The Child (28 page)

‘Just before six, go to your ward and sound the alarm,’ Stern had impressed on her. ‘I want as many of your colleagues as possible to hear when you report to the guard outside Simon’s room.’

There was to be no doubt that she had turned herself in of her own free will, then the police couldn’t pin anything on her later. She’d also had to promise him something else.

‘As soon as you’ve turned yourself in, tell the police where I am. But not until six on the dot, not a second earlier.’ His words came back to her as she hurried down the corridor.

‘Why not?’ she’d asked him. ‘Help won’t arrive for at least five minutes.’

‘Exactly. I’ll need that much time to find out what happened to my son, and if someone really is selling a baby aboard the
Brücke
, a longer delay would present too much of a risk to the child.’

‘But if the police turn up too late, you’ll be dead.’

He had shaken his head wearily. ‘I don’t think the voice means to kill me. He’s had plenty of opportunities to do so in the last few days.’

‘So what
does
he want?’

Instead of replying, Stern had kissed her goodbye and driven off to find out.

Carina stopped short.

The frosted glass door of the nurses’ room was normally open, but it seemed that some of the female staff had retired there for an early coffee break. She heard a high-pitched laugh. The voice sounded unfamiliar, and she assumed that it belonged to someone from another ward who had temporarily taken over her shift.

Click
. The second hand of the clock ate another minute of her schedule. She raised her hand and was about to knock when she froze.

But this is impossible …
She hadn’t risked a glance in the direction of Room 217 when she emerged into the corridor, not wanting the policeman outside the door to notice her until she accosted him, but she’d glimpsed something out of the corner of her eye that shouldn’t by rights have been there.

Nothing!

She slowly turned and looked down the long, antiseptically swabbed corridor.

It was true: there was no one there. No man. No woman. No policeman.

He could have sneaked out for a smoke, of course
.

She walked slowly back along the corridor.

OK, perhaps he’s gone to the bathroom. Or maybe he’s looking in on the boy. But shouldn’t there be a chair outside?

Rooms 203, 205, 207. Her footsteps quickened the more doors she passed.

Surely they haven’t dispensed with a personal protection officer? Not after Simon’s abduction, surely? Today of all days?

She passed Room 209 at a run.

‘Hello? Carina?’ a woman’s agitated voice called out behind her. Her replacement’s, probably. It sounded familiar, unlike the laugh she’d heard before, but she didn’t turn round. This couldn’t wait.

Reaching the door of Room 217, she flung it open – and stifled a cry because she saw what she’d feared. Nothing. No child. No Simon. Just a newly made-up bed awaiting a patient.

‘Carina Freitag?’ the voice asked again, right behind her this time.

She turned round. Sure enough, it was a new nurse. A redhead – they’d once shared a table in the staff canteen. Magdalena, Martina – something like that, but who cared? Only one name mattered to Carina right then, and its owner had disappeared.

‘Simon – where is he?’

‘They’ve transferred him, but I—’

‘Transferred? Where to?’

‘The Kennedy Clinic.’

‘
What?
When?’

‘No idea, it’s down in the log. My shift has only just started. Look, please don’t be difficult, but my instructions were to call the medical director as soon as you showed up.’

‘Do that. And you’d better call the police as well.’

‘Why?’ The nurse, who had picked up the house phone, lowered it again.

‘Because Simon has been kidnapped. The JFK doesn’t have a neuroradiological department. It’s a private hospital for internal medicine.’

‘Oh …’

‘Who approved the transfer? Who was on duty before you?’

Completely thrown now, the red-haired nurse reeled off some names until asked to repeat one. Carina nearly tripped over her own feet as she dashed past the girl and out of the room.

Picasso? Since when has he been back on night duty?

Stern turned the ignition key far enough to power up the four-wheel drive’s inboard entertainment system. The DVD player swallowed the disc with a greedy, slithering sound. No longer watching out for movement on board the
Brücke
to his front, he focused his whole attention on the screen. He felt like a student who couldn’t find his name on a list of successful examinees, except that this examination was concerned with his son’s life. Or, more probably, with his death.

He thought at first, when the picture took shape, that he was only watching a copy of the DVD he’d already seen. Like that one, it opened with some greenish shots of the neonatal ward at night. Felix was lying in his cot once more. Once more he stretched out his little fist and spread his tiny fingers. Stern wanted to turn away and shut his eyes, but he knew how pointless this was because the ensuing image was permanently imprinted on his mind’s eye, as it had been ever since he saw it for the first time on the old television set at his house: the motionless infant with the far too blue lips and the expressionless eyes that still seemed, a decade after the event, to reproach his father for failing to prevent his death. Stern clasped his hands together, clenched his teeth, and prayed to be finally roused from this nightmare. He hadn’t come here to watch another video of his son’s death.

But why? Are you really stupid enough to believe in another explanation?

‘Yes!’ he said, voicing his thoughts aloud for the first time. ‘Felix is alive. I don’t want his heart to stop beating. Please don’t let him die. Not again.’

It was more of an entreaty than a prayer, and although he hadn’t named the recipient of his despairing plea, his words seemed to be having an effect.

What is this?

All at once, the sequence of shots began to differ greatly from that of the first DVD. A shadow fell across the cot. The camera zoomed in and the images became grainier. Then something incomprehensible happened. A man’s hands came into shot. First one, then the other. Bare, rough hands, they reached for Felix and cupped themselves around his frail little head. Stern blinked feebly, afraid that what followed would be even more horrible than what he’d been compelled to endure hitherto. He tried to command his fingers to turn off the DVD, but although his heart longed to blot out the scene by pressing a button, his brain resisted the impulse. In the end, so that his journey of exploration in that dark car park beside the lake could reach its final destination, he bowed to the inevitable, however terrible it might be. As the DVD continued its merciless rotation, he saw the man stretch out his hands to the baby. To Felix! One grasped his neck, the other his body. The muscular forearms tautened, and the unknown man …

Dear God, help me …

… took hold of Felix and …

No, this is …

… lifted him out of the cot.

… impossible!

Only seconds later the little mattress was occupied once more. By another infant. Same sleepsuit, same size, similar build. There was only one perceptible difference: it wasn’t Felix.

Or was it?

The new baby looked so incredibly like his son, but something about his appearance had changed.

His nose? His ears?

Stern simply couldn’t tell, the quality of the video was too poor. He rubbed his eyes and rested both hands on the dashboard with his face as close as possible to the screen. It was pointless, the baby’s image only became more blurred. All he could tell with any certainty was that this infant was also alive. Weirdly enough, its movements seemed even more familiar to him than those of the newborn baby that had just been lying in its place.

But that would mean …

Stern looked at the date line.

And was utterly mystified.

With almost autistic concentration, he focused all of his senses on trying to fathom the meaning of the pictures. He failed.

Exchanged?
It wasn’t possible. Felix had been the only male infant in the ward and he’d seen him die. Which of the two DVDs was authentic?

Stern’s breathing came and went spasmodically as he watched the deception being completed. Another close-up of the baby’s face was followed by a shot of the man’s hirsute, disembodied hands slipping a numbered ID bracelet over its right wrist.

It was all over. The video recording was at an end. The screen went dark and Stern looked down at his mobile, which had been vibrating in his hand for a considerable time.

‘Good morning, Herr Stern.’

Robert Stern thought he’d long ago plumbed the ultimate depths of despair. The sound of that disguised voice told him how wrong he was. The lights in the floating restaurant’s bar went off and on again. A shadowy figure came over to the big window facing the car park.

‘What did you do with my son?’ Stern managed to ask.

Although the reply accorded with his dearest wishes, he could hardly believe it.

‘We exchanged him.’

‘Impossible.’

‘Why? You saw it for yourself just now.’

‘Yes, and three days ago you sent me a video in which he died!’ Stern shouted. ‘What do you want from me? Which of the DVDs was genuine?’

‘Both.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘No. One baby died, the other survived. Felix is ten years old and living with an adoptive family.’

‘Where?’

The voice remained quiet, like an orator reaching for a glass of water. Although the timbre was still metallic, the artificial distortion was less pronounced than it had been when he first made contact.

‘You really want to know?’

‘Yes,’ Stern heard himself say. Nothing could have been more important to him at that moment.

‘Then open the glove compartment.’

Like a remote-controlled toy, he did so. ‘What now?’

‘Take out the box and open it.’

With trembling fingers, Stern picked up the box of wet wipes. Air escaped with an angry hiss as he tore open the plastic lid.

‘I’ve done that.’

‘Good. Now pull out a wet wipe and put it over your mouth and nose.’

‘No,’ he replied instinctively. He needed no death’s-head sticker to tell him how potentially lethal was the substance the fumes of which were already filling the car.

‘I thought you wanted to see your son again.’

‘Yes, but I don’t want to die.’

‘Who says you’ll die? I’m merely asking you to put it over your face.’

‘What happens if I refuse?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘No. You can get out and go home.’

And never find out where my son is
.

‘It would be a mistake, though, now you’ve come this far.’

‘You’re lying. Those DVDs are fakes.’

The voice sighed deeply. ‘You’re mistaken.’

‘Then tell me how you did it. You say there were two babies.’ Stern’s voice cracked. ‘Why didn’t we notice? Who did the other child belong to? Why did you exchange it?’

And why didn’t anyone miss it after it died in Sophie’s arms?

‘All right, I’ll tell you. But then it’s your turn.’

Stern shut the lid and shook his head.

‘You can’t understand the whole story unless you know how I earn my living.’

‘You traffic in children.’

‘Among other things. We engage in many business activities, but dealing in newborn babies is one of the most lucrative.’

Stern swallowed hard. It was two minutes past six. He looked in the rear-view mirror, but the avenger had yet to appear.

‘My business is based on the baby depository – a wonderful invention. Are you aware that certain Berlin hospitals maintain containers in which mothers can dump their unwanted offspring instead of abandoning them elsewhere or even killing them?’

‘Yes.’

But what has that to do with Felix?

‘When was the last time you heard of a baby being dumped in one? It’s said to happen very, very rarely, but that’s a lie. The fact is, it happens all the time.’

The voice clicked his tongue.

‘As soon as a mother inserts her baby in the compartment, a silent alarm goes off inside the hospital and a member of staff comes and takes charge of the foundling. In two cases out of three, that member of staff is a nurse on my payroll.’

‘No,’ Stern gasped.

‘Oh yes. That’s the advantage of the silent alarm, nobody hears it. Data protection legislation prohibits the installation of CCTV cameras outside these depositories, so the hospital administrators don’t know how many babies actually get dumped. All I have to do is collect them when their mothers abandon them of their own free will. The best part is, most of them are German babies, and childless couples pay top prices for those. It’s a very simple business, really. Or would be, if someone didn’t persist in killing my associates.’

Stern felt unutterably sick. It was the perfect crime. Child-traffickers didn’t even have to risk a charge of kidnapping. The babies were ‘voluntarily’ surrendered to them, and no missing infants were subsequently sought by heartbroken parents.

‘I still don’t understand what this has to do with
Felix
.’ Stern was feeling bereft of energy. The wind, which continued to buffet the car with undiminished ferocity, could have blown him away.

The voice paused briefly. Stern waited with bated breath. Then the dam broke.

‘Your Felix was in the wrong hospital at the right time. A day before his birth, another very cute little baby was left in the hospital’s depository. I informed my impatient customers of that fortunate occurrence. Unhappily, it transpired from a preliminary examination conducted by one of my doctors that the foundling had a terminal heart defect.’

An iron band seemed to enclose Stern’s chest.

‘It was doomed from the first. An operation would have been pointless and was out of the question in any case. No one could be allowed to know of the child’s existence.’