The Oath

by Klaus-Peter Wolf

  She smelled a chance for herself and nodded. ‘I’ll take care of it. What is it?’

  ‘Be proud that I’ve chosen you. If you show you’re worthy, then you can be my helper.’

  I won’t be able to snatch Ubbo Heide myself, he thought. But what could convince him more than a confessed murderer who’s changed sides and joined us?

  *

  The detention centre in Aurich was closed. It no longer met the security standards and there weren’t enough funds to renovate it. Since its closure, the East Frisian officers had to drive to the jails in Lingen or Oldenburg after arresting suspects.

  The increased distance made it a drain on resources.

  It was Wilhelm Kaufmann’s wish to be locked up in Lingen. He looked composed. His jacket hung over the back of the chair. He wore civilian clothes, but to Ann Kathrin they looked something like a uniform.

  He knew that he was safe here in pre-trial detention. He placed his hands on the table, as if in prayer, and breathed through his nose. It sounded to Ann Kathrin like wheezing, as if he had trouble getting air or was getting a cold. However, he exuded a calm, relaxed air.

  She hung her bag over the back of the chair. ‘You seem,’ she said, ‘like a traveller who had a heavy burden and is now glad to have put it down somewhere.’

  ‘Very well put, Ms. Klaasen. That is how I feel. As if my burdens have been lifted.’

  ‘Because you stabbed Birger Holthusen? Or because you escaped with your life?’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘Here in detention I feel so oddly free, as if I’ve had a great victory.’

  She sat down next to him and folded her hands. To an outsider it looked as if she were imitating his posture. She did things like this unconsciously, as if she could better put herself in the other person’s shoes.

  Kaufmann did, in fact, register it.

  ‘Maybe it’s all over for you, but not for us. We still have a murderer out there. But we know now what he looks like, and that he has a prisoner. Svenja Moers. You could help us save this woman and several other people from a terrible fate. If we don’t stop him, he’ll keep on killing.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right, Ms. Klaasen. He’ll keep on killing. It will be difficult for you when the Birger Holthusen story goes public. How will he feel then? As someone who beheaded two innocent people. My God, how could he possibly turn this thing around?’ Kaufmann looked at his fingers and continued, ‘No, he can’t. At best he can try to make people forget.’

  ‘Make people forget?’ Ann Kathrin asked. ‘By distracting with new murders?’

  ‘Yes, and by denying what happened. The whole thing must make him furious. How will you even publicise it? Is the press informed?’

  ‘They know about the dead man on Langeoog. But they don’t know everything.’

  ‘He’ll go crazy if he reads it in the papers.’

  ‘Yeah. I hope that we’ll catch him before that.’

  ‘Do you have a plan?’

  She looked him in the eye now. He could handle her stare.

  ‘You play an important role in our plan, Mr Kaufmann.’

  He smiled and didn’t lower his gaze.

  Ann Kathrin reached behind herself and fingered her purse. Then she took one more deep breath and explained. ‘Birger Holthusen thought you were the culprit. He was afraid that you would kill him too. And that’s why he went for you. Right? He just wanted to get in first.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s exactly how it was.’

  ‘And we also suspected you. In fact, there were many factors counting against you.’

  He didn’t stop smiling, as if he were proud of it. She asked herself if he knew where she was heading.

  ‘You also saw the killer. He was at Ubbo’s reading in Gelsenkirchen. He did an interview with Ubbo in the Intercity Hotel.’

  ‘That tall, thin guy with the sweets? Looked like a marathon runner, but needed a cigarette every couple of minutes?’

  ‘Exactly. Do you know what he’s been doing?’

  Kaufmann shrugged his shoulders. ‘How should I? I don’t know him. I only saw him that one day.’ He thought about it but shook his head again. ‘No, I haven’t had anything else to do with that person.’

  Now Ann Kathrin decided to tell him the whole truth. ‘He’s eavesdropping on us. We even know exactly how he does it. That means we could establish contact with him and—’

  Kaufmann’s smile became a wide grin. He slapped an open hand on the table, pointing at Ann Kathrin with his left index finger, and exclaimed, ‘I’m supposed to be the decoy!’

  ‘Yes, that’s the plan. If we—’

  Kaufmann gestured for her to be quiet. He wanted to prove that he still thought like a real detective who’d caught the scent and was just about to strike.

  ‘You won’t tell the press that Birger Holthusen killed Steffi Heymann and Nicola Billing. No one knows that except us. Instead, you’ll present me to the press as their killer. Then that man, who already looks like the Grim Reaper from a distance, will not only know that he has beheaded the wrong people, he’ll also know that the real culprit is still alive. Then he’ll come to get me.’

  Kaufmann giggled with glee and starting tapping his finger on the table. ‘That’s a crazy, but good idea. And it’ll work. We’ll have him when he comes to get me.’

  Ann Kathrin asked herself where this joy came from. Was it just Kaufmann’s gallows humour?

  She hadn’t imagined it could be so easy. She had been prepared to give him time to think it over, to convince him, but things couldn’t move fast enough for Kaufman.

  Her own experience told her that people who said yes quickly also backed out quickly. That’s why she remained cautious. ‘Of course we don’t have to tell the press anything. We don’t want to cause harm to you. Something always sticks. We could keep the press out of it completely. After all, he’s listening to us.’

  Kaufmann whistled through his teeth. ‘That’s good. That’s very good! And how do we want to set the trap? He won’t just walk in here to finish me off.’

  ‘First I wanted to make our offer to you to find out if you were prepared to—’

  ‘Offer? What kind of offer? Ms. Klaasen, I thought you were coming with a request.’

  ‘Well, it is a request. No one would hold it against you if you don’t play along. The whole thing is extremely risky.’

  He pushed back his shoulders and puffed out his chest.

  ‘It’s a deep-seated desire of mine to do this, Ms. Klaasen. I can finally make a meaningful contribution. Now that I’m not a part of the force, I’ll become your most important man. You have no idea how good that feels.’

  Ann Kathrin promised, ‘He won’t know where you are. We’ll put you up at a hotel.’

  He made a sweeping gesture. ‘I’m already in one of your hotels. I don’t consider it charming, but the safety standards are impressive.’

  ‘We don’t have time for jokes, Mr Kaufmann. We can have three, maybe four police officers guard you. Our man will receive clear information from us regarding when and where he can get to you. And that’s where we’ll catch him.’

  Kaufmann pushed back with his feet, making his chair balance on the two back legs. The back of the chair was now at such an angle that the hem of his jacket touched the floor and it looked as though he could fall at any moment.

  ‘I once attended a workshop on a similar topic. It was years ago. A professional decoy from the USA was there and—’

  Ann Kathrin raised her hands, showing her palms.

  ‘I know, I know. The whole thing is highly dangerous, and I can’t advice you to participate with a clear conscience. But I have to ask you these questions.’

  He locked his hands behind his head and leaned back further. Did he want to show her that he was prepared to take risks? He reminded her of a schoolboy at the back of class trying to provoke his teacher by doing tricks with his chair.

  ‘Stop it, Ms. Klaasen, stop it,’ he requested. ‘You’re giving me a
gift.’

  ‘A gift?’

  ‘My life is over anyway. For me, this is the chance to rehabilitate myself.’

  ‘I can’t promise you that you’ll be able to rejoin the police force.’

  ‘That’s not what this is about. If we bring this to an end, no one will say: “That’s Willy over there. Didn’t they let him go because he didn’t have his emotions under control and beat the living daylights out of people every once in a while?” No, they’ll say: “That’s Willy, who helped us catch a dangerous serial killer. He risked his neck for us.” ’

  Ann Kathrin nodded. ‘Yes, Mr Kaufmann, you could become a hero.’

  ‘Well then, I’ll call it a gift. You tell me what’s supposed to happen, when and where. And then you’ll come back for me here.’

  ‘Here?’ She couldn’t believe that he actually wanted to remain in detention. But he thought it was a safe place. For now.

  ‘The only thing that I’m missing here is a good spaghetti carbonara delivery. I’d also like a beer and – it doesn’t have to be oysters, but a plate of seafood and maybe a grilled wolf fish would be really nice.’

  She stood up and took a step closer. ‘That won’t be any problem at all.’ She wanted to put her hand on his shoulder. Sometimes a touch made a conversation more real. ‘We’ll take really good care of you here.’

  He held her hand tight. She didn’t like that and tried to pull it back, but his grip was hard. He looked her in the eyes. ‘For me, good food is as important as a gun. I have to be able to defend myself in case—’

  ‘That’s impossible. It’s against all of the rules.’

  ‘It’s not about the rules. It’s about not having him grab me before your plan becomes reality. He doesn’t care about rules. If we stick to the rules, then he’s far ahead of us.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ann Kathrin said, ‘he probably would have put it like that. I can take you to a hotel, have police in the rooms on either side. And of course you could have a gun there. But here—’

  ‘You have your gun in your bag, right?’ Now he released her hand.

  ‘Yes, I have my service revolver with me,’ she admitted.

  He held out his hand.

  ‘This will never happen again,’ Anna Kathrin said, opening her purse and retrieving it.

  He casually put the gun in his trouser pocket.

  Terrible images raced through Ann Kathrin’s head. A shoot-out in the hallway. An injured guard.

  No, these weren’t premonitions, they were terrifying fantasies. She’d always had a very vivid imagination, even as a child, and over the years she had learned to picture horrific scenes.

  Where would this leave her? She’d given her service revolver to a man who had just admitted to having stabbed Birger Holthusen to death on Langeoog. She’d smuggled a weapon to a man whom they had just recently suspected of being the murderer of Heymann and Stern. What if everything turned once again and it suddenly emerged that he had? How many times had she seen how a tiny piece of information suddenly changed everything, cast everything in a different light?

  She asked herself what Ubbo would think of her for having armed Wilhelm Kaufmann. And then she heard her father’s voice in her head: ‘Trust your instincts, Ann. They’re always faster than reason and usually far more precise.’

  Kaufmann stood up, took his jacket from the back of the chair and held it so that the Heckler & Koch in his right trouser pocket was covered.

  Clever, Ann Kathrin thought. Anyone else would have put the gun in their jacket, but not him.

  Ann Kathrin knocked on the door and a prison guard came in.

  Projecting his voice and using a completely different register from before, Kaufmann said, ‘Thank you for your visit, Detective. You really don’t need to worry. I’m being treated with respect and I want for nothing.’

  She smiled at the guard. ‘Mr Kaufmann would like a food delivery. Can we get that done?’

  The guard grinned and led Willy Kaufmann back to his cell.

  *

  The sight of him made Svenja Moers realise something was different. He was acting like a neighbour who had come asking to borrow some salt, but in reality was hoping to find someone to unburden their heart to. His movements were somewhat feminine without seeming fey. His facial features were softer than usual, almost a little twitchy around the corners of his mouth. He spoke with a voice begging for recognition.

  She remained cautious. She knew how quickly his mood could swing, and maybe this was just another one of his tricks, to scare her. He found pleasure in her fear. He liked her tears, and she wanted to give him as few of them as possible.

  She had an English voice in her head. She couldn’t say where it was from. It said: ‘Don’t feed him.’

  Was it a split part of her personality? Was her soul beginning to crack? Did part of her soul speak the English that she’d learned while on holiday with her parents in Torquay? She’d met her first boyfriend – a boy with beautiful hair and a great body, but who sadly didn’t speak any German – and had spent two weeks falling in love with him and improving her English skills far more than years of memorising vocabulary in school had done.

  Was it his voice that she heard – warning her not to trust him?

  It was as if the memory hit her like a pain from deep inside her body. She’d taken sandwiches, sausage spread and grilled chops and had fed a dog who had followed them. She’d thought it was cute, and it looked half-starved, but it turned out to be a feral, mangy, aggressive animal.

  ‘Don’t feed him,’ Oliver had called, but by then it was already too late. In the end, they were surrounded by four dogs and forced to flee the beautiful, deserted part of the beach.

  Oliver had acted bravely and had fended off the dogs with a stick and by throwing stones. But they had still been followed, for what felt like at least three kilometres.

  At the time she hadn’t planned to kill one of her husbands, and perhaps, she thought, if I had married Oliver, then I would still be a happily married woman with three nearly grown children in Torquay.

  She snapped out of the memory and realised he had brought coffee that he served in two delicate teacups. The smell revived her spirits and memories of much better times.

  She didn’t think about whether he might have drugged it, making her defenceless. He was already in complete control of what she ate anyway.

  She tried the coffee and the feeling of it burning her lips and tongue was fantastic.

  Take what you can get, she thought.

  ‘I have a question,’ he said.

  She looked at him in disbelief. He had a question for her?

  ‘I want to send a message to everyone about how you escaped your just punishment. And I was asking myself how I should do it. How would you do it?’

  His voice was quiet, reserved and completely different from what she was used to from him. That’s precisely what scared her. Would he suggest something terrible to scare her? Something like cutting off her fingers and sending them?

  She thought he was capable of anything.

  But he tilted his head, asked if she thought the coffee tasted good, or if it was maybe too strong, and if she preferred hers with milk or sugar.

  ‘I prefer mine black,’ she said. He silently raised his cup in her direction, took a sip himself, then sniffed at it and whispered, ‘I could send them a letter. But letters are so old fashioned, don’t you think? I mean, who writes letters these days? Besides, it would take too long. I want them to know right away. I want to put them under pressure. The less time they have to think, the more mistakes they will make. I have most of their email addresses. But email is so impersonal and with a little bad luck, they could be flagged as spam and land in the junk mail.’

  She sipped the coffee loudly, buying some time. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Well, what would you do?’

  ‘I’d call them. Voices on the telephone are very direct.’

  He laughed. ‘You’re just trying to tr
ick me, you fucking whore! You know a call can be traced. Besides, I don’t want to call two dozen people. The police would storm this building before I had the third one on the line.’

  ‘I-I really didn’t want—but I’m not—’

  She didn’t dare say it. ‘Not what? Not a criminal? You killed your two husbands. Already forgotten that? I thought we could talk on the same level!’

  The cup began to clatter against the saucer as Svenja Moers’ hands were shaking so much.

  ‘I’ve never sent out a ransom note or message or anything,’ she said.

  He pointed at her with the index finger of his left hand. ‘Message. That’s the important word. It has to be a message and every one of them has to know the others have also received it. What do you think about a video? You could read the text aloud, and I’ll film it and upload it to YouTube. You already have a channel, right?’

  She had no idea what he was talking about. Then she remembered. Of course, she’d uploaded a little holiday clip once. How the hell did he know about that?

  He was pleased, clenched his fist and threw a right hook, as if he were knocking out an invisible opponent. ‘That’s it! We’ll make a video! You’ll say who you are and a little bit about your situation, and then you’ll reel off all the names and tell them I’m coming to get them. Really scare them!’

  ‘And then?’ she asked, no idea where he was headed.

  ‘And then they’ll run to the police and confess because the penalties that our courts have in place are far more lenient than what I’d do with them.’

  Realising again that he was insane, she decided to do what he demanded. At some point, the police would see the clues. Maybe this video would be her chance.

  *

  Weller was in a better mood than the others. Perhaps that was because he had eaten a stuffed bell pepper, washed down with a non-alcoholic beer and rounded it off with an espresso, while the others had eaten nothing.

  Weller knew that this behaviour would not go down well, but the harder they worked, the more intense the hunt for the culprit was, the more he needed to eat. He firmly believed that only a sated person would have enough energy to think through the complicated issues and be able to dense imaginative solutions.