King had watched from behind the curtain, in the darkened room, as the bobby had scraped off some snow to inspect the tax disc in the Opel’s windscreen.

King had squeezed to the edge of the window, breathing a little faster when the bobby turned and stared at the car again before continuing on his way.

Suspicions aroused, a silent conversation going on his head, decisions being made that King wasn’t party to. The copper hadn’t wanted to get involved, but King knew policemen gossiped, and King didn’t want that gossip drawing attention to their location.

The car, and the body of Lotte Koehler in its trunk, had to go.

He walked to the back room and looked at Anja. She looked like she was sleeping, although he doubted that she actually was. The girl hadn’t spoken since he’d helped Eric Cook carry her mother downstairs and put her in the car. She had silently watched them, face blank, too blank, worryingly blank.

King didn’t trust her. He considered giving her her mother’s coat, but decided it would be in poor taste, so he went back to looking out of the window to check on Cook, whom he’d sent out to ready the car.

Cook looked up toward King and gave a thumbs-­up before quickly wiping the snow-­covered windscreen and side windows.

King checked his watch: 3:30 A.M. He should have gotten rid of the body earlier, but the policeman had worried him. He’d stared out the window for two hours before finally calling Cook and sending him downstairs.

King was angry with himself.

He squeezed his hand in his pocket tightly and dug his nails into his palm.

“Come on,” he said out loud, and behind him, through the open door, he heard the mattress springs groan at the sound of his voice.

Cook started the Opel, leaned out of the open door, and waved again.

King drew a deep breath and took out his pistol. He went to Anja and shook her roughly. Her eyes opened wide and stared into his so quickly, he was certain she’d been awake all along.

He lifted his pistol and showed it to her.

“Do as I say, do you understand?”

Anja nodded, head still on the mattress, blanket still pulled around her shoulders.

“We are going to leave the flat and go somewhere else. You must be very quiet, very, very quiet. If you make a sound I will kill you.” King whispered the threat, which hung in the air with the white wisp of breath that carried it.

Anja nodded again.

“Get up.”

King stepped back from the bed. Anja slid off the mattress and stood, staring at him, hair ruffled.

“Get your blanket, it’ll be cold.”

Anja did as she was told and pulled the blanket around her shoulders. King gripped her arm, then pushed her out of the room and down the steep, narrow stairs that led to the front door.

He could hear the engine running on the Opel. At the bottom of the stairs he pulled Anja to a halt and stepped past her to open the door. He looked out into the street, then roughly dragged Anja across the pavement to the rear door of the car and pushed her onto the backseat. He stepped back to the front door of the building, slammed it shut, then clambered in next to Anja.

“Go.”

The Opel’s engine gunned and the back wheels slipped slightly on the snow, then found purchase. The car slithered forward.

“Slowly.” King reached forward and rested his hand on Cook’s shoulder. In return Cook nodded and flicked on the windscreen wipers to combat the snow that was whipping off the hood.

“To the river?”

“Like I told you,” King replied, looking now at Anja, who was pressed into the corner of the backseat against the opposite door. The car slipped and slid for a few minutes before it finally made it onto Commercial Road and headed in the direction of Limehouse Docks, next to the River Thames. Cook drove slowly and carefully through the snow until finally, they arrived at their destination.

“Go take a look,” said King, and Cook got out of the car.

Anja and King sat in silence, ignoring the cold and each other for nearly two minutes. Cook came back, opening the door next to Anja; she flinched as he leaned across her to speak to King, keeping his voice low.

“Here is good, there’s a hole in the fence where we can get straight down onto the river.”

“Get out.” King pushed Anja toward Cook and then followed her out of the car.

In the distance a dog barked as the falling snow pattered onto their shoulders and hair. Cook and King were wearing long black woolen coats; Anja watched as King slotted his pistol into his pocket and then pulled up his collar.

Cook took Anja’s arm, less aggressively than King had done earlier, then guided her to the rear of the car.

“Pull the blanket over your head,” he whispered, and Anja did as she was told.

“Right over,” King said behind her, and Anja found herself closing her eyes as he roughly pulled the blanket fully over her head and her face.

She heard the trunk of the car open and wondered if she was about to die. A curious calm overcame her, a sense that things would soon be over, and she surrended to it, feeling the knot in her stomach unravel.

She heard Cook grunt and realized they were getting her mother.

The knot returned, and so did the anger.

King took hold of her arm again.

“Keep the blanket down,” he said, surprising her with the gentle tone of his voice. Anja didn’t want to watch; she pulled the blanket tighter around her head and squeezed her eyes tight.

Anja hadn’t watched when they had struggled to lift the body off the mattress earlier. After they had taken her mother from the flat, Anja had lain on the spot where she had died, feeling the warmth fade away underneath her cheek.

She knew her mother was gone.

But she wouldn’t mourn yet.

Her mother wouldn’t want her to.

Her mother had wanted Anja to wait until she was in her father’s arms.

Right after he had killed the two men who had caused this misery.

Anja would watch that.

The dog stopped barking and a horn on the river took its place, then silence fell around them once again. Anja could see her feet if she looked down, so when King told her to walk forward she was able to watch her step by lifting the front of the blanket slightly.

Behind her she heard a curse from Cook, who must have slipped.

King grabbed her head and shoved it forward.

“Duck,” he said, as they made their way through the fence, then onward to the river.

The snow grew heavier, falling in curtainlike flurries as the smell of the muddy, brick-­strewn, oil-­washed riverbank of the Thames sneaked under the blanket and filled her nostrils. Anja listened to her feet crunch, and for a fleeting moment she thought about the snowman she and her mother would never build.

King jerked her again, keeping her moving.

She heard a bird somewhere, calling on the river. She lifted the blanket so she could look up. Across the water, the lights of South London twinkled in the falling snow. A breeze stroked her face as she caught a whiff of the sea from far beyond where they stood.

She shivered.

The splash to her left sounded cold.

Crisp.

All too short.

Her mother’s good-­bye, the final sound Anja would ever hear her make.

Cook gently took her arm this time, and they turned back to the car.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You will be,” she replied, matter-­of-­fact, no doubt in her voice.

KING ALLOWED ANJA to remove the blanket from her head as they walked back to the car, so she wore it like a shawl across her shoulders, wrapping it tightly, keeping the shivers in.

King shoved her through the fence, and as Cook took her arm he finally looked at her.

“Are you all right?”

Anja ignored him and he looked hurt.

She wanted to spit in his face, kick his shins, scratch his eyes, but instead, she ignored him.

“I want you to know, we’re sorry for what happened,” he tried again.

Anja looked at him, holding his eyes with hers until he could bear it no more and looked away.

 

CHAPTER 12

KOEHLER PULLED ON his coat, then took forty pounds out of the small wall safe that was hidden behind a picture in his bedroom.