Dead Girl Walking (42 page)

Heike explained otherwise. High-end designer watches were a common and valuable commodity in the world of organised crime. They held their value (sometimes even gained more), they were easily transported and they came with receipts and paperwork, meaning that the money was laundered whenever they traded them in for cash. These days jewellers were supposed to tell police who they had sold them to if they had suspicions. This was why Heike being a rock star was the perfect cover.

As instructed, she sent a photograph of the goods to the number she’d been given. A few minutes later her phone chimed with the response.

‘We meet him in ninety minutes,’ she said.

I glanced at my watch, which looked pitiful after what we’d been browsing.

‘Exactly noon,’ I said. ‘Where?’

There was an unnerving inevitability about her answer:

‘Zoo Station.’

His choice was insulting, by implication: Heike was literally buying Hannah at a place synonymous with prostitution. I just hoped this was all I was supposed to read into it. If he somehow knew about Heike’s mother, then those two watches were never going to be enough, even after his talk of having to do the deal today.

The location wasn’t all bad, as far as I was concerned. It was public – bustlingly so – meaning lots of witnesses. It was also the ideal place for a getaway: as soon as we had Hannah and her passport we could jump on the first train out of there.

Heike started walking back towards Adenauerplatz station.

‘Is it far to the Zoo?’ I asked.

‘It’s a ten-minute walk that way,’ she replied, pointing in the opposite direction. ‘But it’s a long time to wait. I want to ride the U-Bahn for a while. It helps me think.’

Heike didn’t say much after that, other than to tell me when we were changing trains. I had never done this before: travel with no destination, drifting like litter. Having grown up on Shetland, the first time I had ever travelled on an underground train I found it shockingly noisy, and that was just Glasgow. My first time on the London Tube was overwhelming: buffeted about by crowds, in danger of being swept away from my dad by all the bodies.

Heike seemed calmed by it. She watched the passengers, stared at the walls and billboards as they zipped past. She was miles away. Did she have a memory of this, sitting on a U-Bahn train with her mother? It seemed impossible, but I didn’t know how old she had been when her father took her away. My earliest memory – merely shapes and impressions – was of my parents putting lights on our Christmas tree, when I was coming up for two.

Maybe it was simply that on a day like this, it was better to travel hopefully than to arrive.

As the clock ticked towards noon we finally headed out towards Zoo Station, changing for the S7 line at Brandenburger Tor. Heike told me it used to be called Unter den Linden, before the Wall went up, after which it had become a ghost station. I had read that when people first re-entered these places late in 1989, they found all the ads and signs had stayed unchanged since 1961. The thought gave me a sense of what Heike must be feeling, having this preserved but hidden past suddenly revealed to her.

The train stopped between stations for a while due to a signalling issue, so that it was a couple of minutes after twelve when we got there. Heike strode urgently down the stairs, gripping the straps of her shoulder bag. Somewhere inside it were the two watches. We entered a big concourse, and saw the large white clock hanging over the middle. I could see benches beneath it, in a circle.

I scanned the figures seated there, looking for cream-blonde hair or a gorilla in a suit. Instead, I spotted Kabka waiting for us, leaning against an advertising billboard. She hadn’t seen us, and there was an anxious look on her face as she searched through the flow of passengers, looking for Heike.

Neither Hannah nor the gorilla were anywhere to be seen.

Kabka hurried forward as soon as she spotted us.

‘Where’s Hannah?’ Heike asked.

‘I am to take you. The exchange is not to be here.’

Heike and I traded looks. Neither of us liked this, but what choice did we have?

‘Where, then?’

‘It is not far.’

She led us out through the wide swing doors and on to a busy pavement.

‘I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘When Hannah told him she had the money so soon he knew someone else was giving it. He remembered seeing you with her in Madrid.’

Heike grabbed Kabka by the arm.

‘Does he know Hannah is my sister?’

‘
No
,’ she replied forcefully, like it was an accusation from Heike. ‘Hannah said he thinks you two were maybe lovers. That’s all. I would not tell him. I fucking
hate
him.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘I only know him as Boris. It is not his real name, I think. Everyone calls him it, though. The other men, I mean. It is because he looks like KGB.’

We followed Kabka across a dual carriageway and around what looked like an old department store ready for demolition. Behind its wooden fence, on boarded-up frames that were once display windows, were signs showing digital impressions of the new development. Plastic tubes fed through holes in the walls like the building was a patient in intensive care.

Kabka turned right on to a narrow back alley, stopping at a plain doorway in the rear of the building opposite. She gave it a nudge and it swung open, unlocked. On the inside of the door, there was a green panel showing a white stick figure in a running pose, the word ‘NOTAUSGANG’ printed above it in large letters. I could see stairs beyond it going down into gloom. This was an emergency exit, but from where?

‘What is this place?’ I asked.

‘It was a nightclub. Closed down now. Sold. This whole block is going to be rebuilt.’

Heike stepped inside, but stopped at the top of the stairs. The passage was dimly lit by three fluorescent tubes. Several others remained dark or smashed, the darkness deepening the further the stairs went down from the open door.

‘I don’t like this,’ I said, the words coming out before I could stop myself.

‘It will be okay,’ Kabka told us.

‘I’m not so sure,’ replied Heike.

‘It will be
okay
,’ she said again, this time holding open her jacket.

Kabka had a handgun tucked into her waistband.

If it was intended to stop me worrying, it worked. I was no longer worried: I was terrified.

The stairway smelled of urine and damp. It felt cold as we descended, in contrast to the mugginess outside. I wondered how long the place had been closed. The electricity was still working, though, and I could see light coming from double doors at the bottom, one side of which was ajar.

Kabka pulled the door all the way open to reveal a low-ceilinged interior, a place both cavern-like and claustrophobic. Many of the bulbs had died, meaning the lighting was random: some areas in dark shadow alongside pools of harsh brightness that showed up the peeling walls and dog-eared carpet tiles.

The place had split levels, ramps leading to concrete platforms with aluminium barriers. I had heard many a club described as a cattle market: this was the first time I’d seen a place actually modelled on one.

I heard a door open somewhere and looked for the source of the sound. It came from next to the bar, a roller-shuttered gantry alongside which Boris had emerged. He strode to the crush barrier and stood with his arms folded, looking down at the three of us. He was alone, but he had left the door open. I couldn’t see where it led.

‘You have the watches?’ he asked. His voice barely carried, swallowed up by the soundproofing effects of the low ceiling and the carpeted floor. It was almost like a studio or a rehearsal room. The worrying implication of this was that if something bad happened down here, nobody was going to hear a cry for help. Nobody was going to hear a scream.

Heike removed the leatherbound boxes from her bag, flipping one open to show the goods.

‘Now where’s Hannah?’ she replied.

Boris called out a word I didn’t quite catch; could have been a German name, could have simply been a command. A moment later, Heike and I gasped as one.

Hannah appeared from the doorway, gripped from behind by a tall and muscular man in a light grey suit and white shirt. It was the other guy from Madrid, the one who had blocked our path as Boris dragged Hannah away.

He had his left hand over Hannah’s mouth, and with his right he held a huge knife across her throat. While Boris was squat but powerful, this guy looked like he could pick him up and throw him. I gazed at the blade and the creature holding it, and I knew he could decapitate Hannah with a flick of the wrist.

But there was something even more frightening about him. He looked totally psychotic, like he was on coke or steroids or both. He was giving off so much aggression his whole body was shaking, his eyes bulging, knuckles white.

‘You bring the watches here now,’ Boris said. ‘Or Gerd may get angry.’

Heike stood there for a second longer than Gerd was happy with.

‘DO IT NOW!’ Gerd boomed, his voice an explosion even inside this dampened vault.

Hannah shook in his grip, her head tilted away from the blade.

Heike obeyed like a robot, helpless even though she was giving up her only leverage. We had walked into this with our eyes half shut, and now I’d have been happy just to get out of there with both of us still alive.

At his gesture she walked to the barrier and placed the boxes on the floor at his feet, eighteen inches up from where she stood. Boris lifted them and placed each in a separate pocket.

‘Documents,’ he ordered.

Heike handed over the receipts and certificates, the last things she could have withheld. She wasn’t for calling anybody’s bluff.

As soon as Boris had the paperwork in his hand he turned and made for the exit next to the bar, where he had come in.

‘Now you give me Hannah’s passport,’ Heike shouted at him.

He didn’t even glance over his shoulder. I watched the door close behind him, leaving us alone with his snarling, drug-wired partner.

Gerd began to back Hannah away slowly.

‘You leave now,’ he commanded. ‘You do not fuck with me, understand?’

There was a moment of total silence in which all I could hear was Hannah’s unsteady breathing.

Then Kabka spoke.

‘Fuck you,’ she said in a furious whisper.

She drew the gun and pointed it.

‘No,’ Heike protested, turning around to face her, holding up both hands.

Gerd’s already wild eyes burned in response.

‘You going to shoot me, little girl? Huh? You going to fucking shoot me?’

Hannah whimpered as his grip tightened over her mouth.

‘Let her go,’ Kabka commanded, still holding the gun in both hands. ‘Give us her passport. The debt is paid. Let her go.’

‘You think you can tell me what to do? You think a whore tells me what to do?’

‘LET HER GO!’ Kabka screamed.

‘FUCK YOU!’ roared Gerd.

For a fraction of a second I thought her goading had worked, or that his bluff had been called. He took the knife away from Hannah’s throat and held it down by his side. At the same time he removed his hand from her mouth and put it on her shoulder.

I thought he was about to push her away. I can still see that moment so clearly: the last time I believed everything was going to be okay.

His grip tightened around her upper arm and he spun Hannah around to face him, thrusting upwards with the blade. Her feet were lifted from the ground by the force of it.

He withdrew his right arm and let go with his left. Hannah fell to her knees, holding her stomach. She was side-on to me, but I could see the blood coming through her fingers. Then I saw it seep from her mouth, a trickle at first, then a choking surge before she fell forwards.

Kabka screamed and dropped to her knees. I heard a clatter of metal as the gun fell from her hands. Gerd was a clear target now, but she was useless with shock.

‘That’s what I do to whores,’ he spat, pointing with the blade to the body at his feet.

He had killed her right in front of us.

And we were witnesses.

Kabka must have realised the same thing. She fumbled for the gun, but could barely hold it.

‘I am sorry. I cannot do this,’ she said, dropping it on the floor a few feet from Heike.

Heike picked it up, backing away from the barrier. Behind it Gerd was moving, striding towards the ramp.

She raised the gun, her arms shaking.

‘Stay back,’ Heike said. Her voice was a whisper.

‘Or
what
? You think I’m afraid of another fucking whore?’

Still he came forward, the knife in his hand.

His eyes were wide, his pupils huge. His mouth was an angry, twisted sneer.

‘Put down the gun,’ he commanded. ‘And maybe I won’t fuck you before I kill you.’

That was when she shot him.

It was shockingly loud, and yet the room was quiet again instantly. Deathly quiet.

It seemed incredible that this little object in Heike’s trembling hands could put such a big man down, but down he went. He was thrown back by the impact and crashed to the floor, the knife sent clattering behind him.

I watched him roll himself painfully from his front on to his back, blood staining his chest, more coming from his mouth. He was reaching into his jacket, climbing to his knees.

‘I think he has a gun,’ I yelled out.

Heike shot him again. He fell backwards, spinning as he tumbled, sprawling face down on the carpet tiles. The hand that had gone into his jacket was now stretched out at his side, holding something small and black. It didn’t look like a weapon.

Kabka sprinted up the ramp to where the two bodies lay.

Heike remained frozen, paralysed by fear and disbelief.

‘Stay back!’ Kabka urged, though there was little chance of either of us moving.

She knelt over Hannah, putting a hand to her neck to feel for a pulse.

Kabka remained still for a few moments before I watched her eyes close in grief. She looked up disconsolately at both of us. Hannah was dead.

Then Kabka’s expression changed to concerned curiosity about whatever was in Gerd’s outstretched hand. She scrambled across to where he lay and pulled a little black wallet from his grip, folding it open.