Someone laughed. It wasn’t Zurkeulen and certainly not Hardenberg. “Please, Herr Zurkeulen. There are absolutely no grounds for your suspicions. At the moment the sum in your portfolio amounts to six million or thereabouts. Any loss has been recouped by now.”
“And it is at my disposal?”
“Of course, at any time, in the next few days, if you should wish,” Hardenberg hastened to assure him.
“Good,” said Zurkeulen. “I do wish. We’ll see each other again on Friday, Herr Hardenberg. And I very much hope that, for your sake, there are no problems with payment. Otherwise I would have to turn to different methods.”
Steps could be heard and she just managed to slip into Helga’s office and hide behind the open door. Peering through the gap between the door and the wall, she saw Zurkeulen and the stocky man cross the lobby, followed by Hardenberg. The stocky man was the first to vanish from her narrow field of vision, then Zurkeulen as well. He left without a further word.
Philip Hardenberg went back into his office. The upholstered door stayed wide open, making it impossible for her to cross the lobby without being seen. Through the narrow gap she could see part of the desk and the back of a large monitor. She could only hear what Hardenberg was doing. First he made a phone call, getting no answer and several times angrily cursing and calling someone - presumably Nadia - a damn bitch.
Then his voice switched to affectionate. She could hear his side of the conversation, clearly with Helga. “It’s me, darling… Yes, of course I’m back, the plane was on time… No, I popped in briefly at home, but I didn’t want to disturb you. Has Nadia rung?… I don’t understand… No, better not, you’ll just get Trenkler’s back up. You know how—”
She must have interrupted him. He gave an affected laugh. “I don’t understand that either. That’s the way some men are: imagine the wife’s just there to cook for them. But what can you do?” Helga’s reply was fairly lengthy. He laughed again. “No, that’s really not necessary, darling. There’s nothing to do here at the moment. You take it easy… Yes, I’ll be back early. See you.” There was a smacking noise, as if he was sending a kiss by telephone.
She was trapped in Helga’s office for more than an hour, almost fainting with worry that Hardenberg might come in. After he’d finished on the telephone, he worked on the computer. Then he went to the bathroom with some papers in his hand which he burned in the basin. Finally he closed the door of the lobby behind him, turning the key twice in the lock from outside. At that moment she remembered that the Alfa was parked beside the Mercedes.
She dashed out of the office in a panic. The lift seemed too risky. At the end of the corridor was a door with the escape-route symbol. It wasn’t closed, it led into a dingy staircase. Her heart was almost bursting through her ribs when she got to the bottom. She had to force herself to open the door to the underground car park, but with the massive pillars and all the parked cars there was plenty of cover.
And a pleasant surprise. The Mercedes was still there, the Alfa next to it. No sign of Philip Hardenberg. When a group of three approached from the lift, she risked it, dashed over to the car, jumped in and roared off to the exit in a squeal of tyres.
Around three in the afternoon she was in an exclusive lingerie shop, certain that neither Hardenberg nor Zurkeulen and Ramon were in the vicinity. That was all that mattered. She had three brassieres in her hand and paid for them with Nadia’s Visa card. After that she had lunch in a restaurant she would normally never have entered. She paid for that with Nadia’s American Express card.
Then she went shopping without having to think before she bought anything. A piano tutor: Easy Pieces For The Piano, food: ham, cheese, a few speciality salads and some fruit which wouldn’t produce an allergic reaction, as well as an outrageously expensive blouse and trousers to match. Both were too big for her at the moment, but that would change in the coming months. One of the bags she put on the rear seat of the Alfa had a stylized cradle printed on it. Inside were a tiny vest and a pretty little romper suit with a butterfly embroidered on it. She hadn’t been able to find one with an embroidered ray of sunshine.
She’d spent almost eight hundred euros, but money wasn’t the problem. In her handbag were two statements she’d printed out from a cash machine with Nadia’s bank cards. One account had a round thirty thousand euros. Fifty thousand had been paid into the second only three days before, bringing the amount in credit up to €127,000.
It was past five when she got home. And “home” was what she actually thought to herself. What else could she think after what Zurkeulen had said in Hardenberg’s office and what she’d seen in her flat? No one could live in such a scene of devastation.
Ramon’s doing, of that she was sure. Things were still too close for her to think them over logically but, despite that, she had a general idea of what must have happened to Nadia on Saturday evening. Nadia must have arrived back from Geneva after she’d gone to the house to get Hardenberg’s home number. Nadia had probably taken a taxi from the airport to Kettlerstrasse. Where she’d run straight into Zurkeulen and Ramon. Perhaps she’d been taken with them to Hardenberg’s, where no one had come to the door. She might have been left in the black limousine, which would be why Helga hadn’t seen her. And then Ramon would have “talked to her”. She didn’t want to think about that - either logically or in any other way. Above all, she didn’t want to think of what would have happened if she’d gone back to the flat from the phone box to wait for Nadia.
There was a car she didn’t recognize in the Koglers’ drive. Lilo was at the door, talking to a man, and waved to her. She waved back. She recognized the man, he’d been at the party on Saturday evening. She didn’t know his name, but that wasn’t important. People could change their names.
She drove into the garage and took her shopping into the house. Andrea had been there, had made the beds and returned the bathroom to its pristine condition. She got changed and hid the baby clothes behind a pile of towels.
Not long afterwards Lilo came round for a little chat, telling her how interested Kestermann had been in the picture that was on the wall above her when she’d come round on Saturday evening. So it was Kestermann. Things worked out one way or the other. Let Michael get a divorce. Losing him might hurt a bit, but he’d never really belonged to her and she’d managed without a man for years. Given her bank balance, she wasn’t dependent on his money and it brought the risk of exposure down to zero. In theory she could even stay in the house. She got on well with the neighbours.
Shortly after Lilo had left, a white Mercedes drew up outside Niedenhoff’s. A dark-haired man, presumably Frederik, got out and a few seconds later was standing at her front door. She didn’t intend to answer, but somehow she found herself facing him. “Hi,” he said. “I just wanted to check that the concert tickets arrived.”
Presumably she should have thanked him. She did it now. He smiled and said, “See you in Bonn, then.”
“Unfortunately not,” she replied. “I owed someone a favour and passed them on.”
“Ow!” he said. “You should have said so sooner. I don’t know whether we…” Instead of completing the sentence, he said, “Jacques’s in Paris. Should I give him a ring or do you want to talk to him yourself?”
She found it impossible to reply immediately. Jacques! In Paris! “Where can I get him?” she asked after a few seconds’ pause.
“The George V,” Frederik said, slightly puzzled, as if she ought to have been well aware of that. “He won’t be in his suite just at the moment. Try in half an hour. Or better still, leave it for an hour. The rehearsal will definitely have finished by then.”
She thanked him with a smile, which she hoped didn’t appear too forced, and spent the next ten minutes on the telephone, at the same time wondering how she was going to explain her liberal use of the credit cards to Nadia. What Zurkeulen had said in Hardenberg’s office no longer seemed so serious and might even explain some things. Ramon’s “talk” with N
adia had presumably left marks, which Michael mustn’t see. It was quite within the bounds of possibility that she’d decided to get Jacques to tend to her wounds in Paris.
As it turned out, it wasn’t half so difficult to get the number of the George V from the international call service as she’d imagined. They didn’t even ask for the exact address. Paris was sufficient. Then she was speaking to someone at the reception desk. He responded to her “Parlezvous allemand?” with excellent German and gave her the number of the suite without hesitation. Unfortunately Jacques Niedenhoff wasn’t there and no one else answered the phone.
She decided to try again in half an hour, but twenty minutes later Michael came home. He gave her a curt hello and even for that had to clear his throat twice. Then he got himself a towel, went down to the basement and swam a few lengths in the pool. She listened to his initially furious, then smoother splashing and risked a second attempt. Again no one answered.
By this time she was wondering whether Frederik - as a friend, co-tenant, lodger or whatever - wouldn’t have been informed if Nadia had sought refuge with Jacques. And why Nadia hadn’t rung during Monday from Paris. Despite that, she decided to try again after another half hour. However, fifteen minutes later Michael appeared by the desk, naked and sopping wet, rubbing his hair with the towel.
He seemed unsure of himself, no longer the man who’d presented her with a catalogue of her misdeeds only the previous evening. “Phil’s at the Sorbonne,” he said hesitantly. “They’d been out for a drink yesterday. They weren’t aware of the time. He’s sorry he woke us up.”
At the Sorbonne. It had a ring of seaside and holidays. So did what he went on to say. “He sends you his best wishes, Pamela’s too.” He had to clear his throat several times before he could get the rest out. “They wondered if we fancied going over for a few days.”
“What you fancy, I can’t say,” she said, forcing herself to look him in the face as he stood there, the embodiment of all her longings. “But I don’t.”
He took deep breath. “I just thought—”
She broke in with sudden vehemence. “What you think was made perfectly clear yesterday evening. What’s the point of you going to the Sorbonne with a woman who mostly treats you as a doormat? Get out, this is a study, not a strip joint. If you stand around much longer I’ll have to kiss you dry, whether you like it or not.”
“What?” He was visibly perplexed. And she was ashamed of herself. It wasn’t like her to express her feelings so openly. Of course, she’d hardly ever had the opportunity - and with Dieter she’d never really had the urge.
“You heard,” she said. “I’m not made of stone. You may see me as a money-grubbing bitch, but I still see you as the man I love and desire.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, looking down and wrapping the towel round his waist. It wasn’t much help. Jacques was in Paris, but she no longer felt like calling him and hearing that Nadia was there and was only going to come back when the bruising had faded. And she definitely didn’t feel like going back to her devastated flat after Nadia’s return, back to Kettlerstrasse.
“I’m sorry,” said Michael. “I shouldn’t have brought everything up again. I spoke to Kemmerling and…” He broke off. Obviously the professor had confirmed that she hadn’t poured out her troubles to him. He excused himself again, adding, “I could take time off until Wednesday. I thought you might like to do a bit of shopping—”
“Done it already,” she interrupted. “There’s cheese and ham in the fridge. I got fruit as well, though I’m afraid I forgot the soused herrings. And if you don’t get out this very minute, I’m going to start.”
He shook his head in bewilderment and finally went, leaving her alone with the slashed mattresses, the broken crockery, the feathers everywhere, the police seals on the door, Zurkeulen’s thoughtfully polite questions about Nadia Trenkler and Hardenberg’s claim not to know a woman of that name.
She went to bed early. It wasn’t even ten. Michael was still sitting watching the television, winding down with pop music and a frenetic kaleidoscope of pictures. This time it was Shakira wallowing in mud and waggling her hips. She couldn’t have sat beside him for two seconds without flinging her arms round his neck, making a full confession and begging him, “Let me stay with you. I’m having your baby. But I won’t love you any the less once it’s here.”
At some point she heard the central locking going on, the shutters going down and Michael going to one of the guest rooms. Shortly after that she fell asleep. She was wakened by someone shaking her shoulder violently. It was only a few minutes after six. The ceiling light was on. He was leaning over her holding part of the regional paper in one hand. The expression on his face was a mixture of consternation, bewilderment, disbelief, denial; it reflected such a wide range of reactions that it was impossible to take them all in at once. In a hoarse voice he just said, “There,” and held the paper out for her to read.
The headline leaped out at her like a wild animal: “Body of woman identified.” Beside it was a photo of her face, but it couldn’t have been that which he’d found so devastating. With the coarse-grained reproduction you had to look closely to see the striking similarity. It was an old, unflattering photo from the days when she’d spent her time at her mother-in-law’s bedside, reading to her about princes’ castles and poor serving maids. It made her look like a careworn housewife, not at all like Nadia. It was presumably Dieter who’d provided it.
The article referred to the report in the previous day’s paper about the dead body in the waste bin. The police were asking for anyone who had seen her or had any information about her to come forward. Her name was Susanne Lasko and she was the divorced wife of the well-known journalist and writer, Dieter Lasko. It was the two names that had caused Michael’s reaction.
When he told her, at half-past seven, that he had to go to the lab, she was reading it for the sixth or seventh time and surprised she didn’t feel sick. There seemed to be no room in her head for anything other than morning sickness. Before going to the garage he commanded her to stay put until he came home. He was going to see to it that he got back early. It sounded like a threat, but she had no idea where else she could go.
Punctually at eight Andrea appeared, again bringing her son. The little boy came towards her, his thumb in his mouth and carrying a grubby soft toy, while his mother, out in the hall, took a pair of orthopaedic flip-flops out of her bag and put on her brightly coloured housecoat.
“Come here, Pascal,” Andrea called.
“Come here, Pascal,” she whispered. And, hesitantly, he took the last few steps towards her. She lifted him onto her lap, showed him the photo in the paper and asked him what she should do. Going to the police and telling them it was a case of mistaken identity was out of the question. It would simply mean that Zurkeulen and Ramon would be able to read in the next edition that Susanne Lasko was in the best of health. And the logical conclusion of that was that from now on she was three years older and married to a man who wanted a divorce.
Andrea, alerted by Pascal’s disappearance, came into the kitchen, leaned over the article and declared, “She looks like you, don’t you think?”
“No, not at all,” she replied and turned back to the child in her lap, telling Pascal she was going to have a baby. And this started off a train of thought. Her mother! At first she ignored the fact that Nadia Trenkler could not afford to make contact with Susanne Lasko’s mother after her daughter’s death. What counted were the tears, the mourning, the terrible news that must have torn a blind old woman’s world apart. She had to do something at once, but she couldn’t get up from the chair because of the child in her lap.
Andrea smiled in disbelief and asked, “Really? What are you going to do? Will you sue Wenning?”
“No. Why should I?” She didn’t even know who Wenning was.
“What does your husband say about it?”
“I don’t know,” she said, feeling she knew nothing at all apart from that
one fact: Susanne Lasko was dead, probably as a result of a “talk” with Ramon.
She spent the morning as if in a trance with a barrage of flashlights picking out individual parts of a complex whole for a fraction of a second. Nadia claiming to have replacement documents. Nadia assuring her Philip had no key to her flat. Zurkeulen in the bank and his thoughtful voice in Hardenberg’s office. Andrea with a bottle of oven cleaner. The telephone in Frau Schädlich’s office, Nadia’s fragmentary message. Andrea holding a dress shirt with a spot that hadn’t come out. Andrea asking, “And tomorrow?”
“Wednesday, I think,” she said and came to with a start. It was almost two o’clock. She was sitting at the kitchen table in her dressing gown, in front of her a newspaper covered in biscuit crumbs and smeared with chocolate. On the floor Pascal was playing with the cut-up Frankfurter Allgemeine and a whisk. Susanne Lasko was dead, Jacques was in Paris, the Chopin on the piano was as complicated as ever. And she couldn’t swim either.
“Should I come tomorrow or not?” Andrea asked.
She took a deep breath and came to a decision. “Of course. Come as usual. We’re letting the water out of the pool, I think it needs a good scrub.”
Andrea just shrugged her shoulders, took the whisk off Pascal, gathered up the pieces of the Frankfurter Allgemeine, stuffed them in the waste bin and left. She sat at the table a while longer, staring at the local section of the paper. Her former face could hardly be seen under the smears of chocolate.
One hour later she’d showered, given her complexion a healthy smoothness with the help of a lot of cosmetics and a lot of effort, and blow-dried Nadia’s hair to the same perfection as the coiffeur himself. Every gesture was right, her brain was razor-sharp, well aware that anything that went wrong from now on was her problem alone.
The Lie Page 28