Passenger 23

by Sebastian Fitzek

  At twenty-one, getting involved with a street musician might have been an enticing prospect. But twenty-three years later Irina had also understood that no money, no job and no condom weren’t perhaps the best recipe for a promising future. It was only for his sister’s sake that he’d given the useless brute who called him uncle a job on the Sultan. As far as he was concerned Veith could have wasted the rest of life as a trainer for adolescent street thugs in that Dutch shithole that called itself a martial arts school. His one achievement in life was that he didn’t have a criminal record, but given his penchant for violence, drugs and easy girls, it could only be a matter of time before his accommodation was at the state’s expense.

  ‘I was dealing with the cleaner,’ Veith said, unfazed. He looked as if he was just about to do a photoshoot for a surfing magazine, which only made Yegor even more irate.

  The ship owner pursed his lips and briefly enjoyed fantasising about Ikarus biting into his nephew’s I-have-them-all-on-the-first-date face. ‘Please jog my memory,’ he said. ‘I thought you were employed to help the head of security. Not to torture chambermaids.’

  Not a week passed on a ship without substantial friction, both between the passengers and amongst employees. Yegor had thought it wouldn’t do any harm to have on board someone he could trust to deal with the rough stuff. But he’d also thought that Veith was as blond as he looked. A thug without a brain, easily manipulated.

  How wrong you can be.

  Since the Shahla incident he knew that his nephew was as shrewd as he was unpredictable. Fortunately the girl hadn’t suffered any serious injury, even if she’d be coughing up blood for the next few days. And fortunately the passenger, after she’d established that nothing had been taken from her cabins, had believed the story about the jealous lover/colleague they’d taken into custody.

  ‘Let’s cut the crap,’ his nephew said in a tone that would have earned non-family members a visit to the jaw surgeon. ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, Yegor. But you’re hiding something massive – I’m not interested in what it is.’

  ‘What do you want then?’

  ‘My share.’

  He grinned as if he’d just told a dirty joke. ‘The girl in quarantine, exclusive treatment from our dear doctor, a bonus for the cleaner – keeping all this under wraps seems to be worth quite a lot to you.’

  ‘Are you trying to blackmail me?’ Yegor feigned surprise. In truth, anything else would have surprised him.

  Veith raised his hand apologetically. ‘Hey, I just want to make sure your deal with the Chilean doesn’t go down the pan.’

  Yegor smiled. In his daydream Ikarus was now working his way into his nephew’s nether regions. Veith, who mistook the smile for an answer in the affirmative, bent forwards.

  ‘It’s not meant to be hush money; I want to earn it.’

  Yegor, who’d come up with a plan some time ago, spent a while doing nothing but staring into his nephew’s steel-blue eyes. For twenty seconds all that could be heard in the cabin was the roaring of the air conditioning unit, accompanied by the constant noises that a ship of that size produces as it ploughs its way across the sea. They were travelling at about twenty knots, and the swell had noticeably increased.

  ‘Okay, here’s the deal,’ Yegor said finally, tapping on the photo on the passenger sheet in front of him. ‘Find this Tiago and you’ll get five thousand dollars in cash.’

  Veith whistled like a builder who’s just seen a girl in a miniskirt walk past. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘He raped a young girl.’

  Veith’s expression darkened.

  Yegor would never understand why someone who shoved broken glass into the throat of a helpless young woman regarded himself as better than a paedophile, but luckily he’d never been in the situation where he’d had to engage with the pecking order amongst prisoners.

  ‘The girl in Hell’s Kitchen?’

  ‘Yes, that one.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Eleven.’

  ‘What was that fucker doing in the cabin?’

  ‘The same as you,’ Yegor fabricated. He didn’t believe in the slightest that the South American wannabe Casanova had anything to do with Anouk’s disappearance.

  ‘Like you, he found out where Shahla was working and lay in wait to grill her. He wanted to know how close we were on his heels.’

  The story that Yegor was spinning had holes the Sultan could sink into, but Veith didn’t seem to spot them.

  ‘What about the girl’s parents? Where are they?’ he asked.

  Yegor flicked his hand. ‘Friends of mine. They want to be kept out of it. Just go looking for that fucking bastard.’

  ‘And if I find him?’

  Good question. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to say it out loud.

  Yegor lifted Ikarus from his lap, stood up from the sofa and shuffled over to a sideboard beneath the heavy crystal mirror in the entrance area. He opened the top drawer.

  ‘Be creative!’ he said. Then he checked the cylinder, turned a little lever on the underside of the barrel and handed Veith the revolver.

  32

  Throw me out when you need me. Bring me back in when you don’t need me any more.

  On his way to the prow of the Sultan, Martin couldn’t help think of a riddle he’d read years ago in a book. He couldn’t remember the title, only the answer: anchor.

  He wished the puzzles served up to him by the most recent events on the ship were as easy to solve. But he feared that inspecting the anchor room would merely throw up more questions than answers.

  He began by visiting deck 3, the ship’s official anchor room and essentially its only one. Deck 11 merely housed a small spare anchor, its chains stored outside for aesthetic reasons, visible to everyone who came to the top viewing deck. There was no chance of keeping someone permanently hidden there unnoticed.

  ‘Here we are!’ Elena Beck said. After Martin had followed the ship’s doctor down a narrow, windowless corridor, which took them along the hull behind the musical theatre, they’d reached the steel door marked ‘ANCHOR ROOM’ via a small entrance. Behind it they were met by Bonhoeffer and a deafening noise.

  ‘Why’s it taken so long?’ Martin asked the captain, who for understandable reasons didn’t want to shake his hand. With his fingertips he nervously checked that the plastic cap was sitting properly on his broken nose.

  ‘Long?’ Bonhoeffer looked at his watch.

  It was just after 5 p.m. nautical time and it had taken almost two hours for him to get them access. Elena didn’t have any explanation for this delay either.

  ‘As you can see, we’ve got rather a lot of steam from the boiler at the moment,’ Bonhoeffer shouted. As the prow narrowed, the walls formed an acute angle, like in an attic, and there were no closed windows, just open holes. Given how close they were to the sea here, and that Sultan had now reached its top speed, you had to shout at the top of your voice to be heard over the noise the ship made as it followed its course. Martin felt as if he were inside a steel kettle being bombarded from outside by a water cannon.

  ‘Normally there’s no access here when we’re out at sea,’ the captain said. He went on to explain to Martin that last year a drunken Canadian had managed to climb into the anchor room and let the chains down from the capstan. The anchor had damaged the propeller, gouged a hole in the ship and rendered it completely unsteerable. At the time the Sultan had just filled up with three and a half million euros worth of fuel. What would have happened had the anchor caused a leak in the fuel tank didn’t bear thinking about.

  Today the pisshead was in jail for dangerous infringement of ship security, and since then the doors to the anchor room could only be opened when the liner came in and out of port.

  ‘I had to get my chief engineer to remove the electronic security lock,’ Bonhoeffer concluded. ‘It couldn’t be done any faster.’

  Martin looked around. They’d entered the room on the port side. Turbine-like c
onstructions, possibly generators, covered an area which would have easily accommodated twenty parking spaces. He saw a metal cage, which was used to store the mooring ropes, and several cupboards that looked like fuse boxes with warning stickers indicating high voltage.

  And then, of course, there was the chain. Painted black and huge. Viewed up close it looked like something an enormous macho giant might wear across his chest. Martin could have easily slipped his forearm through the links. And he’d have needed a dozen arms to lift just one of them. ‘Seventy tonnes,’ Bonhoeffer said, knocking on the metal monster as if they were on a sightseeing tour.

  The chain was coiled on a huge, pistachio-coloured metal reel – the chain winch, reminiscent of an outsized train wheel – and then ran down via a slightly smaller winch into a chimney-sized shaft, which at the moment was blocked by the anchor set firmly into the hull.

  Anouk’s drawing flashed through Martin’s mind.

  Through small gaps he could see the choppy water of the Atlantic.

  ‘The anchor itself weighs ten tonnes,’ the captain said, going further into the room.

  As Elena and he followed Bonhoeffer, Martin realised that there were two anchors, one each for the port and starboard sides. The two large chain winches were separated in the middle by a podium, on which sat a box with a number of levers. Each large winch had a metal brake wheel which you had to rotate like a valve if you wanted to let the anchor down or stop it falling.

  ‘What exactly are we looking for here?’ the captain asked on the podium, with his back to the brake wheel for the port anchor. ‘Surely not Anouk’s hiding place?’

  Martin allowed his gaze to wander around the anchor room.

  He was surprised by how clean everything was, almost sterile. Given the prevailing smell in here, he would have expected rust and oil dotted on the floor, or at least signs of weathering from the aggressive salt water, which kept splashing up through the holes. But even in the non-public areas, cleanliness and tidiness were the order of the day. Everything looked as if it had been newly renovated. The walls were painted white, the floor laid with thick rubber mats to stop you from slipping even when it was wet.

  Huge amounts of space.

  But not a place you could survive for weeks. It was draughty, cold and damp. You’d get pneumonia within a week. In any case at least two sailors would enter this room to weigh anchor each time the ship came into port.

  She can’t have been here.

  Elena seemed to share Martin’s unspoken assessment. ‘This is a dead end,’ she shouted. She sounded shrill and several years younger when she had to raise her voice.

  Martin nodded. They’d clearly got carried away. Just idle speculation, he thought, his irritation brewing. Treating a child’s drawing as important evidence was just as foolish as seeing the face of the Virgin Mary in a slice of toast.

  ‘Let’s go.’ As Martin bent down to tie the laces of his boots, which had come undone, he found himself looking below the first step of the platform.

  ‘Where’s the chain?’ he asked Bonhoeffer. The captain looked down at him blankly.

  Martin pointed to the large metal reel to his left. ‘I can only see the few metres that run from the huge wheel to the anchor shaft. Where’s the rest?’

  ‘Right where you’re kneeling,’ Bonhoeffer replied, getting down from the platform. He stamped his foot. ‘Right under here.’

  ‘Is there space down there?’

  Bonhoeffer wiggled his outstretched hand, as if trying to imitate a rocking boat. ‘Depends how much of the chain is hauled in. But there’s always a bit of room. It’s actually a favourite hiding place for stowaways. But they could only last a few days down there, not weeks.’

  ‘Is there access to it?’ Martin asked nonetheless. He rapped his knuckles on the metal plate he was squatting on.

  ‘One deck lower. You can only get in from here if you unscrew the floor panels. Which happens once a year for maintenance,’ said the captain, who was now kneeling beside him. With his blond, tousled hair and the protective cap on his injured nose he resembled Hannibal Lecter. All that was missing were the straitjacket and hand truck he was secured to.

  ‘It’s probably a waste of time…’ Martin said.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Elena contradicted him. ‘What have we got to lose now that we’re here?’

  ‘Just a moment,’ the captain said, getting to his feet. He went over to a metal locker and opened it. Martin expected him to return with a toolbox, but when he came back he was holding a large torch. He kneeled beneath the platform again.

  ‘Found something?’ Martin asked, kneeling again too.

  ‘Maybe. There. Can you see it?’

  Bonhoeffer shone the torch directly below the platform to the spot where the anchor chain disappeared into the deck below the large metal reel.

  ‘What is it?’ Elena asked excitedly.

  ‘Looks like a bag,’ Martin said. The torchlight was reflected by a crinkled surface of brownish plastic.

  33

  Martin stood, walked around the winch and squatted down. Here he was at least a couple of metres closer to the bag-like object stuck to the last visible link of the anchor chain. Lying flat on the ground, he tried to squeeze himself on the cold floor beneath the metal reel.

  Hopeless.

  Either he was too broad or the gap too narrow. He felt like he had that time as a child when a marble rolled under the cupboard and, with his short arms, he hadn’t been able to grab anything but fluff and dust.

  ‘Shall I try?’ he heard Elena ask behind him.

  He looked up to her and nodded. ‘Maybe you’ll have more luck.’ At any rate she was considerably more petite than he was.

  The doctor took off her jacket and blouse, beneath which she wore a white, sleeveless man’s shirt. Before lying on the ground she took off her jewellery, a chain with an oak-leaf pendant and a silver charm bracelet, which she wore on her right arm alongside her diving watch.

  ‘Phew, couldn’t get any tighter,’ she said as she lay on her stomach. She turned her head sideways, pressing her ear to the ground. ‘Nor any louder.’ She inched forwards to the target that Bonhoeffer’s torch was illuminating from the side.

  ‘A little bit to the right,’ Martin guided her, as from her position Elena couldn’t see a thing.

  Finally her fingers were touching the chain. ‘Really does feel like a plastic bag,’ the doctor said, picking at it with her thumb and forefinger. ‘But I can’t work it loose.’

  ‘Stuck fast,’ Bonhoeffer declared. Martin, too, now saw the adhesive strip with which the bag was affixed to the link of the chain. A good tug would be enough to remove it, but Elena needed to crawl further under the platform.

  ‘I’m getting a cramp,’ she moaned.

  Martin tried to encourage her. ‘You’ll do it. Just a few centimetres more. That’s it, excellent…’

  Now the doctor was able to get her whole fist around the bag.

  A large wave slapped against the ship, which sounded as if a twenty-metre carpet were being beaten against the hull. The Sultan listed sideways, sending the chain moving a few centimetres as well.

  ‘This thing can’t go down on its own, can it?’ Elena asked with warranted concern. If the lock was disengaged she’d be yanked along with the chain. ‘I don’t want to end up as anchor grease.’

  Bonhoeffer shouted something about her not having to worry, but Elena had already detached the plastic bag and was scrabbling backwards beneath the platform. When she emerged again, the side of her face that had been in contact with the floor had an oily, black trace.

  ‘It feels slippery,’ the doctor said, standing up.

  With her arm outstretched she held the bag as far away from her body as possible, as if she were putting something revolting in the dustbin. ‘Like there’s jelly in it.’

  She walked past the anchor winch and over to a green crate where she lay the bag on a hard plastic lid.

  ‘That may be evidence,’ Martin
said. ‘We ought to open it in a sealed container.’

  Under an extractor. With safety goggles.

  Elena wasn’t listening to him. She might be a good doctor, but she had no idea of the basics of crime scene work. With nimble fingers she tore off the adhesive strip which the bag was tied with before Martin could intervene. Fortunately his fear proved unfounded; there was no combustion. And yet Elena recoiled as if a splinter had flown into her face.

  ‘Good God!’ she panted, turning away with a hand over her mouth.

  Martin could understand her reaction, as well as that of the captain, who stared in disgust at the bag and its contents, which now poured out unimpeded over the lid of the crate. Maggots. Hundreds of them wreathed and coiled as if plugged in to the mains.

  ‘That’s fucking disgusting!’ Bonhoeffer cursed, stamping on the first of them that had already fallen off the edge to the floor. He grabbed his work mobile and asked someone at the other end to send a cleaner.

  Martin moved a little closer and opened the bag to get a better look inside.

  Well, well.

  The maggots were not the only contents.

  With the tips of his fingers he pulled out a laminated, rectangular piece of paper and wiped the insects off it.

  ‘A postcard?’ the captain asked.

  Part of one at least.

  It was part of an advertising postcard that was distributed for free in every cabin. It was just a torn-off edge, but big enough to see that the image on the front was an aerial picture of the Sultan.

  Martin turned the card over.

  THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GO STICKING YOUR NOSE IN EVERYWHERE…

  He read out the message that had been scrawled in block capitals. It was in English and written with a black biro that was starting to run out of ink.

  ‘What happens?’ Bonhoeffer asked. ‘What does the bastard mean by that?’

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ Martin said as if paralysed by shock. He’d turned around to ask Elena’s opinion. The answer to Bonhoeffer’s question was literally written on her face.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Elena, what’s wrong with you?’ the captain screamed. He too had turned to his fiancée and noticed her disfigurement. The doctor’s face had completely swollen: cheeks, brow, lips. It looked as if her face were about to burst. You couldn’t make out her eyes any more, only the tips of her lashes stuck out of the swollen bulges.