The Whisperer (12 page)

“Let’s imagine that someone else was behind all this. Let’s say that this guy appeared out of nowhere and slipped a little girl with a severed arm into Bermann’s boot…”

“Bermann would have said so, to shift suspicion from himself,” Mila said.

“I don’t think so,” Goran replied, confidently. “Bermann was a pedophile: he wouldn’t have shifted a thing. He knew he was finished. He killed himself because he had no way out, and to cover up for the organization to which he belonged.”

Mila remembered that the music teacher had killed himself as well.

“So what do we do?”

“We go back to Albert, the neutral and impersonal profile we’d developed originally.”

For the first time Mila felt truly involved in the case. Teamwork was a new experience for her. And she didn’t mind working with Dr. Gavila. She hadn’t known him for long, but she’d already learned to trust him.

“The assumption is that there’s a reason for the abduction of the little girls and the graveyard of arms. It may be absurd, but it exists. And to explain it we have to know our man. The better we know him, the more we’ll be able to understand. The better we understand, the closer we’ll get to him. Is that clear?”

“Yes…but what’s my role exactly?” she asked.

Goran’s voice was low and full of energy: “He’s a predator, isn’t he? So teach me how he hunts…”

Mila opened the notebook she had brought with her. At the other end he heard her flicking through the pages. She started reading from her notes about the victims: “Debby, twelve. Disappeared at school. Her classmates remember seeing her coming out at the end of lessons. They didn’t notice she was missing from the school until the evening register.”

Goran took a long sip of his coffee and said, “Now tell me about the second one…”

“Anneke, ten. At first everyone thinks she’s lost in the woods…Number three was called Sabine, she was the youngest: nine. It happened on Saturday evening when she was at the fair with her mother and father.”

“She’s the one he took from the merry-go-round, right from under her parents’ noses. And that’s when alarms went off all over the country. Our team was called in, and that was when the fourth girl disappeared.”

“Melissa. The oldest: thirteen. Her parents had given her a curfew, but on her birthday she broke it to go and celebrate with her friends at the bowling alley.”

“They all showed up except Melissa,” the criminologist remembered.

“Caroline was taken from her bed, which means he got into her house…and then there’s number six.”

“Later. Let’s stick with the others for now.”

Goran felt incredibly in tune with the policewoman. It was something he hadn’t felt for a long time.

“Now I need you to talk to me, Mila. Tell me: how does our Albert behave?”

“First he kidnaps a little girl who’s far from home and who doesn’t socialize much. So no one notices anything and he’ll have time…”

“Time to do what?”

“It’s a test: he wants to be sure that he’ll succeed in what he does. And with time at his disposal he can always get rid of the victim and disappear.”

“With Anneke he’s already more relaxed, but even so he decides to abduct her in the woods, far from any witnesses…And how does he act with Sabine?”

“He takes her from under everyone’s noses: at the funfair.”

“Why?” Goran cut in.

“For the same reason that he abducts Melissa when everyone’s already on the alert, or Caroline in her house.”

“What’s the motive for that?”

“He feels strong, he’s become confident.”

“Fine,” said Goran. “Go on…now tell me about this blood-sisters business, from the beginning.”

“It’s something you do when you’re very young. You prick your index finger with a safety pin and then bring your fingertips together while reciting a nursery rhyme.”

“Who are the two girls?”

“Debby and number six.”

“Why does Albert choose her?” Goran wondered. “It’s ludicrous. The authorities are in a state of alarm, they’re all looking for Debby already, and back he comes to take her best friend! Why run a risk of that kind? Why?”

Mila knew what the criminologist was getting at, but even if she was the one who said it, he was the one who had taken her there. “I think it’s about
challenge
…”

The last word uttered by Mila opened a closed door in the head of the criminologist, who rose from his chair and started walking through the kitchen.

“Go on…”

“He wanted to demonstrate something. That he was the most cunning, for example.”

“The best of all. He’s plainly egocentric, a man afflicted with a narcissistic personality disorder…let’s talk about number six.”

“We know nothing about her.”

“Talk to me about her anyway. Do it with what we’ve got…”

Mila set the notebook down, now she was forced to improvise. “Fine, let’s see…she’s approximately the same age as Debby, because they were friends. So about twelve. That’s confirmed by the Barr body tests.”

“Fine…and?”

“According to the autopsy she died in a different way.”

“Meaning? Remind me…”

She tried to find the answer in the notebook. “He cut off her arm, as he did to the others. Except that her blood and tissues contained traces of a drug cocktail.”

Goran asked her to repeat Chang’s list of medicines. Antiarrhythmics like disopyramide, ACE inhibitors, and atenolol which is a beta-blocker…

He wasn’t convinced by that.

“I’m not convinced by that,” said Mila. And for a moment Goran Gavila was struck by the suspicion that the woman could read his mind.

“During the meeting he said that was how Albert reduced her heartbeats, lowering the pressure,” Mila pointed out. “And Dr. Chang added that the purpose was to slow the bleeding, to make her die more slowly.”

Slow the bleeding. Make her die more slowly.

“OK, fine, now tell me about her parents…”

“Which parents?” asked Mila, trying to keep up.

“I don’t care if it isn’t written in your bloody notes! I want your thoughts, damn it!”

How did he know about her notes? she wondered, shaken by his reaction. “The parents of the sixth child have not presented themselves like the others for the DNA test. We don’t know who they are, because they haven’t reported her disappearance.”

“Why haven’t they reported it? Perhaps they don’t know yet?”

“Unlikely.”

Slow the bleeding
.

“Perhaps she didn’t have any parents! Perhaps she was alone in the world! Perhaps none of them gives a damn about her!” Goran was losing his temper.

“No, she has a family. She’s got to be like all the others, remember? Only daughter, mother over the age of forty, a couple who decided to have only one child. He doesn’t change, because they are his true victims: they probably won’t have any more children.
He chose the families, not the girls.
”

“Right,” said Goran, to her gratification. “Then what?”

Mila thought for a moment. “He likes to
challenge us
. He likes a challenge. Like the little blood sisters. This is a puzzle…he’s testing us.”

Make her die more slowly.

“If there are parents, and they know, why haven’t they reported the disappearance?” Goran pressed her, letting his gaze wander around the kitchen floor. He felt as if they were close to something. Perhaps an answer.

“Because they’re scared.”

Mila’s words illuminated all the dark corners of the room. And she felt an itch at the base of her neck, a tickle…

“Scared of what?”

They wanted the idea to assume the form of words, so that they could grasp it and make sure it didn’t dissolve.

“Her parents are scared that Albert might hurt her…”

“How, if she’s already dead?”

Slow the bleeding. Make her die more slowly.

Goran stopped, kneeling. Mila rose to her feet.

“He didn’t slow the bleeding…
he stopped it.
”

They got there at the same time.

“Oh, my God…” she said.

“Yes…she’s still alive.”

T
he little girl opens her eyes.

She takes a deep breath, as if reemerging from a liquid abyss, with lots of tiny, invisible hands dragging her back down. But she struggles to keep her balance, to stay awake.

The pain is searing, but it gives her some lucidity. She tries to remember where she is. She has lost her bearings. She is lying on her back, she knows that. Her head spins and she is surrounded by a curtain of darkness. She definitely has a fever and she can’t move. Only two other sensations can pierce the fog of her half-sleep. The smell of damp and rocks, like the smell of a cave. And the repeated, enervating sound of dripping.

What has happened?

The memories return one at a time, around her. Then she feels like weeping. Hot tears start flowing down her cheeks, wetting her dry lips. That’s how she discovers she is thirsty.

They were supposed to go to the lake that weekend. She, Dad and Mum. There were days when she couldn’t think of anything else. The outing when her dad was going to teach her to fish. She had collected earthworms in the garden, putting them in a tin. They moved, they were alive. But she didn’t care about that. Or rather, she thought that detail was irrelevant. Because she took it for granted that earthworms have no feelings. She hadn’t wondered what it felt like for them to be trapped in there. But now she wonders. Because that’s what she is feeling now. She feels sorry for them, and for herself. And shame for having been bad. And she hopes with all her heart that whoever has taken her, dragging her from her life, is better than she is.

She doesn’t remember much of what happened.

She had woken early to go to school, even earlier than usual, because it was Thursday, and like every Thursday, her father couldn’t take her because he was seeing his clients. He sold hairdressing products and, in anticipation of an increase in regular customers at the weekend, supplied them with hair lacquer and shampoo as well as cosmetics. That was why she had to go to school on her own. She had been doing it now since she was nine. She still remembered the first time he had walked her the short distance to the bus stop. She held his hand, paying attention to his instructions, such as looking both ways before crossing the road, or not being late because the driver wouldn’t wait, or not stopping to talk to strangers because it could be dangerous. Over time, she had interiorized that advice to such an extent that she no longer felt she was hearing her father’s voice saying them in her head. She had become an expert.

That Thursday morning she had got up with new joy in her heart. Apart from the imminent trip to the lake, there was another reason to be happy. The plaster she had on her finger. In the bath she had lifted a flap off it in the hot water and looked at her fingertip with a mixture of pride and pain.

She had a blood sister.

She couldn’t wait to see her again. But that wouldn’t happen before the evening, since they went to different schools. In the usual place they would tell each other the latest news, because they hadn’t seen each other for some days. Then they would play and make plans, and before parting they would make a solemn pledge to stay friends forever.

Yes, it was going to be a great day.

She had slipped her algebra book into her rucksack. It was her favorite subject, and her marks said as much. At eleven they had PE, so she had taken a leotard from one of the drawers and put her gym shoes and white socks in a carrier bag. As she was making the bed, her mother had called her down for breakfast. They were always in a great hurry at the breakfast table. That morning had been no different from the others. Her father, who usually had only a coffee, was standing by the table reading the paper. He held it in front of his face in one hand, while the other gripped the cup that went back and forth from his lips. Her mother was already on the phone to a colleague and she had made fried eggs without missing a word of the conversation. Houdini was curled up in his basket and hadn’t deigned to glance at her since she had come downstairs. Her grandfather said that, like himself, the cat suffered from low blood pressure, so he needed some time to get his act together in the morning. For a while now she had stopped being hurt by Houdini’s indifference. They had reached a tacit pact whereby they respected one another’s space, and that would have to do.

After breakfast, she had put her dirty plate in the sink and walked around the kitchen for a kiss from each of her parents. Then she had left the house.

In the wind she could still feel on her cheek the damp imprint of coffee from her father’s lips. The day was bright. There was nothing threatening about the few clouds that sullied the sky. The forecasts said the weather would stay like that all weekend. “All the better for a fishing trip,” her father had remarked. And with that promise in her heart she had walked along the pavement, straight to the bus stop. It was three hundred and twenty-nine steps in all. She had counted them. From time to time she counted them again. As she did that morning. And when she was about to get to the three hundred and tenth step, someone had called her.

She would never forget that number. The precise point at which her life had broken into pieces.

She had turned round and seen him. That smiling man walking towards her didn’t have a familiar face. But she had heard him calling her name, and had immediately thought, “If he knows me he can’t be dangerous.” As he came towards her she tried to get a better look at him to work out who he was. He had speeded up his footsteps to catch up with her, she had waited for him. His hair…was strange. Like the hair of a doll she had when she was little. It looked fake. By the time she had worked out that the man was wearing a wig it was too late. She hadn’t even noticed the parked white van. He had grabbed her, opening the door at the same time and getting inside with her. She had tried to cry out, but he had a hand over her mouth. The wig had slipped from his head and he had pressed a wet handkerchief against her face for a long time. Then the sudden, unstoppable tears, black dots and red patches over her eyes, stripping the world of its color. Finally, darkness.

Who is this man? What does he want from her? Why has he brought her here? Where is he now?

The questions come quickly, and leave again unanswered. The images of her last morning as a little girl fade away and she finds herself in that cave once more—the damp belly of the monster who swallowed her up. On the other hand, that comfortable sense of torpor is returning. Anything, as long as I don’t have to think about all that, she thinks. She closes her eyes, plunging once again into the sea of shadows that surrounds her.

She hasn’t even noticed that one of those shadows is watching her.