She saw a church at the end of the street. A huge church, standing crammed into a cobbled square. It was a Romanesque building that at one time would have sat grandly with fields and gardens around it. But the city had closed in on it over the centuries: now it was squeezed on every side by apartment buildings, like a bishop jostled by beggars. A parochial house nudged into its flank. A bar-restaurant at the other end of its meagre square. She would avoid the bar. She would seek refuge in the parochial house. She walked towards it, suddenly startled by the image of a small, frail, frightened, broken-winged fairy in the black shield of a butcher’s shop display window. Her reflection. Her reflection hanging between pasted cardboard stars with special offers on beef and pork.
She reached the corner of the church. It loomed dark and austere into the cold night sky. She turned the heavy iron handle and leaned against the door but it would not give. She made her way towards the parochial house.
He stepped out in front of her from where he had been waiting, hidden, around the corner of the church. His face was blue-white in the dim street light, his over-wide painted smile dark crimson. Two flaps of green hair stood at a ridiculous angle from his otherwise bald head. She tried to scream but nothing came. She stared at his eyes: cold and dead and hard under the comical arches of his black-painted eyebrows. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t cry out. She couldn’t find the strength to break free and run. His hand, gloved in bright blue felt, snapped up and grabbed her throat. He pushed her against the wall and into the shadows. Lifted her onto tiptoe. In a single movement of his free hand he produced a necktie from the huge patch pocket of his oversized coat and looped it around her neck.
Now she struggled. The necktie burned her skin, crushed the arteries in her neck, closed her windpipe. No breath came to her screaming lungs. Her head swam. Her world darkened. And as he tightened the ligature around her neck, all she could do was stare into his face.
His grotesque clown face.
Part One
CLOWN DIARY FIRST ENTRY. DATED: 11.11 A.M. 11th NOVEMBER.
CHAPTER ONE
14–16 January
1.
The commander of the MEK tactical assault team looked surprised to see Fabel squatting next to him, taking cover behind the large armoured van.
‘I was in the area and heard the call.’ Fabel predicted his question. He looked up at the four-storey block of flats white against the blue winter sky. Pristine and cheerful. Balconies with winter pansies. Mid-range cars parked outside. Heavily armed, black-uniformed MEK officers were rushing the occupants of the block out of the main door and along the street to where the ordinary uniformed police had hastily erected the perimeter on Jenfelderstrasse.