Anouk. Torch. Pencils. Drawing.
Single-word thoughts made a racket in Martin’s head, knocking him violently from the inside against the bell of his skull and producing a muffled, droning sound, which like discordant film music accompanied those images that were currently playing in his mind’s eye. Images in which he recalled his meetings with Anouk: the girl in her nightshirt, sitting silently and stoically on the bed, her arms a whetstone for her fingernails.
Martin thought about how Gerlinde had told him of the torch and remembered on his way to the captain barging into the disco-goer with his luminous drink. All of a sudden, seemingly unconnected scraps of thoughts were piecing together.
For this – as Martin assumed – final descent to Hell’s Kitchen, Bonhoeffer had let him go alone, although to begin with he’d raced after him and even blocked his way by the entrance to the staff deck.
‘What have you discovered?’ he’d asked.
Martin was just about to explain his suspicions to Bonhoeffer when the captain’s mobile rang.
Julia Stiller, the mother of the missing girl, had woken up in his cabin and was demanding to see Bonhoeffer. To be precise, she was screaming at him.
‘YOU FUCKING BASTARD! WHERE ARE YOU? HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME?’
Martin had been able to hear every word, even though Bonhoeffer had pressed the phone tightly to his ear.
The captain had promised to return as quickly as possible once he’d seen to Julia, but right now Martin was standing alone outside Anouk’s room. His fingers were sweating as he swiped the key card. He entered without knocking.
And stood in an empty cabin.
For a moment he was unable to formulate a clear thought. He gazed hypnotically at the abandoned bed, as if Anouk would materialise before his eyes if he stared long enough at the crumpled sheet.
How can that be? Anouk doesn’t have a key. She can’t get out of here!
Martin’s bewilderment lasted little more than a second, before he was freed from his paralysis by the noise of the loo flushing. The bathroom door on his right opened and Anouk shuffled out. She was wearing a fresh nightshirt and must have taken off her tights. Her feet were bare. When she saw Martin, she retreated to the bathroom in fright.
‘Stop,’ Martin called, jamming his foot in the door just before Anouk could slam it in his face. ‘Don’t be scared; I’m not going to hurt you.’
He yanked the door open again. Anouk ducked, wrapped both arms around her head and stepped backwards until she knocked against the toilet. She sat on it.
‘You do remember who I am, don’t you?’
He put the key card into the breast pocket of his polo shirt and waited until Anouk’s breathing started to calm down. It took her a while to understand that he wasn’t going to touch her. When she felt brave enough to lower her elbows and look him straight in the eye he gave her a smile. Or at least he tried to pull the corners of his mouth into the appropriate position. Since he’d entered Hell’s Kitchen, his headaches had returned. A dull pressure behind the eyes that would soon turn into a tugging.
‘Watch me, I’m just going to stand here,’ he said, raising both hands. ‘May I ask a favour if I promise not to move and not come too close?’
No nod. No twitch of the eyebrows. No reaction. Anouk remained silent. And yet, in spite of the sick pallor in her face and terrified body language, Martin thought he could see signs of mental recovery in the girl.
Her gaze was no longer lifeless, but expectant, furtive. She didn’t let him out of her sight for a second, unlike yesterday when she’d spent most of the time looking straight through him. And there was further evidence that she’d managed to climb a few rungs of the ladder out of her emotional cellar: she was neither scratching nor sucking her thumb, even though she was in a high state of agitation.
Seeing the plasters with animal figures that held the white gauze bandages in position, Martin guessed that Elena’s assistant had changed the girl’s dressings.
‘Don’t worry, we don’t have to talk,’ he said in a reassuring tone.
If he was right he’d soon find out everything he wanted to know from her, without the traumatised girl having to open her mouth even once.
‘I only came to give you something I bet you’ve been missing for quite a while.’
He showed her the torch.
The effect was striking. Anouk reacted in a split second. She leaped up from the loo seat and grabbed Martin’s hand. She was about to snatch the torch from him, but he was too quick and pulled it away just in time.
‘You have to tell me the truth first,’ he demanded. He felt a lump in his throat, for his words stirred a memory of Timmy and how he used to blackmail him.
‘Can I go to tennis, Papa?’
‘You have to tidy your room first.’
Often Timmy had rebelled, throwing himself on the floor, crying and defiantly ignoring the ‘tidying for playing’ deal.
Anouk was obstinate too. She wanted the torch. But she wasn’t yet ready to trust him.
She stared at him grimly with a deep frown.
‘Okay, I’m going to tell you what happened,’ Martin said. ‘I think you know where your mother is. You even drew the place for us, on your toy computer, although we didn’t understand your clue and we don’t know where this shaft is. But you know the way. You marked it with the UV pens that I found in your pencil case. Unfortunately, these marks can’t be seen with normal light…’
When he made the mistake of briefly glancing up at the overhead light, he was suddenly struck by a flash. The adverts claim that there are thirty-seven types of headache that can be treated with non-prescription medicines. Clearly this wasn’t one of them. It felt as if someone were sticking very thin, red-hot needles from the inside of his head through his eyes to the other side of the pupils. Martin even thought he could feel the points of the emerging needles, bloodily tearing the insides of his lids whenever he blinked.
Leaning against the door, watched mistrustfully by Anouk, who was standing as if rooted to the basin, he waited until the pain had subsided to a tolerable level. Then he turned off the light.
The darkness was a relief. His headache faded to a pale shadow of itself. The attack died away as quickly as it had come.
He briefly allowed his eyes to get used to the almost complete darkness. Then he turned on the torch. And the beam that was barely visible in normal light suddenly filled the entire room, making the white bathroom tiles fluoresce, as well as Anouk’s nightshirt, teeth and fingernails.
Pens. Drawing. Torch.
‘I knew it,’ Martin said to himself. There was no hint of triumph in his voice when his theory proved correct. Anouk’s eyes shone spookily in the black light. She looked like a ghost without lips from a horror story.
The torch he was aiming at the girl wasn’t weak, but a UV lamp shining light at a frequency barely visible to the naked eye. He’d once used a similar model on an operation.
But where did Anouk get these torches from?
A question he had to postpone, for now there were more important things to clear up. ‘It showed you the way to your mother, didn’t it?’
When Anouk failed to react, he asked insistently, ‘Where was she taken to?’
Anouk’s response pulled the carpet from under his feet again. For, just as at their first meeting, she whispered his name again.
‘Martin.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me,’ he wanted to reply, wondering why he couldn’t hear his own voice even though his lips were moving.
Then he wondered why he wasn’t fainting.
The pain behind his eyes had returned, this time with a run-up and twice the momentum.
Martin sank to the floor and felt it getting worse. Anouk had stepped over him and turned the overhead light on again. He felt as if a ghost had swapped the bathroom light for a blowtorch. Its blazing light was attempting to bore into his eyes. Unlike last night in the captain’s suite, however, he didn’t feel as if he was losing consciousness. But he could barely move his extremities.
He felt Anouk, who was suddenly kneeling above him, open his fingers. He could do nothing to stop her taking the torch from his hand. ‘What are you doing?’ he mumbled.
‘Yes,’ she said, which was probably related to the fact that she’d discovered the key in his breast pocket.
Which she could open the airlock with. Which she could get out of here with.
‘Hey, wait please. Wouldn’t it be better if I came with you?’
Wherever you want to go.
With the greatest effort of will, Martin managed to shift onto his side. He saw her bare feet toddle out of the bathroom. Heard her say ‘Yes’ again, loudly and clearly, which made no sense as there were no signs she was going to wait for him.
‘Where are you going?’ he wanted to call out, but he could muster barely more than a whisper.
Anouk turned briefly towards him. Saw her lips say, ‘To the blue shelf,’ and heard the words too, which came to him with a slight delay, as if the distance between them had already reached a range where sound took noticeably longer than light.
To the blue shelf?
Martin hauled himself to his knees, supported himself on the balls of his hands and crawled behind Anouk on all fours.
He’d heard that term somewhere before.
But where? Where?
Unable to crawl out of the bathroom any quicker than in slow motion, he watched helplessly as Anouk opened the cabin door and left without turning back to him.