‘It’s more like a chat-up line, anyway. Like, ‘If I said you had a sexy body, would you hold it against me?’’
‘‘Get your coat, petal’,’ said Saskia. ‘‘You’ve pulled’.’
Jem put the scissors and comb on the flower-box and tipped Saskia’s head forward, shooing the hairs. Then she moved in front of her to inspect the arrangement. It was shorter. Well balanced. At the same time, for want of a mirror, Saskia evaluated her expression.
‘And?’
‘Pretty,’ said Jem.
‘‘Pretty as’?’
‘Just pretty.’
Saskia smiled with one side of her mouth.
Question, thought Jem. What’s the answer?
‘I hope you didn’t dye it blue.’
‘As if I would.’
‘Yeah,’ Saskia said, ‘like as if.’
‘You’re beautiful.’
Saskia did not reply. She looked at Jem as though the remark was a bad joke. A real groaner. When she rose and went inside, having still said nothing, Jem did not follow. She looked at the sensible German flower-box and the chair that would fold as neatly as a Japanese fan. An early memory returned: telling her brother Danny that if you folded a piece of paper enough times it would get smaller and smaller until it disappeared and, shit yeah, she was prepared to demonstrate the fact if he found it so funny. Jem put her hands on the rail and leaned into the dusk. She thought of the school children. Her ties to the past had been hopelessly snared—caught in aircraft doors, threaded through trains, tangled in those of strangers. The recovery of her former life? Fucking futile as.
She fastened her wristwatch and wiggled her jade ring into place.
Loneliness followed her inside.
In the living room, Jem fell into a chair and fixed her expression on a book spine whose silver letters were still sparkling in the dusk. Kinder- und Hausmärchen. There was a lamp at hand. If she wanted, she could turn it on and thumb through the Grimm’s fairy tales. But she sat there. The plan was not working. What was she going to do about Wolfgang? The noise of the shower filled the apartment. The seduction had not worked. Jem held her temples and said, ‘Shit.’
Jem remained in this position until, a minute later, the shower stopped. She dried her tearful eyes on her sleeve and listened to the soft sounds of Saskia’s footsteps. Jem turned her head a fraction and looked in the mirror to the left of the bookcase. At first, the shadows were difficult to interpret. Something grew from the deep blackness. It had hints of human movement. Suddenly, Jem saw that it was Saskia. She was naked. She seemed unaware of the mirror—though Jem did not believe this—and her steps were longer, slower than usual.
A moment later, Saskia’s breath warmed her earlobe.
‘Me again.’
‘I like your perfume, Saskia.’
‘Do you? It was made for me in the south of France.’
Jem did not move.
‘I’m not,’ continued Saskia, ‘a…whatever the word is.’
‘I’m not sure I am either.’
‘But we can try.’
‘Have I chatted you up, then?’
‘Yes. I thought it over.’
‘Well, you had me at ‘Guten Tag.’’
‘Take my hand.’
Saskia’s fingers closed over Jem’s.
Chapter Four
Berlin, three weeks before
It was late evening. Jem and Saskia were sitting at right angles in the glassy bar of the Patzenhofer Hotel on Krumme Strasse. Across the road lay Karl-August Platz and, beyond it, the church where they would meet Wolfgang. Jem’s gaze fell to the espresso cups—Saskia winning two-nil—and she considered the long silences of the evening.
Her new friend sat in an armchair with her legs crossed at the knee. She had not removed her black leather jacket. Beneath it, she wore a loose-fitting T-shirt. No rings. Egyptian-style eyeliner. The cuffs of her boot-cut jeans fell just so. Her black trainers were laced tight. Her foot tapped the air.
At points throughout the evening, Saskia had asked Jem about Wolfgang. Why, of all places, would he want to hand over Jem’s stolen passport in a church? Why the Trinity Church on Karl-August Platz? And why come in person when he could send an intermediary? How had they met, anyway? It was not the first time Saskia had asked these questions. Tonight, instead of being evasive, Jem decided to tell her straight.
‘Originally, he was just a guy on my corridor at university,’ she said. ‘I came to Germany with no money. When I got into trouble—nothing too illegal—he said he’d help me. He’s charming, you know. After a few days of living in his flat, I realised that his… interests were more varied than I’d thought. He sold blow to students, hacked computers, and carried things here and there for people. That kind of thing. Plus porn—which he told me would be a quick way of making money. Well, I refused, and he insisted. That’s when he took my passport. Then someone told me about a lonely, well-connected woman called Saskia who sometimes took in strays.’
‘Who told you about me?’
‘I don’t know his name.’
‘I see,’ said Saskia, looking at her hard. ‘It’s not too late to call the police.’
‘We can’t,’ Jem replied. She tried to ignore the steady heat of Saskia’s regard. It made the story difficult to remember. ‘Wolfgang has connections with the police. I’m not the first person he’s done this to.’
‘Jem, what does he have on you, exactly?’
‘Enough.’
‘What will you do when we’ve got your passport back?’
‘Leave this country and start a new life somewhere, I suppose.’
Saskia looked at Jem for a moment longer. Then she turned to the bar, smiled, and two waiters competed to reach their table. It hurt Jem to be so distant a runner-up. Saskia settled the bill in cash and spoke to the taller waiter in Turkish. He bowed.
‘Shall we?’ she asked. ‘It’s time.’
Jem was afraid. Should she blow the story wide open? Forget the con? Confess?
‘Let’s go,’ she said.
The fear passed, as she had expected, and she followed Saskia from the hotel. The air was cold. Buses and beige taxis choked the road. While they waited at the pedestrian crossing, the green man blinking, Jem was pushed by a surge of wind and rain. She looked at the church, whose blue illumination made inky silhouettes of the trees at its front.
Saskia rose to tiptoes. ‘I see him,’ she hissed.
Jem glanced around. There were fewer than a dozen people, and none looked like Wolfgang.
‘Where?’
But Saskia was already crossing the road. The light was red, and the people waiting by Jem observed loudly that the woman would get herself killed. Jem panicked. She needed to stay with Saskia. She stepped into the road. A horn blared and Jem turned to see a beige taxi slide towards her and stop. She lifted her hand from the bonnet and looked for Saskia. Her friend had reached the platz and was crossing it in the precise bounds of a triple jumper. The wind surged again. It shook the trees and seemed to settle the darkness through which Saskia had run.
She had vanished.
‘Shit.’
As she ran, Jem’s heels scraped on the ground, but she stayed upright, waving her arms for balance. She felt absurd and as English as fish and chips. There was a young man standing at the far side of the road. He licked his lips at her. Jem reached the platz and, holding her calm, tried to walk. The knick-knacks in her shoulder bag rattled like a charity tin. She swore at herself. These fears were unfamiliar. She was not the kind of person who panicked like this. She could turn Arctic on demand.