He pulled up outside Frankenberg's home, a modern apartment house, at ten past nine. Winfried Meilhofer opened the door to him. A young woman was sitting in the living room. She'd been too distressed to be interviewed the previous Saturday, like Frankenberg's wife, but Werner Hoss had since taken her statement.
Although Grovian had never set eyes on her before, he knew her name. She was Alice Winger, whose flirtation with Meilhofer had been so rudely interrupted by Cora Bender. The couple seemed to have drawn closer in the interim, because their manner to each other was suggestive of something more than friendship.
"I must apologize for disturbing you at this hour," he began, "but I was in the neighbourhood and I didn't want to drag Frau Frankenberg over to Hiirth specially. She can just as well answer my questions here."
"Ute has gone to bed," Alice Winger informed him. "What questions?"
Nothing of great importance. He merely wanted confirmation of when and where she had met her husband. Alice Winger was able to answer that one herself. "Last December, at the Ludwig Museum. I was there myself."
Next: had Frankenberg ever mentioned the name Cora to his wife? Her lips tightened. "I strongly doubt it."
Well, one or two other names had cropped up in the course of his inquiries. "I'd really prefer to speak to Frau Frankenberg in person. It's just a formality."
"I'll get her." Alice Winger rose and left the room. Meilhofer used the time to ask: `Are you making progress with your inquiries?"
Grovian nodded. It was a good thing, in a way, that the man who had witnessed the murder at close quarters should assume that inquiries were still under way.
"I can't get it out of my head," Meilhofer said quietly. "The way she sat there, looking at Frankie. She seemed happy. I shouldn't say this, perhaps, but I felt sorry for her. Strange how one reacts. I should have been horrified. I was too, but more by Frankie's reaction, by her husband and myself. I'd never have thought a situation could arise in which I was rooted to the spot. I could have prevented it. Not the first blow, but the second and ..."
He was interrupted by Alice Winger's reappearance. "She's coming," she said. "Please go easy on her, the whole thing is still so fresh. They were so happy."
"Yes, of course." Grovian felt almost ashamed. These people were the "other side", the one lie was paid to uphold. Respectable citizens whose lives had been turned upside down, in the twinkling of an eye, by an incomprehensible act.
It was several minutes before Ute Frankenberg appeared in the doorway. All he noticed at first was the pink velvet ankle-length housecoat in which she had swathed herself as if she were cold. Surmounting the collar was a plump grey face, tearful and tired, the nose and eyes reddened from weeping, and a close-fitting cap of platinum blond hair gathered at the neck with a barrette.
He repeated his first question, which Alice Winger had already answered. Ute Frankenberg confirmed her reply in a low, almost inaudible voice. He turned to the subject of her husband's former friends. She knew only what Frankie had told her, not that he liked talking about them. Once, when she questioned him about the tune lie listened to every night, claiming that he couldn't go to sleep without doing so, lie showed her a few old photos and told her the music was associated with the silliest thing he'd ever done.
She had never heard him mention the name Cora, but he'd never been a skirt-chaser, unlike the other two. He said he'd often felt disgusted by what they got up to. Girls and coke, coke and girls. And once he'd told her he'd been waiting for her forever, his dream woman -just the person he needed to cure him.
From the way she spoke, Ute Frankenberg seemed to be heavily sedated. Grovian could only nod from time to time, although her reference to photographs had electrified him. Careful, he told himself, careful.
"These old photos, Frau Frankenberg - do they still exist?"
"Frankie wanted to throw them away, but I wouldn't let him. I think I put them ..." She got up off the sofa with an effort andwent over to a chest of drawers. Bending down, she opened a drawer and removed a photograph album. "They may be in here."
They weren't. There was another album in the bedroom, she said, but she didn't feel up to fetching it. Alice Winger went instead. Ute Frankenberg sat down again with the album on her lap. Her gaze fastened on a postcard-sized snapshot: Frankie! She stroked the print with her fingertips and burst into tears, unable to go on turning the pages.
Grovian strove to suppress his impatience. Alice Winger took the album from her. She looked through it and removed a photograph. "Is this what you mean?"
Yes, it was! Relief dispelled the constricted feeling in his chest. He wouldn't have to lie or manipulate, wouldn't have to do what he'd suggested to her lawyer less than an hour ago: "If it comes to the pinch, we'll make Frankie a nice but ill-brought-up youngster of good family who - possibly under the influence of alcohol and cocaine - allowed his friends to rape a girl in August five years ago. This can't be proved, but neither can it be disproved. His arm would have healed by the sixteenth of August, if we stick to that date. Let's make use of her stories. I can produce a witness who'll testify under oath that she saw Cora Bender getting into Georg Frankenberg's car on the night of August the sixteenth. I'm sure her neighbour will do that for her if we guarantee there won't be any untoward consequences. You must impress on your client that she mustn't say a word in court about the Saviour and Mary Magdalene or pimps and prostitution. What we need is a nice love story with a dramatic outcome."
Yes, there it was! The photograph was underexposed, but with a little goodwill and her description at the back of one's mind it was possible to make out quite a lot. The musical instruments on the platform in the corner. Even the figures of two men. The one behind the drums had to be Frankie. His arms were raised; his face was just a blur. The figure at the keyboard was clearer, plump and fair-haired, with a dreamy expression. Not very tall but thickset.
"Who's that?"
Ute Frankenberg bent over his outstretched hand. "That must be Ottmar Denner."
Tiger, lie thought. "Did your husband ever mention Denner's nickname? Tiger?"
"No, never."
"No other nicknames? Billy-Goat or Johnny Guitar?"
"No."
What a pity! "There are only two people in this photograph, Frau Frankenberg. Where's the third, Hans Bockel?"
Where indeed? Behind the camera!
"Bueckler," she said mechanically. "Not Bockel, his name was Bueckler."
Winfried Meilhofer mumbled an apology. "I must have misheard the name, then."
"But there must also be a photo of Hans Bueckler," Ute Frankenberg muttered to herself. She took the album back and turned a page, shook her head, turned another. "Here," she said, extracting a print from its transparent sleeve and handing it to him.
Grovian registered two things at the same time: the man in the photo, who matched Melanie Adigar's description perfectly - a fairhaired Adonis who might have been a Greek sculptor's model for the god Apollo; and Ute Frankenberg's hair. Still held by a barrette on the nape of her neck, it reached to her waist.
He felt his heart give a jump, because at the same instant he saw himself standing in front of the old bedside table holding the silverframed photo in his hand. Magdalena, he thought. This woman was the trigger.
Damnation, that gnome of a psychologist was right! But it couldn't be! The snapshot he was holding was evidence. He concentrated on it once more. Hans Bueckler was standing at the cellar bar, glass in hand.
"Do you know where these photos were taken, Frau Frankenberg?"
She nodded. "The cellar where they used to practise."
"Where is this cellar?"
"I don't know Is it important to you?"
"Very much so."
"I really don't know Maybe in Denner's parents' house, maybe at Hans Bueckler's. Yes, that would be it. I don't know where he lived, though. Somewhere up north. His father had something to do with music. I think he was an agent, but I'm not sure."
"I'll have to
take these photographs with me, Fran Frankenberg. These and any others that show the cellar. There may even be one of the house itself"
There wasn't, but there were another two good prints of the cellar, one of them showing Georg Frankenberg seated on the sofa with the low table in front of it. There was also a snapshot of him and Denner standing beside a red sports car.
"Do you know who the car belonged to?"
Ute Frankenberg merely nodded, gazing at the photo in his hand. She couldn't trust herself to speak. Winfried Meilhofer answered for her. "That was Frankie's car. He still had it when I first met him."
Grovian left feeling relieved, but only a little. He didn't have much to go on, just a photograph that might or might not be of the famous Johnny. Besides, an inner voice told him he would have done better to take one of Ute Frankenberg and show it to her. "Who is this, Frau Bender?" he ought to ask her.
In his mind's eye he saw her smile as fondly as she had at the photo in her bedroom, and in his head he heard her say, in a low, melancholy voice: "That's Magdalena."
Her hair was still damp. She'd washed it after breakfast, and she had no hairdryer. It was afternoon now, she knew She knew little more than that, only that her hair was still damp. She could feel it lying cool against the nape of her neck. When a puff of wind came in from outside, she also felt the coolness on her scalp. That apart, she felt nothing.
Some time ago her right calf had started itching just below the hollow of the knee, as if some insect had landed there, possibly a mosquito. She'd debated whether to scratch the spot or shoo it away. Concentrating hard, she'd tried to discover whether she could identify the creature or induce it to fly off by an effort of the will alone. She hadn't looked at the spot or touched it. The itching had eventually stopped half an hour ago. She was sure of that, having counted off the seconds.
Counting had been her exclusive occupation ever since she returned from seeing the professor. She had got to well over ten thousand when her itching leg interrupted her, and she had to start afresh. Eighteen ... Magdalena's age when she died. Nineteen ... Her own age at that time. Twenty ... She'd gradually begun to live. Twenty-one ... The age at which she'd imagined she could lead a life like a thousand others with a husband too stupid to be dangerous. But that had been a mistake. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four ...
"I see you've washed your hair, Frau Bender," the professor had said.
It was still wet at that stage, not just damp. The professor was pleased. He asked how often she used to wash it before. Every day, surely! Were those curls natural or a permanent wave, and what shampoo did she use? It had such an agreeably fresh smell.
"It's a very good shampoo," she replied. "The chief brought it for me. Where is he? Did I kill him?"
She knew she'd stabbed him - with the little knife lying on the bar. She'd managed to get hold of it somehow, and the moment she stabbed him he wasn't the chief any more, just someone doing something he shouldn't. Then she'd seen his face again, just for a fraction of a second. She'd recognized him too but without being able to tell if he was bleeding - even if he was still alive. The next moment, darkness fell.
Then she was lying in a white bed with a thin, worried face bending over her. The neatly trimmed beard was missing. He's shaved it off, was her first thought - he must have shaved while I was asleep. She waited for him to make her drink some orange juice or move her arms and legs, ask her to recite a poem from her schooldays or inject something into the cannula in the back of her hand. Or check the bandage around her head or prick her heels.
And the fear, this terrible fear that everything had begun again from the beginning - that she must go through it all once more: her homecoming. Mother's uncaring voice in the doorway: "Cora is dead. Both my daughters are dead."
And Father at her bedside: "What have you done, Cora?"
And Grit with her anxious, worried expression, not knowing whether to speak or remain silent, groping her way along, every sentence a hammer blow: "You've no need to worry, Margret has taken care of everything. Her death certificate says it was cardiac and renal failure. Margret fetched the papers from Eppendorf and got hold of a body, a junkie, I believe. Her boyfriend helped her. He made out the death certificate too."
Grit had shaken her head and shrugged. "It was a young woman. Margret brought her here by car. A suicide mission, but we needed something for the funeral. We had her cremated. Magdalena wanted it that way, and Margret said that wrapped it up. If anyone asked any stupid questions later on, there wouldn't be any answers."
It almost stifled her, the dreadful fear of having to hear it all again. She cried out, reached for the hand that was taking her pulse and clung to it tightly. "I don't want to go home. Please don't send me away, let me stay here. I can assist the staff - I'll do anything you ask, but don't send me home. My sister is dead. I killed her."
She didn't know how long she begged and pleaded and clung to that hand. It seemed an age before she realized her mistake. He hadn't shaved - he'd never had a beard in the first place. It was the professor, and now she'd told him. He knew, however many times he pretended not to have heard and however many times he asked her what shampoo she'd used to wash her hair. He had attained his objective - squeezed the truth out of her at last.
Four thousand three hundred and twenty-seven ...
Four thousand three hundred and twenty-eight ...
Magdalena's bones lying in the dust, parched grass all around ...
Four thousand three hundred and twenty-nine ...
Four thousand three hundred and thirty ...
An unidentified girl! A skeletonized body near a military training area on Luneburg Heath.
Four thousand three hundred and thirty-one ... Don't think! She mustn't think and had no wish to.
Grit had said: "I couldn't believe it at first when your father knocked on my door that Sunday morning in May and said: `The girls have gone.' I thought you must have taken Magdalena to Eppendorf. We called the hospital, but no dice. That afternoon we foundyour car parked outside the Aladdin. We couldn't understand it and didn't know what to do. I told your father he should go to the police, but he was dead against it. I almost got the feeling he thought you'd done away with Magdalena."
Grit had heaved a big sigh. "I'll never understand how he could have got such an idea into his head - him, of all people, who knew you'd have cut off your right hand for her. Well, we let it be known in the neighbourhood that Magdalena was going downhill fast and that you wouldn't leave her side. It was lucky Melanie was sleeping over at a friend's place that weekend. She mightn't have been able to keep her mouth shut."
Then Grit had spoken of August. "I still think it's wrong, what Margret did, and I reproach myself for saying anything at all when I read in the newspaper about a body being found. I didn't want to mention it to your father at first - I thought it would upset him unnecessarily. And it did. He called Margret right away, and do you know what he told her? `Magdalena has been found.' I said: `Wilhelm, that's just not true! They've simply found a body, the remains of some unidentified girl. It can't be Magdalena. They'd have been bound to find some clothing. A nightie at the very least - she always wore a nightie.' But he gave me a funny look and shook his head. And Margret said: `It doesn't matter who the dead girl was. We must do something - we've waited far too long as it is.' And she was right, really. We couldn't go on saying you were sitting beside her bed, not indefinitely. Besides, we didn't believe she was still alive."
Four thousand three hundred and thirty-two ... And so on for evermore, with that image before her eyes - bones mouldering in the dirt - and Magdalena's voice in her ears: "I'd sooner go to hell." But the body out there had not been cremated. It had rotted away and turned black, infested by worms.
At eight thousand seven hundred and forty-three she heard the key turn in the lock. She kept on counting, firmly convinced that they'd come to take her to the professor a second time.
The morning's session had been very unproductive fro
m his point of view He'd wanted to know what she and the chief had talked about at their last meeting. He already knew, the cunning dog! She wasn't so dumb that she couldn't infer from his questions how much he knew
He asked if she would care to talk to him again about the cellar and said he knew what a burden Magdalena had been to her. And then he wanted to talk about music with her. In particular, about the songs Magdalena had enjoyed listening to. Did she recall any particular titles?
But he wouldn't tell her where the chief was, or whether he was still alive, so she refused to answer him any more. And then he played her some music. Drums, guitar and the high-pitched strains of an organ: "Tiger's Song"!
The hypocritical swine had asked how she was feeling and what the music made her think of Eighteen ... Nineteen ... Twenty ... Twenty-one ... She'd had to clench her teeth until her jaw muscles creaked, but it worked. Twenty-two ... Twenty-three ... Twenty-four ...
He became edgy. It didn't show, not outwardly, but she sensed it and went on counting, counting.
Eight thousand seven hundred and forty-four . . . The door opened, and a male nurse came in - the one who had looked in on her twice during the night. On one occasion he'd brushed the hair out of her eyes and asked: "How are you feeling, little lady? Better?"
His name was Mario. A nice fellow, always friendly, always goodnatured, and as dark-haired as Father used to be. And strong, immensely strong. He could clamp a grown man under his arm and carry him off with ease, even though the man kicked and struggled and thumped him on the back with both fists.
Having seen him do this once on the way back to her ward from the professor's office, she'd reflected that Father might have been the same at one time. As tall as Mario and as strong. As handsome as Mario too, as a young man. And she had imagined how Mother had fallen in love with Father and let him kiss her for the first time. And how she had gone to bed with him for the first time. And how she had enjoyed it. And how she had conceived her first child with him and how happy her husband and her belated pregnancy had made her. And she had pictured herself in Mother's place and Mario in Father's.
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