by Inge Löhnig
‘It was a deal. He offered her two hundred euros. Franzi demanded five. Cash in advance.’
‘Cash in advance.’ Dühnfort wondered why he was surprised. In some corner of his being, the naivety he’d preserved in order to be capable of this job still lay dormant. ‘So Heckeroth paid. Five hundred. When was that?’
‘At the end of the summer holidays. A few days before school began. Franzi was broke and wanted to buy a few things. Her mum doesn’t earn much.’
Dühnfort contemplated the images that lay before him on the table. ‘But it didn’t go as agreed, did it?’ He didn’t really need Laura to confirm it – the photos spoke volumes.
‘It did at first, Franzi said.’ A faint flush spread across Laura’s face. So she wasn’t quite as cool as she pretended to be. ‘They agreed he’d take pictures of her and he was allowed to tie her up for one of them. But only her arms. He didn’t stop there, though. Franzi couldn’t struggle. He just . . . I mean, he jerked her legs apart and tied them to the bedstead . . . and then he . . . photographed everything.’ Laura bent forwards, scooped up the photos and turned them over.
‘So Heckeroth just took pictures?’
‘Just? That’s more than enough.’
‘So he didn’t exploit Franzi’s vulnerable situation even further?’ Something inside Dühnfort baulked at discussing rape with an eighteen-year-old girl.
Laura twisted her mouth in disgust. ‘Oh, no.’
‘Franzi must have been furious. Did she do anything about it?’
‘What could she have done? Go to the police? She’d taken money for it.’ Laura kept twirling the lock of hair between her fingers. ‘And then hundreds of police officers would have seen those pictures and . . .’ She looked up. ‘Maybe not you. But the others. Franzi didn’t want that.’
‘What did she do instead?’
‘What do you mean, “instead”? She didn’t do anything. The old fart saved the pictures to his computer and put a password on it that Franzi couldn’t crack.’
‘So she tried.’
‘Yeah, duh. Her mum has a key to the apartment.’ Laura let go of her hair and looked him in the eye, as if searching for something. He held her probing gaze. He’d seen it before.
‘She had to delete the images somehow, but she couldn’t . . . she was desperate. The old bastard tried to blackmail her. He threatened to upload the photos to the school website if she didn’t . . .’
‘If she didn’t what?’
‘Ugh, it’s so gross. That fucking Viagra should be banned.’
*
His mobile rang as he reached the car. Tucked behind the windscreen wiper was a ticket. Dühnfort stuck it in his coat pocket and got into the car. Only then did he pick up the phone. It was Meo. ‘I found a Trojan on Heckeroth’s computer. Want to see?’
‘I’m on my way into the office already. Be there soon.’ He drove back through the worsening commuter traffic, parked in his usual spot and went up to Meo’s lab.
Heckeroth’s PC was on the work surface. Meo sat in front of the monitor. A half-eaten energy bar lay next to the keyboard, several empty paper cups with dried coffee rings were perched perilously on the edge of the desk, and a fresh cup was in Meo’s hand. He looked up as Dühnfort entered. ‘Not daft, this one.’ Meo gestured at the screen. ‘The person who did this knows their way around a computer. Want to take a look?’
Dühnfort positioned himself behind Meo, who finished his coffee, tucked the cup into an already empty one and reached for the mouse. ‘Awesome work. Definitely not done by her, though. This was a pro. See here.’ Meo opened the email inbox and hovered the mouse over an email with the subject OK, fine. With a double click he opened it. It came from Franziska.
OK, fine, if I have to. But not until the autumn break, and not here. What do you think of this place? You can tell them I’m your granddaughter.
www.serenahotel.de
Meo looked up. ‘The link goes to a hotel website, but it’s fake. There’s actually a Trojan hidden on there, and it installed a keylogger on Heckeroth’s PC.’
‘What’s that, a keylogger?’
‘A programme that registers keystrokes.’
‘Franziska figured out the password that way?’
‘Yeah. But she definitely had help. You’d have to be a proper techno-freak to do this.’
‘And? Did it work?’
Meo shrugged. ‘I assume so. The pictures were deleted, after all. Oh yeah, and the log files were untouched in the depths of the system. It happened on Monday 6 October at precisely 10.11 p.m.’
Dühnfort pondered for a moment. Franziska must have confided in somebody else besides Laura. Somebody who didn’t simply know their way around a computer but had the skills of a hacker. If she’d found out the password this way, all she had to do was wait for Heckeroth to go out, take the key without her mother’s knowledge and slip in to delete the images. In which case she’d have no reason to attack Heckeroth for the password. But perhaps it hadn’t worked, and Franzi and her hacker friend had turned violent.
‘Can you find out whether the keylogger worked?’
Meo glanced at the clock. ‘Sure. Probably won’t be going home tonight.’
*
Darkness was falling as Caroline finished revising the budget. Lights began to shimmer outside the office windows, the deep-black sky stretching across the city. She closed the laptop, ended her work day and left the office. She was greeted by an icy wind as she stepped through the revolving doors. It ruffled her hair and got under her coat, bringing tears to her eyes. She hurried to her car and drove home.
Hardly had she sat down in the car before she remembered Katja’s message, which she’d been repressing all day long: Bertram hadn’t shot himself. Somebody had killed him. On the one hand she had felt relief – she wasn’t to blame for his death because she’d left him in the lurch. On the other hand, she’d been gripped by horror. Somebody had killed Bertram. Who? Why? Katja suspected he’d been blackmailing someone.
The brake lights of the car in front of her lit up. Caroline stopped. The ring road was crammed again, and they were crawling along at a snail’s pace.
Bertram, a blackmailer? She found herself thinking he was more than capable of it, just as she believed he’d been capable of killing Dad. I’m a horrible person, she told herself, disloyal and unfeeling. I always suspect the worst. Though Albert had told her on Friday that there was evidence against Bertram, so seemingly he too believed him capable of murder and blackmail. But whom could he have been blackmailing? He knew lots of people in the construction industry, and that was famously corrupt. Maybe Bertram had used information gleaned from there.
Caroline felt a headache coming on. The driver in the car in front honked his horn, and the lights turned red again.
After Katja’s call, she’d spoken to Gina Angelucci. Caroline’s objection – that Bertram would never let himself be shot without a fight – had been dismissed. Bertram had been drugged. He was unable to struggle! At least he hadn’t known what . . . Caroline rubbed her forehead. A car beeped behind her; the lights were green.
It seemed like her family was imploding. A destructive force turned in on itself. And all at once she was afraid that it originated within the family itself. Maybe within her father, the master manipulator, the cuckolded husband, the man obsessed with power over women.
Caroline crossed the junction at Luise Kiesselbach Platz. After that the jam cleared as if by a miracle. Ten minutes later she entered her apartment, feeling utterly alone. If only Marc were here . . . but he was in Budapest until Thursday.
She changed her clothes, part of her evening ritual. Then Caroline lit a fire in the hearth and sat down with a glass of wine, a ham sandwich and her mother’s diary. Silence hissed in her ears. Caroline reached for the remote control. Christian Brandenbourg’s CD was still in the machine – at the mere press of a button, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons filled the room.
Caroline opened the diary at the marked page. Pete
r is dead! Her mother had written no more than that. The following pages, however, were densely covered in the familiar handwriting.
We were having dinner when he mentioned it. Quite casually. He shovelled a forkful into his mouth, chewed and looked at me. I’ll never forget that on the day Peter died, the day my life plunged from Heaven into Hell, we had beef roast and dumplings. He swallowed his mouthful, gulped down some beer and said: Brandenbourg died this afternoon. I didn’t catch the rest. I only saw his mouth, opening and closing and making sounds I didn’t understand. Some sauce on his chin. Wolfi’s gesticulating hands. His gaze, nailing me to the chair. Almost. But then his hands pulled me up and into the bedroom. He demanded the usual marital obligations again. None of it mattered.
What! None of it mattered? She was always so passive, always letting things just happen, never fighting them. Passionless, bloodless. Was this when it had started, after Peter’s death? Had nothing mattered to her since then? Caroline drew her feet up onto the armchair. Certainly she had her father to thank for her ambition and willingness to act.
Caroline skimmed further, but could find no indication of how Peter had died. Had it been an accident? Afterwards her mother had returned to the straight and narrow road her life, thoughts, actions and emotions had followed, each signpost at the edge of the grey asphalt marking another step towards the end, while beside it paths snaked through fields full of promise, branching off, leading into the unknown. Having strayed off the road once, how could she have borne it?
Caroline got up and went over to the window. A faint reflection of herself. Beyond it, the night was a dark cave. The first movement of the ‘Autumn’ concerto sounded, the notes round and full, reminding Caroline of heavy pumpkins, scented apples, earthy potatoes and falling leaves. Why had she never been to Africa? It was the continent she’d longed for, yet so far she’d avoided it like a no-go area in New York.
She turned round, took her laptop out of her bag, which was still in the hall, sat down at her desk and plugged in the internet cable. After five minutes she’d found Christian Brandenbourg’s address and telephone number. He’d known her mother. True, he’d been a teenager at the time, but perhaps he still remembered her. What had she been like?
On the spur of the moment, Caroline dialled the number. It switched to voicemail on the third ring. A pleasantly dark male voice asked her to leave a message.
‘Good evening, Mr Brandenbourg. My name is Caroline Heckeroth. I’m not sure if that means anything to you. When you were a boy, you knew my mother. I’d like to chat to you about her. If you’re interested and you have time, please give me a call.’ She reeled off her telephone number, then hung up.
*
Babs sat at the kitchen table, wondering at the sense of peace that had overcome her. Avenging Fury or tolerant wife – both were irrelevant. She’d been worried about being forced into one of those roles, but that wasn’t the choice before her. The drama was unfolding on a different stage, one where the woman he wanted for a proper fuck was a bit-part at best. It wasn’t about Margret Hecht, and it wasn’t about Albert being unfaithful.
He’d asked her to buy coffee, and she’d told him she was about to do the shopping. So he’d known when she would show up at the practice. Only one conclusion could be drawn from his behaviour: he’d deliberately engineered the situation. He’d wanted her to catch him with his receptionist. It was a deliberate infliction of pain and humiliation. The problem wasn’t that he was screwing another woman, it was that he didn’t love his wife. Which made things easier.
Babs stood up, boiled a pot of tea and went back to working on the more detailed design. She was astonished when Albert came back home at six. She’d expected him later, if at all. The door swung shut, and she thought, if he comes in here with roses I’m going to slap his face.
‘Babs. Pet,’ he called, entering the kitchen. Again he wore that rueful, hangdog expression; again he smiled at her. ‘Don’t be cross, now. I can explain.’
Oh, really? ‘What is there to explain? You needed a proper fuck. And it looked exactly like a man would understand that concept. But clearly you needed an audience to get properly into it.’
‘Don’t be so sarcastic. I’m sorry.’
‘For what? Having an affair with that girl or making sure I caught you?’
He flinched. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you. I said I’m sorry.’
He couldn’t possibly be so naïve as to think that those weak little words would fix everything. But Babs had decided not to fight with him. It was pointless. What he’d done spoke volumes about his feelings and the state of their marriage. She leaned against the fridge door, wondering how to tell him she was leaving.
He pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket. ‘Movie tickets for tonight. And after that we’ll have a nice dinner.’
Barely two weeks ago, on the Wednesday after their ruined anniversary, she’d picked up Albert at the practice and they’d gone to the cinema. Much Ado About Nothing. She remembered all too well how shocked she’d been at a verse recited in the opening credits. ‘Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.’
Babs couldn’t help laughing. Nothing could express her primal fear better than those lines. And now she’d been handed evidence of their profound truth. Two weeks ago, her biggest worry had been that her marriage might fail. Now it had. ‘The fraud of men was ever so, since summer first was leafy,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Shakespeare. Much Ado About Nothing. Remember?’
Albert put the cards on the kitchen table and came towards her. His face wore a smile of relief; evidently he’d misunderstood. He tried to hug her. She drew back. He stopped, confused.
‘Albert. There’s no point. Every time you build something up, you tear it down again. I don’t know why you do it, but it spoils everything. It’s best you spend a few days at your dad’s apartment. We need some space.’
He took a step back. ‘I see. You’ve been planning this. Are my bags already packed?’ He actually went over to the kitchen door and glanced into the hall before returning. ‘I don’t need space. I need you. You’re my wife.’
‘And you think that means I have to put up with everything. Like your mother!’
Albert wouldn’t be drawn. He rubbed a hand across his face. ‘You said it yourself. Men can’t be faithful.’ Again he tried to put on his innocent, little-boy face, but couldn’t quite manage it. Something else appeared instead. Fear. And she felt a twinge.
‘I didn’t mean that.’ Babs remained by the fridge. ‘You wanted me to see.’
‘No . . . maybe. I don’t know.’ He stared at his hands. ‘Since Mum’s death . . . I don’t know, the family’s falling apart . . . it’s like a hurricane. At first everything was still. And now . . . it’s tearing us along with it, destroying everything.’ He raised his eyes. Beseechingly. ‘Don’t leave me.’
She took his hand. ‘Do you think I want us to split up? But we can’t go on like this. Over the last few days you’ve been living more at your dad’s flat than here anyway. A bit of space will do us good, so that we can patch things up again. OK?’
His eyes shone with conflicting feelings. Dismay. Anger. Astonishment. Then his mouth took on a resigned expression. He let go of her hand. ‘All right. Everything’s a mess. Why not this too? And I’m selling the practice, by the way.’
‘What? Why?’
‘We can move into Dad’s apartment and live off the rental income.’
‘And what are you going to do, retire?’
‘Why not?’
‘At forty-one?’
He shrugged.
Was this the next battle front opening up? Babs decided to steer clear. His plan was absurd. Even if they lived rent-free in the apartment, the rental income was just barely enough to cover the mortgage and the running costs of the building. Anything left over wouldn’t be enough to feed a family of four. And anyway, it would ha
ve to be split between Wolfram’s inheritors.
‘I’ll pack a few things.’ He got up and left the kitchen. Babs sat down and listened to the noises coming from the bedroom. A hurricane. Beginning with his mother’s death. Until today she’d thought it was his father’s killing that had knocked Albert off balance, driving him to this destructive behaviour. She’d had no idea how much his mother’s death had affected him.
*
‘Me again,’ said Dühnfort, as Laura Kemper opened the door.
‘Well observed.’ She couldn’t resist a smile. ‘What now?’
‘Just one question. Did Franzi have a friend or a boyfriend who was good with computers, one who could go deep into an operating system and had programming skills?’ The clattering of pots and pans could be heard from the kitchen, the smell of ginger and vegetables wafting through the open door into the stairwell.
‘Has the old man been trying it on with other girls?’
‘I hope not. He’s dead, anyway.’
‘Heckeroth’s dead?’ It genuinely seemed to be news to her.
‘Somebody cracked the password to his computer. Franzi, I suspect. But she must have had help. Who could it have been?’
‘Was he murdered?’
Dühnfort nodded.
‘But Franzi can’t have had anything to do with it. She’s been in hospital for two weeks.’
‘Listen, I can’t explain it now, and in any case I’m not allowed to. I’m looking for a friend of Franziska’s who’s good with computers. Is there anybody like that?’
Laura thought it over. ‘Well, she didn’t have any boyfriends.’
A door squeaked in the apartment. A woman called: ‘Laura, dinner’s ready.’
She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Coming.’ Then she turned back to Dühnfort. ‘Sorry.’
‘And in her class or at school, there must be someone who could do it?’
She shrugged. ‘Only Olav. He’s a bit of a nerd, a total social outcast. But I doubt Franzi would have asked him . . .’
‘Who knows? In an emergency . . . could you give me his name and address?’
‘Olav Pongratz. He lives with his nan in Agnesstraße. Don’t know the building number, but it’s above a computer shop. I noticed because it seemed so apt.’