by Lena Bourne
“She rowed her canoe on the river, didn’t she?” I ask, confronted now by the wide eyes of both Wanda and Ross.
I clear my throat. “In the cartoon, I mean?”
My mother was nineteen when she had me, and we watched and re-watched these princess cartoons long after I was no longer even slightly interested in them. She was, and it was something we did together. We did everything together while I was growing up. Now I speak to her once every three months, if that much. But this is not the time to be worrying about that.
They exchange a look. “We’ll check, Sir.”
On the other side of the table, the copies of the photos arranged one next to the other, the table dark under them. I walk there and fumble for the light switch to turn the backlight on. It comes on its own before I find it.
“These aren’t digital photos, are they?” I ask.
Marisa walks to stand by my left shoulder, Stanley at the right.
“Well spotted, Sir,” Marisa says. The inner city cockiness is still noticeable in her voice, however much she tries to hide it. “They’re old-school, using film, and developed by hand.”
“And the man? What can you tell me about him?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I’m still running some algorithms to try and at least tell you how tall he might be standing, but even that won’t be too accurate. He’s out of focus in the photo. But I think this could be the edge of a neck tattoo,” she points at a tiny black blob above the collar of the man’s fancy white jacket. I peer at it closer, but all that does is make it fuzzier.
“That could very well be a dust speck on the lens or an imperfection in the photo paper,” I mutter, not really sure why I spoke it aloud.
“You’re right, Sir,” Marisa says.
“Good work,” I say anyway, and she nods curtly. “I’m guessing these are the originals?” I ask, pointing at the photos on the table. “And the envelope contains the copies?”
“Yes,” Stanley says. “The envelope isn’t a copy.”
I take out the photos and hand the envelope to Stanley, then ask for a folder. Ross practically skips to bring me one from the communal office.
“I’ll take these to Schmitt, see if he can make anything more of them,” I say. “Keep me posted on all you find. However small.”
They assure me they will and after Marisa arranges the necessary clearance on my keycard, I leave the lab.
I’m betting Schmitt had Snow White transferred to the Medical Examiner’s office by now and is already breathing down the man’s neck to speed the examination along. Who knows, maybe the Germans have already found some key piece of evidence that will break this case wide open. One can hope, right? Not that I am.
The day’s grey-white light has turned to dusk while I was inside and the first gust of fresh air that hits me as I exit the command building is razor-sharp and biting, carrying all the frost it picked up in the far north where it came from. It feels like the first breath of fresh air I’ve taken in days, even though it’s only been a couple of hours since I was outside. It’s also a clear reminder that I need to pull myself together if I’m going to be any use to anyone in this case.
I call Detective Schmitt and the phone rings for an uncharacteristically long time. He’s the type that answers every phone call right away, even in the middle of a conversation.
“Are you supposed to be calling?” he asks as he finally picks up just as I was about to hang up.
“Yes, I was cleared to continue investigating,” I tell him. “Are you at the station? I have to show you something and then I’d like to see the body again.”
“I’m at the bank of the Havel river in Gatow. Come quickly,” he says. “You’ll see the lights.”
And before I can even fully react to his ominous words, the line goes dead. I’m clutching the photos much too tightly, crumpling them, most likely, and I force myself to relax my grip.
It’s started. They found the first one. Pocahontas. There goes the hope that the photos are just an illusion, a hoax, fake. Not that I truly believed they were. I just hoped.
8
Eva
My other phone, the one I use only for business calls and communication with the various editors I work with, is ringing. That one hasn’t been blowing up as much as my personal one.
“Hello, Christina,” I answer absentmindedly. She’s an editor for The Guardian now and commissions a lot of articles from me. We go way back, since we studied journalism together at the London School of Economics.
I keep scrolling through the images I got on my other phone, looking for the one that sparked something in my mind. Something I was supposed to pay attention to the first time I saw it and now my heart’s pounding, anxiety making my head feel like it’s full of bees buzzing nervously because I didn’t.
“Hello? Eva? So, can you do it?” Christina says sharply, cutting through the buzzing in my ears.
“Do what?”
“Get me something on Snow White by four AM?” she says. “For tomorrow’s print edition.”
“I’m afraid I can get you more than just that,” I say quietly.
I found the photo. It’s of Sleeping Beauty poisoned by the prick on her finger. I know her.
“What are you talking about, Eva? Hello?” Christina says impatiently.
“I’ll call you back,” I mutter. “And you’ll have your story, I promise.”
Selima. That was her name. A twenty-five-old from Sarajevo.
Once it became known that The Fairytale Killer was choosing his victims from among the unregistered prostitutes working the streets of Berlin, I sought them out. A lot of them are from former Yugoslavian republics and I speak their language. It wasn’t hard to get them talking. They were scared and alone and without options. Out of that came a piece I didn’t intend to write—about the dark side of legalized prostitution, such as they employ in Germany, and about all the poor women it leaves behind, unnamed, unnumbered, uncared for. It ran in The Guardian originally, but it was picked up by most major European newspapers as well.
Selima wouldn’t forgive me for writing the article, blamed me and the article for the police chasing them off the streets wherever they tried to earn a few Euros, as she put it. She wouldn’t believe me when I told her it was to keep them safe from the psycho hunting them.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s not her. Those are my only two clear thoughts as I put on my boots, heavy down jacket that comes down almost to the ground, wrap an oversized shawl around my head, pocket the phone and leave the apartment.
Maybe I’ll find her safe and sound. But none of the hopefulness of those jittery thoughts is reaching the cold, icy knot that’s settled in my stomach. The one borne of knowing that I’ll never speak to Selima again.
In Berlin, there are plenty of streets where unregistered prostitutes ply their trade, but only three are well known. All of them are deep on the former east side of the wall, and none of them is a good place to be. The first I visit is more an alleyway than a street, stretching just wide enough for a car to pass, and sandwiched between two long-abandoned tall buildings. One of them was a cloth factory built after World War II to supply most of the region with linens, shirts, and uniforms. The other was where the factory workers lived so they wouldn’t have to walk far to get to work. The factory has stood abandoned since the 1970s, but the apartment building was rented out until the late 1980s when it finally fell into such disrepair even the poorest of the poor wouldn’t pay to live there.
The apartments inside are quite spacious, and most of the units have either open fireplaces, masonry heaters, or both. A few of the Eastern Bloc girls I interviewed for my article on underground prostitution in Berlin, who had come illegally and didn’t have much choice but to continue living illegally, made their homes in them. The fireplaces and heaters made it easier to stay warm during the winter, and the vacant rooms to entertain their customers in are in ample supply here. For years, the authorities looked the other way. Not so when my article
revealed it all.
The alley is pitch dark at both ends, the only illumination coming from the single working streetlamp in the middle of it. My heart’s thumping and my hands are shaking, but I’m not even considering turning back. As I enter the alley, a cold gust of wind catches my parka just right to send the cold air right under it, the down it’s filled with offering no protection.
The long, narrow alley is deserted. Only trash is moving, dancing in the wind, and the few windows of the apartment building on the left-hand side are all dark, not even a slight orange candle flame flicker in any of them.
Selima had made herself a cozy home in one of the apartments in that building. She blamed me and my article for the raids that forced her to leave it. Clearly, she wasn’t exaggerating about the police clearing this street of illegal prostitution. No one’s lived here in months. Even the trash is grey and old, the signs on the packages flying around in the wind unreadable.
But maybe she is still here. Maybe she came back after the raids when things quieted down again. As I remember, she chose one of the bigger units on the ground floor, which used to house the factory foreman and his family. Or maybe one of the factory managers. That apartment is on the other side of the building, as far away from the factory as it could be. It was still mostly furnished, with old-fashioned, winged armchairs, and heavy wooden beds, chairs, tables, and wardrobes which were probably too much of a hassle to move after the building was abandoned. Much of that furniture was so old it would probably fetch a good price in the antique market, and I told her so. If she and the other women who lived here managed to sell some of it, they’d have enough to start a better life here. She didn’t believe me.
A car rolls past the alley entrance behind me, sending my heart racing. I quicken my pace, but thankfully the hum of the engine fades off into the silence. I don’t regret exposing this place and the prostitutes’ way of life here. With prostitution being legal and regulated in Germany, it is only the most depraved men who came here to pick up these women who were working illegally and completely under the radar. The ones who liked to hit and bite and choke. To torture, in other words. And to kill? I’m sure there were more than a few of those too. Three of Selima’s friends went missing in the eighteen months she lived and worked here and none of them were ever found again. It’s good that the authorities cracked down on this place, and the one other similar spot my article exposed.
I should’ve just come to the building from the other side, along the wide main street, and gone straight to the apartment first. But I had a vague notion that it’d be easier to find a woman to talk to out in the street than by knocking on doors. The freezing wind is wailing through the empty alley by the time I reach the streetlamp in the middle of it. My heart is pounding so hard I’m breathless from it, and I still have to make it through half of this dark alley. And now I’m sure that the wailing is also masking the humming of a car driving slowly behind me.
There’s nothing there when I turn, but there could be. A dark car with its lights off would be invisible here.
I’m just about to break into a sprint when the far opening of the alley explodes in light and sound. Sirens—police, ambulance, fire truck-are blaring, and the blue, yellow, red, and white flashing lights are illuminating the alley mouth like a New Year’s fireworks display.
My heart’s in my throat as I speed walk towards them, then break into a jog, my boots slushing in the puddles left by yesterday’s snowfall and my feet kicking the trash that might have been here for a decade or more.
“Halt!” a young policeman yells as I burst from the alley onto the wide sidewalk on the other side. His face is awash in the blue and red flashing light. “You can’t come this way.”
“What’s happening here?” I ask breathlessly.
“Stay back,” he tells me, not answering my question and unrolls the yellow police tape he was using to cut off the alley from the sidewalk when I burst out of it.
It’s not a fire, I would have felt and at least smelt that. But two fire trucks are blocking the main road leading past these two buildings, one on each side, their red flashing lights fighting the darkness, but not very successfully. Behind them on one side are the two police cars and an ambulance are joined by an additional ambulance and two more cars, all with their sirens blaring. And behind the other one, there’s only a single police car. The silence that falls once all the sirens are turned off has a physical presence after all that noise.
A group of young men and women are huddled by one of the ambulances, wrapped in blankets while the paramedics work on them. The whole thing is overseen by three uniformed policemen. The flashing lights are reflecting off the many piercings in their ears, and on their faces. Smoke poisoning?
I take a step towards the yellow police tape that now stretches across the alley mouth and the edge of the apartment building where the policeman who stopped me is holding the roll, looking confused. He probably can’t figure out where to attach the rest of it.
The silence is broken by the piercing sound of another siren coming from my right. It’s not as loud as the others were, but promises more purpose as an unmarked detective car arrives, a tube light across the top of its windshield flashing blue. The car is followed by a black jeep with no siren and no flashing lights.
The wiry, thin and dark-haired Detective Schmitt gets out of the car with the flashing light. Mark steps out of the jeep. The detective doesn’t look back at him as he makes his way towards the apartment building’s main entrance which is standing wide open, only unbroken darkness on the other side, his hunched shoulders making him look even shorter, but his glassy dark eyes are blazing and full of purpose as he stares at his destination. Mark has to lengthen his stride to keep up.
Every part of me is screaming to call out to him. He’s the only one who can bring me peace and calm in this cacophony of fear, noise, light, and movement, but I know he’ll send me away. And I have to know if Selima is inside that building.
It’s all pretty much in chaos with all the cars and people milling around, unsure what to do. I slip past the back of the young policeman who is still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his yellow tape. I keep to the shadow of the tall building, my movement along the white-washed wall unremarked despite the flashing lights all around. Or maybe because of them. They do have a very disorienting effect.
The single uniformed police officer by the front door to the building is sent to do something by Schmitt who then slips inside followed closely by Mark. No one notices me follow them a few steps behind.
The only light in the huge, windowless entry hall is coming from the service cars outside, creating pools of light on the floor that are moving like actual water. They don’t reach the far wall, which is shrouded in pitch-black darkness.
Mark and Schmitt are already out of sight when I enter, but I quickly spot a yellow beam of a flashlight Schmitt is carrying as he hurries down the corridor to the left of the entry hall. The corridor that leads to the foreman’s apartment—Selima’s apartment.
I hurry after them and almost run into Mark’s back as I reach the wide-open doors of Selima’s former apartment. They’ve stopped dead before entering, Schmitt’s flashlight illuminating something I can’t see because their backs are blocking my view.
“It’s his work,” Schmitt says curtly. “We wait for forensics.”
I step sideways to peer through the gap between them. The beam of the flashlight is focused on a woman’s face. She’s kneeling on the floor by the fireplace in the large living room just beyond the small entry hall the front door opens into. Her face and what I can see of her white shirt is covered by dirt and dark grey ask. Her eyes are open, staring lifelessly at something on the floor.
It’s not Selima.
I gasp as I realize that, my heart once again thumping in my throat, this time more in a mixture of relief and pure terror. Not a conformable mix of feelings.
Both the men turn to me, Schmitt’s flashlight now blindin
g me.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” he barks, just as Mark asks, “Eva? How did you get here?”
“I…I…came looking for Selima, you know the woman I interviewed for my article. The one who lived here,” I stammer. “After reports started coming in that a body was found I was afraid it might be her so I came to see if she was—”
“Is this her?” Schmitt interrupts. “Is this the woman you know?”
He sounds on edge like the only thing holding him together is nerves of steel and cold, hard determination.
“No, it’s not her,” I mutter.
Mark moves to stand between Schmitt’s flashlight and me. His face is all in darkness so I can’t see his expression or his eyes, but I feel his caring, calm look anyway.
“Come on, you can’t be here,” he says as he puts his hands on my shoulders to turn me away from the door. I let him.
“I’ll take you home,” he says and wraps his strong arm around my shoulders and leads me out of the building. The floor feels like I’m walking on the surface of a very wavy lake.
Relief is still crashing against the absolute terror of just having witnessed one of The Fairytale Killer’s creations first hand, from barely five meters away. Mark’s strong body and protective arm are making it possible for me to walk out on my own. But only just.
It took me more than forty minutes to get to that alleyway by bus earlier, but Mark reaches my apartment building in fifteen. He rolls right onto the sidewalk, fast enough to make me bounce in my seat as we go over the curb. He hasn’t spoken a word, his dark eyes reflecting the traffic and streetlights as he drove, looking straight ahead. Each time he glances at me, which was often, his eyes were kind like I know them, but laced with an edge of panic that I’m not used to seeing in them. A type of crazed terror, not unlike the one I’m still feeling.
He brakes hard, the jeep coming to an abrupt stop between my building’s front door and the bus stop that’s just to the left of it. He’s around the car, holding my door open before I’ve even managed to reach for the handle to let myself out.