Where are you?
A brilliant ray of sunlight shone straight in his eye, like a flashlight beam, for an instant. A reflection off a bus moving along the road, no more than a hundred yards away. Then he saw another glint. It wasn’t sunlight this time.
He dodged around a jolly-looking group having their picture taken, just as the camera flashed, ran over a verge of ragged grass and reached an empty road with the woodland of the garden on either side and a bus pulled over. There was no sign of Sandy.
Then he saw her again, as the bus moved on, a hundred yards ahead of him, still running!
‘SANNDDDDDYYYYYY!’ he hollered.
She stopped in her tracks for a moment and stared in his direction, as if wondering whom he was shouting at.
Leaving her in no doubt, waving his arm frantically, he sprinted towards her, shouting, ‘Sandy! Sandy! Sandy!’
But she was already running again and vanished around a bend. Two mounted policemen appeared, coming towards him, and for a moment he wondered whether to ask them for help. Instead he sprinted on past them, conscious of their wary stares.
Then in the distance he could see the yellow wall of a building. She was running past a red stop light and a skip, over a bridge, past the building and a cluster of buses.
Then she stopped by a parked silver BMW and appeared to be searching in her bag for something – the key, he presumed.
And suddenly he was alongside her, gasping for air. ‘Sandy!’ he said elatedly.
She turned her head, panting hard, and said something to him in German.
And then, staring at her properly for the first time, he realized it wasn’t Sandy.
It wasn’t her at all.
His heart plunged like an elevator with a snapped cable. She had the same profile, uncannily the same, but her face was wider, flatter, much plainer. He couldn’t see her eyes, because they were behind dark shades, but he didn’t need to. It wasn’t Sandy’s mouth; this was a small, thin mouth. It wasn’t Sandy’s fine, silky skin; this face was pockmarked from childhood acne.
‘I’m – I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
‘You are English?’ she said with a pleasant smile. ‘Can I help you?’
She had her key out now, hit the fob and the doors unlocked. She opened the driver’s door and rummaged around for something inside. He heard the jangle of coins.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I – I made a mistake. I mistook you – I thought you were someone I knew.’
‘I forgot the time!’ She patted the side of her head, indicating stupidity. ‘The police give you tickets very quickly here. Two hours only on the ticket!’
She pulled a handful of euros out of the door pocket.
‘Can I ask you a question, please? Ah – were you here – in the Englischer Garten – on Thursday? At about this time?’
She shrugged. ‘I think so. In this weather, I come often.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Last Thursday?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
She nodded. ‘Definitely. For sure.’
Grace thanked her and turned away. His clothes were clinging to his skin with perspiration. A ribbon of blood trailed across his right trainer. A short distance away he saw Marcel Kullen walking towards him. He felt totally crushed. He pulled out his mobile phone and raised it to his ear, as the woman walked across to the ticket-vending machine. But he wasn’t making a phone call. He was taking a photograph.
61
Cleo continued listening. She had very definitely heard a click.
Halting midway in her process of rolling the slender, fragile, grey cadaver over, she gently lowered her back down on to the stainless-steel table. ‘Hello?’ she called out, her voice muffled by her mask.
Then she stood still, listening, staring uneasily through the door at the silent grey tiles of the corridor. ‘Hello? Who’s that?’ she called out, louder, feeling a tightening in her throat. She lowered her mask, letting it hang by the tapes. ‘Hello?’
Silence. Just the faint hum of the fridges.
A slick of fear shot through her. Had she left the outside door open? Surely not, she never left it open. She tried to think clearly. The smell when she had opened the door – could she have left it open to let some fresh air in?
No way, she would not have been so stupid. She always closed the door; it self-locked. Of course she had closed it!
So why wasn’t the person out there replying?
And in her over-revving heart she already knew the answer to that. There were some weirdos around for whom mortuaries held a fascination. They’d had a number of break-ins in the past, but now the latest security systems had so far, for a good eighteen months, acted as an effective deterrent.
Suddenly she remembered the CCTV monitor on the wall and looked up at it. It was showing a static black and white image of the tarmac outside the door, and the flower bed and brick wall beyond. The tail lights and rear bumper of her car were just in frame.
Then she heard the distinct rustle of clothes out in the corridor.
Goosebumps broke out over her entire body. For an instant she froze, her brain spinning, trying to get traction. There was a phone on the shelf next to the cabinet, but she didn’t have time to get to it. She looked around frantically for a weapon that was in reach. For an instant she considered, absurdly, the severed arm of the cadaver. Fear tightened her skin; her scalp felt as if she were wearing a skullcap.
The rustling came closer. She saw a shadow moving along the tiles.
Then, suddenly, her fear turned to anger. Whoever the hell it was out there had no damn right to be here. She decided she was not going to be scared or intimidated by some sicko who got kicks out of breaking into the mortuary. Her mortuary.
In a few fast, determined strides, she reached the cabinet, slid the door open, noisily, and pulled out the largest of the Sabatier carving knives. Then, gripping it tightly by the handle, she ran at the opened doorway. And collided, with a scream of terror, with a tall figure in an orange T-shirt and lime-green shorts, who gripped her arms, pinning them to her sides. The knife clattered to the tiled floor.
62
Marcel Kullen pulled over to the kerb and pointed across the street. Roy Grace saw a large, beige-coloured store on the corner. It had book-lined windows and the interior was dark. Lights inside, hanging from stalks, were switched on, providing decoration rather than any illumination. They reminded Grace of glow-worms.
Elegant grey letters on the store front read The Munich Readery. Another announced Second-hand Books in English.
‘I just wanted to show you the shop. I am asking in this tomorrow,’ the German detective said.
Grace nodded. He had consumed two large beers, a bratwurst, sauerkraut and potatoes, and was feeling decidedly woozy. In fact, he was having a problem keeping his eyes open.
‘Sandy was a big reader, you told me?’
Was. The word jarred in Grace’s mind. He didn’t like people referring to Sandy in the past tense, as if she were dead. But he let it slide. He used that tense himself often enough, subconsciously. Feeling more energized suddenly, he said, ‘Yes, she’s a big reader, always has been. Crime, thrillers – all kinds of mystery novels. Biographies as well – she liked reading about women explorers in particular.’
Kullen put the car in gear and drove on. ‘What is it – you have this saying in England – Keep your pecker up?’