crossed, should she cross this one, too?
Suddenly, it seems perfectly logical to her that it would be better to take the money to buy a train ticket than to keep the stolen car and use it to drive to Berlin.
Liz uses the chisel to break open the till. With both hands, she shoves the Swiss francs into the pockets of her new jacket, and then she hurries back through the door and gets into the car. In the very same moment that she turns the key in the ignition, there are headlights suddenly pointed at her, bright and head-on, like a slap across the face.
Val! is her first thought. He’s found me. She sits behind the steering wheel as if she’s nailed to her seat, blinking into the halogen glare. The shock renders her defenceless. Then she sees the blue lights on the top of the car.
Police! They are police officers, she thinks, relieved. Then she suddenly realises that she is sitting in a stolen car in front of a shop that she’s just broken into and robbed. Just the thought that the police would lock her up here in Wassen or in Andermatt near Val makes her break out into an uncontrollable panic, like a thousand wasps in a glass ball.
The car doors open. Two officers get out and approach the BMW. They speak quietly to each other, one of them points to the number plate and the other laughs and points in her direction with his chin. Apparently, they are colleagues of the two officers from Andermatt.
As if her hand is acting of its own accord, Liz reaches into the glove compartment. The panic won’t allow her to think of anything but the need to get away. The cold metal of the gun burns in her hot hand. Slowly, very slowly, she gets out of the car with her head lowered and the gun behind the door, hidden from the officers. She only raises the gun at the last second.
‘Don’t take a step closer,’ she hears herself say. Her voice soun
ds firm. Only she can tell how much she is shaking inside.
The officers stop abruptly and stare at her like a ghost. The glare of the headlights makes Liz look like a fallen angel.
‘Slowly take out your guns and lay them on the ground,’ Liz says. The SIG Sauer trembles in her hand, just like her voice. She wonders if the two local police will try to use it to their advantage, or if they are all the more scared because of it. Scared of an unpredictable lunatic in a black evening gown with a trembling finger on the trigger.
Both obey in silence. One of them, who has a moustache and thick dark hair that lies flat around his face like a bathing cap, looks around for help. But the windows in the buildings all remain dark.
‘Now the car keys, too.’
The plastic keys rattle on the asphalt.
She stares at the keys and feverishly tries to think of what to do now.
The police officers are standing in front of her, frozen in place.
Now think, girl. Think!
Then she suddenly remembers how trapped she felt in the car just a few minutes ago, as if the interior were a cell. Liz slowly backs towards the BMW, opens the back door, takes out the chisel and lays it on the asphalt. ‘You – with the moustache. Break off the handle on the inside of your door and the button for the central locking system.’
‘You want me to do . . . what?’
‘Passenger and driver door . . .’ Liz says and suddenly winces. She feels a violent shooting pain in her abdomen. ‘. . . the handle on the inside and the button for the central locks. Quickly!’
The officer takes the chisel and gets to work on the police car. With a plastic crunching sound, the handles on the interior are destroyed.
‘And get back in the car,’ Liz groans and holds her stomach. ‘Both of you put your hands on the steering wheel . . . and handcuff them to it.’
The two officers exchange a look. The one with the bathing-cap hair shrugs and gives in to his fate. The other sits in the car deliberately slowly without letting Liz out of his sight and bumps his head on the car roof.