“No, none. What does she want with this Kaldan woman? Why is the whole thing so goddamn vague?” Augustin looked almost angry. “Why doesn’t she just say what she wants instead of sending all this nonsense?”

“I guess the big question is: why Heloise?” Schäfer said. “What does Anna Kiel want specifically with her?”

“She’s a relatively well-known journalist, and she works for a prominent paper,” Augustin said with a shrug.

“So, she’s a potential spokesperson for Anna Kiel. Is that it?”

Augustin shrugged again.

“Look at it a little more,” Schäfer said. “Maybe bring Heloise in here again so you can talk to her. By the way, did you get ahold of the ex-wife?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“Not that much,” Augustin said, getting up off the floor with a groan of effort. “Lot of tears, not so many words.”

CHAPTER

25

THERE WERE TEA bags in the kitchen cupboard in the small apartment on Avenue de la Liberté, so Anna filled the white enameled kettle with water and lit the gas stove. She sat down at the little bistro table in the kitchen and flipped through the documents she had printed at the library earlier in the day.

The stack was two fingers thick.

Anna had created a clear summary for the journalist with dates, details, names. There were twelve in total, but only nine that she knew.

Nine, she could remember.

She had used the link and the password Nick had given her and had vomited twice. Now everything was ready. There was nothing to do now but wait, and if nothing happened, she would just have to yell louder and more clearly.

But Nick had said that it had to be “subtle.” That was the word he had used. He had said that it needed to be a refined hint rather than a flashing neon sign, and that the journalist would never come if she knew why she was being summoned.

But soon, she would surely turn up.

Soon, it would all be over.

Anna gathered all the papers into a yellow folder and put it in her backpack, which was hanging out in the hall, as the kettle started whistling in the kitchen.

She sat in the kitchen window with a cup of tea in her hand and watched the A86 freeway, which ran behind the property.

“It’ll be over soon,” she told herself out loud, and in a way it was true.

At the same time, she knew that it would never really be the case.

CHAPTER

26

EVERYTHING ON THE woman’s body pointed downward. She was probably younger than she looked, but her loose skin had long ago given up on the hope of ever being stretched tightly over actual muscle mass.