‘In France?’ Bryan tried to think of some logical connection. It wasn’t easy.
‘Have you spoken to the director?’
‘I haven’t spoken to anyone. It’s Friday, you know. There’s no one to speak to.’
‘Then drive over there. But do me a favour first.’
‘I will if I can. It’s still Friday afternoon.’
‘I want you to phone Kuranstalt Saint-Ursula, here in Freiburg.’
‘But I’ve already done that several weeks ago. It was one of the first private hospitals I called.’
‘Yes, and you drew a blank, I gather. But I must have an introduction to the sanatorium. I saw one of the men entering who we’ve been looking for.’
‘You’re kidding! Who?’
‘Kröner. The man I call Pock-Face.’
‘Incredible! Wilfried Kröner, you say?’ Welles paused briefly. ‘I wanted to ask you if it’s all right if I stop on Monday. I’d like to be at home with my family for a couple of days before I start in Bonn.’
‘Then we have to hurry, Keith. I have a feeling we’re on to something. Do me the favour of phoning Saint-Ursula and say you have a representative in town who you’d very much like to send over to them. Tell them he has a present for them.’
Bryan gave him the phone number and kept the receiver to his ear while his hand rested on the contact-breaker. The queue behind him had thinned out, but a man who had hitherto been waiting patiently gave him an angry look when the phone rang five minutes later. Keith Welles said regretfully that they didn’t wish to see any representatives at the clinic on such short notice. Moreover, they were not usually available on weekends. Hospital administrators deserved days off too, the director had admonished.
That was her professional way of ending the conversation.
Bryan was frustrated. Ideas as to why Kröner might be visiting the sanatorium were piling up. He would stop at nothing to get inside. But he would prefer not to be noticed as long as his and Welles’ primitive investigations were incomplete. The few determined steps Kröner had taken towards the Jaguar a couple of hours ago still felt like an extremely unpleasant incident. He had no wish to get any closer to his old tormentor. Not yet.
The beer hall’s regulars had already begun their weekend. They appeared to be upper-class folks who had just come from work, presumably to this fashionable neighbourhood. Through the small, tinted windowpanes he was able to see the entrance to the building. Kröner hadn’t left yet. Bryan phoned the sanatorium less than an hour after his last conversation with Welles. He moved way into a corner behind the telephone cubicle and took a deep breath. It was difficult to deaden the noise from the bar. He looked at his watch. It was half past four.
The director of Kuranstalt Saint-Ursula seemed taken aback when he introduced himself in English.
‘I don’t understand, Frau Rehmann,’ Bryan continued, hugging the receiver when she refused to talk to him. ‘You say you have just spoken to my superior, but there must be some mistake. You must be referring to someone else.’ From her silence, Bryan could tell he’d got her attention. ‘You see, I’m phoning from the medical faculty at Oxford, where I’m the dean. My name is John MacReedy. I’m phoning on behalf of a research group of administrative psychiatric head doctors who are presently attending a conference in Baden-Baden. They are going on an excursion to Freiburg tomorrow, and in this connection one of our conference participants, Mr Bryan Underwood Scott, has asked me to enquire if he might pay your clinic a visit some time tomorrow, preferably in the morning. A brief visit, of course.’
‘Tomorrow?’ The question and the brusque tone of voice distracted Bryan from his unaccustomed play-acting. He had to wait a moment before he could again muster MacReedy’s affected tone of voice. A couple of new guests threw open the door of the beer hall. They were in a boisterous, expectant mood. Bryan hoped his hand over the receiver modulated the background noise sufficiently. Frau Rehmann would probably find it odd to hear people plainly speaking German in the famous town of Oxford.
‘Yes, I know it’s on unsatisfactorily short notice, Frau Rehmann,’ he continued, ‘but the fault is entirely mine. Mr Underwood Scott asked me to convey his request several weeks ago, but I’ve been so busy that it unfortunately slipped my mind. Perhaps you can help me out of my embarrassing situation.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr MacReedy, but I can’t help you. Besides, a visit on a Saturday would be out of the question. We too need the few work breaks we can get.’
The refusal was absolutely final. Some newly arrived bar guests stopped as they were hanging up their coats and looked at Bryan in bewilderment when he slammed down the receiver and began cursing softly in his corner – ready to do battle, yet totally unarmed.
So he would simply have to plunge straight into the lion’s den and see what came out of it. Tomorrow he would present himself, unannounced, as the Bryan Underwood Scott of whom Mr MacReedy had spoken so warmly. He would have to count on the director being back home in her staff quarters, which according to the floor plan at the entrance were in the west wing of the villa.
It had begun getting dark a long time ago.
The elm trees along the avenue outside the sanatorium had begun swaying in the evening breeze when Kröner’s silhouette finally appeared in the dull glow of the wrought-iron lights in the main entrance.
After joking a bit with a woman in the doorway he took a stoop-shouldered man by the arm and accompanied him down the driveway, chatting quietly. Bryan slipped out of the beer hall and moved behind one of the elms, his heart beating rapidly.
The two men passed by quite close to him. Kröner’s solicitude for the man was almost touching. A member of the family perhaps, but hardly Pock-Face’s father. He wasn’t old enough, even though with his delicate build, lined face and almost snow-white beard, his age seemed indeterminate.
The old man said nothing. He looked ill and tired. To Bryan it seemed he was someone who was beginning to lose heart. So this old man was the reason for Kröner’s visit, and now he was going home with Kröner for the weekend.
Therefore Bryan was surprised to see the two men walk past Kröner’s car and continue beneath the whispering trees towards the centre of town.
For a while the two men chatted quietly beside the tram stop. A crowd of exuberant youths on their way to the first party of the weekend came and stood beside them, shoving each other playfully and laughing so loud that the neighbouring facades’ echo laughed back. Bryan crossed over to the tram stop and stood unnoticed, shielded by the youthful mob. He was less than two foot from Kröner and the old man. They were still talking softly, but the old man’s voice was hoarse and before every other word he tried in vain to clear his throat.
Then the tram came.
Without turning to face his companion Kröner disappeared in the direction from which they had come. Bryan watched Pock-Face for a moment, uncertain what to do, then decided to follow the old man on to the tram. Looking around calmly, the stoop-shouldered man caught sight of an empty seat beside a dark-complexioned young man.
Then he took up position beside the seat without sitting down. Before the next stop he stood directly facing the young man. As they looked at each other the young man’s face changed almost imperceptibly. Then quite without warning, the young man got up and walked quickly past the old man without touching him and down to the rear exit, where he remained standing, breathing heavily.
As the tram car pitched to and fro, the old man sat down heavily on the double seat, clearing his throat a couple of times. He stared out of the window.
They had to change trams once before they reached the old man’s destination in the centre of town, where he finally alighted and strolled on past the brightly lit shop windows.
After pausing a while in front of a pastry boutique’s tempting assortment, the old man succumbed to temptation, giving Bryan time to think rationally. He had to choose between keeping watch in front of Kröner’s house or following the old man. He glanced at
his watch. There were still forty-five minutes before Keith Welles was due to report on his visit to Haguenau. From where he stood now, it couldn’t be more than a ten-minute walk to the hotel.
When the old man left the shop, smiling contentedly, Bryan followed him.
The small paper bag dangled from the man’s feeble wrist all the way to Holzmarkt. In the middle of this elegant square he stopped to speak to some other passers-by, then cleared his throat and finally disappeared into a building, timeworn yet attractive, that stood a short ways down a small side street called Luisenstrasse.
Bryan had to wait almost ten minutes before a light was lit on the second floor. An elderly woman went over to the windows to open the curtains. Some big potted plants made this a slow and laborious procedure. The massive building seemed to have only one flat on each floor. They must have been enormous. The rest of the building lay in darkness. In a room with a chandelier that shone coldly and brightly and made him think of an old-fashioned dining room, an elderly man with a beard stepped behind the woman and rested his hands gently on her shoulders.
Bryan looked down at the narrow brass plate between the carved wooden doorframe and the modern door telephone. The plaque simply read: ‘Hermann Müller Invest’.
Chapter 35
‘Hey, Laureen, have you seen how that gentleman over there is looking at me?’
‘Who, Bridget? I can’t see anyone.’ Laureen looked around Hotel Colombi’s restaurant. About a hundred people had gathered to enjoy the short interval at the start of the evening as the waiters were preparing to serve dinner. Oblivious to the sound of clanking crockery and the babble of numerous languages, her thoughts were solely about Bryan and whatever had made him take the drastic step of going to Freiburg. Her feeling of unease returned instinctively.
She couldn’t recall ever having felt like this before.
‘Down there! Behind the empty table with the lilac tablecloth. He’s looking at us now. He’s wearing a chequered jacket. Look!’
‘Oh, yes. Now I can see him.’
‘Good-looking man, isn’t he?’
‘Sure, I suppose so.’ Her sister-in-law’s infatuation made Laureen wonder.
‘Good-looking’ wasn’t exactly how she’d describe him.
Laureen’s plan was to get up early the next day, Saturday, and keep a constant watch on Bryan’s hotel until he left it. Then she would sneak after him and see what happened. While the thought of observing her husband unnoticed presented a challenge, Bridget presence presented a real problem. Laureen couldn’t possibly drag her along.
The next morning Laureen got up at a quarter past four. She had slept poorly, twisting and turning in an endless embrace with her pillow in order to get a grasp on her dreams. The bed beside the window was untouched. Laureen could already hear her sister-in-law’s qualms of conscience and her plentiful assurances and pleas for understanding.
Heavy morning dew had appeared overnight. No trams or taxis were in sight and the town was still asleep, so Laureen was practically the only living soul on the stretch of road between her hotel and Bryan’s.
Nonetheless she didn’t have long to wait long before things began to happen. Had she thought of it before, she would have hidden behind one of the chestnut trees that lined the entranceway to his hotel. From there she could have kept an eye on the recessed hotel portal and at the same time been able to see Bryan, should he decide to walk around the back of the hotel when he left. From where she was standing now on Urachstrasse, if he decided to go behind the hotel he would easily be able to disappear without her noticing.
She had scarcely become conscious of the problem before it was solved. The sound of crunching steps came from the pebbles on the passageway at the entrance and suddenly Bryan was out on the street. Laureen stood quite unprotected. She was the only other human being in the vicinity. Before turning her back to the street, she caught a glimpse of Bryan’s worried face as he turned up his collar. He was far away in his own thoughts and hadn’t spotted her. For him, that was unusual.
Bryan walked briskly downtown. He was elegantly dressed. Laureen tiptoed after him over the cobblestones, praying that more people would soon turn up and that the pavement would become more suitable for high heels.
The figure a hundred yards in front of her seemed younger than the man she’d been living with for nearly a lifetime. He exuded a kind of fitness and youthful detachment that bore witness to the fact that he was presently disconnected from his normal, daily sphere. He seemed like a stranger, wandering through a distant city at this unholy hour when most people were submerged in their deepest sleep.
Some roadwork lay at a Saturday standstill. Bryan strode over it, disregarding the gravel that scuffed up his Lloyd shoes. Hesitating, Laureen lost sight of him. She stared around in confusion. Trams couldn’t be as noiseless as that, but Bryan was gone.
Oh, hell! she thought. She felt ridiculous in her amateurish attempt to carry out a task as simple as shadowing the only person on the street – in broad daylight, as well. She’d travelled a long way to achieve this miserable outcome.
Then she made up her mind and began walking more rapidly downtown.
Her relief was enormous when she spotted Bryan striding with measured steps a couple of hundred yards ahead of her. There were more people now, but Laureen felt they were all looking at her as she rushed down the street at breakneck speed with tiny steps, impeded by high heels, aching ankles, her clothing, her age and her being out of shape.
She almost caught up with him near the centre of town. But just as she was beginning to feel she had things under control, he sprinted over to a tram in the middle of the street and jumped in to one of the carriages. Although Laureen had heard the tram coming behind her, she’d paid it no heed.
And now she couldn’t reach it in time.
She stood gaping at the tram as it rumbled away at a leisurely pace.
The tram stopped on the other side of the canal to allow the first early-risers to get off and on. Then she saw Bryan again. He’d only taken the tram for a single stop.
This time she took no notice of the surprised glances. She hitched up her skirt and rushed off.
Laureen had been sure the first time Bryan had turned down a sidestreet, but she had problems the second time. So she had to approach the next few street corners with caution in order to peep around them unnoticed. A couple of pedestrians looked at her, wondering at her strange behaviour.
On the corner of Luisenstrasse and Holzmarkt, Laureen once more caught sight of Bryan. He was leaning against a wall a bit further down the street, staring up at some big, barred windows. The staid building was classical in style but had been neglected. He was taking his time. And he was smoking.
By now the situation seemed so confusing and meaningless that, had it not been for the fact that Laureen knew her husband so well, she might easily have imagined there was another woman involved.
‘We know nothing about our fellow human beings, and we know nothing about ourselves!’ Laureen could clearly hear her daughter chanting this piece of homespun philosophy. The only problem was that it was nonsense. She’d always known that. It was simply a matter of daring to look at all the facets that make up a person – including oneself – straight in the face.
If you weren’t willing to do that from the start, you were in for a nasty surprise.
Right now Laureen had to accept the possibility that she hadn’t been open enough in how she viewed her husband. Of course Bryan was capable of deceiving her, and he could also behave in ways Laureen knew nothing about. At any rate he’d never stood in front of her window for hours on end in the days he’d been courting her.
Still she felt that this was about something else. Something more complicated.
Normally someone like Bryan would always go about things directly when given a specific task.
And now he just stood there, waiting and smoking. Put on the defensive.
Occasionally the noise from the main street waft
ed down on the morning breeze. After much deliberation Laureen left her post. She had to be better equipped if she wanted to continue shadowing Bryan. And that meant different clothes and shoes. It seemed very unlikely that he had any intention of moving for quite a while.
It was only a few hundred paces down to the main street.
Having put on her newly purchased jeans, she noticed a pair of trainers in one of the special-offer boxes that littered the main entrance of the department store. Just as she was putting them on she saw her husband walk by on the opposite pavement.
Their glances met superficially. Laureen bit her lower lip and was just about to wave at him self-consciously like an awkward schoolgirl when he looked away and walked on.
He hadn’t registered anything.
It was not until she reached the ring road that she was close enough to him again to feel sure he wouldn’t slip away. He stopped in the middle of the pedestrian bridge and looked towards the park on the opposite side. The Stadtpark, Laureen thought. She put down her huge plastic bag containing her skirt and coat and laced up her shoes. They were comfortable and they supported her ankles, but they were new. Before the end of the day her toes would be studded with blisters.
And then Bryan caught sight of the woman.
Chapter 36
He was beginning to freeze.
Even though it was yet another morning with clear skies and late summer temperatures, the street was like an icy, windswept sluice.
Bryan had been in a kind of a dream for a couple of hours, trying to get a grip on the situation.
His phone conversation with Keith Welles the evening before had been a terrible disappointment. The Gerhart Peuckert he had seen in Haguenau was not James. If Welles had possessed sufficient presence of mind from the start, he would have investigated the man’s age before taking the trouble to travel to France. When he finally reached his goal, a single glance at the patient had been sufficient. The Gerhart Peuckert in Haguenau was completely grey-haired and over seventy. With eyes that were brown and lively. It was a glaring mistake that had set back their investigation a whole day.
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