The Child

by Sebastian Fitzek

  Stern pulled himself up by the banister. He winced when he tried to stand on his left foot, so he hopped up the stairs on his good leg. His mucous membranes seemed to be dissolving, they were smarting so much.

  Third door along on the right, the woman had said. Her directions were superfluous. In his present condition he could only be guided by his ears. La Traviata was still blaring through one of the massive oak doors. Stern rattled the handle.

  Locked.

  It took an instant for him to make up his mind. Ignoring the vicious pain caused seemingly by nails being driven into his left leg at every step, he hurried back to the urn. It was filled with heavy white pebbles, not soil. He could scarcely lift it, so he dragged it behind him along the passage. At the door he heaved the urn into the air, heedless of his creaking spine, and hurled it at the lock two-handed. It snapped off the handle and dented the lock. Stern charged the yielding oak panel with his shoulder. Once, twice. At last, drunk with pain, he staggered into the room.

  The scene before him was worse than anything he’d ever seen, reducing his whole being to a single unspoken cry: Too late!

  20

  He saw the man first. Naked, bathed in sweat and paralysed with fear. His erection, subsiding only slowly, seemed to have numbed his reflexes completely. He shielded his face with his arms, but that was all.

  Looking at the bed, Stern saw the faceless figure that was Simon lying motionless on the stained mattress with his hands bound behind his back and a cheap supermarket bag over his head.

  ‘I can explain everything …’ the man began. Blinded by tears, rage and pain, Stern limped swiftly over to the camera, gripped the tripod like a baseball bat, and shattered his jaw, sending the man over backwards, and the stereo rig to the floor. La Traviata died just as Stern made a dive for the bed and tore an airhole in the bag over Simon’s head.

  He felt like shouting aloud – with boundless relief. He had made one mistake after another, but at least he hadn’t lost Simon. The boy was coughing and gasping like a shipwreck survivor newly plucked from the sea. He just couldn’t stop, but to Stern the whistling intakes of breath with which he was sucking oxygen back into his lungs sounded better than any symphony.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ he blurted out. Simon was sitting up on the bed now. Stern had torn off the rest of the bag and was holding the boy’s head between his hands, careful not to bring him into contact with his grimy, bloodstained chest.

  ‘It’s …’ Simon wheezed, ‘it’s all right.’ He started coughing again and sniffed. Stern drew back a little. The cloud of tear gas had been contained by the stairwell, fortunately, but he was afraid that enough of it might be clinging to his hair to place an additional strain on the boy’s breathing.

  Unable to speak for coughing, Simon put out his arm and pointed to something. Stern turned in time to see the man with the shattered jaw making for the door.

  ‘Stay here!’ he yelled. He snatched up the tripod – the camera had already come adrift – and sideswiped him on the shin with it. The man doubled up and collapsed just short of the doorway, bellowing in agony.

  ‘Don’t move or you’ll end up dead like that crazy wife of yours.’

  Stern bent over the man, who was choking by now on his own cries of pain, and showed him the scalpel he’d taken from the side table. He felt like driving the end of the tripod into the man’s foot or snapping off the scalpel blade under his fingernails, but he couldn’t do that to Simon. The boy had witnessed enough violence. Worse still, he had experienced it. Thanks to him, Stern, he was going to need psychological therapy.

  ‘Look, we can work this out,’ the man mumbled, curled up on the floor in front of Stern. His expression had undergone a complete change not just attributable to the rearrangement of his teeth. ‘I’ve got money. Your money. As agreed.’

  ‘Shut up. I don’t want any money.’

  ‘What, then? Why are you here?’

  ‘Simon, please look away,’ said Stern, raising the tripod again. The man brought his knees up to his chin and buried his bloodstained face in his hands.

  ‘No, please don’t,’ he begged. ‘I’ll do anything you want. Please.’

  Stern let him tremble awhile in expectation of another blow. Then he asked, ‘Where’s the mobile?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your goddamned mobile. Where is it?’

  ‘There.’ The man pointed to the dressing gown lying beside the bed. Stern stepped back and picked it up.

  ‘In the pocket. The right-hand pocket.’

  Stern could barely understand the child abuser’s plaintive whimpers. He found the phone and handed it to the man at his feet.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Call him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your contact. The person you spoke to in the living room. Go on, I want a word with him.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I don’t have his number. Nobody has the Dealer’s number.’ The man said the penultimate word as if it were a name. Even in his situation, he couldn’t disguise the awe in which he held the name.

  ‘So how do you get in touch with him?’

  ‘We email him and he calls us back. That’s what happened with you. Tina sent him your name and ID number by phone in the car. Then he called us back.’

  Tina. So the dying gorgon at the foot of the stairs now had a name.

  ‘OK, give me his email address.’

  ‘It’s in the mobile.’

  ‘Where?’ The mobile beeped every time Stern pressed a key. He knew the model; he had used one himself for a short time.

  ‘It’s under “Bambino”, but it won’t be any use to you.’

  ‘Why not?’ Stern didn’t even try to memorize the complicated entry: gulliverqyx@23.gzquod.eu. He would be taking the phone with him in any case.

  ‘Because the address changes after every enquiry. That one’s already defunct.’

  ‘So what do you do the next time?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he’d kill me.’

  ‘What do you think I plan to do to you? Tell me how you get the new email address or I’ll send you to join your wife.’

  ‘OK, OK, OK …’ The man raised his arm defensively, staring wide-eyed at the tripod Stern was holding over his head. ‘He’s got various addresses. Thousands of them, but they only work once. Whenever we want to call him we have to buy a new one.’

  ‘Where? Where do you buy them?’

  When he heard the answer, the scalpel slipped from his hand and stuck in the plastic-covered parquet.

  ‘What did you say?’ he gasped. His throbbing head, swollen ankle, wrenched back and burning lungs had combined to form a single, all-embracing pain.

  ‘Say that again!’ he bellowed.

  ‘On the bridge,’ the naked man at his feet repeated with tears streaming down his bloodstained cheeks. He was probably betraying the fraternity’s best-kept secret. ‘We buy the addresses on the bridge.’

  21

  Many one-time scenes of horror exude an aura capable of arousing contradictory emotions. But it is not the clearly visible signs of violence that attract and repel us. Not the splashes of blood or brains on the wallpaper above the bed or the severed limbs beside the chest full of clean laundry. It is the indirect signals that hold a morbid fascination for outsiders. A cordoned-off area in a normally crowded underground station exerts such an effect, as does a public square unnaturally ablaze with the headlights of several parked police cars.

  ‘Shit,’ said Chief Superintendent Hertzlich, rubbing his weary eyes without removing his gold-rimmed glasses. Grumpily, he beckoned Engler over from the Madison’s entrance. In the gloom of the autumnal evening the brightly illuminated café on Mexikoplatz was acting like a lamp besieged by nocturnal insects. Numerous passers-by on their way to the S-Bahn station were having to be kept away from the police barriers. There r
eally wasn’t anything to see for once, as curious spectators were being regularly informed by a uniformed officer.

  ‘This is a total fuck-up,’ Hertzlich said loudly when Engler joined him. The whole case seemed to be getting out of hand, hence his wish to form an on-the-spot picture of the situation. He hadn’t suspected it would look so disastrous.

  ‘Let’s have your report,’ he said, eyeing Engler with distaste as the inspector extracted an Aspirin Plus C from its packet and chewed the effervescent tablet without any water. He wondered if it wouldn’t be better to relieve him of responsibility for the case.

  ‘Borchert’s car broke down, that’s how we happened to pick him up,’ Engler began, ‘and he directed us back here to Mexikoplatz. He firmly states that Robert Stern and little Simon Sachs have been abducted by a woman they met in this café. The licence number he claims to have seen isn’t registered. The only clue we have so far is that email address.’ Engler pointed wearily to the sign in the café window. ‘It belongs to a smallish estate agent in Berlin-Stieglitz run by a man named Theodor Kling and his wife Tina. His secretary was just knocking off for the day, but she informed us that he was out viewing some properties with a client. She faxed us a list of the ones currently for sale. We’re checking them at this moment.’

  ‘How many are there?’

  ‘Eight in the immediate vicinity. Not many, in other words. The only problem is, we can hardly gain access to all of … Just a minute, that could be Brandmann.’

  Engler opened his mobile. A moment later he grimaced as if he’d bitten into a lemon.

  Hertzlich raised his eyebrows enquiringly.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’ he heard the inspector ask. From the bewilderment in his voice, Engler clearly wasn’t speaking to a colleague.

  22

  ‘An ambulance to 121 Kleinen Wannsee?’

  Engler repeated the address, of which he’d heard only snatches from Stern. Hertzlich, who had also registered the information, stepped aside and took out his mobile.

  ‘OK,’ said Engler, ‘wait there for us. Don’t move from the spot.’ The connection was so poor, he felt he was having to compete with a wind machine in the background.

  Where in God’s name is Brandmann when you need him?

  ‘Can’t … no time to expl—’ Stern’s voice was breaking up badly. ‘The woman may be … the man is … You must detain—’

  Engler didn’t get the rest. He asked the most important question.

  ‘How’s the boy?’

  ‘That’s why I’m calling you.’

  The lawyer must have left the dead zone, because he wasn’t breaking up any more. ‘Listen,’ said Engler, ‘this has got to stop. It’s time you turned yourself in.’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now. That’s to say … Just a moment.’

  There was a click on the line, and Engler thought he heard Simon in the background. So Stern hadn’t been lying. The boy was still alive!

  ‘Give me another forty minutes or so, then we’ll meet. Just the two of us, though. No one else.’

  ‘OK, where?’

  The inspector looked taken aback when Stern named the rendezvous.

  23

  The person you are calling is temporarily unavailable. If you wish to be notified by text message as soon as they …

  Damn it. What was wrong? Why didn’t Carina pick up?

  And what has happened to Borchert? Why did he leave us in the lurch?

  Stern silenced the mailbox’s computerized voice. He felt like hurling the mobile out of the window and into the car park, which they’d reached after a wild drive across town. It profoundly disgusted him to think that, not many minutes ago, that filthy paedophile had held the same phone to his sweaty ear. But he still needed it. He’d made his most important call first and informed Engler, because he couldn’t go on like this. He simply had to turn himself in, even at the risk of never learning what had really happened to Felix.

  But that was secondary now. His insane pursuit of a phantom had to be brought to an end at last. Simon had almost been murdered. That was the reality, not his fantasies about Felix and the boy with the birthmark.

  He felt a small hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Feeling OK?’ Simon asked.

  Stern’s eyes filled with tears once more. He’d left the boy alone with a grinning monster from hell, and Simon had asked how he was feeling?

  ‘I’m fine,’ he lied. The truth was, it was a miracle he’d made it out of the house at all without collapsing. Luckily, Simon seemed to possess incredible powers of recuperation and had descended the stairs unaided once Stern had secured the man to the bedstead with duct tape.

  The woman hadn’t stirred as they stepped over her at the foot of the stairs, but Stern thought he detected shallow breathing. Although every additional step and movement was agony, he’d gone into the living room and gathered up his scattered clothes before they left via the garage and the couple’s car. He thanked God the American saloon was an automatic. His left foot was so swollen and painful, he could barely walk on it, let alone operate a clutch pedal.

  ‘You don’t look too good,’ Simon said hoarsely.

  Stern tried to laugh it off. ‘And you sound like Kermit,’ he retorted. Having lowered the sun visor and looked at himself in the vanity mirror, he had to agree. In the glove compartment he found some wet wipes for the windscreen. With a shrug, he took one from the packet and wiped some of the blood off his face.

  ‘But how are you feeling?’ he asked as he gingerly dabbed at the throbbing bruise on his forehead.

  ‘OK.’ Simon gave a muffled cough.

  ‘I’m so sorry, so terribly sorry,’ Stern repeated for at least the eighth time since leaving the house. ’But I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’

  ‘Nothing really happened,’ Simon said wearily.

  Stern turned on the roof light for a better look at the boy. Simon’s eyelids were quivering and he couldn’t repress a yawn. After the day’s events, Stern had no idea whether that was a good or a bad sign.

  ‘Need anything? Some water? Your medication?’

  ‘No, I’m just tired.’ Simon coughed again. His left leg was twitching slightly, not that Stern had noticed it during the drive.

  ‘Can you make it by yourself?’

  ‘Sure.’ Simon opened the passenger door, then hesitated. ‘I’d sooner stay with you, though.’

  Stern shook his head, and even that hurt. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘But you’ll be needing me later, won’t you?’

  ‘Come here.’ Stern pulled the boy towards him. Ignoring his aching back, he hugged the child as hard as he could. ‘Yes, of course I will. Very much so. That’s why it’s important you do exactly what I told you, OK? You’re to go into the hospital and report to your ward at once, you hear?’

  Simon nodded. ‘All right. What are you going to do now?’ he asked, his voice muffled by Stern’s shirt.

  ‘I’m going to solve the case.’

  Simon sat back and looked up at him. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Does that mean I won’t have to hurt anyone tomorrow after all?’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘Because I don’t want to.’

  ‘I know that.’ Stern brushed a strand of hair behind Simon’s ear and gave a weary smile. ‘Can you really manage on your own?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. My throat’s sore, that’s all.’

  ‘And that twitching leg?’

  ‘It’s not bad. Besides, they’ll soon give me something for that.’

  Simon had one foot on the ground when Stern caught him by the shoulder.

  ‘Remember what you told Dr Tiefensee when he asked you to imagine the most wonderful place in the world?’

  ‘Yes.’ Simon smiled.

  ‘We’ll go there when this is all over. You and me and Carina. We’ll go to that beach and buy ourselves the biggest ices in the universe, OK?’

&nb
sp; Simon smiled even more broadly and waved before he set off across the car park. Although it wasn’t far to the hospital entrance, Stern watched him almost hypnotically every step of the way. He started the engine, but not in readiness to drive away; he wanted to be able to reach the boy’s side within seconds in an emergency. The grounds of the Seehaus Clinic did not, of course, hold any dangers of the kind Simon had been exposed to in the last few hours, but Stern’s anxiety didn’t subside until the automatic doors slid open and the boy disappeared into the hospital building.

  He glanced at his watch and reversed out of the parking space. It was six forty-six. He would have to hurry if he didn’t want to be late.

  24

  ‘OK, he’s here. What do you want me to do?’

  The bearded man in the canteen stirred the froth on his latte macchiato as he watched Simon making for the lifts.

  ‘I guess he’s going straight to his ward,’ he said into his mobile. He took the long coffee spoon from his glass and was about to lick it when he stiffened.

  ‘Just a moment,’ he said, interrupting the voice on the other end of the line. ‘They’ve spotted him. A doctor’s talking to him. I reckon all hell will break loose in a minute.’

  He removed his huge paws from the fluted coffee glass and stood up for a better view of the doctors and nurses clustering round the boy. Voices were raised. The hospital was buzzing with activity.

  ‘Really? You’re sure?’

  The agitated voices of the group in front of the lifts increased in volume. So much so that the man had difficulty in concentrating on the instructions he was receiving over the phone. He asked the other party to speak louder. Eventually he got the message and grunted an affirmative.

  ‘All clear. Will do.’

  Picasso hung up, leaving his coffee untouched.

  25

  ‘Teeeeeeeee pleeeeeeeee …’

  To her ears, the unnaturally drawn-out words could have come from a tape recorder playing at half speed. They were quite unintelligible.