by Tanja Pleva
'No, we did not travel together for many years. As I already said: 'Actually I had intended to go alone', he explained and wiped his eyes which now filled with tears.
Sam looked out from the window, granting Dr Rewe time to recollect himself. 'As for this conference: May I ask which topic is treated there?'
'This year its main focus was on mastocarcinoma, actually, or breast cancer. Hormones, which may have a triggering, effect. Mammectomy and its consequences, and therapies to reduce the effects of severe treatments.'
Sam remembered thin scars of equal length beneath the breasts of Ms. Rewe. They looked rather like the result of a beauty operation than a reconstruction of the breasts after amputation.
'Dr. Rewe, when did you have sex with your wife last time?'
'Last night. - Using a condom, actually, if you are eager to know. Are you also interested in learning about the exact positions? Well, I tell you, we even purchased a porn video to get aroused!'
Sam took a deep breath. He had to remain calm and not lose patience already on the first day, as his friend Phillipe Argault used to say whenever Sam's reputation had heralded him again. Dr. Rewe was locking his grief behind sarcasm, but it was a matter of time until he would lose his power to play strong man at Sam. Alas, it was too soon to exclude Dr. Rewe from the list of suspects, so he could not be spared from unpleasant questions yet.
'When you found your wife, did you notice anything unusual?'
'Well, she was pretty much dead! That is unusual enough - dare a guess, why?' Dr. Rewe looked down and shook his head.
'Please, take your time and think again. Any little detail might be important.'
The gynecologist nodded in agreement, and Sam envisioned himself, looking into Lina's dead eyes more than four months ago. Although he had encountered death so many times, at this sight he had simply collapsed and could not be addressed for some time at all.
'I could not find my key-card, actually, though I was sure that I had put it in my pocket. I had to ask a maid to let me in.'
Of course, all that could have been arranged that way, thought Sam. Husband kills wife, leaves the scene of crime and comes back with a maid for witnessing.
'Luckily I enjoy some useful connections, actually. A friend called an acquaintance at Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office, and he called somebody at Europol. I do not speak Spanish, you see.' Dr. Rewe looked straight at Sam for the first time.
He did not seem to be concerned much to see a fellow who did not look like a spick-and-span officer but rather like a junkie with dark rings under his eyes and less than elegant clothes.
So there was the rub. Peter Brenner had called because he owed somebody a favor, not to see Sam in action again.
'What about jewelry? Has anything been taken?'
'I have no idea. I do not even know what she took abroad.'
Sam got up to interrogate the maid, but then Dr Rewe said, 'Wait, actually, there was something.' Now his high forehead showed waves of wrinkles.
'There was this slip beside my wife. But it may have fallen out of a bag.'
'What slip?' He had seen none next to the body.
'Well, a small strip of paper, with a proverb or something similar written on. It looked like one of those little slips in Chinese fortune cookies, just that it was written by hand.'
'Did you touch it?'
'Well, yes, of course I did.'
Sam apologized and left for the hallway, which was still full of busy people.
Edgar Vargas leaned against the wall and talked to the forensic pathologist. In his hand he held a transparent jacket that contained a slip of paper. Sam approached them straightforward and interrupted. 'I suppose that's the slip which you found near the body?'
Vargas held the plastic jacket dangling before Sam's nose. 'Guessed right. It's German, Polish or whatever, you will certainly tell us now.'
Sam looked at the paper and frowned as he read the lines that were written by hand, using red ink. 'A proverb?'
'If you claim it is, then it might be one', answered Vargas indifferently. 'What does it say indeed?'
Sam returned the jacket with a smile. 'I'm sure your specialists will kindly assist you in finding out.' He turned on his heels and left Vargas baffled.
Was this a trace, which the killer had left, or was this slip not connected to the case at all and had indeed just dropped out of one of the bags? He refused to believe the latter. Sam went again back to the room. Dr. Rewe had not moved from his seat. His eyes were red.
'Tell me, Dr. Rewe, are you also active in research?'
'Not at all.'
'Your wife maybe?'
'No, she was a housewife. Why do you ask, actually?'
'Routine question. Is it possible that your wife was engaging in writing poetry?'
Dr. Rewe looked puzzled at Sam. 'My wife and poetry? Not at all. She spent a fortune on those horrible women's magazines to read articles like, How do I return my husband's money to the cash flow quickly and efficiently…'
Suddenly he lost his patrician demeanor and collapsed like a fragile steel rack, which could not support its own weight anymore. He cried and babbled something about some friends of his wife. And from these final words of Dr. Rewe Sam understood that he had to return to the city, which he had wanted to avoid for all his remaining life.
Hamburg. The city where he had met Lina and where he had buried her.
Carmenza García Alvarez stood trembling before Sam and nervously played with the plastic buttons of her coat. She had been serving now for ten years as a maid and had already seen many things. She had exchanged sheets, which had been stained with blood or other body liquids, had wiped off vomit and uric puddles, had scraped human droppings off the carpets, but she had never entered a room and found a corpse inside.
'Señora, how many times in a day does the staff enter the rooms?'
'Depends. The early shift cleans the rooms, they usually are all ready around midday. The late shift makes the latecomers, brings, according to demand, once again new towels, makes ready the beds for the night and puts a chocolate on the pillows for the guests.'
'The guest of room 34601 had forgotten his card and asked you to open his room …'
There she began to cry and hid her face in her hands, which had apparently got into contact with acid cleaning materials and water for years, for they were shrouded, although the woman was only about 35 years old. She sobbed.
'This is not permitted. They will fire me because of that.'
Sam did not know what to reply. He was sorry for this small woman, who certainly had to supply two or more children at home and would lose her job now because she had done a favor to Dr. Rewe. On the other hand, anyone might get unauthorized access to the rooms this way and offense against security rules must be punished so that such a thing would not happen again.
'The crime happened on the upper floor of the suite. Why did you go up there at all, when you had opened the door?'
'First of all, the guest asked me to check whether the upper minibar had been provided with vodka again. At least I understood so. He hardly spoke Spanish. He said only vodka and pointed upwards. And then I wanted to finish the bed, as I said.'
The sharp small face of the maid, looking a bit like a field mouse, looked anxiously at Sam.
'How did you know that the woman was dead? Wasn't she covered with a sheet?'
'The stare … Señor … It was that stare … I will never forget it.'
Just as Sam would never forget Lina's opened eyes. This stare was also engraved in his memory.
'Did you notice anything else? Have you seen somebody who was staying for a longer time in the corridor? Or somebody who had enquired for specific guests? Anything that seemed peculiar to you?'
'No.' She shrugged and shook her head.
'I suppose you have a room where you keep cleaning things in, towels, sheets and so on?'
'Yes, at the end of each corridor it is.' Her finger pointed beyond Sam.
'Only at night. One must constantly get out towels and bedding, it would be lots of work to lock the door every time.'
Meaning that anybody could take a sheet from the laundry room during daytime and not be noticed.
'Tell me…' Sam lost the thread, because there was noise erupting on the corridor behind.
Two grim-looking officers of the Guardia Civil made their way to the room and soon returned with Dr. Rewe, whose face revealed a trace of panic. He was looking around and searching for help. When he saw Sam, he cried in vigorous voice at the officers, 'No … él! El … no mi.'
Unimpressed, the two Spaniards pushed Dr. Rewe into the elevator.
'Am I getting arrested now? Where are they taking me? Tell these fops that they shall not touch me', he cried at Sam, before the doors shut.
Sam thanked Carmenza and soon after took his turn descending by elevator into the lobby. He wanted to learn about the security measures and see the video records of the hotel. Unfortunately it turned out that his Spanish colleagues had already confiscated all the data files of the recent twenty-four hours. Like it or not, he would have to wait for the copies.
The hotel was buzzing with Guardia Civil officers. They questioned guests and staff, but most of all the doctors from the conference, because the police suspected that the murderer had a solid knowledge of surgical procedures.
Sam took a taxi and followed Dr. Rewe to the police station, to assist the doctor in answering a few more questions about his arrival and what he had done this day. Then he went through all the formalities for sending the corpse to Hamburg and finally he returned to the hotel, together with Dr. Rewe.
When Sam finally fell onto his starched sheets after midnight, it did not even take him two minutes to fall asleep. This was the very first night in which he was too spent to think of Lina.
5.
Düsseldorf 'Don't you think those tits are looking rather unpleasant?' Hannah Steiner thoroughly considered the bedroom wall; hands pressed on her hips. She had taken so much effort with furnishing this house. Most proud she was of the rare commodities which she had acquired from flea markets, antiques markets and even via eBay. Each of the six rooms in this house was furnished in a different style: Moroccan, African, Egyptian, Indian, Japanese, and Louis XV.
The bedroom with its puristic Asian touch was her favorite. Colored silk paintings of geishas and samurais hung on the walls, the doors of the cupboard were made from special rice paper.
'Say that again, honey?' Tits? Harry Steiner thought to have heard wrongly. After all, there had not been any sexual interest between them for years.
'How can you stand looking at these hideous monsters when lying in bed?' She cried out loud, that her husband might hear it even under the shower.
Now the shower was turned off, its door rattled, and Harry stepped perplexed out into the bedroom. He was all wet and had just wrapped a towel around his hips.
'Somehow I don't get it... The shower jet was beating on my head, you know...'
'The tits, mind you! I hate that bird motive on the new wallpaper! Don't these critters look impersonal and clumsy to you? I think I will have the wallpaper torn down again. You are dripping all over the carpet.'
'Oh, I see...' Harry looked down at himself. The carpet beneath his feet had turned dark grey of wetness. Yet he stayed there, ignoring his wife whom still stared at that spot. 'You chose the wallpaper', he reminded her solemnly.
'I failed to notice how depressive those birds are looking', answered his wife.
Harry silently agreed with a short gaze at her sternum and stepped closer to the wallpaper to take a better look, leaving a trace of dark drops behind. 'I find the wallpaper very nice. There's a Japanese flavor about it.'
'For goodness' sake, it is from Japan!' Hannah twisted her eyes at Harry's unworldliness.
They had never traveled much; their vacations had never taken them further than the Alps. Instead she had tried to absorb the world into her home. Harry's comments had been always the same: very nice or lovely, that's how he used to describe everything. But basically he was not interested in any of this. He had his medical practice, he took a flight occasionally to attend some lectures and that was all that she could get out of him.
'Japan? Oh, really. See, I was right.' Harry rubbed his hair dry. 'Those tits are looking just the way tits look, you know. Just normal.'
'No, that's just what they don't.'
'Whatever you say, honey.' Harry retreated to the bathroom again and closed the door a little too energetically.
He wiped the misted mirror and observed himself thoroughly. Well, he had become old. The hairline was ever more receding, he had got small sagging breasts and his belly looked like that of a woman in the fifth month of pregnancy.
He had just begun to shave himself when the humming noise of his shaver was drowned out by something else. There was a persistent boom against the bathroom door.
Was it necessary to vacuum just now outside? He had already considered cutting the cable, so that at least for one week the house would be silent, but then he would have to endure her nagging about any crumb and fluff on the floor, and that would probably have been even worse.
Harry put his shaver aside and left the bath. He followed the black cable of the vacuum cleaner, whose particularly high suction swallowed even the tiniest fluff most noisily, and pulled the plug with a jerk from the outlet.
He went back to the bath, and less than three seconds later, the vacuum cleaner roared again through the bedroom.
Harry tried to ignore it and to think of something else.
A smile spread over his face. Katarin. He pronounced the name softly. For three days he would escape from this madness and drive somewhere else with Katarin. Three calm days in Paris, the city of love.
'How long will you stay at the conference?', he heard his wife calling from behind the door.
'For three days! Enough time for you to redecorate the whole house again.'
He would have liked a divorce; he was fed up so much with this life. Twenty years of marriage was too much for any reasonable person.
'Honestly, that will hardly be enough to remove that wallpaper, select another one and have it applied!'
He opened the bathroom door, stepped over his wife who was kneeling on the floor and squeezing the drops of water out of the carpet and went to his dressing room to pack a few shirts. He grabbed two Ralph Lauren sports shirts as well and placed them carefully into his small suitcase.
'What do you need these sports shirts for?'
Hannah leant with crossed arms at the doorframe and observed his actions. Other people took this as a defensive position, with her; it was an unequivocal sign that she was ready to attack.
'Once you always took me along to these conferences', she said somewhat scornfully.
There it was again. That reproachful voice. 'Yes, once everything was different, honey.'
'What do you mean by that?'
He looked pronouncedly at his watch. 'There's no time to argue with you now. My plane leaves in two hours.'
'What's her name?'
This question was as irritating as the golf ball that had hit him three weeks ago below his eye. For a moment he had been lost in blackness, as if unconscious, yet he had remained standing on his feet, and a colleague had supported him until the colors had returned to his eyes.
'Leave it', he said briskly, yet knew that she would not let go.
'What's her name?'
'None. Now look at me! Do you think any woman would find me attractive? I'm an old man.'
'Oh, there are plenty of women who would find your occupation attractive enough. They wouldn't mind if some old sucker with a heavy paunch were to lie on them. As long as his wallet was sturdily filled.'
Hannah turned and reached again for the vacuum cleaner. She knew for sure that he would not travel alone. For she had rummaged his pockets and found two tickets inside. Men were so silly. When it
really mattered, they failed all along the line.
Katarin Gromova, which was the name of the woman who would accompany her husband to Paris.
6.
Paris When she was twenty-two, Katarin Gromova had assumed a job as an au-pair in Germany; and when she was twenty-three, she had married the first German fool available, so that she would not have to go back to the Ukraine. This marriage lasted two years before she got divorced. She spoke German almost without an accent and of that she was very proud. Only a rolling R occasionally revealed her Ukrainian origin. Her hair was long and blond and her body graceful, keeping it that way did not even take her an effort. No sport, no diets. Her refreshing and uncomplicated attitude allowed her to easily and quickly meet men of any social level, dedicating her attention rather to the wealthier ones though. After all she did not want to repeat the error and marry another poor wretch who could offer her nothing.
Two years before, she had started to study arts, but then lost interest again. Its only benefit was that she still had a student card, which occasionally allowed her to get discounts.
After ending an affair with an actor who had been for her just a piece of bedtime sweets, she had half a year ago acquired a job as a waitress in a café. And it was exactly there, in the city center of Düsseldorf, that her fate was bound to change. There she met Harry Steiner.
Harry had immediately noticed her. But he was shy and reserved and he did not dare to approach her. First he came every third day, then every day, he would order an espresso and water and when he paid, he would add several Euros for a tip. Far too much she thought each time, yet replied with a quiet thank-you and a seductive smile. She had a need for each Euro extra, after all. Eventually they exchanged a few words and finally Harry Steiner summoned the courage to invite her to dinner. She accepted. Then things developed very quickly.
She seduced him, applying all her tricks and since that day he had fallen for her hook, line and sinker. He rented a fancy flat for her, bought her clothes, expensive jewelry and he treated her with respect – like no one had ever done before.