Annemarie Nikolaus - Silenced

“And this.” The policewoman handed Laura a piece of paper. “Can you tell us what it means?”

Laura took the note with shaking hands. “Keep your hands off, if you want to see the children again.”

“Sweetheart, what do they mean?” Wilfried let her go, and cupped his hands around her face.

“What happened to Mrs Breiner?”

“I’m afraid…” He bit his lip and looked searchingly into her eyes. “What have you got yourself into?”

“It sounds like something from a cheap Mafia film, but we should take it seriously,” said the policewoman.

Laura remembered the chef’s words: not the Mafia. She shook her head. Should she explain her suspicions? “What should we do?” she asked instead.

The policewoman shrugged. “If you can’t give us any leads, we can only wait it out.”

After the forensic team had finished, they were left alone.

“I’m certain that you know what this means.” Wilfried’s eyes were narrowed in anger, and for an instant Laura wondered who it was directed at.

She told him about the hotel chef and her conversation with the two Italian officers.

“So it really is the Mafia?” Wilfried’s voice sounded sarcastic. “They’ll want more than for you to just keep your nose out.”

She whispered instinctively. “The Mafia are lightweights compared to them, Tarcisio said this morning.”

For several minutes, they sat silently as dusk fell. Eventually, Laura stood up and switched on the light. “I’m going to the hotel. That chef knows something.” She clenched her teeth so forcefully that they ground together.

“I’m coming too.” Wilfried tugged at his shirt collar and looked at her imploringly.

“What if they call?”

He lowered his gaze. She felt sorry for Wilfried; but she couldn’t bear to just sit there and wait, either. She was sure the chef wouldn’t talk, but she could at least feel as though she was doing something useful.

“I’ve been expecting you, Signora ,” Tarcisio called to her, as she peered through the swinging door of the hotel kitchen’s delivery entrance not long after.

The chef cast a look at the two kitchen staff, placed his mincing knife down next to a bunch of parsley and came towards her. He glanced at his hands – they were shaking – wiped them on his apron, and shoved the right one into his pant pocket, while pushing Laura back out into the open with the left.

“We knew you were coming,” he whispered.

“Who? Laura asked, just as quietly. “Tell me.”

Tarcisio pulled out an envelope and held it out to her. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

“Of course not.” Laura got angry, and snapped at him. “All you know is our address. Who did you give it to?”

He grasped her hand and shoved the letter into it. “Be quiet.” Then he walked off, but turned around once more. “You can figure it out for yourself.”

She stared after him, until the door stopped swinging. “Just about, yes,” she whispered.

As she unfolded the letter in the light of the next street lamp, she shuddered.

“You’ll get the children back the day after tomorrow, if we read about the RIGHT reason for the crash.”

Goose pimples rose up her legs. “And what is that?” she asked aloud, into the night.

Laura looked at her watch; it seemed decidedly too late to call on hotel guests. But tomorrow, there might be nobody left.

Ten minutes later, Laura was sitting with the Italian in a beer garden, two streets from the hotel. His English was terrible; her Italian consisted of holiday gibberish. But he had brought a notepad with him, and could draw well. First, he drew the Frecce Tricolori : nine airplanes in formation, and one flying towards them; next to that one, “Marco”. She understood that this had been the name of the solo pilot.

In the next picture, the solo pilot crashed with one of the planes from the formation, but he immediately crossed this out. “Impossibile,” he said. As far as she understood, the pilot would never have remained on a collision course; he had been murdered.

Laura tried, once again, to remember: had the mid-air crash happened before or after the explosion?

“Why?” she asked.

He drew the boot of Italy, then Sicily, and north of that, a row of dots; above one of these, he wrote “Ustica”. Next to that, a big airplane nose-diving into the sea, and then “DC 9 – 1980”.

Laura knew that one of the islands there was named Ustica. “That plane crashed?” she asked, to make sure. She couldn’t remember whether she had read about it at the time. There were so many accidents.

He shook his head and drew a large ship, from which planes were taking off, and another plane that was shooting at the crashing aircraft.

“I don’t believe that,” Laura let slip in German.

He couldn’t have understood her. But he seemed to have correctly grasped either the tone of her voice or her facial expression, because he shook his head again. Then he drew another small plane, next to which he wrote the name of one of the pilots. He also wrote the name of another one of the dead Frecce pilots. So according to him, they had both been there, and had seen everything.

Laura chewed her thumbnail and thought for a while. “If they wanted to eliminate witnesses, why wait until now? This was eight years ago.”

He didn’t understand her. She wrote ‘1988’ on the sketch with the stunt pilots, and then a question mark. Then she pointed to the date he had written next to Ustica.

He took a deep breath and began again in English. Then he shook his head and switched to Italian. He spoke very slowly: “An appointment; next week, with the judge. They were going to talk.”

“And that’s why they were murdered now?” Laura narrowed her eyes. She didn’t quite believe his story; but Nina and Manni had been kidnapped. There had to be some truth in it. “Who are they? The CIA, or the Italians?”

He finished his drink and stood up. “They are dangerous. Why are you asking all this?”

“They have my children.”

He stared at her for a second, shocked; then he rested his hands on her shoulders. “ Signora , the pilots are dead. Other witnesses, too. Do what they want.”

He turned and walked away.

She had hardly got her key into the lock when Wilfried tore the door open. “My God, where were you for so long? Couldn’t you have called me?” His face was pallid, his eyes damp. “Mrs Breiner is dead.” He took her in his arms and pulled her into the apartment.

She felt horror, and then guilt, because she hadn’t even thought about how worried he must have been. “I was trying to find out who has our kids.” Laura sank onto the shoe cabinet and rubbed her burning eyes.

“And?”

“I’m not sure. But I do know what’s behind it.” She felt deathly tired. “It’s a conspiracy.” She leaned against him, exhausted. “And now I’m going to be a part of it.”

His shoulders tensed under her hands and he breathed in sharply.

Laura closed her eyes before continuing. “I have to spread their lies to get our children back.”

Wilfried had his arm around Laura’s shoulders as she sat at her typewriter in the morning, and he read along as she typed. “Crash due to pilot error…”

He brushed the tears out of her eyes with his hand: “You can always write a new article.”

Laura yanked the paper out of the machine. “They’ll always be able to find us.”

If you enjoyed this mini-thriller, please recommend it to others.

I would also appreciate a review.

If you’re interested in information about new releases and free reading material, subscribe to my newsletter.