Private Berlin (Private 5)

“Mattie,” Katharina said. “Frankfurt Kripo?”

Mattie sighed and nodded.

But then Dr. Gabriel hung up his phone and said, “I’ve got the sister. Ilona Frei. She is a registered methadone addict, and she lives in Wedding.”

CHAPTER 85

THE AIR HAD warmed during the break in the storm, and a mix of recent immigrants and low-income workers was out strolling the streets of Wedding—northeast of the Berlin Technical University—when Burkhart turned onto Amsterdamer Strasse, where Ilona Frei lived in a government-subsidized apartment on the second floor of a shambles of a building.

They parked, climbed a front stoop blackened with grime, and found the front door unlocked. Rap dueled with Middle Eastern music as they ascended a bare wooden staircase to a second floor that smelled of jasmine and curry.

Mattie heard an infant squalling with the distinctive rattle of colic and her mind flashed back to Niklas as a five-month-old racked with the affliction. She felt instant pity for the poor woman who must care for the child. Mattie had had no husband while raising Niklas as a baby, but she’d had Aunt C and her mother, and that had saved her.

“Mattie?” Burkhart said, startling her from her thoughts.

Mattie blinked, surprised to find herself stopped in the hallway, looking at the door to the apartment where the infant was crying and coughing.

“Sorry,” Mattie said, feeling slightly bewildered and suddenly more tired than she thought possible. “What number is she?” she asked, yawning.

Burkhart gestured toward the far end of the hall. “Twenty-seven.”

They’d no sooner passed apartment twenty-five—a mere ten feet from Ilona Frei’s door—than they heard a woman shrieking in abject terror.

CHAPTER 86

AT THE FIRST scream, I spin and leap down the fire escape and reach the ladder just as the screeching turns hysterical. I hear pounding and yelling mixed with the screaming as I swing off the ladder and then land in the alley behind the apartment building where Ilona Frei lives.

I sprint away. People are yelling from windows above me. But I’m wearing a simple black ski mask. No one has seen me, the real me, I’m sure.

Approaching the mouth of the alley where it gives way to Turiner Strasse, I tear the mask off, stick it in my back pocket, and force myself to step out slowly and deliberately, and I continue down the sidewalk.

From there, with all the traffic, I can’t hear the screaming at all. I tear off the dark anorak as I move, revealing a bright yellow jogging coat with reflectors.

My heart is racing and I’m berating myself for being so bold, so cocky after so many years of careful movement. I never should have attempted to use

the fire escape to reach her apartment.

I should have slowed down, watched her, and patterned her movements.

But I no longer have the luxury of time.

On what was supposed to be a scouting mission, I spotted the fire escape leading up past an open window of what had to be her apartment. I’d glanced around, seen no one in the alley, and opted for a quick, improvised plan.

I pulled the mask on.

I started climbing.

When I reached the landing, I squatted there a moment and then slipped to the window. My old and dear friend Ilona had been right there, right in the hallway of her apartment with her back to me.

I couldn’t help it. My throat clicked in that way it does when I’m pleased.

She must have heard it because she twisted, saw me, and screamed.

Now I start to jog toward Schiller Park. When I reach it, I dump the anorak in the first trashcan. Then I keep jogging, figuring that I’ll go thirty minutes or so before looping back to the Mercedes.

Stay calm, I tell myself. You know where she lives. And she’s an addict. My friends, we know exactly where she’ll be come morning, don’t we? Hmmm?

CHAPTER 87