Page 43 of Anatomy of a Killer
‘It’s high time you did then.’ He takes from me the bag I packed in a hurry, puts it in the boot, and then goes around to the passenger side as if the matter were decided. Not wanting to show any weakness, I get in and start the engine, while Jakob programmes the satnav. Schergel seems to be so small that only its main street is listed.
‘Five hours, twenty minutes,’ he says, doing the calculations. ‘We won’t be there before eight, half eight.’ Particularly as we have to go past his flat first so he can pack a few things and pick up his laptop.
I shrug my shoulders, and the pain immediately flares up in the right one again.
‘Everything all right?’
‘It’s okay,’ I say, then ask him to find a news station on the radio. ‘We have to take the gamble that we’re going to get there too late. But until we hear that Sarah’s been found, there’s still the possibility the killer is keeping her captive. And so long as that’s the case, it’s also likely that he’s in the vicinity of Schergel. He wouldn’t have any reason to take her elsewhere. With the Berlin killings, he always stayed in the surrounding area.’
‘That’s not certain. He might change his pattern. I mean, hasn’t he done that already? There’s already been a victim this year: the little girl found in the Königswald. This would be the first time he’s killed twice in a calendar year. And he’s chosen a different region.’
‘But it’s also the first time that someone else is in prison, robbing him of the dubious fame of being the ribbon murderer.’
Jakob sighs.
‘What?’
‘Or is this really a copycat crime?’
I shake my head. ‘Call me crazy, but I know we’re on the right track. I can just sense it.’
‘Red light!’
I brake just in time. We’re jerked forwards abruptly, before being thrown back into our seats. My heart misses a beat– the memory. That appalling Saturday night two years ago: Zoe and I at a party in Spreenhagen. We had an argument and I drove home without her, furious and exhausted– but most of all, I shouldn’t have been behind the wheel because I’d drunk too much. A shortcut I thought was a good idea at the time. A road through the woods that was so narrow and bendy it required a degree of concentration that a few bottles of beer had sluiced from my head. And then, as if in a bad film, the deer suddenly there in the middle of the road. Wrenching the wheel to the side, I found myself racing down a slope. Time lost its dimension, stretching, extending, then I heard the deafening crack. The crack of branches, of metal and finally of my jaw. The airbag activated too late. The driver’s door had jammed into a tree, but I managed to crawl over to the passenger side and call my father on my mobile. I remember blood running from my mouth down my wrist as I spoke, trying to convey where I was. He came. The ambulance came too. I lay on a stretcher, my father holding my trembling hand. ‘How do you feel?’ he said, and I gave a pained smile with my bloody mouth. He could see how I was; he could imagine it too. In hospital they put splints and screws in my jaw and for the next few weeks all I could eat was soup and yoghurt.
‘Ann?’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s green.’
‘Sorry.’
Jakob mumbles something.
‘What?’
‘I’m just thinking. . . You said the red ribbons were placed at random in the wood. Which means there’s no way of working out the beginning and end of the trail?’
‘So far as I know, yes. Why?’
He says nothing. It’s only when I tap his thigh that he reacts. ‘Just because Sarah’s body isn’t lying there for all to see doesn’t mean she isn’t there at all.’ He pauses. ‘Maybe they should try digging.’
‘Maybe,’ I repeat, snorting in frustration. ‘This is exactly what gets me so down, you know? Everything is justmaybe, perhaps, possibly, conceivably– all fricking speculation. My entire life is uncertain. There’s nothing genuine, nothing real left, nothing I can rely on.’
‘You can rely on me.’
I snort again, in amusement this time. ‘Two liars heading off to find out the truth. Sounds like the beginning of a rather stupid joke.’
‘Or the beginning of a first-rate reportage.’ He puts out his hand. ‘I live over there on the left. You can park right outside. I won’t be long.’
The beginning of a first-rate reportage.I’m glad he’s reminded me who I’m dealing with. We’re not friends, we never were. We’re of use to each other, no more, no less. And it’s like a game, an exchange. I tell him about my childhood, which feels like a summer’s day, about a little girl sitting on her father’s shoulders with her arms outstretched. In return I make Jakob call the hospital and claim to be a journalist reporting on the incident at the construction site, so they’ll give him information about Eva’s condition. They certainly wouldn’t say anything to me; I’m not related to Eva and those who are– Elke and Caspian– want me to go to hell.
‘Unchanged but stable’ is what Jakob eventually finds out. ‘The doctor treating her says there haven’t been any complications so far, which is a good sign.’
I thank him by talking about my puberty. Me as a difficult teenager always getting into trouble, and my wonderful father, a human instruction manual on how to bring up children. Someone who was always controlled and dependable. Never, not once, did he scream at me, shout, or even use harsh language, let alone slap my cheeky teen face– or any other part of my body, for that matter. And they reckon someone like that could have slit the wrists of ten little girls? Jakob records with the dictation app on his mobile, while scribbling in a notebook on his lap.
Then it’s his turn again. This time he calls his contact at the police– Inspector Brandner’s secretary, as he reveals to me. A young woman he sometimes meets for a drink out of work– nothing serious, but incredibly useful. I refrain from passing comment. I don’t care about Jakob’s private life and his morality; I just want to know what she said. It’s sobering but unsurprising. ‘Finding Sarah is the top priority. The local police are being assisted by search teams from nearby towns. So far, however, there are no new leads and. . .’ He breaks off.
