‘No, no,’ I say, finally managing to speak, and hold my hand out to her.
‘Matthias?’ Gerd says on the phone.
‘What do you mean, no, no?’ Karin says, slumped against the wall.
‘They believe she was abducted. But they’ve got her. She’s alive,’ I say in a voice that’s barely loud enough to reach my ears. I say it again: ‘She’s alive.’
‘What?’ Karin gets awkwardly to her feet. I grab her arm when it looks as if she might lose balance again on her wobbly legs.
‘Yes,’ the squawking Gerd says on the other end of the line. The information he’s just given me is vague. I don’t know if he can’t, won’t or isn’t allowed to tell me any more. Only this: running a description through the database of missing people threw up a number of similarities. He said he’s going first thing tomorrow morning to Cham on the Czech border to confirm Lena’s identity. Cham, only two and a half hours from Munich, so close. Lena is so close, perhaps she’s been so close the whole time. And I didn’t find her.
‘I’m coming with you,’ I bluster. ‘Let’s go. Not tomorrow morning, let’s go right now.’
‘No, Matthias, you can’t do that,’ Gerd says, in the tone of a grown-up trying to placate a stubborn child. ‘It’s not the way things are done . . .’
‘I don’t care,’ the child says doggedly. ‘Actually, I don’t give a fuck! I’m going to get dressed. You come and pick me up.’
I hear Gerd sigh.
‘You owe me this,’ I add before he can launch into an unnecessary, long-winded explanation about the usual procedure. ‘Let’s go.’
Gerd sighs again and I hang up. I decide to give him half an hour. If he doesn’t appear, I’m going on my own and that’s that. To Cham, to Lena. I put my arms around Karin. Her warm tears seep through my pyjamas.
‘She’s alive,’ I murmur into her hair. How wonderful that sounds: she’s alive.
Within the next fifteen minutes we’re dressed, and Karin has even combed her hair. Side by side in the hallway, we’re itching to leave, both of us focused on the front door. We will immediately see the beam of the headlights through the frosted glass if Gerd drives up. Karin says what I’m only thinking: ‘Let’s not wait.’
I nod eagerly and grab the car keys from the hook.
To Cham. To Lena. She’s alive.
*
I’ve been in a bubble since Gerd’s call earlier on, but when our old Volvo turns on to the motorway slip road, it suddenly bursts. Now I’m wondering whether we ought not to have waited for him after all. And whether it was right to bring Karin. Gerd’s words on the telephone play back in my head. ‘Listen, Matthias, we can’t be sure yet. But I’ve had a call from a colleague in Cham, where a woman ran in front of a car in a wooded area near the Czech border. Apparently she’s called Lena. They suspect that the accident is somehow connected to an abduction, which is why they trawled through the missing persons database. There are some points of resemblance, such as the scar on the forehead. But she suffered serious injuries as a result of the accident. She’s in casualty and nobody can talk to her right now. Are you still there? Matthias?’
‘Lena,’ I gasped at Karin.
‘Yes,’ Gerd said. ‘I’m going to set off for Cham first thing in the morning. Until we can unequivocally confirm the woman’s identity . . .’
Me: ‘I’m coming with you.’
*
‘Karin, I think I have to warn you,’ I say when I realise that Gerd’s reservations don’t just relate to disregard for police procedure. I ought to have told Karin earlier, as we were getting dressed, but I could barely utter anything other than a mere ‘she’s alive’, over and over again, in wonder, in disbelief, in awe.
‘Gerd says she’s in casualty. She might be seriously injured. Could you bear to see her like that?’
‘Are you crazy? She’s our daughter!’
Karin is right. Lena needs us there with her, especially in her condition. I put my foot down and push our old Volvo to its limits. After more than thirteen years, only one hundred and eighty kilometres separate us from our child.
‘Ciao, Paps! See you soon! And thanks again!’ I hear her say as clear as a bell, and in my mind I see her skipping down the steps to the front garden. On the afternoon before she disappeared, she came to see us for a coffee. Her bicycle had been stolen from campus and I made sure I handed over the money behind Karin’s back. Karin thought the girl ought to be more independent and, like lots of other students, get a part-time job. I thought that was a very bad idea. The girl ought to concentrate on her studies. Well, now the girl needed a new bike, so I’d given her the three hundred euros.
Ciao, Paps! See you soon!
Ciao, my angel, see you in 4,993 days . . .
‘Matthias?’ Karin is waving my mobile. Only now do I notice the ringing and the blue display light illuminating the dark interior of the car.
‘Gerd,’ I presume, and I imagine him standing outside our house at this moment, ringing the doorbell a few times and realising that we’ve left without him. I glance at the dashboard. He’d have been on time.
‘Don’t worry, answer it.’
Gerd moans so loudly into Karin’s ear that even I can hear it. Karin apologises. ‘We couldn’t just wait, surely you can understand.’
Gerd tells her to tell me that I’m still an idiot – I hear this too and can’t help grinning when a feeling briefly flickers, a slight wistfulness. Gerd and I used to be best friends, in the past, in another life.
‘Yes, yes, don’t worry,’ Karin says to Gerd before she says goodbye, and at the touch of a button the car becomes dark again. ‘He said to meet him at the hospital. We’re to stay calm until he gets there, also on account of his colleagues at the hospital.’
I snort; the wistfulness is gone.
‘Like I give two figs about Herr Brühling’s colleagues. We want to know what’s happened to our daughter and that’s that.’
I can hear Karin rummaging around in her handbag; I suspect she’s putting my mobile away. But then I hear the familiar sound of a packet of paper tissues being opened. From the corner of my eye, I see her wiping her face.
‘Abduction,’ she sobs. ‘But if she was abducted, why didn’t anyone contact us about a ransom?’
I shrug.
‘It wouldn’t be the first time some sick bastard abducts a young woman to keep her.’ I immediately think of Mark Sutthoff. What if he did have something to do with Lena’s disappearance after all? Good God, I could have had him . . .