Raven Sisters (Franza Oberwieser Book 2)

by Gabi Kreslehner

  Felix laughed. Then they went their separate ways. Franza to see Frau Brendler, to tell her the latest news, and Felix to see Hansen and ask whether there had, perhaps, been any developments in the search for Hanna.

  43

  “Come,” she said. And I went with her. She looked at me as she had back then. With those eyes. She took my hand and I saw us as children. And I had this longing. I went with her into the bedroom, into her bed. She put her arms around me. She lay behind me and put her arms around me. It was lovely. We used to do that when we were children. When I felt alone after my mother . . .

  I felt a longing—even if it was only for the past.

  “We were happy,” she said. “Back then. Before. We were happy.”

  Really? Were we happy?

  I wonder now. Here in this quiet place, during these early fall evenings, in the prime of my life, so to speak.

  If she was surprised when I turned up at her house that day, she didn’t show it. She let me in, showed me around the house. We ate bread, sausage, cheese. We drank wine, and I thought how all the many years had hardly left a trace. Her eyes were still a gleaming brown like dark, milky coffee. Perhaps she had a little more flesh on her bones, I don’t know. In the center of her brow, between her eyebrows, she had a deep furrow. Fine lines ran from her eyes, and her hair, though still long, was shot through with gray.

  “Don’t you color it?” I asked her.

  Gertrud shook her head. “I’m having it cut off.”

  “Cut off?” I echoed. “What a pity. I can’t imagine you without long hair.”

  We smiled at one another, felt our hearts beating in our throats, and recognized in each other the secrets of the years that we had not witnessed. I thought, Nothing is lost if you carry it inside yourself.

  Evening came, and cool air flowed through the windows into the house. Although the summer was waning, its scents were still in the air. It tasted of damson jelly, elderberry jelly, and the windowpanes reflected a vague light, the last of the day, shimmering in the dusk.

  Eventually we began to talk about back then, about infinity, or what we believed to be infinite back then. We talked about the frenzy in which we found ourselves, about that love that enfolded us with a vehemence we were no match for, which had brought us together but which in truth actually divided us—so craftily and carefully that we didn’t notice it for a long time. Not until it was too late, not until death came to call.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “I don’t know how we could have believed that this love would make us eternal. What a word, anyway. Eternal! What’s it mean? Who would want it? To be eternal. Without end. Only children who know nothing.”

  There was a tremor in my voice. I paused and looked at Gertrud, whose expression was impenetrable. She didn’t contradict me.

  And I thought backbackback, twenty years back, more than twenty years . . .

  The summer had settled in with its luminous colors, the evenings still glowing with that light that flooded the squares and streets, fountains reflecting the sun until it set, a golden disk that shattered when I threw in a coin and wished Tonio would be mine forever.

  “Woe betide you if you don’t make me happy!” I’d said, playfully threatening, dipping my hand in the water and splashing him. Darkness came to the alleyways late. Standing beneath an archway, I decided that I would have a daughter one day, and her name would be Lilli. She would grow up to become a woman, not a creature of seaweed and trinkets, but a woman. When she needed help, I would give it, I decided as I felt Tonio’s breath on my skin. I was certain—God, I was so certain that I already spoke to her in my thoughts, chatted, laughed beneath that archway as Tonio brushed his lips over my neck, the hollows of my shoulder blades. I called her by her name, Lilli, even though she was light-years away, light-years—but at that moment I knew that sometimes dreams did come true.

  Back in Gertrud’s kitchen—drops of jelly on her knee—we talked about love and what we had taken for love back then. I shook my head, said, “No.” That love was not really love, only a brief intoxication—nothing more. An unfortunate chain of unfortunate events. A mistake. Not wishes that had come true, no, never.

  Gertrud didn’t contradict me. We lay on the terrace. It grew cold, and we wrapped ourselves in blankets.

  “Nevertheless, I never again loved anyone like I loved him,” I said. “And I never suffered so much because of anyone else.”

  We wrapped ourselves in blankets and snuggled together. Because after those words we couldn’t go indoors, nor could we look one another in the eye.

  44

  “I don’t know whether Tonio would have been for life,” said Dorothee Brendler. “I don’t think so. But when someone dies at such a young age and in such a way, they become an unattainable legend.”

  Franza was sitting with Dorothee on the terrace beneath the damson tree. The last fruits were falling, rotting. Dorothee had left the hotel and moved into Gertrud and Christian’s house to take care of Moritz. She was needed all the more with Christian in custody.

  The place seemed normal, orderly. The kitchen floor was scrubbed. There was nothing to suggest that this had been the scene of a tragedy. Only the jelly jars, perhaps, which still stood in rows along the shelves, and the silence that lay like a black veil over the garden and over the house.

  “Things seem back in order quickly,” Franza said.

  Dorothee shrugged. “What else could we do? Isn’t it important to get back to normal? To get Moritz back to his life?”

  “Yes, it probably is.”

  “He doesn’t cry,” Dorothee said, and Franza heard the absence of her grandchild’s crying in Dorothee’s own voice.

  “Moritz?” she asked.

  “Yes, Moritz. He doesn’t shed any tears. He doesn’t cry.”

  She shook her head, as though to erase her calmness and elegance, leaving her a person beginning to grieve, facing the ruins of a life she had believed was good.

  “Give him time,” Franza said, although she knew such things were easy to say but difficult to do. “Give yourself time.”

  “Yes. Maybe.”

  “I’ve talked to Lilli,” Franza said. “She told me her mother always lived with a sense of panic about her. As if she didn’t feel secure. As if she and Lilli were threatened by something. What do you make of that?”

  Dorothee shook her head vehemently. “What garbage! What gives the child that notion? And you’re mistaken about Christian. He didn’t kill my daughter. I’d swear to it.”

  “What about Hanna?”

  Another shake of the head. “No. Not Hanna either.”

  “Who, then? What do you think? Do you have any ideas? It must have been someone.”

  She shook her head. “No, I have no idea. Perhaps it was just an ordinary burglar and you’re following completely false trails.”

  Franza was silent for a moment. She knew Dorothee didn’t believe this theory herself, so there was no need to contradict it. Next question.

  “Did you know that Tonio had a son?”

  Dorothee Brendler froze for a fraction of a second, and Franza noticed with surprise that her eye twitched. But it was over in no time, and she looked as she had before.

  “A son? What do you mean?”

  Was Franza mistaken, or was there a tremor in Dorothee’s voice?

  “A son,” she said. “In his thirties. Does that come as a shock to you?”

  Dorothee cleared her throat. “No. No, not a shock. But I’m surprised. No, I didn’t know. A son?”

  “Did you know of any previous relationships of Tonio’s? Before Hanna.”

  Dorothee shook her head. “No. No, I honestly didn’t. I didn’t know him particularly well. I rarely saw him.”

  “What was he like?”

  Dorothee raised her head, gazed into the distance, looked up at the sky. “What was he like?” She smiled. “Well, as I said, I don’t know much, but . . . he was rather . . . unusual. In every respect. Incredibly charming
on the one hand. Very likeable. I can understand how Hanna fell in love with him. But on the other hand . . . he was a very difficult man.”

  Tonio had a fire inside him, a flame that scorched his heart and drove him to ask questions to which he was unable to find answers. Questions that plunged him into a loneliness he was unable to cope with, that tore him apart. His mother had abandoned him when he was ten. She returned to her homeland, to Rome, because Germany was too cold for her, because she was freezing all the time. He still had his father, who did his best. Every summer vacation he sent his son to Italy, where the extended family took him noisily into their arms. When the vacation was over, Tonio would return, warmed through by the sun, tanned—and the girls would secretly sigh with a desire to comfort his unapproachable heart. A heart that remained unapproachable until Hanna opened it up.

  “Perhaps that was what linked them,” Dorothee said. “The fact that they both lost their mothers so early. But this son you speak of. What exactly are you saying?”

  “A young man has turned up,” Franza said. “It seems he’d been trying to make contact with Gertrud. A witness said he had a very strong physical resemblance to Tonio. It’s therefore highly probable that—”

  “Oh my God!” Dorothee started. “Then perhaps he was the one who . . .”

  Her whole body began to shake; she was unable to control it. Franza jumped up.

  “Are you feeling unwell? Can I get you a glass of water?”

  But Dorothee pulled herself back together and waved her away.

  “No, thank you,” she said. “Perhaps you could just leave me in peace now. Perhaps you should go. I’m simply tired. Exhausted. One new discovery after another. As if it weren’t all bad enough already.”

  She turned inward.

  What’s she afraid of? Franza thought. What’s scaring her? And what isn’t she telling me?

  “OK,” she said. “I’ll go now. Thank you for the coffee.”

  Dorothee nodded, but was no longer aware of her presence. Franza left, sensing her own tiredness, the sleep she was lacking. She thought about stopping to see Lilli but dismissed the idea.

  45

  “Nothing,” Hansen said. “Absolutely nothing. The appeal on the evening news yesterday yielded nothing, either. A whole load of calls, but they were all to do with some photos of her in the paper. Not a soul has seen her since she checked out of the hotel. It’s as though a magic spell has been cast.”

  “The perfect disappearance.”

  “Or the second murder victim.”

  “I don’t know,” Felix said. “Somehow I don’t believe that. It wouldn’t fit. If that were the case, we’d have found her body as well. Why would someone kill two women but only remove one body?”

  “Because he was interrupted?”

  “Hm. Possible, yes,” Felix said. “Shit, time’s marching on. Maybe there’s a madman running around out there while we’re just marking time.”

  “Or could it be that Hanna committed the murder? Out of some kind of desire for revenge from the weird love triangle they shared?”

  “Or maybe it really was Rabinsky?”

  They fell into a baffled silence. This damned case was turning into a jumble of disparate threads that refused to be pulled together. Too many people in the frame, too many possibilities, too much obscurity.

  “Belitz is at the end of his tether,” Hansen said. “Rapidly going to pieces. I think he’s got some kind of illness, he looks so green.”

  Felix nodded. “Poor devil.”

  “Maybe his younger woman wore him out,” Hansen said with a grin and a sideways nod.

  Felix laughed. “Come on now, you’re only jealous!”

  His cell phone rang. Arthur. Interpol had been in touch, he said. The Greek authorities were going to fax over the old reports from Tonio’s drowning, and Arthur was in the process of tracking down someone who could translate them from Greek to German. He was also going to check the address of Ernst Köhler, the father of this ill-fated Tonio.

  “Excellent,” Felix said. “Good work.”

  They agreed on a time for a meeting that evening and hung up. Felix glanced at the clock. Already approaching four. His cell phone rang again.

  It was his colleague from the traffic department. They had a shot of Christian Rabinsky. He’d been caught by the speed camera driving back into town at around eighty miles per hour. It was ten minutes after ten. Gertrud had still been alive at that time. He couldn’t be the murderer. He was in luck.

  Felix felt a glow of satisfaction and rose to pass on the good news.

  46

  Herr and Frau Rabinsky. Hardly a picture of happiness. She was lying on a metal table in the coroner’s lab. He was standing outside the court building adjacent to the detention center.

  She had everything behind her. He’d just suffered hours of raging doubts and terror in which he had feared for his future. She had no future at all.

  He looked up into the sky. It was dull, but it still suited him perfectly—his mood was also gloomy, even now that he had his freedom back and his innocence had been proven.

  He’d been fetched from his cell to the telephone. Inspector Herz had been on the line, and he’d told him he could go back to his home and his children. He’d been photographed by a speed camera as he was driving back to town—when Gertrud was still alive. Lucky again, it seemed.

  “Thank you,” Christian had said. “Thank you.”

  He was bewildered and a little surprised that he didn’t feel a hint of pleasure. It would take a while.

  “No problem,” the inspector had said. “We’re only doing our work. We have to follow every lead. I’m sorry it caused you trouble. Take care now. If we need anything else from you, we’ll be in touch.”

  Christian had nodded and stood for a while, the receiver in his hand and the beeping in his ears.

  Yes, he had thought, lucky, lucky again, yes, maybe, maybe a little. Even a little luck is still luck. He suddenly remembered that on his return into town in the darkness that night there had been a quick flash, a brief flicker. Must have been the speed camera, but he hadn’t taken it in, he was so caught up in himself. Now I’ll have to pay a fine, he thought. For the first time in his life, he’d be glad to do so. He couldn’t help smiling briefly and finally feeling a slight sense of pleasure, a slight relief.

  He started walking slowly, eyes still turned to the sky, still gazing into the distance.

  Gertrud would never look anywhere again. She was in the distance, somewhere so far distant it was impossible to imagine—such a wide, faraway distance. She had followed that quiet, delicate tone that suddenly filled the air, that had led her away from her life, that had whispered to her: It’s OK. There’s nothing left to do here. Let yourself go. Let’s fly away.

  They had closed her eyes, and her skin had taken on the pale color that Franza sometimes saw in her dreams, when she would wake and sit up with a start, switch on the light and breathe deeply. She would examine her arms, her legs, her body, checking that the color had not permeated her own skin, before falling back with a sigh and sinking back, relieved, into sleep. No, things had not gotten that far—she was alive. It was a good life, her skin was rosy without a trace of the pallor of death. Those hues were far away on the tables in the coroner’s lab, at the crime scenes, on the corpses.

  47

  It’s my fault, Lilli thought. It’s my fault, because my cell phone wasn’t charged, because I always leave the damn thing lying around and the battery drains. If the battery hadn’t been dead, she would have reached me that night and I would have gone to see her.

  And if she’d done that, her mama could have told her what it was all about, the dreadful thing she’d done. Could have told Lilli what she meant when she spoke into the answering machine—the same sentence she found in the diary. That last sentence followed by nothing, not on the answering machine, nor in the diary: “I’ve done something dreadful.”

  She wasn’t there. When her mama had ne
eded her, she was dancing, letting her hair down a bit, arming herself for the talk with her grandfather.

  What was it? What was the dreadful thing you did, Mama? What could have been so dreadful that you had to die for it? And what does it have to do with Hanna, and with Tonio and why he went into the sea and drowned? And, Mama, who am I?

  Half-truths didn’t satisfy. They only awoke a hunger that gnawed at your insides and stopped you from sleeping.

  48

  Sometimes I can hear myself screaming. In the night. In my dreams. Not often, just now and then. I cry out his name, and he moves out into the water, into the storm, into the darkness. And sinks. Then I feel his cold skin beneath my hand, and the pain that tears me apart. Then I cry out his name, but no one hears me. Then . . . silence.

  “Let the past lie,” Gertrud said. “Let it go!”

  But it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work anymore. It was because of the past that I came back.

  “Did you send me the letter, Gertrud?” I asked her.

  She shook her head and began to shake. Then suddenly Tonio was sitting by us. We felt him, his waiting, his silence. It gave me strength and slowlyslowlyslowly I could begin to think of her, to yearn for her.

  49

  The GPS had found the address effortlessly. Located on the outskirts of town, it wasn’t a very good neighborhood. At least there was parking. Lilli parked and waited, without knowing for what. Just waited. For an idea. For inspiration. Anything. But all that came was a text:

  Let’s get coffee when you’re free. Get in touch. Franza.

  But Lilli didn’t get in touch. Lilli didn’t have time. Lilli was on the trail of the past. She turned her cell phone off.

  She took the note from her purse. Yes, the address was right. The address had been there in the red book. Gertrud had written it down over twenty years ago, and now here Lilli was in front of the apartment building, outside the main door. When someone walked out, she went in, slipping quickly through the gap before the door closed.