Passenger 23

by Sebastian Fitzek

  All he found in this cabin, the third of his ‘breakfast shift’ today, were the inevitable traces of the night: crumpled sheets, a used water glass on the bedside table, jeans and underwear scrunched up on the sofa. But no gnawed chicken wings on the carpet, while even the bathroom looked like what you might expect from a civilised person. In the previous cabin, by contrast, the old fart had quite clearly got the flannel mixed up with toilet paper. Nor had he found it necessary to use the loo brush after doing his business. This impertinence had been the last straw that prompted Tiago’s revenge. He really ought not to waste any time in his ‘work’, but the minute it had taken to remove the skid marks from the flannel with the pensioner’s toothbrush was worth it.

  Such a shame I won’t be there when the old fart is slobbering all over the bristles tonight, Tiago thought in amusement as he opened the cupboard housing the built-in safe.

  There were only a handful of hotel safe systems and Tiago knew them all. It usually took him a while to crack the general code, but here on the Sultan that wasn’t necessary. Here you opened the safe with the cabin key. It couldn’t get any better.

  ‘What have we got here, then?’ he asked himself as he examined the school ID card, which he’d found amongst cheap fashion jewellery, an iPod and some European cash. The young girl with her dyed hair and defiant stare suited the black jump boots and exclusively sombre clothes hanging here in the wardrobe. He read the name: Lisa Stiller.

  If I had a fifteen-year-old daughter I wouldn’t let her have a nose stud, Tiago thought. He was conservative in such matters. The body of a woman, especially that of a girl, was sacred to him. He even regarded pierced ears as abuse, to say nothing of tattoos and piercings elsewhere.

  With the palm of his hand Tiago stroked the felt-lined bottom of the safe and came across a brand-new screwdriver and small spray can.

  Black paint?

  Surely Lisa wasn’t planning on decorating the ship with graffiti?

  He put the can back and counted the cash. One hundred and forty euros and sixty cents. Probably the sum of her pocket money. As she didn’t have a purse she probably hadn’t even counted it, but Tiago wouldn’t take more than ten. Never more than ten per cent was his golden rule. And never personal objects which, in the worst-case scenario, could be traced back to their owners. When the sums were little the victims always imagined they’d mislaid the money themselves.

  ‘You must have lost it, darling. Why would a thief leave your watch, all your jewellery and a large wad of money?’

  It took a bit longer his way, but the Tiago method was foolproof. His passage in the inner cabin cost him $2,400 for the Cadiz–Oslo–New York legs, and so far he’d pocketed $2,200. By the time he changed ships in New York and set sail for Canada, he’d have a further $2,500. Not bad if your expenses were zero and you could live your life on a permanent holiday like a millionaire.

  Tiago took two five-euro notes. As he was putting back the rest of the money he noticed an envelope leaning upright in the right-hand corner of the safe.

  Another financial cushion? Perhaps a present from granny for the trip?

  Overcome by curiosity he opened the padded envelope. At that moment an unexpected noise made him aware of an unforgivable error.

  An error he’d made while entering the cabin and which he ought to have realised the moment he’d had the school ID in his hands, if not earlier. How could I be so stupid? Tiago thought before diving over the bed towards the balcony.

  But he was too slow.

  No teenager travels on a cruise ship alone!

  The connecting door, which he hadn’t checked, opened and he had no time to hide on the balcony to avoid being caught by the cleaning lady, who at that moment entered the cabin and who…

  … was drunk?

  Crouching on all fours behind the tall bed, Tiago watched what was happening with the help of the mirror set above the desk next to the television.

  The way the chambermaid, with her white housecoat and archaic-looking bonnet, had staggered into the room, Tiago’s initial thought was that she must have been drinking.

  Then he saw the two men behind her, saw the fist of one of them hit her in the back, which is why the young woman lost her balance and as she fell hit her head on the door of the cupboard he’d opened.

  19

  Anouk’s cabin reminded Martin of a delivery room in a modern hospital, in which anything that could possibly make patients think of medicine and illness was replaced by bright, everyday materials.

  The floor was laminated, but the way it was embossed made it look just like real parquet. The walls were the hue of a well-stirred latte macchiato, and visitors were able to sit on a sand-coloured leather sofa instead of the ubiquitous hospital wooden chairs. Dimmed ceiling spots bathed the cabin in a soft, pastel light.

  Within this setting, the height-adjustable hospital bed gave the impression it had been wheeled into a five-star hotel room by accident and looked completely out of place here, in spite of the power strip in the wall behind the bed with numerous sockets for medical devices, connections for oxygen, compressed air and telephone, as well as a red emergency button within the eleven-year-old patient’s reach.

  Anouk Lamar was sitting on the middle of the bed with her knees up to her chest, seemingly unaware that she was no longer alone. She was wearing a simple nightshirt, fastened at the back, and white cotton stockings. She hadn’t changed position since Martin and Elena had entered the room. Her head was turned away from them, looking right to the external wall in which a porthole was framed by yellow curtains. The occasional wave sloshed up, creating that washing-machine effect typical of cabins just above the waterline.

  Martin doubted that Anouk was staring at the drops on the glass, or anything else for that matter. He didn’t have to look at her face to know that she was lost in her own thoughts and gazing right through everything in her line of vision, while scratching her right forearm with stoical regularity.

  Her mere presence filled the room with an oppressive hopelessness, so weighty you could almost touch it. Sometimes Martin wished he had less experience, hadn’t looked into so many empty faces to know first hand that there was no scalpel or chemotherapy in the entire world able to completely remove the cancer-like tumour that had established itself in this girl’s soul after the hell she’d been through. In such cases psychologists and doctors were like engineers in Chernobyl or Fukushima. They could never get rid of the problem altogether, merely mitigate the consequences of the catastrophe.

  ‘Hi, Anouk. I hope we’re not disturbing you,’ he greeted the eleven-year-old girl in her native English. ‘My name is Dr Schwartz,’ he introduced himself and noticed the doctor looking at him in astonishment. Bonhoeffer couldn’t have shown her the case files or she’d have known that he had the title of doctor, although he set very little store by it. It was a rare exception for him to be using it today. He hoped that Anouk would find it easier to accept the presence of a second doctor rather than an investigator trained in psychology who wanted to root around in her past.

  ‘We haven’t come to examine you again,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Anouk didn’t react. No change in position, expression or gestures.

  But her scratching got a little harder.

  ‘She does that all the time,’ Elena whispered.

  ‘Let’s talk out loud,’ Martin said kindly. ‘And in English.’

  If he was right, Anouk was shutting herself off inside her own world, and you only reinforced this isolation process if, in the presence of a traumatised person, you behaved as if they weren’t there. He knew this from other emotionally shattered people who he’d spent a very, very long time with.

  He knew it from himself.

  ‘I know you want to be alone at the moment and not talk to anybody.’

  Especially not to a man.

  ‘But I just wanted to check the equipment in this room.’

  It was a crude attempt to suggest that she need hav
e no fear of any probing questions. His experiences as an investigator had taught him never to pressurise traumatised witnesses. Victims of sex crimes, particularly children, were in a state of unbearable inner turmoil. On the one hand they wanted to be helped and see the perpetrator punished. But they also wanted the horrific event erased from their memory.

  Martin looked at the ceiling, where a dark, flat screen hung from a swivel arm. He pointed up.

  ‘Why’s that not on?’

  ‘The television?’ Elena asked, confused. ‘I, well… I somehow thought it was wrong.’

  Martin nodded. An understandable error of judgement.

  Normally you shouldn’t leave a child alone for too long in front of the television. But this was anything other than a normal situation. Whenever he’d had to look after a child in witness or victim protection, which had happened a few times, the first thing he’d done in the safe house was to switch on the box, to take away the little one’s fear.

  He got the doctor to hand him the remote control and chose, from the extensive on-board menu, a children’s channel with animated films.

  ‘Do you like Ice Age?’ he asked. No reply. Anouk remained as silent as the television that he’d muted.

  Elena raised her eyebrows at Martin.

  Later he’d explain to her that traumatised victims suffered complications for a shorter time if they were given the opportunity to take their mind off things as soon as possible after having been rescued. Studies showed that soldiers who were given Game Boys after horrendous missions were less likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorders than those who took part in psychotherapeutic discussions too quickly.

  ‘In the few pictures taken of her by the on-board photographer she was often seen holding a sketch pad. So I left paper and pencils there,’ Elena said. ‘But it didn’t go well.’

  No wonder. It was far too early for gestalt therapy, even if the idea of letting Anouk draw the gruesome images out of her mind wasn’t in itself a bad one.

  ‘It’s fine if you don’t want to draw,’ Martin said. ‘You don’t have to do anything here you don’t want to.’

  From her face, Elena blew a strand of hair that had come away from her plait. ‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said, going to the bed and pushing the sleeve of Anouk’s nightshirt up to the elbow. Indifferent to what was going on, the girl allowed her to do it. Martin could see a thin plaster above the left wrist.

  ‘She tried to stab herself in the forearm with the pencil.’

  Left forearm. So she’s right-handed, Martin thought, making a mental note.

  ‘Thank God I’d only just popped into the bathroom.’ With her chin Elena indicated an almost invisible door in the wall beside the bed. ‘To get some water for her tablets. I came back and saw Anouk harming herself.’

  ‘Did you stab or scratch yourself?’

  Once again he directed his question to the girl. Once again he got no response.

  ‘Hard to say,’ was Elena’s attempt at an explanation. ‘She was holding the pencil like a knife, it was more of a level movement.’

  To cut out the pain?

  Martin shook his head. Now wasn’t the time for a diagnosis. The key thing now was to win Anouk’s trust.

  ‘I’m actually only here to test the button,’ Martin said, pointing to the power strip behind her bed. ‘This is a worry button. You can press it any time you feel worried or need help. Okay?’

  She blinked, but Martin didn’t take this as a sign of understanding. And yet it was absolutely vital that this initial phase of trust-building was successful. Anouk had to know that her situation had changed for the better and that she wasn’t on her own here any longer, not at any time, not even when there was nobody else in her cabin.

  ‘Shall we try it out?’ Martin said.

  Elena nodded to him when he put his hand on the red alarm button on the power strip behind Anouk’s hospital bed.

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether you’re frightened, in pain, feel sad or just want to talk to someone, you only have to press this and…’

  Martin pushed the button, it made an audible click and almost immediately Elena’s mobile rang, which was in a belt pouch tied around her black trousers.

  Anouk flinched and pulled her legs up tighter to her bent-forwards torso.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ Elena said, stroking her hair tenderly. ‘I told you about this before. The alarm activates my mobile. When it rings I’ll come straight to you, any time day or night.’

  ‘All you have to do it press the worry button above your bed,’ Martin added. ‘It works just as you saw.’ Martin gave Elena a sign to go. He wouldn’t be able to achieve any more at the moment.

  ‘I’ll be right back, sweetheart, okay?’ She stroked Anouk’s cheek softly then followed him out of the cabin.

  ‘It’s irresponsible,’ Martin said once they’d closed the door behind them. He spoke in a hushed tone, even though he didn’t think Anouk would be able to hear them out here in the anteroom. ‘She’s got serious injuries—’

  ‘For which she’s being given painkillers and ointments.’

  ‘—and needs to get to a hospital as quickly as possible.’

  ‘She is in a hospital,’ Elena insisted. ‘The Sultan is better equipped than many city hospitals.’

  ‘Only without the appropriately trained personnel.’

  The doctor voiced her protest. ‘I lived in the Dominican Republic for three years and in the city hospital there treated more refugee children from Haiti who’d been raped than the head of the Hamburg women’s clinic will see in a lifetime. And from what I’ve just witnessed, Doctor Schwartz, you seem to be very familiar with post-traumatic stress disorders. Listen, I’m not trying to defend what’s happening here. But do you really think that round-the-clock treatment by the two of us is so bad for the child?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ was on the tip of Martin’s tongue, but he didn’t manage to get the words out because all of a sudden Elena’s mobile rang.

  ‘Anouk,’ she said, surprised.

  The girl had pressed the worry button.

  20

  ‘There’s no need to be afraid, we just want to ask you one little question,’ said the man who’d knocked the chambermaid to the ground in Lisa’s cabin. He spoke English with a harsh accent.

  The young woman, whose bonnet was no longer perched on her black hair, blinked in fear after she’d picked herself up again. She was terribly thin; her arms, which she crossed protectively against her chest, were no thicker than a broom handle. From his vantage point, hidden behind the bed, Tiago could only see her profile and back in the mirror on the wall. She was stooped, her bony shoulders tensed. Her vertebrae poked through her top like pearls on a necklace.

  Tiago didn’t know the cleaning lady, or at least he hadn’t noticed her before, but that wasn’t a surprise given the army of people working aboard this ship.

  Nor did he have any idea who the two men threatening her were.

  Judging by the golden stripes on his uniform the guy doing the talking was the classic type of low-ranking officer you found on ships – a navigator or engineer – while the taller and more muscular of the two was wearing green trousers and a short-sleeved, grey polo shirt. He didn’t have shoulder pads or stripes, which marked him out as a member of the crew, probably a workman who wouldn’t attract attention if he came up to the passenger area for a while to carry out repairs.

  Paradoxically, both of them looked like friendly chaps. Colleagues smiling in travel brochures with their smooth, tanned skin, freshly shaven faces and clean fingernails. The worker had a broad pout which softened his harsh features, whereas it was the officer’s mischievously tousled blond hair that made him look like a Californian surfer rather than a thug.

  It’s easy to be fooled.

  ‘I hear you’ve been spending quite a bit of time in Hell’s Kitchen recently,’ the officer said, gesturing with his finger to the worker, who put the chambermaid in an armlock.

&
nbsp; ‘Is there anything down there I ought to know about?’

  The hunched woman shook her head, frightened.

  The officer bent his knees to bring him eye-to-eye with the chambermaid again.

  ‘Really? So you’re playing the innocent, are you, whore?’ From close up he spat in her face.

  ‘She’s lying,’ the taller man declared, pushing her arm further upwards, which elicited a howl of pain.

  Like the officer, the worker spoke with a strong German, Swiss or Dutch accent. Tiago found it difficult to place the two men with geographical accuracy. In a similar way the chambermaid, with her dark, cinnamon-coloured skin, could be from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh or somewhere else.

  ‘Are you taking the piss, Shahla?’ the officer asked.

  The young woman shook her head without wiping away the spittle running down her cheek.

  ‘You’re assigned to deck 7. This week you shouldn’t be cleaning in the staff area at all.’

  ‘Was changed. Not know why,’ she stammered.

  ‘The rumours suggest something different. The rumours suggest you’re looking after a stowaway in Hell’s Kitchen.’

  She opened her eyes even wider. ‘No!’

  Something she ought not to have said. The officer’s fist buried itself in her stomach.

  The noises Shahla made sounded as if something far too big was trying to battle its way out from right inside her, while at the same time she tried to avoid any jerky movements which might put her shoulder out.

  Dios mío, what am I doing? wondered Tiago, who was scarcely better equipped than the battered chambermaid to take on the two clearly experienced fighters.

  He watched in horror as the officer reached for the water glass on the bedside table and smashed it on the edge. With a devilish smile he picked out a piece the size of a bottle top from the shards. Then he walked past Shahla and his accomplice into the bathroom, returning soon afterwards with a dressing gown belt.