Saskia Brandt: Deja Vu Part 23

The night was cold. She walked back to her apartment via the river. The route was dangerous and she did not care. Fear was nothing next to her anger. She had a stun gun in her bag and a five-inch flick-knife under the sleeve of her right arm. She dared every shadow to attack.

Back at her apartment, she considered calling Brigitte. But Brigitte should not be involved. So Ute did not call the woman who had visited her in hospital on the first night when she was still curled, catatonic, bleeding from her v.a.g.i.n.a and holding keepsake sc.r.a.pes of her attackers' flesh beneath her fingernails.

She did not call Detective Holtz. She took paper and a pencil, licked the nib, and planned.

On the afternoon before the attack, she had been reading a book. Now she took it to the sofa. She sat there, jacket on, door wide, and opened the book at its marker. The page showed three old women sitting around a spinning wheel. The caption read: Clotho, she spins the thread of life. Lachesis, she measures a length. Atropos, she cuts it.

She knew she was stronger than Brigitte. Her friend would have been damaged for life. Not Ute. She had no fragile belief in right or wrong, or natural order, or her own invulnerability. She had no creator to blame.

She had nothing.

She fell. Her house computer asked her if she needed a.s.sistance. 'I need...' she began.

Chapter Thirty-Two.

She examined her photographs of the office block over breakfast in a nearby bakery. She returned to her apartment and thought, read and smoked. She even tried to write some of her thesis. The words wouldn't come. That night, she slept fitfully. At 3:00 am, she drank a gla.s.s of water, put on her coat, and left the apartment.

She returned at 7:00 am and left again at 8:00 am. Part of her knew she should call Holtz, tell him that she had found the office block and let him arrest the suspects. A nurse had collected sperm. It could be matched with all of the five men.

The train arrived and she got on. Her thoughts were lost in the crowd, in the pictures sweeping by, by her fingertips on the stun gun.

There was a chubby boy on the train. He was about ten years old. He was on his way to school. He saw Saskia and smiled. She looked away.

She alighted one stop from her destination and walked the remainder.

Ute emptied the glue into the lock. She put the tube in her pocket and left the alley. On the street, she turned right and entered the perfumery. It was precisely 9:00 am. The shop had no customers. Ute walked to the back of the shop and stood near a staff-only door. She pretended to inspect a moisturizing soap. When an attendant walked by, Ute clutched the woman's arm. 'Excuse me, please, but could I have a gla.s.s of water?'

The woman's bright smile faded. 'Yes, sure.'

She disappeared through the staff door and returned with an espresso cup of water. 'I'll have the cup back when you're finished.'

Ute took two deep breaths, drank the water, and dropped the cup. She swayed. 'I'm sorry...'

'Are you feeling all right?'

'Perhaps some more water...' Ute said. She fell into the woman's arms, leaving her no choice but to steer her into the back room. Ute's downcast eyes saw linoleum and cleaning buckets. She smelled fresh coffee. The woman dropped her on a chair in a small kitchen. Ute heard the running of a tap, and it was then that she withdrew her stun gun.

The woman turned. She held a mug of fresh water in each hand. When she saw the gun and Ute's cold eyes, she let the mugs drop. They bounced on the tiles. 'You own the shop?' Ute asked.

'Yes,' the woman said. She was tearful but her anger kept her alert. 'What do you want? The takings? We have only been open a few minutes.'

Ute put a finger to her lips. 'What I have to do today has nothing to do with you or your shop. I need to get into those offices.' She pointed at the ceiling. 'How?'

Ute noticed the highlights in the woman's brown hair, her tan, and the red bandana that was tucked fashionably into the collar of her blouse. Her badge read Sabine Schlesinger. 'The fire escape.'

'No,' Ute said. She pictured her journey that morning, before sunrise, when she had stolen up those iron steps in bare feet, attached the padlock, and felt it click home.

'There is another way. Out of here, turn left. There's an interior fire door that opens onto a corridor. Go up the stairs. You realise I must call the police.'

'Of course,' Ute said. She did not lower the stun gun. 'Please do not follow me. This is for your own safety. Evacuate the shop.'

'What's going to happen?'

'Evacuate the shop.'

She walked backwards from the room. In the tiny corridor, there was n.o.body. She checked on Sabine. Still there.

Ute turned and ran through the fire door, closing it behind her. The corridor was empty. At one end was the door with the lock that she had superglued before entering the shop. She checked its handle. Immovable.

Her one problem was the connecting door. It had a push-down bar on both sides. She had to act quickly.

She removed her shoes and walked up the stairs.

'A thorough and meticulous murder,' Beckmann would tell her, three weeks later.

There was an interior door on the first landing. The handle turned. It was a cheap door with a cardboard filling that could not be barricaded.

For a second time, she stepped inside.

The empty office s.p.a.ce was huge. The air was stuffy with sunlight. There were sheets of paper, old mugs, filing cabinets, chairs and sheets of plastic.

In the centre were scores of mannequins. Faces blank. Gender-neutral bodies naked and dusty. They hadn't moved.

Immediately to her left was a walled office. It had an open doorway but no windows. Nearby was the fire-escape that she had padlocked earlier that morning. She came closer. She felt dust on her bare feet. She heard snores.

Inside, it was dull and hot. She counted six sleeping men. They were lying, two half-dressed, four naked, overlapping by foot and hand. Ute had once been afraid of these men. Now she was disgusted. There was a camping toilet in one corner. In another, a television and a games console. There was a duvet in the centre. The stench of sweat and s.e.m.e.n was nauseating.

Ute took the can of lighter fluid from her bag. She squirted it onto the duvet. It was a good feeling. She was p.i.s.sing on these men. Next, she took a match and flicked it into the centre. The duvet erupted. Benthic smoke poured outward in a carpet, making for the door. She did not hurry to withdraw her stun gun. Humans cannot smell while they are asleep. She had checked.

She saw the moustached man who had led her from the club. He was middle-aged and balding, but Ute had always preferred older men. He had drugged her Martini. Later, he had injected her with scopolamine and morphine as she crouched to re-tie her shoe. Life had become hazy and slow. Her resistance had fallen away. For pa.s.sers-by she was a drunk. The man waved them on with a laugh.

She fired the gun. Two darts flew out and embedded in his thigh muscle. They connected to the stun gun with strong, insulated cables. The darts had barbs. They could not be extracted without ripping. There was a second trigger to activate the charge. Quickly, she fired darts into all of the men.

She pulled the trigger.

The bodies twitched and rolled.

She remembered that, at the conclusion of the ordeal, the moustached man had injected her again. He had put an avuncular arm across her shoulders and led her to the Rhine. One last injection: the rest of the syringe. A gentle push and she fell.

Callused arms had found her in that cold, empty h.e.l.l, and heaved her onto a barge. Shouted words in a language she did not understand. Wiped hair and muck from her mouth. Shone light in her eyes. Injected her.

She pulled the trigger again. This time the groans were louder, angrier. Eyes sought her. They were monstrous but pathetic. She realised that they would never be as strong as her. She had returned. Her revenge knew no bounds.

She pulled the trigger a third time. Bodies convulsed. The smoke grew soupy. One of the men tugged at a barb in his chest. Ute watched the flesh draw to a peak. It would not rip. Finally, the man collapsed in the smoke.

The duvets burned blue-green. She watched the flame.

Someone grabbed her ankle and Ute screamed. She pulled the trigger again and the hand tensed. It fell and lay flaccid on her foot.

With each pull of the trigger, she imagined herself raping them, firing into them, inching them towards the edge of an abyss with each dirty push.

'This,' she shouted, 'is what it feels like when you're f.u.c.ked.' She closed the door on them all.

Behind the burning duvets, a naked woman rose. She shimmered through Ute's tears.

Ute cursed her own stupidity. She reached forward to help the victim from the room. She would have a straightforward escape through the door to the staircase and, from there, through the perfume shop to freedom.

The woman grabbed Ute's throat and pushed hard. Ute dropped the stun gun and they broke through the door. In sudden daylight, the woman's eyes seemed more animal than human. A cat's eyes. The eyes were familiar; she had been present at Ute's rape. She had looked on.

Ute tripped but the woman followed her down. They slid over the floor. Rolled once. Ute felt the world darken. Above them, the ceiling was on fire. Plastic embers began to fall. Still the world darkened.

They knocked into the mannequins. The dolls were heavy and one struck the woman's forehead. Her grip relaxed momentarily. Ute took a breath before it was re-established. She had come here to kill her attackers. She would not be satisfied with all but one of them.

Inside her shoulder bag, she found the canister of lighter fluid. She jammed the can into her attacker's mouth and twisted savagely. The thin metal tore and Ute pulled it free. She did not wait. She sawed at her throat with the metal's edge. The skin opened. The woman's grip relaxed and her cat eyes glazed. She bucked and slithered away. Ute grabbed her ankle. The woman yelled. She jammed the cold ball of her foot into Ute's throat.

The pain stopped time. When finally she moved, she could see only the expressionless mannequins and their hard, plastic fingers. They seemed to mob her. They were dead and they wanted her dead too. From the gaps between one mannequin and the next, there issued only smoke, not air. She screamed.

The coffin lid would not budge. She was in the oven of a crematorium. The darkness was no longer absolute. Cracks appeared. She saw her simple funeral clothes in the b.l.o.o.d.y light. She would escape her coffin now, oh yes, into a fire that might let her linger, let her relish the last few moments of life with a height of sensation she had never known. The crackling flames. Smoke. Distant organ music. The murmur of David Proctor thanking the priest for a lovely service. Saskia would have wanted it that way.

Saskia.

The hawk that returned.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

Snick.

Ute opened her eyes. The gun had misfired, and she let it slip, dead, to the ground. Memories crowded her. She remembered her first kiss. It had been on tiptoe behind the local supermarket. She saw the face of her best friend at school, Katrin, and some fellow schoolchildren, and the faces of her foster parents. Spending hours learning to hula hoop. A school trip to France. Dinner for One on New Year's Eve. Her foster mother's name was Fride. They had lived in Cologne. Her Uncle Manni had once saved her from drowning. He had died within the year from skin cancer.

A whole life returned to her. Ute Schmidt's ghostly pa.s.senger a the digital Saskia Brandt a was gone.

She felt David's breath on her face. Her knowledge of him was once removed. He shouted but Ute did not understand him.

'David thinks you are a "b.l.o.o.d.y idiot",' said a voice. It spoke flawless German.

'Who are you?' asked Ute.

'I am Ego, David's personal computer. But I was once in your possession. I have a message for you.'

'Tell me.'

'Ute, you must understand that it is a message from Saskia.'

The name stirred something in Ute. It carried a sisterly feeling, one of protection. And one of loss. It was comparable to the death of a twin. 'The message reads, "Look in the envelope".'

'Which envelope?'

'The one you found in the West Lothian Centre.'

'I...I remember. But I can't see to read it.'

A tile of pale light appeared on the floor. It grew brighter until the faces of Jennifer and David appeared. With their concerned expressions, the connection between them and Ute deepened. She accepted they were her friends.

Ute knelt and shrugged off her shoulder bag. As she opened it, she noticed the dark polish on her nails. She never wore polish. Her long hair cascaded over her face. She always tied it back. In the bag was her badge, a handkerchief, some tissues, and the transparent wallet that contained the white envelope. It was fastened with a metal popper. She opened it and withdrew the envelope. Once white, it was now yellow and spotted with mould. On the front it read: 'Do not open this envelope'.

She ripped the seal and shook out a laminated ID card in the name of Saskia Brandt, FIB. The photo was her, Ute. On the reverse was written one word: 'Munin.'

'Munin,' repeated Ute. 'David, didn't Hartfield use that word?'

The professor's reply was gibberish.

'I shall act as translator,' said Ego.

She heard Ego repeating her words in English and, as David and Jennifer replied, Ego gave the German equivalent.

'Saskia,' David said, 'I'm afraid that you have to follow Hartfield.'

Hartfield. The name conjured the image of a business-like man. Beckmann.

'It's true,' said Jennifer. 'You are destined to follow him. When Hartfield shot at you just now, he fired point-blank but he missed. When you tried to shoot yourself, the gun didn't fire. It couldn't fire.'

'You built a time machine,' Ute said as the memory returned.

'Saskia -'

'My name is Ute,' she snapped. But even as she spoke, she felt the gap in her mind: a jagged hole shaped like Saskia Brandt, whose body had been dumped at sea, or in building foundations, or fed to pigs. Hartfield was getting away. He had killed another woman to capture her ghost. That ghost wanted revenge.