Proof of Life, page 17
‘You have a daughter, Mr Stroud. What’s her name?’
‘Eva. Her name is Eva.’
The word left his lips without any thought or consideration behind them. Lügner asked the question, Stroud gave the answer, and there was no other choice.
‘How old is she?’
‘F-fourteen.’
‘What is her date of birth?’
‘May… it’s in May… the eleventh of May.’
‘What is the name of her mother?’
‘Julia.’
‘What is her date of birth?’
‘The fourth… the fourth of January.’
‘What is the name of the girl who accompanied you to Amsterdam?’
‘Nina. Her name is Nina Benson.’
‘Who sent you here?’
‘Marcus sent me. Marcus Haig.’
‘What did he tell you?’
‘He told me to find Raphael. He told me to find out if he was alive.’
‘Vincent Raphael?’
‘Yes, Vincent Raphael.’
‘Is Raphael alive?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are Raphael and Hendrik Dekker the same person?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are Raphael and Dekker the same person?’
‘I don’t know! I don’t know!’
‘Is Raphael alive?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything about Raphael.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘I don’t know.’
Lügner’s hand came out of nowhere. Stroud felt the impact of it against the side of his face. The pain was extraordinary, and yet he couldn’t scream.
‘Is Raphael alive?’
‘I don’t know! I don’t fucking know!’
‘Who is Dekker?’
‘I don’t know who Dekker is.’
‘Do you know Karl-Heinz Dellwo?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever met him?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever spoken to him?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know Bernhard Rössner?’
‘No.’
Lügner struck Stroud again. Stroud felt the bones crack in his neck.
‘Do you know Bernhard Rössner?’
‘No!’
‘Have you ever met Bernhard Rössner?’
Again a lance of excruciating pain across Stroud’s face that reverberated right through his skull.
‘Have you ever met Bernhard Rössner?’
‘No, I have never met Bernhard fucking Rössner!’
‘Have you ever spoken to Bernhard Rössner?’
‘No. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know who this person is!’
The handkerchief was clamped over Stroud’s face once again. He tried to resist, but it was futile. The chemicals filled his chest. He coughed, he retched, but he possessed insufficient strength to fight what was happening. The room folded at the corners. He looked at Lügner as if through a funhouse mirror.
‘Who do you work for?’
‘I don’t work for anyone!’
‘Who sent you here?’
‘No one sent me here. I am looking for Raphael. I am looking for Vincent Raphael. I am trying to find out if he really is dead.’
Lügner stepped back. He let fly with a kick to Stroud’s right shin. A fierce and indescribable wave of excruciating agony ripped right through him. He opened his mouth to scream. His head back, his eyes clamped shut, his lips bared, that scream seemed to come from some primal place within him, and yet there was not a sound.
‘Who do you work for?’
‘I don’t fucking work for anyone! I don’t work for anyone!’
‘Why did you come here?’
‘I was trying to find out who Dekker was.’
‘Where did you get the key?’
‘From Dekker’s flat. It was in a jacket. In the lining of a jacket.’
‘How did you find out it was for a security locker?’
‘I found out from the number on the key.’
Lügner took two steps back, and then kicked the other shin.
An anguished roar erupted from the very base of Stroud’s lungs. He started to sob, to gasp for air. He felt sick with the pain. His legs felt as if they had been broken in numerous places. He was utterly terrified. He knew he would never walk again.
‘Where is Vincent Raphael?’
‘I don’t know! I don’t know where Vincent fucking Raphael is!’
Lügner stepped back again. Stroud braced himself for another kick, but it never came.
Lügner’s voice was softer, less aggressive. ‘If you tell me the truth, the pain will stop, Herr Stroud. I can stay here forever. I can bring you such pain that you will plead with me to kill you. You will cry and beg me to stop the pain.’
Stroud looked up at Lügner. He could see him through a haze of tears. He knew that he couldn’t tell them anything else. He didn’t know what they wanted. This was where it would end. After all the war zones and conflicts, after the horror he had seen, this was where he would finally meet the end of his life – in a featureless room somewhere outside Berlin, his heart giving out as he was tortured for information he didn’t possess. And then his body would be burned or buried and no one would be any the wiser. Would anyone come looking? Would anyone persevere in finding the truth of what had really happened? Would Eva ever know that she was his very last thought as the lights went out?
The irony struck him with the same force as another blow from Lügner. He really had followed in Raphael’s footsteps. He’d stood so close to the edge of the abyss that he’d tumbled in headlong.
‘I don’t know what you want,’ he said. His voice was broken and exhausted. ‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know. I came looking for Raphael. I thought he was dead. I still believe he is dead. I thought he and Dekker were the same person. I don’t know why. I don’t understand how any of this fits together. Nothing makes sense. I just wanted to find out if my friend was really dead or not.’
‘What happened to him, Herr Stroud?’
‘He died in Jordan, in a Land Rover. Someone threw a grenade into the Land Rover and he was killed in the explosion.’
‘When was this?’
‘Six years ago. September of 1970.’
‘Have you seen Raphael since that day?’
‘No. I haven’t seen him. Of course I haven’t fucking seen him! He’s dead!’
‘Is he alive, Herr Stroud? Is Vincent Raphael alive?’
‘No, he’s dead.’
‘Do you believe that he is dead?’
‘Yes, I believe that he is dead.’
Lügner paused. He smiled reassuringly, then took a step back. Stroud knew he was going to kick him again. He didn’t think he could bear more pain like that.
‘Stop!’ he screamed. ‘For Christ’s sake, stop! I have told you everything I know! I don’t know anything else! I can’t tell you what I don’t fucking know!’
Lügner didn’t move. Again he smiled. He looked down at the floor, and then he put his hands in his pockets and sighed.
After a moment, he backed up and knocked on the door. The door opened. He said a few words in German, and then a woman came into the room. In her hand she had a hypodermic needle.
‘What? What are you doing?’ Stroud pleaded. ‘What are you doing to me?’
Before he could even turn his head, the woman was behind him. He felt the sting of the needle in the side of his neck.
Blackness rushed down on him like a waterfall.
33
Stroud surfaced like a man believing he’d already drowned. The lights above him Catherine-wheeled in myriad colours. He twisted sideways and retched. Pain shot through his lower legs and he cried out. Then he retched again. Still leaning sideways, he tried to open his eyes just a little. He could see white, nothing more. His head pounded. His right hand instinctively gripped the edge of something. It was soft, yielding, and he ran his hand along it to determine what it was. Something covered his body, too. It was smooth and cool. He could smell something antiseptic. He lay still for a moment. Lügner. He remembered Lügner. He remembered the cloth over his face and not being able to do anything but answer the man’s interminable questions. And then the needle. What had they injected him with? What the hell had they done to him?
He tried to right himself, fighting against the urge to just lie still and take whatever punishment they had concocted for him. The pain in his legs was fierce, but he somehow managed to roll onto his back, his eyes still shut tight, resisting the urge to retch again.
‘Herr Stroud?’
Was he imagining this? Was someone saying his name? Whose voice was he was hearing? Was this some new horror of a human being come to torture him?
‘Herr Stroud?’
Stroud opened his mouth to speak, but nothing happened. His lips were dry, his tongue swollen, his throat torn and cracked from screaming.
‘Wasser,’ the voice said.
There was movement, a sound, and then the feeling of a hand behind his head. He shut his mouth, his teeth grinding against each other, determined not to let them make him drink whatever poison they were planning to administer.
‘It is just water, Herr Stroud. Just water. You are very de-hydrated. Please drink a little.’
Stroud opened one eye just a fraction. The bright light, a white shape that came more and more into focus as he concentrated.
A young man. White lab coat. Smiling.
‘There you are,’ the man said. ‘It is okay, Herr Stroud. You are okay now. My name is Dr Möller. I am here to look after you. Please drink a little water. You will feel better.’
Stroud turned his head. He could see a young woman, a nurse. She was right there next to him, and it was she who held the back of his head, trying to incline him so he could drink a little.
He did so. The water was cool, and it eased the dryness in his mouth and throat.
He tried to move. He winced as pain once again shot through his lower legs.
‘Your shins are very badly bruised. Not broken, however. Very swollen, some deep lacerations, but they will heal.’ Möller smiled knowingly. ‘I think it must have been a very wild party, Herr Stroud.’
‘Party?’ His voice was hoarse, little more than a whisper.
‘You were in a very bad state. You were outside on the road. I think you knew enough to get yourself here, but you were very sick and you were already unconscious when we found you.’
‘What party?’
‘Your blood alcohol level was exceptionally high. Your clothes were dirty, your trousers bloody from the wounds on your legs. You were covered in alcohol and vomit, Herr Stroud. You were in a very poor condition altogether.’
‘There was no party.’
‘No party?’
‘Where am I?’
‘You are at the Berlin Gesundheitszentrum.’
‘Is this a hospital?’
‘A medical centre, yes. We are a medical centre, not a hospital. We do not undertake the surgeries here, but we can treat injuries.’
‘What day is it?’
‘It is Saturday, Herr Stroud. July the twenty-fourth.’
Stroud looked at Möller closely. He squinted until the man was clearly in focus. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘You had a bag with you. There was a camera, some notebooks. Your passport was there. We know your name from your passport.’
‘My passport?’
‘Yes, Herr Stroud, your passport.’
‘But it was burned.’
Möller frowned. ‘Burned? You thought you had burned it?’
‘No, I didn’t burn it. Someone else burned it.’
‘Who, Herr Stroud? Who would burn your passport?’
‘Lügner. A man called Lügner. I saw him burn my passport.’
‘Well, we have your bag here, Herr Stroud, and we have your passport. You are English, no?’
‘Yes, I am English.’
‘Do you remember how you injured your legs?’
‘Lügner did it. He kicked me. Lügner kicked me. He put something over my face, and then someone injected me with something and I was unconscious.’
‘And it was this same person that burned your passport?’
‘Yes. That’s what I thought. I saw him burn it.’
‘Indeed,’ Möller said. ‘But now your passport is here.’
Stroud didn’t reply.
‘I think you have experienced some trauma, Herr Stroud. I am not saying that you have imagined this, but I am wondering if there was such a person as this Herr Lügner.’
‘What? Of course there was! You don’t think I made it up, do you? You don’t think I burned my own passport, surely?’
‘No one has burned your passport, Herr Stroud.’
‘Yes, I understand that now, but that’s not what I believed was happening. And what about my legs? You saw that they’re cut and bruised. Someone did that.’
‘I have seen such injuries from someone falling over a low wall. Perhaps running into a barrier of some sort. People drink too much sometimes, Herr Stroud, and they don’t always clearly remember what it was that happened.’
‘I am not making this up, for Christ’s sake. I was at Tegel. I was taken somewhere. I was asked questions. I was tortured.’
‘Tortured?’
‘Yes, I was tortured. I was interrogated and tortured.’
‘Why, Herr Stroud? Why would someone want to interrogate and torture you?’
‘I don’t know, okay?’
‘And who did this to you? This man Lügner?’
‘Yes. Lügner. He questioned me and he hit me. He kicked my legs. He hurt me. He kept asking me questions about things I don’t know anything about.’
‘And you don’t know who he was?’
‘No. I don’t know anything. I have no idea what’s happening.’
‘And you are absolutely sure this man’s name was Lügner?’
‘Yes! Yes, it was Lügner. That’s what he said.’
‘You speak no German, Herr Stroud?’
‘No. No, I don’t speak any German.’
‘I think perhaps that this man didn’t give you his real name.’
‘I would have thought that was pretty bloody obvious, wouldn’t you?’
‘Perhaps, yes. But Lügner is actually a German word, Herr Stroud. It means liar.’
They kept him overnight. Stroud slept fitfully for three or four hours, his mind still troubled with images of walls closing in on him, of questions being screamed relentlessly, of people with needles. He woke sweating and afraid. He lay awake until dawn broke, just grateful to be alive.
Möller returned to see him. He recommended that Stroud see a resident psychiatrist, but Stroud refused. He was not deluded. He knew what had happened. It was of no concern to him whether anyone else believed him. Finally Möller accepted that there was no actual reason to detain him, and his discharge papers were signed. His bag, his camera, his notebooks and passport were returned. His clothes were a mess, but they would suffice until he got back to England.
He called Nina from the airport, gave her a very brief and cursory excuse for his absence and lack of contact. He was on the way back, and that was all that mattered. He was taking the first available flight out of Tegel.
She asked him for his time of arrival at Gatwick, said she’d be there to meet him off the plane. He said it wasn’t necessary, but she insisted.
‘Enough, Stroud. I’m coming to get you.’
Something in her tone conveyed the definite impression that she actually gave a damn. It felt personal, and he appreciated it. It seemed like an eternity since someone had wanted to do something for him without expecting something more in return.
‘I was really worried about you. Five days, Stroud. Five days without a single word from you.’
‘Nina, I’m sorry. I will explain everything when I see you.’
Stroud sat near the window on the plane. He nursed a double Scotch, and in his pocket were another two small airline bottles. His head ached. His whole body ached. His legs were killing him. He could feel how swollen and tender they were even beneath the substantial bandaging. Möller had given him some painkillers, had made him promise to take no more than two every three or four hours. He’d also admonished him against taking them with alcohol. Stroud had blatantly ignored the instruction, had taken six with plenty of alcohol, but they nevertheless seemed to be doing nothing to ease the pain.
Nina was as good as her word, standing right there – her arm in a sling – as he came out of arrivals and started toward the concourse.
‘Jesus Christ, Stroud, what the hell happened?’ The shock was evident in her expression. He was limping painfully, everything blunted by painkillers and Scotch. It wasn’t until the taxi pulled out of the airport car park that he started to talk.
He told her everything, keeping his voice low, conscious that the cab driver would perhaps overhear. He started with how he’d found the key in Dekker’s flat, his trip to Berlin, his arrest, his detainment by Maier and Lehmann. And then came Lügner, the room in which he’d been held, the beating, the injuries to his legs, the injection they finally administered and how he had woken in a medical facility.
Nina listened and didn’t interrupt. Stroud could feel her shock and disbelief. The atmosphere within the confines of the taxi was tense and uncomfortable. As he came to the end of his monologue, he wondered if she would respond in the same way as Möller – a sense of incredulity closely followed by immediate suspicion regarding what drugs he might have taken.
