CHAPTER ONE
~
Pulling on her leather coat, Sophia strode along Bellevue- strasse, jumping on the U-Bahn crammed with fresh tourists ready for a weekend of the city’s particular magic. A group of drinkers lurched from one compartment to another, waving bottles and cans and growling out old songs about never-ending forests and mountains. Folding her long legs under the icy metal seat, Sophia burrowed into the worn coat, tucked her hair under the collar and thought about sex, as the night sky hung fog-mantled over the city and station signs and distant winding streets blurred.
Leaving Potsdamer Platz, they crossed the border where the Wall had just recently stood. The group roared, toasting one another with mouthfuls of supermarket Schnapps. An old woman, in matching nettle-green coat and handbag, sank further into her corner. She opened the bag just a crack. A flash of white. A pink nose nudged, then stained teeth chewed at the leather rim. One of the men prodded his mate. Pointed. The pair closed in. The woman zipped her bag shut as the drinker’s mate grinned and spat. His phlegm landed, a gelid mound, between Sophia and the door as, with a squeal of brakes, the U-Bahn juddered to a halt at Friedrichstrasse. The woman stepped onto the platform as the group yodelled a discordant chorus. Sophia followed, smiling as the woman whispered ‘Idioten’ to the rabbit in the bag.
The pavements were so full she had to dodge into the street to avoid the swarm. Talking, shouting, touching and laughing. Eating Bratwurst with Sauerkraut, the city folk drank Glühwein from a forest of market stalls that had sprung up along Unter den Linden even though it was only November. Why couldn’t they stay at home and watch the news? They wanted, she supposed, to talk about their neighbours’ new freedom. To laugh and stare. The market traders responded by hiking up prices. It was all too easy to encourage the flood of visitors that poured in from East Germany to traipse across the old border, then spend what little money they had.
There they were: pointing at the former checkpoint. Staring at the newly created window displays, forming orderly queues at the entrance, until someone took pity and told them to open the door and go in. Every face was fixed in an expression of wonder, as if they’d stepped through the door into a Disney theme park full of brand new fridges and American jeans.
Tonight though, crowds were welcome. Moving between them, Sophia kept her eyes firmly on the pavement, although every now and then she checked the edge of the throng for green uniforms that could spell danger.
A large guy trailing a wailing child collided with her and apologised profusely, his Entschuldigung pronounced with a throaty hum. What was that accent? Uneasy, she sidestepped down the next alley, pausing to catch breath and pull her hair back, wrapping the blue-black scarf tightly round her face. Near Rosmarinstrasse, she stopped again – stretching her neck to the sky: the distant boom of music was unmistakable. Heat tingled in her belly and between her legs.
There was the entrance, but a bouncer was leaning against the doorpost watching. She frowned and looked away; there’d been no mention of bouncers in the magazine flyer. Disappointment made her sour and grey. This guy could be a problem: he would remember things like her face. Her fingers burned with such longing that, almost moving against her will, she turned and, head down, dug out the entry fee. Inside the door, she handed over her worn leather coat; grabbed the numbered ticket and squeezed past a couple straining up against the wall. Both were moaning, swapping saliva and skin. The tight fist inside her stomach uncurled, opened, making her sigh as she made her way into the inky-black hall, signalling for a beer to avoid yelling through the booming music.
A swarm of bodies vibrated on the dance floor. Some in perfect rhythm, others touching: hand on shoulder, mouth to ear, leaning close to shout a word or two, weaving one way, swirling the other. Watching them she felt her body swell to a beat strong enough to pulse through bone. What would they see if they looked? A thin unyielding face or the dark-haired beauty Hajo had said she was? Long-limbed, supple with muscled arms and swimmer’s legs. On a good day her eyes were deep blue, like a wolf – flecked with grey.
She checked the edge of the crowd for dealers: one figure joining another, drifting to the fringe, by the doorway, just far enough from the bright lights. The briefest of touches accompanied a nod, a hand to mouth, casually slipping the discreet pill between lips as the buyer swallowed his choice of drug with water or beer. White powder? Finding a clean surface in here to chop and inhale would be impossible. She preferred to inject, but only if the needle came in its plastic sanitised packaging. A cocaine fix was like magic: a buzzing, talking, fizzy-tingle that had walls bulging, the wind whispering crazy secrets to a moon that swung heavy and metallic in the sky. No, tonight she’d buy the white dots that warmed her icy blood enough to dance and, more importantly, feel. She nodded as they glanced towards her. Swapped money for five powdery circular fragments. Bought a glass of cold vodka and placed one ecstasy pill on her tongue.
Now the delicious wait. The smoky room would soon feel hot, thick as a creamy orgasm. Music would blast through loosening bone, slack and easy under deliciously hot, wet skin.
Spotlights swung across the crowd, winking silver to green. She drank until the floor became a sticky pool of sliding limbs, the night at its shuddering darkest. Then she danced, weaving her mind to the sound, moving like silk on water. Now she could see everything and nothing. There were no more boxed-in limitations. No more what she could, and what she could not do, just one long pounding wave of silver-green dancers moving closer.
From the edge of the crowd a slim-hipped stranger separated. His shoulders were broad, hips pushed forward, confident yet enquiring. Her nipples tightened, aching as she watched his shadow thicken moment by moment. He had a cruel full mouth that smiled above a determined chin. Blue eyes, hooded yet bold. Someone she recognised – yet a total stranger. As they danced, Sophia glanced up. His face should be less than symmetrical, the right eye tilting, slanting towards his right ear. But this young man was chiselled and perfect. How would he taste? She licked the downy fur on the back of his neck, slicked with sweat: bit down gently. He gasped, held her wrists and slid close, melting, before thrusting up hard against her.
It was always so easy – this glide from loose to electric, nothing more than motion and sensation. They melted from the crowd, hailed a taxi. In his apartment she undressed as he watched, one hand moving in practised rhythm. ‘Kneel on the bed,’ he told her. Oh. She could feel him, right there. Skin on skin. Deeper. Working with an intense, furious focus. She moaned, drifted in the white-pill dream. Muscles strained. She was swimming. Water above and below. No. She was lying on the bed. Not in water. The stranger was hunched above her, his face twisted tight. Eyes shut. She moved up/down, closed her eyes, swimming through bleached light that rippled across pale blue tiles lining the bottom of the pool. Raised her eyes above the surface. Noise. Row after row of children paraded to clapping hands. Eyes stared. Voices whispered, ‘Faster. Turn now, turn.’ She shot under-and-through in a practised arch. Dive. Dark shapes leaned over the pool edge, floating, dead. Dead as Diertha. Oh. Swim, swim deeper.
The stranger moaned. Jerked. Swore. Too soon, too soon. He came, tucking his damp face in the curve of her neck like a child. Silence. A distorted clicking. Was that the distant splash of swimmers? She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. The water was blood. Something wet bumped against her shoulder. What was that bobbing white shape: a child’s limb?
***
Panic: Sophia sat up sick and dizzy. She’d bitten her lip. Gagging, she slipped from the bed and fumbled her way into a strange bathroom. In the dark she trickled water, but not so much as to make a noise. Cupped her hands and rinsed out her mouth. Her jaw, head and shoulders were so tense they burned. Still dizzy, she sneaked back into the bedroom, dreading the possibility that she might have woken him. Thankfully the stranger with the cruel mouth, that mouth, was deep asleep. Sophia fingered her way around the silent room. The curtains were newly washed. A crack of light sneaked between the fabric to rest on a desk and chair, and – halleluiah, most of her clothes were strewn across a second chair by the window.
She peered, then fumbled around at the bottom of the bed to find her knickers. He looked young, so young, too bloody young – talking about banks, his lifeblood circulating numbers and money. At her age she should know better.
Pulling on her coat, she glanced over to the bed with a ready excuse should he wake (people to see, things to do, anything). Crept to the door and carefully released the latch.
Outside in the empty, dimly lit corridor, she leaned against the wall, tasted blood and, deciding against the lift, shoved open the fire exit and limped down the stairs, counting three floors of grey cement lit by a dull, flickering light. At last: out in the open. She spat into the gutter and inhaled the familiar smell of car fumes accompanied by the scent of fresh rain.
A cab was turning the corner into the next street. She whistled. The driver slowed, checking in his mirror to see if she was fit for his newly cleaned cab. The number plate was unknown. Good. She wasn’t in her police uniform, no need to worry. Her hands weren’t shaking, no giveaway signs of drugs or drink. Sophia tied her hair back with her scarf, wiped her mouth, just to make sure, and strode towards the waiting cab.
Home: instinctively she paused and remembered: spies, People’s Police, Stasi? She knew what they could do and listened before opening the main door. Nothing, only the low hum of traffic from across the other side of the park, mixing with the slow air of a Sunday morning. Climbing the stairs to the top floor, she unlocked the apartment; double locked it from inside. Her clothes were gluey with sweat, smoke and the sickly sweet smell of sex. She peeled them off, leaving the pile on the floor and shivered her way to the bathroom, placing the four extra pills she’d bought in a plastic bottle marked Sleeping Pills. Her father might check. He did, she knew he did. Petrus the doctor, always right, always looking out for her. Only last month he’d found out about her secret dancing. She’d called him from a phone box, trying to hide the bruises on her stomach and legs by showing him her face. He’d forced the truth out. Now when he asked if she’d seen sense, she refused to answer.
Peering into the mirror, Sophia opened her mouth wide to stare at a blistering row of tooth marks along its right side. Christ. The purple circles under her eyes made her look like a vampire. Okay, one bruise on her shoulder. Minimal damage, she decided. Though god, it hurt like hell to pee.
Standing in the shower, eyes closed, face turned to the stream of cleansing water, she calmed. Washed her hair, inhaled the comforting normality of eucalyptus shampoo. Lately her dreams had been filled with milky faces that melted before she could see what they wanted. Diertha was one of them. Stupid Diertha, her cousin, roommate and bully at training camp, never seemed to leave her thoughts. During sleep, the ghostly voice told her things she didn’t want to hear. ‘They invited me, not you, to the head office,’ Diertha would boast in her most annoying whiney voice. ‘Your trainer was there. You know the one, little Sophi? Red face. Small hands? They kept me there all night, until I was bleeding.’ Sometimes, she loomed above weighed down with reasons to kill Sophia as she struggled to wake.
Enough. She’d placed that time in the ‘forgotten drawer’. Best to throw away the flimsy dance clothes right now – or at least the moment she was dry, and not go ever again as the nightmares were always worse when she took drugs. That thought had come and gone many times. Now, as before, it vaporised in the steam.
In the kitchen she made strong coffee, adding cream and stirring in three spoons of sugar, lapping up the nectar as dawn broke over a November Berlin. The ghostly voice inside her head wanted her to remember, but her father had insisted she forget, so she’d do what she always did to calm herself. She’d paint. The feel of the brush, the sensation of stroking wet oil to canvas, brought with it the burn of childhood love. Not true mother-love, that had been fleeting, hardly remembered. This love was for Frau Schöller who had cared for Sophia as if she were her own child; showing her how mix colour, how to take joy from simple things like the sun rising, the smell of newly baked bread. When Sophia painted, it was as if, for a short time, she found her way back to that memory.
Dragging the easel to the window, she angled it to face outward; squeezed oils onto the palette. Layering blue on green, she made the sea. That daub of grey was a distant whale, the dash of orange and white: a clown fish darting to safety inside his own anemone-home. Time crept from early morning to a rain-soaked afternoon before she stopped, dipping brushes in white spirit. Her mouth was healing fast so she rinsed with mouthwash, heated the last of the vegetable soup and drank a cup of thick sweet hot chocolate, a leftover of childhood comforts. Finally, when she believed she might sleep, Sophia limped to bed, leaving the light shining in the sitting room. Wrapped tight, eyes closed; she prayed ‘Please, oh please, just let me sleep.’
***
When the alarm began its penetrating ring, Sophia whacked the ‘off’ button and lay dozing in the warmth of the cosy bed, listening to the rain tap against the bedroom window. Wonderful. She’d slept well; something that often happened after.
The side lamp threw an arc of gentle light across the bed and white rug. Shoving her feet in a pair of ratty old slippers, she opened the top right drawer where contents were precisely organised: white bras, folded chastely next to white pants and brown socks. The left drawer was filled with other underwear: satin, basque with ruched lace, ribbons and ties, black suspenders – stuff that just wouldn’t fold – her secret life in black and purple.
In the closet, yellow police-issue shirts hung next to brown trousers, keeping company with the solitary spare police jacket. It made no difference that she’d easily earned a place on the informally dressed investigation team, and was often asked for to help with cases the Berlin police found impossible to solve – particularly those that involved people or officers from the GDR. Now, just after the Wall, the west Berlin police were only beginning to realise just how far the Stasi had penetrated every aspect of the eastern police force.
Sophia chose to wear her uniform. If working undercover, she wore black. So what if her colleagues thought her a pedant unable to throw away the vestiges of a GDR childhood.
Showered, she dragged a brush through her hair until every strand was pulled into a neat, tight, bun. A thin face gazed sternly from the mirror. Make-up? She rarely wore any, was resigned to be whatever she was, although often she wasn’t at all sure what that might be. Two skins, she decided, pulling on the uniform daffodil shirt, tucking her portion of the childhood friendship bracelet into her top pocket: two skins that chafed, occasionally moving as one when she was running, frightened or having sex. The pile of clothes still lay on the floor. Disgusting. Pulling on plastic gloves, she dumped everything into a tightly sealed bag.
A shrill buzzing. The bloody doorbell. She leaned forward, peering through the spy hole. No one?
‘There’s a letter for you, Frau Künstler, handwritten,’ Frau Weiner yoo-hooed up the stairs. Out on the landing Sophia lifted her hand in a half wave before retreating and slamming the door. Already three letters made up a pile that sat unread on the kitchen table. Her address – 14 Tiergartenstrasse – written in a slanted, messy hand, a hand she knew only too well. She gulped down coffee with the last of the cream, shrugged on her green jacket and hugged the fabric tight. The safety of a uniform: one of many, not recognisable, not alone. The beige trousers weren’t flattering but they hid her well, as did her cap with the insignia of Police Investigation Squad perched on the front. As she did every morning, she touched the medals that hung by the door. They clinked, a hollow sound against the wall.
Lifting the bag of washing, she ran downstairs, unlocked the mailbox and pushed the latest envelope to the back: out of sight out of mind. In the basement, she dumped the bag on top of her washing machine; turned and unlocked the door through to the garage. Sometimes she ran to work, loving the feel of hard concrete under her feet. But today, already late: she’d take the car. A broken bike, along with a mattress and chair, sat in the furthest corner of the garage, stinking of urine: a clear invitation for homeless drunkards. Right, that was it. The note she stuck on the residents’ board wouldn’t be so damn polite this time. Keeping the windows shut she drove out onto the street, along Kantstrasse towards the Orangerie Pavilion, and finally, left into Charlottenburg police headquarters.
No room in the already over-full car park. She reversed, drove furiously down towards Mollwitzstrasse, squeezing into a narrow space opposite the bakery. Salzbrötchen? The thought of the butter and salt roll made her mouth water. What the hell. She jogged across to the bakery and bought two.
Monday briefing was well underway. There was another bulky envelope on her desk, her name written in capital letters across the front. Why couldn’t Maria leave her be? She listened with half an ear as Hajo, in a clean shirt and rumpled trousers, began to update them about the current investigation while, under the desk like a schoolgirl, she broke her salted roll into chunks. Hajo needed a haircut: thick dark curls nestled along the bottom of a strong neck. How delicious would it be to run her fingers through those curls? She lifted another section of roll to her mouth. Better not be too obvious about chewing.
They’d found a body in a lake at the park right across the road from her apartment. A girl? A woman? No one seemed sure. How difficult could it be?
‘Sophia?’ Hajo was glaring.
‘What?’ A bit of bread lodged itself in her throat.
‘Take Ernst and get down there.’ Her colleagues sniggered as she coughed.
Ernst was an arsehole. True to form he grinned and lifted his middle finger, wiggling it while Sophia caught Hajo’s eye and smiled, showing her teeth. My god, he was grinning back, his green eyes seeing far too much. Lovely eyes: so strong, sure and steady. Her neck grew warm and she looked away. He straightened, broad shoulders stretching, leg muscle tightening under faded blue trousers, and dumped a fresh murder book in front of her, then leaned over. ‘Keep your notes legible this time.’ He was there, so close. Ah. Heat on her neck; he was breathing warm air on the spot between her ear and shoulder. Ernst made a rude comment, his mates dutifully giggled. ‘Well?’ Hajo straightened. ‘What are you waiting for?’
Trying not to think: his mouth, her neck, Sophia drove back to her apartment where she could park for free as Ernst jabbered on about how work colleagues were only good for a shag and if Hajo wasn’t available he’d be up for it. There must be one hundred ways to kill the little twerp: using him as a speed bump, reversing to make quite sure; leaving him in a very tight dark place; launching him into the path of a speeding car, or maybe just shooting him?
A small crowd had gathered on the footbridge that led to the moss-covered Luiseninsel island monument. The ambulance crew were moving the body to the water’s edge; they looked relieved as Ernst began edging the crowd back. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he shouted, ‘your morning’s entertainment is now over.’ One spectator muttered about their walk being spoiled as Sophia slid down a muddy embankment.
‘You shouldn’t have moved her,’ she said.
‘Oh, you’d rather we simply assumed she was dead?’ The paramedic had a smudge of black pondweed on the tip of an angular nose. Under a bright red and yellow striped hat quiet brown eyes assessed her.
‘I need to know where she died.’
‘Over there.’ He pointed two foot into the shallow icy water. ‘Stabbed in the stomach and neck.’
Sophia edged closer, then knelt as a pair of mud-stained ambulance staff began clearing a safe way for the stretcher to transport the body to the morgue. Icy black liquid seeped through her trousers making her knees feel as if they were bleeding. The body lay half submerged in mud. A muscled form twisted to spidered angles. Ratty hair floated in filthy water. The victim’s face was half submerged. Sophia leaned closer. Freckles. A snub nose. A livid bruise under her left eye. No.
‘Turn her onto her back. Careful I said, careful.’
Käthe? The water blurred. Pain in her chest. Breathe. Don’t faint. No. Käthe wasn’t here. She was in the other place; that long-ago home. Safe. Married. Happy. Content. All the things Sophia was not. This was someone else curled up like a bruised fist, the wretched shape horribly grey and wrinkled. What to do? Pretend this wasn’t happening? Oh god. She touched her friend’s hand. Ice cold. Her body was stiff, rigor mortis setting in, but the face was as familiar as if she’d seen her yesterday, not thirteen years ago.
***
Late. They were late! Out of the door, down the path, satchels swinging behind them. Sophi first. She was always first because she knew how to run. Oops. Damn. There it was, beetling between two houses. Run. Run faster.
‘The bus!’ Käthe’s gasp was way too close. Sophi sped up, veered round the corner. Slid. Her left shoe! The shoe sailed through the air and landed smack bang in a deep puddle. Käthe barrelled into her back. It hurt. Sophi lurched forward. Her sock. Her foot. Käthe grabbed. Pulled hard just as she began to fall.
‘Help.’ There’d be hell to pay. New blue shoes for a new year at school. Mama telling her how lucky she was. Papa telling her she was to keep them clean. Käthe was laughing. She had her hand over her mouth to hide it. Sophi wanted to thump her. Right on her perfect little nose. Make it bleed. But her own laughter came bubbling up, sneaking out her mouth as Käthe dashed to the nearest garden fence, broke a branch from a leafless shrub and poked at the puddle.
‘Come to me, little fish,’ she chanted, trying to hook the shoe which filled with brown water. ‘Sophi, hold my bag.’ Käthe leaned forward, a question mark shape with wild hair and freckles that dotted across a flat peevish face with raisin eyes. Her soft blue hat wobbled. Oh please don’t let it fall. Käthe’s shoes were old, so old you couldn’t tell what colour they’d been. She didn’t care about them, but she loved her new hat.
The bus had stopped at the end of the road. There was Maria! Her heart-shaped face and huge blue eyes that made boys write her stupid notes, pressed up to the window.Well, she could keep those dopy eyes, but one day Sophi would have hair just like Maria who was waving like a mad thing as the mothers marched the Kindergarten children to their seats, checked the list with the driver, then stood in a group on the pavement to wave.
‘Put it on.’ Käthe waved the shoe in her face. It was wet and cold. She strapped it tight and ran after Käthe whose arms wind-milled as she legged it towards the bus. Maria’s face vanished, then she burst out of the sliding doors, grinning.
‘Come on,’ she yelled as the bus driver furiously beeped the horn. ‘He can’t drive because I’m keeping the doors open.’
‘You three are nothing but trouble.’ The bus driver closed the doors so fast Sophi’s bum nearly stuck. They collapsed onto a bench seat screeching as the bus hiccupped and joined the slow traffic on the main road.
***
‘Wake up.’ Sophia tried to haul Käthe from the freezing mud. ‘Dearest. Wake up.’ The body slid from her fingers.
‘You really shouldn’t.’ The paramedic had his hand on her arm. Käthe’s nose was broken. Her dead eyes staring. Sophia leaned in and wrapped her arms around her friend’s shoulders. She had to tell her how much she’d missed her. Ask her why she was here.
‘You do realise she’s dead?’ The paramedic sounded worried. Perhaps he thought he’d have to carry them both up the bank? The thought made her gasp out a laugh.
‘Let me do my job.’ Sophia stroked matted hair back from that poor battered face, and closed her friend’s eyes. Oh god. What to do? Had Käthe been trying to find her, even though she wasn’t to be found? Father had said it was best to start again. Right from scratch. But what if Käthe had needed help? She should have been there, that’s what friends did. Sophia brushed away tears, leaned forward, kissed her friend’s bruised face and folded her hand over the sodden scrap of paper and small photo from Käthe’s jacket pocket.