The Child (12 page)

‘Everything OK?’ she asked anxiously, feeling Simon’s forehead. She shepherded him over to the middle of the spacious underground room, where visitors could consult a noticeboard listing the animals housed there. It was the lightest spot in the entire chamber, so more could be seen of people than their dim silhouettes. Stern was reassured to note the look of relief on Carina’s face. Simon was smiling. He had merely swallowed the wrong way.

Stern took advantage of this interlude to produce a rather fragile piece of paper from his coat pocket. It was remarkably well preserved, given that it had spent a decade in a dead man’s hand.

‘Simon, take a look at this. Do you recognize it?’

Carina’s shadow was obscuring the drawing. She stepped aside.

‘I didn’t draw that,’ Simon said.

Click
.

‘I know, but the one at the hospital looks very like it.’

‘A bit like it.’

‘When did you do that drawing?’

Click
.

‘When I woke up. The day after the regression. I dreamed about it.’

‘But why?’ Stern looked at Carina, but she only shrugged. ‘Why this field?’

‘It isn’t a field,’ said Simon. He gave another cough and shut his eyes.

Stern felt sure of it now: the dusty light bulb in the cellar had started to flicker, casting a fitful light over Simon’s memories.

‘So what is it?’

‘A graveyard.’

Click
.

‘Who’s buried there?’

Click. Click
.

Stern felt a hand on his shoulder, the fingers digging into his flesh as if he were a shoplifter trying to escape. He was grateful to Carina for that minor discomfort. It distracted him a little from the horror of Simon’s answer:

‘I think his name was Lucas. I could take you to him if you like, but …’

‘But what?’

‘There’s nothing in the grave but his head.’

He was so tired. First all those questions, then the soporific noises inside the scanner, then the fresh air, and finally the dim lighting in that underground room at the zoo. He wanted to stay awake and listen but was finding it harder and harder, especially as the car smelled so nice and was purring along so smoothly.

Simon rested his head against Carina’s soft shoulder and closed his eyes. Her stomach was rumbling and he sensed that she wasn’t feeling well. She hadn’t felt well ever since his mention of the grave made her tremble and the lawyer put his arms around her. Or perhaps she simply didn’t like the fat man who was driving. Stern addressed him as ‘Borchert’. He had a strange, breathy way of speaking, and although the day was very chilly he only wore a thin T-shirt with semicircular stains under the arms.

‘Anyone been to Ferch before?’ Stern asked from the passenger seat. Simon blinked at the sound of the name, which he’d told them before they left the zoo. Actually, he wasn’t sure the graveyard was really there, not any more. It was only a vague hunch.
Ferch
. The five letters appeared like glittering exclamation marks as soon as he shut his eyes.

‘Yes,’ said the driver, ‘it’s just past Caputh beside the lake.’

‘How do you know?’ Stern asked suspiciously.

‘Because the Titanic’s near there. Used to be my biggest club.’

Simon felt Carina adjust her position beside him.

‘Will we make it back by four o’clock?’ she said.

‘My satnav says we’ll be there in forty-five minutes,’ said Borchert. ‘It’ll be tight. We won’t have much time to look around.’

Stern sighed. ‘Is the boy asleep?’ His voice sounded louder, as if he’d turned round to speak to Carina.

Simon felt her bend over him. He hardly dared breathe.

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Good, then I want to ask you something. But please be honest, because I think I’m beginning to lose my mind. Do you really believe in that sort of thing?’

‘What?’

‘The transmigration of souls. Reincarnation. Previous existences.’

‘Well, I …’ Carina spoke hesitantly, as if she wanted to see his reaction before definitely committing herself. ‘Yes, I think so. People who have had near-death experiences appear to confirm it. They nearly all felt the soul leave the body before they were resuscitated. What’s more, some of them say they already knew, while dying, which body their soul would migrate to after death.’

‘That’s apocryphal. There’s no solid evidence.’

‘There is, you know.’

‘Like what?’ Simon heard the lawyer ask.

‘Haven’t you ever heard of Taranjit Singh?’

There was no response, so Simon surmised that Stern had shaken his head.

‘A six-year-old boy living in the Jalandhar district of India. This really happened – there was an in-depth article on it not that long ago. Reincarnation is a staple component of Hinduism. The Hindus believe we all possess an immortal soul that enters another body after we die, sometimes even that of an animal or a plant.’

‘I don’t see why that should interest me now,’ Stern muttered to himself, so softly that Simon could hardly hear him.

‘Taranjit’s is only one of numerous well-documented cases of rebirth in India. Over three thousand children were questioned there by a reputable researcher named Ian Stevenson.’

‘Him I’ve heard of,’ Stern grunted.

‘What about this Tanjit?’ asked Borchert.

‘Taranjit,’ Carina amended. ‘The boy claimed to be the reincarnation of a youth from a neighbouring village who had lost his life in a road accident in 1992. He could recall the most incredible details even though he’d never left his native village.’

‘Then he must have overheard his parents discussing the accident. Or read about it in a newspaper.’

‘Yes, that’s how most people try to explain it away. But listen to this.’

Simon could feel Carina’s heart beating faster.

‘A very well-known Indian criminologist, Raj Singh Chauhan, wanted some objective proof, so what did he do?’

‘Submit the boy to a lie-detector test like Simon?’

‘Better than that. Chauhan is an expert in the field of forensic graphology. He compared Taranjit’s handwriting with that of the dead boy.’

‘Oh, come on …’

‘No, it’s true. Their handwriting was identical. Explain that!’

Simon didn’t hear Stern’s answer. Although he had firmly resolved to remain awake for another minute at least, he couldn’t fight off sleep any longer. He caught the name Felix and some reference to a voice on a DVD, and then he finally drifted off. His disturbing dream began as usual, but today the door opened rather more easily.

Nor did he find it as difficult as he had the first time to descend the steps that led down into the gloomy cellar.

Simon woke up, thrown forward in his seat when the car came to a sudden stop.

‘Be more careful, can’t you?’ Carina said angrily. Her voice sounded rather husky, as if she’d been crying again.

‘Sorry,’ Borchert growled, ‘I thought there was a filter light.’ A moment later Simon felt his head pressed into Carina’s bosom as the car rounded a corner. The tyres began to make a drumming sound, which indicated that they were driving over cobblestones.

‘Do you know why you were sent that DVD, Robert?’

Simon stifled a yawn. He had no idea what they were talking about.

‘The bastard wants me to do his dirty work – find the murderer.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Carina. ‘No one capable of putting together a video like that, which incorporates material over ten years old, needs to enlist the help of some stray lawyer.’

‘The lady has a point,’ said Borchert.

‘So what’s
your
explanation?’

‘When someone goes to such lengths after so many years, only two things spring to mind: money and money.’

‘Very funny, Andi. Can’t you come up with something a bit more concrete?’

‘Yes, try this for size. Simon said the men were a bad lot – criminals, in other words. Maybe they were all in the same outfit, or something. Maybe they’d made a fat profit on a drugs deal and one of them wouldn’t split the proceeds. He wasted all the others bar one.’

‘The owner of the voice on the DVD,’ said Stern.

‘Exactly. And now he’s after the murderer because he wants his cut.’

‘Maybe,’ said Carina. ‘It sounds plausible, actually, but how can Simon know all this if you deny the possibility of his rebirth? And who’s the boy with the birthmark? We don’t have any answers. Only one thing’s for sure, Robert: you’re being used. The question is, why?’

‘OK, people.’ Borchert applied the brakes. ‘We’re nearly there.’

Simon blinked. His sleepy eyes focused first on two swollen raindrops trickling like tears down the tinted window. Then he looked out. A neatly trimmed hedge was gliding past. Rising beyond it was a grassy hill strewn with dead, sodden leaves.

Visibility improved as Borchert reduced speed once more. Simon extricated himself from Carina’s embrace and pressed his sweaty palm against the cold glass. Although the hill ahead didn’t ring a bell, he had seen the sandstone church before. It looked just like the one in his drawing on the hospital window.

‘I don’t believe this!’

Borchert’s laughter drew some black looks from the members of the funeral procession. He put out his tongue at the lady with the knife-edge parting in her short black hair and grinned when she faced the front again, indignant.

‘No, honestly, this day will really go down in the annals.’

Even Stern had to admit that the situation wasn’t without an element of comedy.

They had found it hard to believe their eyes and ears on entering the sandstone church ten minutes earlier. Standing at the unadorned Protestant altar was a man with a crewcut and bright, friendly eyes. He was not wearing clerical vestments, just a dark-blue three-piece suit. In lieu of a tie he had draped a green scarf round his shoulders, and the fact that this was rather clumsily knotted together on his chest seemed somehow endearing. The same went for his obituary address. Having just mentioned the deceased’s habit of rolling in wild boar dung during his many walks in the forest, he held up an over-life-size photo of the dear departed, and the predominantly female members of the congregation bent a sorrowful eye on the tawny Basset Hound, which must have weighed at least thirty kilos.

Ecumenical Animal Funerals. Officiating priest: Rev. Thomas Ahrendt. Last Saturday in the month
. Such was the wording of a notice in the porch, but they hadn’t spotted it until they followed the rest of the mourners outside. Now they were trudging through the drizzle along a rough gravel path beyond the church. Not for the first time, Stern cursed himself for not bringing an umbrella. His shirt was clinging to his chest as if he’d taken it straight from the wash. Much more of this and he would catch pneumonia like Simon. Fortunately, the boy had stayed behind in the warm car with Carina.

‘I don’t believe this,’ Borchert said again with a laugh that sounded like someone trying to cough up a fishbone. ‘They’re actually toting the fat brute along in a coffin.’

‘That’s OK. I did the same with the first dog I owned.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘Why not? I was Simon’s age at the time, and I was grateful to my father for organizing his send-off. Mind you, we buried him in the garden, not in a regular graveyard like this.’

They were nearing the fence that separated the church’s official precincts from the animal home’s private plot.

Stern lengthened his stride and caught up with the unconventional parson, who was holding open a waist-high gate for the mourners to pass through. He greeted Stern with a handshake and a broad smile that bared his gummy dentures. Stern would almost have preferred him not to look so friendly.

‘Please forgive me for intruding, but is this also the way to the official graveyard?’

Ahrendt raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh, so you aren’t one of Hannibal’s nearest and dearest?’

‘Afraid not. I’m looking for a last resting place for a, er, human friend.’

‘In that case I must disappoint you. The animal home rents this site from us. Our parish is too poor to maintain a graveyard for people. You’ll have to go to our local town.’

‘I see.’

The parson excused himself, and Stern watched him waddle over to the mourners, who were waiting beside a big rhododendron bush at the far end of the field.

Borchert was still shaking his head at the parson’s last words, which he’d been just in time to catch. ‘It’s crazy,’ he muttered. ‘They can’t afford a proper graveyard, but they reserve a whole football pitch for animals.’

This was something of an exaggeration. The animal graveyard, which was divided into plots, could not have measured more than fifty metres by fifty. It did, however, seem remarkably spacious for its purpose. Stern could hardly believe there was any great demand for animal burials in the district, but the scattered tombstones appeared to refute this. Somewhat untidily arranged and interspersed with coniferous trees, they jutted from the ground like crooked teeth. He decided to take a closer look before returning to the car.

‘I’ll wait here,’ Borchert called after him. Having found a dry spot beneath a massive oak tree, he was clearly reluctant to abandon it.

Lili, Micky, Molly, Bella, Dandy, Hunk …
The names on the animalgraves he passed were as varied as their tombstones. Most of the latter consisted of a white cross or a small slab of granite with a plain inscription. A few owners had dug a bit deeper into their pockets and invested in some form of grave maintenance. Lying in front of ‘Alfons’, for example, were two white orchids and a freshly woven wreath. As for ‘Cleopatra’, she must have been a true queen among cats before she was ‘murdered by a motorist’ six months earlier. At least, so said the inscription on a brass plate screwed to the miniature Pyramid of Khufu that served as her tombstone.

‘This is pointless,’ Borchert called. ‘There’s no Lucas here.’

‘How do you know?’ Stern turned round. Borchert had found a green display case near his oak tree and was tapping the glass with his thumbnail.

‘This is a list of all the animals buried here – from Attila to Zoe.’