She gave him Nadia’s captivatingly mocking smile. “No need to get your knickers in a twist. Look, I’ve gone already.” A few minutes later she reached the agreed meeting place. And suddenly everything was easy.
She conjured up an embarrassed smile. “I came as quick as I could. Have you been waiting long?”
Nadia waved her excuses away. “Trouble with Michael?”
“You bet.” She got out. “I thought I was going to have heart failure when he grabbed the mobile.”
Nadia dropped her cigarette and crushed it with her toe. “No need to worry. I thought that might happen when I heard him.”
Nadia had already returned the rented car and completed all the formalities, and she made it quite clear she was taking over as Nadia Trenkler with immediate effect. She took her handbag, demanded the mobile back as well and insisted on a comprehensive report, at the same time holding out her right hand as if to say “Gimme.”
Slowly Susanne took off her jewellery, going on as she did so at great length about Michael’s initial good humour, his plans for a few days away and abrupt change of mood. Nadia was very pleased to hear what she’d said about borrowing the laptop from Philip and asked if she had time during the coming week.
“Not on Sunday. I have to go and see my mother.”
“It’s not Sunday,” Nadia said. “On Wednesday my friend’s flying to Geneva for three days. And since I got there so late yesterday, we thought…” She sighed. “He asked if I could arrange it so I could go with him. We’d have more time together. It doesn’t make any difference to you whether you do it at the weekend or in the middle of the week. As long as you haven’t got a job and I have the opportunity…”
She left the rest unspoken. Again Susanne felt a rage of fury rising within her. As long as you haven’t got a job! Presumably it had all been about business trips from the very first moment - given that it was a married man. If she’d had a job with Behringer’s, she’d have only been available at weekends, and would have been earning enough to refuse supplementary income that came from deception on principle.
“Well, then?” said Nadia. “Can you?”
“I don’t know.” She hesitated, her mind in a whirl. A man who had given her a few unforgettable hours. But he loved his wife. He wouldn’t accept another woman. She needed more information, she needed to know everything. So that eventually… She didn’t get any further. “It can’t work indefinitely,” she said. “Take my boob about Olaf. You just laughed, but I didn’t feel like laughing. Or Joachim Kogler with…” Suddenly half a dozen names were buzzing round in her head, making her feel totally inadequate. “I’d need to know more,” she said.
“Jo,” Nadia said emphatically. “Never even think of calling him Joachim, he hates that. He won’t bother you. They’re going to Canada for a fortnight at the beginning of the week.”
“But you have an appointment on Wednesday.”
“It’s been shifted to Tuesday. I’ll write down everything that occurs to me for you, OK?”
YES! lighted up in her mind like a flashing neon sign. Outwardly she remained hesitant, sketched a nod, at the same time shrugging her shoulders resignedly. “OK. If it all goes pear-shaped, that’s your problem.”
“Correct,” said Nadia. “But it won’t go pear-shaped. We’ll meet in the multi-storey on Monday at four. We’ll discuss the details then. Do you mind taking the bus back into town?”
“Not at all,” she said, feeling immense relief at not having Nadia with her any more as she tried to deal with the thoughts going round and round in her head. Nadia got in the car and the Alfa roared off. She stood there for a moment, motionless, then went to the bus stop.
Wednesday! That she’d see him again so soon! As long as nothing happened. She refused to allow herself to think of Nadia and him together, that he might after all mention the night and the afternoon. She didn’t know him well enough to judge that.
An hour later she was back in her flat. She took Jasmin Toppler’s key and retrieved her envelope. Her initial thought was to tear up her notes, but then she didn’t, she put the envelope in the cupboard with the three letters from Nadia and all the photos. She sat with the television on until three in the morning, but all she could see was Michael’s eyes when he was standing, naked, beside the bed. They way he’d smiled at her. “I’ll hold you tight.” Head over heels in love, just like a teenager! She really hadn’t expected it to happen to her again, when she’d managed without a man for so long.
Towards morning she dozed off on the couch, dreaming of the path through the woods. Nadia, all unsuspecting, was three paces in front of her and didn’t see her raise the heavy stick in her hand. It was shortly after midday that the postman brought her furious digging to an end. The hole in the ground simply refused to get any deeper. Dazed and confused, she staggered to the door and paid the postage for the thick envelope.
The weekend edition of the newspaper with its pages of situations vacant meant as little to her on that Saturday as the torrential shower of rain that flooded her balcony and left the floor of the mini-kitchen under water. She had a bite to eat some time late in the evening, she didn’t have much of an appetite. What little life there was in the room came from the TV. She had the choice between a variety show, a quiz show and a crime film. She chose the latter and went cold inside as on the screen a young woman was killed by her lover.
That night she dreamed about it. And the worst thing in the dream was that she learned that Nadia’s lover had murdered her and Michael Trenkler was mourning his beloved wife from the newspaper. There was nothing at all she could do, she woke up, bathed in sweat, and needed a moment to work out where she was.
Monday morning. Half-past seven. A good eight hours until the meeting in the multi-storey. She had breakfast, just a piece of cheese on toast - and it tasted of blood. She didn’t bother with lunch, she couldn’t eat a thing. She was afraid of herself and of what she was going to think of next. Shortly after one she got herself ready and left. Heller was at his window as she came out of the building. He shouted an obscenity and spat, but missed her. She ignored him and set off briskly for the city centre, past the multi-storey and through two boutiques she wouldn’t have dared enter just a couple of weeks ago. Then she went on to the Opera Café.
She remembered what Ilona Blasting had said. “A few minutes of the first act.” There had been a number of CDs beside the stereo, which revealed Nadia’s taste in music. She doubted whether Michael shared it. “When a man loves a woman.” It was still going round in her head.
Punctually at four she was at the meeting place and went through one last quarter of an hour of torment that a casual remark of Michael’s might have given away what had happened during the night and the afternoon, and Nadia wasn’t coming. Then the white Porsche came up the ramp.
Nadia was as friendly as ever and suggested a drive out into the country. She didn’t say much on the way there. Michael’s photo was stuck to the dashboard and she couldn’t stop herself looking at it. It was only when Nadia had parked in the little car park at the forest walk that she asked how the Saturday evening with Jo and Lilo had been.
“We didn’t go,” Nadia said, switched off the engine, picked up her handbag and got out, adding, as she slammed the car door, “I had a terrible headache.”
She couldn’t repress a guilty start. Nadia regarded her with a smile. Not a friendly or unsuspecting smile any more. “Unfortunately,” she said, drawing out the word as she locked the Porsche, “I had to make do with aspirin. My husband was still in a pretty bad mood.”
It was the first time Nadia had called him her husband. The subtext was clear. Nadia strolled off along the narrow path under the trees, not bothering whether she was following or not. After a few seconds she shook herself and set off, stumbling along the path behind Nadia.
“There’s aspirin in the dressing room, by the way,” Nadia said. “If you should happen to need one. You might do with the old injury to your skull. You often g
et a headache with that kind of thing, don’t you?” Before she could reply, Nadia went on. “Unfortunately I haven’t got round to writing anything down. We’ll just have to do it orally. What do you need to know?”
“I don’t know,” she stammered. “I thought you would.”
Nadia, already ten or twelve steps in front of her, turned round. By now her smile seemed frozen to her face. “How should I know what’s of interest to you? As far as I’m concerned, I’ve told you everything you need to act out your role. You’re not supposed to have needless arguments with Michael. The cold shoulder, d’you remember? And—” Nadia paused, her frozen smile giving a frosty glint to her eyes, “—the cold shoulder means doing nothing at all. Particularly not anything that demands specific, not to mention intimate knowledge. But for that you obviously don’t need special instruction. I wouldn’t have thought it of a woman who’s been without a man for three years and even before that was kept on short commons. You seem to have a natural talent for it. He was quite taken with my unaccustomed abandon and was hoping for a further helping when I got home.”
Her cheeks were burning. Nadia pursed her lips briefly and asked, “Don’t you feel well?”
She shook her head slowly. A hint of sympathy crept into Nadia’s smile, just the tiniest hint, the rest was still ice-bound. “What’s the matter? Missing my husband already?”
“I’m sorry.” It was an effort, but she got the words out. She realized that it had been a serious error not to bring up the matter immediately on Friday. It could perhaps have been sorted out then, with the explanation she’d originally thought of.
Nadia continued to smile. “Sorry?” she asked, drawing out the word. “If you’re sorry, he can’t have been in form. Did he not make sure you’d had an orgasm? I hope you’ll forgive him, with all the problems in the lab and his frustration with Kemmerling. Normally he’s not selfish like that.”
“No, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to sleep with him. And because I’d forgotten to put out the… I thought a headache would be a good excuse and…”
“OK, OK.” Nadia interrupted her stammering apology with a gracious wave of the hands. “My mistake. I should have told you that we have an unusual code word. It never occurred to me. But I believe I remember having told you how much my marriage means to me.”
Her cheeks were still burning, but her brain gradually cooled under Nadia’s icy stare. “Yes, and I wondered why on earth you were cheating on him. There’s no need to get worked up. Your husband didn’t notice anything and that’s what counts. If I’d known how he’d respond to a headache I’d have used diarrhoea as an excuse.”
Nadia raised her eyes to the treetops. “But on Friday you should have known. You might have just as well said, ‘Fuck me.’ ”
“I could never say a thing like that!”
“No,” Nadia mocked, “not you. You’re a little innocent and you don’t use obscene expressions. And why should you, when there’s another way? And now you know how it works. What did you have in mind for Wednesday? In bed for a change? I’d advise against that. In bed you just get the standard deal. You’d do better to go for the pool, there he’s in a class of his own.”
“Pity I can’t try it out,” she said. “I can’t swim.”
“All the better,” Nadia snarled. “I’m sure drowning while making love must be a wonderful death.”
Slowly Nadia came over and stood right in front of her. For a few seconds it looked as if she was about to put her hands round her throat. “The night,” she hissed, “I could have ignored that. You didn’t know what was happening until it was too late, no one could blame you for that. But on Friday afternoon you went too far. Got a taste for it, have you? Well, not with my husband.”
Now that hostilities had been declared and Nadia was showing her anger openly, she became completely calm. “If at all,” she said, “then only with your husband. Your boyfriend’s not my type. Anyone who goes round with a thug can’t be much of a man.”
Nadia drew back in surprise. “Thug?”
“The guy at the airport,” she said. “I got there a bit early on Thursday and I saw you getting out of the black car. What was that bruiser supposed to be? A chauffeur? A watchdog? The latter, I presume, since he had to wait outside like a good boy. Did he keep watch during the night as well? Or did he climb into bed with you to take over while his master got his second wind? That’s not my style - with a substitute ready to come on. I’m more for a cosy twosome and I reckon I had the more pleasant night.”
Nadia had also calmed down. “Then I hope you made the most of it, ’cause there’s not going to be an encore.”
“I take a different view,” she said. “We stick to our agreement: once a fortnight at a thousand euros a time. That’s cheap when you take into account that you cost me the job at Behringer’s. I know you did. I happened still to be there when Philip Hardenberg rang. I’m not going to do anything outrageous like demanding extra payment for special services. You won’t have to pay for your husband’s pleasure. After all, I’m not a whore. What Michael needs, he’ll get free of charge. He wasn’t selfish, he was fantastic. And he thought I smelled better, tasted better and felt better.”
Perhaps she shouldn’t have said that, but she just couldn’t resist. Nadia stared, her eyes spitting fire. She’d really got into her stride by now and went on without stopping, “If you’re not in agreement I’ll have to ring Michael and ask for a meeting. I can play him the little tape you recorded in my flat. I can show him my ID card and your letters to me. And one or two more. I can do all sorts of things to convince him there’s a faithful version of his wife. And that he won’t have to worry every time that version takes a drink.”
Her heart started to pound as she listed everything she could do, but overall she felt strong, just as strong as she’d felt when she’d placed herself in front of old Herr Schrag during the second bank robbery and pushed him towards the door. For a couple of seconds she thought she was in the stronger position, too. Then Nadia started to smile. It wasn’t a nasty smile, not an icy smile any more, it was just bored. It reminded her of the red stain on the branch manager’s shirt.
“Don’t try to threaten me. Given your life story, you must realize you’ll come off worse. It would break Mama’s heart to stand at the grave of her only daughter and I just have to snap my fingers to make it happen. Rest in peace Susanne Lasko. You couldn’t have made anything more of your life anyway. Is that what you want? Then ring Michael.”
Nadia turned on her heel and went back to the car park. She followed slowly, all churned up inside. She could hardly believe it when she found herself her eyes actually scouring the ground for a piece of wood or a stone she could use as a weapon. She couldn’t stop herself. A few steps in front of her, dangling from Nadia’s shoulder, was the handbag that contained everything she needed. And a few miles further on was a man for whom she obviously had something to offer that he didn’t get from his wife! The Porsche was only a hundred yards away. But she didn’t know where she was to go with it to swap it for the Alfa Spider. And she wouldn’t know how to take the piss out of Henseler, young Maiwald or Barlinkow at the next party Lilo Kogler organized. You couldn’t just slip into a forty-year-old life like a blouse someone else had taken off. She heard a strange grinding noise and realized it was her teeth.
When she reached the car, Nadia opened the passenger door and, with a gesture, invited her to get in. When she hesitated, Nadia asked coolly, “Do you want to walk back? Or are you afraid? Don’t worry, I’ll return you to your dump safe and sound. And we’ll forget the whole thing. If you’re sensible, your mother can enjoy an untroubled old age.”
She got in. And Nadia drove her home, stopping two streets away from her flat. She got out and leaned in the car. “So what about Wednesday?”
“Fuck off,” Nadia snarled. “And close the door.”
She didn’t close it, she simply walked away. Behind her she heard Nadia swear. The door slammed, the engine
roared, the white sports car flashed past and disappeared. Heller was still - or once more - leaning out of the window, and shouted something when she approached the tenement. He vanished as she opened the door and she assumed he’d be waiting to catch her on the stairs. Fortunately for him he wasn’t. Otherwise he might have become acquainted with her knee for the first time.
She spent the whole evening and half the night pacing round the flat, from the kitchen to the tiny living room, from there to the half-bedroom and on into the bathroom-cum-shower. Almost blinded by tears, she wailed her frustration at not having picked up a heavy stick in the woods. At one point the walls came in, threatening to smother her, then receded into the distance and the squalor was transformed into a snow-white villa where a sweet-tempered and affectionate husband was waiting for her longingly.
With the first trains passing outside, calm returned, at least inside her. Under the shower she washed away all the tears with lots of cold water. At half-past six she was having breakfast with Nadia’s letters on the table. For the hundredth time she read, “Perhaps I can do something to change that.”
There was so much Nadia Trenkler could have done. That she could get rid of her just by snapping her fingers - the very expression took all the weight out of the threat. She didn’t believe Nadia could be a danger to her. And she was absolutely determined not to let her get away with the way she’d treated her.
Part Three
The first thing Susanne Lasko did on Tuesday 17 September was to go to the place where it had all begun, the entrance hall of Gerler House. It was shortly after nine and fairly cool. The sky looked as grey and dreary as her future. Only where the sun must have been could a faint blush of pink be seen among the clouds.
She was wearing light-grey trousers, a pullover and a dark-blue wool blazer, her elegant attire complemented by a discreet amount of make-up. She approached the four lifts hesitantly, trembling a little at the idea that one of the doors might open and leave her facing her double. A lift arrived. There were only two men in the cabin and they hurried out past her.
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