Alphabet House

by Adler-Olsen, Jussi

  Now it was Saturday and Bryan was sure Welles wouldn’t get much further. So from now on it was up to him.

  The first item on the day’s agenda was to have been a visit to the sanatorium. But he’d spent a sleepless, restless night, and before he knew it he was standing in front of the old man’s house on Luisenstrasse without really knowing why. It was a pointless exercise. He was merely whiling away the time with occupational therapy. Perhaps he should have picked up the car that he’d left at the sanatorium, or stood on guard outside Kröner’s house instead, but this was how it had turned out.

  There had been too many impressions. The sight of the delicate boy in Kröner’s arms had troubled him. What did Bryan actually know about the man? Why was Kröner in Freiburg? What had happened since their time in the hospital?

  A string of questions remained unanswered. There had been no sign of life in the old man’s house. The tatty curtains had not been drawn back. No one came and no one left, and it was now ten o’clock. So he finally decided to leave.

  There were still some hours left before he was to visit the sanatorium.

  The main street seemed very much itself – the sounds pleasant and comforting. The women had their husbands with them and the shops had opened, luring customers with baskets of special offers and garish, meaningless lighting. It was a typical morning atmosphere.

  Colours were clear, pristine and subtle.

  In front of the department store, where a couple of days previously he’d watched an immigrant pull shorts over his cheap trousers, a woman was trying on one of the day’s bargains. She stuck her feet hurriedly into a pair of shoes, stamping ritually on the ground to check their fit in much the same way as one judges a new car by kicking the tyre. When she glanced up briefly she reminded him slightly of Laureen. Bryan had often been out shopping with her, sitting in the sultry heat in his overcoat while she tried something on. But this woman was in a hurry. Laureen never was.

  He wished it could have been her.

  The cathedral at Münsterplatz was a hodgepodge of 300 years of architecture. A Gothic masterpiece that had walled in the joys and sorrows of the town for nearly eight centuries. A unique assembly point for the townspeople and a choice target for the Allied bombers when they were trying to destroy Freiburg’s very spirit and backbone thirty years ago.

  This time the town centre seemed smaller. Walking from the marketplace atmosphere of the cathedral square to the hectic Leopoldring and on to Stadtgarten, which leaned comfortably into the ridge of hills to the east, took less than two minutes on foot.

  Bryan stopped for a moment to look around as he crossed the bridge above Leopoldring. Whether it was true or not, it felt as if Freiburg were rejecting him. It wouldn’t have him. It didn’t even notice him. The cathedral bells were chiming perpetually, as they had done in the days he’d been less than fifteen miles away, fighting to preserve his sanity and his life.

  Now it bore the message of peace.

  People passed by without noticing him. Traffic rumbled busily beneath him. Apart from the tall woman who was leaning against the railing a bit further on and gazing at Schlossberg with a big plastic bag at her feet, he was the only one who hadn’t been engulfed by the town.

  Then Bryan heard the sound of brisk steps and heels clicking hard against the surface of the bridge.

  The woman was small and erect and wore a beige polo-neck jumper that framed her blonde hair.

  This was the second time that day where a woman had reminded him of someone. But in this case the association was hazy.

  She was not exactly young. Her clothing – a shiny black raincoat and long skirt of multicoloured India cotton – made it difficult to determine her age.

  This was the first thing that caught his eye, and then her rapid pace.

  Bryan turned to face her, then studied her carefully.

  She was one of those women one always seems to have seen somewhere before. It could have been anywhere: in the bus twenty minutes earlier, at the university twenty years ago, on the cinema screen, in a moment’s glimpse of fascination at a train station. The result was usually the same.

  One never found out where, and definitely not who.

  After she walked past him, he followed her at a leisurely pace and at a distance. She slowed down when she reached the park. When she passed the gondola ticket-office window she stood still for a moment, watching the noisy, expectant children. The gentle way in which she came to a halt was part of the total picture he was trying to recall. Bryan discarded a number of possibilities. Then she took a path amongst the trees. It was the third or fourth time Bryan had been there but he didn’t feel he knew the area very well. The woman turned left around the lake and disappeared in the direction of Jakob something-or-other Strasse.

  When Bryan got past the trees she was gone. He half ran a bit further until he reached the deserted far corner of the park, then stopped and looked around for her in all directions.

  The rustling noise behind him took him by surprise. The woman’s face was livid as she stepped out of the undergrowth at the foot of the trees. She walked straight up to him, sized him up for a moment and came to a halt just a couple of steps in front of him. ‘Warum folgen Sie mir nach? Haben Sie nichts besser zu tun?’ she said.

  But Bryan didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

  Before him stood Petra.

  For a moment he thought he was going to faint.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ he said. She was startled to hear his English. For a couple of seconds he stopped breathing and his pulse almost disappeared. The blood drained from his face, leaving his skin pallid. He swallowed a number of times in order to stave off a sudden feeling of nausea.

  She was different, but her troubled face was painfully unchanged. It was precisely the small, fine characteristics and movements that never changed. The hard life that had apparently worn her out and turned her into an ordinary middle-aged woman had not been able to remove these, in spite of everything.

  What an incredible coincidence. Cold shivers ran down his spine. The past became all too present as a totality of repressed impressions was reconstructed with unbelievable precision. Suddenly he could even remember her voice.

  ‘Well, shall we call it a day?’ she said. She turned on her heel without waiting for an answer and strode rapidly away.

  It slipped out before he could think: ‘Petra!’ he called out softly.

  The woman stopped in midstep.

  Her face displayed disbelief as she faced him again. ‘Who are you? How do you know my name? Tell me.’ She studied him closely. For a long while and in silence.

  Bryan’s pulse was hammering with excitement. Here was someone who presumably might be able to unveil James’ fate.

  The woman frowned slightly as if a thought had struck her, only to shake her head dismissively. ‘I don’t know any Englishmen. So I don’t know you, either. Are you going to give me an explanation?’

  ‘You recognise me, I can tell!’

  ‘I may have seen you before, yes. But I’ve seen so many people. I don’t know any English people, in any case.’

  ‘Look at me, Petra! You know me, but it’s been many years since you last saw me. You’ve never heard me speak. Besides, I speak English because I am English. You just didn’t know it at the time.’ For every word Bryan uttered the woman’s face became more naked and recognisable. Her skin colour showed signs of growing agitation. ‘I haven’t come in order to annoy you, Petra, believe me! I had no idea you were still here, in Freiburg. It was a coincidence that I saw you up on the bridge. I didn’t recognise you straight away, either. You merely seemed familiar. It made me curious.’

  ‘Who are you? Where have did we meet?’ She took a step backwards as though the truth might be more than she could bear.

  ‘In the SS hospital. Here in Freiburg. I was a patient there in 1944. You knew me under the name of Arno von der Leyen.’

  If Bryan hadn’t sprung forward, she would have fallen. Halfway to the ground she
worked herself free of his grasp and staggered backwards. She scanned him briefly from top to toe and almost collapsed again. She put her hand to her breast, taking deep gasps of breath.

  ‘I’m sorry! I didn’t want to frighten you.’ Bryan looked at her, spellbound at the coincidence, and let her calm down a bit. ‘I’ve come to Freiburg to find Gerhart Peuckert. Can you help me?’ Bryan spread out his arms. The air between them was almost palpable.

  ‘Gerhart Peuckert?’ She took a final deep breath and then collected herself for a moment as she looked down at the ground. When their eyes met again she had a bit more colour in her cheeks. ‘Gerhart Peuckert, you say? I believe he is dead.’

  Chapter 37

  The clear sky outside had clouded over momentarily. The light in the room was grey and barren. Wilfried Kröner still had the receiver in his hand. He’d been sitting like that for more than two minutes. The conversation with Petra Wagner had stunned him. She had been upset and incoherent, but what she’d had to report was unbelievable.

  Then he straightened up and made a few notes on the pad beside him before dialling a number.

  ‘Hermann Müller Invest,’ came the expressionless voice.

  ‘It’s me.’ The man at the other end of the line was silent. ‘We’ve got a problem on our hands.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ve just spoken to Petra Wagner.’

  ‘Is she being difficult again?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. She’s as gentle as a lamb.’ Kröner pulled out the drawer of his desk and coaxed a pill from a small china bowl. ‘It’s just that she met Arno von der Leyen here in Freiburg today.’

  There was a long silence at the other end. ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ the man finally said. ‘Arno von der Leyen? Here in Freiburg?’

  ‘Yes, in the Stadtgarten. They met by accident, she says.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘That it was by accident? That’s what she says.’

  ‘Well, and then what happened?’

  ‘He introduced himself. She insists she’s quite sure. It’s him! Petra could recognise him when he told her who he was. She was very upset.’

  ‘I can damn well believe it!’ Again there was silence at the other end.

  Kröner clutched his stomach. It was acting up for the first time in several weeks. ‘The man’s a killer,’ he said.

  The old man seemed distant and cleared his throat softly. ‘Yes, he was a good man, poor Dieter Schmidt. He sure took care of him.’ Then he laughed dryly.

  Kröner found this uncalled for. ‘Petra also had some other disturbing news,’ he continued.

  ‘He’s presumably after us now. It that it?’

  ‘He’s looking for Gerhart Peuckert.’

  ‘Looking for Gerhart Peuckert? Indeed. And what does he know about him?’

  ‘Apparently only what Petra told him.’

  ‘Then I certainly hope for her sake that she didn’t say too much.’

  ‘Only that Gerhart is dead. It seemed to shock him.’ Kröner put his hand to his cheek. This was a situation he definitely could have done without. For the first time in many years he felt vulnerable.

  They would have to get rid of Arno von der Leyen.

  ‘And then he wanted to know where he was buried,’ he said at length.

  ‘And she couldn’t tell him, I would imagine.’ The old man was about to laugh, but had to clear his throat instead. The sound was dry and hollow.

  ‘She told him she’d try to find out and let him know. They’re to meet in the wine bar in Hotel Rappens at two o’clock. She made it clear that she doubted whether she could help him.’ Kröner could practically hear the wheels turning in the old man’s head. ‘What do you think? Should we go there?’

  ‘No!’ came the instant reply. ‘Phone and tell her she’s to let Arno von der Leyen know Gerhart Peuckert is buried in the memorial grove beside the panorama view on the Burghaldering, up beside the colonnade.’

  ‘But there’s no such memorial grove.’

  ‘No, there isn’t, Wilfried. But who would know that? What doesn’t exist can materialise, can’t it? And tell Petra Wagner that Arno von der Leyen can take the gondola up there. Have her tell him it takes only a couple of minutes from the Stadtgarten beside Karlsplatz. And finally, Wilfried, ask her to tell him that he can’t get in before three o’clock.’

  ‘And what then? That can’t be sufficient.’

  ‘Of course not. I’ve been considering whether we shouldn’t try and get hold of Lankau. He seems to be the one best suited for the job, don’t you think? It can be so nice and secluded up there on Schlossberg.’

  Kröner drew out yet another pill from the drawer. In a year’s time Kröner’s son was to start school. The other parents would tell their children to play with him. He would have an easy time of it, and that’s what Kröner wanted. After the war, life had treated him mercifully. And he wanted it to continue. He wasn’t prepared to give up anything. ‘There’s something else I don’t like about the situation,’ he added.

  ‘And that is…?’

  ‘He made Petra believe he was English. He spoke only English to her.’

  ‘She said that?’ The old man paused for a moment. ‘Why?’

  ‘Yes, why? Who is he, anyway? Is he here alone? Why is he looking for Gerhart Peuckert? Why does von der Leyen make himself out to be English? I don’t like it. There are too many unknowns in this story.’

  ‘Leave the unknowns to me, Wilfried. Isn’t that my specialty? Haven’t I always said there was something fishy about the man? Didn’t I already tell you at the time that I suspected he wasn’t the person he made himself out to be? I did, indeed! And now you can see for yourself! Unknowns are my trademark, you know that.’ He attempted a laugh, but it was stifled by his cough. ‘I practically live off unknowns. Would we have been where we are today if it weren’t for my ability to make use of unknowns?’ he said with difficulty.

  ‘Then what’s Arno von der Leyen’s trademark? With what he learned from our nightly chats in the hospital, he’s got to know what he’s after.’

  ‘Nonsense, Kröner!’ Peter Stich’s voice hardened. ‘He’d have shown up years ago if he suspected we were here, but he doesn’t. Our names are not the same. You mustn’t forget the passage of time. It’s a far cry from that red-eyed patient in the hospital to old, white-bearded Hermann Müller. But, get rid of him we must, that’s obvious. Now, take it easy and phone Petra Wagner, and in the meantime I’ll find Horst Lankau.’

  Lankau was furious when he finally got to the flat on Luisenstrasse. He was oddly dressed. His jumper sat crooked, as if his golf bag was still slung over his shoulder. He didn’t even shake hands. ‘Hasn’t it dawned on you yet?’ he blurted out. Kröner gave him a worried look. This time his incredibly broad face was entirely copper-red. He had put on a lot of weight in recent years, forcing his blood pressure to dangerous heights. Andrea Stich took his coat and disappeared into the hallway. The light in the big flat was blinding, even though the sun was above the building. The old man stroked his beard once or twice and pointed amiably towards the corner sofa where Kröner was already sitting.

  ‘I play golf on Saturday, dammit! Freiburger Golf Club is my sanctuary! And I always have lunch with my opponent at the Colombi between the ninth and the tenth hole, don’t I?’ Lankau didn’t expect an answer. ‘And that time when my daughter was in labour I didn’t want to be disturbed, either. You know that, damn it all! Why the hell are you disturbing me now?’ He sat down heavily. ‘Make it brief!’ he snapped.

  ‘Calm down, Horst, we’ve got some interesting news to tell you.’ Peter Stich cleared his throat another couple of times and briefly explained the situation to the hefty, irritable man. Lankau’s broad face was soon drained of every trace of colour. He was speechless. He clasped his chubby hands and leaned forward. He was still a giant.

  ‘So that’s how it is, Horst! If you want to keep your little sanctuary on the golf course – or any other kind of sanctuary for that ma
tter – I’m afraid you’re going to have to phone your golf partner and tell him he’ll have to pop the ball into the last nine holes by himself this afternoon. You can tell him you have unexpected visitors from the old days, can’t you?’ Again the old man had to clear his throat instead of laughing.

  ‘We’ll have to drop everything else immediately,’ said Kröner, trying to ignore Lankau’s rebellious glare. In the old days their rank had been clearer. ‘Until this is all over I’d suggest our families go away for a couple of days.’

  Lankau frowned, which made his injured eye close completely. That was the calling card Arno von der Leyen had left him the last time they met. ‘You think the swine knows where we live?’ He turned towards Kröner, sticking out his bottom lip. Kröner felt certain that Lankau was worrying more about his possessions than his family. The result was the same in any case. Lankau kept listening.

  ‘I’m convinced that Arno von der Leyen is well-prepared, and that he’s planning his next move right now. Stich doesn’t agree with me. He believes in coincidences.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, myself,’ said Stich. ‘But whatever steps you take with regard to your families are up to you. So long as you do it discreetly. Besides, I don’t think I’ll get Andrea to move from here, will I, Andrea?’ The small figure shook her head silently and put the cups on the table.

  Kröner looked at her. For him, she was an appendix to her husband – not an independent person, but unpolished and crude. Unlike Kröner’s present wife who was the embodiment of innocence, Andrea Stich had tried a bit of everything. A long life with her husband had made her immune to worries and pain. A concentration camp commandant’s wife’s heart couldn’t remain innocent indefinitely. If her husband had an enemy, he would have to be got rid of. It was as simple as that. She didn’t question that kind of thing. It was for the men to deal with. In the meantime she would look after the home and herself. But Kröner couldn’t involve his family in this game. He neither could nor would. Lankau sat muttering to himself for a while. Then he leaned forwards.