‘So where we going?’ Livio asked Feli as she entered the address in his navigation device. The thing looked even older than his completely filthy Renault.
‘This piece of junk even work?’ she said and tried entering the info for a third time.
‘Not with your stubby fingers,’ Livio shot back and steered into the outer lane of the traffic circle at Ernst Reuter Platz.
‘You didn’t have to drive,’ Feli said. The display now said it was searching for a satellite.
‘Right. ’Cause you’re doing so well on your own. Turn here?’
She nodded, and they headed towards the Victory Column on Strasse des 17 Juni.
‘Listen, maybe I do have skeletons in my closet. But I’m no idiot. I can tell when someone’s in trouble.’
Feli laughed out loud. ‘It doesn’t exactly take a genius. I literally told the woman: the daughter of a friend is missing. And her son might’ve kidnapped her.’
‘Kidnapped?’
Shit. Feli bit her lip. She’d just spilled the beans.
Livio gave her a wary look from the corner of his eye. ‘So in that mommy’s boy’s room you think you found—’
‘His plans. Exactly.’
The navigation had found the satellite and was calculating the route. Still twenty-three minutes to Weissensee.
Still two-and-a-half hours until the wedding.
Good Lord, how am I going to explain this to Janek?
At least she was now heading in the right direction with Livio.
She started typing a response to her fiancé’s countless texts but couldn’t find the right words.
She was far too worked up about all she’d discovered in Franz Uhlandt’s apartment, and calling Mats first was more important.
‘Hello?’
It rang and hissed static, but he didn’t pick up. When voice mail came on, she hung up.
Shit.
Why wasn’t he picking up? She needed to make a decision. What she’d just experienced was telling her – at the very least – to now call the police.
Ten minutes ago, Feli had gained access to Franz Uhlandt’s combination bedroom and office, against his mother’s will, using a screwdriver that Livio found in a kitchen drawer. They’d only needed to give the lock a hard jerk, without damaging it. It was so easy that Feli had been certain Franz would leave nothing revealing simply lying around.
She’d been wrong.
In contrast to the rest of the apartment, Franz’s room was an utter mess. The bed wasn’t made, laundry lay strewn all over the floor between medical journals and crumpled tissues. At a window covered with plastic sheet was a school desk with an Atomkraft? Nein, Danke! sticker on the desktop along with Panini collector cards of Germany’s 2006 World Cup team.
There was no computer, no camera, nothing electronic in the room, not even a TV. The ingrain wallpaper held no pictures or photos, though Feli did spot holes from tacks and nails and scotch tape, as well as dirty borders from items that must have been recently taken down.
Against the protests of his bickering mother, Feli had first opened the drawer of the desk and then the wardrobe, and eventually made the classic under-the-mattress discovery.
Satellite photos, printouts of a building from a bird’s-eye view. City maps, always of the same area. An address circled in red.
And, finally, the interior shots. Photos. Clearly a milking facility.
What would a vegan want with that? Feli was wondering. Then, when she’d realised why, she had grabbed the printouts now lying on Livio’s back seat and run out of the apartment as if on fire. Not even saying goodbye, Livio running after her.
The question now wasn’t where Franz had taken Nele. It was whether they should finally be calling in the police.
Yet Mats, who still hadn’t answered twice now, was making her have to decide.
What if Nele was being held prisoner and tortured in those old cow stalls? Then every second counted.
But what if she was wrong and sent the police down the wrong track?
If it was the former, Nele might just be saved by the police acting quickly.
If the latter, Nele could die. Mats had left no doubt of that. She was useless as leverage once the blackmailer lost contact with Mats. And they were sure to lose it just as soon as the authorities found out about the kidnapping. To thwart any possible crash attempt and protect the lives of the passengers, Mats and Kaja would be seized immediately on board the plane.
In her anger, Feli again made the mistake of balling her injured fingers into a fist.
She screamed out all her frustration. ‘Fuck!’
Livio, driving towards Brandenburg Gate, asked what he could do to help.
Feli vented her rage at him. ‘Just what is it with you? You don’t look like much of a Good Samaritan to me. What’s in it for you?’
‘A C-note wouldn’t hurt,’ he admitted openly, and his chutzpah stole some of her anger.
‘A hundred euros?’
‘That’s the Livio taxi fee.’ He grinned, and although this reckless wannabe wasn’t her type at all, Feli could see how some women fell for his swashbuckling charm, usually those victim types who kept seeking the same fake machismo. She’d heard it often enough in her therapy sessions.
‘That include a ride to my husband’s too?’ she asked, not quite serious.
‘To your wedding, you mean?’
Her head whipped around in surprise. ‘How do you know that?’ she asked warily.
‘I went through your wallet looking for an ID or an address. That’s when I saw the invitation. Shouldn’t you be home by now?’
‘Shouldn’t you have taken my billfold to my house instead of following me?’
‘Oh, sorry for just happening to see you come out of Klopstock’s clinic. Man, you were running fast, and I lost sight of you. Just be happy I ended up spotting you again on Kantstrasse. You’re so paranoid!’
‘And you, you’re—’
She wasn’t able to get the insult out.
Her phone was ringing.
‘Mats, thank God!’