14

Quirin Kaiserley reached the Franz Josef Strauss Airport north of Munich in the nick of time, just before check-in closed. He would arrive in Berlin around ten thirty.

By now the police, BND, and internal security all knew about Judith Kepler. Dombrowski, that bastard of a boss, was stonewalling. Regardless of where Kaiserley went, it was like the tortoise and the hare: someone jumped out of the bushes and was already there.

Quirin bought a newspaper, which he wouldn’t read, and made his way to the gate. The trip to Munich hadn’t accomplished much. Even more: it had shown that he and the boy didn’t have much to tell each other. Quirin huffed. ‘Boy’ was right. TT was an adult and still ran around with a baseball cap and tennis shoes. At his age, Quirin had already had a family. Had assumed responsibility. Was convinced he was doing the right thing. He had taken TT on board after average grades in school and a lot of convincing. Would he ever hear a word of thanks for that? Maybe the reasons for their falling-out lay deeper than he had previously assumed.

Quirin arrived at the gate. The ground hostess already had the microphone in hand to call out his name. Her smile was stressed.

‘Mr Kaiserley?’

Quirin handed her the boarding pass. He just wanted to turn off his phone when he saw that TT had tried to reach him. He took the stub back, went through the gate, and dialled.

‘You have to turn off your phone. Immediately.’

She closed the gate with a thick rope. Quirin walked down the gangway.

‘Yes?’

Music in the background. Quirin thought he could recognise a line from ZZ Top’s Legs.

‘It’s me. You called?’

‘There’s news: And I’m giving you time until tomorrow morning at eight. Not a second more.’

The gangway made a turn. Quirin saw a stewardess standing in the doorway impatiently waiting for him.

‘What happened?’

The flight attendant stepped in his way. ‘Please turn off your phone.’

‘Your cleaning lady was arrested. Vandalism, damage to property, and . . . an additional offence in keeping with paragraph 168 of the penal code.’

‘Your phone!’

‘Which paragraph?’

‘Aren’t you listening? You won’t be allowed to board!’

TT produced a sound that only vaguely resembled a laugh when distorted by the microphone. Quirin made a hand motion that was intended to show the hysterical stewardess that he had understood her and would follow her instructions. In a second.

‘Violation of a grave.’

‘What? I don’t understand.’

‘Me neither. But apparently it’s nothing new with this woman. She was arrested, but then slipped out of the police station.’

‘Where?’

‘You won’t believe it.’

On the plane, now, the stewardess followed him through the rows of seats. The passengers gave him curious, impatient, frustrated looks.

‘Judith Kepler is in Sassnitz. Funny, right? That is the only reason why I’m talking to you at all. The second reason is that there’s actually a search out on her. Kellermann will also know that in exactly ten hours. I can’t help you any more than that.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Forget about it. And something else.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Don’t ever call me again.’

TT hung up. Quirin turned around to the stewardess, turned off his phone and held it under her nose.

‘It’s off. You see. It’s off.’

She turned around on her heel and acted as if she was checking fastened seatbelts.

A little more than an hour later Quirin withdrew a thousand euros from the cash machine at Tegel, the highest amount that he could get out on his bank card. He drove directly into the autobahn lane towards Hamburg-Prenzlau. He had to be careful. He paid cash at a petrol station close to Greifswald, drank a coffee, and looked at an atlas, examining the stretch that lay ahead. Straslund. Rügendamm. Bergen. Sassnitz.

He reached the city a little before two in the morning. He still had six hours to find Judith Kepler, a woman who not only disturbed those resting and asleep, but also those resting in peace. Quirin didn’t know which made her more dangerous.

Kellermann opened the door to his town house and listened. He was met with darkness and silence. Eva was long in bed. He loved his job. He also loved Eva, but if someone had put a gun to his chest and had forced him to choose one of the two, he would probably choose his profession.

There had been a time when that would have been different. He didn’t know which he regretted more: that the time had passed, or that he managed so remarkably well with the present.

He laid his briefcase on the table in the hall and went quietly into the living room. On the coffee table lay a plate with a liverwurst sandwich, covered in cling film. At least this kind of care had remained. Something about this gesture touched him. He was familiar with gala dinners and confidential lunches at three-star restaurants. He had licked chocolate from Angelina’s belly and shovelled caviar at Uliza Twerkaja 17 in Moscow, before three women – either on the house or courtesy of his host – had anticipated and fulfilled his every desire. He knew the lunch menu at the Chancellery building by heart, but liverwurst sandwiches he had only at home.

Kellermann took the plate, carried it into the kitchen, and placed it in the refrigerator. He retrieved some ice from the freezer, put a couple of cubes in a glass and went back to the living room. He took a bottle of vodka from the house bar and returned to the sofa. Then he took his smartphone out of his jacket pocket, it was equipped with several special tools that couldn’t be purchased in an app store. Not for at least twenty years, Kellermann thought. For instance, it was equipped with a backdoor to TT’s laptop, which in contrast to a Trojan, didn’t need to be smuggled in. That detail had been there upon delivery.

The laptop was nothing more than a transit station for the data that Kellermann could call up at any time. He was interested in the results of TT’s research assignment: Judith Kepler, the cleaning lady. She knew Kaiserley, and it was only a matter of time until TT would find that out. Kellerman was not only eager to find out what TT would tell him, but also what he would keep for himself. That was what he was really interested in.

Kellermann looked up briefly. The door to the hallway was open. He didn’t want Eva to surprise him again. That had already happened once when he was watching the recording of Borg’s murder, again and again. He had tried to recognise the voice and something about that dark, masked figure that could give him a lead. They were terrible images.

He hadn’t noticed Eva coming over to him and looking over his shoulder. He had once sworn to her that he wouldn’t let evil into the house. Now he carried it with him, day after day, and it had become his shadow. Now he listened. Only the quiet ticking of the wall clock disturbed the silence. But it was there. He had sat in the shadows and waited for the past twenty-five years. The fools had woken it. And he was the biggest of them because he had believed that it wouldn’t reawaken.

He took a deep drink of vodka.

TT had hacked Judith Kepler over the internal police communication network. He had shot a volley of searches across the internet, and her name had popped up. Arrested in Sassnitz due to property damage at a cemetery. Kellermann read the police report, first bored, then with increasing interest. Kepler had smashed a gravestone. She had subsequently been arrested without resistance and been taken away. At the station she had been asked to take a seat and wait. But Kepler apparently hadn’t waited. She simply stood up and left.

A well-behaved girl. Kellermann closed the report. TT would be on her heels.

He opened the window containing Judith’s photo one last time. He studied the blurry, grainy picture. He had believed the ghosts of the past would never return. But Borg had awakened them. And Kepler – Kepler just made them furious.

A grave in Sassnitz. They were getting closer. He would follow her every step. She would lead him. If anything was left over from back then, she was the only one who could find it.

He jolted upright because a shadow darted through the hallway. Eva slipped into the bathroom, light falling through the narrow gap beneath the door. Kellermann emptied his glass. He hadn’t been able to kick his drinking habit, but Eva had made him reduce it. Eva. He felt required to feel more gratitude. She had given him so much more over the years than he had given her. But to this very day he didn’t know why and he didn’t dare ask.

He poured another two fingers of vodka over the half-melted ice cubes, raised the glass, and clinked it quietly. He liked the sound. It sounded like the old days, when people still smoked cigars and dictated the agenda of a briefing into a machine for the secretary in the basement of the Chancellor bungalow, agendas which would then magically appear on the desk of Ulbricht and Honecker in East Berlin by Monday morning.

It was so long ago. It had been a different world, divided between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and a war that couldn’t be won. He had always felt passionate about his work. Yet even that had slipped away during these last few years, just like the clear goals and predictable enemies. Defending freedom was a much less glamorous and more boring a task than winning it.

Sometimes he was overtaken by nostalgia for the old days, on nights like these, when he was sitting alone in a house that was actually inhabited by two people. He drank and savoured the chill that transformed into a fire on his tongue. He thought of the woman in the blue smock, who had awakened his hunting instinct, long believed lost. And he thought of the path that lay before her. Judith Kepler would travel far back into it. Back into a war in which all means were justified: love and death. She would find both, because back then there had been no winner, and there never would be.

A light went on in the hall. A figure in a white nightgown appeared in the door, illuminated from behind, so that he recognised the silhouette of her figure beneath the thin fabric.

‘Are you coming to bed?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he answered.

People die around the clock, about thirty thousand per year in Berlin. There were around two hundred and fifty funeral homes living off of this fact, more or less successfully. For many of them, being open around the clock was a decisive competitive advantage; death doesn’t stick to business hours.

Schneider Mortuary advertised online and with full-page ads in the Yellow Pages. The hotline was staffed with students whom Schneider senior had personally selected according to the degree of empathy in their voices and their ability to schedule. This way, the undertaker was only dragged out of bed after ten p.m. in absolute emergencies. Usually patient listening resolved the question of when the firm needed to visit. It was a quiet job. And because, in addition to the hourly pay, a small commission was paid for every successful assignment, Berthold Geissler was quite keen to answer the telephone when it rang in the office shortly before dawn – the rush hour for death.

He answered with the usual greeting and was careful to sound helpful and constructive from the very first second. On the other end was a woman who didn’t give her name. She got straight to the point.

‘It’s about Christina Borg. Cremation with subsequent repatriation to Sweden. What is the address?’

‘I, um, don’t know,’ he answered truthfully. ‘Is the deceased a relative of yours?’

‘I have a request from the Berlin Senate administration for city development. Cemeteries, green spaces and crematoriums. I work for the Scan Ferries company in Rostock. We have trained personnel and could, if the remains are to be accompanied, provide a cabin. If not, we have a special container in the cargo hold. I’m commissioned to negotiate a tender.’

‘Now?’

The woman on the other end laughed quietly. It almost sounded sympathetic.

‘We sail around the clock so we also work around the clock. I could wrap up the tender immediately. Then the time would go by faster. What do you do all night long?’

He looked at the clock. Almost four. He was actually waiting for someone to die.

‘When there’s not much to do I read.’

‘What?’

Geissler looked at the book he had put to the side. ‘Fractional infinitesimal calculus.’

‘Mathematics?’

‘Physics. Grad school.’

The woman laughed again. She sounded nice.

‘Where do your ferries go?’

‘Petersburg, Klaipeda, Travemünde, Bornholm – all over the Baltic, a mixed bag.’

‘I’d love to ride along some time.’

‘No problem. Send me an email and I’ll reserve an outside cabin. I could do something with an employee discount. We’re more or less co-workers tonight.’

He heard a loudspeaker announcement in the background.

‘That’s our ship to Rønne. Have you ever been there?’

‘No. I’ve only been to the Mediterranean.’

‘That’s a shame.’ She sounded as if she was actually sorry. Maybe the women at the ferry company were trained in empathy, too. ‘We should fix that. Soon. We have wonderful weather up here. The sea is calm, the sky blue, it’s simply a different kind of travel. Rather like it used to be. You’re exposed. To the elements, to the decisions of the captain, to the passage of time.’

Berthold Geissler was starting to enjoy the conversation. Not many people called Schneider Mortuary in the middle of the night to talk about the weather and the sea. A strange woman with a warm, enticing voice. He imagined standing at the harbour and waiting for a ship. Or for her.

‘Sounds good,’ he said. ‘What does it cost?’

‘Less than you think. Let me know if you’re ever up here.’

‘I’ll do that. What was the name again?’

‘Borg. Christina Borg.’

‘And you?’

She hesitated. If she gave him her name then he might write to her.

‘You know what? I’ll write to you. I promise. If you help me with my request. I don’t know when forensics will clear the body but you’ve probably already received the assignment and a contact number.’

Geissler opened up his computer database and typed the name in.

‘The urn goes to Tyska Kerkan i Sverige on Köpenhamnsvägen 23, Malmö.’

‘Wait a second. I have to write that down.’

He repeated the information.

‘Thank you,’ the woman said. ‘You’ve been a great help.’

She hung up.

‘Hello?’ He stared at the phone. ‘Hello?

Berthold googled Scan Ferries. He tried all the spellings he could think of but the company didn’t exist. He reviewed the conversation in his mind, but it still came out the same: he’d provided information and she hadn’t. He considered letting his boss know, but because he couldn’t explain the woman’s interest in an urn with ashes, he abandoned the idea. He reached for his book, but before he could become engrossed in the Riemann tensor analysis again, he thought how he really would have liked to get to know her.

Quirin Kaiserley braked abruptly and reversed a couple of metres until the trees revealed a view of the church and the small car park. He rubbed his eyes in case fatigue was playing tricks on him, but there was a vehicle up there and if he wasn’t have hallucinations, then the inscription Dombrowski was clearly visible.

Quirin looked around. The streets were empty; several dimly lit street lamps glowed, covering the park in a ghostly light. He had spent almost two hours driving round the city and had cursed himself. Judith Kepler would hardly be sitting at a bus stop and waiting for him. But just when he had decided to give up, he had seen the van.

A faint sunrise was already lighting up the eastern sky. He parked the car and walked over the lawn towards the vehicle. Of course it was locked, but it was neither sealed nor clamped, so it hadn’t yet been reported as stolen, which meant that the police also hadn’t connected it with Judith.

Quiet admiration mixed with his anger. Anger because Dombrowski had lied to him. And admiration because Judith had been able to come this far and even further. TT had said there had been a violation of a grave. Whatever that meant, the van was close by a church and a cemetery.

The church door was closed; the iron gate in the brick wall was not. Quirin entered the grounds and circled round the church. He didn’t find any indications of vandalism. He was cross with himself for leaving his torch in the car, but he didn’t want to go back. The cemetery was old, with no clear paths marking the uneven slope, and by day it must have offered a breathtaking view of the Baltic. Quirin remembered that many cities on the coast buried their dead on hillsides. Perhaps out of fear that the sea would rise and claim the bodies.

When he had almost reached the other side of the cemetery he discovered an area that had been sealed off. Barrier tape protected the spot and as Quirin came closer, he stepped on the fragments of a smashed gravestone. Someone had pounded it with power and stamina. Quirin picked up a small piece of granite and examined the cracks. They were dry and new. Just then, he heard steps behind him.

‘What are you doing there?’

Light blinded him. Quirin raised his hand to protect his eyes.

‘Who are you?’ A dark figure directed a torch beam directly at his face. ‘Does no one have any respect anymore? A cemetery isn’t a basement party room! We have regulations! Opening times are from sunrise until sunset! Get lost!’

Quirin dropped the stone.

‘I’m investigating this incident.’

‘Hmmm.’

The beam of light slipped to the ground. Quirin lowered his hand. Before him stood a small, elderly man with wild, mussed white hair. He wore pyjamas underneath his poplin coat.

‘In the middle of the night. Really?’

‘Did she do this?’

‘That crazy woman? I’ve never seen anything like it. Who are you?’

‘My name is Quirin Kaiserley. I come from Berlin. The woman is still out there. We have to find her before something else happens.’

‘Does she frequently do this kind of thing?’

‘I don’t think she’s done this before.’

‘Hmmm. She got out of an asylum, right?’

Quirin let him believe that was the case. The man moved the torch over the pile of stone. Individual letters could be recognised here and there, but no more than that.

‘Whose grave is it?’

‘A Marianne Kepler. It would have lapsed in a couple of years. Then the plot is released. No one took care of it. The fees were paid by the city.’

‘You’re the cemetery keeper?’

The old man nodded. Quirin turned away from the grave and took a seat on a bench opposite. The keeper followed him, although he stopped repeatedly, pushing dry leaves aside with his foot. Quirin leaned back and stared up at the clear, starry night sky for a second.

‘Why would someone smash a gravestone?’ the man asked. The cone of his flashlight caught a nicely planted grave with a shiny frame of black marble. ‘It’s sick. I’m just glad it wasn’t a Jewish grave. What do you think would have happened then? State security and such. We already have enough trouble with the young people here.’

‘Yes,’ Quirin agreed. ‘When did it happen?’

‘Around nine, just before the gates were closed. She came in with eyes as big as saucers, waving a sledgehammer or something like it. Poor Old Lüttich was terrified. She has circulation problems, even had to go to the hospital.’

‘Was she threatened?’

‘No. it was the shock. That mad woman just smashed the stone. It’ll probably be in the paper tomorrow.’

‘Just the stone?’ Quirin asked. He had a crazy thought. But in the Judith Kepler case, nothing was too far-fetched. ‘Or did she also dig up the ground? Was she looking for something, perhaps?’

The keeper took a seat next to him.

‘No. She just rampaged. After fifteen minutes the police finally arrived and arrested her. There wasn’t much left by then. It’s a mystery to me.’

‘The woman was Judith Kepler. Do you know her?’

The man turned off the flashlight. The darkness was so deep that Quirin closed his eyes and couldn’t tell. He heard the person beside him breathing. A quiet, wheezing sound.

The silence that followed lasted a long time.

‘Judith,’ he finally said. ‘Little Judith.’

Judith left the telephone booth. The terminal had emptied. Strewn about were torn boxes containing beer cans and half-empty bottles of wine. She grabbed two cans that were still intact and on the way to the ramps she popped one open and drained it while walking.

Trucks, cars and campervans formed long lines in front of the entrance to the harbourside. Peak season. Judith strolled down the rows, as if she was searching for her own vehicle. The gates would open in a few minutes. Lithuania to the left and Sweden to the right. Two huge ships lay in the harbour. The cargo traffic was already in motion, bumper to bumper, disappearing into the massive hold. The cries of the stevedores mixed with the humming motors. Blinding light illuminated every corner. Impossible to slip past the controls.

Christina Borg’s ashes had been sent to a German church in Malmö. Judith crept to the right and crouched in the shadow of a small Dutch flower truck, keeping an eye on the guard in the watch tower. She had cleaned herself as best she could under a shower on the beach, but without a comb and with a torn dress she still looked like a vagrant. Her palms glowed. She didn’t have any documents, no keys, no phone, no money. Her journey would likely come to an end here.

She sat down on the kerb and opened the second can. The beer was lukewarm, but at least it quenched her thirst. The police had taken her to the station and confiscated her phone and wallet with the papers. She had taken a seat on the stool in front of the counter while the officers conferred in whispers about whether she fell under the jurisdiction of the hospital, the asylum, or the district attorney in Schwerin. After ten minutes, Judith got up quietly and left the station. No one had noticed her. They were probably still discussing the administrative details, even now.

Slightly groggy from the alcohol, she stared at a truck’s massive wheels. She considered crawling underneath and holding on tight until she was on board. Out of the question. She was in no condition for that.

She tried not to think about what Martha Jonas had told her. She tried not to think at all. Not about the fact that she had lost the van and the documents. Dombrowski would have her head.

Fuck Dombrowski. She emptied the second can, tossed it in the gutter, and stamped on it until it was flat. She had to get on that ship. No money. No papers. No ticket. And the cops would almost certainly like to take her in for questioning. A signal chimed from far away, then a bell rang out loudly. As if upon command, everyone started their engines. The flower truck slowly crawled forward, accompanied by the hissing of hydraulics, but stopped again after a few feet.

The passenger side door opened. A man leaned out.

‘Want a ride?’

Judith stood up. She stumbled. She shouldn’t have drunk that beer so quickly.

‘Malmö?’ she asked.

The man let his eyes wander over her figure. He was the sort of person that people changed sides of the street to avoid. Greasy clothes, shifty gaze. But then she didn’t look much better. Excellent prerequisites for a chance encounter.

‘Yes, Malmö.’

The brakes hissed again. Judith jumped back. The truck slowly rolled further forward; the door remained open. She looked around. In the camper behind her sat a married couple. The woman held a thermos can in one hand and a cup in the other. Instead of pouring, she stared at Judith and made a comment to her husband. The corners of her mouth twisted in disdain.

The driver shrugged his shoulders, and bent over to the right again to shut the door. Judith started to run.

‘Wait!’

She just managed to climb up onto the passenger side seat. He made a quick hand motion.

‘Get down.’

Judith ducked down. The door slammed shut. The truck rocked through the gate and drove past the control booth, over the ramp into the ship. Judith carefully groped underneath the seat and found the fire extinguisher. She unhooked the latch. The driver manoeuvred the truck in the hold. The metal floors rattled. The air was filled with exhaust and the cries of the crew. Finally the vehicle came to a rest.

‘OK. Come up.’

Judith crawled on the seat. The camper with the married couple drove past her to the right and parked in the same row. Other cars followed. It would take a while before everyone was on the ship. The driver grinned at her. He had yellow teeth and a face like a punch bag. He motioned behind himself. Judith turned around and saw a bed with a bunched-up, dirty blanket.

‘Time to have some fun,’ he said.

He reached under the covers and pulled out a half-full bottle of vodka.