Leo found an empty seat, pulled off his backpack and sat down. The young women sat across the aisle from him. Their loud voices filled the otherwise empty carriage, but Leo didn’t mind. He always found he enjoyed hearing people speak in languages he didn’t understand. The same group speaking English would have irritated him, but the unknown language seemed to drift past.
Leo rubbed his face again and forced himself to look away from the empty seat opposite him. The flat industrial landscape of Berlin’s outskirts drifted past the window. After a few minutes it became more densely packed. Modern buildings in glass and chrome fought for attention next to Soviet-era monoliths and ornate nineteenth-century domes. The closer they got to the city, the more varied, jumbled and exciting the architecture became. Changing trains at Ostkreuz, Leo headed in the direction of the city centre. He was almost there. Two stops later, beneath the grand canopy of Ostbahnhof, he headed for the street.
With the help of the map on his phone, Leo found the brutalist concrete building his hotel occupied and checked in quickly. He climbed the stairs to his room on the sixth floor and thought about the hotel he’d stayed at in Kathmandu. Things there were just so different. Even getting a taxi there had been difficult. But, Leo realised, looking at the map on the screen of the phone, he was better prepared now.
Unlocking the door, Leo stepped inside. The room was decorated in sixties-style green and yellow wallpaper. On the far wall hung an oversized picture of a middle-aged man. The image was so large that Leo felt he could see each pore and hair on the man’s oily skin. The label beneath the picture told him the gentleman had been the German Democratic Republic’s Minister for Fishing. Leo leaned back on his heels and frowned. He liked learning about a place, but the long-dead eyes of the German Democratic Republic’s Minister for Fishing made him uncomfortable.
Leo turned away and dropped his bag on the bed. Then he pulled out a slip of euros, swapped them for the pounds in his wallet and checked his phone. A message from Allissa was waiting.
“Ready for the party… wish me luck, Xx.”
Leo closed the message. He would reply when he had something to tell her. He slid the phone back into his pocket, then turned and left the room.
Half an hour later as he descended the stairs at Kottbusser Tor U-Bahn station, one question revolved around Leo’s mind: could this be the place where Minty Rolleston ended his own life?
Leo knew he was unlikely to find any physical evidence of Minty’s death at the station but wanted to see the place to try and understand why a young and successful man might throw himself in front of a train. The first thing Leo needed to figure out, and as quickly as possible, was whether Minty was actually dead or not. If Minty was dead, then sooner or later his remains would be released. That would be all the proof anyone needed. This may just be a case of the authorities taking their time. If so, then he and Allissa could do nothing to help. Leo knew that suicides happened with horrific frequency, leaving families shredded with anguish.
He had thought it unusual there wasn’t more from the police though. The report had been so simple and promised no further investigation. Then there was the lack of information about the body. Surely if there were no questions to be answered, the body could be released immediately? So why then were the police being so secretive?
With these thoughts circling like greedy vultures, Leo looked around the platform. Where moments before, he had ridden on a bright yellow train between the chaotic and colourful roofs of Kreuzberg, now there seemed to be no colour in anything. The fluorescent overhead lights bleached the station’s grey tiles and withered the faces of the solemn commuters. Leo looked at a woman who was probably in her thirties but had ten years added to her appearance by the bleak lighting.
Leo walked down the platform and looked around. He had no real idea of what he was looking for — just something, anything that sparked his interest.
A macabre thought slipped into Leo’s mind — what a horrible place to die. In a city of colour, intrigue and excitement, what a bland and dreary corner to choose to be your last.
22
Attacking someone’s body is such an animalistic way to get them to talk, Semion thought as he watched the man’s face strain beneath the ravages of the drug.
Going to their brain was a much more direct route. That’s where the memories were kept. That’s where a man’s true strength was. No man, regardless of his physical strength, his intelligence or his experience, could fight the effect of potent psychosomatic drugs.
Semion sat on another metal chair opposite Keal. A video camera on a tripod recorded Keal’s every move and sound. Semion felt that what he was doing here was science. It was his duty to document his work.
He looked down at the clipboard on which he’d written the questions he was going to ask. Semion planned to check what Keal said against the record of packages Olezka had received.
Semion knew that the interrogation needed to be conducted systematically. He had to build a hypothesis and then test it with repetitive questioning.
Semion crouched in front of Keal. He leant in until he could feel the man’s breath on his face. With his left hand on Keal’s chin to steady the rocking, Semion used two fingers to lift Keal’s eyelids. The pupils were dilated and unfocused.
“Excellent,” Semion said, “I think we are ready for our little chat.”
Semion pulled the chair closer to Keal and sat. With the man in this state, Semion was in no danger. Keal’s brain would be moving at light speed,
