He spends the night in the living room with a view of the villa. When he hears the beep, he takes the clothes out of the washing machine and puts them in the dryer next to it. A short while later he slips into his clothes, still warm, and feels great. His tiredness is behind him.
He makes some coffee, fills a cup, and sits down in his chair in the sitting room. The thin curtains hide him, but give him a clear view of the villa.
And that’s how he spends the morning, and that’s how he sees the police coming and digging up the grave. He doesn’t know who called the police or what’s going on over there. But he smiles at their perplexity when all they salvage is the sleeping bag. And then he sees him and can’t believe that he sees him. He sits up and presses the binoculars to his eyes till it hurts. He’s got a very good memory. Even without the suit or the trash bag in his arms he recognizes him right away.
There you are
, he thinks and says quietly:
“Lars. What on earth are you doing? What are you doing, son?”
Only after the police have driven away from the property does he lower the binoculars and leans back, puzzled. He doesn’t know what’s going on here, but he’s gradually starting to enjoy the mystery. He feels excited. He’s breathing too quickly, his blood pressure is rising, a flicker runs through his chest like an electrical impulse. He tries to stand up, twinges race up and down his left arm. All his muscles tense with a spasm, and long before he can get to his feet his heart convulses. He slumps to one side and stops breathing. He’s gone.
I
’M WOKEN
by a dull knocking, and for a moment I’m completely disoriented. Everything around me is gray; at irregular intervals floodlights cut through the darkness and fray the fog. The memory rushes in at me, so that I have to shut my eyes and breathe deeply in and out. My blackouts last longer and longer these days. I really need to sleep for twelve hours, the short pauses aren’t enough.
The knocking again.
A man appears out of the fog. Yellow flat cap, green army jacket, and an orange tracksuit. Flip-flops on his feet. He stops by one of the rubbish bins and throws in a bag. After that he pees in the meager grass next to it, as if my car and I didn’t exist. Perhaps he thinks I’m asleep, perhaps he doesn’t care. When he’s finished, he scratches his backside and disappears back into the fog.
I take my cramped hand off the ignition key, I was prepared for anything. Two taillights glow red in the darkness, a minivan pulls out of the rest area, and again there’s that knocking from the trunk. It lasts for exactly twenty-four seconds. When it’s quiet again I get out and take a look.
His forehead is covered with blood. Somehow he’s managed to get his head free. I leave the trunk open for a few minutes so the stench can escape, then duct-tape his head to the spot. It’s the third day. He isn’t getting any water from me, he hasn’t earned it.
A
DAY HAS PASSED
since the police dug up the empty grave by the villa. Within that short time winter crept out of its hiding place and rolled over the country. Within a few hours the temperature fell below zero, snow settled over the land like a whispering sheet and produced a disconcerting silence—the noise of traffic has disappeared, there’s no sound of birds, people talk to each other more quietly.
There’s a state of emergency in southern Germany, the railway has stopped, all flights have been canceled, and the schools are closed. In the north and west there are hurricane-force winds, while a new ice age is spreading across the east. Berlin has turned overnight into a suffocating dream in white. The traffic drags itself through the city like a wounded animal. The pavements are deserted, hardly anyone risks going outside, and in the morning hours the streetlights are just shimmering yellow smears that can’t hold their own against the gloom.
Frauke isn’t very interested in this disastrous state of affairs. She sits shivering on a fallen tree trunk with a newspaper under her bottom. Krumme Lanke lies frozen at her feet, covered with a layer of snow in which there are no tracks to be seen. The only movements in the snowed-in landscape are ravens flapping silently from one branch to another.
Frauke feels as if the weather is reflecting her inner state. She flicks her cigarette away and stamps her feet on the spot a few times. Her watch says a quarter to ten. Frauke is slowly getting nervous.
I probably just want to go home
, she lies to herself, and takes the next cigarette from the pack. She spent last night in a hotel, although Gerald told her she could stay over at his place. Frauke had thanked him, no. She has enough complications on her plate without adding Gerald to the mix.
After the police withdrew from the villa site on Saturday morning, at Frauke’s request Gerald went with her to a café. Frauke could sense how
irritated he was. First of all she’d turned up on his doorstep in a complete state the previous evening asking for help, then a few hours later she threw him out of the villa in front of her friends, before turning up again at his office the following morning and pouring it all out—about some dead woman who’d been nailed to a wall, and the murderer, who had bought an apology for himself. “He wanted what?”
“He wanted us to apologize for him, to the dead woman.”
“And then?”
“Then he wanted us to get rid of the evidence.”
“And you couldn’t tell me that last night?”
“I wanted you to hear it from us all. I thought if they got to know you they’d find it easier to talk about it. But that’s not what happened.”
“I know, I was there.”
“If I’d known that Kris and Wolf were burying the corpse in our garden, I’d have—”
“They did what?”
“The corpse is in our garden now, that’s why I’m here.”
Gerald was confused. He let Frauke know that she was putting some very serious accusations on the table here. Frauke waved a dismissive hand.
“We have nothing to do with the murder. You have to understand that, Gerald, he threatened us all, what were we supposed to do?”
Gerald leans forward.
“Frauke, you realize this all sounds a bit—”
“Crazy?” Frauke finished his sentence for him. “I know. But I can show you everything.”
Gerald drove to Kreuzberg with Frauke to look at the apartment where Wolf had supposedly found the dead woman. Gerald never actually said the word
supposedly
, but Frauke heard it in his voice.
The apartment was deserted, there wasn’t even any dirt on the floor, and there was no photomural on the wall either. When Frauke pointed out the two holes, Gerald was unimpressed and said there wasn’t much he could do with that. Outwardly Gerald looked interested, but Frauke saw that he was getting annoyed.
He probably has the stories I told him about my mother running through his head, and wondering if I’ve got a screw loose too
.
“There’s nothing here,” Gerald observed. “All we’ve got is a deserted apartment. You’ve got to give me more than that.”
“The dead woman’s in our garden now, is that enough for you?” Frauke shot back testily.
She was aware that Gerald would already have waved anyone else away long ago and told them not to take so many drugs next time. Frauke wasn’t just anyone else.
“What do you want from me?” said Gerald.
“I want you to dig up the body.”
“Frauke, I can’t do that without a crime scene.”
“Then I’ll report a crime. I’ll turn myself in if you want.”
Gerald sighed. He looked around the deserted flat.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Gerald drummed up two squad cars and relayed Frauke’s self-denunciation. If he had taken the correct legal course, he would have had to talk to the relevant investigating judge to obtain an approved search warrant of the house and property. It would have taken too long. Gerald wanted to put the whole business behind him as soon as possible, so he deliberately did without the support of other agencies. He only wanted to have his own team along because he wouldn’t have to explain anything to his men. They didn’t ask questions.
They had found nothing but a sleeping bag in the grave. Gerald was relieved when Wolf signed the search agreement without a moment’s hesitation. Frauke’s housemates could’ve legally made things extremely unpleasant for him.
“I want to apologize to you,” said Frauke to Gerald when they were sitting in the café half an hour later. “I was sure the woman was in the grave.”
“Your friends struck me as very convincing.”
“Gerald, they’re lying.”
“Yes, perhaps, but they are your friends.”
Frauke pressed her lips together as if to force herself to be silent. She avoided Gerald’s eyes. She had no idea how to convince him.
The snow blew against the window in horizontal gusts, the rattle sounded like tiny fingers drumming against the glass. But Frauke couldn’t see or hear any of it. Her thoughts tumbled over each other.
Concentrate, convince him
. She wanted to suggest that Gerald should take a closer look at the trunk of Wolf’s car.
And what about the sleeping bag? Why did Gerald leave it behind?
So many ideas came to Frauke in retrospect.
They could test the holes in the walls for traces of blood …
They could do a lie detector test …
“I don’t get any of this, I just don’t get it.”
“If you like I could talk to your friends again.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Really, I can—”
“You don’t believe me, Gerald, be honest.”
He stared into his coffee and said nothing. Frauke dug around in her pocket, then set a photograph down on the table. Until a minute before she hadn’t planned to bring her mother into this.
I’ve got to protect her
.
“I’ve still got this,” she said.
“Who’s that?”
“My mother. There were three photographs in the paper bag. One of them shows Tamara’s daughter, sitting on a step outside the kindergarten, the other photograph is a picture of Lutger, he’s Kris and Wolf’s father. He’s filling up his car. But this one …”
Frauke tapped the photograph.
“… this one the killer took at my mother’s house.”
“Doesn’t your mother live in that clinic in Spandau?”
“In Potsdam. She has a two-room apartment there. Do you get what I’m trying to say? Meybach sat opposite my mother, he must have talked to her. He was there.”
Gerald didn’t pick up the photograph, he touched it with his index finger, that was all.
“Why didn’t he send you a picture of your father?” he asked.
Frauke looked at him as if he’d made a joke.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No, no, I’m quite serious, why did he take the trouble to seek out your mother?”
“How should I know?”
Gerald pushed the photograph over to her. A small gesture, but Frauke nearly recoiled.
I’ve only known him for two years, and I can still read him like a book
. The gesture told her everything.
He thinks anyone could have taken the picture. Even me
.
“My mother is the only one who knows what Meybach looks like,” Frauke said, and couldn’t help the fact that her voice sounded furious. “My mother sat opposite this murderer, Gerald, she’ll remember. If you talk to her and do a composite, then—”
Gerald suddenly slammed his hand down on the table, and Frauke immediately shuts up.
“Listen to me,” he said quietly, “just so that we really understand each other. I really like you, I’m entirely on your side, but I’ve already gone too far out on a limb. Things could get pretty complicated for me. I was at your house, and you threw me out; I looked at an abandoned flat with you, and then sent my men to your garden without a warrant, so that they could dig up a damned hole. And now you want me to go to a clinic and question a woman who’s been mentally disturbed for more than a decade?”
Silence had suddenly fallen around them. Gerald hadn’t noticed that his voice was getting loud toward the end. He hadn’t planned to let himself go. Frauke’s face told him everything. He had lost her. The people went on with their conversations. Frauke picked the photograph off the table and put it in her pocket.
“Frauke, I didn’t mean—”
“You’re right,” she said and got to her feet. “You’re far enough out on a limb.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, where are you going?”
“Where do you think I’m going? I’m going to see my mentally disturbed mother and ask her who took that picture of her,” Frauke replied, buttoning up her overcoat and leaving the café.
It’s a quarter past ten, and Frauke can’t feel her legs any more. The floor at her feet is scattered with cigarette butts. She knows that if she smokes another one she’ll throw up. One of the ravens lands a few yards away from her in a cloud of snow on the Krumme Lanke. It hacks twice at the ice, ducks down and flies away again. Frauke sees it disappearing, and the landscape is motionless and silent once more.
As a child she thought all ravens were guardian angels in disguise. When she thinks about it now she doesn’t know where she got that idea from. But she does remember how good it made her feel. Every time she saw a raven she felt protected and safe.
Her right hand grips the wooden handle in her coat so tightly that it hurts. She bought the knife early this morning in a household supply store on Schlossstrasse. It has a double blade and sits nicely in the hand.
No raven will protect me today. Today I’ll protect myself
. Frauke looks at her watch again. In the distance she hears the roar of an engine. Road maintenance is on its way and will soon drive past her. Frauke takes the pack of cigarettes out of her coat. The first drag makes her retch, after that it’s better.
One more cigarette can’t hurt
, she thinks and stares so intently across the ice that the landscape melts and flickers before her eyes like a misty dream.
After leaving Gerald sitting in the cafe, Frauke drove to Potsdam through the snow, registered as a visitor, and walked into the rear wing of the clinic where her mother had her apartment. She felt as if she were in a waking dream. In all those years she hadn’t been alone here once. It would have seemed wrong.