The Zurich Conspiracy

by Calonego, Bernadette

  There was a pause. Paul’s lips moved without making a sound, as if he could not—would not—say out loud what followed. Josefa watched him, fascinated; she’d never seen her old friend like this.

  “Then somebody downloaded some child porn onto my computer. And this somebody made sure a colleague would discover it and pass it on to the boss. At first I was able to convince Harckmüller that somebody—maybe a hacker—had got into my system illegally. Somebody had cracked my password, so from then on I kept changing it. And then two women I worked with received suggestive e-mails—from my address. The boss demanded we talk and I demanded an internal investigation. In the meantime I was on the point of going to the police and filing charges against persons unknown, but Harckmüller was afraid of a big scandal.”

  Paul was prowling like a tiger now back and forth in front of the bookshelves. His fingers brushed against the backs of the books as if he could gain some consolation from the contact. “After that, everything went wrong. Schulmann would seize every opportunity to shoot subtle little darts at me. He’d never attack me openly but would put me in a bad light whenever he could. My nerves were shot, and I was losing sleep; I’d make little errors, mistakes through lack of concentration. Schulmann would get off ironic remarks time and again, he enjoyed it enormously. He soon had other colleagues on his side, people whose work I’d criticized or who were jealous of my position in the company.”

  He came to a stop and turned to face Josefa, as if he had momentarily forgotten she was at the table.

  “Harckmüller privately held me responsible for the lousy atmosphere in the company. I sensed it though he never said it. Our relationship cooled noticeably, but Schulmann cast his charm around on all sides. He wasn’t particularly good at his job as far as substance or the heavy lifting was concerned. But he had great powers of seduction. He made people around him feel that he thought they were especially efficient and talented and seriously underestimated. I used to watch him at it quite a bit. He’d wrap them around his little finger. I heard some time later that psychopaths possess enormous powers of persuasion. Even psychiatrists get fooled by them time and again.”

  Josefa’s mouth was dry, so she took a sip of wine. “How did you find out it was Schulmann? That business about the computer, I mean.”

  “At first I was only guessing. I tried to set a trap for him. A trusted colleague let me use his computer for a while. But I couldn’t tell anybody I suspected Schulmann. I could lock my office, but other persons still had access to the area, security, cleaning staff. I couldn’t put in a video camera or hire a detective to investigate. At some point I gave up.” Paul sat down; the corners of his mouth were twitching.

  “Harckmüller was visibly relieved when I offered my resignation. Schulmann had the nerve to come into my office while I was clearing it out. He wanted to say goodbye. I told him I could do without that. Then he said—and I remember his exact words—‘Even giants sometimes go before a fall. Even the Titanic wasn’t invulnerable.’ He said it with a smile. That’s the exact moment I was absolutely certain he was the one, because one of my passwords was ‘Titanic.’ Christ, how I hated that guy!” Paul got up quickly. “I need some water if you don’t mind.”

  Josefa shook her head. She slipped her shoes on. The party downstairs was still in high gear, and Paul would antagonize his guests if he didn’t go downstairs soon. Served him right. Though that was much too lenient a punishment for the trouble he’d caused her. She was very hungry and started on the hors d’oeuvres on her plate. Paul came back promptly, as if fearing she might disappear in his absence. He’d barely taken a sip before he launched back into his story.

  “Schulmann would have driven you crazy, believe me. Those e-mails were meant to make you cautious. You were supposed to watch the people around you very carefully. I hoped if you were on your guard you wouldn’t fall prey to Schulmann’s charm.”

  “Charm? You’ve got to be kidding!” Josefa protested.

  Paul ran his fingers through his hair. “Yes, he didn’t particularly turn on the charm for you. I picked up on that right away. But my campaign was already underway, and besides, I had already decided to get you to leave Loyn…And as you saw, he drove somebody else nuts.”

  “Who?”

  “The murderer. I’m convinced that somebody went crazy because Schulmann went too far. Somebody who was less of a coward than me,” he said ruefully.

  “Paul!” Josefa was more horrified at his tone than his words. “Do you know your warnings were totally superfluous? I’d already been warned.” Paul looked up at her in surprise.

  She told him about Schulmann’s advances in San Francisco culminating in his sexual assault in her hotel suite.

  Paul slapped his forehead. “If only I’d known! Why didn’t you tell me? I feel so stupid, Josefa, I’m so very sorry…I’m honestly sorry.” He shook his head. “But at the same time I’m very glad that you got away. That he wasn’t able to do something really bad to you.”

  Josefa offered no response. She was too stunned, too confused. She didn’t know what to think of the whole business. It was time to go home. She got up, and Paul followed her out. She was glad he didn’t ask her for any explanation, didn’t want to know how she felt about him now, whether she forgave him, because she didn’t know herself.

  When they got to the hallway she remembered what she wanted to ask Paul before he fetched some water.

  “Why didn’t Harckmüller make Schulmann a partner?”

  “I wish I could say because he wasn’t good enough,” Paul remarked. “But things didn’t get to that stage. Schulmann made an incredibly stupid gaffe. At a company party he told a young lady that she looked like a hooker in that dress and bawled her out for daring to appear at a company event in such a getup. Schulmann thought she was a volunteer and his tirade would impress everybody. The young woman turned out to be Harckmüller’s daughter.”

  Well, well, Josefa thought as she went downstairs. Sometimes all it takes is a dumb little mistake to seal your fate.

  Nobody could see her cards. Nobody knew her intentions, her true face.

  She walked through everything in her mind once again. An ingenious plan. A brilliant brain. A dazzling façade.

  Suddenly it was all so simple. Even simpler than she’d thought.

  She used a towel to take the kettle off the stove, mixed the water with some snow in a basin, and added liquid soap. Then she carefully dipped her hands. The water changed color.

  I will wash my hands in innocence, she thought. The idea pleased her enormously. She repeated it over and over as she cleaned traces from her hands. Traces no one should ever see.

  How stupid people are. How set in their ways. And how susceptible to—but she’d rather not think about that now.

  Enemies are like a huge buffet. A magnificent, delicious buffet. You can help yourself to them. While politely thanking them with a charming smile and sending a silent promise with your flashing eyes.

  And then turn the knife.

  Later, when the time was ripe.

  Then they’ll see how stupid they were. They’ll tear their hair. Scratch out their eyes.

  If they still have time.

  She stretched out comfortably on the old sofa in front of the fireplace. Her work was accomplished. Victory would soon be hers.

  The Gasthaus Trittlibach smelled of cheese and kirschwasser and garlic because the innkeepers made their living off the guests in wintertime who came for the fondue specialties. “Fondue Specialties” was even on the menu. But Josefa had no yen for Vacherin-Gruyere-fondue or Emmental-Raclette-Tomme-fondue with nutmeg. She didn’t have the slightest urge to have melted cheese that evening.

  She ordered a glass of Saint Saphorin even though she knew she’d regret it later when she couldn’t get to sleep.

  “You’re not having anything to eat?” the waitress asked, a stocky, elderly lady with bushy eyebrows.

  “No, not today,” Josefa answered, wracked with guilt.

/>   “But this table is reserved in one hour,” the waitress said.

  “No problem,” Josefa replied and looked around. The room was just half full, and it was going on nine. Josefa had chosen the Trittlibach only because it was so near her place, and she was rather tired. “Someone’s coming who won’t be eating either,” she called after the waitress, just to bug her.

  “How exactly do you know?” an amused voice behind her said. Josefa turned around in surprise. Sebastian Sauter had caught her once again in a less than edifying moment.

  “It figures—cops always come in the back way,” she remarked.

  “That’s not true today. For one thing, I am off the job sometimes, like now, for instance.” He was standing before her in a pullover of an indeterminate dark color and a rusty-red winter jacket (so Esther was right about the jacket she’d seen him in at the rink), and had a pair of skis in one hand and ski poles in the other.

  “So here they are,” Josefa said, her heart beating faster. “They look great, really high tech. Sali will certainly like them.”

  Sauter leaned the skis and the poles against the wall and took a seat. “My Kevin is happy he got a hockey stick instead.” He looked frozen stiff.

  The waitress reappeared, and Sauter ordered. “A salami platter for two and a glass of Sonnenberger.”

  “You’re a man with feminine intuition,” she teased him. “I actually do want salami.”

  “You’re half Italian; you’ve got to love salami. Polenta’s the only thing you can’t get here.” He looked at her with his own peculiar blend of concern and curiosity so familiar to her by now. And there was something else in his eyes, but she’d rather not say exactly. She was keyed up enough as it was.

  “And what’s up in your life at the moment?” Sauter asked. Many of his questions came out of the blue like this.

  “Well, I’ve been reading a book—that is, no, I’ve read about a book, by an American writer whose divorced husband stalks her wherever she goes and hassles her with all sorts of tricks. He has masses of items delivered to her that she never ordered, sends people dirty letters under her name, and things like that. He was a computer expert. He did this for years and made her life a never-ending nightmare. In the end she had to assume a new identity and literally go into hiding.”

  Sauter listened intently. The waitress brought bread and cutlery. He offered Josefa the breadbasket but she waved it away.

  “He traced her anyhow, I think through her credit card or the bank—I’m not exactly sure. No, I believe he hacked into a computer in a government agency; of course, it would have to be something electronic. She was terribly desperate, at the end of her rope; all she could think of was to kill him.”

  The salami platter arrived. Sauter pushed it into the middle of the table, over to her. “It’s best to eat it with your fingers,” he told her, passing the bread again, and this time she took some. They both ate in silence, their eyes on their plates or on other customers. It was pleasantly quiet in the restaurant. Sauter picked up his wine glass; he had powerful hands with prominent veins. Hands of a man who liked to work with wood.

  “I know you’re not telling me this story so that I’ll say I’m not stalking my ex-wife. So what are you trying to tell me anyway?”

  “The moral of the story? I’m glad I wasn’t in her shoes, I mean, in the position the American woman was. Not only because her husband was a stalker. I think I’d have made the same decision she did. I think I would have killed him too. I wouldn’t want to be a victim my whole life, living in fear of death. Horrible.”

  She was toying absentmindedly with a slice of salami. “You’ve got to protect yourself. You owe it to yourself. Why should that guy get away with it? The difference between me and her is simply luck. Lucky I don’t have to decide. That’s the sole reason I’m a good person—a good person in the eyes of the law—because I’ve never been in a desperate situation like hers.”

  She looked up at him. He put a slice of salami into his mouth, looked back at her, broke off a piece of bread, chewed it, took a sip of wine, and looked at her again. For a long time.

  “And who can define ‘desperate situation’?” he asked. “Where do you begin?”

  “Fear of dying, for example. Fear of dying, every day.”

  He stopped chewing. “You’re not in any danger, Frau Rehmer—I ought not to have told you about Sali’s parents. I don’t want to upset you.”

  He pressed his lips together, and his gray, almost transparent eyes turned very dark. The ceiling light over the table was so low that his forehead was in shadow.

  Josefa shook her head. “I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about that American woman.”

  He didn’t believe her, she could see that. She felt trapped. Why was she telling him these things?

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” She shifted around in her seat. “What I meant to say is that you’re all by yourself in the most decisive moments of your life, at birth or death, in fear or anger.”

  She thought this summary was awfully awkward and out of place, especially here in the Trittlibach, with its red-and-white tablecloths, sheep horns on the wall, and an off-duty cop bedecking the table with bread crumbs.

  “I think I’m too tired to carry on a reasonable conversation,” she said quickly. “Since I’ve been working at home alone, I yak away like mad the first chance I get.”

  That wasn’t the least bit true, and Josefa was unhappier about it than she was about what she’d said before. She was so befuddled that her strongest desire was to get up and run out of the room. My life’s coming apart at the seams.

  But since she couldn’t do that—and she absolutely wanted to take Sali’s skis with her—she propped her elbows up on the table and put her hands over her face. She looked at the almost empty salami platter and felt Sauter’s eyes on her. She was sure to have dark rings under her eyes and her hair, which she’d rather carelessly tied up, was sticking out in all directions.

  A few customers at the next table were playfully squabbling over the cheese crust on the bottom of the empty fondue dish. “That’ll cost you the next bottle of wine, Peter!” someone shouted. It sounded like an echo from a distant world. People who have a fondue, get worked up over a badly chosen Christmas present, take their dog to the vet to be dewormed, write letters to the editor, have an allergic reaction to nuts or strawberries or milk, buy a Loyn bag for their fortieth birthday. People who’d never run over a child by accident, who’d never get cancer, who’d never lose all their money in the market, who’d never hate a person from the bottom of their heart.

  “I’ve heard there are people who never look in the mirror in the morning and don’t recognize themselves anymore,” Josefa said.

  Sauter cleared his throat, as always when about to say something personal. “I’m not a great talker, Frau Rehmer, but I understand what you’re saying perfectly well. I…When I discovered that my wife, my ex-wife, had a lover for months, I hardly recognized myself anymore. Certain thoughts go through your head, and you get feelings you’d like to forget later. I don’t want to go there again, but maybe it was a good thing I was there once. I understand a lot of things better now.” He mashed a bread crust with his strong fingers.

  “As a police officer you’ve got to learn, in the middle of everything…of all those enormities you’re confronted with, how to keep your world separate and in one piece. And that’s usually through the family. In my case it definitely was. When that fell apart—it was bad. At times I really lost it. But I still have good, close contact with Kevin, I have my work, and I did not turn into a drunk.”

  “Something else? Dessert? Coffee?” the waitress interrupted. Josefa raised her head, and to her surprise ordered the lemon sorbet she’d seen on the menu.

  “A double espresso,” Sauter said.

  Josefa moved her hand back and forth on the checkered tablecloth, like seagrass pushed by the waves. She was composed now and covered up her embarrassment with some mocke
ry. “So there’s a chance you’ll get to heaven in spite of everything?”

  Sauter grinned. “Absolutely. And you too, Frau Rehmer. You too.”

  She returned his smile and added, ritually establishing the familiar form of address between them, “My name is Josefa.” And before he could respond, “I like the name Sebastian. So cool.” Then she began to laugh at herself.

  The black delivery van had been standing for half an hour in front of the abandoned factory. The compound was deserted; railway tracks led from the cavernous, dismantled hall into nothingness. An old tow truck was tipped over on its side on the icy ground. The lettering on the outside factory walls was barely decipherable. The air was filled with the screaming of gulls drifting past on their way to the lake.

  The fingers of the man in blue overalls drummed on the steering wheel. When he yawned, his breath came out of his mouth in white puffs. It was ice cold in the truck, but he didn’t dare turn on the motor. He wanted to be able to hear the slightest sound. He had come here in a company truck. The furniture moving business he worked for was well known. Their customers included companies like Loyn. His presence in this place could be easily explained if need be.

  His supplier was reliable but cautious. They knew each other, but nevertheless there was always a little distrust in the air. Neither party wanted to put himself in a dangerous position.

  Some gulls were trying to break up the frozen earth with their bills, but suddenly they flew off in all directions. The foreman saw a midsized truck approaching. That had to be him. The truck went past and disappeared behind the factory. The man in blue overalls got out and went over to it on foot. When he reached the vehicle, the door opened and he swung up inside. A brief greeting, a quick exchange of glances with the man in the driver’s seat.