‘Sylvia, are you still there?’ Emma said into the phone, and a cold silence washed back.
… he goes down to his laboratory…
Emma looked at the old cellar door. The light from the cellar stairs seeped into the hallway through a large gap between the floor and the bottom of the door.
… where his mobile doesn’t get any reception!
‘Sylvia, stay on the line. I can’t take you down into the cellar, do you understand? The connection will go, but I’ll be right back. Don’t hang up!’
No reaction.
Emma briefly wondered whether it would be smarter to cut Sylvia off and call the police, but what if her friend wasn’t at home? The telephone connection might be the only way of pinpointing her location.
She put the mobile on the chest of drawers, yanked open the cellar door and yelled as she went down the concrete steps, ‘Philipp? Quick. You’ve got to help me. Philipp?’
The ceiling in the cellar was so low that the seller had agreed to knock some money off the price when he saw that even Emma had to duck as they looked around.
After moving in they cladded the ceiling on the stairs with wood, which meant there was even less room now. Stooped, Emma hurried downstairs, taking the sharp turn to the right and then straight on to the ‘laboratory’.
They’d originally earmarked the area as storage for the vacuum cleaner, broom and mop, but then Philipp replaced the old linen curtain with a folding door and made himself a little office behind it. Inside were a tiny desk with a laptop connected to the internet, two metal shelves on the wall, completely cluttered with specialist literature and all manner of stackable hard plastic boxes containing magnifying glasses, tweezers, microscopes and other utensils. These he used for examining photographs and analysing signatures or other evidence essential to his work as a profiler.
Down here in his ‘cave’, cut off from the rest of the world, Philipp was best able to concentrate. While he worked he usually listened through headphones to music that calmed him, but would have given Emma hearing loss in a few seconds: Rammstein, Oomph and Eisbrecher.
It was no surprise, therefore, that he hadn’t responded to her calling. Nor that he got the fright of his life when Emma opened the folding door and pulled off the headphones.
‘What the hell…’
‘Philipp… I—’
Emma stared at his hands, which were wearing mouse-grey latex gloves.
Dull bass drumbeats pounded out from the headphones into the tiny room, providing an accompaniment to her fitful breathing.
Emma was gasping for air, which wasn’t a result of the few steps and quick dash down here, nor of her concern for Sylvia. The reason was that she couldn’t find an innocent explanation for what lay in front of Philipp.
The utility knife.
The gloves.
THE PACKAGE!
She’d wondered where her slippers had got to. The shoebox-sized package with her internet order that you could put in the microwave. Philipp had put away the food delivery in the fridge and her contact lenses were in the bathroom.
But the light package wrapped in normal brown paper? It was down here. Right beneath Philipp’s reading lamp, beside his laptop on the mini desk.
The paper cut open.
The flaps opened.
Some of its contents spread beneath the desk magnifier, the rest still inside the box padded with cotton wool.
Not microwavable slippers.
Emma had obviously been mistaken and she’d neglected to check who the package was addressed to.
For the long, thick, lifelike tufts of brunette hair that had been sent in this box were not for her.
But for Philipp.
43
‘What’s that?’ Emma asked.
Her mind was seeking a logical, but most of all an innocent, explanation.
‘Were you sent those by the Hairdresser?’
Definitely. The killer has contacted him. He’s just doing his work here and examining the trophies.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Philipp, who’d stood up from his chair.
‘You know, the hair,’ Emma said. An icy ring closed around her heart when she watched Philipp open a desk drawer and shut the bunch of dark hair inside.
‘What hair?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, darling.’
Then he turned his notebook so that she could see the screen.
‘What… how… where…?’ she heard herself stammer. Her monosyllabic questions changed in time to the pictures that appeared on the screen as a sort of slideshow.
Photos of women.
Of beautiful women.
Escort girls. Secretly photographed outside various doors. Hotel-room doors, opened by a man who was always the same, while the prostitutes changed.
‘You?’ Emma said, still desperately trying to deny the obvious.
‘You met these girls?’
The escort girls. The victims?
‘So you killed them?’
‘Emma, are you feeling okay?’ Philipp asked with an expression that made her think he was feigning surprise as he pressed the spacebar on his keyboard. And called up a different picture that showed another victim.
Emma screamed when she recognised herself.
With a wheelie suitcase in one hand, right by a dark door she was just opening. Like all the other clips, this was badly lit, but the room number on the walnut veneer was easy to make out: 1904.
‘It was you!’ Emma screamed into Philipp’s face. ‘You’re the Hairdresser!’
How could have I been so mistaken?
So deceived?
Perturbed by the package for her unknown neighbour, Emma hadn’t paid any attention to the second one.
And thus nor to the enemy in her own house.
Having become lost in the labyrinth of her own paranoid thoughts, Emma had destroyed innocent lives.
‘You bastard!’
Her husband smiled and spoke with a tone of great concern, which didn’t go with his diabolical grin. ‘Emma, calm down, please. You’re out of your mind,’ he said, at the same time pressing his keyboard again, which turned the screen black.
‘What are you going to do?’ Emma cried, with no idea what she should do. She felt paralysed by bewilderment and horror. ‘Are you trying to drive me mad?’
‘What do you mean? I’m worried you’re seeing things again that aren’t there, darling.’
Yes. That’s it. I don’t know why, but he’s feeding my paranoia.
Emma looked around, searching instinctively for an object to defend herself with if Philipp attacked her. Then she saw a small camera on the ceiling, which was fixed so that Emma was in the picture the whole time, whereas her husband would not be visible on the film.
‘You’re filming me?’ she said, devastated.
‘But darling, you asked me to make the cellar secure,’ he replied piously. ‘For fear of burglars.’
‘I never said anything about cameras,’ she yelled at him. And whereas she was still far from clear as to what Philipp’s motives could be, she was struck by another, horrendous realisation:
Sylvia.
She didn’t call from Jorgo’s phone.
But from her own.
On this point, at least, she was sure about the game Philipp had been playing with her the whole time.
It’s just like he did with his ex.
He’d saved Sylvia’s number under a different name.
What sort of a man would do that?
One who had something to hide.
An affair.
So it wouldn’t attract any attention if his lover called several times a day, sent texts or missed calls.
Emma’s stomach tightened.
Of course, how clever.
Jorgo was Philipp’s partner, so it was only natural that he’d make lots of calls. At least there was an explanation when the naïve wifey at home saw the display and asked.
How clever and deceitful.
For him Sylvia was Jorgo, while Sylvia called him Peter.
And she’s got such wonderful long hair. Just like me.
Just like all the Hairdresser’s other victims.
‘But why did you have to kill them all?’ Emma croaked. The revelations seemed to have blocked her airways. ‘The whores, your affairs. Even Sylvia? Why did she have to die?’
As if the name of the woman she’d once regarded as her best friend was the cue, the devilish smile vanished from Philipp’s face and for the first time he looked seriously worried. ‘What’s wrong with Sylvie?’ he asked, as if really unaware that she’d just tried to call him in the throes of death.
Maybe it was the brief moment of weakness she thought she could detect in his eyes, or the fact that he’d called his latest affair by her nickname that unleashed an aggressive, unrestrained fury in Emma.
But possibly it was just the courage of despair that tore her from her paralysis.
44
‘Emma, stop!’ Philipp cried, but she had no intention of surrendering with no way out.
She knocked away the arm he was trying to grab her with, turned around and ran up the stairs as fast as she could, but it wasn’t fast enough.
Philipp easily seized her foot and held her where she was. He was bigger, stronger and faster than her. And he didn’t have a wound to the head that throbbed like a living insect below its bandage, sending out new waves of pain with every movement.
Emma stumbled and the heels of her hands slapped hard against the edge of the concrete steps.
She flipped onto her back and started kicking as she’d done with Palandt just a few hours before. Now, however, she was only wearing socks; without her heavy boots she couldn’t even hurt Philipp, let alone shake him off.
‘Emma!’ her husband cried, now with a grip on both ankles. The edges of the steps dug into her back and yet she kept thrashing about as if possessed.
Until Philipp yelled ‘Stop that!’, rushed forwards and hit her.
Hard. Harder than this morning when he’d slapped some sense back into her.
Emma’s head dashed backwards against the stairs and she saw bright lights. When she opened her eyes again it was as if she were looking at Philipp through a cracked kaleidoscope.
She saw that his lip was bleeding, which meant she’d probably caught him with her foot.
Not good.
The minor injury had only made him furious like a wounded animal, thus giving him more strength than it had sapped.
Emma, on the other hand, had no more resistance to offer. She could hardly bear the pressure of his fingers around her wrists.
She wanted it to stop.
For it to finally come to an end.
The pain. The violence.
The lies!
Her sudden passivity gave Philipp new impetus. He climbed and lay on top of her with all his weight, like a lusty husband desperate to shag his willing wife on the cellar stairs, the only difference being that he didn’t want to make love, but quite the opposite.
‘Help!’ Emma cried, although to whom she didn’t know. In her head she was shouting more loudly than in the dimly lit reality of the cellar steps.
She closed her eyes and the simple wooden panelling on the walls vanished, as did the plastic planter below the banisters, the fuse box by the entrance, which she could only see if she tilted her head back, and the door to Philipp’s ‘laboratory’.
And Philipp vanished of course, although only the sight of him. His words wouldn’t go away.
‘Everything’s going to be fine,’ she heard him say. In a gruesomely friendly tone. She heard his breathing, sensed a hand (probably the right one) push beneath her head, felt him stroking her brow (probably with the back of his left) – he ought not to have done that.
The feeling of latex on her face, the typical smell of rubber and talcum powder, was like a dagger to her heart, twisting, twisting and twisting with every movement.
When Emma opened her eyes she saw Philipp smile, presumably the same grin he’d worn in the darkness of the hotel room. His head came closer and she thought about butting her own into his face. But again she was too feeble to do any serious damage; she’d only make him even angrier.
Emma started crying and heard him make shhhing noises, no doubt aimed at pacifying her. But they made Emma think of snakes and the very next moment she rammed her knee between his legs.
Philipp groaned and loosened his grip, which gave her the opportunity to chop the side of her hand against his jaw.
He screamed, turned to the side, pressed a hand to his mouth and spat out blood. She’d hit him so hard that she must have knocked a tooth out. Or he’d bit his tongue, so heavy was the bleeding.
He’d now let go of her entirely; Emma could no longer feel any pressure on her body or around her wrists and ankles.
Finally she got to her feet, ran upstairs, but once again she was too slow. Once again Philipp caught hold of her, this time her foot, and started to drag her back. To him.
Into the abyss.
Emma felt for the banisters, tried to hold on, but her hand slipped and knocked against a hard edge, which she instinctively clasped.
Even though it felt like a handle, it wasn’t fastened to the wall, but why would there be a handle on the cellar stairs, unless…
… it belonged to the fire extinguisher.
As she faltered Emma saw her chance. While her body was still busy trying to regain its balance she yanked the fire extinguisher upwards, swivelled on the balls of her feet, swayed and tried to fall forwards, towards Philipp. But gravity had other ideas, and so once more she toppled onto the stairs on her back.
As she fell there was no way she could launch the heavy fire extinguisher at Philipp, who was over her again.
All she saw was him raising his hand, then everything went white. The cellar, the walls, the stairs, Philipp, herself. Like in a sandstorm, everything was surrounded by a veil of dust from one moment to the next.
Emma heard a hissing, then pressed down harder with her right hand, which evidently had control over the dust and the hissing noise, and for a split second there was a hole in the fog.
In the hole stood Philipp.
Covered with the contents of the fire extinguisher she was spraying right at him. With the foam he was trying to wipe from his eyes Philipp looked like a ghost with a blood-smeared mouth.
‘EMMAAA,’ she heard him scream as he managed to grab the banister while stumbling. Now he started moving again. Slowly and carefully. Step by step he came closer.
And agonisingly slowly, step by step, Emma crept up the stairs on her belly.
She’d almost got to the top when he seized her foot from behind and tugged her back.
Emma felt for something to hold onto, but only succeeded in pulling over the washing basket, the contents of which poured out onto her.
She was reminded of the corpse liquor in Palandt’s shed, could smell the decay clinging to the dirty washing. Jeans, blouse, underwear. Everything that Philipp had taken off her and must have stuffed into the basket. Nothing that could assist her now, because how can I defend myself with a dressing gown?
DRESSING GOWN!
The thought shot through her mind together with the pain she felt as she was dragged down another step and her jaw hit the hard surface.
Philipp was beside himself; he continued to yell something that could have been her name, but also sounded like pain, torture and death.
Emma would not let go, however. Lying on her tummy, she clutched the dressing gown.
Rummaged through the right-hand pocket.
Fuck.
The left pocket.
And finally had it in her hand.
Just as Philipp grabbed her waist to turn her around, her fingers clasped the plastic handle.
Emma yielded to her husband’s strength, used it for her own backswing, raising her hand up high.
Holding the bloody blade.
From Palandt’s package.
And in one sweeping movement sliced the scalpel across Philipp’s throat.
45
Three weeks later
It was strange she wasn’t crying.
In the lonely hours in the psychiatric unit the mere thought of Philipp had been enough to bring tears to her eyes, but now that she’d confessed her dreadful deeds to Konrad, recounting for the first time everything in all its detail, it seemed her reservoir of tears had dried up. Although she could feel the dull, headache-inducing pressure behind her eyes, her cheeks remained dry.
‘I’m finished,’ she said, and both of them knew that she wasn’t referring to her testimony.
Two men, both killed by her own hand on the same day.
Just because of a package for the neighbour.
If she hadn’t accepted it, she wouldn’t have lost her mobile in Palandt’s house. And if she hadn’t opened the package she wouldn’t have had a scalpel.
‘Didn’t you notice?’
Konrad was looking at her, standing by the bookshelf with the works of Schopenhauer. He was holding a thin cardboard folder and Emma couldn’t have said how it got there. She hadn’t even been aware that Konrad had stood up and wandered across the room. Two minutes must have passed since she’d uttered her last word, two minutes during which she’d stared fixedly at the tea stain on the round carpet, comparing its contours with the map of New Zealand.
Her hand tingled, her tongue felt numb – typical symptoms of withdrawal. She’d have to take her tablets again soon, but didn’t dare ask Konrad for another glass of water, also because the pressure on her bladder was now almost intolerable.
‘What didn’t I notice?’ she asked after some delay. She was tired and she was reacting with the speed of a drunk.
‘That it was your own husband who raped you, Emma. Do you really believe you wouldn’t have noticed?’
Apart from the fact that he was using her first name, there was no longer any intimacy in his words. In just a single phrase he’d managed once more to change her whereabouts. She wasn’t on the sofa any more, but in the dock.
Where I belong, after all.
‘I had paralysing drugs in my body that distorted my senses,’ Emma said, trying to answer the question she’d asked herself over and over again. Konrad wasn’t satisfied.
The Package Page 18