48

He regained consciousness.

Didn’t wake up: the outside world merely shone a thin beam into his brain, no more.

Or perhaps it was not the outside world. Perhaps it was merely reflexes from his own body: fragile, undeveloped signals in the darkness and inertia. His head ached. His tongue was sticking to his gums. The tiredness in his arms and legs was devastating.

He was lying on some kind of hard sofa in a position that was extremely uncomfortable.

On his left side. His hands were tightly bound behind his back. His feet were also tied together. His ankles were rubbing against each other. The rough cover of the sofa smelled of dust, and he felt sick.

Dark. He opened his eyes one millimetre for a fraction of a second, and saw that it was just as black round about him as it was inside him.

He sank back into unconsciousness.

Some time later he woke up properly. His tiredness was still like a lead weight on top of him, but she was standing in a light doorway, talking to him.

Saying something to him, giving instructions.

She came up to him and placed something on a table next to his face.

‘Coffee.’

That was the first word he was able to understand.

‘Sit up now. Drink some coffee.’

He kept opening and closing his eyes. It hurt. He could detect the smell of coffee in his nostrils.

‘Sit up.’

It seemed laughably impossible, but the pain in his backside when he tried to obey the order actually woke him up.

‘I can’t. .’

His voice broke down, and he tried again.

‘I can’t drink when my hands are tied behind my back.’

‘There’s a straw in the cup.’

He leaned forward and drank.

I’m still alive, he thought.

Whatever good that will do me.

He forced his arms to the left and managed to look at his watch.

A quarter past five. In the morning, presumably. A long time must have passed. The room in which he had spent the last sixteen hours seemed to be some sort of lumber-room. A haven for worn-out furniture, but also a link between the house itself and the garage.

When he had finished drinking, she ordered him to move into the garage. He had to jump with both feet lashed together — awkward to do and difficult to keep his balance. He was forced to lean against furniture and walls. Pains all over his body. I hope she allows me to die with some kind of dignity at least, he thought. All the time a dark curtain was threatening to fall down in front of his eyes. The urge to be sick was keeping him upright.

He caught sight of his own blue Opel. She must have moved them around, he thought. The cars. She must have backed Hennan’s Rover and her Japanese car out into the street, and driven his Opel into the garage.

She must have taken the key out of his pocket while he was asleep.

He tried to check if that was the case, but was unable to reach round with his hands tied together. It was obvious in any case that she was leaving nothing to chance.

She never did. He was quite clear about that now.

When it was too late, of course.

Thinking made his headache worse. He took a deep breath with his mouth wide open and looked at his car. Noted that the boot was open.

‘In you get.’

He stared at her. Stared at the pistol.

‘In there?’

She nodded.

‘We shan’t be going far.’

‘And if I refuse?’

‘I’ll kill you straight away.’

He thought for a few seconds.

Then he ducked down under the boot lid and crawled inside.

The sofa had been much more comfortable.

All is relative, he thought.

Could death also be relative? Perhaps.

For a few moments he thought about the possibility of escaping. But then he realized how impossible that was. It felt as if he were already buried, lying cooped up in this cramped car boot. The smell of dirt. Of oil and anti-freeze — he recalled having spilled half a litre at some point last winter, and the smell still persisted.

Pitch black and difficult to breathe, pressure on his chest. . difficulties in moving as well, with his hands tied behind his back. There was no possibility of working them free. And even if there had been, surely it was impossible to open the lid from the inside?

She backed out into the road and stopped. Left the engine running. He heard her open the driver’s door and get out. He thought about shouting, but decided against that as well. There would be nobody around at this time in the morning: the chances of anybody passing close enough to hear his feeble voice were as good as zero. He had no desire for his last action in this world to be lying in a car boot crying in vain for help.

He heard another car starting. Realized that she was restoring order. The Rover in the garage, the Japanese sports car on the drive. The intruding Opel removed from the scene.

No, she was leaving nothing to chance.

He tried to change his position, to find a posture that would be a little bit more bearable: but it was a waste of time. Instead he scraped his cheek against something sharp that was jutting out, gave up and began thinking about Erich.

It was remarkable. For some reason he had the impression that his son was watching him just now.

Not Ulrike, not Jess.

Just Erich, nobody else.

It was difficult to judge how long the journey took. The darkness — both inside and outside him — deadened his senses. The pain in his buttocks became more intense, and he doubted if he would be able to stand upright. His shoulders and upper arms seemed to be paralysed, and his head was bursting.

Quarter of an hour, perhaps? He guessed that it was probably no more than that. Not very far out of town, in other words. Ten to fifteen kilometres: the last section was uneven and bumpy — presumably a narrow dirt road through a forest or over a field.

She stopped. He heard the front door open and close again. A minute passed, then she opened the boot lid.

He turned his head and blinked at the light. Scraped his cheek again, on the same place. Varied his gaze several times between the barrel of the pistol and her face.

Speak, he thought. The longer I can manage to talk to her, the longer I have left to live.

‘Get out.’

She gestured with the pistol. It took him some time to clamber to his feet. And even longer to straighten his back. He looked around in the faint light of dawn. Trees in all directions, just as he had thought: they had driven along a road that was barely wide enough for a car, with a high strip of grass in the middle of it.

Mainly beech trees, but a few others here and there. Young aspen saplings and small fir trees. Quite well tended: he guessed she had driven westwards, and when he sniffed the air he thought he could detect traces of the sea.

But maybe that was just his imagination. Maybe it was simply that he wanted to feel the presence of the sea at a time like this.

‘You’re not going to get away with this, you know,’ he said.

‘Nonsense. You’re the one who’s not going to get away.’

He could hear that she meant what she said. It occurred to him that he only had a few seconds to live — but then he noticed that she was holding a spade, and he suspected that she had other plans.

‘Lie down on your stomach.’

With difficulty he knelt down and then fell forwards.

‘Your face touching the ground.’

He did as she said. His back was in agony. But with two swift strokes of a knife she cut through the ropes. Round both his hands and his feet.

This is the moment, he thought. This is my chance to run for it — or would have been if I were thirty years old. .

But it took quite some time to unwind the ropes and put them on one side, and when he stood up again she was standing only two metres away, and was in full control of the situation.

‘Walk.’

She indicated the direction by nodding and gesturing with the pistol. He slowly straightened his back so that he was able to walk, and set off up the steep path.

The vegetation became more dense. There were more twigs and branches everywhere. He began to understand what she had in mind.

He began to understand who she was.

‘This will do fine.’

He stopped in the little hollow and looked around. Vision was limited to about ten metres in all directions. Dawn had not yet taken over from night. Not completely. The occasional bird could be heard, but only as an isolated sound in the distance. No wind. A lingering nocturnal chill, and thin streaks of mist that were slowly dispersing. He assumed it was not yet six o’clock, but didn’t bother to check. He felt weariness once more taking possession of him.

I’m still drugged, he remembered. Gave a start when she threw the spade down in front of his feet.

‘Dig.’

He looked at her.

‘What if I refuse?’

I’ve already said that, he thought. Can’t I think of better questions?

‘I’ll shoot you and do the digging myself.’

‘You won’t get away with this.’

‘I won’t get away with it if I allow you to carry on living.’

He thought about that. It wasn’t difficult to see her point. Of course she had to kill him.

‘What about Linden?’ he said. ‘I think you owe me an explanation of that.’

She screwed up her eyes and stared at him, raising the gun so that it was pointing at his forehead between his eyes. She stood absolutely still for several seconds, then lowered it a few centimetres.

‘Dig.’

He interpreted that as a sort of agreement, and picked up the spade. He looked around for a suitable place.

Suitable? he thought. How do I want to lie?

‘Where is east?’ he asked.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I want to lie with my head in that direction.’

She laughed.

‘Over there.’

He nodded. Selected a spot where the ground seemed to be softest. If I have to dig my own grave, he thought, I don’t want to have to struggle with a mass of roots and stones. That would be. . undignified.

‘Linden,’ he reminded her as he dug into the ground.

She sat down on a fallen tree trunk a couple of metres away from him and lit a cigarette — just as before using one hand and not releasing him for single second from either her gaze or the pistol.

‘What do you want to know?’ she asked.

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