Something just wasn’t right here.
Feli could practically smell it. No, you didn’t have to be a profiler with clairvoyant tendencies to get suspicious on account of a front door ajar in Berlin. The Weissensee neighbourhood wasn’t exactly the Bronx, but people in these apartment buildings didn’t usually leave their doors open either.
‘Nele?’ she tried, for the second time after first ringing and then knocking. But no one answered.
As expected.
God, what am I doing here?
Feli went down the hallway, and a feeling of melancholy crept up on her when she saw a small, freshly wallpapered children’s room. The restored baby cradle looked ancient and likely came from a flea market, in contrast to the changing table with warming lamp.
She kept going and entered the living room. The creative chaos that reigned between the sofa, TV and desk in front of the window reminded her of a time when she herself was still living alone and often felt lonely, but also free.
The wall behind the old tube TV must have been painted with magnetic paint, since a sea of postcards, party photos, flyers promoting bands and various concerts were stuck there with magnets, a cheerful and colourful collage from Mats’ artistically gifted daughter that suited the delightfully unconventional mix of furniture. No pieces matched. Viewed individually, the low coffee table, the fringe rug and the batik curtains were even ugly, but together they formed a stylish, creative ensemble.
I wouldn’t mind living like this again, she thought.
It wasn’t so sterile, unlike the designer furniture and modern art that her fiancé Janek had picked out.
She again considered doing the only reasonable thing: ignoring Mats’ call and his request and leaving this apartment right away. Yet then she spotted the cordless landline phone in its charger on Nele’s desk. It was blinking like her own did when she had a message.
Curious about it, she lifted the handset from the cradle and pressed the green envelope symbol under the call button.
‘You have ONE new message,’ reported the bored-sounding and interchangeable female voice in her ear. Feli had expected considerably more messages, at least a half dozen, especially some from Nele’s father. Then it occurred to her that Mats probably didn’t have the number to her landline and had been trying Nele on her mobile phone.
The one message Feli heard came from a short-winded man in a broad Berlin dialect:
‘Frau Krüger? So, now it’s… er… five minutes past time. I’m standin’ down here, the ride you ordered through Med-Call. Your cab. And now I’m, uh, confused, see, ’cause I’m ringin’ up a storm and no one’s comin’. Switchboard’s tellin’ me the ride got pushed back an hour. Can that be right? Or did it get changed again or what? Man, oh man…’
Feli stopped the message and checked the display for when the taxi driver made the call.
12:33 p.m. on 2 May 1999.
Great, just great.
Apparently Nele avoided programming her devices even more than Feli did and had left the thing in factory mode.
Feli stuck the phone back in the charger and wiped a thin film of sweat from her forehead.
Man, it sure is hot.
The temperature in here was almost like summer despite it being September. It was expected to reach twenty-five degrees with sunshine – a perfect day to get married.
The only thing it was clearly too hot for was detective work.
Plus it was completely nutso to let herself be told what to do, and on today of all days, and by Mats at that.
If Janek found out what she was doing here (and for who!), he’d call off the wedding outright. That said, she’d be back home again soon.
Luckily she still lived over on Greifswalder and not on the west side that Janek loved so much, unlike her. If it were up to him, she would’ve moved her practice on Oranienburger over to Dahlem, Grunewald or at least Lichterfelde a long time ago. But then it would’ve taken her an hour to get here by car easily instead of just fifteen minutes by bike. Though it was pretty stupid of her to rush over here so fast. Now she’d have to take another shower when she got home.
Feli grabbed her phone and dialled the number Mats called from earlier.
‘Hello?’ she blurted, misinterpreting the pause between rings as her former lover picking up.
As it rang and rang, Feli observed a dark spot on the grey and slightly worn-out sofa.
Apparently calling someone up in the skies wasn’t quite all it was cracked up to be.
Just when she went to hang up, the connection crackled.
‘Mats?’
There was a slight pause before he answered – all she heard at first was the usual hissing sound inside an aeroplane, and then: ‘I’m sorry, I was under some stress and couldn’t pick up. Where are you?’
‘In Nele’s apartment.’
‘And?’
She shrugged. ‘What can I say? She’s not here, and all signs point to her leaving the place in a hurry.’
‘Any sign of violence?’ Mats asked.
‘The door was ajar, but not forced open. No lamps or chairs tipped over if that’s what you mean. Just stains on the sofa—’
‘Blood?’
‘No.’
Feli felt at the seat fabric. The liquid was colourless and left nothing on her fingers. ‘The stain is fresh. Like she’d spilled water.’
‘Her water?’ she heard Mats blurt. ‘Amniotic fluid.’
‘No idea. It’s possible, sure. Maybe her water broke.’
Mats moaned. ‘Then that goddamn blackmailer was telling the truth.’
Feli glanced at the clock. Luckily Janek had set the ceremony for 4 p.m., the latest possible time slot.
‘Mats, I’m sorry, but you really should get the police in on this. In six hours I’m having a civil ceremony and—’
‘You’re getting married? I’m sorry, uh, I mean, congrats. But, you’re my only chance. Please, Feli. Nele’s going to die if you don’t help me. I need to know who’s behind it, and locate Nele. I only have a little over ten hours left – until landing.’
‘The kidnapper gave you an ultimatum?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what happens when time runs out and we haven’t found Nele?’
‘Please, Feli, don’t ask me any more questions. It’s in your best interests. You don’t want to know. And I can’t tell you.’
Feli shook her head, horrified. ‘But what am I supposed to do now?’
She searched for the bathroom door down the hall. She really needed a drink of water.
‘Think logically,’ Mats insisted. ‘We know that one or several of these offenders had knowledge of my daughter being pregnant. Plus they have the capability, the means and the manpower to kidnap Nele as well as to change the flight attendants’ shift schedules in a way that matches my seat booking.’
‘Which means what?’
She had found Nele’s bathroom. The creative hodgepodge of furnishings continued as expected. The mirror over the ancient sink was bordered with a baroque picture frame, a leather chair stood next to the bathtub, and a guitar stand served as a towel rack.
‘It means you’ll need to search for some kind of connection. Somewhere there’s someone who had access to Nele’s medical records as well as to my flight schedule. A doctor or a nurse with contacts at the airline maybe.’
Somewhere, someone… some day this is, thought Feli.
‘She was supposed to deliver at Virchow, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just great. Charité Hospital only has about 13,000 staff overall.’
‘Too many. I know.’
Her eye caught the thick, old-fashioned safe used for stacking magazines next to the toilet.
Parents, My Baby & Me, Family & Co…
Feli slid the magazines and periodicals back a little to open the door to the cabinet. She was expecting Nele to keep toilet paper, soap or towels inside.
But the contents she saw left her astonished, at first. Then she got sad.
‘I didn’t know,’ she said, down on one knee before the cabinet.
‘What?’ Mats sounded distressed. ‘What didn’t you know?’
‘That she was so sick.’
How could she have? They’d had no contact.
‘Sick how? What are you talking about?’
She lifted a paper bag with a red-and-white logo from the safe and pulled out one package of meds after the other. ‘Tenofovir, emtricitabin, efavirenz.’
‘She had that just lying around?’
‘In the bathroom, yes.’
A pause. The hissing surged.
‘No, that can’t… I didn’t know either,’ Mats said after a while, confessing his ignorance. Nele – infected with HIV! His voice sounded lost all of a sudden, weak. As if the air pressurisation had stopped working on his plane and he could hardly get any air. ‘This is one stressful birth, for God’s sake. The baby, it can’t get infected.’
‘The bag is from the pharmacy on Seestrasse,’ Feli said, mainly because she didn’t know how else to fill the depressing silence. A diagnosis of AIDS might no longer be a death sentence, and they couldn’t even know for sure if Nele had had a breakout of the disease, yet simply living with the threat of HIV was a constant physical and mental burden.
‘The one in Wedding?’ Mats asked to confirm the pharmacy’s location.
‘The same.’
‘Then Nele normally goes to the Wedding Medical Centre.’
‘That’s what I meant, yes.’
The medical centre as well as the pharmacy specialised in HIV and cancer patients and shared an almost identical red-and-white logo. Both facilities were located in the same building and were regarded as the most advanced in Berlin. Oncology and infectious diseases had their own state-of-the-art laboratory and even employed psychologists and psychiatrists to support HIV patients.
‘I’m afraid that doesn’t get us much further,’ she heard Mats say, his voice sounding firmer again.
Right then Feli heard a click. In the hallway. Behind the door.
Behind her door.
‘Mats?’ she whispered, whipping around.
‘What?’
‘I think…’
‘Someone is here,’ she wanted to say, but she couldn’t get it out.
Instead she had to scream, as the lights went out in the windowless bathroom.
All she could see now were outlines, shadows, silhouettes.
‘For God’s sake, Feli, what’s happening?’ she heard Mats shout while she slowly moved towards the crack of the door, where sparse light was coming in. From the hall.
She stretched a hand towards the crack, feeling her way forward.
And she screamed again.
Higher, louder, longer.
Not from fright this time.
But from the excruciating pain.