The Mammoth Book Best International Crime Read online

  She didn’t understand anything. Hurt Angelica? They didn’t believe that she could injure her own angel child? Through her confusion, she tried to understand what they were thinking, but no one would meet her eye. She protested, albeit weakly, but “horse teeth” just continued: “It is quite understandable that you lack understanding of what you did, at this time. It’s actually part of the diagnosis. Not strange at all. One could almost call it normal.”

  It went slowly. Angelica managed to walk long distances on her own. She only had to carry the child when they had to cross marshy areas and when the terrain angled steeply uphill. Occasionally, the path was blocked by trees, blown down by the wind. Angelica crawled up onto the trunks, waited impatiently for her to climb over, then threw herself into her arms, laughing heartily. Steam rose from the ground, where the sun succeeded in reaching it through the spruce trees. There were smells of moss and spruce needles, and there was a trace of something musty from the puddles. Here and there, patches of dirty snow had survived in the protection of the trees’ shadows. Spring sometimes needed help along the way, so they kicked apart some of the sad, little snow drifts. Both wore their blond hair collected in braids down their backs. They were finally on their way. The Social Services waiting room, saturated with its sense of powerlessness, lay far behind them. They were going to save themselves, work together, and take care of each other.

  The forest became lighter, the knotty birches, more frequent. She could see the rust-spotted roof of the cabin, and felt the strength returning to her legs.

  She opened her eyes when someone touched her shoulder. The sun still warmed her face. Motes of dust played in the light that fell through the unwashed window. The corridor looked like the one on the maternity ward, though this one had locked doors. It wasn’t the newborn who screeched here, either.

  “The verdict has come,” the voice said, and its owner patted her a bit carefully. “I thought maybe you’d like to read it yourself. I’ll sit here beside you in case it gets difficult.”

  She didn’t feel anything. The words marched past, rhythmically, and she didn’t stop until she came to page fourteen:

  The Court has passed the following judgment: in the preliminary work regarding legislation pertaining to non-consensual intervention, the classification “Lack of Care” shall be applied. Under this classification, the situation is defined as occurring when a child is exposed to improper care, due largely to negligence, to the extent that the child’s health is at risk. In the case which is under consideration, a witness, in the person of an At-Home-Aid, testified that not only was Angelica neglected by her mother, she was also actively injured by her. The case was referred to Dr Jeanette Pilsäther-Roos, Senior Physician of the Children’s Clinic at Central Hospital. In a document supported by Social Services, Dr Pilsäther-Roos writes that the mother’s behavior falls under the little-known diagnosis “Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy” (MSP). MSP is a compulsive disorder which involves a parent repeatedly ensuring that his or her child experiences some sort of medical affliction, thereby compelling the child to undergo medical treatment. The strains of motherhood have, in this instance, caused a shallow and self-centered personality to develop the actual disorder. According to Pilsäther-Roos, the correct diagnosis was obtained thanks to the exemplary cooperative efforts of concerned personnel in both the Health Care and Social Services sectors.

  Based upon the above-mentioned medical document, the Court therefore finds that there is an obvious risk that the child’s health and/or development is being damaged. Preparations should therefore be made to care for Angelica outside of her current home. Taking into consideration the child’s safety, it is clear that the necessary care cannot be given under present conditions, in a voluntary manner.

  She gently rocked Angelica in her arms and hummed a little. The crying had stopped and the girl’s body suddenly seemed heavier. She carefully moved a lock of golden hair to make sure the child was truly asleep. Slowly, slowly she rose from the sofa and carried the child in to her bed. The room had been made ready a long time ago. There were dried flowers on the top shelf of a white book case. The next shelf held stuffed animals lined up in a row. Further down, there were books, puzzles, and a toy vacuum cleaner made of plastic. The curtains were thin and let in most of the weak, February light.

  She stood for a while, enjoying just looking at the sleeping child. The angel child. She was growing and would soon start to talk. She’ll learn to call me Mamma, she thought, and felt something soft and warm roll through her body.

  She returned to the kitchen, then continued into the hall. She picked up the handbag that rested against the bench under the mirror. After digging around in the center pocket, the one with the zipper, she pulled out the nail. It was four inches long. A single, golden-yellow hair was stuck to its pointed tip. Absent-mindedly, she scraped it away with her thumbnail and went back into the kitchen. The nail disappeared into the recycling container for metal, under the sink. She’d always been meticulous about sorting her garbage.

  “We don’t need that anymore, Angelica,” she mused aloud, and chuckled to herself. The restlessness she had carried in her body for so long had vanished. Even her breasts, the things she’d carried around like a kind of useless ballast, seemed lighter. More meaningful. Being able to quit the At-Home-Aid job was a relief, too. She could no longer stand to deal with all the incompetence, all the weakness, and all the inconvenience that had surrounded her. Her goodwill no longer extended to anyone other than herself – and Angelica, of course. She would never have to be alone again, thanks to her angel child.

  She filled the coffeemaker, sat at the kitchen table and was satisfied.

  Translation by Susan Loyd

  All For Bergkamen

  Sebastian Fitzek

  A lot of people think I am an asshole. Most likely I am one. But very few individuals can really judge that. They usually meet me in situations in which it is impossible to make friends. Not in a friendly crowd over beer, not at sports and definitely not at a party but always through my work. And my work is death.

  Death does not follow regular working hours so I don’t have an office. I am more like a representative, a travelling sales man. I track people of whose existence you don’t want to know. Psychopaths who carry the severed finger of a child which they want to suck on after end of shift around in their lunch box. Sociopaths who observe with interest as their paralysed wives starve to death. You know, people next door. Mostly I am too late. Like today, in Bergkamen.

  When I got the call on my emergency mobile I was in the process of making a Hello-Kitty watch disappear before the eyes of my daughter. Lisa was celebrating her seventh birthday and my ex-wife Tania had engaged me of all people to be the magician for the children’s party.

  Now she would have to struggle with the children who were all waiting for the promised magic trick on her own, while I was on the B61 to meet a mental case in Bergkamen.

  “Old Dobkowitz was the first to discover him,” the leader of the task force informed me on the phone.

  Dobkowitz. SEK1-chief Hartmann had emphasized the name of the old lady as if she was a local celebrity. To me she was as a foreign as every single one of the host of local police, media or rubbernecks who pressed themselves into the pedestrian zone of Nordberg and despite the pouring rain could barely be held back from the crime scene by the uniformed officers.

  The chief looked exactly like I had imagined him based on his asthmatic voice: overweight, with thinning hair and a butcher nose. When I shook his wet hand I kind of expected an invitation to beer and roast.

  “You have brought shit weather with you!”

  Like me he didn’t wear either a hood or an umbrella. But on his feet he was wearing massive, police green wellington boots. If that was really his shoe size I could later take him to Lisa’s birthday party as a clown.

  Two of his men cut a path for me behind the crime scene tape.

  “Can you explain why he would only speak to you?
”

  “No idea,” I said and shrugged my shoulders.

  It would have sounded very arrogant if I had told the chief that all he had to do was google my name. How could I explain to somebody who didn’t know me that I was the best? And I wasn’t even a trained police psychologist. I studied law and at some point got stuck at the Bundeskriminalamt2.

  “The BKA said you are actually a profiler and not a negotiator,” said Hartmann. He didn’t sound suspicious but just interested. Up until now he obviously didn’t think I was a bastard. Well, that would change quickly once he noticed who would take over command in a moment.

  “True. Usually I try to get into the pathological thought structure of serial killers,” I said. “But that also helps me in negotiations with hostage takers. Conflict de-escalation is something of a hobby for me.”

  They led me to the red brick building of the Bergkamen-Bönen bank that was located about thirty meters across from the crime scene. “Not a bad idea,” I nodded at Hartmann. They had set up their headquarters behind the bullet-proof glass of the bank with a direct line of sight on to the psychopath in the shop window on the other side.

  “Has he made his demands?” I asked while I was walked into the open plan office of the bank in Hartmann’s wake. The officer sat down behind an empty desk and told me to pull up a chair. A short while later we both stared at a computer screen. The bank’s security cameras we now pointed towards the shopping street opposite and threw a sharp colour picture onto the monitor in front of us.

  “Demands?” Hartmann shook his head and spread some rain drops across the keyboard. A computer mouse disappeared under his hands and the camera zoomed closer to the crime scene. The image became slightly blurry.

  “Can you read that?”

  I had paid too much attention to the masked man on the wooden chair behind the dirty shop window so I hadn’t noticed the small cardboard sign in front of the perpetrator’s Doc Marten’s boots up until now. Hartmann pressed a fresh colour copy into my hands which showed a much enlarged part of the shop window.

  “Seven hundred euros or the city dies!” I read the text written in black capital letters on the cardboard sign. “You called me here for this laughable sum?”

  Hartmann nodded slowly. “Gertrud Dobkowitz was walking her dog and was the first to see him sitting in the window. First she thought he was a mannequin. But then the guy in the ski mask moved and the mutt started yapping.”

  “So she walked inside?”

  “Yes. It is not without reason that the old biddy Dobkowitz is the most popular tour guide in Bergkamen. She knows everything and everyone in the city and if there is anything new she is the first to investigate.”

  “What did the man say to her?”

  “Not much more than what is written on the sign. He wants 700 euros otherwise the city dies. So Gertrud told him to stop this rubbish and better start working and he only laughed and asked for you.”

  “And why didn’t you just go in and get him if even a pensioner can just walk in and out of there?” I asked.

  “Because he gave this to Dobkowitz.”

  Hartmann passed me a clear bag with something in it that looked like the grey children’s plasticine Lisa used last year to make me an ashtray. The slight smell of nitro coming from the bag was unmistakable.

  “Semtex”, I said and passed the explosives back to Hartmann. “That would explain what is blinking over there.” I pointed to the flickering red dot above the breast pocket of the olive green outdoor vest worn by the perpetrator.

  “Possible, perhaps he is wired.” Hartmann blew his nose. “Now he is not letting anybody else inside. The explosives dogs cannot scent through the closed door. Hey, where are you going?”

  He jumped up anxiously when he realized that I had left my seat and was walking through the open plan office towards the exit.

  “Where do you think?” I asked with a slightly cynical undertone. It was time that I took control. “He wants to talk to me. So I am going to pop over to see him.”

  Obviously Hartmann would not let me go unprepared. He set me up with a bulletproof vest and a remote which was now in my left ear and which he used to stay in contact with me before he let me march across to the shop window while grinding his teeth. I knew he would have preferred to replace me with a negotiator from his own team but then he would have had to explain to the media hyenas with their cameras and broadcasting vans behind the crime scene tape why he had stopped me from talking directly to a perpetrator who only wanted to speak to me. If the man blew himself up in front of witnesses while Hartmann sent me home, a transfer for disciplinary reasons would be the least of his problems.

  I walked slowly and with raised hands towards the shop window and came to a halt ten meters away next to a lamp post. The wind shook a poster that was attached to the lamp post with grey wire and on which a confidently smiling Roland Schäfer was asking for re-election. I loosened the wire, pulled a Sharpie out of my leather jacket and wrote a sequence of numbers on the mayor’s high forehead. Then I turned the poster to the shop window. Only seconds later my mobile rang.

  “Hello Adam.”

  The man in the ski mask spoke with the voice of a friend as if we had known each other for a long time. I had the speaker on so Hartmann could hear as well through the transmitter in my ear.

  “Hello,” I answered. “Now that I am aware that you know my name will you tell me yours?”

  “Of course,” he said and pulled the mask off his head.

  “Oh shit,” Hartmann hissed in my ear. “It’s Benny.”

  All around me the electric motors of dozens of digital cameras hummed to life. Luckily the press were so far obeying the flash light prohibition.

  “Benjamin,” confirmed the long-haired guy who was now loosening his flattened mane through excessive head shaking. As far as I could see through the streaming rain he looked like he was grinning. Quite obviously he enjoyed all the attention everyone was paying him today.

  “May I come closer, Benjamin?” I asked cautiously.

  He nodded.

  “Thanks, that way I can stand dry.” I stepped under the canopy of the shop that had to have been a stationery shop at one point. There was an ad for ink cartridges still stuck to the door.

  “Benny Senner is a harmless nutcase,” the chief was telling me from afar. “He is twenty-four years old, studying eco management with a major in renewable energies and is an environmental activist. Three years ago he occupied a high-rise and demanded free rent for people on welfare.”

  I asked myself if by high-rise Hartmann meant the ugly, empty concrete tower block opposite the town hall but then went back to more important questions.

  “What do you want, Benny?”

  “You know what I want. It’s all on here!” Benny obviously did not take it amiss that I was trying to build up a relationship by using the pet name version of his name. He bumped the sign at his feet with his boot. Only now did I see that directly under his chair lay a stopwatch. Its hand was moving.

  “Seven hundred euros? That’s not a lot of money for all this palaver,” I said with forced casualness. I kept my left hand with the palm open to him to signal that I wasn’t hiding anything from him.

  “You haven’t understood anything! You’re only swimming with the flow.”

  I blinked. “What do you mean, Benny?”

  The smile disappeared from the acne-scarred face of the young student. Suddenly he looked like somebody who worried that nobody was listening to him when he had something very important to say.

  “Did you know that Bergkamen has dropped by twenty-five meters over the years?” he asked me.

  “No.”

  “That’s where the wind blows,” Hartmann growled in my ear. “The damages of mining.”

  I nodded. I had noticed the cracks in the roads and houses on the way in. I grew up in Lünen and we had received compensation from the mining company. At least until my father was killed in ’67 in the mine disaster at
Minister Achenbach and my mum moved to Cologne with me.

  “Fucking coal,” muttered Benny and for a moment I thought he wanted to spit on the sign. “They took out everything, the whole fucking hard coal for the fucking power stations and their fucking electricity. Without any bloody care for anything. And there you are! We are going down. But not only the roads, meadows, fields and houses but the rivers as well. Do you know what that means?”

  “I can imagine.”

  “The fucking rivers will soon run backwards! There’s no possibility for the rivers to run off properly. Guess how many pumping stations there are in Bergkamen to stop us all from drowning?”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Nine! Over the last years they have flooded the higher lying rivers and lakes, for example the Emscher, with 22.3 billion litres of water. 22.3 million cubic metres.”

  “In a moment he is going to start a lecture on the eternity damages,” Hartmann informed me through the radio and he would be right in the end.

  “Those are the infinite eternal damages left behind by mining. It costs twenty-five million euros every year to fight against the masses of water. Until the end of our days. As long as Bergkamen is inhabited the pumps have to run otherwise we’re flooded. On top of that the water table in the shut down pits is rising and contaminating our ground water. That costs another one hundred million, you understand? Over 150 million every year until Final Judgment. All this money that the bigwigs from the mining companies had not planned for.”

  “Okay,” I interrupted the student’s heated flood of words. “And with this protest you want to raise awareness for these environmental problems?”

  “No,” said Benny. “It’s too late for that. The damage has already been done. The pits here were shut down far too late.”

  “What do you want then?”