She tried once more. “No. It was quite different.”
And he laughed again, a contemptuous laugh, and insisted on details. She started with the first meeting by the lift in Gerler House. He brushed it aside. Wolfgang, he said, saw that quite differently, namely that she and Hardenberg had met. Otherwise Nadia would definitely have told him about an encounter with a double.
His image of Susanne Lasko was based entirely on what he’d heard from Wolfgang: a crafty little devil, an artful bitch who’d hoodwinked everyone and even stolen from her own mother. Wolfgang - with Dieter’s all-too willing help - had unearthed some ugly facts about Susanne Lasko.
She was far too churned up inside to pay attention to where they were going. And every time she tried to clear something up or said Nadia’s name, he interrupted her. She did manage to get as far as mentioning Nadia’s request that she stand in for her as the sulky wife, but when she went on to the dress rehearsal on the Sunday afternoon in August, he didn’t want to know. And he refused to hear anything about the twelfth of September. He apologized sarcastically if, given the situation, he felt he couldn’t take any more lies. All he wanted to find out was who he’d been duped by for days on end, as if he was a complete idiot.
The Alfa bumped slowly along an unmade track, coming to a halt on a tiny patch of rough ground. He switched off the headlights. Immediately it was pitch dark. Nothing, absolutely nothing could be seen. Not even his face. Only after several seconds, which seemed endless, did her eyes adjust to the darkness. She could make out vague shapes outside the car. Tree trunks! Massive tree trunks. “Where are we?” she asked.
He’d put his face in his hands and didn’t reply. She repeated her question, unable to keep a quiver of panic out of her voice. He lowered his hands and, staring fixedly out into the darkness ahead, said, “Demetros’s.”
“But there’s no restaurant anywhere around here?”
He laughed. “Who said Demetros’s was a restaurant? It’s a club, a meeting-place for like-minded people or whatever you want to call it. We often came here, my wife and I.” He made an odd sound that was almost a sob. Then he went on. “A relationship needs a breath of fresh air now and then. It was her idea. She was afraid I might get the feeling I was missing out on something. It’s very relaxing - jacuzzis, saunas for two. There’s things to eat, too.”
He got out. She followed him, forgetting to take her jacket and handbag. She stood by the Alfa, trying to get her bearings. He locked the car and disappeared into the trees. “Wait,” she called and stumbled after him along a narrow footpath. “Wait a minute Michael, I—”
She broke off as she ran into him. He’d stopped at the edge of a small clearing. Not even the outline of a building was to be seen. She was almost choking with panic, but there was something inside her that refused to believe he’d lured her out of the house and driven with her to this lonely spot with a specific purpose in mind. And not as a spontaneous decision, he must have made it while he was still in the pool.
“But there’s no one here at all,” she stammered. “And anyway, I don’t believe you. Nadia was immensely jealous. She’d never have gone somewhere with you where there were women you…”
He had turned towards her as she started to speak. In the darkness she couldn’t see his face. But she felt his hands round her throat. He didn’t speak, he panted, “Correct. She was immensely jealous. And you’re trying to tell me she put another woman in my bed. You’re the one who set those swine on me. How did you think it was going to work out? I’m there with my water pistol, the other guy puts a bullet into me and the way’s clear for you.”
The first red spots appeared in the blackness before her eyes. She couldn’t respond, she couldn’t even breathe. She did grasp his hands and try to bend his fingers back, but her fingers just slid off. Her movements got weaker. He kept pressing until she couldn’t feel it any more.
She had no idea how long she’d lain there unconscious under the trees at the edge of the clearing. She couldn’t even say how long she stayed there on the ground after she’d regained consciousness. Breathing was incredibly difficult and painful, it felt as if her throat were still crushed. Eventually something tickled her cheek. An insect was crawling over her face. Finally she found she could lift one hand. And a few minutes later she managed to get up off the ground, though at first only onto her hands and knees.
She crawled back along the footpath to the patch of rough ground. There was no one there and she didn’t know where she was. Her head hadn’t fully cleared yet. The one thought going round and round inside it was that Michael had tried to kill her. The question was - did he think she was dead when he left her there?
She stayed on the patch of rough ground for a while. For the first time she noticed the cold. It was bitterly cold. All she had on was a skirt, a blouse and nylon stockings. The jacket she’d worn on the trip to Luxembourg was hanging over the back of the chair in the study. It was more instinct than anything else that made her continue crawling, then at some point pull herself up onto her feet and feel her way along from tree to tree. Just keep going! One more step, then another, keep moving so as not to freeze to death. Perhaps someone might turn up eventually, as they’d done in the disused factory.
There were no dossers in the woods, just her own determination to keep going. When the trees eventually started to thin out, it was beginning to get light, though it wasn’t light enough for her to see her watch. The hands were too small and the glass smudged with soil. She was beside a narrow country road. Whether it was the road they had come by, she couldn’t say.
By this time she was chilled to the bone, her throat was still hurting and the icy air drew the pain down into her lungs. Finally a pair of headlights appeared behind her. The car drove past. Two more cars didn’t stop; only the fourth, which was going in the opposite direction, did.
There was a young girl at the wheel, hardly more than eighteen. Marlene Jaeger - a student nurse on her way home in an overheated old car with a blanket on the rear seat. Every time she seemed to get lucky, as if her father were up there somewhere keeping watch over her.
Marlene thought she really ought take her to the hospital, but she refused. “That’s not necessary. I’ve an important appointment. I can’t afford to miss it.”
Her bruised throat made speaking difficult but her teeth were gradually stopping chattering. “My husband and I had an argument. He threw me out of the car. I fell over a few times in the dark.” That explained her muddy clothes and torn stockings but not the marks where Michael had throttled her. Marlene Jaeger gave the collar of her dirty blouse a meaningful look. But she said nothing.
“If you could set me down by a telephone box, help me out with a little change and tell me where we are, I’ll be all right.”
“If you’re saying you’re going to ring your husband to get him to pick you up…”
“No, not my husband. A friend.”
“Oh, I see,” said Marlene Jaeger, as if the penny had dropped. She didn’t take her to a telephone box but to her parents’ house, where there was a telephone and a hot cup of tea.
She couldn’t talk freely, nor could Dieter. Despite that, they understood each other better than during the time when they’d been married. Dieter got Marlene to tell him how to get there and arrived an hour later. He wanted to take her to see a doctor but after some discussion they agreed he would take her home first and ring Wolfgang Blasting. Later on she managed to talk him out of that particular phone call.
She was introduced to Ramie as Nadia Trenkler. Dieter did all the explaining. He was so successful in allaying his wife’s suspicions that she offered her a hot bath and a breakfast of chicken soup because swallowing was so difficult. She also provided her with a pair of jeans, a roll-neck sweater, thick woollen socks and a pair of shoes. Nothing fitted, but that didn’t matter.
She still felt the icy cold inside her, in fact she was convinced it would never go away. Despite that, she could in a way still understand
Michael’s reaction. More than once during the last few weeks he’d shown how much Nadia meant to him. But that did nothing to change her feelings. Dieter’s ray of sunshine was playing at her feet. And Michael would have killed not only her but her child - and his! She felt she ought to hate him for it, but she couldn’t bring herself to.
Dieter couldn’t get Ramie to go out shopping, so it was impossible for them to speak openly. Eventually she asked him to drive her home.
“No way,” Dieter said.
“You must,” she insisted, no longer bothering about Ramie, who was all ears. “I have to get the money, I have to get to Wolfgang, I have to get to the airport. I have to get Zurkeulen off my back at least.”
Dieter pointed to the telephone. “Put the meeting off. Ring Herr Blasting and explain the situation.”
She didn’t think either was a good idea and rang the lab instead. Kemmerling’s little laboratory mouse told her Michael was in a meeting. Dieter capitulated. It was only when they were on the autobahn that a problem occurred to him. “You won’t get into the house.”
“Jo has a key.”
But Jo wasn’t at home, nor Lilo. Dieter drove to the petrol station, found the address of the Henseler Gallery in the phone book and set off for it. By this time it was close on three o’clock. Time was getting short.
Lilo was delighted at her unexpected appearance in the gallery, though puzzled by her strange get-up. She insisted on showing her a new acquisition and it was several minutes before she realized there was no time for that. Then she handed over her own house key, told her the combination to her alarm system and gave her a general idea of where Jo might keep her house key. She handed over her own car key as well. “But you’ll go and get Wolfgang first, darling. You will promise me that, won’t you?”
“Of course,” she said. “He’ll be waiting for me and I’m sure he’ll be getting nervous too.”
There was no time for Wolfgang. She asked Dieter to go on ahead to the rendezvous and keep Zurkeulen there at all costs. “Drive into his car, if that’s the only way. I’ll buy you a new one. But for God’s sake make it clear to him that I’m on my way with the money.”
Lilo’s car was considerably more manoeuvrable than Dieter’s estate, but not as fast as the Alfa. She had no problem with Jo’s own alarm system but the search for the key proved rather more difficult, as she didn’t know her way round the house. But she eventually found the little cupboard Lilo had mentioned, next to a workbench in the cellar, and as Lilo had suspected, the key was in the second drawer with his voltage testers.
Four minutes later she was looking at the empty gap between the safe and the housing of the alarm system. And she couldn’t even warn Dieter since she didn’t know his mobile number. For two, at most three seconds she stood there, as if paralysed. It felt like an eternity. Then she was in the Alfa - the key was on the chest in the coat closet, the car in the otherwise empty garage.
With what she’d learned from Johannes Herzog, she made good progress, despite the heavy traffic. She reached the airport turn-off at seventeen minutes past four. She couldn’t drive into the car park, there’d been a collision right in the entrance. Not between Dieter’s estate and Zurkeulen’s limousine. A Ford Transit had slammed into the back of an ancient Volkswagen Beetle. The two drivers, from all appearances Southern Europeans, were arguing about who was to blame in loud voices and with elaborate gestures, apparently oblivious of the fact that two cars were waiting to get out of the car park. And the drivers in the cars, as well as their passengers, seemed to be trying to outdo each other in a show of patience.
She got out and approached the arguing drivers. “Would you move your cars to the side please, I have to…”
“No you don’t,” said one of the men and pointed to the Ford Transit. “Get in, Frau Trenkler, and make it quick.”
At the same moment the passenger got out of the first waiting car, stretched, as if he was stiff, then came slowly towards her. She recognized Schneider. As he passed he just asked, “Key’s in the ignition?” Then he got in the Alfa, reversed a little way and drove off.
She felt herself being pushed vigorously towards the Ford Transit and almost lifted up onto the passenger seat. There was a grey curtain between the front seats and the rear and from somewhere behind it Michael’s voice could be heard, almost as clear as if he were in the van.
“It was my wife, for Christ’s sake. My wife! Can’t you understand? I want to know what you did to her.” That was the moment when it was finally over. Zurkeulen might not understand, but she understood - once and for all - that Michael Trenkler could not love her because for him she was a stranger who was to blame for his wife’s death. All the energy she’d summoned up went out of her like the air out of a balloon.
The curtain was pushed aside. Wolfgang gave her an astonished smile. “I thought you were in Geneva.” With his characteristic grin he surveyed Ramie’s pullover and jeans. “Where did you get the fancy dress?” Then he ordered, “Through here before anybody sees you.”
The back was full of technical equipment. Apart from Wolfgang, there was another man there, with headphones, sitting at a tape recorder. From somewhere a voice could be heard: “He’s getting too close.”
Wolfgang picked up a microphone and murmured, “You’re in the way, take two steps back. And don’t overdo it. Don’t make him feel you’re about to go for him.”
Michael was crying, somewhere among the cars in the huge car park. “That damn Lasko woman fooled us all. Even me! I was in bed with her and I didn’t…”
She just sat there feeling the icy cold grip every bone, every nerve. “Where’s Herr Lasko?” she whispered. “I sent him on ahead because I…”
“We picked him up,” Wolfgang said and told her what had happened so far, while outside Michael continued to try to get Zurkeulen to confess to murder in exchange for the briefcase full of money.
He’d appeared at the Blastings’ at the crack of dawn, claiming he’d driven her to the airport. She was to take the first flight to Geneva and stay with her mother for a while. He wanted to be sure she was safe. Zurkeulen knew him, he’d said, he’d hardly be suspicious if he turned up with the money in place of his wife.
He’d given Wolfgang a house key, explaining that he’d already taken the briefcase out of the safe, then driven to the petrol station and on to the lab, where he’d worked until two. After that they’d wired him up.
He must have been convinced she was dead, all he was looking for now was answers. In order to convince Zurkeulen, he kept bringing in the few things she’d managed to tell him.
“My wife,” he said, “met the Lasko woman in the summer. At the time she was having a little affair and didn’t want me to find out about it. The Lasko woman was just supposed to string me along for a bit. My wife must have told her an awful lot to prepare her for her role. And that damn bitch saw her chance and got together with Hardenberg.”
“That’s enough,” Wolfgang murmured. “Get to the point.” With a quick grin he commented, “I always say he talks too much.” Bringing his head closer to hers and thus away from the microphone and the other man, he whispered, “If he ever even hints at the little affair to Ilona, I’ll wring his neck.”
“Where is Frau Lasko?” Zurkeulen asked outside in his usual polite tone.
“Dead,” Michael said. “I blew a fuse when I finally realized who she was.”
The man at the tape recorder turned to Wolfgang and whispered, “He’s doing it beautifully. One confession for another.” Wolfgang nodded while Zurkeulen could be heard asking sceptically, “And she told you all that before she died? I’m sorry, Herr Trenkler, but I do have my doubts.”
“She didn’t tell me of her own free will, if that’s what you mean. I had to get pretty rough with her,” Michael explained. “And when I hit someone, they stay hit. I don’t have to tell you that. Or do you think your thug committed suicide?”
“In that case…” said Zurkeulen, after what seemed like
an eternity, even his sigh came clearly over the loudspeakers. “It’s all highly regrettable. Your wife would still be in the best of health if she’d told me what Frau Lasko told you.”
Wolfgang punched his hand and said, in a jubilant whisper, “We’ve got him. Now it’s all going to come out.” The man at the tape recorder adjusted a few controls, the reel continued to revolve, recording steadily.
Zurkeulen described his meetings with Susanne Lasko. He’d first met her at the beginning of August. She’d been recommended by Hardenberg, who didn’t have that much to do with the investment of large sums himself. But since Zurkeulen had insured two of his properties through Alfo Investment, Hardenberg knew they were to be sold and knew their value. And Frau Lasko was very competent.
Zurkeulen swore that at their last meeting he’d had no idea it was a different woman he was faced with. He very much regretted what had happened. All he’d wanted was to discuss a small loss with the lady. He’d insisted on seeing some ID because she kept maintaining she was Nadia Trenkler. She’d refused to let him have her handbag, which had led to a tussle with his chauffeur in the course of which she fell in such an unfortunate way that she was beyond help. From that point on his chauffeur had dealt with the matter.
“You bastard,” Wolfgang muttered. He turned to the man at the tape recorder and put a hand over the microphone. “It made my stomach heave when I read the autopsy report. They tortured her - with petrol amongst other things. I tell you it was horrible.”
A few minutes later the handcuffs were snapped on Zurkeulen’s wrists. The driver of the Beetle was cautioning him and reading him his rights, of which he was presumably well aware from past experience. Wolfgang took the briefcase with the money and gave her a victorious wink.
The Lie Page 40