Private Berlin (Private 5)

Mattie wiped at the sweat on Ilona’s brow and daubed away the mucus lingering at the corners of her mouth, saying: “What do you know about the slaughterhouse, Ilona?”

But Ilona Frei said nothing as she stared off into space, her mouth first loose and agape and then tightening as she began to weep. “He said he’d kill us if we talked, and here he’s killed Chris and he was here to kill me.”

She hunched over and sobbed.

Mattie reached out and brought Ilona into her arms, feeling her agony pulse through her. When her crying slowed, Mattie asked again, “What do you know about the slaughterhouse, Ilona?”

At last, shuddering at the burden, Ilona Frei whispered, “I know everything about the slaughterhouse in Ahrensfelde. Everything.”

BOOK FOUR

THE MASK

CHAPTER 88

AN HOUR LATER, Mattie sat in a state of shock on a rickety chair across a small table from Ilona Frei as she wound down her terrible story.

Wrung out from the telling, Ilona Frei’s voice had gone hoarse when she said: “That was the afternoon before the men came and took us to Waisenhaus 44. It was also the last time I saw the slaughterhouse or Falk. I wanted to forget it, and forget everything that had happened there. I could not get myself to go back later and look at it. Never. And for Chris to have gone in there…and…”

She threw up her hands and fought back tears.

Mattie had been involved in police work for most of her adult life and had cynically believed she’d heard every sort of brutal tale there was to tell. But none was even remotely like the horrific story she’d just heard, and for several moments she could not utter a word. A heavy silence seized the room.

Ilona Frei studied Mattie, tears seeping past the corners of her mouth as she gripped her arms tightly. “I’ve never told anyone about the slaughterhouse. You two are the first.”

Mattie glanced at Burkhart, who stood in the doorway looking skeptical. She knew instantly what he was thinking: Ilona Frei was a schizophrenic. A narcotics addict. How much of what they’d just heard was real, and how much of it was an invention of her disturbed mind?

Burkhart had checked the fire escape and the alley, but he’d seen nothing that could corroborate Ilona Frei’s claim that a man had been outside her window, which had increased his skepticism.

But then Mattie thought of Chris’s nightmares and that haunted space he used to shield inside him. If Ilona Frei’s story was true, it was certainly a big enough trauma to create a festering wound in even the strongest of men.

“Why was this never reported to the authorities?” asked Burkhart. “Why didn’t you tell your doctors?”

“Falk said he’d kill us,” Ilona Frei said. “We believed him. I believed him. And tonight he was true to his word, wasn’t he?”

“Did Greta Amsel believe him?” Burkhart asked.

Ilona Frei pushed her hair back from her face. “Greta? Why Greta?”

“She’s dead, too, Ilona,” Mattie said sadly. “And Artur.”

Ilona Frei’s lips stretched wide and her body began to sway and contort as if something were racking her muscles. “Then Ilse’s dead too. Isn’t she?”

Mattie’s mind flashed on the image of the woman’s corpse in the subbasement of the slaughterhouse, but she did not have the heart to tell her. “We don’t know…”

“He’s killed her and he’s going to kill me,” Ilona Frei whined. “That was him at the window. Of course it was. I’m one of the last! He’s got to kill me!”

“We are not going to let that happen,” Mattie said, reaching across for her hand. “Just calm down. We talked to one of the girls who worked with your sister. She said Ilse heard him speak where she worked, is that right?”

Ilona Frei hugged herself, shivering as she nodded. “Falk has a distinctive voice. He makes these clicking noises in his throat when he’s pleased. And he likes to finish sentences with this hum that rises to a question. Hmmm?”

“But that was thirty years ago,” Burkhart said. “How could she be sure?”

Ilona Frei glared at him. “You don’t forget someone like Falk. He’s burned into your brain.”

“Was that why you came to our office? To tell Chris that Falk was alive and Ilse was missing?” Mattie asked.

“I was petrified,” Ilona explained. “Chris was the only person I could turn to, the only one I knew who would believe me and could do something about it.”