Page 48 of Anatomy of a Killer
‘Just like you.’
‘Yes, but I. . . I wasn’t quite myself.’
Jakob grins. ‘Who is?’
When we enter the dining room, we interrupt Brock and his wife in conversation. In the middle of the table they’re sitting at is a thermos. Beside it a camera and two fist-sized objects wrapped in foil. I guess they’re my rolls.
‘Okay, let’s go,’ Brock says, standing up.
‘Just a moment,’ I say, because I hear my phone ringing again in the rucksack. I know it’s Ludwig before I take the mobile out and glance at the screen. I nip outside because I don’t want the others to hear my conversation. It’s absolutely freezing out here. The sun has gone in again, leaving an ugly winter greyness. A few people are out in groups and Sarah’s name echoes from somewhere in the distance.
I take the call. ‘Hello, Ludwig.’
He says he’s tried to reach me half a dozen times already. Now he’s standing outside our house but nobody’s answering the door. Where the hell am I?
‘I’ve come to Schergel.’
You’ve got to be joking, he says. Have I lost my mind completely? And an astonishing array of expletives for an educated man in his prime.
‘I had to do it, Ludwig. I know he’s here.’
‘Who? Steinhausen? For Christ’s sake, Anni, stop meddling and let the police get on with their work!’ He screams so loudly that it grates in the earpiece of my mobile. It’s so unpleasant that my patience is wearing thin. I don’t want to be patronised anymore.
‘Oh, so I should copy you, should I? Just sit around doing bugger all?’
‘I can’t believe the—’
‘You’re right. I am being impertinent. I mean, you do everything for your clients, don’t you? Your commitment even stretches to slipping me sleeping pills.’
‘How can you think that of me? I didn’t give you anything, do you hear? I’d never. . .’
Whatever he’s saying goes in one ear and out the other when my attention fixes on what’s happening on the other side of the marketplace. A crowd is gathering outside the butcher’s. People are streaming as if in rays towards a centre, a single point. I almost drop my mobile when I realise what this point actually is: it’s Sarah.
Throwing open the door to the pub, I scream, ‘Sarah! Sarah’s back!’ I see Jakob and the others leap up from the table, hear the clatter of the chairs. We dash across the marketplace to the butcher’s, right into a wall of people. There could be thirty, or even fifty. Brock’s massive frame clears a way through for us to the front, where it’s almost reverentially quiet compared to the back. Schmitti is lifting Sarah into his arms. He’s taken his coat off and wrapped her in it like a cocoon. She’s got a face like a doll, with large round eyes and a heart-shaped mouth. But she looks blank, just staring into nothingness. Beside her is Kerstin Seiler, pale and stiff, her face as expressionless as her daughter’s. A puzzling sight, but I expect she’s still in shock. Her friend, the petite blonde, is there too, offering Kerstin a tissue she clearly doesn’t need. I wince when Brock’s elbow digs into my side as he thrusts his hands up to take a photo of the miracle. My eyes meet Jakob’s. He appears to find it as hard to believe as I do. As everyone does. Sarah is back, she’s alive. She got away from Steinhausen.
Us
You found the way back– respect, little Sarah. It’s a long way, and in this cold weather too. That shows willpower and remarkable determination. Your reappearance caused a huge commotion; of course it did. They’re practically pouncing on you, they’re all gawping. You’re a sensation. The girl who escaped from the ribbon murderer. That Schmitti is showing you off like a trophy; your mother is so vulgar.
It went wrong, all so wrong.
The wrong ending.
If I could do what I want to do, I’d push them aside and grab you, here and now. I’d snatch you from Schmitti’s arms and run away with you. But then it would be over for good; I realise that. They’d arrest me. So I’ve got no choice but to observe the situation from my cover.
You won’t tell them anything, will you, Sarah? Surely you’re not going to expose me? No, you won’t; you’re well aware of the consequences, you know what’s at stake.
Calm, calm, stay calm, I tell myself. It’s just gone wrong. But that doesn’t mean it’s over. And isn’t that the lovely thing about a story? It’s flexible, it can change with every new word. And who else has the power over the characters and the narrative, if it isn’t the person who created them?
Ann
Schergel, 28 December 2017
Another hospital corridor, again the typical sterile smell. I think of Eva and how she was admitted to hospital only two days ago. Two days that have felt like an eternity, as have the past few weeks– a yawning gap between me and my earlier life. The time before Dad’s arrest, I think. A time I can scarcely comprehend now, and only remember as if it were a film where the main character looked like me. In my new reality, for the past two and a half hours Jakob and I have been hanging around the coffee machine in the waiting area of the children’s ward. From here we can see the closed door of the room where Sarah is. Her mother is with her, as well as two police officers and a psychologist, who are carrying out a preliminary interview. We know this from Brock, Schmitti and Kerstin Seiler’s blonde friend, who were also in Sarah’s room, but have been sent out for the questioning. Schmitti’s standing with us, the blonde woman has excused herself to ring her mother, and Brock has one ear pinned to the door, which I find both appalling and practical. For we can be confident that everything he overhears will be relayed to us without delay.
‘Physically she’s fine, apart from a few bruises,’ Schmitti says, giving us the essence of the doctor’s diagnosis. He’s a changed man, so much friendlier and more open than yesterday evening at the butcher’s. ‘But they’ve found traces of an unknown substance in her urine and so now they’re giving her a blood test too. And she’s not speaking. Not a word. Must be the shock.’
I nod. If she’s lucky, it’s only shock, I think, recalling the conversation I had with Eva a couple of days ago. About the gaps in the chronology of the killings. Eva thought there might be victims who’d escaped Steinhausen’s clutches, but felt too ashamed to tell anyone. They’d kept it to themselves to this day, years of silence which might last for ever. Disgruntled, I take a sip from the paper cup Jakob got me from the machine. This is my third coffee and I’m only drinking it to have something to do.
