She spent the Sunday afternoon with her mother. She asked about her old school books. What she was really interested in, she said, were her music books. However, contrary to what she had expected, Agnes Runge had not kept them. “There’s not much room here, I had to throw a lot of things away. Why do you need your music, Susanne?”
“Herr Heller’s selling his piano,” she said, “and I thought… But it’s not important. It would be too cramped in my flat anyway if I had a piano as well.”
“Do you think you’ll soon be able to afford a bigger one?” her mother asked. “And what’s all this about you doing courier trips?” Johannes Herzog had told his grandmother about it and obviously expressed some doubt about this source of extra income, which Frau Herzog had promptly passed on to Agnes Runge. Her mother was slightly concerned, but easily reassured.
Late on Monday afternoon Nadia rang on the mobile again. She told her to come and meet her two streets away, where she handed over two bags with new clothes for cooler days and a handbag - the twin of hers and with identical contents. She didn’t have time for a walk, just enough to bring Susanne up to date on what had happened since they last met.
Naturally Jo had repaired the garage door mechanism. It hadn’t been easy to convince him that the alarm system had gone haywire and the lock had only opened with the key once all the wires in the box had been disconnected. Poor old Jo had checked the whole installation over twice and was starting to doubt his own ability. Ilona was still in a huff; only the previous day she’d absolutely refused to say whether they still needed the switch or not, adding, tartly, that Wolfgang now spent the evenings in romantic candlelight, doing his bit for the environment. Nadia was much amused by this and said it solved any problems Wolfgang might cause. If Susanne annoyed his wife, he wouldn’t be allowed to talk to her. As an enforcer of the law he might be hard as nails, but at home it was his wife who wore the trousers.
Susanne wasn’t worried about Wolfgang Blasting. It was Michael she felt she really needed to know more about, but Nadia finished her report by simply telling her there’d been no problems with Michael. With that she was gone. It was only then that Susanne remembered she’d forgotten to tell her what Heller had said. But it was hardly likely that Heller might meet Michael Trenkler and tell him his wife existed in duplicate. And what other use could an alcoholic with a criminal record make of his knowledge?
On Wednesday her mobile rang for the third time. Nadia sounded slightly agitated. Something had cropped up. Her lover wasn’t free that weekend, his mother-in-law had decided to come. “However, he’s going away on business beforehand,” Nadia said. “I could go with him if you could manage it.”
Of course Susanne could manage it. Nadia was delighted. “Fantastic. We’re going tomorrow and coming back on Friday. You can go home on Friday morning, if you prefer. I’ll ring you there and you can come and pick me up. I’ll make sure you have two quiet days.”
“You don’t need to pick a quarrel,” said Susanne. “I’ll take the tampons out of the cupboard. It’s only for the one night.”
“As you wish,” said Nadia. “If he says or does anything you can’t cope with, just give him the cold-shoulder treatment or remind him who financed his studies. That’ll soon shut him up.”
Susanne thought that was mean but naturally didn’t say so. Nadia went on, without even pausing for breath, saying they were to meet in the large car park at the airport then adding, “You’ll need to pluck your eyebrows again. The rest as well. I’m relying on you. Wear the grey suit and be there on time.”
All she said was, “Yes.” She spent the next hour with the instruments of torture. She pulled and plucked, shaved, clipped, cropped and creamed until there was nothing growing that wouldn’t stand up to close inspection. Her stomach was tensed and she didn’t bother with dinner. She didn’t sleep well, either. Her mind was already on the next night and she knew that, stretched out beside Michael Trenkler, she wouldn’t sleep a wink for fear of giving herself away with a false movement, breath or something.
Some years previously Dieter had said that she talked in her sleep. Quite clearly too, apparently. At breakfast he’d repeated her negotiations with an insurance agent. According to him she’d asked about life insurance for a journalist working in international trouble spots. She’d no idea whether it was true or not, but it seemed reasonable to suppose she’d thought Dieter could easily drive over a mine in his jeep, or be caught up in an ambush. She found it disturbing to think that in the night that was to come she might talk quite distinctly about things she had on her mind:
“Tell me all about your life, Nadia. And when I know all about it, when I can act like you in my sleep, you can swan off and make your lover happy for the rest of his life. We can swap. As Susanne Lasko you don’t have to justify yourself or be faithful to anyone. And I’m looking for a permanent position anyway.”
On the morning of 12 September she awoke even before the early train from a nightmare in which Heller had played a leading role. She came back from standing in for Nadia to find her lying on the bed in her flat, covered in blood with her fingers cut and her head smashed in. Heller was in the kitchen, washing his hands and the knife. He grinned and said, “Get out! It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. No one’ll think it’s not you lying on your mattress.”
His voice was still going round in her head as she took a shower and it made the coffee leave a bitter taste in her mouth. She did without her usual slice of toast, dressed carefully according to Nadia’s instructions, took great pains over her make-up and hair. She left shortly after seven and set off briskly in the direction of the station.
She took the bus to the airport. She was much too early and had plenty of time to find the large car park. Nadia wasn’t there. After she’d waited for a quarter of an hour at the entrance, the coffee and her nervousness began to press on her bladder. There was nothing for it but to go to the terminal. To her surprise, the red Alfa was in the short-stay car park. Nadia was nowhere to be seen.
She hurried to find the toilets. When she went back out, she used a different exit. There she noticed a large, black limousine with tinted windows beside which a stocky man was standing, keeping a sharp eye on the surroundings. As she approached the car, the man opened one of the rear doors. Quickly she took cover. Nadia got out of the limousine, a black briefcase in one hand. On the other side of the car a tall, slim, fortyish man with dark hair appeared and spoke briefly to Nadia.
All the unease Susanne had felt because of the life-insurance policy immediately vanished into thin air. The lover, with chauffeur or bodyguard. The sort of man to whom a thousand euros for a night of love was nothing. It probably wasn’t Nadia who was forking out, but the dark-haired man. He got back into the rear seat and the stocky man settled behind the wheel while Nadia went to the nearest entrance and vanished inside the terminal. The black limousine set off, coming towards her. She ducked down lower behind a car and waited until the limousine had gone before dashing back to the car park.
By this time Nadia was already waiting by the entrance and a few minutes later Susanne was on her way back to the terminal with the task of renting a car, with her first wages and a credit card made out in her name in her handbag. The clerk glanced at her driving licence, accepted the piece of plastic as security and offered her the choice of a range of luxury cars.
She chose a silver Mercedes, and it was only as she was driving back to the car park that she began to wonder why Nadia needed a hired car. As she got out and handed Nadia the key and the registration document, she asked, “Why don’t you go in your friend’s car?”
Nadia gave her a forbearing look. “And what do I do if his meeting goes on for a long time tomorrow? Ring up when you’re in bed? Michael certainly wouldn’t be happy if you said you had to go into the office at three in the morning.” It seemed to make sense.
Nadia took the credit card back, promised to call as soon as she’d arrived and gave her a note of her mobile number, jus
t in case. If Michael should be around, she was to tell him she had to make a quick call to the office. On the phone she was to say, “It’s me, Helga. Can you check what time my appointment with Herr Müller is tomorrow please? But do it quickly, I’m just…” And so on. That would allow her to explain the situation to Nadia who could then steer her through the problem.
While she was talking, Nadia removed her jewellery and took four packets of cigarettes plus a disposable lighter and her purse out of her handbag. Then she transferred her luggage from the Alfa to the Mercedes: a suitcase, the briefcase - with combination locks, as she could see now - the document case and the laptop.
“Won’t Michael notice I haven’t got that?” Susanne asked.
“My laptop?” Nadia sounded surprised. “He’s not interested in that. As I told you before, I always leave it in the car. This isn’t just a pleasure trip, my friend’s going on business and I’ll be alone quite a bit during the day. I’ve no intention of sitting in a hotel room, bored out of my mind, or wandering round the city by myself. I prefer to use the time to do a couple of analyses.”
That seemed to make sense too. “Apropos boredom,” said Nadia. “Most evenings Michael usually watches a few music videos. He needs that to help him unwind, but you don’t have to put up with them. Go to bed before him.” With a meaningful smile, she added, “Then you can hide under the sheets and won’t need to worry that he’ll see any more of you than Dr Reusch did.”
Until now she hadn’t worried about that at all. “And in the morning?” she asked.
“You don’t need to see to anything. Michael doesn’t have breakfast and you’re hardly going to help him shower.”
They swapped cars and drove out of the car park. Once on the autobahn the silver Mercedes quickly disappeared from view. It was ten minutes before it occurred to her that she’d forgotten to take the key to her flat out of her handbag. It wasn’t the end of the world, she was just slightly concerned that she couldn’t go home in an emergency. But it was a challenge. It meant she had to cope, she couldn’t afford to be chucked out.
As far as the traffic would allow, she drove rapidly and, at first, calmly, sure as she was of returning to an empty house, the technological mysteries of which she could recite off by heart. When she left the autobahn, however, she started to feel a slight queasiness in the pit of her stomach. She soothed her twitching nerves by reminding herself she had the whole day for her second confrontation with the technology and Nadia’s mobile number for emergencies.
Once she was in the house and had ascertained she could get out at any time, she was going to spend the hours until Michael came home doing whatever she felt like. Take a bath in the round tub; perhaps carefully check whether the swimming pool had a place where she could stand on the bottom; devour computer handbooks until her head was throbbing and - very cautiously - do a little practice with the word-processing package.
At fifteen minutes past ten she turned into Marienweg. A middle-aged woman was sweeping the dust out of the Koglers’ front door. On the other side, a Ford Fiesta was parked in the drive, which didn’t look as if it was part of the Blastings’ goods and chattels. Niedenhoff’s and Eleanor Ravatzky’s properties seemed deserted. She brought the Alfa to a stop outside the garage door, picked up the remote control and keyed in the code. As if by magic, the wide door swung up.
At once the fluorescent tubes in the garage blazed into light. She drove in on the left-hand side. Hardly had she switched off the engine than the door swung back down. Bolts engaged - in the silence it sounded like two gunshots, one immediately after the other. She flinched, even though she knew very well they were only set off by some sensors reacting to the engine noise, or perhaps to the silence after the engine was switched off. Just to make sure, she operated the remote control again. The door opened and stayed open. She started the car then switched off. As soon as it was quiet in the garage, the door came down.
It worked. Fantastic! It was even fun just pressing some buttons and turning the key in the ignition. She did it four more times before it occurred to her that the neighbours might hear the noise and wonder what was going on. Nadia certainly wouldn’t spend hours playing with the garage door.
She made it from the garage to the keypad in the hall closet in just five seconds. Three seconds later she’d deactivated the alarm. The front door opened and closed perfectly normally. She switched the alarm back on and tried the key. The door opened that way too, as Nadia had said it would. She briefly leaned back against the door then switched the alarm off again, breathing a sigh of relief.
She’d made it. Her nerves calmed down. The nightmare with Heller was fading fast and the queasiness in her stomach had gone, leaving a hole which reminded her that she’d given both dinner and breakfast a miss. She decided to make up for it and read a little while she ate.
The fridge was well filled and half an hour later she was sitting with some expensive china in the dining room. There was a door out onto the terrace, which she opened as it was mild outside. The mobile at hand beside her plate, she devoured two slices of toast with ham and one with cheese while reading a chapter about setting up, processing and saving a document. She wondered briefly where Nadia was. In all the excitement she’d forgotten to ask where they were going. But she wasn’t particularly interested anyway.
Shortly after eleven the dining room and kitchen were clean and tidy again. She’d also emptied an ashtray containing five cigarette ends. Carrying the book and mobile, she went upstairs and examined the huge box underneath the desk with a quiver of nerves in the pit of her stomach. The green light was glowing; obviously the current was permanently switched on, even if that didn’t mean the computer was ready to use.
Beside the green light were two depressions - further lights, she suspected - and underneath it a raised disc, probably the on-off switch. Just a try! Just to see if she’d understood the section in the book. For a few seconds she was undecided. She felt a bit uncomfortable, Nadia had made it all too clear that the study was out of bounds.
But Nadia didn’t need to know and it was important for her future. You had no chance as a secretary if you weren’t computer-literate. Nadia’s affair wasn’t going to last for ever. A married man! When Nadia gave him his marching orders, or he her, she wouldn’t need a stand-in any more. At most there’d be the approach Nadia had suggested with Herr Schrag. “OK Nadia, I’m not going to insist on continuing to play the sulky wife for you. From now on I’ll get…” But she wasn’t like that.
Her eye was drawn to the box under the desk. As she pressed the switch she felt like a little child disregarding a strict prohibition. A red and yellow glow appeared in the two depressions and a chittering could be heard inside the box. A few messages flashed up on the screen, then an instruction appeared in the middle: Enter password.
For a while she sat there staring at the request like someone caught red-handed, wondering what it meant. Was Michael worried his wife might nose around in his lab results? Or was he afraid she might find the telephone number of his little laboratory mouse on the computer? Disappointed, she pressed the button again to switch the computer off. Nothing happened. She crept underneath the desk, where she discovered the telephone plug, which had been disconnected. Examining the box, she found a switch on the back. She had to press it twice and everything was as it had been at first.
Phew, she’d got away with that. But no more experiments. The shot of the front garden and the street that she’d seen on her first visit had shown her that the computer was more than just a glorified typewriter. And it reappeared now, hardly had the green light gone on again. A mail van stopped outside, the postman got out and came up to the house. As far as she could see he fiddled with something at the wall beside the front door and then disappeared. Not long afterwards the picture disappeared as well.
She went downstairs, leaving the mobile on the desk. First of all she checked whether there was a letter box attached to wall outside that she’d overlooked in her ag
itation. There wasn’t, just a slit in the wall. At about the same height in the inside was a flap with a little hole, which she hadn’t noticed before. The letter box must have been built into the masonry. She couldn’t open it, there wasn’t a key on the ring that fitted the hole.
She went down to the basement, to work up an appetite for lunch. The decision was incredibly difficult given the choice in the two deep freezes. This time there was considerably more in them than a few ready meals. It was a culinary paradise that made her mouth water, despite her substantial late breakfast. She chose a pork escalope with mushrooms, green beans and asparagus, carried it all up to the kitchen and decided to have a relaxing bath while the food was thawing out.
Once more she was spoiled for choice. Should she have a bubble bath, pour in some bath oil or use one of the pink balls? The pink balls were the most tempting. She fetched the jar from the guest bathroom, dropped two in the water as it filled the bath and enjoyed the way they dissolved, spread an oily film over the surface and filled the room with a subtle fragrance. It was an experience in itself and went some way towards compensating her for the frustration with the computer.
When the tub was a quarter full, the mobile rang in the study. It could only be Nadia, since no one else knew she had the phone. She hadn’t even told her mother because she didn’t know whether she was going to be able to keep it. From a glance at Nadia’s watch, she saw that it was half-past twelve. It must have been a long journey. She went out, dumping her underwear and the towel on the bed, rushed into the study, picked up the phone and said, “Arrived safely?”
“Frau Trenkler?” It was a harsh-sounding man’s voice.
“No,” she said and switched off. Seconds later the phone rang again. She ran into the bedroom and dialled the number of Nadia’s mobile on the bedside phone. A female voice announced that the person she was ringing was unavailable at the moment and invited her to leave a message.
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