Фолькер Кучер - The Silent Death

Rath feverishly considered whether he should say something more about the Winter case. The bulldog couldn’t just get rid of him like that, not when he was the one pulling all the strings.

‘What are you still doing here?’ Böhm said. ‘I thought I had made myself clear.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Well, don’t just stand there. On your way.’

That was that. Böhm returned to his file, leaving Rath standing like a schoolboy and Gräf and Lange looking at their map of the Grunewald. Rath could have slammed the door in anger but managed to control himself. The best way to confront a humiliation of this kind was simply to ignore it.

‘I take it that’s an order too, Sir,’ he said, and left the office.

She has fallen asleep. How peacefully she lies there and how beautifully, he thinks as he clears away the glasses, hers half-empty, his almost full. He doesn’t consider himself too good for such things when Albert has his evening off. He tips the contents of both glasses into the sink, rinses them with water and dries them with a kitchen towel. Only then does he place them beside the other dirty glasses.

When he returns, she’s lying exactly as before. He feels her pulse and counts. She hasn’t had enough to drink. If he doesn’t act now she will wake in a few minutes, but luckily he has prepared the syringe. She doesn’t react as he penetrates her skin with the needle.

He carries her next door, though she is heavier than she looks, this delicate blonde angel. As he lays her on the table she seems to blink, but that could be a side effect of the injection.

He washes his hands thoroughly before beginning. Carefully he bends her neck, stretches it out until the head hangs over the edge of the table and gently slides the tube through her mouth and throat, to the glottis, watches how the metal makes her neck bulge. He adjusts the lamplight, opens his little black suitcase and lays out his tools. Before he begins he washes his hands again. He reaches for the large pair of scissors he had specially made years ago in order to…

In order to silence his mother’s screams. He can no longer listen to that high, drawn-out sound that might once have been a laugh, a laugh that has wandered too far inside a dark forest and been transformed into a wild gurgle; a squeal that saws through the air and howls in the distance like a stray ghost.

She has gone mad. Mother has gone mad, and he has realised too late. Two human lives too late. Too late, and yet he has locked her in the same golden cage in which she kept him prisoner for years – the tower wing with its gloomy rooms and wonderful view of the lake. He has locked her in with Albert’s consent, before she can do any more harm.

He expected her to fly into a rage, a mad fury, but she sits down and laughs for such a long time that her laughter no longer sounds human and he fears that her madness might be a contagion, carried by the laughter.

He has been preparing for a long time, had the scissors and tube made to order, practised the manoeuvres time and again in the anatomical institute. Now he feels secure.

She is already fast asleep when he returns, and the operation is over in minutes, a question of several precise incisions. He still keeps the surgical instruments in the same black velvet-lined case she gave him only a few years ago.

He has already prepared the iced water, which he now pours in. Her swallowing reflex kicks in, she drinks and coughs and, for a moment, he fears she is regaining consciousness, but she soon settles down again. The ice-cold water staunches the bleeding and alleviates the pain. It is less painful than tonsillitis; she will hardly feel anything when she awakes.

When the moment comes, he has already tidied. Cleaned everything he has used and packed it away, sat her back in her favourite chair by the window. Placed the carafe of iced water in front of her. She must drink, slowly and carefully so that she can learn how to swallow again, but she doesn’t touch the water.

After briefly opening her eyes she continues dozing, only to sink back into sleep and wake with a start. Seeing him sitting next to her chair, her eyes fill with love. She loves him even though she knows she is his prisoner. That is the only thing she has left: blind love. That she killed for. Killed for blindly.

She sits up and tries to say something. Or scream? Or laugh? Whatever the case, nothing comes but a hoarse gurgling. She looks surprised but tries again before grabbing her throat in horror.

He has taken away her voice, that is all. Without that voice, the voice of a madwoman, she looks almost normal again, almost like before, when she was still his mother and not some old lunatic. It’s for your own good, Mother, he says.

The very words she once used.

The expression of surprise yields to one of recognition, and they are almost cheerful: the eyes with which she gazes at him. She smiles and seems to understand, seems to take pleasure in the hoarse gurgling that has taken the place of her voice. The look in her eyes says: I know everything, we both know everything, only the two of us know – how funny, how deathly funny! And though she has no voice, she tries to start laughing again. There is a rattling, a rasping, a gurgling; spittle sprays out of her mouth, and blood.

He covers his ears and leaves and, with every step, distances himself further from her madness.

Oppenberg was already seated when Rath entered at half past eight. It was an exclusive restaurant and Rath felt a little out of place in his off-the-peg suit.

‘I’ve ordered a bottle of wine,’ the producer said.

‘Thank you, not for me.’ Rath asked for a glass of Selters.

‘Your decision, my friend. Hopefully you won’t be so modest when it comes to your food. That would be a sin here.’

Rath would have preferred to eat something more substantial at Aschinger, but he bowed to his fate and studied the menu.

‘I’d recommend the fish,’ Oppenberg said, and Rath joined him in his choice. ‘You requested this meeting, which means you have news.’

‘That depends. At any rate, you should get used to the idea of finding another lead actress for Vom Blitz getroffen. ’

‘Has she… what have you discovered? Does the taxi driver know the man who collected her?’

Rath shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. I still don’t know anything for sure but, at the very least, she was forced to change her plans abruptly.’

‘What makes you think that?’ Oppenberg reached nervously into the bread basket.

‘You remember her last taxi journey? Before she was picked up by this stranger in Wilmersdorf she had her suitcases brought to Bahnhof Zoo, to left luggage.’

‘So what?’

‘They’re still there.’

Oppenberg had to chew longer on this piece of news than on the slice of white bread he had just spread with butter and shoved in his mouth. ‘How do you explain that?’

‘I can’t believe she meant to leave her cases for three or four weeks in left luggage. Something unexpected must have happened.’

Oppenberg lit a cigarette, and Rath realised he hadn’t been expecting bad news. The waiter brought the starters, but Oppenberg didn’t touch his. Instead he continued smoking. ‘Damn it!’ he said. ‘Are you saying I should prepare myself for the worst?’

‘Not necessarily, but it doesn’t bode well.’

‘You’ve already written her off!’

‘I fear, anyway, that I won’t be able to carry out your assignment. I can’t bring Vivian back.’ Rath pushed a green banknote across the table. ‘There was one picture too many in your envelope.’

Oppenberg understood and didn’t hesitate long before pocketing the fifty. ‘Can you see that your colleagues stop badgering me about Felix? I told your Böhm that we had parted on bad terms, but he seems to give more credence to Bellmann’s claim that I put a saboteur and murderer onto him.’