The Lie (51 page)

By now they'd reached the end of the buffet. Beyond it was a door, which led God knows where. He was drawing her gently but unerringly towards the door. She jerked her arm free of his grip. “
Non!
” she said firmly, throwing her head back and pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I'm sorry if I raised your hopes, but lots of things have changed in the last few weeks. The baby's Michael's and I'm not going to leave him. Nor am I going to move abroad. I like it here. I hope you can accept that.”

With a look of incomprehension, Jacques muttered something that sounded like an oath and made a gesture to his forehead that was understandable in any language.

“I know I'm crazy,” she said, “but you must understand that I'm not crazy about you any more.”

He clearly understood but he was just as clearly unhappy about it. He engulfed her in a torrent of words and grasped her shoulder again. Shaking herself free, she snarled, “Don't cause a scene, dammit. And if Michael gets to hear anything of this, I'll wring your neck.”

He looked as if he was going to respond, but then, with a gesture indicating it was futile, turned on his heel and left her standing, staring at a mountain of something or other at the end of the long table. Once he had vanished from view, she turned her attention back to the by now considerably depleted spread.

Shortly afterwards she set off, with a well-filled plate, to look for Michael. By this time the group where she'd left him had dispersed. Kemmerling and his girlfriend were nowhere to be seen. She spotted Eleanor Ravatzky and Ilona in the crowd but she didn't feel like asking them where Michael was. Wolfgang was talking to one of the two politicians and she didn't want to interrupt.

She ate her food first then took her plate back and continued looking for Michael. Lilo and Frederik told her he'd gone to the buffet with Jo a while ago. She was somewhat alarmed. The idea that he might have witnessed her scene with Jacques didn't bear thinking about. Saying a quick prayer, she looked for him with growing unease. But her fears were unfounded. He appeared from outside, alone and immensely relieved to see her. “Thank God. I've been looking for you everywhere.”

Jo was still looking - in the car park. They went out together to relieve the poor guy. “All those people were making my head whirl,” Michael said. “Anyone who's determined enough can get in without an invitation.”

“Then let's go home,” she suggested. He immediately went to fetch her coat. Jo and Lilo could get a lift from Wolfgang.

 

She had an excellent night's sleep on Sunday. When the buzzing started in the bathroom and Michael kissed her on the back of the neck, a few fleeting images from her dream came back to mind. It hadn't been a nightmare. He'd put the baby in her arms and watched her suckle it.

He went to the bathroom and, thirty minutes later, to the garage. But not before he'd begged her a hundred times to be careful. And she'd told him just as many times that nothing would happen that day because she was just collecting the money and Wolfgang wouldn't let her out of his
sight. Then he reappeared, just as she was drying her hair. “Can I take your car?” he asked. “You don't need it if you're going with Wolfgang.”

“Will you never learn?” she asked.

He gave an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry. Filling up was the last thing on my mind yesterday. Wouldn't you rather take a motorbike tomorrow?”

“Darling,” she said, “I really don't think riding a motorbike's a good idea in my condition. Just imagine if I fell off.” That made sense to him.

Shortly after seven Wolfgang was already there at the door with her old driving licence, her ID card and a passport she'd never applied for. “Nervous?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

Wolfgang seemed tense. During the journey he explained again what was to happen once she'd received Zurkeulen's money. She really didn't need to worry, he assured her. He'd wire her up and have a dozen men covering her. She was hardly listening. What did she care about his dozen men? For her there was only one who mattered, the one who, before he'd gone down to the garage for the second time, had said, “It would be more than I could bear if anything happened to you tomorrow.”

They reached the outskirts of Luxembourg shortly before eleven, which gave them time for a brief rest. Wolfgang suggested a leisurely breakfast and found a small café near the bank. They spent half an hour over croissants, milky coffee and a discussion of what was to happen the next day. Then he handed her a briefcase, told her the combination to the locks, showed her how to attach it securely to her wrist and sent her off. “Don't worry,” he said, “I'll be right behind you.”

For Nadia it would presumably all have been a matter of course: entering the bank, asking for the manager, reminding him of their telephone conversation and receiving six million euros. She felt as if she were in a film. But there were no problems. The money was ready, high-denomination notes in thin sealed bundles. It didn't even look that much.

They checked her identity documents, full of understanding for her client's difficulties, and helped her pack the bundles so that they all fitted in her briefcase. By the time she'd attached it to her wrist, she couldn't remember what she'd said about her client and his difficulties. Something or other. By now she was an expert at that.

Wolfgang was waiting for her at the entrance. His hand inside his jacket, he covered her as they went to his Rover. He demanded the identity documents back immediately but the briefcase stayed where it was, chained to her wrist. It lay on her lap during the whole of the drive home. Six million! And somewhere there were another fourteen.

They were back by the late afternoon. Michael wasn't home yet. Wolfgang had had to withdraw his men, at the start of the new week they had other obligations. He thought it wasn't worth asking for police protection for the last day and thus involving other departments. He went into the house with her, unlocked the handcuff from her wrist and told her to take the money up to the safe.

“I'd rather you looked after it.”

“You've a cheek,” he said. “I haven't got a safe. D'you expect me to stuff the briefcase under my mattress?”

For the moment she put the briefcase down in the kitchen. “I'll make us a coffee.” They hadn't stopped on the way back and had missed out on lunch.

“Not for me,” Wolfgang said. “I have to go to the office. Now get the money in the safe.”

She had no choice but to go up to the loft. Fortunately he didn't go with her. She wedged the briefcase in between the housing of the alarm system and the safe and went back down. “Mission accomplished,” she said.

He nodded. He looked tense as he glanced out of the window. “Doc won't be too late coming back this evening, will he?”

“Don't keep calling him Doc,” she said. “I hate it.”

With a brief grin he placed a sheet of paper with several telephone numbers on the table. “One of those should get Zurkeulen. If not, ask him to call back. It'd be best if you rang immediately. That way we eliminate any danger between now and tomorrow. With the prospect of getting out of the affair gracefully, he won't be tempted to try any tricks. You know what you have to say.”

She didn't know exactly because she hadn't been listening to him properly. But the time and place were presumably sufficient.

Wolfgang left. Only ten minutes later Michael arrived home - and he wasn't alone. She was standing by the desk and after three tries she'd finally got Zurkeulen. That was enough to explain the way her hands
were trembling. As the two men came up the stairs, Zurkeulen was saying, “I'm delighted you've been able to persuade Herr Hardenberg to return my money. Unfortunately, however, I can't manage tomorrow.”

On the stairs she heard Michael say, “Let's ask her what she meant.”

“And I can only manage tomorrow,” she said to Zurkeulen. “I'll be at the airport car park at precisely four o'clock. If you're on time too, then we can get the matter over and done with in a few seconds. If not - my flight leaves at five. Don't expect me to tell you the destination. What I can tell you is that it's beyond your reach.”

Without waiting for Zurkeulen to reply, she replaced the receiver and turned to the door. Her smile was more than forced. “Hi there,” she mumbled.

Michael smiled at her. “What have you been doing to poor old Jacques? He doesn't know whether he's coming or going.”

Her hands started to tremble even more and her knees decided to join in. She had to sit down. It had never occurred to her that this idiot would dare to ask her to explain herself in Michael's presence, possibly even insist on some putative prior claim on her.

Michael looked at her, somewhat puzzled. “Is everything OK?”

“No,” she said. “I think Wolfgang should ask for police protection for us.”

Jacques had stopped in the doorway. Ignoring her comment to Michael, he unleashed, as he had the previous evening, a torrent of words, of which she could only pick out a few meaningless syllables.

“Just a moment, Jacques,” Michael said, his gaze still fixed on her. He looked worried as he asked, “Did you not get the money?”

“Yes we did, it's in the loft,” she said. “But Zurkeulen…”

Ignoring Michael's request, Jacques continued to pour out further incomprehensible French. He sounded furious. Michael flapped his hand at him, said, “Hold on a sec,” then asked her, “Is Zurkeulen refusing to meet you?”

“Yes,” she said. “But he will come. I—” She broke off and let fly at Jacques. “Oh do shut up. What's all this hoo-ha about?”

Jacques did pause in the middle of a sentence, but then he started up again - a little more moderately so that she could catch some of it. The few words and expressions she could identify beyond doubt corresponded to what he'd been going on about the previous evening and added up to
an explosive cocktail. He had no compunction about reminding her - in Michael's presence! - of the plans she'd made with him. A villa on the Bahamas. Michael listened, his brow furrowed in concentration, his eyes switching back and forward between them.

“Did I not make myself clear enough yesterday?” she said in an attempt to stem the flood of words.

“
Non
,” he said.

“Then I'm sorry,” she said, adding, with a meaningful glance in Michael's direction, “but I can't make myself any clearer.”

“Dammit, Nadia,” Michael said, “what the hell's going on here?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I really don't know what he wants from me.” In fact, she thought she knew all too well, so she got up and headed for the door with her by now familiar ploy. “I need to eat something.”

Michael held her back. “He thinks you can't understand him.”

It was a decision that had to be taken in a few seconds. Admit that she couldn't understand Jacques, or hope that Michael would forgive her. He would probably even have forgiven Nadia a murder - for a baby. He couldn't give that much importance to a brief fling with a sweetheart from the days before she'd known him.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered again and bowed her head. “I didn't want you to hear about it. I - it wasn't anything serious, really it wasn't. You must believe me, it was just…”

She started to stammer. She knew nothing at all of what had gone on between Nadia and Jacques in the last few months and she was trying to fob Michael off with a few hints. It had happened, in memory of old times, which were meaningless now because she loved him, him alone, the father of her child. Jacques had nothing at all to do with that, whatever he imagined.

Michael's grip on her arm tightened, it started to hurt. He listened with his jaws clamped together and looking daggers at Jacques. “You slept with him.” It was a toneless whisper, half-question, half-statement.

She sketched a nod. Jacques shook his head vigorously, at the same time waving his hands in denial. “
Non!
” he declared emphatically. What he went on to say she couldn't understand. Dieter's language course contained no sentences that came anywhere near expressing the mood of a furious man. All she could grasp was the name Alina. Coward, she thought and demanded, “Speak German, so Michael can understand.”

“I can understand enough,” Michael said, letting go of her arm and stepping away from her. He kept his eyes fixed on her face, seemed to be waiting for something. “He says you're lying. He says you've no idea what he's talking about.”

It was the critical moment. Of course she had no idea. All she knew was that, after he had separated from Alina, Nadia had written a heartrending letter to Jacques asking if they could make things up again. Was it perhaps Alina with whom he made things up? He'd presumably never read Nadia's letter. “
Retour à l'expéditeur.
”

“It was when I was going through a bad time,” she said, keeping it deliberately vague - and accepting the risk that Michael might send her packing. “You know, when I was on the bottle. You'd taken up with that Palewi woman and that hit me hard. He'd just left Alina and I thought perhaps things might… with him rather than… I was completely drunk when I… I really wasn't in my right mind…”

Michael stared at her, stunned. After some seconds he passed his hand over his eyes and forehead in a weary gesture. Then he patted Jacques on the shoulder. “Don't worry,” he said, “I won't say anything of this to Alina.”

Jacques continued to swear and curse and to give further explanations. Michael pushed him out onto the landing. She sat down at the desk to get the trembling under control. She'd come through again, by the skin of her teeth, but at what cost? She heard the two of them go down the stairs, heard the front door close and Michael hurrying down the stairs to the basement. He must be beside himself. She knew him well enough by now to know that he worked off violent emotions in the water.