‘Where were you, Dr Krüger?’
Mats had let the first two calls ring and only picked up the third once he was back in the top-level Sky Suite. He’d been hounded by the illogical yet inescapable need to speak to his blackmailer inside a secluded room, as if this could provide him with even the slightest scintilla of control. It was why he was now standing before the bed in the sleeping compartment and trying not to yell.
‘I’ve followed your psychotic instructions.’
‘Did you? Or were you trying to spy on me?’ the Johnny voice asked.
Mats closed his eyes.
The assault. Her fingers jammed in the door.
They, whoever they were, must’ve been watching Nele’s apartment and surprised Feli.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You don’t? That’s fine. You won’t be able to get anything going anyway, no matter what you try. Better not to waste your time, otherwise Nele will—’
Mats stopped Johnny there:
‘How is she?’
‘Not good.’
‘You son of a bitch, I want to speak to her—’
‘Not going to happen. Her contractions are killing her right now.’
Please, dear God…
‘Is she… has she… I mean, is she getting care?’
‘She’s not alone, if that’s what you want to know. But the guy who’s looking after her isn’t exactly a trained obstetrician. Rather the opposite, if you know what I mean. He won’t hesitate to kill your daughter and her baby should you fail in your task, Dr Krüger.’
Mats swallowed hard. ‘Why are you doing this? Why make me torment my former patient?’
‘Who’s making you? You don’t have to do anything as long as you feel that 625 strangers, plus yourself, are worth more than your daughter. And the baby of course. I don’t think it’ll take much longer for the baby to arrive.’
Mats anxiously grasped at his face. He could nearly feel the splotches of heat stretching from his neck up to his cheeks. ‘Listen, can’t we talk reasonably about all this?’
‘I think that’s what we’re doing.’
‘No. This is all insane. Reactivating Kaja’s trauma is one thing. But how do you know she’ll transform her violent fantasies into reality? It’s not exactly easy to seize control of an aircraft, not even by a flight attendant.’
Johnny giggled. ‘You let that be my concern.’
‘But—’
‘You’ll see soon enough. All you need to do is stick to my instructions. Have you seen that video from the gym, Dr Krüger?’
He sighed, exasperated. ‘I already know it; it’s from the day of the school shooting.’
‘Have you watched it all the way to the end?’ Johnny asked him.
‘No, Kaja interrupted me.’
His blackmailer now sounded quite elated, which annoyed Mats. ‘Did Frau Claussen see what’s playing on channel 13/10?’
‘She might have in passing—’
‘Good. Very good. She should watch the whole thing.’
‘What good will that do?’
Mats now stood at the door to the sleeping compartment, cooling his forehead on the metal frame.
‘You’ll see once you get to the end. Trust me.’
His blackmailer sounded as if he were about to hang up so Mats quickly added: ‘I have another question.’
‘What?’
‘All this here, does it have anything to do with my wife?’
A pause.
For a moment he smelled Katharina’s scent again, but his olfactory reprieve was only the wishful thinking of an overstrained mind of course.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I… I’m not sure. Right before the plane took off, I had a feeling that I saw her.’
And the guy who stole my seat, he left her perfume lying there.
‘No, Dr Krüger,’ his blackmailer said. ‘Your wife has nothing to do with this. I promise you. I’m very sorry, by the way, that she had to die so alone like that. It would be such a shame if Nele were to go the same way.’
Mats had the feeling he was plummeting hundreds of metres down even though the aeroplane remained stable. He heard the words that came next with a hissing in his ears, as if he were sitting back below in row 47 and breathing the stale recycled air of economy class.
‘You have a remaining flight time of eight hours and seventeen minutes. Use every second. Watch the gym video all the way through from beginning to end. Then you’ll know just what levers to pull with Kaja.’
‘And once I’ve done that, then what?’
‘Then you don’t need to do anything more. Simply wait.’
‘For what?’
‘Well, what do you think? For the crash, of course.’ Johnny sounded truly amused now. ‘Take Kaja Claussen to the brink of her deepest mental abyss. The rest will come naturally.’