Rain Girl (6 page)

As their successor! That sounded as if they were almost ready to retire even though they still had a good twenty years to go.

But that’s the way it went. They had to train good people, had to give them time to grow and to develop their instincts and personalities. That didn’t happen overnight. It took time, and Arthur was someone they were willing to invest their time in because they had high hopes for him. He was hungry and tough when necessary, but he also possessed a certain sensitivity—a rare combination.

“Well,” Borger said. “Shall we go eat?”

He turned to Arthur. “You’re welcome to join us, of course.” His voice quivered a little.

Franza shook her head and tapped her forehead. “How can you think of food right now?”

“Oh, come on,” Borger said, “ever since you rejected me in favor of that gum plumber, I constantly think of food. Considering how cold it is in here”—he gestured around the room—“I have to keep up my strength.”

She nodded and smiled, suddenly feeling a wave of calm and composure coming over her. She secretly called him tie-Borger, because she had never seen him without a tie. Every time she saw him she decided to get him an especially classy one for next time, but she always forgot. They’d known each other since their college years and had even lived in the same dormitory for a few months. They liked each other, and their banter at the many wakes and burials they had attended made the deaths easier to bear.

“All right,” he said, turning his attention back to the girl lying on the metal table in the hospital’s pathology room. She seemed distant, more distant than on the autobahn, but Franza knew this phenomenon. Lying on metal tables beneath bright lights, they were pale and ashen, all color drained from them. Some took on a greenish hue. Often it was here the victims would regain their dignity—here, where it was returned to them. Even as every last secret was being stolen from them, their loss was atoned for by finding the clues to their death.

“So young!” Borger said, turning serious. “Sad.”

Franza nodded, carefully taking a strand of the girl’s hair between her fingers. Dark brown bordering on black. As she’d thought.

“And you still don’t know who she is? No one reported her missing?” Borger asked, looking doubtfully at Franza.

Franza shook her head. “No, no one.”

“Maybe she’s not from around here. Maybe she’s from God knows where and no one has missed her because everyone thinks she’s gone on vacation. It happened on the autobahn, after all. Autobahns lead into the unknown.”

For a moment Franza was astonished at Borger’s poetry. She shook her head again. “I think that’s unlikely. Would you go on vacation wearing a dress like that? Sitting in the car for hours? I can’t see it. To me, it’s precisely the dress that narrows our area of interest. But let’s wait and see. Her photo’s in the newspaper today.”

“You’re probably right,” Borger said. “Shall we begin?”

Franza nodded.

“So,” he began, “death occurred almost immediately, thankfully, you could say. The injuries were definitely fatal, and there was nothing anyone could have done. She didn’t have the slightest chance.”

He paused, remaining silent for several moments, and then continued. “The car must have hit her with full force. The pelvis and thighs have multiple fractures, everything is crushed. Moreover, some of the inner organs are pretty roughed up, too, meaning that several systems failed at the same time, complete shutdown, multiple trauma. Ruptured intestines, ruptured liver, ruptured aorta.”

Borger fell silent and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. A fan was humming on the ceiling. Arthur was trying to get used to the air, to the smell of disinfectant and chemicals, and to the indefinable something that seemed to be hovering in the room.

“What was the cause of death in the end?” Franza asked.

Borger looked at the girl pensively. “Loss of blood,” he said. “A girl her age has about six pints of blood. It doesn’t take long to lose that, only a few minutes.”

He looked up and into Franza’s face.
It affects her,
he thought,
yes, we’re not getting any younger, this sad look about her mouth . . .

“The blood on the stones in the rest area is hers, then. Can you elaborate?”

He nodded. “Yes, we were lucky. Insofar as after the collision she landed on the grass beside the road and her head and face received very little damage. There’s only this one conspicuous wound on the back of her head, and that definitely wasn’t due to the accident. The laceration caused the blood on the rocks that we saw.”

He paused again, clearing his throat. “Additionally,” he said, with unmistakable satisfaction in his voice, “I found tiny traces of moss in the wound. We can say with absolute certainty that it is the same moss that’s on the rocks in the rest area.”

He nodded a few times. Then he continued, “You see these marks?” He pointed to several dark bruises on the girl’s throat.

Franza nodded slowly. “Strangulation marks.”

“Exactly. She must have been strangled, and then fell or was pushed, and hit the back of her head on the rocks.”

Franza frowned. “Did she try to fight off her attacker?”

“There’s no one else’s DNA under her fingernails, if that’s what you mean,” he said regretfully.

She sighed, and he studied her face again.
Yes,
he thought,
this is new, this look about her mouth, the tired eyes.
Her hair, however, was as blond as ever. Still shiny with the same reddish tinge, though maybe she just had a good hairdresser.
Well,
he thought with resignation,
it can’t be helped, we’re getting old.
And he realized with surprise how familiar the thought was to him, and how often he’d thought it before.

“What happened next?” Franza asked, noticing Borger’s intent gaze. “She was lying there . . .”

He nodded. “Yes. And was most likely unconscious.”

“Because of the impact.”

“Because of a
commotio cerebri
.”

“Concussion.”

He smiled mischievously. “Yes.”

“And how long did this unconsciousness last? How long was she lying there?”

He thought it over for a moment. “Maybe half an hour. Probably less. However, she had a considerable amount of alcohol in her blood, which would’ve dulled her senses further.”

“Meaning?”

“That I can’t tell you precisely. It could’ve been less, but also more. But more likely less.”

“Could he have thought she was dead?”

Borger stopped again to think, scratching his chin and moving his head from side to side. “Yes,” he said finally. “Definitely. If you’re not familiar with death, and if, on top of that, you’re panicking, not in control of yourself, then yes, I believe that could happen.”

“When she woke up, did she know what had happened?”

He shook his head. “Not necessarily.”

“Temporary amnesia due to concussion?”

“That’s right.”

“And how far back would that reach?”

“Can’t say for sure. But she certainly didn’t know right away that she’d received a blow.”

“That means she woke up and had no idea where she was or why she was there. She only knows it’s dark and she’s got a pounding headache. Something’s wrong with her head. She touches her hair, feels something sticky and wet, and assumes logically that it’s blood, because what else could it be. She panics, wants to escape from the dark, maybe someone’s still lurking in the bushes, she hears the noise from the road, sees lights approaching, walks toward them and . . . bam!”

Borger nodded. “A realistic scenario.”

Franza looked up from the dead girl on the dissection table and into Borger’s face. “Was she raped?”

“No.” Borger shook his head. “But she did have intercourse. No traces of sperm, however. A condom was used. But I’ve got something else of interest to you.”

He lifted the dead girl’s arms and turned them so Franza could see the other side. They were covered with scars both above and below the elbows.

“Wow!” Franza said quietly.

“You know what this is?” Borger asked.

She nodded. “Of course. Self-mutilation. She was cutting herself.”

“You’ll find plenty more on her inner thighs.”

“How old are they?”

“Years. No fresh scars.”

Franza picked up the sheet that was folded back on the girl’s hips and pulled it up to her face, thinking
farewell, fly away home
. Then she carefully put down the sheet and nodded.

Borger understood and signaled to his assistant, who had waited discreetly in the background. The assistant unlatched the dissection table, wheeled it out of the room, and took the girl back to the cold storage.

“OK,” Franza said. “That’ll do for now. Can you let me know when your examination is finished?”

“Sure.” Borger nodded.

“I’ll go ahead,” Arthur said from the back of the room, and they realized they’d forgotten about him. “I’ll wait by the car.”

“Everything all right?” Franza asked.

“Are you OK?” Borger asked. “Do you need a sip of water?”

Arthur held up both hands. “No, no, I’m all right. All I need is a little fresh air.” And then he was gone.

“Well,” Borger said, folding his arms on his chest and following Arthur with his eyes. “He’s still young.”

“Yes.” She smiled, a little puzzled. “How about you?”

He pulled himself together, swaying a little. “Sure, sure. Well? What do you say? Would you like to come with me to get something to eat? There’s this new Italian place.”

She shook her head. “My life’s complicated enough. You still haven’t got a new girlfriend?”

He waved his hand dismissively. “They’re only after my money. I’m a lonely man.”

“My poor darling!” Franza shook her head with mock gravity. “That’s really a shame!” She gave him a friendly nudge. “You probably stare at all of them the way you stared at me earlier. It’s terrible! I always feel like one of your corpses. And today of all days, when I’ve hardly slept. I look ancient.”

He started to grin and raised his right eyebrow.
Revenge is sweet,
he thought, preparing to deliver the final blow. “Not too old to catch the eye of one of our theater actors, people say.”

She immediately turned red and stared at him, speechless. He enjoyed seeing how astonished she was.

“People are saying that?” she asked.

He lifted his hands reassuringly. “Don’t worry; they’re not shouting it from the rooftops. In fact, they don’t say it at all. It’s just that . . . my hearing is pretty good. Or rather, my eyesight.”

He loved extravagant explanations that didn’t explain anything but made everything even more confusing. She became impatient.

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“That I saw you, that’s all. At Marinello, on Gutenbergstrasse. About two weeks ago.” He already regretted bringing it up. “His interest in you was obvious. And your interest in him . . .”

He broke off, suddenly embarrassed.

She nodded and realized that she was frightened and becoming even more so. Was that what she had wanted? To take the risk of being seen? By friends like Borger? Or even at some point by Max?

Did she want to hurt Max? To ridicule him by flaunting her lover in public?

Were her feelings for Max still strong enough that she needed revenge?

Should she end it? With Port? Or her marriage to Max?

Enough of this
.
Forget it!

Pushing the thoughts from her mind, she returned to Borger, who was staring at her blatantly again. “Hey!” she said. “You’re doing it again.”

He’d forgotten how to hide his interest in living faces and bodies a long time ago—forgotten after years of dealing with dead bodies that couldn’t defend themselves anymore. But it just wasn’t appropriate in civilized society.

She tugged on his sleeve. “You can’t stare at people like that!” she said. “Won’t you ever learn?”

Now it was his turn to blush. “I’m sorry,” he said.

It was his job to examine people, but the living felt he was looking for faults. He really wasn’t. Not always, in any case.

“Listen,” he said, “I haven’t told anyone about you and this actor. You can count on my discretion.”

She nodded and turned to leave. It was cool in this greenish, metallic room. She shivered; it was uncomfortable.

“By the way, how do you know who he is?” she asked.

Borger laughed. “Well, my dear, isn’t it obvious? I’m a person interested in cultural things, unlike you. Lots of people around here know him.”

She looked at him thoughtfully.

“Have you even seen him onstage?” he asked disapprovingly.

“No,” she snapped, “I haven’t. I have to go. Arthur’s waiting.”

She was almost at the door when he stopped laughing and called her back. “Wait!” he said. “One more thing. Nothing too important, but still.”

He picked up a pair of long tweezers, leaned over a dish and took something out. “We found it in her mouth. It must’ve come off her tooth when she fell.”

A tiny silver piece of jewelry flashed in the fluorescent light.

“Tooth jewelry,” he said.

She nodded. “I know,” she said. “Young girls wear those things. Max offers it at his practice, too. Is that a moon?”

“Yes,” he said, “a moon. It must’ve sparkled every time she laughed.”

17

Marie wore the moon on her tooth and her eyes shined like apples. She danced through the arcades in the old part of town to the beat of the songs drumming in her ears through the headphones. When her phone rang the first time, she didn’t hear it.

After she’d bought a doner kebab she sat down on a bench and turned her face toward the sun. She’d seen on the weather forecast it was supposed to rain that night, but for now it was a hot, bright midsummer day.

The kebab was a little hot, but it was tasty, and she felt the yogurt sauce running down her chin and starting to drip. She had to laugh, leaning forward as to not drip on her jeans, and finally wiped her mouth with the napkin.

When her cell phone rang the second time, she heard it. She swallowed quickly, dabbed her mouth again, and answered.