The Child (31 page)

His car, which had faithfully accompanied him on his baleful missions for many years, passed the Hüttenweg exit. Only a few more kilometres.

We’ll soon be there
.

As usual before it happened, he was faintly aware of a call of nature. Pure nerves. He would forget the pressure on his bladder as soon as he was looking evil in the face. The preparations for today had taken months. Not for the first time, he’d had to don a disguise and assume the worst of identities: that of a paedophile. It was quite a while – two and a half years – since he last eliminated such a blot on humanity’s landscape. Many of his former contacts had dropped out and others were suspicious of his sudden reappearance. In the end, however, he had succeeded in contacting the man known as ‘the Dealer’. Via the Internet. And today, at last, they were to meet in person. Of course, he couldn’t be certain he would really get an opportunity to tear out the evil by the roots, nor did he know what to make of the fact that the rendezvous had been changed at the last minute and postponed for three quarters of an hour. He knew only that his fate was in God’s hands. He was old. Unlike the children, he had nothing to lose.

The man turned off at Spanische Allee. He patted the revolver lying beside him on the passenger seat. It went without saying that he often wondered if he was doing the right thing. He communed with the Almighty every Sunday and asked for some sign, some little indication of whether he should stop. Once, when told about Simon, he’d thought that was it: a divine omen. But he’d been mistaken.

And he’d gone on. Until today.

He turned on his headlights when he reached the gloomy road through the woods. The dead end that led to Wannsee Lido.

Another forty metres.

Stern put one foot before the other. First the good one, then the swollen one. He kept heading straight for the headlights, just as Engler had told him to.

The wait in the cold and rain had seemed like a fear-stricken eternity, but it was only a few minutes after Engler had left him alone that the car turned off the access road and drove into the deserted car park, its headlights blazing. He wondered one last time whether there was any possibility of delaying the inevitable, but nothing occurred to him. Like a lamb to the slaughter, he walked step by step towards the gradually slowing car and, thus, to meet his own death.

His heart beat faster as the elderly Opel came to a sudden stop.

The wind carried the metallic ratcheting of a worn handbrake to his ears. Almost simultaneously the driver’s door opened and an ungainly figure got out.

Who is he?

At every other step, Stern’s spine was traversed by flashes of pain so intense, he half expected them to light up the rainswept car park. He looked in vain for some indication that he knew the man who rounded the front of the car with dragging footsteps and came to a halt between its headlights. He felt like someone dying of thirst in the desert who makes his way towards a mirage. That was how unreal the whole situation seemed. The closer he got to the lights, the more indistinct the man’s figure became. Only one thing was certain: he wasn’t young and might even be old. The slow movements, the short steps, the slightly stooping posture – Stern tried to discern even more about the shadowy figure now standing motionless between the headlights. Obscured by the heavy overcast, the meagre light of the rising sun invested the unknown man with a weird aura.
Like an angel of death complete with halo
, thought Stern, blinking a raindrop out of his eye.

Another thirty metres.

He walked even more slowly. As far as he could recall, that was the only course of action still open to him. It did not break any of Engler’s lethal rules.

Just walk straight ahead
, Engler had told him.
Not to the right, not to the left, and don’t make a run for it
.

He knew the consequences, and he also grasped the nature of the plan he was carrying out. Every step he took shortened his life.

He hugged the basket to his chest. Engler had removed the doll’s batteries for safety’s sake. Nothing could be allowed to distract the newcomer’s attention or warn him that he was confronting the wrong man. Engler had devised a duel in which Stern had to participate unarmed. The avenger, if such he really was, would assume he was the child-trafficker and shoot him. In a few seconds’ time.

Twenty metres.

Stern was well within hailing distance, but the gag in his parched mouth, which seemed to be expanding every moment, precluded any form of communication. He was assailed by the feeling of utter impotence that had last overwhelmed him at Felix’s funeral.

Or the funeral of some other baby?

All hope was gone. There was no way out. Anything he did would endanger Simon. Anything he failed to do would end his own life.

Another fifteen metres.

He realized how unlikely it was that Engler would leave anyone alive after engineering his execution. As soon as he had a bullet in the head, the inspector would shoot the avenger and Simon. He would then take a minute to arrange the bodies before giving his men the signal to close in. Stern could visualize his official report:

Another ten metres.

Who knows, though?
Stern experienced an irrational flicker of hope.
Simon is anaesthetized, so he isn’t a potentially dangerous witness. The more dead bodies, the greater the risk
. Would Engler kill more people than absolutely necessary? Would he let Simon live after all?

The man’s shadowy figure was becoming more distinct. Stern’s vague feeling that their paths had crossed before intensified.

‘Are the goods healthy?’

He gave a start and almost stopped short. Although Engler had told him of this ‘password’ in advance, it felt as if his executioner had asked whether he had anything to say before he was dispatched.

Seven metres.

Stern came to a halt. As instructed, he slowly squatted down and deposited the basket on the muddy surface of the car park as carefully as possible. Next, he was to straighten up and make a V-sign with his left hand.

‘That’ll clinch the deal,’ Engler had said.

And turn me into a target
, thought Stern. He remained bending over the doll for a second longer than necessary.

That second made all the difference. Perhaps because the glare of the headlights was refracted differently from that angle, or perhaps because of his proximity and the light of the rising sun. To Stern, it didn’t matter why he suddenly recognized the man whose tousled, thinning hair was fluttering in the wind, even though he had seen him only once before in his life.

He pulled himself together and rose slowly to his feet.

What do I do now?

The sweat was collecting beneath his scratchy woollen mask.

How do I give him a sign without arousing Engler’s suspicions?

He raised his arm, which suddenly seemed to dangle from his shoulder like an uncontrollable lead weight.

There must be some way. You must be able to do something
.

He longed to tear off the mask and the duct tape, but that would sentence Simon to death.

The other man’s arm was already halfway to waist height. Stern sensed rather than saw him take something from his pocket.
An automatic? A revolver? No matter. Another two seconds and you’re history
. He gagged, feeling certain, although he couldn’t see the avenger’s hands, that a gun was aimed at his head.

A guttural sound, so soft that he alone could hear it, issued from his parched throat. That finally dissolved his mental block.

Of course. That’s it
.

It was idiotic, banal and probably doomed to fail, but at least he wouldn’t meet his end in a state of total inactivity.

Click.

Only seven metres away, the man he recognized had cocked a revolver. Despite this, Stern raised his arm, shut his eyes and started to hum. Six notes only, the simplest melodic sequence he knew but the only one fraught with special meaning.

Money, money, money …

He hoped that the elderly Abba fan would recognize it. Prayed that this hint would belie the V-sign he was making with his left hand – prayed that it would be enough to give pause to the man whose wheelchair he had blundered into when visiting the hospital two days ago.

Money, money, money …

He hummed the phrase again, then screwed up his eyes in expectation of a lethal explosion inside his skull.

Two seconds later, when nothing had happened, he blinked convulsively. His hopes revived a little, his heart beat faster. Jubilant at the possibility that his sign had been interpreted correctly, he opened his eyes. At that precise moment the first shot rang out.

Engler, who had circled round behind the other two, saw Stern topple over backwards. He leaped at the gunman even before the lawyer’s head hit the ground. The force of the impact dislodged two of the old man’s vertebrae and fractured a rib. The inspector kicked his moaning victim’s gun out of his hand. Then he turned him over on his back and sat on him, pinning his arms to his sides, before holding an automatic to the man’s head.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he shouted.

The beam of the torch attached to the barrel of Engler’s handgun lit up a wrinkled face he’d never seen before in his life.

‘Losensky,’ gasped the man. ‘My name is Frederik Losensky.’

He spat some blood into the inspector’s face. Engler wiped his cheek on his sleeve and forced Losensky’s jaws apart. He was about to insert the muzzle of his automatic in the man’s mouth when he paused.

‘Who are you with? Who are you working for?’

‘Him.’

‘Him who? Who’s your boss?’

‘The same as yours. Almighty God.’

‘I don’t believe this!’ Engler jabbed his gun into the underside of Losensky’s lower jaw. ‘Don’t tell me we’ve been fucked around for years by a retired religious maniac.’

His laugh developed into a bronchitic cough.

‘OK, I’ve got some good news for you,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Your boss has just invited you to an important meeting, and I’m to send you on your way. He’s in a bit of a hurry, so—’

‘Drop your gun!’

Engler raised his eyebrows and turned to look. A figure had just emerged from behind a clump of fir trees.

‘Welcome to the party,’ he said with a laugh when he recognized Carina. ‘Better late than never.’

She took a couple of steps towards him but remained at a safe distance.

‘Drop your gun and get off him.’

‘Or else what?’

Engler had to shout to make himself heard in spite of their proximity. The wind was blowing even harder now.

‘I’ll shoot you.’

‘With that thing in your hand?’

‘Yes.’

He laughed. ‘Is that the pea-shooter from the bumbag you were wearing yesterday?’

‘So what?’

‘Do me a favour and pull the trigger.’

‘What do you mean?’

Carina, who had been holding the gun in one hand, clasped the butt with the other hand as well. She might almost have been praying.

‘Only asking,’ called the inspector. The old man beneath him was breathing heavily. ‘You don’t have to aim it at me. Just fire in the air.’

‘Why?’

Carina’s arms had started to tremble as if the gun in her hands were growing heavier by the second.

‘Because you’ll find the fucking thing isn’t loaded. You really think I’d give it back without emptying the magazine first?’

‘What makes you think I didn’t fill it again?’

‘The look on your face, Fräulein Freitag.’

Engler removed his automatic from Losensky’s lower jaw and levelled it at Carina’s chest. ‘Bye-bye,’ he said.

There was a click as Carina squeezed the trigger. Click, click. The fourth futile click was drowned by Engler’s chesty laughter.

‘Too bad.’

He aimed the laser pointer straight at Carina’s forehead. His finger tightened on the trigger.

When the shot rang out like a whiplash over the Wannsee, the gale seemed to hold its breath for one brief moment. Then, with a renewed roar, it swallowed up the lethal sound.

The voices were overlaid by a metallic hiss that made them sound as if they were coming from audio headphones with the volume turned up too high. The more the vehicle lurched around, the louder and more distinct they became. They eventually tugged so hard at Simon’s consciousness that he couldn’t remain asleep any longer and opened his eyes for the duration of one overexposed snapshot. It was just long enough to reveal that two men were sitting beside him in the back of an ambulance.

‘Cryptomnesia?’ said a hoarse voice. He recognized it at once.

Borchert!

‘Yes,’ replied Professor Müller. ‘Reincarnation is a thoroughly controversial field of research, of course, but cryptomnesia is currently regarded as the most plausible approach to explaining suprasensual rebirth experiences in a logical and scientific manner.’

Simon wanted to sit up. He was thirsty and his left knee was itching beneath the thin pyjama trousers. Usually being alone when he woke, he needed a little time to himself – to clear his head, as Carina put it. Whenever she said that he was reminded of those ‘snowballs’. Glass globes you shook and then watched the polystyrene flakes drifting slowly down. He sometimes thought his head must look exactly like that when he woke up. For the first few minutes of the day he liked to wait until the pictures and voices in his head drifted back to where they belonged. That was why he decided to pretend to be asleep for a bit longer while he sorted out his thoughts and listened to the two men’s low voices.