‘I don’t want to go home—I want to stay here,’ Leo says.
‘You can’t stay here forever, sweetheart. Miriam and Martin have a little baby—they can’t have you getting up to mischief with Justus all the time!’
‘It’s not that,’ Leo says. ‘And we don’t get up to mischief.’ He pouts and wrinkles up his nose, his adorable face all freckles and rebellion.
When I was pregnant with Leo, I taught myself all kinds of things so that I would always have an answer when my son began to ask questions—so that he would know his mother was clever, that he could rely on her. I didn’t want to have to resort to Google every time my son had a question. So I learnt all about how cars and mobile phones work, how many planets there are in our solar system, what photosynthesis is, and what lime and beech leaves look like. I learnt about the passive offside rule in football and how you tell death cap toadstools from mushrooms. But Leo never asks any of that. He only ever asks about things I don’t know—life and death and the big why.
He says nothing now. He’s hoping I’ll say something, but I wait.
‘I’m not coming with you,’ he finally blurts out, getting up.
‘Why don’t you want to come home, darling?’ I ask, although I know the answer.
My son raises his eyes and looks at me as if I were the most obtuse person on the planet, but still he says nothing.
‘What’s the matter, Leo?’
‘I don’t want to go home,’ he says in the end. ‘I’m scared of…’ He seems to be searching for the right word. ‘I’m scared of that man.’
He doesn’t say ‘my father’ or ‘Father’ or ‘Daddy’ or ‘Dad’—he says ‘that man’. For a second or two I stare at Leo. Then I take him in my arms. He doesn’t really like being hugged—not, at least, if anyone’s looking, because it’s uncool. But just this once he lets me. I wonder feverishly what to say to him. The situation is so fraught. I don’t know what to tell Leo about the stranger. I only know that, apart from me and Constanze, my son is the only person who seems capable of seeing through the stranger’s friendly facade. Leo has no memory of Philip, so he can’t know that the stranger isn’t his father. But he senses that something isn’t right with that man. He has sensitive antennae. Like me.
I sigh and let Leo go. I think once more, fleetingly, about moving into a hotel with him until things sort themselves out—but things won’t sort themselves out, and I know it. It’s up to me to take action. In the meantime, I’m not going to leave my house to the stranger—no way.
When you’re up against something you’re afraid of and don’t know how to escape, you should take a step towards it. Most monsters are as scared of you as you are of them. I learnt that from my wise grandmother.
‘Come on,’ I say to Leo, holding out my hand to him. ‘Let’s go and ask the M&M’s if you can stay a bit longer.’
The stranger
She still isn’t back. I wonder what she’s doing. She must be up to something—she’s always up to something.
I get up, suddenly too restless to sit still.
Once again I replay the day’s events in my head. Then I take my phone out of my bag and switch it on. My hands begin to shake slightly when I see that Grimm has rung me back. I check my voicemail for a message, but there’s nothing. I call him at once. It rings, but he doesn’t pick up. I feel like hurling the phone at the wall. But I’m not going to. Control yourself. Keep going.
I take a deep breath and press redial. Again, the ringing tone sounds. I let it ring for a long time, but no one picks up. Sarah could come back at any moment. I put the mobile in my jeans pocket. Just as I’m wondering what to do next, the phone downstairs begins to ring. There’s no number on the display, only the word private. I pick it up—it’s not impossible that Grimm should try me on the landline.
I have to think for a moment before answering. ‘Petersen?’ I say.
‘Hello.’ A female voice comes down the line. ‘It’s Miriam.’
I don’t immediately respond and there is a pause.
‘I’m a friend of Sarah’s,’ she says. ‘We…’ She hesitates. ‘We met briefly today.’
The kind-looking woman with the ash blond hair and round glasses.
‘Yes, of course,’ I say. ‘Hello, Miriam. I’m very pleased that—’
‘Me too!’ she says nervously. ‘It’s so good that you’re back. I’m so happy for Sarah.’
Interesting, I think. Sarah hasn’t told her friend that the man in her house isn’t her husband. Very interesting.
‘Yes,’ I say.
Miriam doesn’t reply. Neither of us speaks.
‘Sarah’s not around,’ I say at length.
‘Oh, yes,’ Miriam replies. ‘I know. She was here until just a minute ago. I wanted to take advantage of the time she’ll take to get back. I’d like to talk to you.’
That wakes me up.
‘Well, yes,’ Miriam begins. ‘To be honest I’m worried about Sarah. She’s been acting strangely lately.’
I suppress a cynical laugh. Yes, I think. I can imagine.
‘And I know you’ve only just arrived yourself,’ Miriam goes on, ‘but…’
She lets the sentence trail off.
I wait. I can feel my headache stirring.
‘I keep trying to talk to her—to ask her if she’s okay—but she shuts down every time. And after what happened today…’
‘Don’t worry,’ I say automatically. ‘The last few days have been a bit much for my wife. For all of us. She needs to get some rest. She’ll be all right then.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’ Miriam asks.
Leave me in peace, I think. For God’s sake, just leave me in peace. But I know it can’t hurt if Miriam likes me—if she pities me a little—if I come across as loving and concerned. She may be useful to me in some way.
‘Just be nice to her, if she drops in again,’ I say. ‘And patient. And give me a ring if you need to. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ says Miriam.
‘What about Leo?’ I ask, on a hunch. ‘Has Sarah picked him up?’
‘Leo’s going to stay with us a bit longer,’ says Miriam, sounding a little cagey.
‘Oh.’
‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘It is the summer holidays, after all. And I’m sure you and Sarah could use some time alone. You’ve both been through so much.’
I’m running out of things to say. ‘Thank you for ringing.’
‘Yes. Not at all. And good that you’re back. Really good.’
‘Thank you,’ I say again.
‘Yes,’ says Miriam. Now she seems embarrassed. Maybe it’s dawned on her that it’s not very nice to talk to your best friend’s long-lost husband behind her back. But that’s not my problem.
I’ve only just hung up when I feel my mobile vibrating. I whip it out of my pocket and take the call.
‘This is Harald Grimm,’ says a dark voice.
Sarah
Summer in Hamburg—the swifts are calling. I throw back my head and watch the aeroplanes carving up the sky, surprised that it doesn’t shatter and fall to earth with a crash.
I’m sitting in the car. After leaving Miriam’s neighbourhood, I drove a few streets and then stopped again. I’m nearly home—Miriam doesn’t live particularly far away—but I don’t want to get there yet. I need a moment to collect myself.
I can’t get Constanze’s words out of my head. They hover over me like a curse muttered in the dark. ‘My son is dead,’ I repeat softly. ‘My greedy, deceitful daughter-in-law killed him. Everyone in Hamburg knows that. Everyone.’
I close my eyes in exhaustion, just for a moment—just a moment’s peace. At once I feel myself slipping away—feel sleep stalking up to me with long stealthy strides. Silence. Peace. Just for a second…
No. I can’t fall asleep now. I open my eyes. With a shudder I remember the dreams I’ve been having lately. The beginning isn’t new. I’ve been dreaming about that door for years. It’s always the same: I’m standin
g outside a closed door and an eerie rumbling sound is coming from the other side. I stare at the door, and then, although I want to run away, I open it. Then I wake in blind panic. But lately I’ve seen what’s behind the door: a dark road, gleaming black as licorice. Philip is with me, his eyes vacant. I stand on the asphalt, looking down at my hands—and my hands are covered in blood.
That part of the dream is new. The blood on my hands is new.
My friends urged me to see a therapist when Philip went missing—a beefy man, who would, it seemed to me, have been less out of place at a rock concert than in a psychotherapist’s practice—and I wonder now what he’d have to say. He was, in fact, a very nice man, but I only went to one session. I don’t like talking about myself. I prefer to sort things out on my own. Philip often criticised me for that. I can hear him say it now, only half in jest: ‘My beautiful, silent wife.’
Again my thoughts return to Constanze. Does she seriously believe I killed Philip? And if so, are there others out there who think the same? I suddenly see the face of the stranger, who is probably still in my house. I lean my head against the headrest and my thoughts go haring all over the place like puppies.
It’s all about money, I tell myself. Forget the rest—forget the threat, forget the goddamn dream and your own guilty conscience. Don’t let him in your head. Don’t let him manipulate you. It’s all about money.
An impostor who resembles Philip—who has been chosen precisely because he resembles him—passes himself off as the millionaire and entrepreneur Philip Petersen, cleans out all his bank accounts—and disappears again. Again I hear Johann’s voice in my head: It always comes down to money in the end.
There was once a rich king, I tell myself, who was beloved by all the world. But his queen was full of envy and wickedness, and she poisoned the king with an enchanted potion. The good king was never seen again, nor could anyone say for certain what had become of him. Rumour spread, however, that the queen had had a hand in it, and the king’s trusted courtiers determined to avenge his murder. But they could not prove it was the queen who had killed the king, for no one had ever found the king’s dead body. And so they conceived of a plan and searched the land high and low for the man who bore the greatest likeness to the missing king. From all four corners of the kingdom, young men came to present themselves, and for seven days the king’s trusty courtiers examined the faces of these young men, until at last they found one whose resemblance to the missing king was extraordinary. This man was taught to talk like the king, clothed in sumptuous robes, and brought before the wicked queen. Knowing the king had been poisoned by her own hand, the queen had a fit. ‘It’s a lie! It’s a lie! You’re dead and buried!’ she cried, and so great were her fear and rage that, before they could stop her, she had thrown herself off the highest turret of the castle and plummeted to her death.
I open my eyes and blink—the sun is dazzling. What am I thinking? I don’t have the time for such nonsense! Would I have spent seven years wondering what had happened to Philip if I’d killed him myself? I rein in my wild thoughts and start the car.
The stranger
After the phone call, I have a long shower and get changed. I immediately feel better.
The phone rang several times when I was in the shower, and it’s ringing now. It rings for a long time, stops for a second or two—and then starts again. I follow the sound downstairs, into the living room, and hesitate only briefly before picking up.
‘Hello?’
No reply.
‘Hello?’
Somebody clears his throat. Then I hear a man’s voice.
‘Yes, um, hello. Sorry. This is Mirko. Mirko Blücher. I’m a colleague of Sarah’s.’
I say nothing.
‘Well, I, er, just recently heard that you’re back,’ the man says. ‘I saw you on television. At the airport. Amazing story. Congratulations. Or whatever you say in such a situation.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Yeah,’ says the man.
I say nothing. I never was one of those people who feel the need to fill silence with chatter.
‘Is Sarah around?’ the man asks.
‘No,’ I reply. ‘She’s out.’
‘Oh, okay. Thanks,’ he says and hangs up.
I stare at the telephone a moment, then step out into the garden and sit under one of the apple trees. I can’t let myself sleep, but I can at least get a little rest. She will be back. It’s her home, after all, and she’s hardly going to go off and leave it to me. I know enough about people—about her—to be sure of that.
I had imagined that everything would be much more straightforward. But life’s not like that. It’s a great many things, but it certainly isn’t straightforward. My thoughts drift back to the camp, to the arguments we used to get into—always over little things. Who got to wash first, who hadn’t left enough food for the others, who snored or talked too much—or laughed too loud. But such things didn’t bother me. What I couldn’t bear was the lack of privacy. I freaked out completely if anyone went near my things—I couldn’t help myself.
I think of my best friend in the camp who, like me, had a wife and child at home. Over the years, we grew to be like brothers, sharing a lot, reading the same books, discussing the same topics. I loved him—he was a good man. I won’t break the promise I made him.
Stay strong, I think. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.
Sarah
As I walk in the front door, I can sense that he’s here. His presence is like a low note that you hear not with your ears but your belly.
I close the door noiselessly, lean up against it and shut my eyes for a moment, going over in my mind what I know. His vanishing act this morning, his foray into town, the fact that he knows so much about Philip, that he has acquaintances here in Hamburg he goes to meet, that he slips men money at the station—that he’s even prepared to do a DNA test to buy himself time. My thoughts wander back to our talk with Barbara Petry. The stranger knows so much about us. He must have known Philip well. He has had time to study him.
I consider calling Petry again, or perhaps—remembering the debacle my last encounter with her turned out to be—I should call Bernardy or Hansen instead. I have nothing new to tell them, though. It’s hardly likely to impress anyone that I’ve seen the stranger walking around town, talking to people.
The stranger is extraordinarily convincing. To be that convincing, you have to believe in yourself. It’s not at all easy to wear a mask every second of every day, never taking it off. It isn’t enough to tell others who you are now—you have to keep telling yourself as well. If you want to be plausible, you have to be eternally on your guard. You can’t risk a single wrong word, or even a single wrong thought. You have to keep repeating it to yourself: I am innocent. I am innocent. I am innocent. Tell yourself every second of every day that you are innocent and you will be innocent. You’ll be able to convince anyone, any lie detector—even yourself. Tell yourself every second of every day that you are called Philip Petersen and you will be called Philip Petersen.
I push myself away from the door and set off in search of him. After I’ve checked the kitchen, living room, dining room and all the bedrooms, I glance out of the terrace door and spot him in the back garden. He’s leaning up against a tree in the shade, his legs stretched out in front of him. He’s changed his clothes and is now barefoot in jeans and a white T-shirt.
I have to change my tactics, I think. The aggressive questions I’ve been asking so far haven’t got me anywhere. If the stranger really did know Philip, perhaps there’s a way to get him to talk.
He’s noticed me standing at the door and gives me a wary look. It’s almost evening, but still warm and humid. I cross the lawn and sit down next to him, careful not to come too close, then pick a daisy and twirl it between my fingers.
‘When Philip went missing,’ I say, ‘my son was just a year old.’
The stranger doesn’t look at me.
‘Leo was our third try, our
last try.’ I swallow. ‘I had two miscarriages before Leo.’ I look at the daisy in my hand, then cast it aside. ‘It’s so easily said,’ I say. ‘As if it were no great matter. Like hiccups—mishap, miscarriage. Nothing serious.’
The stranger still doesn’t look at me.
‘After my first miscarriage, we were devastated, Philip maybe more so than me. We were told it was for the best and that we should try again straightaway, so we did. I was soon pregnant again, and at first everything seemed to be going smoothly. Why shouldn’t it? I was young and healthy. I’d just graduated. I—’
I interrupt myself, stop and think before I go on.
‘Philip loved children—he’d always wanted his own. Some people can’t be happy without children. Philip was like that. After my second miscarriage, after we’d buried our second baby, I was scared. I wondered how we could put ourselves through all that a third time. Three’s a kind of magic number for me, you know. Somehow I always have the feeling that if something doesn’t work out the third time round, it never will.’
I feel a bead of sweat run down my neck.
‘I was scared that was going to be my life—getting pregnant and having miscarriages, over and over—three times, four times, five times, ten times, until neither of us had any strength left. One evening, I found Philip in the room we’d decorated together for the baby. He was staring into the empty cradle and turned round when I went in. He seemed embarrassed that I’d caught him there. That evening I told him I was ready to try again, and he said no. I couldn’t believe my ears—I knew how much he wanted a baby. I asked him why not, what was wrong? And he said he’d hardly been able to bear our last failed attempts—and that it must have been much worse for me. He didn’t want me to put myself through that again.
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