The Lie (47 page)

After he'd rung off, he looked at the knife in his hand. The thin blade was a beautiful little toy, he said, more delicate than the implements Ramon normally employed. He described in graphic terms how he intended to use it. Then he said, “Will you get out now, please. Can you manage or shall I help you?”

She would rather have let herself be cut to pieces than allow him to touch her, even in support. Somehow she managed to get out of the car, without seeing or hearing anything. A veil had come down over her eyes. All dead. Nadia tortured and run over, Andrea knocked unconscious and drowned. Michael as well. She could still feel his arm round her shoulders, his hand putting her fingers over the sheet and pressing it to her breast. She saw him spin round in the dressing-room doorway.

Dieter would probably say, “Now don't get all worked up, it wasn't your fault. And for you it couldn't have turned out better. Trenkler was a serious risk. Sell the house and you'll be set up for life.” Dieter had always been an idiot, even if his opinions were mostly correct.

The veil over her eyes was water. And once again she felt it close over her head, felt Michael draw her to him and kiss her. And Paris! He'd been so happy, so full of plans, so looking forward to having a child.

Philip Hardenberg's house lay in darkness behind a six-foot hedge almost bare of leaves. Gravel crunched under her feet. She could hear it. Zurkeulen was five or six steps behind her and from him she heard nothing. He was walking on the grass. She could hardly see and all she felt was the icy wind on her tear-damp cheeks.

Zurkeulen had promised he would let her live, if she helped him get his money. And he was convinced she wanted to live. Even without a husband it was worth it for the child, he'd said. And he believed it would be worth it even more, once he'd shown her how he dealt with people who cheated him. He was only going to use the little knife on Philip Hardenberg. Helga Barthel would have a quick and painless death. He
hated having to cause a woman needless pain. He left that sort of stuff to Ramon, he couldn't even watch such unpleasant things.

She was almost at the front door. Everything was dark. She stumbled on the first step, steadied herself against the wall and took the next two steps without being conscious of them. There must be a bell-push somewhere but she couldn't find it in the darkness. And Philip Hardenberg didn't seem to go in for movement sensors that switched a security light on. She knocked on the door and turned round for Zurkeulen. But all she could see were two tall pine trees on the lawn.

She heard the door being opened. No light went on. Instead, a hand shot out and dragged her into the hall - it was a repeat of the Sunday of the dress rehearsal. Before she realized what was happening, the door was closed. She felt an arm round her waist, a hand over her mouth, someone's breath on her ear. “Are you all right?” a man's voice she didn't recognize asked. Somehow she managed to nod.

 

Outside the house all was silent. There was silence everywhere apart from some dark corner where muted groans could be heard. The pressure from the hand over her mouth slackened a little as the man behind her changed his position.

“Michael.” She felt the sob rising in her throat, she could do nothing to stop it. “Ramon's killed my husband.” Under the man's hand her shoulders twitched, as she'd seen Andrea's shoulders twitch on the landing.

The hand closed over her mouth again. The voice behind her whispered. “Your husband's OK. Frau Gerling as well.” That must be Andrea. In that moment all she felt was her knees giving way. But the man held her. They were still standing close to the front door in complete darkness.

There was a crackling sound quite near and a distorted voice saying, “He's leaving.” A few minutes later the same voice said, “You can put the light on now.”

The hand was taken off her mouth, the arm let go of her waist. The light went on in the hall. She turned round slowly and found herself facing a man in a grey suit. The light was switched on in the living room as well. For a brief moment she saw two legs in dark trousers sticking out from behind a table. There were two of them in the house, one man in
the hall, the other seeing to Helga Barthel and Philip Hardenberg. The third was on the building site opposite. The man in the grey suit opened the door. His colleague was coming across the lawn. He grinned as he closed the door behind him. “I've never seen anything like it,” he said. “Why didn't he go to the door with her?”

The other laughed softly and said, “He rang up. It must have been a nasty shock for him to get a dead man on the line instead of his thug.”

During those first minutes no one felt the need to explain things to her. Perhaps she wouldn't have understood anyway. She hadn't come to terms with the previous hour yet and already new events were piling up on top: three unknown men, very young and so inappropriately dressed in their suits. They looked as if they should be in a bank, not on building sites or in other people's houses. And they were behaving as if the last half hour had taken them back to their childhood, pure adventure, a welcome change from the tedious hours in the office.

One sat her down on a chair in Hardenberg's living room and took a mobile out of his trouser pocket. Helga Barthel was lying on the sofa, within reach of her, without her glasses and without any visible injuries, completely motionless, her face a pale blue. Philip Hardenberg was kneeling on the gleaming parquet floor between the table and the sofa. His head was resting on Helga's breast. He didn't move. His breath came in short gasps, interrupted now and then by groans or sobs.

The man with the mobile was making his report. It had been quite simple, he said. They'd expected it would be much more difficult, that Zurkeulen would come with her to the door. That would have complicated things. On what plausible pretext could they have let him go after three night-time attacks with several injured? As it was, Zurkeulen must have assumed Philip Hardenberg had summoned up his last resources of strength and played the hero to rescue Nadia Trenkler.

At some point she started to cry out for Michael and couldn't stop until the man handed her the mobile. But instead of Michael she heard Wolfgang Blasting. “Calm down, Nadia. Doc's fine. He's not even seriously injured.”

“I want to talk to him. I want to talk to him straight away.”

“He's not here, Nadia, he's taking Frau Gerling home. Now put me back on to Schneider.”

Schneider was the one who'd pulled her into the house. He took the mobile from her and continued his report to Wolfgang Blasting. Frau Barthel was in a bad way, a serious problem with her heart. She'd taken some medicine, he said, and now she was sleeping - or unconscious, she urgently needed a doctor.

He didn't like Blasting's answer. “Frau Trenkler can't do that,” he protested, “she can hardly stand up herself. And Hardenberg needs help too. He's got a couple of broken ribs.” Again he listened, looking at her with an embarrassed grin on his face. Finally he handed the mobile back to her. “He wants to talk to you again.”

“Listen, Nadia,” Blasting said. “The men will help you get Frau Barthel and Hardenberg in the car.”

“Are they police?”

“They're from my department. You drive the other two to the nearest hospital.”

“Why did they let Zurkeulen go?”

“Do I really have to explain that to you, Nadia? Now do as I say. Hardenberg's to tell the doctors they were attacked while they were out for an evening walk. That kind of thing. He'll think up something.”

“I want to get out of here.”

“Nadia!” Wolfgang Blasting's voice took on a sharp tone. “Pull yourself together. You've held your nerve so far. It was really something the way you let Michael get that toy. He almost had a stroke when he realized what he had in his hand. But you were fantastic, both of you. And you can manage the rest. Hand me back to Schneider.”

Schneider said he could take Hardenberg and Frau Barthel to the hospital himself but Blasting wouldn't have it. Schneider gave in, rang off and told his colleagues the boss needed them to help clear up. Then he turned back to her and, with flattery and high praise for her iron nerve, repeated Wolfgang Blasting's order.

“I'll go with you as far as the hospital. You drive behind and if there's a problem, flash your headlights.”

Helga didn't move, even when two of the men lifted her off the sofa and carried her down to the garage. Helped by Schneider, Hardenberg managed to get to his feet and, with a glance full of hatred at her, let himself be led outside. The two men carefully lay Helga down on the rear seat of the dark-blue Mercedes, then Schneider helped Hardenberg
into the passenger seat, handed her the keys and got into Helga's green Golf. His two colleagues went over to the building site opposite where they'd left their car.

As she sat down in the driver's seat, Philip Hardenberg said, in a strained voice, “If she dies, you're going to die too.” What followed made it clear that he, like everyone else, assumed she was Nadia. He was beside himself with fury and went on at her uninterruptedly, as if he'd just been waiting for the opportunity, revealing things he wouldn't have wanted anyone else to know.

Somehow she managed to follow the Golf and listen as well. Several times she was tempted to flash her lights to get Schneider to stop because she felt she couldn't stand it any longer. At the same time she knew Hardenberg wouldn't repeat what he'd said if Schneider or anyone else was listening.

“You and your blasted fad for playing the good Samaritan,” he said. “First of all a poor student, then this bimbo. Is that the lot? Oh no, there's the inventor genius, he enjoyed your largesse too. They go down on their knees before you if they get a few crumbs from your table. You need that, don't you? A good deed now and then and you feel like Lady Bountiful.”

He could hardly speak for the pain and every sentence he managed to squeeze out made it clear she should have been dead long ago. He'd intended to get rid of her on the last Wednesday in November. That would have been the best opportunity - in his opinion. There would have been at least two dozen witnesses to her encounter with Zurkeulen in the bank, consequently the police would have concentrated their enquiries on Zurkeulen.

He'd intended to exploit the opportunity, without bothering to let Nadia in on his plan. After Zurkeulen had turned up with a few stupid questions in his office that Wednesday morning, Hardenberg had gone to Kettlerstrasse in the evening. Unfortunately he hadn't been able to get into her flat. His duplicate key didn't fit any more and she hadn't come to the door - of course, at that time she'd been waiting for Nadia at the station.

On the Thursday Nadia had got him to agree to two more pleasant days for her stand-in, he went on. She'd said it fitted in nicely because she had appointments for the Thursday afternoon and Friday anyway
and had to be away overnight. But there had certainly been no mention of a large, airy apartment and a good job with Alfo Investment after the child was born.

Nadia appeared not to have mentioned the fact that her stand-in was pregnant. She'd just promised to get rid of the problem herself - after her return on the Friday evening. He could still kick himself, he said, for having agreed to that. Nadia, he claimed, hadn't dreamed of keeping her word. He hadn't seen hide nor hair of her at the airport on Friday evening, nor of the Lasko woman.

“Did you warn her?” he hissed. “Of course you did. I waited for more than an hour in the car park. Then I went to her flat, but she wasn't there either. Instead I got into a fight with that drunken sot.” And Heller hadn't let himself be dispatched without resistance. Hardenberg had had to take some hefty blows from him, so that Zurkeulen's thug had only had to tap him to leave him with a few broken ribs.

It didn't sound as if Hardenberg had ever seen Nadia without her clothes on. It had been about money, that was all. From the moment Nadia had told him about the woman she'd encountered by the lift, he'd had only one thing on his mind: the millions he could get men like Zurkeulen, who weren't exactly on Christmas-card terms with the taxman, to entrust to the dependable hands of the woman they would know as Susanne Lasko.

It was clear that Nadia hadn't been immediately enthused by his plan. She'd already come unstuck once before and didn't want to put her marriage at risk. Hardenberg assumed “the Lasko woman” had never found out that her identity was being used to defraud investors. As Dieter had said, they only needed her ID cards, and they were easy to procure. You just went to the passport office etc. with new photos and claimed you'd lost your handbag.

But Nadia always knew better, he went on, and didn't want to arouse her husband's suspicions when she stayed away overnight. That Michael would make love to his stand-in wife was something she hadn't reckoned with. Nor was she happy with it.

“I told you straight away it wouldn't work. You can't let a woman you don't know stay in your house and not expect her to have a snoop around. She wasn't half as stupid as you thought. Or did you let her in on our scheme on that Thursday in order to dump me? Yes, you
did, admit it. There's no other explanation. You got together with that woman because you're never satisfied. You wanted me out of the way. I should have known you weren't to be trusted. I should have suspected something like that was going on when I found your letters in that woman's cupboard.

“Perhaps I can do something to change that,” he said, imitating Nadia's way of speaking. “How did you think it was going to work? She'd have been more than happy with half a million, wouldn't she? You wouldn't have had to split the proceeds with her. You sent her to the office to get the laptop. You gave her my address. You were counting on Zurkeulen getting rid of me. Where's his money? I was in Luxembourg and it wasn't there. But you can't do that and get away with it, not with me, you damn bitch.”