Snow White Must Die

by Nele Neuhaus

  “That wasn’t the only reason,” Tobias interrupted her. His rigid expression became animated again, and he cast a glance at his father. “But now I’m slowly beginning to get it. All he cared about was his power and…”

  “And what?” asked Hartmut.

  Tobias just shook his head mutely.

  His father swayed. The truth about his neighbors and former friends was shattering for him. The whole village had kept silent and lied and selfishly watched as his livelihood, his marriage, his good reputation, yes, his very life were ruined. He sank down onto one of the plastic chairs next to the wall and buried his face in his hands. Tobias sat down next to him and put his arm around his father’s shoulders.

  “But we also have some good news.” Only now did it occur to Bodenstein why he and Pia had come to the hospital. “Actually we were just on our way to see Amelie Fröhlich and Thies Terlinden. We found both of them today in the cellar of a house in Königstein. Dr. Lauterbach kidnapped them and hid them there.”

  “Amelie is alive?” Tobias straightened up as if he’d had an electric shock. “Is she okay?”

  “Yes. Come with us. Amelie will be glad to see you.”

  Tobias hesitated a moment but then stood up. Even his father looked up and smiled timidly. But seconds later his smile disappeared, and his expression contorted with hatred and fury. He jumped up and dashed with a speed that surprised Pia toward a man who had just entered the lobby of the hospital.

  “No, Dad, no!” they heard Tobias shout, and only then did they recognize Claudius Terlinden, accompanied by his wife and the Fröhlichs. Obviously they were on their way to see their children. Hartmut Sartorius grabbed Terlinden by the throat, trying to choke him, while Christine Terlinden and Arne and Barbara Fröhlich stood by as if paralyzed.

  “You pig!” Sartorius snarled full of hate. “You lying bastard! You have my family on your conscience!”

  Claudius Terlinden’s face was flushed and he was desperately flailing his arms and kicking at his attacker. Bodenstein grasped the situation and moved to take action. Pia too wanted to intervene, but she was shoved roughly aside by Tobias. She collided with Barbara Fröhlich, lost her balance, and fell to the floor. People had stopped, gaping at what was going on. Tobias had reached his father and tried to grab his arm, but at that instant Claudius Terlinden managed to escape from Hartmut’s grip. The fear of death lent him superhuman strength. He shoved Sartorius away. Pia got back on her feet and watched as if in slow motion as Hartmut Sartorius stumbled backward from the violent shove and crashed into an open fire door. Tobias started yelling and threw himself over his father. Suddenly there was blood everywhere. Pia reacted instinctively. She tore the scarf from Barbara Fröhlich’s neck, knelt down next to Sartorius, ignoring the pool of blood that was fast becoming a lake. In the desperate hope of being able to stop the bleeding somehow, she pressed the bright blue pashmina scarf against the gaping wound on the back of Sartorius’s head. The man’s legs twitched convulsively and he made a gurgling sound.

  “We need a doctor! Quick!” Bodenstein shouted. “Damn it, there must be a doctor here somewhere!”

  Coughing and choking, Claudius Terlinden crawled a short distance away, his hands at his throat. His eyes were bulging out of his head.

  “I didn’t mean to do it,” he kept stammering over and over. “That’s … that’s not what I wanted. It was … it was an accident…”

  Pia heard footsteps and yelling as if from far away. Her jeans, her hands, her jacket were all soaked with blood. White shoes and pants legs appeared in her field of vision.

  “Step aside!” somebody yelled. She scooted back a little, looked up, and met Bodenstein’s eyes. It was too late. Hartmut Sartorius was dead.

  * * *

  “I couldn’t do a thing.” Pia shook her head in shock. “It all happened so fast.”

  She was still shaking all over and could barely hold the bottle of Coke that Bodenstein had pressed into her blood-smeared hands.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” said Oliver.

  “But I do, damn it. Where’s Tobias?”

  “He was still there.” Bodenstein looked around, searching. The lobby was cordoned off, and yet there was a throng of people. Police, doctors with tense, shocked expressions, and the officers in their white overalls looked on as the body of Hartmut Sartorius was lifted into a zinc coffin. “Just stay right here.” Bodenstein put his hand briefly on Pia’s shoulder and got up. “I’m going to look for Tobias and make sure he’s okay.”

  Pia nodded and stared at the sticky, dried blood on her hands. She straightened up and took some deep breaths. Gradually her heartbeat calmed down and she could think clearly again. Her gaze fell on Claudius Terlinden, who sat slumped on a chair, staring into the distance. In front of him stood an officer who was apparently trying to take down an account of what happened. The death of Hartmut Sartorius was an accident, there was no doubt about that. Terlinden had acted in self-defense and with no malice aforethought, and yet he seemed to be gradually comprehending the weight of guilt on his shoulders. A young female doctor squatted down in front of Pia.

  “Shall I give you something to calm your nerves?” she asked with concern.

  “No, I’m okay,” replied Pia. “But could I maybe wash my hands somewhere?”

  “Yes, of course. Come with me.”

  Her knees shaking, Pia followed the doctor. She kept an eye out for Tobias Sartorius, but didn’t see him anywhere. Where was he? How would he cope with this horrible occurrence, seeing his father die right before his eyes? Pia was usually able to keep a cool head and remain composed even in a crisis, but the fate of Tobias Sartorius had shaken her to her core. Little by little he had lost everything that a human being can lose.

  * * *

  “Tobi!” Amelie sat up in bed and smiled in disbelief. She had thought of him so often during the past horrible days and nights; she had talked to him in her mind, imagining how it would be to see him again. The memory of the warmth in his sea-blue eyes had kept her from going crazy, and now he was right here in the room. Her heart skipped wildly with joy. “Oh, I’m so happy that you came to visit me! I’ve wanted so much…”

  Her smile faded when in the dim light she noticed Tobias’s expression. He closed the door of the hospital room behind him and came closer with hesitant steps to stand at the foot of her bed. He looked terrible, deathly pale, with swollen, bloodshot eyes. Amelie could tell that something dreadful must have happened.

  “What happened?” she asked softly.

  “My father is dead,” he whispered. “It just happened … down in the lobby. Terlinden was coming toward us … and my father … and he…”

  Tobias fell silent. His breathing was ragged, and he pressed his fist against his mouth, fighting for self-control. In vain.

  “Oh God.” Amelie stared at him in horror. “But how … I mean, why…”

  Tobias grimaced and doubled up, his lips quivering.

  “Dad tried to … attack that … bastard.” His voice was toneless. “And Terlinden shoved him … against a glass door…”

  He broke off. Tears were streaming down his haggard face. Amelie tossed back the covers and held out her arms to him. Tobias sat down on the edge of the bed and allowed Amelie to pull him close. He pressed his face against her neck, his body shaking with wild, desperate sobs. Amelie held him tight. Her heart ached for him as she realized that Tobias had nobody left in the world—she was the only one he could turn to in his boundless grief.

  * * *

  Tobias Sartorius had vanished without a trace from the hospital. Bodenstein sent a patrol to his parents’ house, but so far he hadn’t shown up there. Claudius Terlinden had gone home with his wife. He was not directly responsible for Hartmut’s death; it had been an accident, an unfortunate accident with a tragic result. Bodenstein glanced at his watch. Today was Monday, so Cosima would be at her mother’s. The bridge nights at the Rotkirch house were a dependable ritual going back decades, so he was pretty
sure he wouldn’t run into her when he picked up some fresh clothes before he drove back to the station. Dirty and sweaty, he was longing for a good long shower.

  To his relief the house was dark, only the little lamp on the chest in the hall was burning. The dog greeted him with effusive joy. Oliver petted him and looked around. Everything seemed so normal and so painfully familiar, but he knew this wasn’t home anymore. Before he could get sentimental he determinedly climbed the stairs to the bedroom. He turned on the light and was shocked to see Cosima sitting in the easy chair by the window. His heart skipped a couple of beats.

  “Why are you sitting here in the dark?” he asked, because he couldn’t think of anything better to say.

  “I wanted to think in peace and quiet.” She squinted in the glare of the light, then stood up and stepped behind the chair as if seeking protection.

  “I’m sorry that I lost my temper like that this morning,” Oliver began after a brief pause. “It … was all a bit too much for me.”

  “That’s all right. It was my fault,” Cosima replied. They looked at each other without a word until the silence turned awkward.

  “I just came by to pick up some clothes,” he said, and left the bedroom. How could he suddenly feel nothing at all for someone for whom he had felt nothing but love for twenty-five years? Was he fooling himself by resorting to some sort of emotional defense mechanism? Or was this simply proof that his feelings for Cosima had long since become nothing but habit? He realized that over the past few weeks and months they’d had numerous minor quarrels, and each time more of his love had faded. Oliver was surprised that he was able to analyze the situation with such clarity. He opened the hall closet and studied the suitcases standing there. He didn’t want to take any of the luggage that Cosima had used in her trips around the world. That’s why he decided on two dusty but brand-new hardshell suitcases that Cosima found too unwieldy.

  As he was passing the door of Sophia’s room, he stopped. There should be time for a brief look in at the little one. He set down the suitcases and went into the room, which was illuminated by a small night-light next to the bed. Sophia was sleeping peacefully with her little thumb in her mouth, surrounded by her stuffed animals. Oliver looked at his youngest daughter and sighed. He bent over the bed, reached out his hand, and lightly touched the sleep-warm face of the child.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered softly. “But even for your sake I can’t pretend that everything is fine.”

  * * *

  The way the female police officer had knelt down in the huge pool of blood was a sight that Tobias would never forget. He had sensed that his father was dead even before anyone uttered those most final of words. As if turned to stone he had stood there, speechless and empty of all feeling, letting himself be pushed aside by doctors, medics, and police officers. In his heart there was no more room for emotion after so much horrible news. As in a ship that was filling up with water, the last protective bulkheads had closed to prevent the vessel from sinking.

  Tobias left the hospital and took off walking. Nobody tried to stop him. He marched straight through the dark Eichwald, and the cold gradually cleared his thoughts. Nadia, Jörg, Felix, Papa. They had all left, betrayed, or disappointed him, and now he had no one else he could turn to. Mixed in with the paralyzing gray of his helplessness were mixed bright red sparks of anger. With each step he took his resentment grew toward the people who had destroyed his life, squeezing all the air out of him and leaving him to stop and gasp for breath. His heart cried out for revenge because of everything that they had done to him and his parents. Now he had nothing more to lose. In his mind more and more loose ends were coming together, and suddenly it all made sense. In a flash he realized that with his father’s death he was now the last person who knew the secret of Claudius Terlinden and Daniela Lauterbach. Tobias clenched his fists as he recalled what happened twenty years ago—an event that his father had helped the two of them conceal.

  He had been seven or eight years old at the time, and had spent the evening in the side room of the restaurant, as he did so often. His mother wasn’t there, so nobody had thought about putting him to bed. At some point he woke up on the couch in the middle of the night. He got up, crept to the door, and overheard a conversation that he couldn’t understand. Only Claudius Terlinden and old Dr. Fuchsberger, who ate at the Golden Rooster almost every night, were still sitting at the bar. Tobias had seen drunks often enough to recognize that the honorable notary public Dr. Herbert Fuchsberger was completely plastered.

  “So what’s the problem?” Claudius Terlinden said, giving Tobias’s father a sign to refill the notary’s glass. “My brother doesn’t give a damn. He’s dead.”

  “I’ll be in deep shit,” Fuchsberger had muttered indistinctly, “if it ever gets out!”

  “Why would it get out? Nobody knows that Willi changed his will.”

  “No, no, no! I can’t do it,” Fuchsberger moaned.

  “I’ll raise the fee,” Terlinden countered. “In fact, I’ll double it. A hundred thousand. How’s that?”

  Tobias had seen how Terlinden motioned to his father for more drinks. Things went on like this for a while until the old man finally gave in.

  “All right,” he said. “But you stay here. I don’t want anyone seeing you in my office.”

  After that Tobias’s father had disappeared with Dr. Fuchsberger in tow while Claudius Terlinden remained sitting at the bar. Tobias would probably never have understood what went on that night if years later he hadn’t been searching for the car insurance papers in his father’s office and found a will in the safe. At the time he hadn’t given much thought to why Wilhelm Terlinden’s will would be in his father’s safe. Getting his very first car registered was much more important. And Tobias hadn’t thought about it since then, pushing the discovery aside and finally forgetting all about it. But the shock of his father’s death seemed to have opened a secret chamber in his brain, and suddenly it all came back to him.

  “Where are we going?”

  Amelie’s voice pulled Tobias out of his gloomy reveries. He looked at her, put his hand on hers, and it warmed his heart. Her dark eyes were full of genuine care for him. Without all that metal piercing her face and that crazy hairdo she was beautiful. Much more beautiful than Stefanie had ever been. Amelie hadn’t hesitated a second to sneak out of the hospital with him when he said that he still had a score to settle. Her gruff, prickly manner was only a façade; he had seen that at their first meeting in front of the church. Since people had so often disappointed and betrayed Tobias, he was continually astounded at Amelie’s selfless honesty and lack of guile.

  “First we’re driving to my house, and then I have to talk to Claudius Terlinden,” he now replied. “But you’ll have to wait in the car. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone with that fucker,” she argued. “If we’re together he won’t dare do anything to you.”

  In spite of everything Tobias had to smile. She was certainly brave enough. A tiny gleam of hope flickered inside him like a candle whose light was seeking a path through the fog and darkness. Maybe there would be a future for him when all of this was over.

  * * *

  Cosima hadn’t budged. She was still standing behind the easy chair and now watched Oliver open the suitcase and pack it with the contents of his wardrobe.

  “This is your house,” she said after a while. “You don’t have to move out.”

  “But I’m going to.” He didn’t look at her. “It was our house. I don’t want to live here anymore. I can use the apartment in the old carriage house at the estate, it’s been empty for a while. That’s the best solution. Then when you’re traveling, my parents or Quentin and Marie-Louise can take care of Sophia.”

  “Well, that was fast,” Cosima said sharply. “So you’ve already written off the whole marriage.”

  Oliver sighed.

  “No, it wasn’t me,” he said. “It was you. I
merely accepted your decision, the way I’ve always done. And now I’m trying to figure out the new situation. You’ve chosen another man, and I can’t do anything about that. But I intend to keep on living in spite of it.”

  For a second he considered telling Cosima about spending the night with Nicola. He remembered some pointed remarks that Cosima had made about Nicola, since she knew he was working with his ex. But that would have been a cheap shot and beneath him.

  “Alexander and I work together,” Cosima said. “I haven’t ‘chosen’ him, as you put it.”

  Oliver continued stacking his shirts in the suitcases.

  “But maybe he’s a better fit for you than I ever was.” He looked up. “Why, Cosima? Have there been so few adventures in your life?”

  “No, that’s not it.” She shrugged. “There isn’t any reasonable explanation. And no excuse for it either. Alex simply crossed my path at the wrong time. I was so pissed off at you on Mallorca.”

  “So you just jumped into bed with him. Because you were pissed off at me.” Oliver shook his head and closed one of the suitcases. He straightened up. “Well, that’s just great.”

  “Oliver, please don’t throw everything away.” Cosima pleaded. “I made a mistake, I know. And I’m truly sorry. But there are so many things that still bind us.”

  “And even more that divide us,” he replied. “I will never be able to trust you again, Cosima. And I cannot and will not live without trust.”

  Bodenstein left her standing there and went into the bathroom across the hall. He closed the door behind him, undressed, and got in the shower. Under the hot water his cramped muscles relaxed and the tension eased a bit. His thoughts drifted to the previous night and then to the many nights to come in his life. Never again would he lie awake tormenting himself with worry about what Cosima was doing on the other side of the globe, whether things were going well, whether she was in danger, had had an accident, or was even in bed with another guy. It surprised him that this new scenario did not make him feel melancholy, only deeply relieved. He could no longer live according to Cosima’s rules of the game. In fact, he decided at this very moment never to live according to any rules but his own.