‘You sound funny. You gotta flu?’ The girl drew back, fear creeping into her eyes. ‘That you Ka– ?’
‘No.’ Lauren returned to her normal voice. ‘I’m a friend of hers though.’
She looked the girl up and down. Checked the landing again. Didn’t seem like a trap. And after all, why would it be. Get a grip. ‘You better come in.’
She held the door wide and after a moment’s hesitation the girl slunk past. She slid along the opposite wall keeping as much distance between herself and Lauren as was possible in the narrow hallway.
‘Do you normally pay calls so late?’ said Lauren.
‘Huh?’
‘It’s after three o’clock.’
‘Katti don’ mind. She here?’ The girl’s accent was thick, her German fractured. As she peered into the bedroom, her features sharp, her face wary, Lauren recognised her.
‘Ah, you’re... I saw you earlier, didn’t I? This evening? Going downstairs? With a man?’
The girl drew herself in, managing to make herself look skinnier than ever. She wore a three-quarter length leather coat over a short skirt, and boat-like stilettos.
‘Have you been out all night like that? You must be freezing.’ God, I sound like my mother, Lauren thought.
The girl looked down at herself and shrugged. ‘I come see Katti. She not here?’
‘No, er, look... come and sit down.’ Lauren led the way to the living room. Squeezing between the chaise longue and the table, she sat down, patting the other end of the chaise in encouragement.
Alina’s limbs stuck out like a stick-insect’s as she lowered herself to the worn upholstery.
‘Katti seems to be missing,’ Lauren said. ‘You don’t know where she is, do you?’
The girl’s eyes widened. ‘Me? No! What happen?’
‘I don’t really know myself. She was meant to be here because I’ve come to visit her. But she’s not.’ Lauren trailed off. It sounded ridiculous put like that.
The girl said nothing, her eyes round with fear.
Lauren watched her. What was she frightened of?‘I’m Lauren by the way.’ She extended her hand. ‘Your name’s... Alina, did you say? You a good friend of Katti’s?’
Alina sucked her lower lip into her mouth and shrugged.
‘Well, have you known her long?’
‘Since I come here.’ She lowered her head, peering up at Lauren from under her brows as if expecting to be chastised.
‘You live in this building?’
Alina nodded. ‘Next apartment.’
Lauren eyed the girl up and down. ‘So, you pop round for coffee in the middle of the night, eh?’ Katti tended towards the unusual in her acquaintances but this waif was against type even for her.
‘Katti help me, sometimes. I wish to tell her...’
‘What?’
Alina folded her arms across her narrow chest and tilted her head. Lauren waited but she said nothing more.
‘So, where are you from? Have you been in Germany long?’
‘Couple months.’ The girl chewed the inside of her of mouth, her eyes evasive.
‘And you’ve no idea where Katti might be? When did you last see her?’
Alina sprang to her feet. ‘I dunno.’ She gathered her awkward limbs together and shot to the door. ‘I dunno nothink. Please. I sleep now.’
Taken aback, Lauren remained on the chaise staring after her. When the heavy front door thumped shut, she got up, relocked it, and went thoughtfully back to bed.
‘What’s going on, Katz?’ she said aloud. Her words seemed to hang in the silence and though she listened intently, no whisper of a reply floated back.
Seven
Lauren wound the shutters up early next morning and looked out on the still sleeping town. Snow lay across the cobbles like a rumpled bedspread. Pools of light spilled around the lampposts and the street was dark and silent. She loved Nuremberg. Had done ever since that very first visit when she was sixteen. She loved the mediaeval buildings, the open squares, the old bridges over the river Pegnitz – and she loved the people.
There was a golden ring attached to a fountain in the market square. Local legend had it that if you turned the ring three times and made a wish, that wish would come true. Well, the legend was spot on as far as Lauren could see. The first time she turned that golden ring on the Schönen Brunnen, she’d wished fervently to visit Nuremberg again – and sure enough, she’d been back year after year ever since. Taken the magic a bit longer to work this time, that’s all.
She stretched and yawned, achy and tired from her disturbed night. She’d tossed about trying to get comfortable again after Alina left, trying to figure out what was going on. As she stood at the frosty window, waiting for the coffee to brew, she felt a rush of unease. Where are you Katz? Sure, Katti was unreliable sometimes, but it really wasn’t like her to go off when she was expecting visitors. Not when she was expecting me.
Katti was an artist, a bohemian. Her mother was Hungarian –‘A Gypsy,’ Katti said – and her father was Helmut Hartmann, the travel entrepreneur. A wealthy man now, he had abandoned his wife, Clara, when Katti was a year old. Clara went on to marry Wolf’s father, who died in an accident ten years later.
Katti had spoken of her father disparagingly when she was in her teens. ‘You see him in the papers,’ she said once. ‘You see him strutting on TV. He thinks he’s a rock star.’ But Lauren knew she’d met up with him again when she was in her twenties and presumably they’d kept in touch ever since. According to Wolf, her father owned this building.
Ooh! Katti by name, catty by nature, Lauren joked. But it wasn’t true. She was generous to a fault, Katti, and full of life, with a heart as big as the world and twice as loving. Irritating, manipulative and self-serving, perhaps, but that didn’t matter. She was Katti.
Taking her coffee to the living room, Lauren perched on the chaise longue. Katti’s disappearance and the maniacs in the Merc couldn’t be connected. Why would they be? The two events had simply lined up like stars in the sky, apparently together but in reality light years apart. From such coincidences, she thought, are conspiracy theories made.
She gazed around the room, as if the faded wallpaper could give her some clues, as if the answer to her questions would be revealed in the dusty furniture and bric-a-brac. No – the idea that someone had it in for Katti and her brother made no sense at all.
She noticed a silver ring lying on a side table and picked it up, smiling. She was wearing one exactly the same. She and Katti bought them for each other the first time they went to Amsterdam when they were both still teenagers. It was a simple chased band with a little buckle, like a belt. A keeper ring.
‘So we’ll be friends for keeps, babes,’ Katti had said.
‘It’s like getting married,’ Lauren said, blushing, as they slipped the rings on each other’s fingers. ‘People will think we’re having a love affair.’
‘Well, we’re not. We’re having a like affair,’ Katti had said. ‘I like you. You like me. And now it’s official.’
Lauren picked the ring up and slipped it onto her finger. Now she had two of them, one on each hand. And I’m keeping that on until Katz comes back, she told herself. We’re still friends. We’re still like sisters. Nothing will ever change that. Not time. Not distance. And certainly not Wolfgang Hauer. She made a decision. If someone out there did have it in for Katti, she was going to make it her business to find out.
She slapped her thighs and stood up. No time to think about that now. Shower. Dress. Then face the Wolf again.
~
At half past ten she headed downstairs.
‘Katti’s father is on TV,’ Wolf said when he opened the door.
‘Why? What’s happened?’ Lauren hurried after him to the living room. ‘Have they found Katti? Is she – ?’
‘No. Sorry. It’s nothing like that. He’s handing out presents at a children’s hospital, that’s all. Look.’ He picked up the remote control and turned up the
sound.
‘Herr Helmut Hartmann,’ boomed the presenter,. ‘is here with the Christmas Angel to distribute gifts to the children. Over to you, Herr Hartmann.’
Lauren stared. The Christkindles Angel, she knew, was a local girl elected to preside over the Nuremberg Christmas market. She wore a white dress with pleated golden sleeves that formed a wingspan when she raised her arms. A tall spiky crown sat on top of her curly blonde wig.
‘Please. Please. Call me Hartmann,’ the man beside her said. ‘Everyone else does.’
The presenter beamed. ‘What a great guy.’
Lauren recognised Herr Hartmann from photographs Katti had shown her. A youthful sixty-year-old, he was dressed casually in skinny jeans and a cashmere jacket. His dark shirt was open at the neck and he toyed with the gold chain glinting at his throat.
The presenter turned to camera. ‘Hartmann donated all these presents himself,’ he said. He tapped his forefinger against his lips. ‘But, shhh, don’t tell anyone! We’re not supposed to know.’
He winked and the hospital staff in the background cheered and clapped. The children, bald and big eyed, stared solemnly at the spectacle.
Hartmann dampened the applause by holding his hands up, palms outward. ‘Please,’ he said, patting the air. ‘Please.’ He turned to the Christmas Angel – a girl of scrubbed innocence under her careful make-up. ‘The first gift, please Christmas Angel.’
The Angel produced a shiny red package with a flourish. Hartmann stepped up to the first bed and bent towards the occupant. ‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’
‘Marina,’ the child murmured, finger in mouth.
‘A beautiful name.’ Hartmann ushered the Angel to the bedside. ‘A beautiful name for a beautiful girl, eh Christmas Angel?’
Angel flashed her white teeth and presented the package to the child. ‘Fröhliches Weihnachten, Marina,’ she said, her diction virginal. ‘Merry Christmas.’
With a smile of pure indulgence Hartmann moved to the next bed. ‘And what do they call you, Liebchen?’
And so it went on through a series of sick and sicker children – leukaemia, lymphoma, Hodgkins Disease – and at each bedside Hartmann smiled, his eyes soft with compassion as he gazed at each small patient, the concern in his face intensifying at each turn to camera.
‘Does he do this every year?’ Lauren asked Wolf.
‘Usually, yes. He likes to think of himself as a philanthropist.’
‘But you don’t?’
Wolf shrugged. ‘Public relations,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ the presenter whispered to camera,. ‘it’s not so much the gifts, but the time Hartmann gives up. A busy man like him willing to set aside a whole morning for the sick kids. Incredible.’
Lauren watched with a growing sense of unease. Who would make a programme as schmaltzy as this? The story warranted a few seconds on the local news maybe, but a half-hour hagiography? Then she spotted the logo in the top right-hand corner of the screen. HHTV. Ah, puzzle solved. Helmut Hartmann’s own TV company.
‘You’ll have to tell him about Katti’s disappearance as well, won’t you?’
‘I have to tell my mother first,’ said Wolf. ‘He can wait.’
‘Hmm,’ Lauren said. ‘I’m picking something up here. You don’t think much of Herr Hartmann, do you?’
‘He is a fake.’
‘He comes across as an old hippy,’ Lauren said. ‘Like a reformed dinosaur of rock but without the dodgy music.’
‘There’s plenty that is dodgy about him.’ Wolf snapped the television off. ‘He likes to present himself as some kind of… of Robin Hood. A rich man who does not keep it all for himself. But you can be sure there is self-interest behind any benevolent schemes he sets up.’ He picked up his keys. ‘He does not fool me.’
Eight
Katti’s mother lived in a village outside Nuremberg. Lauren and Wolf set off to visit her shortly after twelve noon. Wolf refused to ring ahead to tell her they were coming.
‘No,’ he said,. ‘she will start asking questions and then I’ll have to tell her what’s happening, and she will get hysterical...’ It was best they told her in person, broke it to her gently.
They left the building by a creaking back door and crunched through a couple of inches of snow. The air was sharp as a blade and Lauren was glad of her fur-lined boots and red fleece. She’d also thrown a purple wrap of Katti’s around her shoulders. Wolf’s remark when he’d lent her his jacket last night was right, dammit. She hadn’t come prepared for this weather. Still, at least he had a van today. She didn’t fancy a repetition of last night’s adventures on the motorbike.
‘Shame you weren’t driving this yesterday,’ she said, when Wolf unlocked the white VW Transporter. ‘Would have made playing dodgems with that Merc a lot easier.’
‘This vehicle is used for work,’ Wolf said, yanking the door open. ‘My partner was using it. The world does not stand still just because you arrive, Lauren.’
Lauren stuck her tongue out at him behind his back. As she climbed in, she saw that the back of the van was filled with computer parts – keyboards and leads, motherboards and circuits.
‘I build computers,’ Wolf said, in answer to her glance.
She directed a twisted smile away from him and stared out of the side window. Not like she’d forgotten he was a computer nerd. He’d been working for some IT company the last time she’d seen him. When they were still together.
As they pulled away, she glanced up at the building. Greying stonework and a turreted staircase. What secrets it must have seen over the years. Mind you, she thought, this place was probably rebuilt in the fifties. After being flattened in 1944, the old town had been pretty much reconstructed to its mediaeval splendour.
A couple of windows were lit up, since the morning was dull, and she noticed a face peering from one of them, sad and sallow. Alina.
‘Oh, there’s that girl who came round last night. I meant to tell you.’ As she stared up at the window, the girl jerked away, as though she’d been pulled from sight.
‘What girl?’
‘Alina. She lives next door to Katti. Turned up at three o’clock this morning looking for her.’
Wolf kept his eyes on the road. ‘What did she want?’
‘No idea. Just to chat with Katz I think. Didn’t have much to say for herself.’ Lauren tucked the wrap around her shoulders.
‘Stay away from her.’
She swivelled to face him. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Stay away from her. She’s trouble. If she calls again, do not open the door.’
Speechless, Lauren stared at his profile. He glared at the road ahead, his hands clenched on the steering wheel, his jaw tense.
‘Why? What’s wrong with her?’
‘Never mind that. Just stay away from her. I’m telling you. Don’t get involved.’
‘You can’t tell me what to do without giving a reason,’ Lauren said. ‘I’ll speak to whoever I like.’
Wolf scowled and cut a glance at her. ‘Is it impossible for you to do what you are asked for once?’
‘What I’m asked, maybe, what I’m ordered to, no.’
‘Oh please forgive me.’ His voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘You know what we Germans are like – everything we say sounds like a command. You told me that yourself, a long time ago.’
Lauren raised her eyes to heaven. What was the matter with him today? He seemed to have a poker up his arse. Sometimes she wondered what she’d ever seen in him.
‘Look, Wolf...gang.’ Christ, she’d almost said Wolfi again. ‘You know I don’t take kindly to being bossed around.’
‘Oh I know that all right. You’ve always done exactly what you want... and never mind who gets hurt.’
Lauren sighed. Was that a dig about her kissing that French guy? It had to come up sometime, she supposed. ‘I’m sorry about what happened. That night. And afterwards. I was upset about it too.’ More upset than she’d been about anything else in her
whole life, actually, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. ‘But come on, it was five years ago. Get over it. Start treating me like just another human being, will you?’ Okay, maybe the break-up had been her fault but he’d over-reacted. It was New Year’s Eve, for God’s sake. You were meant to kiss strangers.
‘Don’t flatter yourself. I am more concerned with my sister right now, than with you and your–’ He broke off and shook his head, irritation plain on his flushed face. ‘And I am over it. Ingrid can attest to that.’
‘Ingrid?’
‘My... fiancée,’ he said.
‘Oh. Well. Good. Congratulations.’ Lauren gazed out of the van window at the passing white landscape. A fiancée, eh? Bastard. ‘Where is she then? How come she’s not holding your hand through all this?’ She winced at her own words. Did that sound like sour grapes, or what?
‘Ingrid is away on business. You will meet her soon enough.’ His smile was grim. ‘She comes back tomorrow.’
‘Can’t wait. What does she do?’
‘She works in recruitment, like you do, oddly enough. She has been at a conference this week.’ He glanced at her. ‘She is in management though. Not just an interviewer, like you.’
‘What a coincidence,’ Lauren said sweetly. ‘Actually, I’m planning on setting up my own employment agency soon. Maybe I could offer her a job.’
They drove in silence for a good ten miles after that. Eventually, Lauren caved in. ‘So, what’s this about Alina, then?’ she said. ‘Why is she trouble?’
‘She just is. Take my word for it. She tries to get money out of Katti.’
‘Hmm. She did seem a bit shifty last night.’ Lauren paused. ‘Actually, no. She was scared more than shifty. Who’s that man she was with when we passed them on the stairs? Squat round-headed bloke.’
‘Drop it, Lauren. You do not want to know.’
‘Well, I do as it happens.’ She glanced across at him. ‘Oh forget it. We need to pull together if we’re going to get to the bottom of all this. We owe it to Katti.’
‘We cannot get to the bottom of anything,’ Wolf said. ‘We have to wait and see what the police come up with.’
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