The Lie (26 page)

“No. Things are pretty tense between us at the moment. We got back from a short holiday at the beginning of the week.” Nadia shrugged her shoulders. “I wanted to give him a surprise - a little holiday house. He completely misunderstood, thought I was going to go off with someone else. We spent most of the time arguing. It's a good situation for you, you don't even need to have a session on the sunbed. He'll ignore you. If he does speak to you, say nothing. Just like I've been doing for the last few days.”

Then Nadia held out her handbag. “Come on, take it. I have to check in.”

“Just a moment. I've only your word for it, nothing more.”

“You have Philip's word,” Nadia said. It sounded as if it was God who was endorsing the promise. “He's going to talk to Behringer about a flat today. Three rooms, kitchen, hall, bathroom, balcony or, better still, a roof garden, that's what I told him. On the outskirts of the town, if possible. If Philip sees to that, it'll be quicker than if I do it myself.”

It sounded too fantastic to be true. Nadia smiled. “Don't look at me like that. Our affair has caused you some inconvenience, to put it mildly. And we're not doing it simply out of the goodness of our hearts. But I'll have to insist you take a contraceptive after the birth. We don't want to start a kindergarten.”

Nadia took a deep breath and exhaled audibly. “We'll go into the details when I'm back. I should manage it by tomorrow afternoon. When I know which flight I'm on, I'll ring you at home. I need the
mobile myself and, anyway, it's not working properly. The battery keeps giving up on me. Mine only seem to last a few months. Now give me your bag, everything's in mine.”

“Did you book your flight in my name?”

“No,” said Nadia. “But you need my papers. Do you intend to leave yours lying in my hall? For weeks now Michael's been sniffing around my things. I've been off with Philip several times and had to think up stupid excuses, so naturally he's been suspicious.”

“And how are you going to prove to Zurkeulen who you really are?”

Nadia patted one of her jacket pockets. “Replacement documents. Recently I lost my wallet and didn't expect the finder to be honest enough to return it. Now I've got two of everything. Take your things out, if you don't trust me, but then please leave them in your flat.”

Hesitantly Susanne opened her bag, took out her purse, her wallet and the worn imitation-leather holder with her keys and said firmly, “For the moment I'm not taking any risks, I'll go to the shop tomorrow. I can't be absent on a Friday. It shuts at seven so I'll be here at eight. We'll meet in the car park. If you're back earlier and don't want to wait, go home in a taxi. You can tell Michael the car wouldn't start and come and get the Alfa on Saturday afternoon. Or you can ring me at the shop in the morning to arrange a time and I'll drive here.”

Nadia just nodded and said urgently, “Now give me your handbag, your ear studs and watch.” Then she was gone.

Susanne was in a daze. She didn't know what to think, what to believe. Clasping Nadia's handbag to her chest, she slowly walked out of the building. She soon found the Alfa. The hooded jacket Nadia had worn that morning was in the boot. She got in, took Nadia's jewellery out of the bag, put on the two rings and the wristwatch then inserted Nadia's diamond ear studs. After that she sat there for several minutes, trying to persuade herself it was a purely rational decision. It was just about getting Zurkeulen off her back.

But as she stared out of the windscreen at the images slowly passing before her mind's eye, it wasn't the man in the bank she saw, nor the stocky chauffeur by the limousine. It was Michael. Michael sitting on the edge of the bath, trailing his hand in the water. “Shall I keep you company for a while?” The touch of his fingers on the back of her neck. “You really are all tensed up.”

She wasn't tensed up now, just in a daze from Nadia's promise of a future free of care. A large, airy apartment and a good job with Philip Hardenberg. And if she was earning enough at Alfo Investment to pay for a nanny, she'd also be able to afford a car. And drive out to the old folks' home every Sunday in her own car with her own child. Suddenly Dieter's pompous announcement of the birth of his and Ramie's child didn't seem so over-the-top after all. “In a time when hope has all but vanished, we are delighted to have brought a ray of sunshine into the world.” Again the tears welled up, she couldn't do anything about it. But she would do almost anything to bring her child into the world. And perhaps that was the only reason: to bring a spark of hope into her own life.

It would have been madness to reject Nadia's offer - and unforgivable stupidity to trust everything she'd said. There were some contradictions in what she'd told her. Right at the beginning she'd claimed she'd got to know her lover only recently, but when she'd talked about the crisis in her marriage and her excessive drinking, she'd spoken of an acquaintance who had fortunately appeared. That must have been two years ago. And Nadia had kept insisting her friend was married. Most married men wore a wedding ring. Philip Hardenberg had not had one when he'd helped her up from the floor in the telephone box. She could still see that in her mind's eye.

She drove to her flat, immersed in thought. She picked up her toothbrush - she could hide it in the guest bathroom so Michael didn't see it. Then she took a shower, brought her armpits, legs and all the rest into line with the original, made herself up and put on a trouser suit with the hooded jacket on top.

She put the wallet with her documents in the cupboard. The envelope with the computer printouts, the note of Jacques's telephone number and the copy of the tape, as well as her key holder, she put in the boot of the car. Even if Nadia or Hardenberg didn't have a key to her new lock, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Her first call was at the bank, where she plugged the hole in her mother's nest egg at one fell swoop. The rest of the five thousand she paid into her own account. She had enough in her purse for the hairdresser, where she also had her fingernails brought up to scratch and left a generous tip. When she'd finished there, she had ten euros left, but she assumed she
wasn't going to need any cash during the next few days. She intended to stock up for the weekend from Nadia's larder.

Even after she'd been to the hairdresser's, she didn't head straight for the autobahn. She wanted to be as sure as possible. If Philip Hardenberg really was going to rent a flat on the outskirts of town from Behringer's, then nice Herr Reincke would surely be willing to tell her as soon as it happened.

A few minutes after two she drove into the underground garage at Gerler House. Only the Porsche and the green Golf were parked in the spaces reserved for Alfo Investment. The dark-blue Mercedes wasn't there. From that she deduced that Philip Hardenberg wouldn't be there. And if the green Golf belonged to Helga Barthel - it was a risk, but it was worth trying. Perhaps she could get some information about Markus Zurkeulen from Helga which would be a sight more credible than anything Nadia told her.

It was Nadia she saw looking out at her from the mirror in the lift. She took a deep breath and pressed the button for the seventh floor. The plate on the door of Alfo Investment was as discreet as the one in the lift. Below it was a bell-push.

She pressed it. When she heard the buzzer and the click of the door opening, she threw back her shoulders, tucked her hair in behind her ears and went in. The lobby was smaller than reception at Behringer's - and empty apart from the carpet and a large pot plant in a tub. There were four doors, of which one was open, leading into a brightly lighted office. A plump, red-haired woman was sitting at the desk. She was playing cards on a PC and had her back to the lobby. She turned round. She would have been in her late forties, wore glasses and produced a friendly smile, which was immediately replaced by a look of astonishment. Before she could say anything, the woman took off her glasses and said in puzzled tones, “I thought you were in Geneva.”

Helga Barthel? She didn't dare risk addressing the woman by name and just said, “I'm on my way. I just popped in to…”

“Get the laptop,” the red-haired woman said with a sigh as she stood up. “I wondered why it was in Philip's room. I assume things were pretty fraught this morning. What was it all about?”

She just said, “Zurkeulen,” and waited to see how the woman reacted to the name.

The woman rolled her eyes and gave a sigh of exasperation. “That guy's beginning to get on my nerves. He shouldn't get so worked up about a mere two hundred thousand. Others lost everything when the new market collapsed in 2001. Philip explained all that to him again yesterday afternoon.”

As she finished, the woman went out of her room and across the lobby to a padded door. She followed slowly and asked, in as casual voice as possible, “Where's Philip just now?”

“If you hurry, you might just catch him,” the woman said, continuing to speak from the other office. “He's gone down to Behringer's about a flat. He said it wouldn't take a minute. I hope he's right, he has to be in Düsseldorf at five.” The woman returned with Nadia's computer bag and a small leather holder. “You'd left your office key here too.”

She took them both and left, throwing a “See you” over her shoulder.

“When?” the woman called out as she disappeared.

“Tomorrow,” she said, closing the door behind her. She slipped the leather holder into Nadia's handbag, hurried to the lift and went down to the underground garage. There was no point any more in going to see Reincke, she thought. It looked as if this time her distrust of Nadia had been unfounded. Presumably even a woman like Nadia had some kind of conscience. Or Philip Hardenberg had one and had made Nadia see reason.

On the autobahn her heart and stomach were already quivering with anticipation. As she turned into Marienweg everything swam before her eyes for a moment. The Koglers' front garden was empty. The old Ford Fiesta was standing in the Blastings' drive again, it probably belonged to a cleaning woman. Behind Eleanor Ravatzky's wrought-iron gate a boy of about ten was romping around on the lawn with the shaggy dog. There was a van with the name of a garden centre parked in the road outside Niedenhoff's house. A man in blue overalls was raking the last of the leaves off the lawn. With him was a man with dark hair, presumably Niedenhoff. He waved as she drove past. She returned his wave and drove the Alfa into the garage. The laptop, the envelope and the imitation-leather holder with the keys to her flat she left in the boot.

From the moment she went into the hall and switched off the alarm, it was like coming home. She went up to the study. She did feel a little shabby when she opened the desk drawer where she'd found the
Dictaphone in September. It was still there. However, the revealing tape and been recorded over and the singed and smeared letter to
Jacques, mon chéri
, had disappeared from the cupboard in the television room. Well, if Michael had become suspicious Nadia would have had to clear some things away.

The handset on the table had been disconnected, the answerphone switched on. She rang the shop from the bedroom and told Frau Schädlich her mother hadn't come round from the anaesthetic yet. That meant she wouldn't be able to get back to the shop that day.

“That's what I thought would happen,” said Frau Schädlich. “Do you think you'll be able to come in tomorrow? You know what it's like on Fridays.”

“Of course,” she said. “I'll definitely come in tomorrow.”

Then she went down to the larder to get herself a late lunch. In a fit of nostalgia she decided on pork escalope with mushrooms, onions, asparagus and green beans. Standing in the kitchen, she almost expected Joachim Kogler to appear. He didn't, of course. The aromas rising from the frying pan made her realize how hungry she was and she wolfed the meal down, treating herself to a huge helping of chocolate-chip ice cream from the freezer for dessert and following it up with a strong coffee. Shortly before five the kitchen was clean and tidy again.

As she cleaned her teeth, she wondered whether to ring the lab and ask Michael when he was coming home. Just the thought of seeing him again gave her palpitations. If she had a rough idea of when to expect him, she could prepare herself better, she thought, so she went back upstairs and dialled through to extension thirty-eight.

The phone rang twice, then it was picked up and a fraught female voice immediately launched into a moan: “Where have you been? The shredder's running at two hundred and twenty. I need you here. At once.”

“Good afternoon,” she said in friendly tones. “Nadia Trenkler here. I'd like to speak to my husband.”

“So would I,” the woman replied. “But he's still in a meeting.”

“Perhaps you could tell me whether he's likely to be back late this evening.”

“Later than late. We've got huge problems with one of the subjects. He'll have to deal with it himself.”

“Aha,” she said, “thanks. At least I know what the situation is.”

It sounded as if something technical had broken down or was about to give up the ghost again. She'd have expected to see a shredder on a trailer from a garden centre, like the one outside Niedenhoff's house, but then, who knew what they got up to in laboratories?

She replaced the receiver, went downstairs, tinkled away on the piano for a while and wandered round the works of art, trying to identify the Beckmann. The signatures on most of the pictures were illegible. Only on the black-and-gold monstrosity over the three-piece suite she thought she could decipher the name Georg Maiwald. She remembered Michael saying something about supporting young artists and he'd used the word “daubs”. He seemed to have the same taste in art as she did - and not only in art.