8

Kai lay on his bed, undecided if he should dive back into the primeval mud of his dreams or at least make the attempt to wake. His body was light, almost floating, somehow dissolved. It transformed into a pastel yellow sea of vibration, white dots that fed off of him.

He jolted upright and stared at his bed with eyes wide, moved his legs, feet, lifted his arms, smelled his T-shirt, jumped up and ran into the bathroom. He had stayed at home for the whole weekend – hadn’t painted the town red with the others for fear that they would notice the smell that seemed to stick to him like tar.

It was the craziest job he had ever heard of. While he soaped himself again and again he thought about what he would tell his caseworker at the employment agency and whether he should sue them. Damages for pain and suffering. Sick leave. Trauma. What he had seen, smelled and felt far exceeded anything the soft psyche of a twenty-one-year-old could handle. What made a woman like Judith do that kind of thing?

Because I can. And lots of others can’t.

And he had stuck it out. He had expected a word of appreciation for coming back and continuing. Instead she hadn’t even said goodbye. As if it was completely obvious that he would have had enough after just one day. Who did she think she was? He dried off and went into the kitchen, the towel wrapped around his waist. In the bin he looked for the instructions on the piece of paper that had been put in his hand on Friday by a hulk of a man wearing a blue smock with the name ‘Josef’ embroidered on it. Sankt Gertrauden Hospital. Work starts at 5:30, meeting point Dombrowski’s gateway. Leave at six. Knock off at three. They were crazy. And all that for six euros’ hourly minimum wage? Whoever went along with that was a complete idiot.

But Judith wasn’t a complete idiot. She considered him to be a loser who couldn’t even manage a draw in his daily battle with the alarm clock. Kai had something against the idea that she could be right.

An hour later, just before twelve, he was standing at the back entrance of the hospital, where everyone who couldn’t survive without cigarettes could be found. He didn’t have to wait for long. A flock of cackling blue smocks, all women of various nationalities, came through the rotating door and looked for a spot in the shade. The last of them, separate and silent, was Judith. She checked her phone, but then put it away without calling anyone. He was looking forward to her expression when he appeared before her. If she wanted to give him the boot, then she should say it to his face. Kai had experienced enough firings to be able to divide them into two different categories: the soft sell; compassionate, but simultaneously begging for understanding. And the taciturn approach: the papers already in the outbox, ‘pick them up yourself and you’ll save two days waiting on the mail and can still get back to the agency today’. Judith didn’t belong to the bowl of cherries camp. He girded himself with defiance and the carefully checked fury that he felt every time people labelled him a loser.

He was just about to approach her when he noticed how she was looking around carefully. Cigarette in hand, she casually strolled across the driveway towards the street and then quickly scurried to her Dombrowski van. Kai sprinted after her and reached her just as she was opening the door.

‘Calling it a day already?’

If he had surprised her then she didn’t let it show. She turned away and opened the driver’s side door.

‘Or are you deserting?’

She climbed in. He positioned himself in the doorway so that she couldn’t close it. Finally she forced herself to acknowledge him. He looked her in the eyes and knew something had happened. His apology poured out before he could hold it back.

‘I’m too late. I took a shower for four hours.’

‘Only four hours?’

She smiled weakly. He had expected a variety of reactions but not this. It was a disappointment but also a relief. He noticed for the first time that she had dark blue eyes. With big black rings underneath. Either she hadn’t slept or she had a full-blown hangover.

‘Are you done staring at me?’ She had switched into attack mode in a matter of seconds. ‘Get in. I don’t have all day.’

The ride to the station took less than fifteen minutes. She didn’t say a word. Just when Kai asked her if she wanted to pick someone up or jump into the next train herself, she took a right past the massive building and merged into Invalidenstrasse.

‘Where are we going?’ he interrupted the silence. ‘Do you have a new assignment? Something that no one else can do again?’

She changed lanes with a hazardous manoeuvre and at a complicated intersection crossed lines to go to the other side, despite the honking of the other drivers.

‘WLB,’ she said. ‘Work life balance. I’ve got a date. The person I’m going to see once started just like you. So don’t worry about your career. Just do what I tell you. Stay in the car. If someone starts asking dumb questions, just drive around the block.’

They had arrived at a set of gates. Judith pressed the intercom button.

Kai studied the grey building with the faded concrete façade. Berlin Municipal Health Management Institute was printed on a sign on the wall. The barrier swung up. Judith drove into a car park with several reserved spots. She parked in one that was actually reserved for a Prof. Weihrich, nodded and stepped out.

Kai slid over to the driver’s side. Judith went to a side building and disappeared into an open gateway. Kai watched her go. Work life balance. What had she meant? This didn’t really look like a date. Did a woman like Judith even date?

He had difficulty estimating her age. For Kai, the interaction between people of different genders took place largely below the waist. Women over thirty weren’t a part of his worldview. For him their attractiveness was on the level of zimmer frames and balcony plants. But for some reason Judith was stuck in his head. Purely on an intellectual level. She had a way of simply provoking him. She didn’t expect anything, neither punctuality nor order. And she hadn’t thrown him out.

He got out and strolled to the gateway. Behind that there was yet another courtyard where several green delivery vans with white labels were parked. Forensic Medicine. A second sign read Autopsy Department. Kai needed a moment to connect the two concepts and picture what that involved. He was standing in the courtyard of a mortuary.

Kai spun around on his heel and walked back to the car. Judith was a freak. It wasn’t just her job – even her dates were morbid.

‘Does he belong to you?’

Judith peered over Olaf Liepelt’s shoulder, which wasn’t easy as she only came up to his chest. Everything about him had been stretched too far – arms, legs, nose, back – not to mention that he also couldn’t stand still and constantly rocked back and forth. He wore the uniform for the lower-security area, a white smock. His ginger hair was cut so closely that it looked like a seal skin. As he also wore a moustache and had wrinkled his forehead into deep furrows, the overall impression he gave was distinctly seal-like. He removed a pack of gum from his smock pocket and offered Judith a piece. She declined, noting that Kai had retreated to the van with some speed.

‘A newbie, absolute beginner. He’s always either throwing up or snooping around. I’m not sure what to make of him.’

‘Kick him out. You’re usually not this way.’

‘Exactly. That’s why I’m hardly ever given anyone anymore. So what?’

Liepelt felt sorry for the threatened intern. After all, he had once been one himself.

She turned away from the window and went to a hanging file rack on the desk. Liepelt had taken her into the room behind the reception, a small office under the direction of Professor Weihrich, who would be returning from his lecture at the Charité Hospital in less than fifteen minutes, and would be less than pleased to catch his autopsy assistant and a stranger with their hands on his files. Not to mention the occupied parking spot. Liepelt stood next to her and after a brief search, removed a spring binder that he examined carefully, squinting.

‘Christina Borg. There we go. Delivered two weeks ago, autopsy the same evening–’

‘Give it here.’

Judith nearly tore the file out of his hands. She opened it and leafed through the crime scene photos. A woman in T-shirt and knickers, lying unnaturally twisted on the floor. Her face, pale as wax, with a reddish-brown circular wound on her forehead. Her mouth was slightly open, her features relaxed, eyes closed. Peace after the murder.

‘Give me that!’

Judith turned away from Liepelt and looked at the autopsy photos. Her chest. Shoulders. Bullet holes. Close-ups. Lab results. Autopsy report. Liepelt came around the desk reaching for the folder. She dodged him.

‘What are you so interested about?’

‘Everything.’

‘Why?’

She looked up briefly. ‘I was the cleaner.’

‘Oh, shit,’ said Liepelt. ‘You shouldn’t always take these kinds of things personally.’

She shook her head in frustration and skimmed the autopsy report.

‘Judith, we don’t have time!’

‘Was there anything special about her?’

‘She was shot.’

‘Very funny. Particular indicators? Anything out of the ordinary?’

‘Indications of abuse as a child, I believe. Two fractures, not treated and poorly healed. But that’s pure speculation.’

No. Not speculation. ‘I want to see her,’ she said suddenly.

‘Who?’

‘Borg.’

‘Are you crazy?’

But Judith was already at the door. The photos were the snapshot of a crime. But she wanted to see the person, the woman who Borg had been who had suffered the same fate as her as a child. No one who hadn’t been in a home could understand that. In life, and even more so in a mortuary.

‘You still have her. Show her to me.’

Liepelt lifted his long arms in a desperate attempt to talk her out of her plan. Judith tucked the file under her waistband.

‘You know I can’t do it. Weihrich will kill me!’

‘Weihrich won’t know a thing. And even if he does find out,’ she grinned, ‘you can always come back to work with me.’

‘That’s precisely the kind of shit I can do without. I’m so stupid to have let you in here in the first place. Give me the file!’

‘Later. This way?’

She opened the door, peered into the hall, and disappeared.

‘Shit,’ Liepelt murmured. ‘Shit.’

Quirin Kaiserley stood in front of the homicide building on Keithstrasse in Schöneberg. His chances of finding out something in the Borg case verged on negligible. He knew that. He had researched all weekend and hadn’t found notice of the death anywhere. So first he had to find out if this Judith Kepler had been telling the truth. If she was, and after two sleepless nights and going through all alternatives, he assumed that she was, then there had at least to be a record of the crime with the police. A file number. An address. Circumstances of the crime. The call log, the address of a neighbour, the fire fighters, the forensic team. CSIs, witness statements. Even if everything had been classified immediately, there had to be someone who had initially worked the case. Borg had been murdered in an apartment in Berlin. Even if the various authorities had fought over the case, there had to be witnesses. If not to the crime, then to what happened after that.

The woman at the reception was in her mid-fifties and was talking loudly with someone on the telephone who was supposed to repair a washing machine and apparently wasn’t succeeding. She didn’t put aside the phone as she turned to Quirin.

‘How may I help you?’

‘It’s to do with the Christina Borg murder case. I’d like to speak with the officer in charge.’

‘Wait a second.’ She sighed, and with barely concealed reluctance spoke into the telephone. ‘Not the pump. It can’t be the pump. I’ll call you right back.’

She hung up.

‘What was the name?’

‘Borg. Christina Borg.’

‘I got that. And who are you?’

‘My name is Quirin Kaiserley.’

‘Excuse me?’

He patiently spelled out his name.

‘And you want to file a report?

‘No. I want to speak to someone working on the case.’

‘So a statement.’

‘I want . . .’

Quirin stopped. The woman studied him as sceptically as she had spoken to the repairman.

‘We don’t give out information. You’ll have to go to public relations. Either you make a statement or you want to file a complaint. Then you’d go to the department . . .’

‘A statement,’ Quirin interrupted.

‘So relevant information about a murder case? Which case?’

‘Borg. Christina Borg.’

‘Then take a seat for a moment.’

The woman motioned to a wooden bench in the hallway. Quirin took a seat under a poster with the composite sketch of a bank robber and watched her pick up the phone and dial a number. He couldn’t hear what she said. But he saw her posture change suddenly. She nodded slightly, hung up and stared at him as if he was sitting directly beneath his own wanted poster.

Liepelt followed Judith with his rocking stride, the tails of his smock billowing behind him. He caught up with her at the end of the hallway in front of the admission area.

‘Keep your distance. This is where the new admissions land.’

Judith allowed herself to be manoeuvred through the halls by staying a half-stride behind him and lowering her head as soon as anyone approached them. They were just two people in work smocks on their way to quickly take care of a small catastrophe, as happened so frequently. It smelled of disinfectants and Liepelt’s cologne, which he must pour on by the pint.

‘You owe me one.’ They arrived at a heavy door made of polished dull stainless steel. Liepelt looked around. ‘Here.’

He tapped the opener with his elbow and walked ahead in a heavily refrigerated, tiled room.

‘This here is the top security area.’

He motioned to a light blue curtain that hung on the wall next to the sink. Judith slipped through it. Liepelt waited until she was ready, then he took a deep breath, looked at his watch and opened the second door.

‘You really want this?’

Instead of answering, Judith pushed past him. The first thing she registered was the icy air. According to the large thermometer on the cabinets opposite, the temperature was minus six Celsius. This was where the corpses were stored, stacked in four rows, each of them placed on a sliding shelf and packed in white plastic sacks. Liepelt closed the door behind them. Two living beings among forty-some dead ones.

‘Hand it over!’ he growled.

She handed him the autopsy file. Liepelt threw it on a long trolley to his left and compared the registry number with the labels on the cabinets. He bent over, searching the lower region of the cabinet and then went back to the left, carefully comparing the numbers. After a couple of steps he stood still. He returned the file to Judith because he needed to pull the trolley in front of the cabinet. Judith used the opportunity to put it back under her smock. Liepelt pulled out a stainless steel mortuary tray. A dead woman lay on it. Medium-sized, packaged, registered, deposited, unmourned.

Judith’s skin tingled. It was either the cold or her nerves were playing tricks on her. She wanted to finally see the woman who had tangled with the BND and who had been sent her file from the children’s home. She gave Liepelt a sign and he opened the zipper of the body bag.

Long, brown hair spilled out. Judith’s first glance fell on the bullet hole in her forehead. It looked like an exotic tattoo and gave the dead woman the appearance of a strangely severe deity. Borg was no beauty. Thick, dark eyebrows, wide cheekbones, a narrow, serious mouth. Judith asked herself if this woman had laughed often and how she would have looked then. Laughing changes people. It shows their soul for a fraction of a second. Open and generous, giggling and childish, or gloating and mean. Laughter was tell-tale. That was why Judith didn’t laugh very often.

She had never seen the woman before. And she would have remembered someone like Borg, because even in death, her face revealed something unrelenting, a strength she must have once had. You didn’t forget a woman like that. Dangerous for those who weren’t on her side. For Judith it stung a little that they were strangers and would stay that way.

‘Do you want more?’

Cold. Like marble under ice. Judith ran her fingertips over Borg’s face.

‘Where did she come from?’

‘No idea. No one called. As soon as the cops clear this here we’ll let Schneider know.’

Gerhard Schneider Mortuaries. They were the kingpins of the undertaking world. They must have had a deal with all the hospitals and prosecutors in the city, because Schneider and his fleet were always the first ones on the scene.

‘Crematorium, I’m guessing. Makes it cheaper. No relatives. At least none who called here. Listen, you’re not going to pass out now, are you? What’s going on with you?’

‘Nothing,’ Judith whispered and took a deep breath.

Nothing. Liepelt closed the zipper. He pushed Borg’s hair back inside so that it wouldn’t catch. And so that someone would touch her face this one last time, now disappearing behind the white plastic. No relatives. And her last journey was to the crematorium because it was cheaper.

Liepelt slipped Borg back into the cabinet. Judith waited until he had arranged the tray. Then she followed him silently outside. Only then did she suddenly feel a pang in her heart. She hadn’t even realised she had one.

‘Mr Kaiserley?’

A slender young man in his early thirties, either freshly showered or with his hair so gelled that it glistened, approached him in squeaky trainers. Quirin stood up and shook the hand extended toward him.

‘I’m Franz Ferdinand Maike. And with my name believe me I have to put up with a lot of jokes.’

Quirin smiled a somewhat tortured smile.

‘I’m a homicide detective. Please follow me. You want to make a statement?’

Quirin let Franz Ferdinand Maike believe that. Maike was slightly shorter than he was. A nimble, agile man he walked past the elevator without bothering to ask and made Quirin sprint up three storeys. By the time Maike had reached the top, Quirin was half a flight behind him, and Maike still looked like he was freshly showered. He held open the door to a small, very neatly kept office and asked his visitor to take a seat.

‘Mr Kaiserley. What exactly brings you here?’

‘Are you investigating the Borg homicide?’

‘Hmmmm . . . yes.’

Maike folded his hands and placed them on his green civil servant desk pad.

‘Why aren’t you going public with the case? I knew Christina Borg. I’d have liked to have known that she was dead.’

Quirin still felt a cold fury. He had stumbled right into the trap on Westerhoff’s show. Borg had been murdered, and no one in the city seemed to have taken official notice of it.

‘My apologies. You knew her?’ Maike bent forward. ‘From where? And since when?’

‘Christina Borg contacted me through my publisher. I write non-fiction books.’

‘Oh, yes?’

Maike kept a straight face. Either he had really never heard Kaiserley’s name or had just placed him in the category of an hysterical author.

‘We met here in Berlin,’ Quirin continued. ‘She was interested in the same topics as me and offered to help me with my research.’

‘Which topics would they be?’

‘Domestic security, the debate surrounding the statute of limitations, the BND. And Section A of the Ministry for Security, Division XII.

Maike nodded. ‘And was she able to help?’

‘Unfortunately not. She didn’t come to our last meeting. That’s why I’d like to know what happened.’

‘We’d also like to know.’

Maike leaned back and glanced out the window. The office looked out onto the courtyard. Nothing except the grey façade opposite was visible.

‘You surely understand that we’re not allowed to give any information about current investigations. But,’ Maike opened a drawer and pulled out a form, ‘please leave us your personal information and where we can reach you. We’ll get in touch at the appropriate time if we still have any questions for you.’

He slid the paper over the table. Quirin took it and carefully and slowly ripped it into tiny pieces.

‘You surely understand that I don’t believe a word you said. What’s the name of the department head at Berlin’s Department for the Interior? Or is it already in the hands of the Federal Ministry of Justice?’

Maike stuck out his jaw, giving his young face, not yet marked by disappointments, the expression of an abandoned pitbull.

‘And before you reach for the telephone to inform your superior, remember that he’s also no longer involved. I already told you, domestic security is one of my hobbies.’

‘I’m sorry I can’t help.’

‘Then I’ll explain what I can do for you. First of all, I’ll mobilise the opinion guerrillas in this country. The press will pound down your door. A young woman murdered, unsolved to date, and the public doesn’t know a thing. Who ordered this completely unprofessional approach?’

‘You’re not expecting me to . . .’

‘I want to know where the case was sent.’

Maike reached for the telephone. Quirin leaned over and put his hand over the receiver.

‘Is it still a simple homicide or much more? Is someone in the hot seat?’

‘Get a grip on yourself!’ Maike’s self-confidence was starting to evaporate. ‘You’re crazy if you think you’ll learn anything from us.’

‘And you’re naïve, Maike. Mr Homicide Detective Maike. What does the nose ring feel like, the one they lead you around with?’

Maike’s hand sped toward the telephone again.

‘Tell me who is really investigating the case, and I’ll let you do what you call work.’

Maike extended his lower lip. A couple more years and he’d look like a nutcracker.

‘I shouldn’t have to listen to nonsense like this.’

‘But you are.’ Quirin felt his opponent’s defences starting to crumble. ‘Why don’t you call your boss, the one who’s just as castrated as you are? Have some other eunuch in this building toss me out.’

‘A copy of the files were sent to Schwerin. Ask there. If you can.’

‘Schwerin?’

‘To the Ministry of the Interior.’

The Borg homicide was now at a level that required more firepower. Old connections, very old. Quirin asked himself who he still knew that he could ask for help.

‘But you didn’t hear it from me. We only led the crime scene analysis here.’

‘With what results?’

‘Nice try. But as you’re already here, can you tell me if you know this person?’

Maike removed a picture from a pile of documents. Quirin glanced at it. It showed Judith Kepler crossing the room with rubber gloves and a cleaning bucket. The name Dombrowski was inscribed on her smock. The company was known across the city and was surely already being looked into by the investigators.

‘No. Who’s that?’

‘So you don’t know where she is currently? You’re not in contact with her?’

‘No.’

‘Mr Kaiserley, contact me immediately if that changes. And if you’re cultivating conspiracy theories – remember, we’re the good guys.’

Maike returned the photo.

Quirin stood up. ‘Perhaps you’ll remind me of that once in a while.’

Dombrowski. At least now he knew where he could find Judith Kepler. She had something, and she knew something. And she couldn’t be left alone with either.

Judith followed Liepelt back into the tile-covered vestibule. Outside it was almost unbearably hot after those few minutes in the icy cold. She took off her cape, folded it up and placed it on the shelf. Then they raced back through the hallways to Weihrich’s office. It was 12:27. Liepelt returned the file to the cabinet. Weihrich wouldn’t notice that almost half of it was missing.

‘We lucked out. But don’t ever ask me for something like that again. Unless . . .’

Judith stepped to the window and looked into the courtyard. A black BMW was just coming through the driveway and heading towards the reserved spots.

‘What?’

‘. . . we can go get a drink sometime. If I’m not mistaken I’ve asked you more than once.’

Judith squinted and watched as Professor Weihrich, unhappy to be parking his car in one of his colleague’s spots, gave Dombrowski’s van a withering look. Where had Kai gone, she wondered?

‘Your boss is on his way.’

‘Shit. Come on, get out of here.’

Liepelt ripped open the door and ran into the hallway.

‘Come on!’

At the entrance Liepelt pushed Judith through the turnstile just as Weihrich entered it from the other side. He accompanied her to the courtyard.

‘We lucked out,’ he said. The relief that he had Judith out of the building was visible on his face. ‘Well, how about it?’

Liepelt was in his early thirties. He was a nice guy. He provoked an instinct to protect. And for that reason he was absolutely unsuitable for Judith. He needed a woman who could keep him ship shape. With her, even window boxes were doomed.

‘Friday night? Just a beer?’

‘I don’t drink beer.’

‘Then something else?’

‘Sorry, got to go.’

She was too fond of him to waste his time. In the driveway she turned around once more. Dejected, Liepelt still stood in the courtyard. She had been a hair’s breadth away from taking pity on him. But autopsy assistants were about as sexy as crime scene cleaners. And they didn’t like each other’s jobs.

When Judith opened the driver’s seat door Kai almost fell out. He rubbed his eyes in surprise.

‘Everything OK?’ he murmured and slipped back onto his seat.

‘Great.’

Judith felt the file against her skin. It scratched. Kai was annoying her. She had to get rid of him and get a look at the autopsy report as soon as possible. Abuse. Fractures. And in the end, she died like a dog. She waited for the boom gate to rise and accelerated onto the street with such a sharp turn that the chassis rocked. She thought about Dombrowski’s gun and regretted having turned down his offer.

‘Watch out!’ Kai screamed.

She just barely managed to pull the steering wheel around. The truck’s horn blasted. A collision, then her side mirror departed with an ugly grinding noise. She careened back into the right lane. The buckets and tools clattered in the back and the hammer rumbled across the floor. In her rear-view mirror she saw that the truck driver hadn’t noticed or didn’t want to notice the damage.

‘Holy shit!’ Kai was wide awake.

At the next red light Judith rolled down the side window and examined the damage. The mirror had been an ancient, no-frills model. Dombrowski would send someone to the junkyard that evening and get a replacement. Kai shifted back and forth uncomfortably in his seat. He would have preferred to get out.

She patted the panel with her hand, as if it was the flank of a horse, grinned at him and hit the gas.

‘Don’t be like that. Nothing happened.’

She handed him her pack of tobacco. He removed two pre-rolled cigarettes, lit them and handed her one.

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Do you actually want to work, or keep on living off my taxes?’

‘I don’t have any desire to have such an uncool discussion.’

‘OK.’

She concentrated on the traffic and chose the Tiergarten tunnel for her way back. Two or three kilometres straight ahead. Breathe and think. Borg’s face appeared in front of her. Who are you? Judith thought. You lived in Sweden and came to Berlin. With my file from the home. I was never in Sweden. But we must have crossed paths at some point. You knew that. I didn’t.

The realisation came so quickly that she almost yanked the steering wheel. The envelope. The sender. Post from the depths of Hell. Sassnitz was between Berlin and Sweden. That is where the threads came together. The sender must live somewhere there. She had to go there.

When Judith stopped at the back entrance of the hospital several of the patients were standing around a standing ashtray. Her phone vibrated. She didn’t have to look to know it was Dombrowski.

‘What needs to be done?’ Kai asked. He had been silent for the rest of the ride and had calmed down.

Judith turned off the engine.

‘Mop. Empty the bins. In crews, so relatively easy.’

Dombrowski would hit the roof when he found out. Sometimes he came by with a stopwatch and studiously recorded the length of time needed to clean a floor, shaking his head and grumbling to himself. Days later there were orders to improve seconds per metre. To date such orders were ignored in a kind of silent agreement.

‘And the shift is over at three?’

Judith glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Two minutes to one.

‘Yes.’

‘But that’s still considered a working day, right? I have to get a full week in for the employment agency.’

‘Don’t push it.’

He wanted to get out.

‘Wait a sec.’ Judith reached into her shirt pocket. ‘This is my time card. Go inside and find Josef. Tell him I’ve got to take care of something. Once you’re at the headquarters, swipe it.’

Kai stared at the plastic card. ‘You’re not coming along?’

‘Am I speaking Chinese? Do the job and shut your trap.’

He took the card and pocketed it. ‘OK, but this isn’t a one-way street,’ he said.

Judith shrugged her shoulders. She waited until he had disappeared into the building. She pulled out her phone. Dombrowski had tried to reach her a half-dozen times. She held down the red button until the display went dark. It was time to drive back to Hell, pedal to the metal.