The Lie (33 page)

“But that would be marvellous,” he said, delighted. “My wife has a particular liking for Niedenhoff. It's almost enough to make me jealous.” Hardly were the words out of his mouth than his eye was drawn to the round table and his face set in an expression of embarrassment.

She felt like grinding her teeth and going over to grab Michael by the scruff of the neck and drag him away from his laboratory mouse. Finally he extricated himself, came back and sat down on her left. Without deigning to look at her, he asked the professor, “Wasn't your wife coming back today?”

The professor sighed. “She said she'd earned a short holiday after the strenuous conference. And the weather's so nice in Malta.”

Again he smiled at her. “It's not easy with successful women. Young men especially find it difficult to accept. At my age it's not such a problem, the only thing solitude is likely to ruin is my eyesight.”

She could have kissed him for that. Giving her a furious look, Michael enquired, “So you actually managed to realize your dream, then?”

The professor nodded with a mischievous grin, like a schoolboy who's just played a trick on someone and got away with it. At last the waiter arrived with two menus. Michael waved them away. “A light white wine,
one number sixty…” He broke off and looked at her. “What about you? The usual?”

Since she didn't know what the usual was, she shook her head, took one of the menus back from the waiter and immersed herself in it. The man waited patiently until Michael told him, “Bring a cognac for my wife, Guido, perhaps she'll find it easier to make her mind up after an aperitif.”

If he insisted! She handed the menu back to the waiter and pointed at the professor's almost empty plate. “I'll have some of that. And I'd like a mineral water with it and a vodka instead of the cognac.” A nip would surely not harm the baby and it would calm her down.

The professor gave Michael a questioning glance, but he didn't bat an eyelid. A minute later the drinks arrived. There was a thick slice of lemon floating in her mineral water. She hadn't realized how dry her mouth and throat were. The sight of the water, which she couldn't drink if she didn't want to come out in an almost immediate rash, gave her an unbearable thirst. She downed the vodka in one, unconcerned by the professor's embarrassed look. The strong drink burned her throat, but she felt better after it.

The food came and it was delicious. Michael and the professor kept up a lively conversation, peppered with expressions that meant nothing to her. Not once did Michael address the professor by name. The fact that she didn't join in didn't seem to bother either of them. The waiter appeared at the table again and asked if everything was satisfactory. She praised the food and pointed to the mineral water. “Take that away and bring me a glass of that wine.”

The man did as instructed and brought a very good and very light white wine. As he went off and she took her first sip, Michael was saying, “I think I've managed to get Beatrice to change her mind. It would be a real pity if she left, she's the best TA we've ever had.”

So it was Beatrice Palewi! She gave a little laugh. “Sweetheart, you don't have to pretend to anyone here. Half the restaurant must have seen you flirting with the best TA you've ever had.”

Then she stood up and looked the professor in the eye. “Excuse me. I feel sick.”

Fortunately there was a discreet sign to the toilets by the cloakroom, so she didn't have to submit to people's stares while she searched for them.
She spent almost a quarter of an hour leaning against the cool tiles of the wall, trying to control the turmoil inside her. She was pregnant by him, dammit, and even if he didn't know - and must never know - she wasn't going to put up with any more of this behaviour from him. Nadia certainly wouldn't have accepted it, and whatever Nadia could do, she could do.

She checked her make-up in the mirror, went over her lips with the lipstick and rehearsed Nadia's smile. When she returned to the table, the plates had been cleared away and the professor had left. Michael had already paid the bill and was standing by Beatrice Palewi at the round table once more. Throwing her shoulders back, she went over to the group. They watched her approach, some embarrassed, others hoping for a scandal. Doubtless everyone at the table knew Nadia. And doubtless everyone was expecting a scene. Well, they were going to get one.

She put one hand on Michael's arm, bestowed Nadia's haughtily disdainful smile on Beatrice Palewi and said, “Come along, darling. You've just spent two days among the plebs, surely you can wait until I'm on the Bahamas for another dose?”

He did indeed follow her out - without a word and stony-faced. But once they were in the street, he snarled, “How dare
you
!”

“Me?” she asked, drawing out the vowel. “How dare you! That really was going too far. You seem to have forgotten who financed—”

“You don't need to say it,” he broke in, very calm and collected. “You'll get every penny of it back.”

“Don't bother,” she hissed. “Stick it down your TA's bra instead. At least then you'll have something worth groping. And you read me a lecture because you've got it into your head that I'm going to leave you! You're an idiot. You've no idea how blind you are.”

He stomped along beside her, a grim look on his face. When they got to the Jaguar he thrust the car key in her hand, saying he was too tired to drive back. That she didn't know how to adjust the seat to her height did nothing to arouse his suspicions. He did it for her, reminded her to check the mirror and showed her which buttons to press. Once they were out of the built-up area, he asked her how high she thought her blood-alcohol level was.

Now she realized why he'd made her drive and laughed. “No idea, but if it's enough for me to lose my driving licence, you'll lose yours too. It's your car and you insisted I drive.”

He didn't seem to have considered that angle in his fury. “Pull in here,” he demanded.

“No. I'm carrying on driving. I still can. Watch.” The country road was empty in front and she was in the mood to brush up some of the skills she'd learned from Johannes Herzog. To start with she slalomed along the centre markings for a couple of hundred yards.

“Stop this nonsense, Nadia,” he said.

She pulled the car back into the right-hand lane and put her foot down. The Jaguar was considerably faster that Johannes Herzog's old BMW. She took the speedometer up to a hundred and forty then, to the sound of Michael's strained breathing, stamped on the brakes. She assumed the rear wheels would skid, as regularly happened with the BMW, but the Jaguar held its line. There was a terrible knocking under the sole of her shoe, but she ignored that. When the car stopped, Michael took the key out of the ignition. He was pale. “You're out of your mind,” he gasped. “Do you want to kill us?”

“Why not? Rather that than hand you over to your flat-chested cow. It's a touching thought really, the Trenklers in a double grave.”

He got out and said, “Shift over.” Then he drove on.

When they got to the house, he went straight upstairs. She waited a good hour before she followed. The bedroom door was open, but it was impossible to tell whether he was asleep or not. Nor was she really interested. She closed the door, went into the study and closed that door too. The laptop on the desk was now plugged in. Where Michael had found the lead was a mystery, it hadn't been in the computer bag.

That was not her first concern, however, the printouts on the desk and the call to the old folks' home were more urgent. Her mother wasn't half as worried as she'd assumed she would be. It turned out that she hadn't expected her to come anyway, because Johannes Herzog had crashed his BMW so couldn't bring her. Her mother was just glad she hadn't stood waiting for him for ages, since she'd gone out with her friend.

“Where are you, Susanne?”

Agnes Runge accepted the story she'd made up earlier with all the enthusiasm of a mother who is happy when her only child is enjoying herself. Her sole concern was that she was facing a long journey home on a motorbike. “Give your friend my best wishes and tell her to drive carefully. It could freeze.”

“Don't worry, Mum, we'll be careful,” she said.

Then she sat there looking at the laptop and the lead. Nadia must have hidden it somewhere in the house, perhaps in the dressing room. And left the laptop with its empty battery in Hardenberg's office. In a matter of seconds the machine was up and running. It wasn't password protected, it loaded up automatically and very rapidly - unfortunately with a different operating system to the one on the big computer.

She couldn't find a file manager and didn't know how else to get at the files. Eventually she picked up the telephone and tried Nadia's mobile again, only to hear, “The person you are calling is not available at the moment.”

At the moment! she thought. She'd just have to wait. One more night. It wasn't nine yet, but she was tired, so she went downstairs and locked up. The only thing she didn't know how to do was lower the shutters. Michael's trousers were on a clothes hanger in the dressing room. The imitation-leather holder with the keys to her flat was still in the pocket. She shoved it underneath a pile of pullovers. In the bathroom the little alarm clock was on the shelf. It was already part of a familiar scene.

Shortly afterwards she was in bed. Her last conscious thoughts moved seamlessly into a nightmare. She was sitting in Schrag's office eating a piece of fruit flan. Röhrler came in. Not looking the way she'd seen him in January. He was squashed flat, there was nothing human about him any more. He came right up to her desk and muttered, “That's what happens when you get caught with your fingers in the till.” His blood dripped down on the flan and on a fat envelope. And she was so horribly ashamed of her voracious appetite. “They were accounting errors,” she cried.

“You could call it that,” Röhrler said with Michael's voice, placing a bloody hand on her shoulder.

“Let me go,” she screamed. “I didn't want you to die. I'd no idea the lying bitch knew you.”

Röhrler grasped her upper arms, shook her and said, “Wake up.”

She couldn't wake up. She fought against his firm grip with all her might. Only when he slapped her did the horror end. She was blinking up at an alarmed face. Michael's face. “Are you awake?” he asked.

“Yes,” she mumbled, sat up and got out of bed.

“Where are you going?”

“Out,” she said and went to the bathroom. He followed her and watched, standing in the doorway, as she let the water trickle into the hollow of her hand and gulped down a few mouthfuls.

“Should I get you a drink?”

Still bending down, she shook her head. He waited a few seconds, then he asked, “Who is Susanne Lasko?”

She was close to telling him. But what if he threw her out and Nadia didn't come back? “I don't know,” she murmured, her face still over the washbasin.

“Is Dieter Lasko the client who's been threatening you?”

“No.”

He didn't believe her. “Perhaps you can settle with the man if you sell the house,” he suggested.

She straightened up and laughed hysterically. “That would be one possibility. I could sell the house and find an elegant little apartment with charming neighbours. An alcoholic with a criminal record would be nice, I'd fit in there.”

He regarded her thoughtfully. “Go back to bed and try to get some sleep.”

She followed him back into the bedroom, lay there awake for a while, then fell into a light sleep, from which she was roused by the buzzing of the alarm clock. Michael got up and went into the bathroom. For several minutes she heard him washing and getting shaved. Then her exhaustion blanked out every sound. She went back to sleep and had no idea how much time had passed when she next heard a noise: the metallic click of the central locking. The door onto the landing was open.

Still half asleep, she waited for the clatter of the garage door and the noise of the Jaguar's engine. But either it wasn't audible on the first floor if the windows were closed or - it was a couple of minutes before she completed the thought - Michael hadn't left yet. She blinked in the hazy light and lifted up the arm with Nadia's watch. The tiny hands were blurred and she had to blink several times before she could see clearly. Ten-past nine. He must have been in the lab for ages.

At the next thought, she shot up. Nadia! From one moment to the next all the difficulties of the weekend, all her anger were forgotten. Her hands and knees started to tremble, such was the relief. She swung
her legs out of bed and, fighting against the rising nausea and dizziness, fetched a dressing gown. Then she went to the stairs.

All was quiet in the house. There were just a few faint sounds. They came from the basement. She stopped halfway down the stairs. She thought she could hear a voice. Nadia was not the kind of person to talk to herself. There must be someone with her. Her heart started to pound.

Not daring to call out to Nadia, she tiptoed down to the hall. She did briefly think about arming herself with a kitchen knife, but that didn't seem to offer enough protection. For her, threat was synonymous with a gun and a knife was no use against that. All you could do was hope it would jam. A rapid withdrawal as soon as she saw anything suspicious. Dash up to the study, lock herself in and call the police. That seemed the most sensible option.

When she was about halfway down the basement steps, she heard a voice, the irritation half-suppressed, say, “Stop that.”

Then she was at the bottom. The door to the utility room was open, but all she saw at first was the chunky black gun.