The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die (22 page)

Klaus’ door loomed before her. Flat number 5. Yale-style lock and old two lever mortise. From her pocket, she pulled out her keys. Her steady fingers immediately found her two prized skeleton keys and she silently prayed that Klaus’ apartment would have no alarm system. The locks clicked. Good. She pushed the door open only to hear the musical tinkling of an alarm on its thirty-second countdown.

‘Just my luck!’ she said through gritted teeth.

Panic grabbed hold of George and threatened to throttle her. ‘Keypad? Keypad?’

She pushed the door closed, moved quickly down the hallway and spied a keypad on the wall just out of sight of the door. Lifted the flap. Yes, she recognised the type. Four digits and a tick to unset. But which four? She didn’t know Klaus’ date of birth. Her phone pinged loudly with a text.
Not now!
But reflexively she grabbed at it. Stared at the display. Beeping, reminding her the time was almost up. Dropped it through trembling jelly fingers.

Come on. Come on.

‘Lift your top up so I can skewer you properly,’ Klaus said, grinning at Ad.

Ad’s eyes widened behind his glasses. He had instinctively folded his arms and crossed his legs. Reluctantly he revealed his midriff.

The sword that Klaus held was about three feet long, maybe longer, with a basket over the hilt bearing corps colours in dark blue, white and red stripes. The blade had been sharpened on both sides. Now, it stuck in the skin just below Ad’s heart. Ad nervously bit the inside of his cheek. The others didn’t seem disquieted by the sight of this … public execution.

Ad’s bladder was suddenly pushing to empty itself in fear. Another few seconds and the floor would rush up at him, knocking him out cold.

Klaus started laughing merrily like an evil Santa.

‘Jesus! Why the fuck are you laughing?’ Ad asked in a strangled voice.

Suddenly a large steel stockpot was produced by a lanky man with strawberry-blond hair. He hung it over a small fire in an old, open brick fireplace at the end of the lounge, which Ad had hitherto not noticed. Into the stockpot, the man poured three bottles of red wine. He tossed in some orange peel and a bundle of spices.

‘
Krambambuli!
’ Klaus swung the blade away from Ad, marched over to the fireplace and balanced the blade of his sword over the pot. Onto it, one of his comrades placed a white cone.

‘Oh, it’s bloody
glühwein
!’ Ad said, breathing out a sigh of relief. ‘You bastards!’

He dared to shuffle over to the fireplace to get a better look.

‘What’s that white thing?’ he asked Klaus.

‘It’s a sugar cone. We soak it in rum. Pass me the bottle, Carsten,’ Klaus said to the strawberry blond.

Carsten pushed a bottle of Bacardi into Klaus’ hand and Klaus carefully poured the rum onto the sugar cone in a steady stream until it was soaked. He produced a box of matches, lit one and set fire to the cone which burst into blue flames. The cone began to caramelise and bubble brown. The smell was delicious. Ad thought briefly that if he was going to be beheaded or have his throat slit in his sleep, it wouldn’t hurt to try a little of the punch.

‘We’ll drink a toast to Joachim,’ Klaus said solemnly, as he ladled the concoction into punch glasses.

Ad clasped the hot glass between his chilly fingertips. The lenses in his glasses steamed over, so he took them off and put them into the breast pocket of his shirt. The florid fraternity faces were suddenly a blur, but though he could see nothing in detail, he could sense sombre sobriety momentarily settling on the men’s shoulders.

Klaus cleared his throat. ‘To Joachim. A fine German man, whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

Ad squinted in the firelight, trying to see Klaus’ face.
Damned crappy eyesight.
He pulled out his glasses and pushed them back up his nose. The steaminess had dissipated. Tears stood in Klaus’ eyes.
Crocodile tears just for show?

Klaus spoke in a wavering voice now, full of emotion. ‘Our brother’s honour is being called into question but we know what kind of a man he was. He will be avenged.’

‘
Prost!
’

Vengeance? What kind of vengeance? Grievous bodily harm vengeance or common garden homicide?

Ad started to drink his punch. The strong alcohol stung his nostrils and burned the back of his throat. He felt his body start to thaw.

Gradually the mood lifted amongst the frat boys. After half an hour, Ad finally managed to pee. He locked himself into the toilet, urinated for almost a full minute and then texted George.

Got here OK. Missing u. Nothing 2 report. Klaus signs name with 47:33 at end. Weird. Are u safe?

There was no response. He assumed she had gone to bed.

After an hour and a half of drinking, Ad was completely blotto. He had lost his glasses. He sprawled across the sofa, watching the others’ childish antics with blurred vision, and listening to typical bawdy lads’ jokes through ears that no longer made sense of much. The ten percent still-sober part of his brain prayed silently that he would wake in the morning, still alive. He knew he was at the mercy of these alcoholic buffoons. But as the room spun around uncontrollably, the ninety percent inebriated part of Ad’s brain pondered the recipe for
Krambambuli
. George would love it.

The very last thing Ad registered before losing consciousness was the blurred vision of Klaus lumbering towards him, carrying a hunting knife.

‘Bitch. Come on!’ George yelled, fumbling with the phone. ‘A text from Ad!’

She tried to open the text and brought up the internet instead. Useless fingers. Fat fingers in woollen gloves. Crap burglar. But still the alarm’s countdown tinkled on. Inbox. Open. Ten seconds now. Nine. OCD brain had to know what it said.

Klaus signs name with 47:33 at end.

Six. Five. How about punching in 4733? She entered the numbers on the keypad. Fuck. Still tinkling.

Tick.

Two beeps signified the end of the countdown. No alarms and no unwelcome surprises. George almost wept with relief. She shook from head to toe but galvanised herself to lock the front door. She kicked her shoes off.

‘Breathe. Just breathe.’

Adrenalin pushed her from one room to another; first pulling the blinds, then daring to switch on lights to have a good look. It was a small but expensive apartment, furnished with modern Danish teak pieces. Fitted kitchen in black gloss. Looked like it had hardly been used. Small square living room with tall windows, mercifully overlooked by a hotel, so unlikely a nosey neighbour was watching. Leather sofa. Ultra-modern and uncomfortable-looking dining set with a round oak table and four chairs that were moulded to fit the curve. Abstract art on the wall.

‘This guy has no personality,’ George told herself. ‘There’s nothing about this place that says anything about its owner. Apart from money.’

She ran her gloved finger over the top of the large HDTV. No dust. He had to have a cleaner. Or maybe he shared the same hygiene obsession that she did. George snorted. She didn’t want to have anything in common with Klaus.

‘Let’s see what your bedroom says about you.’

George switched on the light. The bedroom faced onto a small courtyard garden at the back. There was a double bed squeezed up against the window, a nightstand and one wardrobe, all in the same modern style as the living room. Over the bed was a giant framed poster of the metal band, Rammstein. George grimaced. On the opposite wall was a poster of what George assumed was another metal band called Stahlgewitter. It was a classical painting of an angel carrying a sword with the name
Auftrag Deutsches Reich
emblazoned across the bottom.
Stahlgewitter
was written in gothic script. She wasn’t sure what
Auftrag
meant but she decided that
Deutsches Reich
was probably some kind of neo-Nazi reference to the Third Reich. She wrinkled her nose at the poster.

‘There must be something else here.’

George looked around. She opened the drawer of the nightstand. One packet of condoms, unopened. A pair of nail scissors. A packet of Ritalin without a pharmacist’s label.

‘Privately prescribed and doled out for ADHD?’ George wondered. ‘Or coke replacement? Which is it, big boy?’

She spied a vanity mirror with traces of white powder under the rim.

‘Ho ho ho. Still being naughty, are we?’

The shiny cover of a pornographic magazine caught her eye.

‘
Big n Black
,’ George read aloud. ‘Oh really, Klaus? Is this your guilty pleasure, Mr
Deutsches Reich
? Nice chunky-assed sisters with big hooters for a five-knuckle shuffle on your Aryan Bockwurst?’

She shuddered and put the magazine back in its drawer.

Next, the wardrobe. She flung the doors wide. Klaus liked his clothes. Expensive suits hung inside along with scores of polo shirts in different colours, five pairs of chinos and three pairs of jeans. It was all very Tommy Hilfiger or Ralph Lauren. Expensive pastels. Fresh smelling.

She was just about to close the doors when she spotted something. She parted the clothes. The back of the wardrobe was decorated with photographs of Ratan, Joachim, Remko … in fact most people from the class. Certainly, most people in her circle of friends, including Ad.
And me. Where did he get that photo from?
It was her matriculation photograph from her first term at St John’s. Interspersed among the class photos were clippings from the newspaper articles, covering the bombings and the investigation.

‘Oh, come on! How can he not be involved?’ George said. She took out her phone and photographed the collage. But then she realised that she couldn’t possibly show it to anyone other than Ad, as she would be implicating herself in breaking and entering. ‘How can I convince van den Bergen to get a warrant and search this place? Bollocks.’

George put everything in the wardrobe back as she’d found it. She then went systematically back through the flat, opening every drawer she could find. She photographed the exact layout of the contents with her phone, rifled through what was there, looking for anything that might be incriminating and then put each item back in the exact position it had held in the photo she had taken. Finally, she went back into the bedroom and looked beneath the bed. There was a laptop on the carpet.

‘Bingo.’

Ad tried to open his eyes. His left eye was gummed shut with something. There was a dull ache above it on his brow bone. His right eye spied a fuzzy living room, lit by a solitary standard lamp. It was still dark outside, but the timorous chirrup of the odd bird and the thrum of car engines on the main road told him dawn was probably close. He could smell stale cigarettes, alcohol and sweaty feet. Snoring rumbled close by and kitchen noises clanged further away.

Gingerly, he tapped his left eye. That felt fine. The eyelids just seemed to be stuck together. He prodded his eyebrow. Sharp pain lanced through a dull, throbbing hangover headache. He could feel crust, as though he had a wound that had started to scab up overnight. He looked at his fingertips. They were smudged with dark red.

‘Blood?’

Then he remembered Klaus holding a hunting knife. Or had he imagined it?

‘Where are my glasses?’

He rolled off the sofa and started to grope around the floor. All he could see was the blurred, busy pattern on a red Persian rug, lit by a still-flickering tea light in a glass jar. After some searching, he came across his glasses under a coffee table.
Thank God they’re not broken.
He put them on and realised that Klaus had been sleeping next to him on the floor. He lay on his side with the hunting knife by his hand.

Ad grabbed Klaus by the shoulders and flipped him over onto his back. His bleary blue eyes shot open. He looked at Ad quizzically, breathing heavily through his mouth. Ad quickly straddled his chest, pinning him to the ground, snatched up the knife and held the tip of it near his throat.

‘What are you doing?’ Klaus asked. ‘You’re hurting me.’ His breath stank like a distillery.

‘Why is my eye covered in blood? What did you do to me?’ Ad’s voice was hoarse and cracked.

Klaus, seemingly unafraid of the knife at his throat, threw Ad off him with ease and sat up. He looked at Ad and started to laugh. Ad knelt beside him, still holding the knife like an idle threat.

‘I’m sorry,’ Klaus said, pointing at Ad’s forehead.

Ad stood up, spied the mirror over the fireplace and walked over to it on shaky legs. He slammed the knife onto the mantelpiece, looked into the mirror and scowled.

‘Jesus. What the hell have you done, you idiot?’ He touched the stinging skin above his eye carefully. He could see a superficial cut on the brow bone, which had bled heavily into his eye during the night. It looked like someone had tried to gouge his eye out. But the most obvious problem was that he was now missing an eyebrow. He spat onto the cuff of his shirt and wiped the dried blood away. The skin underneath was livid and shiny.

Klaus hovered behind Ad, grinning. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘It seemed very funny at the time. Think of it like a bit of an initiation ceremony into the circle.’

‘You shaved my bloody eyebrow off with a hunting knife? You’re completely mad.’

‘We were all very drunk.
Krambambuli
.’ Klaus seemed to think this was an adequate explanation for Ad’s missing eyebrow.

Ad stared at the bulbous-headed German and felt anger expand within him like a black hole, threatening to consume everything in the room
. I’m going to punch him. I can be an alpha male. This is it.
But innate aggression was not Ad’s strong suit.
You naval-gazing, spineless prick, Karelse. Just hit him. Take out his jaw with a well-placed right hook, for God’s sake.
He clenched his fist. Caught sight of himself in the mirror.
I look like some knuckle-trailing cave man
. His resolve wavered momentarily. That was enough to make the black hole collapse in on itself, taking the anger with it and leaving only a dim nebula of frustration and disappointment in its stead. He forced a smile.