by B C Schiller
4
Olivia’s office was in a renovated nineteenth-century house in Vienna’s Ninth District. From her window she had a wonderful view over a small park and during her lunch breaks would often sit and watch people enjoying themselves out there. Today, however, Olivia spent her break thinking about Jonathan and his connection with the dead girl, Lisa. She had tried drawing her patient out with gentle probing, but without much success. Scrolling through various online pieces about the horrific murder of the young girl, she came across the name of a journalist she knew.
‘Anna wrote a whole feature on the case,’ Olivia muttered to herself. Grabbing her phone she called Anna’s number, but her mobile was off so she tried the office. ‘I’d like to speak to Anna Hauser, the crime reporter?’
‘I’m sorry, but Frau Hauser is not at her desk at the moment,’ the girl from the switchboard said.
‘Any idea where I could find her?’ Olivia asked.
‘I’m not sure she’s available,’ the girl said with some hesitation.
‘It’s urgent,’ Olivia said. ‘I’m a good friend.’
‘OK then . . .’ the girl replied reluctantly. ‘Well, normally she has her lunch in the Schöne Perle.’
Olivia looked at her watch. It was nearly one o’clock and her next client wasn’t due for another three hours, so she had enough time to cycle to the Second District. It was worth a try at least. Rushing out of the office, she hopped on her bike and set off.
Chaining her bike to a lamp post in front of the pub, Olivia walked the few steps towards the entrance. Fashionably furnished with retro 1960s furniture, the Schöne Perle was a popular place, although to Olivia’s eyes it looked a little like a railway station. Looking around, she immediately spotted Anna sitting at one of the long wooden tables, reading a newspaper.
‘Hi, Anna,’ Olivia said, not waiting for an invitation to sit.
‘Olivia! What are you doing here?’ Anna looked pleased, one hand pushing her longish hair from her face. The two women had been at university together, and then had met up again following the death of Anna’s mother. Since then, their acquaintance had deepened into a close friendship.
Olivia came quickly to the point. ‘I need some information.’
‘Yes, of course, if I can help you. What’s it about?’
‘Five years ago you wrote an article about the murder of Lisa Manz.’
‘Yes, I remember,’ Anna said, looking serious. ‘It was all over the papers. They never caught the murderer. That was the story that made my name as a journalist. Didn’t it happen around the same time as the tragedy in your own family?’
‘Maybe,’ Olivia replied vaguely. ‘Tell me about the case.’
‘Why do you want to know about it?’ Anna looked at Olivia sharply.
‘A client of mine mentioned Lisa Manz in a session,’ Olivia said.
‘One of your clients? How peculiar. Did he have anything to do with the case at the time?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘What’s his name?’ Anna’s journalistic curiosity was clearly piqued.
‘I can’t tell you that. Anyway, I’m just interested. The only articles I can find online are pretty superficial, so I thought you might be able to give me a few more details. Your pieces were more in-depth than the others.’ Olivia’s compliment was deliberate.
‘Lisa was the daughter of the surgeon, Richard Manz, and Theresa Manz, who used to be an actress.’
‘I read that. Do you have anything else on Lisa?’
‘She had behavioural problems and had been in psychiatric institutions several times. She was sectioned again after a more serious incident.’
‘What kind of incident?’
‘She attacked someone, but that’s just between you and me. I got the information from one of my contacts. Everyone else at the time hid behind privacy and data protection laws.’
‘Understandably. A well-known family like that doesn’t want their daughter’s mental health problems splashed all over the papers,’ Olivia said.
‘You’re probably right, but the case was far more complicated and mysterious than that.’ Anna leaned across and whispered conspiratorially, ‘Lisa disappeared from the secure ward of the clinic, but it wasn’t noticed for several days. They never called the police.’
‘No way!’ Olivia shook her head. The psychiatric clinic where she worked part-time also had a secure ward. It would be impossible to simply disappear from there. ‘Someone must have helped her.’
‘There were no signs. Nobody seemed to have noticed a thing.’ Anna shrugged. ‘A week later Lisa’s body was found in the Burgenland, in the quarry at Sankt Margarethen, burned beyond all recognition. Tragically, many years before, her mother played the title role in Medea in Sankt Margarethen.’
‘Did the parents identify her?’ Olivia hesitated to ask. She tried to imagine what it must have been like for the parents to see the charred body of their child. An absolute horror.
‘That was not necessary . . . nor possible. The police had to resort to dental records, which proved beyond doubt that the dead girl was Lisa Manz.’
‘So the poor girl was burned to death. When I looked her up, I found that the search for the murderer went nowhere.’
‘You can say that again.’ Anna looked appalled. ‘Someone called a halt to the investigation, if you ask me, but how can you prove something like that? There was a special unit on the case to begin with, but after a few dead ends the search was abandoned.’
‘Were there any suspects or promising leads?’
‘Of course there were a few suspects, but nothing led anywhere.’
‘What makes you think the investigation was halted?’ Olivia asked.
‘Well, nobody bothered to find out how she managed to escape from the secure ward, and nobody seemed interested either in where she spent the days leading up to her death. Not even her own parents.’
‘Seriously? They didn’t want to know what had happened to their daughter?’
‘She was a difficult girl – maybe they were glad she’d disappeared from their lives. Anyway, that was my gut feeling. A strange couple. A former actress and her husband, a surgeon who seemed to show no feeling at all,’ Anna said.
‘Do you have any idea where Lisa was hiding after her escape?’
‘One of my contacts on the drug scene said she stayed for a short time in an empty property.’
‘Who led the investigation?’ Olivia asked.
‘The chief inspector of the murder squad was a man called Levi Kant,’ Anna said. ‘I interviewed him at the beginning of the investigation. He seemed confident that he’d catch the perpetrator without too much trouble.’
‘How wrong he was.’
‘You can say that again.’ Anna smiled. ‘Levi used to keep me informed on homicide cases. He was a stubborn and persistent man who never gave up and I think he was close to catching the perpetrator.’
‘Do you think I could talk to him?’ Olivia got out her notebook to write down the name: Levi Kant.
‘He’s not with the murder squad any more,’ Anna said.
‘Was he transferred?’
‘No.’
‘Is he retired?’
‘He could have taken early retirement, but instead he asked for a transfer to the police academy. It’s been a long time since I last heard from him.’
‘You said he was very close to solving the case. How come it didn’t happen?’
‘He was shot while arresting another criminal. He was in a coma for weeks and nearly died. Once he’d recovered, he never returned to the murder squad. After that the special unit was disbanded, and nobody cared about the Lisa Manz case any longer.’
‘And you didn’t find that suspicious?’ Olivia asked Anna in surprise. She knew what a conscientious journalist her friend was.
‘Obviously, we all had our theories that someone at the top had put a stop to the investigation. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that the Lisa Manz case went cold �
�� like so many others.’
5
The old man shuffled through the living room and spread both arms. ‘Flora! At last you’re back! I’ve missed you so much.’ His wrinkly face was beaming, and the corners of his eyes were moist. ‘Flora,’ he whispered.
‘Papa, it’s me. Olivia, your daughter.’ She embraced her father and carefully led him back to his armchair. Olivia was not surprised at the greeting. Aside from the fact that her father was suffering from Alzheimer’s she had inherited her Brazilian mother’s looks – as well as her temperament.
‘Olivia?’ Her father raised his eyebrows in surprise and cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, it was only a dream. I nodded off. I mistook you for her.’
‘Of course you did, Papa.’ Tenderly Olivia stroked her father’s face, then she sat down on the arm of his chair. Leopold Hofmann was in his late sixties and, until five years ago, had worked as a psychiatrist in private practice in Vienna, until Alzheimer’s set in and he became more and more confused. Eventually he’d had to give up work.
At the time Michael and Juli had just disappeared and Olivia had been at the lowest point of her life.
How often she thought of that day.
She’d come home from work earlier than usual and was looking forward to giving Juli her surprise.
‘Where’s my present, Mummy?’ Juli had shouted, clapping her hands with joy and jumping up and down until her little face went pink.
‘Daddy has your surprise. Come on quickly to the bathroom now, and after your bath you can put on your lovely pink frilly dress.’
She’d gone into the living room and stopped short at the sight of her husband, Michael, lying on the sofa, staring into the distance with glazed eyes.
‘Is everything OK? Did you get the present for Juli? You know, the blonde Barbie with the red raincoat?’
‘Everything’s OK. I just had a headache and a few black thoughts,’ Michael said.
‘Please, pull yourself together for once. Let’s just be a happy family today,’ Olivia said.
‘Promise. We belong together forever, my darling.’ He got up from the sofa and gave her a fleeting peck on the cheek.
‘We belong together forever.’ The sentence still echoed around Olivia’s head. How often had she wondered whether she’d overlooked something in Michael’s behaviour. As a psychiatrist, should she have noticed anything?
Her father mumbled a few words, bringing her back to the present. He was the only family she had left and she didn’t want to lose him as well. For that reason, a nursing home was not an option. Maybe it was selfish, but she wanted Leopold to stay in his own house.
‘Have you taken your medication?’ Olivia asked. She knew from experience that medical people never followed medical advice.
‘Of course.’ Leopold nodded and got up as quickly as he could. On his good days, he was a handsome man, with his grey hair, weathered face and blue eyes. ‘Three blue ones daily, and a white one in the evening. The yellow one in the morning. I’m not suffering from dementia yet.’ He smiled at her conspiratorially.
‘Oh, Papa!’ Olivia sighed and went into the kitchen to heat up a frozen meal in the microwave. As the nurse only stayed until early afternoon, Olivia had disconnected the electric hob, the oven and the water heater. It prevented Leopold from injuring himself or inadvertently setting the flat on fire.
‘It happened again today,’ Olivia said when they sat down to dinner.
‘What did?’ Her father forked through his spaghetti without much enthusiasm.
‘I got another postcard.’
‘How lovely. From Flora?’
‘Mama is dead!’ Olivia said with unusual anger. She regretted it immediately when she saw the tears well up in her father’s eyes.
‘That’s so very sad,’ Leopold said. ‘Flora is dead. I won’t talk about her any more.’
‘What I wanted to say,’ Olivia started again, ‘was that I received a postcard from Marrakech today. Nonsense, only the picture was of Marrakech,’ she corrected herself. ‘Somebody wanted to remind me of that day five years ago. You know what I mean.’
‘Five years ago to the day since my granddaughter Juli disappeared. You didn’t look after her properly,’ Leopold said. He pushed the spaghetti around his plate. The food was cold already.
‘Not exactly top-notch cuisine, is it?’ Olivia got up to take the plates to the kitchen.
‘We share the same fate,’ she heard her father mumble from the living room. ‘Suddenly our loved ones disappear and here we are, all alone.’
‘There’s no comparison. You led a wonderful life with Mama, but I had only a few years of happiness.’ Olivia knew there was no sense in arguing with her father. Her mother had been so full of verve and energy that her sudden death from a stroke six years earlier had been a complete shock from which her father had never recovered. And now he was ill and spending more and more time in a world of his own.
Olivia helped her father lie down on the sofa and watched him take the right tablets. The depressing scene reminded her again of Jonathan and the conversation about the murdered Lisa Manz. According to Jonathan, the girl had once stayed at the psychiatric clinic where Olivia herself worked two days a week. Her father had also worked there at one time. It was peculiar how similarly their careers had developed.
On the off-chance that he might remember her, she asked, ‘Papa, do you happen to recall a girl called Lisa Manz? She was in your clinic for treatment. Probably about five years ago. You should know her, really. Does the name ring a bell?’
But her dad seemed to have drifted off into his own world again, because there was no reaction. Instead, with trembling hands, he turned on the DVD of an old film by Werner Herzog, where Klaus Kinski pulls a large boat up a steep hill. Leopold had seen this film about a hundred times before but even so he was always fascinated by the story and he concentrated on it as if it were the first time. He particularly loved the scenes showing the mighty Amazon River, which he’d often travelled up with Flora.
Olivia had put on her coat and was giving her father a quick kiss on the cheek, when he grabbed her arm and whispered, ‘Of course I know Lisa Manz. She was a very sad and very difficult girl.’
6
That night, Olivia tossed and turned, her sleep disturbed by dreams of Lisa Manz. She’d found only a single photo of Lisa on the Internet, but couldn’t imagine this gentle-faced, elfin girl with the dreamy eyes as being difficult. But then photos could be deceptive, as Olivia knew all too well.
‘It’s not what you’re thinking.’ Lisa’s gentle voice invaded her dreams, her fingers tenderly stroking Olivia’s head. ‘Please help me.’
‘But you’re dead,’ Olivia answered.
‘Who knows?’ Lisa answered sadly. Then she offered Olivia her hand and they walked together through a dark and dingy house, empty and ready for demolition, where two bicycles were leaning against a wall. ‘We need to look for him,’ Lisa said, mounting one of the bikes.
‘Who are we looking for?’
‘Wait and see. We’ll confront him and find out all the answers.’
Olivia jumped on her saddle, and they sped off through the dark city streets.
‘Where are we going to look for him?’ Olivia asked.
‘In his favourite place,’ Lisa answered. Suddenly she burst into flames, turning into a column of fire.
Olivia woke with a start, her heart pounding. She was still caught up in the dream and the image of Lisa burning.
Unable to go back to sleep, she got up and went over to her desk, then began to write down everything she remembered. Jonathan had claimed that Lisa had returned, but the girl had been burned beyond all recognition – she could not possibly have survived. But what if everything was different from how it seemed?
In the morning, Olivia felt drained and considered cancelling her appointment with Jonathan, but then remembered the panic in his eyes – he needed her. With a sigh she set up the coffee machine and went to have a cold shower. Fin
ally, after two strong espressos, she felt better and got on her bike.
The block of flats where Jonathan Stade lived was outside the Inner Ring, in the Tenth District of Favoriten. It looked shabby. The windows of the shop on the ground floor were boarded up, and even the neon sign had been removed, although one could still see ‘Hosiery’ written on the grey wall.
She was walking towards the entrance when a top-floor window ripped open and Jonathan’s head appeared. He leaned outside with such a jerk that his flat cap fell off and sailed downwards.
‘Hi, Jonathan,’ Olivia called to him. ‘Here I am.’
Jonathan immediately disappeared into the room behind, as if Olivia’s voice had frightened him.
‘I’m coming up now,’ Olivia called anyway, but got no reply.
In the flat upstairs someone uttered a loud cry. It was Jonathan’s voice. The morning sun shone brightly on the front of the house and Olivia had to shade her eyes to see more clearly. Jonathan was again leaning out of the window, stammering and confused. Olivia couldn’t make any sense of it.
‘Stay calm, Jonathan,’ Olivia called up to him. ‘I’m coming.’
Jonathan froze for a moment, his long hair whipped upwards by a gust of wind, making it appear from below as though smoke was rising from his shrivelled head.
‘Jonathan, what’s the matter?’
‘Help!’ Jonathan shouted. ‘They want to take the rucksack.’
‘Who wants to do that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jonathan seemed to want to say something else, but then he suddenly disappeared inside.
‘Jonathan, close the window and count to a hundred!’ Olivia shouted. Jonathan was in crisis. If he broke down now, it could have very bad consequences, Olivia thought.
Suddenly, Jonathan was standing on the window ledge, swaying as he stared down, his arms waving. There was a shadow behind him. Olivia wasn’t sure, but it could have been a hand giving him a push. For a couple of seconds Jonathan wobbled, desperately trying to keep his balance, until slowly, inevitably, he fell. Olivia froze. She could neither cry nor move. She stared as Jonathan’s body spun once. She saw his wide-open eyes. The mouth forming the word ‘Lisa’. A fraction of a second later he crashed to the concrete. A pool of blood spread quickly under his head, glistening in the sunlight.