Page 51 of Anatomy of a Killer
Laura, Miriam, Jana, Kati, Olivia, Laetitia, Hayet, Jenny, Saskia, Alina, Sophie. You see, I wasn’t lying. I still remember all their names, and for each of these there’s a face in my head. Take little Laura. Blonde, big blue eyes, pink T-shirt with a horse on it. She was sitting on the kerb, in roller skates and with a fresh cut to her knee, but she wasn’t crying. It was in Hellersdorf, very close to where Larissa lived too, and I just happened to be passing in the car. I stopped and asked if I could help her. She thanked me, but refused.
Clearly you didn’t accept that.
No, I persuaded her to get into my car by telling her I knew a place where all the little girls learned to roller skate. Did you roller skate as a child too?
In-liners, yes. In-liners, roller skates, bike, skateboard, I pretty much tried them all, and I expect I fell over endlessly.
You can’t remember exactly?
No, I. . . I mean you forget a lot from your childhood.
Or you distort it afterwards.
Yes, that’s possible. The more time that passes, the further your childhood recedes into the background, apart from the really formative experiences.
Oh, I think you’re wrong there. Those formative experiences are like stories– you keep telling them over and over again until one day their content is completely different. What’s yours?
My what?
The most formative experience of your childhood?
Ann
Schergel, 28 December 2017
We’re back at the inn from the hospital, having a briefing at the table that’s normally reserved for the council. In front of us are two huge plates with dumplings, beans, roast pork and a sea of dark brown gravy, on the top of which a thin brown skin has formed. I eat even though I’m not hungry; it’s pure common sense. All I’ve had in the past few days are the two biscuits baked by Inspector Brandner’s wife and half a ham roll, left over from the police officers’ supper at the pub last night. I remember the two plates that are still in my father’s study. The dinner that Elke made for Eva and me: goose leg with red cabbage. When I get home again, the smell of that rotten food will have stunk out the entire room.
Jakob takes huge mouthfuls, like he did in the lunch breaks at Big Murphy’s where he managed to devour the largest burgers in what felt like seconds. ‘Dustbin,’ I teased him, and we laughed. I really liked him, my friend Jakob from the recycling centre, with his bobbing dark locks of hair and the childish exuberance in his eyes.
‘What’s up?’ he asks, chewing. I shake my head.
Brock offered to take us up to the ruins after lunch. Apparently they’re beyond one of the adjacent areas of woodland, near a gorge. About half an hour by car, then a few minutes’ walk. I don’t want to go, because I don’t think Sarah meant the ruins when she talked about a castle. Nor do I believe we’ll find Steinhausen huddled there amongst the derelict walls.
‘Think about it, Jakob. You only spent one night in these temperatures in the boot of your car and now you always need the loo. But Sarah doesn’t have the slightest sign of hypothermia, even though she’s supposed to have spent two whole days and nights out in the woods. That’s practically impossible, do you see? She must have been kept inside, somewhere protected and warmish, at least.’
‘It’s all a question of having the right gear. There are thermal sleeping bags, thermal mats, and he could have made a fire too.’ Jakob quickly shovels a mouthful of beans down him. ‘And the ruins of an old fortress are similar to a castle, aren’t they? I really don’t understand why you want to pass up on this opportunity.’
‘The opportunity to see the ruins? We’re not fricking tourists, for God’s sake!’ I slam my cutlery down on to the side of my plate; it clatters unpleasantly. Leaning over to Jakob, I lower my voice. Brock, who’s drying beer glasses behind the bar, doesn’t have to hear everything. I’m surprised he didn’t stay at the hospital with Kerstin and Sarah, like Schmitti and Nathalie. He seems to find it more important to keep an eye on the work of the journalists who’ve come from Berlin. Or to spread a new rumour. Sarah with her bruises, and particularly whether her own mother might have had something to do with them. ‘You heard Brock. It takes half an hour to get to the ruins by car, and then there’s a walk on top of that. Do you seriously believe a seven-year-old girl could have managed that on her own? She’d never have found her way back to the village. No way.’ I shake my head energetically. Once, when we were ten, Eva got lost in a section of the Grunewald, not far from where we lived. We’d often played there; it was where our tower was– the old raised hide. And although we knew the way off by heart, she spent hours wandering about until my father eventually found her.
‘She must have been really close to here. In the village.’
‘You mean the village that the police spent two days turning upside down? Is this where her abductor is supposed to be hiding, undetected by Sherlock Brock and all the others?’ His laughter turns into a sigh. ‘Ann, if you’re being honest with yourself, you’ll have realised by now that it must have been a copycat crime. Maybe just some stupid teenager playing a sick joke with the red ribbons to put the wind up the community here. And when the police turned up with this huge posse, he got cold feet and let Sarah go.’ Unfazed, he cuts a piece of meat. ‘Could this be the very reason why Sarah’s not talking? She knows her abductor and doesn’t want him to get into trouble.’
I’m flummoxed. And aghast. Jakob’s theory makes sense. But I know it’s wrong, I know, I just do. I begin to tremble for a different reason. Jakob’s sitting here, happily eating his fill of the daily special. I realise he doesn’t care what story he gets in the end. The key thing is that it’s different from what his rivals write about the ribbon murders. And whatever happens, it will be because nobody else has exclusive access to the daughter of the chief suspect. As far as he’s concerned, I’m a job; he’s never left any doubt about that. And yet it hurts again.
‘Ann? Is everything all right?’ Something in my expression makes Jakob put his cutlery down now too. Maybe I’ve turned pale or done the opposite: come out in nervous red blotches.
‘I need some fresh air.’
Jakob makes to get up.
‘No, you continue eating.’ I stop him. ‘I just need a few minutes to myself.’
‘What about the ruins?’
‘I’ll think about it,’ I say, grabbing my rucksack, leaving the table and, a few seconds later, the dining area.
I really want a cigarette now. And maybe something sweet too. The small grocer’s, which Jakob’s jeep is still parked in front of, is open. The cashier adjusts the slightly wonky name badge on her apron and greets me effusively. I am, after all, an important journalist, as she will already have learned. Wandering down the aisles I spy a familiar face: Nathalie. She’s filling a shopping trolley with tins of food, and at her feet is a basket filled with sliced bread, cat food, margarine and all manner of other stuff.
