She looked up at the window as the court lady gazed out and then was gone. Someone else could look out at any moment, but she couldn’t stay here forever. She had to move before the cops gave chase. It didn’t matter if every step hurt like hell. She put as little weight as possible on her left leg, but a piercing pain shot up from her ankle. It felt as if it were about to snap. She gritted her teeth and limped onwards, keeping her eyes ahead. Making it to the U-Bahn station was her only chance. As long as there wasn’t some idiot conductor… but don’t think about that now!
Almost at Frankfurter Allee she turned around again. There was no one behind her, neither in uniform nor in plainclothes. Was she actually going to get out of this in one piece? Traffic noise spurred her on, the staccato, stabbing pain becoming more and more rapid, her breathing too. Damn it, first her injured hand and now her ankle.
At the steps to the U-Bahn, she looked back again. There was some commotion taking place further down Frankfurter Allee, probably the unemployed taking their anger out on the cops; the furious cries of the proletariat could be heard from almost a kilometre away. Police uniforms were like blue dots in the milling mass. From somewhere she heard the wail of police sirens and began to realise why her escape had been so easy. The cops had more pressing concerns than an eighteen-year-old guttersnipe who had done a runner.
She made her way down the steps unnoticed. No one on the platform paid her the slightest bit of attention. A girl with a limp – so what? She hauled herself a few metres along the platform, leaned her head against a cool steel beam, closed her eyes and yielded to exhaustion. Someone pressed something cold into her uninjured right hand. She opened her eyes and looked at a one-mark coin.
She wasn’t a beggar. Her first thought was to return the money, but to whom? There was no sign of her benefactor, and people here seemed as distracted as ever, focused on their own concerns. Not knowing who to thank, she pocketed the coin. At least she’d have some money if she ran into a conductor again. They had taken her knife along with everything else in her bag, even the six-pack of Juno she had just opened.
A train arrived through the eastern tunnel. Where should she go? Flat B was too risky, Flat A too dangerous. Benny was dead, Kalli was dead. There was no one in this vast city who could help her, not a single place where she felt safe.
But wait, there was one. She hadn’t been there in over a year and it wouldn’t be easy to turn up and ask for help. There was no way of knowing how he’d react when he saw her. He wouldn’t call the cops, but he might chase her away. She had to be prepared for that but, if he didn’t help, everything would be over anyway. Exhausted by pain and stress, she flopped onto a seat.
The hopelessness of her situation, the fact of having no other choice, almost calmed her until, suddenly, she was overcome by a strange feeling of happiness. A smile crept onto her face. She was so tired, so at the end of her tether, that things could scarcely get any worse. Her mind was made up. She would throw herself on his mercy and hope he didn’t let her down. In spite of everything that had happened.
24
Glass crunched beneath her feet, each step echoing in the empty room. Charly stopped and listened. The rush of traffic noise from Landsberger Allee was interrupted only by the rhythmical clatter of the nearby Ringbahn station. Every little scrape sounded louder and harsher than the muffled noise from outside.
The old axle factory, the cop had said, but there was no sign of the youths. A deserted ruin, perhaps they only came here to sleep?
There was a loud crash, as if something in the hall had been knocked to the floor. A jerky, scuttling noise followed in the chamber of echoes and a rat paused in the middle of the room, gazing insolently at the human intruder. There were people living in this hovel? Children even? Sharing a roof with rats? She shook involuntarily.
At the end of the workshop she found a stairwell and climbed upwards.
The rooms on the first floor were in better condition. Some of the windowpanes were still intact and there wasn’t nearly as much broken glass on the floor. It was conceivable that the odd person slept here at night – even with rats present.
Did she really expect to find the girl and, if she didn’t, why was she here? It wasn’t as if Weber had asked her to spend the evening searching, quite the opposite. ‘That’s for the police,’ he had said. ‘Don’t make things any worse by getting involved.’
Any worse. As if that were possible! She couldn’t stop thinking about the empty chair, the cigarettes in the ashtray, then staring out of the window and onto the street; how she had sounded the alarm but no one was interested. No one paid much attention to a street urchin on a day when shots had been fired on Frankfurter Allee, and a police officer had lost his life. Even the woman from Welfare had shrugged, as if the girl’s escape gave her one thing less to worry about. Charly had dashed out onto Wagnerplatz herself, and continued down Magdalenenstrasse. In vain; the girl was long gone.
Now, Weber, he had been interested, at least enough to shout at her on his return from the public prosecutor. Must be out of your mind, flouted basic security precautions, completely unsuitable for this job were some of the milder accusations. Imagine giving an arsehole like Weber such an easy platform! He had sent her home and told her to take the rest of the week off.
‘This incident will be subject to an investigation,’ he said, ‘and the result will find its way into your personal file.’ Still, by far the most hurtful thing was his hypocritical attempt to comfort her after he had raged for a full quarter of an hour. ‘If I could give you one piece of advice,’ he had said, his voice dripping with paternal sympathy. ‘Don’t torture yourself. You’re a woman! Find a nice man and get married!’
Suddenly Charly found herself transported back to a Cologne cafe, listening to another sympathetic voice. Once you’re married you won’t have to work anymore. Now as then, she had been unable to speak.
She could still act though, and she wasn’t about to follow Weber’s instructions. She had climbed aboard the tram and made her way to Frankfurter Allee, travelling another two stops with the Ringbahn train. Reaching Roederstrasse she headed towards the old axle factory and climbed into the abandoned site through a gap in the rusty fence. She had to try, even if she could scarcely believe the girl would have fled here of all places.
She combed the first floor and the second, making a few discoveries along the way: wax residue, empty bottles, a battered old spoon, traces of trodden-out cigarettes. Search complete, she returned to the concrete stairs with the worn steel edges and descended them one by one. She felt a little uneasy alone in a place like this. The afternoon was simply the wrong time. Perhaps she should come back at dawn with Gereon.
Out of nowhere a boy appeared at the base of the steps, a broad-shouldered type with an angular skull and blackened fingernails, who couldn’t have been more than seventeen. At first he seemed as surprised as she was, gawping idiotically before bringing his expression under control. He did at least seem aware of how terrifying he looked. He puffed out his chest and crossed his arms to make them look even more muscular.
‘Can’t you read?’ he said. ‘Entry’s forbidden.’
‘I was just going.’
Charly tried to remain unfazed but was surprised at how wispy her voice sounded. C’mon now, she thought, can’t you think of anything better than that?