The Child Read online

‘Simon?’ he called. Soft enough not to wake anyone upstairs, loud enough to be heard by whoever was lying in wait behind the door. He stole along the passage, trying to identify the sounds coming from under the door.

  Stern wished Borchert was with him. Andi would probably have dashed in without a second thought. It was only with considerable hesitation that he cautiously turned the handle and went in. His heart raced – with relief.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Simon was crouching down, swabbing the milk-splashed flagstones with a tea towel. He looked up at Stern with an apprehensive expression and got to his feet. ‘I was thirsty. The mug slipped through my fingers.’

  ‘Not to worry.’ Stern gave a wry smile, trying to banish the tension from his face. ‘Come here.’ He put his arm round the boy and hugged him gently. ‘Did something startle you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A gust of wind?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘The photo.’

  Stern came closer and looked into Simon’s eyes. ‘What photo?’

  ‘This one.’

  Carefully avoiding the milk on the floor, Simon shut the fridge’s stainless steel door. The kitchen abruptly went as dark as the passage outside. Stern turned on the ceiling light above the island.

  ‘It reminded me of something,’ said Simon.

  The snapshot he removed from the door of the freezer compartment must have been taken at least four years earlier. It showed Sophie’s husband smiling rather nervously at the camera as he strove to keep his baby daughters’ heads above the surface of the soapy water in a plastic bathtub.

  ‘What about it?’ asked Stern.

  ‘Tomorrow morning, on the bridge. It’s about a baby.’ The photo in his hand started to tremble.

  ‘Did you dream this, Simon?’

  ‘Mm.’ The boy nodded.

  Click. Click.

  Stern looked up at the ceiling light, red specks dappling his retinas, as Simon continued.

  ‘But I didn’t remember it until I saw the photo. It gave me such a start, I dropped the mug.’

  Stern looked down again. The shape of the milky puddle reminded him of a map of Iceland. Very appropriate, given the sudden chill that had come over him.

  ‘Do you know what they are going to do with the baby?’ he asked. ‘On this bridge, I mean?’

  Simon nodded wearily. The sodden tea towel slipped from his grasp.

  ‘Sell it,’ he said. ‘They plan to sell it.’

  The Deal

  The soul never perishes; rather, it exchanges its former abode for a new residence in which it lives and operates.

  Everything changes but nothing is destroyed.

  Pythagoras

  The doctrine of reincarnation is the threat of thousandfold death and millionfold suffering.

  Official statement on the subject of ‘Rebirth’

  from the home page of a Christian radio station

  Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

  St John, 3:3

  1

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  Stern took his eyes off the road long enough to glance sideways at Borchert, who was just pulling on a Bayern Munich football shirt.

  ‘Why not? I look good in it.’

  His passenger, who was already sweating, grunted and wound his window down. Stern was also grateful for the cool morning air now streaming into the car at sixty kph. He estimated his net sleep intake in the last twenty-four hours at less than forty minutes. This morning he had only just managed to shower and beg a getaway car from his ex-wife in time to pick up Borchert at the Victory Column roundabout. Contrary to expectations, Sophie had surrendered her car keys without demur. She had even permitted Carina and Simon to remain at her Köpenick home until Stern discovered if his plan was working.

  ‘Listen.’ He raised his voice to make himself heard above the whistle of the headwind. ‘We’re sitting in one of the world’s most ubiquitous small cars. What’s more, it’s metallic silver, the most popular bodywork colour on the planet. In other words, we couldn’t find a less conspicuous mode of transport. Must you really ruin our camouflage by wearing that?’

  ‘Take it easy.’ Borchert’s window was sticking. He wound it up again. ‘Look over there on the left.’

  They were just driving past the Philharmonie concert hall. On the opposite pavement, in front of the Berlin State Library, a bunch of young men were trooping in the direction of Potsdamer Platz. All were in full football gear.

  ‘There’s a big Bundesliga match this afternoon,’ Borchert explained. ‘Hertha versus Bayern. Now turn your head to the left again.’

  Stern complied. He felt something moist imprint itself on his right cheek.

  ‘What the hell’s that?’

  ‘You need some protective colouring too. It looks great.’ Chuckling, Borchert angled the rear-view mirror so that Stern could see the Bayern Munich logo.

  ‘The Olympic Stadium is a total sell-out – at least thirty-five thousand fans are expected from outside the city. Some of them have already got here and are rampaging around the streets, as you can see. A lawyer’s three-piece suit may be OK when you’re sitting in this car, but out there …’ Borchert pointed through the windscreen at Potsdamer Strasse. ‘Out there on a day like this, there’s no better camouflage.’

  Nuts. Totally nuts, thought Stern. He snatched a glance at the back seat. Andi must have cleaned out a fan shop. Everything was there from scarves to tracksuit bottoms and goalkeepers’ gloves. No one would expect to see them in that get-up, far less recognize them, least of all with several thousand lookalikes roaming the capital.

  ‘But I don’t know if they’ll let us in looking like that.’ Stern turned into Kurfürstenstrasse and slowed down.

  ‘In where?’

  He brought Borchert up to date. According to Simon, the meeting would take place tomorrow morning on some bridge in Berlin – a meeting at which a baby was to be sold. Stern surmised that the voice was the dealer who had now been warned that he was to be murdered in the course of that transaction, like his accomplices in previous years.

  ‘We have to find someone able to tell us who traffics in babies. Through them we’ll find the bridge and the voice. But for that we’ll have to go into certain establishments …’

  He felt sick when he realized what he was admitting to himself. If the boy with the birthmark had some connection with Felix – if that boy actually existed – his fate was linked with the boss of a criminal operation that trafficked in children: a sadist being hunted by an avenger with whom Simon identified himself in his dreams.

  Stern wondered yet again whether this crazy scenario could have a rational explanation – whether Felix had been exchanged or possibly even resuscitated. And, yet again, he was compelled to rule out all rational attempts to explain it. Felix had been the only male infant in the neonatal ward, had lain dead in Sophie’s arms for half an hour before she gave him up, had had a birthmark resembling a map of Italy on his left shoulder. Stern himself had caught a last glimpse of Felix in his coffin before it was entrusted to the flames for cremation. No matter which way you looked at it, the possibility that his son was still alive was about as plausible as a young boy’s knowledge of murders committed long before his birth.

  ‘Hello, anyone at home?’

  Borchert had evidently asked a question, not that he’d heard it.

  ‘I asked how long Sophie was alone in that bathroom.’

  Stern stared at him in perplexity. ‘At the hospital, you mean?’

  When she fled into the bathroom with Felix?

  ‘Yes. I could hear your brain grinding away like the engine of this old banger, so I wondered if you’d thought of that too.’

  Of what? That Sophie may have something to do with it?

  ‘You’re off your trolley. That’s crazy.’

  ‘No crazier than looking for a baby that may on
ly exist in a little boy’s imagination.’

  ‘What do you think happened in the bathroom?’ Barely able to control his anger, Stern wondered why he was reacting to this theory so aggressively. ‘The bathroom door – the only door – was locked. You think she had a second, stillborn baby in there and quickly tattooed a map of Italy on its shoulder?’

  ‘OK, OK, forget it.’ Borchert raised his hands in surrender. ‘Let’s just look for this baby.’ He peered out of the window. ‘Hey, how come we’re cruising?’

  He turned to look at a prostitute teetering apathetically along the pavement on legs like toothpicks. The stretch between Kurfürsten-, Lützow-and Potsdamer Strasse had long been one of Berlin’s most notorious red light districts. Most of the girls had caught hepatitis by the age of twelve or thirteen and were busy passing it on to their clients. Unprotected sex was more cheaply obtainable here than anywhere else.

  It was only just after half past eight, but on a day like this, when out-of-towners were thronging the capital, their under-age quarry patrolled the pavements from early morning onwards. Most of the punters weren’t bums or anti-social elements eager to buy themselves a whore with their last few euros. They were prosperous business or family men who relished the sense of power it gave them to be able to demand the most unspeakable services from juveniles too hung up by withdrawal pains to think straight.

  ‘I was once asked to represent a paedophile,’ Stern said as he looked for a place to park. ‘He wanted to found a political party dedicated to legalizing sex between adults and children of twelve and over. The youngsters were even to be allowed to take part in porn films.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘Afraid not.’

  Stern indicated right and pulled into a gap beside the kerb. A girl in ripped jeans and a bomber jacket slid off a junction box and sauntered over to them.

  ‘Before I refused the brief and told him to go to hell, I discovered where he liked to spend his weekends.’

  ‘Let me guess.’

  ‘Exactly. You can get anything here. Drugs, guns, contract killers, under-age whores …’

  ‘And babies.’

  Stern and Borchert got out. He hissed something to the prostitute in the bomber jacket, who jabbed her middle finger at him and returned to her perch.

  ‘Drug-addicted prostitutes have even been known to thrust their newborn babies through the window of a punter’s car,’ said Stern, who had also got out. ‘Not here, admittedly, but on a stretch of road near the Czech border. Still, that may make our job a bit easier.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Selling babies is still something of a rarity, even in Berlin. If Simon has heard about it, so must the people round here. All we have to do is knock on the right door. Someone behind it may be able to give us some information.’

  ‘Which door do you plan to try first?’

  ‘That one.’ Stern indicated an entrance across the street. The grimy illuminated sign above it, which looked as if none of its bulbs had worked for ages, read ‘JACKO’S PIZZA’ in carelessly applied self-adhesive black capitals.

  ‘It’s supposed to be in the inner courtyard. A private bell, first floor right.’

  ‘An unlicensed brothel, I know.’ Borchert slapped his fleshy neck as if a mosquito had just bitten him. In fact, the beads of sweat trickling down it were making him itch. ‘Don’t look like that, you know the kind of movies that used to keep me in groceries. A man gets to know more about this scene than he cares to.’

  ‘Good, then you’ll realize why I need you with me. I hope you’ve come armed with something apart from your fists.’

  ‘Sure.’ Borchert eased the butt of the 9mm automatic out of the pocket of his Bayern Munich tracksuit bottoms. ‘But we aren’t going in there all the same.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’ve got a much better idea.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Over there.’ Borchert had already set off for the supermarket on the next corner.

  ‘Oh, sure,’ Stern called after him sarcastically. ‘I’d completely forgotten. Around here they even sell babies in supermarkets.’

  Borchert paused on the traffic island and looked back.

  ‘You better believe it.’

  His expression, body language and tone of voice made something crystal clear: he wasn’t joking.

  2

  It was a question of fourth time lucky. The first supermarket proved to be shut, although recent changes in the law permitted shops to trade on Sundays, especially when a major sporting event was in the offing. The second was open for business, but its small ads were unremarkable: piano and Spanish lessons, a lift to Paris in return for a share of the cost of petrol, a rabbit hutch, buyer to collect, et cetera. The blackboard outside the drugstore across the street was dominated by furnished flats, two fridges, and offers of private tuition. Borchert’s eye was caught by a photo of a second-hand baby buggy on sale for thirty-nine euros. He tore off one of ten perforated slips bearing the vendor’s phone number but uttered a dissatisfied grunt when he saw the area code, and they moved on.

  On the way to their last port of call, the biggest and most modern supermarket in the district, they attracted jeers from a Hertha fan driving past.

  Stern, who was also in costume, had exchanged his suit for a long-sleeved goalie’s shirt. Like Borchert’s, his face was hidden beneath a ridiculous football cap that made him feel like a fairground attraction.

  A plastic penis on my head would look less conspicuous, he thought, conscious of being stared at by an old woman who was stowing her purchases in a linen shopping bag.

  ‘I’d never heard of this method, Andi.’

  ‘That’s why it works.’

  They were standing beside the containers in which shoppers could dump unwanted packaging and old batteries. Immediately above these was another typical pegboard adorned with a forest of small ads.

  ‘I always thought people used the Internet for things like this.’

  ‘They do, but mainly when they’re trying to sell pictures, videos or used panties.’

  Stern grimaced. As an experienced defence lawyer he knew that the authorities always lagged far behind the professional computer experts of the child pornography industry. There was no special unit with nationwide coverage, no team of computer freaks permanently employed to monitor websites, news groups or forums. Some police forces counted themselves lucky if they possessed a DSL connection at all, and even when they did pull off a coup the laws were insufficient to put the perverts behind bars.

  Only a week earlier several child abusers had been caught after detectives had traced thousands of credit card transactions on the Internet. Unfortunately, the tracing of those payments had infringed data protection laws, so the evidence obtained was worthless. The ‘bestseller’ on the confiscated hard drives was a shot of a newborn baby being abused by a man of pensionable age. Those who took pleasure in its unimaginable sufferings were doubtless exercising their sick minds right now in some Internet café.

  ‘The Net has become too dangerous for actual meetings,’ said Borchert, lifting a picture of a motorcycle with an index card hidden beneath it.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s a field trial currently in progress. Detectives enter a suspect chatroom posing as an under-age girl. When some perv takes the bait, they make a date with him. The bastard turns up expecting to see a sixth-grader with braces and winds up in handcuffs.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘Yes, so good that paedophiles are now trying something new. Like this.’ Borchert detached a sheet of sky-blue A5 paper from the pegboard.

  ‘Wanted: bed as illustrated,’ Stern read out. The accompanying picture, which had been cut out of a mail order catalogue, showed a child’s wooden-framed bed occupied by a little boy grinning at the camera. Laser-printed beneath it in 12 point Univers were the words:

  To suit child aged betw. 6 & 12.

  Must be clean and comfortable. COD.


  Stern felt a cold wave of nausea steal over him.

  ‘I can’t believe it.’

  Borchert raised his eyebrows. ‘Be honest, when was the last time you stuck a small ad on a supermarket’s pegboard?’

  ‘I never did.’

  ‘And how many people do you know who’ve answered one?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘But the pegboards are full of them, right?’

  ‘You don’t mean …’

  ‘Sure I do. Some of them function as a marketplace for this city’s sick and perverted individuals.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Stern said again.

  ‘Then take a closer look. Ever seen such a long phone number?’

  ‘Hm. Unusual.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it? I bet it belongs to some Lebanese prepaid card owner or something. A throw-away mobile – not a hope of getting at the name behind it. And look …’ Borchert pointed to the caption. ‘That’s definite paedo jargon. “Comfortable” means “cooperative parents” and “clean” means ‘A virgin or Aids-tested”. As for “COD”, that’s obvious. Cheques not accepted.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Stern wondered if it would blow his football-fan cover if he threw up into the nearby waste-paper bin.

  ‘No, but we’ll soon find out.’

  Borchert groped in his pocket and produced a mobile phone Stern had never seen before, then dialled the eighteen-digit number.

  3

  ‘Yes, hello?’

  Stern was completely thrown by those first two words. He’d been expecting an oldish man whose degeneracy could be detected from his voice alone – a man who combed his greasy hair forward over his balding scalp and stared at his fungal toenails while answering the phone in a string vest. Instead, Stern heard the melodious, friendly voice of a woman.

  ‘Erm, I, er …’ he burbled. Borchert had simply handed him the phone as soon as it began to ring. Now he didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Sorry, I think I’ve got the wrong number.’

  ‘Are you calling about the advertisement?’ asked the nameless woman. She sounded polite and well educated. Not a trace of a Berlin accent.