1989, page 27
Her brows lowered in anger. ‘I don’t have to imagine it, do I? Because I am a fucking prisoner.’ The glass she threw left a spray of red wine across the polished floor, shattering into shards as it hit the spot on the door where Hans had been only a moment before. Without waiting for a response, she stalked out of the room. The bedroom door slammed loud as a pistol shot.
Hans stood, hands trembling. It felt like Genny wasn’t the only prisoner. Slowly, he began to pick up the larger fragments of glass. Fredi would go ballistic when she heard about this.
45
Allie took her time over an oxtail stew with dumplings. It was almost dusk by the time she’d finished her coffee cake, and still there was no sign of the man from the top-floor apartment. The café was almost full now and the waitress was giving her an evil side-eye that wouldn’t have been out of place in the East End of Glasgow. She paid her bill and shivered as she exchanged the warm fug of the café for the twilight chill. The rain had stopped and the clouds looked like an old bruise in the setting sun.
She wheeled the bike slowly down the street, her eyes fixed on the windows of Frau Braun’s apartment. The lights were on inside and she propped the bike against a lamppost, unfastening the pump from the frame and pretending to inflate her front tyre. There were pot plants along the windowsill, but as she watched, the man appeared, head bowed. A plate rose into sight and disappeared. The angle was tight and limited, but he was washing the dishes, she thought. A second plate, then what looked like a couple of shallow serving dishes. But no more plates. Two people, then?
It still didn’t mean there wasn’t a prisoner in there.
Then a second head appeared. All Allie could see was the crown of a head of dark hair falling round a wide forehead. Her heart leapt. It could be Genevieve Lockhart. Then frustration kicked in. Of course it could be Genevieve. It could also be hundreds, if not thousands of Berliners. ‘Fuck’s sake, Burns,’ she muttered under her breath. Then the head swung round and the woman kissed the man’s cheek. He turned and they embraced, moving swiftly away from the window.
What had she just seen? If it was Genevieve, it didn’t look like she was being held prisoner. Was this some massive scam she was pulling against her father to get money for her pet political cause? The father who doted on her and would presumably have given her the money if she’d asked for it? Or was this some random woman squatting in Frau Braun’s apartment with her floppy-haired boyfriend?
None of it made sense. And standing underneath a German streetlight as if she was channelling Marlene Dietrich wasn’t going to help. She only had one lead left. If Fredi Schroeder didn’t make a phone call the next morning, in spite of what she’d said to Dieter, Allie knew she was beaten.
She knew what defeat tasted like. And she was damned if she was going to swallow it again on Ace Lockhart’s account.
Genevieve emerged from the bedroom as Hans was finishing the clear-up. He’d found a brush and dustpan to sweep up the glass, he’d wiped down all the wine stains he could see and now he was making a start on washing the dishes. He was, she thought, a thoroughly domesticated animal. He’d never raise a hand to her in anger; he wasn’t a jailer to fear.
He glanced over his shoulder at her, anxiety obvious. She lowered her head and smiled at him in imitation of the style that had always worked so well for the Princess of Wales. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, the very picture of penitence. ‘I let my frustrations boil over. I’m a mover and shaker by nature and training, Hans. I’m not good at sitting on my hands. This is so alien to me.’ She came up behind him and put an arm round his back. ‘I promise I’ll behave from now on.’
‘I’m sorry you’re struggling. I thought we were having fun.’
‘So we were.’ She leaned in and kissed his cheek. ‘And since it’s your job to make sure I don’t get bored, we’d better have some more.’
Hans turned and wiped his wet hands on his trousers then pulled her into an embrace. She could feel the hard outline of the keys against her thigh. All she had to do now was tire him out between the sheets, wait till he was fast asleep and then she could help herself to the keys and get out. It wasn’t an escape plan; she’d come back to the apartment later. She simply wanted a couple of hours of freedom where she was in control. Maybe she’d find a jazz club or a bierkeller open till the small hours. It didn’t matter, as long as it was up to her.
Fredi didn’t know her as well as she believed, Genevieve thought as she led Hans to the bedroom. It was never a good move to deprive a Lockhart of choices.
Genevieve made it as far as the front door. She was wrestling with the double locks when Hans came running. He grabbed her by the waist and tried to wrestle her to the floor. But her instincts told her never to give up without a fight. She wriggled and punched and kicked and dragged the bunch of keys down his ribs in an agonising move. She even bit his arm as he struggled to contain her without actually hurting her. In the end, his superior weight overcame her and he managed to pin her to the floor. ‘What are you doing?’ he yelled.
‘I only wanted to go for a fucking walk,’ she snarled.
‘I told you. You have to stay inside,’ he panted. ‘You have to stay here. Tomorrow – no, today – we have to make ransom demands to your father. This is a serious business, not a game. Now give me back the keys.’
‘Fuck off.’ Her voice was low and threatening. She was down but not out. She bucked underneath him and he almost lost his balance. What he did lose was his temper. He let go one arm and slapped her so hard she saw sparks of light behind her eyes. While she was still reeling, he dragged her along the carpet and flung her face down on the sofa. Before she could react, he’d grabbed the bundle of cords they’d used to pose the kidnap Polaroids.
Genevieve realised too late what he planned. She tried to stop him, but he had his knee in the small of her back and was twisting her arms up behind her. The agony was excruciating. She felt her arms were going to pop out of their sockets. She screamed in a mixture of pain and frustration as he tied her wrists tightly together. Then he pushed her face into the cushions. ‘Shut up,’ he hissed. ‘If you don’t shut up, I’ll gag you again.’
She went limp. For now, she was beaten. But when Fredi showed up, she’d make sure this little shit paid for what he’d done to her. How dare he treat her as if this was their plan and not hers? He’d be one member of the radical Green movement who would be left out in the cold.
Dieter was waiting outside the hotel in the Polo when Allie emerged at seven next morning, followed by a porter carrying Margarethe’s bike. She waited as the porter stowed it in the hatchback of the car, then tipped him and slid into the passenger seat.
‘How was your dinner?’ Dieter asked.
‘More enjoyable than an afternoon watching a flat in the rain.’
‘Did anything happen?’
‘There’s a woman in there with him. I saw the top of her head in the kitchen window.’
Dieter straightened up. ‘Was it Fraulein Lockhart?’
‘I couldn’t tell. It could have been, but I didn’t see her face. Just the hair and the forehead, from across the street and four floors down.’
‘How could it be her, though? If you have kidnapped someone, you do not let them wander around.’
‘I know. I did have one idea. But it’s crazy.’
Dieter started the engine and drove into the traffic. ‘Do you want to tell me?’
‘No. Because it’s too crazy. You might just call your boss and tell him he sent a crazy woman to find his daughter, and we both know how well that would go.’
They drove in silence for a few minutes. ‘You are not the only one with crazy ideas,’ he said.
She was beginning to like Dieter, she decided. ‘You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.’
He gave a self-deprecating little wave of the hand. ‘I thought maybe she fell in love with Fredi. Setting this up would impress her, no?’
Allie was startled. ‘Genny’s gay?’ It was a vibe that had bypassed her gaydar when they’d been together in East Berlin. But as Rona had pointed out mischievously more than once, Allie was always the last to know.
‘I don’t know. But she was always “Fredi this, Fredi that.” Like she had a crush.’
Now what Allie had seen made even less sense. ‘I thought she kissed the guy in the apartment last night. I could have sworn that’s what I saw.’
‘Maybe she’s just greedy,’ he said with a laugh. He turned into the street where Fredi lived.
‘I think the word you’re looking for is “bisexual”.’ Allie grinned. ‘I hadn’t even thought about Fredi and Genny,’ she added. ‘I just wondered if Genny was scamming her dad to get him to pony up for a political cause he doesn’t support. Because she understands the importance of that commitment for Pythagoras Press in the future in a way he doesn’t.’
‘“Pony up?” What is “pony up”?’
‘Pay for something. It has the sense of being reluctant. Unwilling. And Lockhart would certainly be unwilling to hand a wedge of cash over to a bunch of radical German Greens. That’s not the kind of post-Soviet era he’d fancy at all.’
Dieter found a parking place and they settled in for a long wait. Allie plugged the headphones into her Walkman and pressed play on her personal mixtape of Everything but the Girl. Tracey Thorn’s rich voice filled her head, sounding like another instrument in the mix. ‘Don’t Let the Teardrops Rust Your Shining Heart’, right enough. The music let the time pass without ramping up her anxieties. Dieter mimed drinking and she shook her head. Long hours of stake-out had taught Allie to be cautious about her liquid intake.
It was a busy street, a cut-through from one main thoroughfare to another, but even though people went in and out of Fredi Schroeder’s building, there was no chance of Allie missing someone so distinctive. And just before 10.15, her patience was rewarded. She pulled off her headphones in the middle of ‘The Night I Heard Caruso Sing’ and exclaimed, ‘There she is.’
‘I see her,’ Dieter said, not stirring from his slumped position.
Fredi crossed to the kerbside and looked both ways. She checked her watch; her mouth showed her disapproval. As they watched, a battered 2CV passed them, revealing Atomkraft nein danke painted across the back. It slowed to a halt alongside Fredi, who immediately got in. They took off with a puff of exhaust and a muttering sewing-machine engine noise. Dieter waited for another car to pass then followed.
‘Did you see who was driving?’ Allie asked, excited. ‘The mystery man from the apartment.’
‘I saw.’ Dieter was frowning, focusing on staying close without being spotted. They were heading south, she thought. The traffic was heavy and it was hard to maintain contact with the 2CV. He’d let a couple of cars slip between them at the start of the trip, but by jumping lanes a few times, they were right behind their quarry as they turned into Clayallee. They carried on past the vast green lung of Grunewald then, without signalling, the 2CV shot across the oncoming traffic and turned left.
‘Scheisse!’ Dieter braked hard, earning a salvo of horns behind him, and managed to swing round and make the turn.
‘Well done,’ Allie gasped. ‘But honestly, could we have made ourselves any more conspicuous? Where are they going, do you think?’
‘Maybe the Free University. Fredi Schroeder is a junior professor there. She will have an office with a phone that goes through the main switchboard.’
Untraceable probably, in other words. Now Allie could see the disreputable 2CV ahead of them. It turned into a car park in the middle of a low-rise U-shaped building. ‘Stop past the entrance,’ Allie said. ‘I’m walking in. Once they’ve parked, you can find a spot near them.’ She leapt out as soon as he’d stopped and started across the tarmac towards the building, scanning the car park for Fredi and her driver. She spotted them, over on the far side, heading for one of the wings of the building. Adrenaline pumping, Allie changed her direction and picked up her pace so she was a mere half-dozen metres behind them when they walked in. She could feel the sweat of anxiety in her armpits and she forced herself to breathe slowly.
They headed for a flight of stairs. Allie hung back till they’d passed the first landing then pursued them. She made it to the corridor in time to see them halt outside a door. Allie hastily turned and walked the other way down the hall. When she heard a door click shut, she turned on her heel, pushing past a trio of students deep in argument. She couldn’t be certain which room they’d entered, but immediately realised the clue would be in the name slotted into a holder on the door. Third door along, as Allie had surmised. Prof. Dr F. von B. Schroeder.
Her mouth was dry and her palms were sweating. She leaned against the door, ear to the wood, but heard nothing. Then she heard the faintest mumble of conversation and realised it was coming from another room. Allie crept to the next door and listened intently. She couldn’t decipher the words, but she was pretty sure it was a man and woman talking. Obviously they’d worked out Fredi’s phone might be tapped so they were using a colleague’s office to make the call. Fredi was definitely a smart operator.
Allie checked her watch. Almost noon. She hoped anyone passing would assume she was waiting to be admitted. Fat chance. Allie pressed her ear to the door and heard the man say something in German. She heard the sound of a rotary dial.
Then, in Fredi’s clear and carrying voice, Allie heard, ‘Good day, Herr Lockhart.’
46
Ace Lockhart had passed a night of restlessness and distorted dreams which had as much to do with the quart of vanilla ice cream he’d eaten after dinner as with his daughter’s plight. Like so many whose early years had been deprived of both food and emotional nourishment, sweet treats were his invariable port of call when his heart was hurting. He’d given up any attempt at sleep as dawn broke.
Showered and shaved and fully dressed, because there were standards that must be maintained, he’d walked out into a soft morning. For once, the air was still, the sea lapping quietly at the sandy bay enclosed by the twin embrace of rocky promontories. It looked so benign, but Lockhart knew from local boatmen that only a fool would attempt to beach a boat there. It was, he’d always thought, a metaphor for so many things in life.
He walked round his domain, an exercise that took a shade under ninety minutes. He was alone with seabirds unaccustomed to the presence of humans. They treated him like part of the landscape, showing little interest and no fear. The last time he’d walked the bounds, Genny had been at his side, animated and full of confidence that she could bend the future to her will. Pythagoras would not merely survive, it would thrive, she’d assured him.
And now? Now she was held captive because he’d wanted to secure his business against an uncertain future. And she might die because he hadn’t even secured it in the present. The millions he’d taken from the pension funds – a loan in his mind still – had already been poured into the sinkhole that the New York Globe was proving to be. He’d turn it round, he knew he would, and the finances would be restored. But right now, he was out of options. The banks were snapping at his heels and it wouldn’t be long before the pensions trustees were doing the same. Nobody would believe it – certainly not the kidnappers – but there was no possibility of Ace Lockhart laying his hands on half a million any time soon.
Surely these kidnappers, whoever they were, wouldn’t kill Genny? They must realise they’d never get away with it. The German police had learned a whole playbook of lessons from their battle with the Bader-Meinhof Red Army Faction; much easier to release Genny than to become the targets of a manhunt. And West Berlin was not an easy place to get out of, if the authorities chose to make it so. No, he would surely be able to persuade them to set her free? He’d been convincing all sorts of people of all sorts of things for the best part of fifty years.
It would be all right. He’d make it all right.
Back at the cottage, he brewed a pot of coffee and toasted half a loaf of bread, loaded the slices with unsalted Normandy butter and smoked salmon, and munched as he gazed moodily at the stream of telexes that had come in overnight. The handful of his bespoke vitamin capsules he swallowed made no difference to his mood. So far was he from his usual self that he couldn’t bring himself to care about any of the messages. All he wanted was Genny, safe and well and back home.
At five minutes before noon, he walked heavy-footed to his den and sat down, forcing himself to sit up straight and square his shoulders. It made a difference to the timbre of his voice, lending him an authority he didn’t feel that morning. He picked up the receiver on the second ring. A strong female voice with a faint German accent greeted him with, ‘Good day, Herr Lockhart.’
‘You have the advantage of me, dear lady. I don’t have your name.’
‘Nor will you,’ she sparred back at him. ‘We will discuss the arrangements for you to pay for the safe return of your daughter.’
‘I require proof of life before we even have this conversation.’
‘One moment.’ There was the sound of clicking. Then a voice. Lockhart recognised his daughter even through the distortion of a tape recording and a phone line. ‘Daddy, it’s me. You have to save me. They’re going to kill me if you don’t pay up. I think they mean it.’ Her voice rose in fear. He heard her catch her breath before she continued. ‘They say you’ll need to know I’m still alive. Yesterday morning’s splash in the Clarion was the verdict in a Glasgow arson trial. You probably OK’d it yourself. Daddy, these people – they scare me.’ Another click and the German woman was back. ‘Satisfied?’
‘Very well. You have my daughter. But I don’t have half a million pounds.’
A short bark of scornful laughter. ‘You own one of the largest media empires in the world. You are a multimillionaire. How is this possible?’
