The Storyteller

“Of all the ways to earn money,” she whispered. “Abel, why did it have to be that one? Because the opportunity arose? When? When did you start to clench your teeth and is it …? Is it a symbol? A symbol of how far you’d go for the little queen? How far you’d go across the ice? You know, there’ll come a point … a point at which the ice will break …”

She thought of the darkness in the boathouse. Of the broken flashlight. She started to understand what had happened that night. It had been a kind of revenge, revenge for all the clenching of teeth he’d had to do. Revenge taken on the wrong person.

Maybe she’d really been the first woman … that was an amazing idea.

When she closed her eyes now she saw images she didn’t want to see, images of cheap pornography. It’s usually older guys. Usually. Could you get used to anything? Did everything become a kind of routine in the end? She opened her eyes.

Gitta, she thought. Gitta had known, right from the begi

She had to find him.

Bertil landed on the floor between the big desk and the wall, trapped, and Gitta stood over him for a moment, looking down on him. There was something like a delicate smile on his face. Behind them, the door opened. Gitta looked up. The secretary, who should never have left in the first place, came back in and stood there, confused and a little frightened.

Gitta turned back to Bertil. “My God, you’re sick,” she said. “Absolutely sick … insane. The only person you’ve exposed and unmasked with this is yourself.”

“I have seen to it that the truth is brought to light,” Bertil answered.

“Yeah, that’s what you did all right,” Gitta said. “And the truth is that you’re sick.” He was still lying on the floor below her—like an injured insect, fallen on its back—and rage boiled up inside her. She lifted her foot—and stopped. “No,” she said, “oh no. You’re not even worth kicking. I hope they throw you out of this school.”

She slammed the door behind her and found herself standing in front of the headmaster and a couple of teachers. “Do it,” she said to them. “Throw him out. Expel him. Save the expense of the paper on which you’d have printed his diploma.”

The headmaster grabbed her arm before she could walk away. “What’s really going on here?” he asked. “Is that story true? And whom are you talking about? Ta

“Abel?” Gitta asked and snorted. “Abel has expelled himself from school today. You’ll never see him again. Me? I’m talking about Bertil Hagema

On the fourth floor of 18 Amundsen Street, nobody opened the door. Not even Mrs. Ketow came out when A

Behind the door with Ta

Abel didn’t answer his cell phone. She rode back to the city, rode up and down the cobblestone streets, searching without a lead to follow. She didn’t find him. For a moment, she thought he would be sitting on a chair next to Knaake’s bed in the ICU, but nobody was sitting there. Knaake lay still, with his eyes closed, beneath the silent green line of his heartbeat.

“Did you know?” A

She rode out to the Seaside District again, this time to Micha’s elementary school. The schoolyard was empty. Idiot, she scolded herself. She should have come here right away. Now, it was twelve thirty, much too late; he’d picked up Micha long ago. He still didn’t answer the phone.

“They’re on an outing,” she whispered into the thaw, into the air in the abandoned schoolyard. “On the island of Rügen. Or anywhere. They’ll be back. When they were gone last time, they came back. They’ll turn up somewhere, of course they will.”

What had also turned up back then was Marinke’s dead body. What was it Bertil had said? I’m not that suicidal.

She’d kept his number—why? She hesitated. But then she finally called him. The phone rang for a long time, and her knees went all wobbly … she reached his mailbox. She didn’t leave a message. She got back onto her bike and rode home, slowly.

When she parked her bike near the front door, her phone rang.

She grabbed it without looking at the display. “Yes?”

“A

“Yeah,” she said, relieved, and inhaled the warm air deeply. “I just wanted to know if you, if …” What should she say? If you’re still alive?

“I’m sorry,” Bertil said, “for what I’ve done. Maybe it wasn’t the right way to … I just wanted the truth to be known.”

“I want the truth, too,” A

“Excuse me?”

“Was it you?”

“Me? Have you lost your mind completely?”

“That description better suits someone else in this conversation,” she said. “Just tell me if you shot them.”

“Sure, I run around at night shooting people I don’t even know,” Bertil replied with a weird laugh. “Now, that’s logical.”

“How did you know that Marinke was shot at night?”

“I just assumed he was. In daylight, it would have been too hard to shoot someone at the beach of Eldena without a witness, wouldn’t it? But, A

“Three,” said A

“Knaake’s accident … it’s all over school. Everyone’s talking about it.”

“He fell through the ice.”

“He did?”

“Bertil.” She nearly laughed. “Isn’t it strange? Everything you do achieves the exact opposite of what you intend. That car ride in the snow, for instance … you wanted to prove to me that I need you to save me, but you made me afraid of you. And now … now I know that Abel hasn’t shot anybody. I wasn’t sure until now, but now I am.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re talking to me at this very moment. Because you’re still alive after what you’ve done.”

She hung up on him and unlocked the front door.

There were voices coming from the living room. She stood there, listening. One of the voices was Linda’s, but the other one didn’t belong. It was the high-pitched voice of a young woman … A

Micha’s teacher with the unpronounceable name was sitting on the sofa, next to Linda.

“A

“I know.” Mrs. Milowicz managed a strained smile. “We’ve already met.”

The hand she reached out to A

“Why don’t you sit down?” Linda said.

“No!” A

Then she sat down, or rather dropped down into one of the armchairs, and stared at Micha’s teacher. She was so young, so blond, her light green blouse so springlike, and, all of sudden, A

“Why don’t you say something?” A

“Where are who … what?” Mrs. Milowicz asked.