The Child Read online

  ‘You said you’d never given anyone the number.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, give it a rest. I only use the thing in an emergency, and then I do the calling, OK?’

  Like a number of Berlin entrepreneurs, Borchert didn’t put everything through his official books. When he was holding illegal conversations with his accountant, corrupt drinks suppliers or moonlighters, he called them by satellite phone. Now that the others had followed his advice and removed the batteries from their mobiles, the bulky satphone was their only link with the outside world.

  ‘So what is going on?’

  ‘We’ll soon know, mes enfants.’

  Borchert got up from the desk and made room for Stern, who took his place in front of the flat screen. They had all gone up to the boss’s office after the text message came in. It consisted of only one line:

  http://gmtp.sorbjana.org/net.fmx/eu.html

  Nothing happened at first. The browser continued to display the Titanic club’s homepage. Carina read out the message in the bottom left corner: ‘Searching for proxy settings.’

  Then the screen went black. A bright load bar appeared in the centre, and ten seconds later a postcard-sized video field opened up. Stern could see nothing of any significance, just a few erratic specks of light flashing across the dark field at irregular intervals, like shooting stars.

  Borchert turned the loudspeaker boxes up to maximum volume, but without success.

  ‘No picture, no sound,’ he muttered. ‘What the—’

  He was just saying ‘Balls!’ when the satphone rang again. This time the square display signalled ‘Caller unknown’.

  Stern’s stomach rumbled as he picked up.

  5

  ‘You haven’t kept to our agreement.’

  The distortion was slightly modified. The voice sounded rather more human, and, for that very reason, far more menacing than it had on the DVD.

  Stern wondered why the speaker didn’t dispense with a voice changer altogether. He had recognized the voice from those few undistorted words he’d heard at Tiefensee’s practice.

  ‘What gives you that idea?’ he asked evasively. And pointlessly.

  ‘Don’t lie to me – don’t even think of it. You can do that with the police. They’re stupid, I’m not.’

  ‘All right, I did call Engler, but only because I wanted to gain time. I didn’t say anything about the DVD and our agreement.’

  ‘I know. If you had, you’d be dead.’

  The image on the screen jumped violently and changed colour. To Stern it looked as if someone had inserted a tinted filter over the lens. The video shots took on a greenish tinge, and Stern could at last recognize what they were being shown. His stomach muscles tensed.

  ‘I think my night-vision camera gives an excellent picture of the graveyard, don’t you?’ said the voice. ‘You see our friend Engler over there? And his obese colleague Brandmann blithely smoking a filterless cigarette. I’m sitting in the dry, fortunately, while those poor devils are doing overtime in the rain because of you.’

  ‘How did you get this number?’ To Stern, that was the burning question right now.

  ‘My dear lawyer, your naivety really surprises me sometimes. Surely you must have gathered by now how I earn my living. My favourite stamping ground is the Internet. That’s where I offer my wares for sale and where I obtain my information. Ask Borchert how he pays his satphone bill.’

  ‘Online,’ Borchert whispered.

  ‘You see? I’m not only good at covering my tracks on the Net, I’m an expert information-gatherer.’

  ‘Why are you calling?’

  ‘I want to show you something.’

  It was as if a blood vessel had burst behind Stern’s eardrum. He heard a whistling sound that gave way to a roar then an unpleasant sensation of deafness.

  ‘Do you recognize them?’

  Carina clapped a hand over her mouth. The night-vision images on the screen disappeared, and the trio watching now became witnesses to an agonizingly slow camera sequence. It began with a shot of a nursery door being opened by a ghostly hand and ended with a close-up of two little girls asleep. Frieda and Natalie.

  Although Stern hadn’t seen Sophie’s children very often, he was in no doubt that these were her four-year-old twins.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘To show you that I can.’

  The message was all too clear: the voice was omnipresent. It was watching his every step and would not shrink from murdering two little children to get what it wanted. Carina was right: no one this evil and this well-equipped with technological gadgets would need to rely on his services as an informant, so what did the voice really want of him?

  As Stern was asking himself that question the screen displayed a different picture. All he saw at first were some unsteady shots of drab expanses of concrete and asphalt that might have been filmed by someone out jogging. Their quality was very poor and grainy, and Stern couldn’t make out anything much until the camera zoomed in and panned upwards.

  ‘That’s a door over there,’ said Carina. Stern and Borchert spotted it a moment later.

  ‘What is this?’ Stern asked with the satphone to his ear.

  The voice chuckled. ‘Look familiar?’

  ‘No.’ The point of these amateurish shots escaped him.

  Blurred pictures taken by someone running towards a closed door? He hadn’t the least idea of their purpose until Borchert gave a sudden exclamation and thumped his bald head.

  ‘Shit, I don’t believe this!’

  Carina looked alarmed. ‘Why, what is it?’

  ‘Well, Andi?’ Stern demanded.

  Borchert ignored them both. He opened the top drawer of the desk, then the next one down. The bottom drawer yielded what he was looking for: a 9mm automatic.

  ‘What door is it?’ Stern shouted the words so loudly that Simon, who was sitting on the sofa, put his hands over his ears.

  Borchert didn’t answer, just pointed to an illuminated red button on the desk beside the computer. It was flashing. On. Off. On. Off.

  ‘The staff entrance,’ he said hoarsely and pointed to the screen. ‘Someone just rang the bell.’

  6

  Love is …

  Just a greetings card. Nothing else.

  When Borchert wrenched the door open, gun in hand, and dashed outside with the safety catch off, Stern had firmly expected to be the helpless witness to an execution.

  ‘He won’t be on his own, Andi. They’ll kill you. You’ll die if you go out there!’

  Borchert had ignored all Stern’s warnings with an expression that made the lawyer doubt his former client’s sanity. It looked as if his basest instincts had taken over.

  Once outside, however, Borchert found no one to do battle with. Nothing but a laminated, salmon-coloured greetings card.

  Stern fished the envelope off the doormat while Borchert vented his pent-up aggression.

  ‘Come back, you yellow bastard!’ he yelled. ‘Come back and I’ll fill you full of holes!’

  His voice rang out across the rainswept backyard and carried as far as the woods into which the voice’s errand boy had obviously high-tailed it.

  Love is … – Stern opened the card – … when you can tell each other everything. Beneath this vapid preprinted message, in handwritten capitals, were the words ANY NEWS?

  ‘Well, do you like my little token of affection?’

  Anxious not to miss a word the voice uttered, Stern had kept the satphone glued to his ear while they were running downstairs to the staff entrance. Now it had resumed their conversation.

  ‘What’s the point of these theatricals?’

  Disgustedly, Stern spat the words into the phone. He noticed only now how much Borchert’s outburst had pumped him up too. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to yell at his potential murderer, but maybe he had nothing to lose anyway.

  ‘You’re sick.’

  ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’

  Despite its
artificial distortion, the deep voice was as penetrating as the bass notes at a rock concert.

  ‘The first day of your ultimatum is already over. It would interest me to know what you’ve found out.’

  The voice was accompanied through the ether by the distant blare of an HGV sounding its horn.

  ‘Why ask me when you already know everything anyway? The man in the freezer. The child’s head in the dog’s grave. Good God, you’re actually there. What more can I tell you?’

  ‘Something that leads me to the killer of Harald Zucker and Samuel Probtyeszki. Think. What did the boy tell you today?’

  ‘Nothing much.’ Stern cleared his throat. He was already hoarse from talking so much, but he could also have caught a cold in this lousy weather. ‘I don’t know what to make of it myself,’ he went on reluctantly. ‘Simon says he isn’t finished yet. He says he’s going to kill someone else.’

  ‘Give him to me.’

  ‘The boy, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, I want a word with him.’

  Stern looked round. He had followed Carina and Borchert while talking, blind to his surroundings. They were back at the edge of the dancefloor. Simon’s MP3 player had fallen silent, but the sweetish smell of dry ice still lingered in the air, which would soon be thick with the emanations of hundreds of dancers.

  ‘No, that’s not on.’ Stern looked over at Simon, who had seated himself at the champagne bar and was spinning around on a leather-topped bar stool.

  ‘It wasn’t a request.’ The voice became more peremptory with every word it uttered. ‘Call the boy to the phone, I want to speak to him. At once. Or shall I show you the twins again? You wouldn’t want them to wind up like Tiefensee, surely?’

  Stern shut his eyes, squeezing the eyelids together so tightly that the darkness behind them filled with bright flashes. He felt sick at the thought of what he was about to do to Simon.

  7

  ‘Yes, hello?’

  ‘Hello there, Simon.’

  The boy was puzzled by the curious quality of the stranger’s voice.

  ‘Your voice sounds funny. And how do you know my name?’

  ‘Robert told me.’

  ‘Oh, I see. What’s your name?’

  ‘I don’t have one.’

  ‘What do you mean? Everyone’s got a name.’

  ‘No, not everyone. Take God, for instance. He doesn’t have one.’

  ‘But you aren’t God.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I’m quite like him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Because I make people die sometimes. Just like that, understand? People like Carina and Robert. You’re fond of them, aren’t you?’

  Simon opened and closed his left hand. His arm was tingling, and he knew what that meant. The doctors, who always looked worried when he told them about it, carried out tests and passed electric currents through his fingers. He still couldn’t understand, even now, why the nerves on the left-hand side of his body should act up if the tumour was on the right-hand side of his brain.

  ‘You’re scaring me,’ he whispered, clinging to the chromium-plated rail that ran along the edge of the champagne bar’s stainless steel counter.

  ‘I’ll stop it if you answer me one question.’

  ‘And you won’t do anything to them?’

  ‘Word of honour. But you must tell me something in return.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Robert Stern said you want to kill someone else. Is that true?’

  ‘No. I don’t want to but I know I’m going to.’

  ‘OK, so you know it. Who is this man? Who are you going to kill?’

  ‘I don’t know his name.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘I don’t know that either.’

  ‘Think of Robert and Carina. Take another close look at them, please. You don’t want them to die, do you?’

  Simon followed orders and turned to look. Carina and Stern were flanking him at the counter. The satphone had no loudspeaker, so they had moved as close to him as possible in order to catch at least some snatches of the horrific dialogue.

  ‘No, I don’t want them to die.’

  ‘Good, because there’s something you should know. Whether they live or die depends on you. You alone.’

  The tingling in Simon’s arm ebbed and flowed. At the moment it was flowing fast.

  ‘But what am I supposed to tell you? I only know the day it will happen.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘The day after tomorrow.’

  ‘November 1st?’

  ‘Yes. At six o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I’ll meet a man on a bridge, that’s all I know.’

  Simon removed the phone from his ear as the ugly laughter on the line grew louder and louder.

  8

  ‘All right, that’s enough.’

  Stern had retrieved the phone. To him, the voice at the other end sounded as if its owner was having an asthma attack. Then he realized the laughter was directed at him.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Nothing whatsoever. Goodbye.’

  Bang.

  It was like a door slamming inside Stern. He felt cold.

  ‘What do you mean? What am I to do now?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘But when …’ He started stammering in his bewilderment. ‘I mean, when will you call me again?’

  ‘Never.’

  Bang.

  The door was bolted, cutting him off for good from all that was happening here.

  ‘But … I don’t understand. I haven’t given you a name yet.’ Out of the corner of his eye, Stern saw Simon sink down on a sofa and lie back.

  ‘No, that’s why our deal just fell through.’

  ’You won’t tell me what you know about Felix?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But why not? What have I done wrong?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘Then please reinstate the deadline we agreed on. You said I had five days. It’s only Saturday. I’ll get you the name of the murderer and you tell me who the boy with the birthmark is.’

  Stern registered Carina’s look of surprise. He was surprised at the unprecedented note of entreaty in his own voice.

  ‘Oh, I can tell you that now. He’s your son Felix, and he lives in a nice place with his adoptive parents.’

  ‘What! Where?’

  ‘Why should I tell you?’

  ‘Because I’m sticking to our agreement. I’ll take you to the murderer, I promise.’

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t be necessary now.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Think it over very carefully. The man on the bridge the day after tomorrow will be me.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Yes, you do. I’m the one with the appointment in two days’ time. Simon intends to kill me. You’ve just found that out, and that’s enough of a warning for me. I don’t need any more information from you. Goodbye, Mr Lawyer.’

  Stern thought he heard a faint, derisive mwah-mwah before the line went dead.

  9

  The car’s broad-gauge tyres were speeding over the wet asphalt of the dual carriageway. Seated in the back beside Simon, who was asleep, Stern tried to catch a glimpse of what was going on inside the grey blocks of flats gliding past. He longed to see something real and ordinary. Not people opening coffins or cutting dead men down from ceilings, but normal families preparing supper with the TV flickering or friends visiting for the weekend. Sadly, the lights of everyday life were flying past him far too quickly.

  Almost as fast as his own tangled thoughts.

  Criminals. Villains of the first order. Murder, rape, prostitution, torture. They worked their way through all the capital crimes in the penal code …

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Carina, who was sitting up front.

  She was just gathering her abundant hair into a ponytail. Stern hadn’t realized he was thinking aloud.
r />   ‘If Engler’s telling the truth, the murdered men were renowned for their brutality.’

  They left a bloodstained trail the length and breadth of the country. We still haven’t managed to clear up the mess they left.

  ‘Until someone appeared on the scene who murdered the murderers,’ said Borchert, smacking his lips. Already on his third piece of gum since driving away from the Titanic, he’d revealed an unpleasant habit: he stuck the discarded wads to the dashboard.

  ‘Yes, an avenger, if Simon is to be believed. He has eliminated them all in turn. All except the last one. The voice may even have been the boss of the outfit.’

  Stern leaned forward, gripping the nape of his neck. The muscles were bone-hard with tension.

  ‘At least that would explain why he’s so obsessed with hunting for the killer of his pals.’ Borchert looked in the rear-view mirror. ‘The lengths he goes to, it has to be something personal.’

  It would also mean that the biggest psychopath of all is the only person who knows where Felix is – who may even have him in his power.

  Stern kept these thoughts to himself although he guessed that Carina was perceptive enough to share them.

  ‘I have to go on,’ he said quietly, more to himself than the others. ‘I can’t stop now.’

  He knew that his decision was based on two irrational hypotheses. On the one hand, he assumed that Simon’s vision of a murder in the future would prove as accurate as his memories of the past. On the other, he believed the voice’s assertion that his son was still alive. Both were impossibilities even though he already had objective proof of them: the voice knew about the bridge and knew the exact date of the confrontation.

  ‘Do you believe Simon will prove right again?’ Borchert asked as if he’d read Stern’s thoughts. Until now, Stern had thought that only Carina possessed that ability.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Perhaps someone really would appear on that bridge the day after tomorrow. Intent on killing.

  But who?

  Despite everything, Stern was unwilling to believe that Simon was a reincarnated serial murderer who had returned to earth to carry out his final execution. There had to be someone else, a real-life avenger, and he had to find him if he wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Felix.