Free Flashback (The Saskia Brandt Series Book Two) by Ian Hocking Page B

social engineering has failed, he will be occupied with gaining entry to the secure room in Saskia’s apartment.’
    ‘Social engineering? You mean me?’
    ‘Yes.’
    She walked to the window and ate the rest of her breakfast in silence.

Chapter Twelve
    The Fernsehturm , Berlin’s TV and radio tower, rose from Alexanderplatz to a height that seemed unsupportable given its thin spire. The pavilion at the base always reminded Jem of those jagged bubbles in comics that appear when the hero punches the baddie. Pow! Up goes the tower. Almost at the top was a glittering mirror ball. Very disco. Inside the ball was an observation deck and restaurant. Above it was a thick ring of antennas and, higher still, a long shaft coloured red and white like a barber’s pole. Long ago, Danny had told her what the colours meant; what barbers had once done to people.
    For a while, she waited on Gontardstrasse beneath one of the huge trees and watched people entering and leaving Alexanderplatz Station. It was cold. She had bought a scarf on the way and its edges flicked now and then as if shooing something off her shoulder. Jem shrugged inside her duffle coat. There were too many people, trams, and taxis. If someone was following her – someone like Cory – she might never know.
    She approached the tower and entered the glass-walled pavilion. She added herself to the tourists queueing for the lifts. The atrium was uninspiring. It felt like a departure lounge to nowhere. That, and the connecting thought to aeroplanes, put more wood on the fire of her anxiety. Jem hugged herself. The truth of it was that Danny scared her more than Cory, more than the police, more than the half-heard revs-up, revs-down of failing jet engines on an aeroplane going down, down, down. There were so many words between her and her twin brother that needed to be unsaid. Jem needed a reversal, the mother of all undo buttons.
    ~
    ‘You see, there’s an anxiety in the background.’
    The therapist has smelled something. Her blood is up.
    ‘Yes?’
    The blood going down. The TV tower. Danny, what did the barbers do once upon a time?
    ‘It’s like the hiss of a TV tuned to a dead channel.’
    Oh, how analogue. (TVs don’t do that anymore. No tuning. No snow. Those snows are gone.)
    The therapist leans forward. Her MiniDisc recorder spins, swallowing their words byte by byte.
    ‘This hiss actually comes from the music box, doesn’t it?’
    Jem looks at her. The therapist thinks she has made a discovery. There, in her eye: the mote of triumph. The self-congratulation and validation. I am a good therapist. Breathe. I am a good therapist.
    Jem will hear that sentence one more time – I am a good therapist – when she confronts the woman on her doorstep, months after this conversation. ‘Is this real? Did I misremember what we said?’
    ‘How did you know about the music box?’
    The therapist smiles. Her baggy, friendly face is close to Jem’s. Anything that Jem says will now be added to that growing edifice of certainty.
    The MiniDisc recorder spins. The blood spirals down.
    ‘You mentioned the music box yesterday, when you were under. Do you remember the tune?’
    The tune.
    Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ.
    ~
    Danny was waiting for her on the observation deck of the tower, unmistakable against the ashy sky. He was taller and broader than most – rowing, rugby – and dressed as if he was new money, which he was. His eyes were narrowed by habit and darkened by his pronounced brow. His blonde hair was thinning. He kept it short. As he noticed Jem and moved towards her, his long coat billowed. She felt a flush of privilege and fear as though he were a hawk coming to her arm. His swoop ended in an embrace. She pressed her cheek to his chest. He was squeezing too hard, but no less than she deserved.
    ‘Did you think I’d died in the crash?’ she asked.
    ‘I never would have believed it,’ he said. He took her chin and guided her face to his. There were