Private Berlin (Private 5)

Burkhart, Weigel, and Dietrich watched Ilona as her attention rolled slowly and carefully over the collage on the wall, her mouth open as if in a trance, her fingers passing above the items.

“Don’t touch,” Mattie said, following her closely.

“No,” Ilona said. “These are haunted things, aren’t they?”

“I suppose they are.”

Ten feet into the gallery, looking at the right wall, Ilona made a little gasp and halted. “No.” Tears boiled from her eyes as she moaned, “No.”

CHAPTER 118

THE OLD, CURLING snapshot was thumbtacked to the wall. In it two girls in bathing suits were leaning up against the legs of a woman in a bathing suit. Beside it, hanging on a chain from a nail, was an open tarnished silver locket with a tiny photograph inside of a beautiful young woman.

“Is that you and Ilse at the beach?” Mattie asked her.

Ilona nodded through her tears. “And that’s my locket and my mother. She gave the locket and the picture of her to me when I turned eight. It was her mother’s locket. Falk took it from me the night we were brought to the slaughterhouse.”

She wiped away her tears and reached for the locket with joy and disbelief, saying, “I haven’t seen a picture of her in thirty years.”

Mattie caught her hand. “You can’t touch, Ilona. Not yet. But you’ll have the locket, I promise you.”

Ilona looked at it longingly and then suddenly appeared exhausted. “I need to go home, Mattie,” she said in a dull, flat voice. “I need to sleep. And we need to be at the clinic early in the morning.”

Mattie wanted to look further, to see if there was any memento of Chris in the collage, but she checked her watch. It was nearly 10 p.m. Niklas was already in bed. Aunt C probably was getting ready.

“Take her home,” Dietrich said. “There’s nothing more you can do here.”

“I’ll come with you,” Burkhart said.

Mattie said, “I don’t—”

“You do,” he said. “Falk is still out there.”

Mattie gave in because now she was suddenly too tired to argue. She’d done her job. They’d all done their job. They knew who Falk was. They’d exposed his role in the death of Chris and dozens if not scores of others. Beyond this, the case was a manhunt and nothing more.

They went out the back of Falk’s building with Dietrich, who was making sure that Kripo provided Krainer with protection overnight. Krainer told Ilona Frei he would contact her soon.

Leaving by the rear allowed Mattie, Burkhart, and Ilona Frei to avoid the media circus at either end of the closed block and to arrive quickly at Mattie’s car.

Mattie heard thunder rumbling in the distance as she climbed in the passenger seat. She thought to call home but then was overwhelmed by fatigue. She drowsed in the front seat as Burkhart navigated them north toward Ernst-Reuter-Platz and Strasse des 17 Juni, the street that celebrates Berlin’s reunification.

They were heading east when Mattie’s cell phone rang in her pocket.

She tugged it out and was surprised to see that Niklas was calling.

“What are you doing up?” she asked by way of greeting. “And why have you and Aunt C not been answering your phones?”

She heard a clicking on the line and then a smooth voice purred, “Dear Frau Engel, I’m afraid Aunt C’s rather tied up at the moment. And Niklas has been with me since school let out, such a pleasant young man. We’ve taken a drive in the country. Why don’t you and Ilona Frei come out and join us?”

BOOK FIVE

THE VISIBLE MAN

CHAPTER 119

STUNNED AND CORED through with fear for Niklas, Mattie whispered, “Falk?”

Burkhart snatched the phone from her and turned on the speaker just in time to hear Falk say, “An old name.”