The Quiet Twin (24 page)

‘And Otto?’

‘Gone to work. He kissed me today.’ She winced, unfastened the hook at the top of her blouse, showed him a collarbone marked by a bruise. ‘I closed my eyes and pursed my lips, saying he may.’ She poured more wine, downed it. ‘Turns out he bites. Then he stood waiting, that look in his eyes.’ She blushed. ‘Like he thought I knew what came next.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I–’ She straightened in her chair, patted down some strands of her hair. ‘I ran away, of course. Though first I invited him to my uncle’s party. The big soirée. You must help me tell him.’

‘Your uncle’s giving a party?’ Beer muttered, confused. ‘But you can’t invite Otto. It’s impossible. You must tell him you were joking.’

Zuzka nodded at that, but he could see she wasn’t listening to him. She kept drinking more of his wine, her face flushed, frightened and drunk.

‘I haven’t seen Lieschen for two days,’ he tried again, hoping to call her to her senses, but again she simply nodded, then cut him off, not having heard a word.

‘Three or four years ago,’ she said, ‘Father brought us to Vienna for a week. We went to all the museums, and to the theatre every night.
Hamlet
was playing. Some famous actor, too old and too fat, bulging out of his tights. I remember his legs most of all, staring at his legs, and at the front.’ She gave a manic sort of laugh and made a gesture down past her abdomen where her legs stretched scissored at the groin. ‘The play was awfully long. One part, though, struck me very much, when the actors performed the play within the play. I found it and read it later, in my father’s library, Karl Kraus’ translation, Dad had marked the section with a postcard from the Alps.
The Mousetrap
, it’s called: the moment Hamlet lets his uncle know how much he knows. He went pale, poor Claudius, white as a sheet upon his throne. I couldn’t fathom how he did it. The actor, I mean: how he willed the blood to leave his face. I literally thought he would fall over and die.’

Zuzka looked over to him, as if to see whether he was following her line of thought. She seemed reassured when she saw that he did not.

‘You mustn’t say anything to anyone, isn’t that right?’ she asked with great abruptness. ‘Because you’re a doctor, I mean.’

Her eyes, he noted, pointed past him, deep into the flat. All at once he understood. She was thinking of Eva. There was no man easier to blackmail than Anton Beer.

Again she poured from the bottle of wine.

‘But what is it that you want from me?’ he asked, dismayed.

She took hold of his hand, dragged him out of his seat and out of the kitchen, towards the living room, where he slept at night upon the leather couch. She let go of him, threw herself face down upon its cushions, slid a pillow under her hips; her coat and skirt riding up mid-thigh, the stockings drooping on her doughy legs.

‘Have me,’ she said.

It was as though she were asking him for a cigarette, or another glass of wine.

He stared at her stiffly and ran to the window to close the curtains.

‘Zuzka,’ he said, kneeling down beside her elevated bum.

The doorbell rang. They both turned their heads. It was like a scene from some cheap farce.

He thought at first he might be able to ignore it. Beer expected no visitors that night, and it seemed important to see to this: an unhappy girl, hip-cocked, crying, a heave and shiver running through the muscles of her back. But the ringing was insistent, soon joined by the loud banging of a fist. Beer excused himself, rose to his feet and stepped into the hallway, making sure to close the living-room door behind himself. Five steps took him past the coat rack. He looked through the spyhole, then opened the door. It was Teuben, detective inspector of the criminal police.

Chapter 4

Detective Inspector Teuben made himself at home. ‘
Grüss Gott
,’ he said, ‘
Heil Hitler
,’ not raising his right arm; walked into the kitchen first, bent to find a beer at the bottom of the larder, pushed out the cork with a flick of his thumb. Beer marvelled again at the thinness, the redness of his lips; the jet-black wig that cut off in a line above the ears and neck; the awkward physicality in the new but shabby suit. His shoes were wet from walking amongst puddles; muddy footprints soiled the floor.

‘Halfway through dinner, I see. May I–?’ And the big hand reached forward to cram a slice of boiled ham into his mouth.

‘You wouldn’t have any horseradish, Dr Beer?’

Silent, yielding, Beer stepped over to one of his cupboards, and retrieved a jar of pickled
Kren
, unscrewed it, plunged a little spoon inside. Teuben watched him with open amusement.

‘You’re quite the housewife, Dr Beer. I’m impressed.’

‘What do you want, Detective Teuben? It’s late, I’m tired.’

The man smiled, licked the grease off his finger and thumb.

‘Why don’t you have a look at this, Dr Beer?’

From the pocket of his coat, which he had thrown across an empty chair, he pulled out a folded-up envelope. Inside was a typed police report, detailing an assault against a young woman named Gisela Kirsch.

‘She’s a maid in a doctor’s household. Surgeon by the name of Rupp; proud member of the SS. You know him?’

Beer shrugged. ‘I might have met him at a ball.’

‘Ah, the physicians’ ball. How splendid! Middle-aged wives looking like meringues; selling off their daughters to the highest bidder. But I suppose it’s part of the game. Making contacts and all.’ He scoffed another slice of ham, cut himself a piece of bread. ‘The attack took place in the Volksgarten. Miss Kirsch says she “just wanted to take the air”. Middle of the afternoon, would you believe? Not a lot of people around, because of the rain. The assailant dragged her into the bushes. Notice the leather strap he tried to put around her throat. We took pictures of the bruise. It’s a wonder she got away. A hardy girl, big juicy arse.’

‘So now you think you have a serial murderer after all.’

Teuben raised his brows, his hairline twitching with the motion. ‘That’s why I come to you, Dr Beer. The criminological genius, German methods and all. Take your time, though, read it in peace. We can talk about it all tomorrow.’

He stood, wiped his hands on the tablecloth, finished the last of his beer. ‘There’s another reason why I came.’

‘Yes?’

Teuben took his coat over one arm, stepped into the hallway, then turned to walk into the flat rather than out. He was heading for the bedroom.

Beer ran after him.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, laid a hand on Teuben’s shoulder, stopped him with a sudden tug. The thin lips spread into the knife-cut of a smile.

‘Following a hunch.’

They stood like this for a moment, front to back, Beer’s face close to the spot where neck and throat grew into ear, the detective’s head half turned so as to present a perfect profile, his dark, soft eye and sagging chin, the purple strip of a shaving bruise clinging to the bottom of his jaw. Teuben’s smell rose between them, a masculine mixture, not unpleasant, of aftershave and sweat. The hand Beer had raised to the detective’s shoulder now sat there with the limpness of a lover’s parting touch; its passion spent, it lingered only as a reminiscence, marking time. Teuben stared at this, the doctor’s hand, and waited him out.

It did not take long. Beer withdrew his arm, stuffed the useless hand into one pocket: it found a hanky there, and some old button sewn from folded bits of leather, worn smooth and greasy from long years of use. The detective smiled once more and carried on towards the door; swung it open with a sudden push. Beer followed him into the room, gherkin juices rising to his throat. In front of them lay Eva, stomach down upon his bedding; her neck was bent so that she faced them, the pillow wet with a patch of drool, green eyes large and reflecting back the sudden light of the hallway bulb. A sheet covered her from foot to naked shoulders; the nightgown’s straps pretty with their lace against her pallid skin.

Teuben took a breath and eased himself into the chair that stood by her bedside, level with her chest and face. He reached and touched her, shook her, then creased his brow in wonder.

‘What’s wrong with her? Why doesn’t she move?’

‘She can’t. A temporary condition. I’m treating her.’

Teuben bent forward until his face hovered only inches above her covered back. He sniffed, then straightened. ‘She smells,’ he complained and pulled back the sheet to reveal the first of the bandages, easily visible through the gown’s thin gauze.

‘Please,’ said Beer. ‘She must not be disturbed.’

‘And she really cannot move? Not even her arms and head?’

‘No.’

‘How wonderful.’ He touched her face, ran a hairy thumb along her lower lip.

‘Detective. You mustn’t. This woman is very sick –’

Teuben turned to him then, his thumb still pressed to Eva’s mouth, prising open her lips in a gesture that was openly obscene.

‘Dr Beer,’ he said with some formality. ‘The last time I was here you told me this woman was your lover, and asleep. You lied very well. I had my suspicions, of course, but told myself to let it go; what use was it to me to see you troubled, and besides what good is a man who doesn’t whore? In short, I had other things on my mind. But then, some days ago, I find myself thinking about this woman in your flat. I only had the briefest glimpse – a shorn, dark head, a skinny arm, sleeping soundly in your bedroom – but something stuck with me, some sense of line’ – he gestured through the air as though he were a painter – ‘and I find myself thinking perhaps I’d like to meet the girl myself. So I make enquiries. It doesn’t cost anything, I’m the police, so what the hell. The name was fake, of course, I half expected it, though common enough in Vienna that we tracked down two and asked them awkward questions just to make sure. Then, this afternoon, just after I have taken down Fräulein Kirsch’s statement and hence was thinking of paying you a visit, I remembered that Speckstein mentioned a divorcee in this building whom he suspects of ‘‘unlicensed prostitution’’ in his stuck-up little phrase. Teaches English, a deaf old crone as chaperone who wouldn’t know it if she banged an army out back. I go for a visit, profess an interest in some foreign tongue. Turns out she’s a handsome little lass with a gorgeous head of hair; skinny, shapely, knows how to smile. So for a moment I think it’s her, I’ve solved your riddle, and am even a little disappointed. The divorcee is pretty, don’t get me wrong, but in the light of day she lacks the mystery that I remembered: she wasn’t worth, in short, wasting my thoughts on for nigh on a week. Just to make sure I tug at her hair. We’re face to crotch by then, she thinks me a customer, looking lovely with her lips around my swollen cock. And what do you know: it’s not a wig. I nearly yank her head off, I do, and with it my pecker, she bites down in pain. So I apologise and let her finish; have a think. I’ve a good mind to come over straight away, put a boot right up your bum, but then it’s office hours and your patients might be in the way. So I tell the driver to take me back to the station. I pick up the report – two birds, one stone – go out for a beer, make bets with myself what it’ll be. Most likely, of course, the bedroom is empty; crumpled bedsheets needing a wash and the wardrobe filled with Frau Beer’s old frocks. At worst, I figure, I’ll get a new name out of you, and an address that fits the bill. But then, there’s a chance there is more to it after all: the shorn-haired girl caught sleeping in your bed. I drink a second beer and wonder is she a Gypsy – a thief, a bum, a Communist? – run away from one of our camps? And then – I order a schnapps to congratulate myself! – I remember you worked at the hospital, keeping tabs on the mad. So all of a sudden I have this romantic notion that you have a nutcase here, pretty like the night. And just like that everything makes sense: your sudden resignation, wife gone to Switzerland, the quick, confident lie. You are screwing a loon, the type the propaganda tells us we’d do best to put a bullet through their heads. I took a cab here, will you believe it, rather than waiting for a station car to be available. Excited like a little boy.’

He laughed, straightened and withdrew his arm, wiped his wet thumb on his tie. ‘But this, Dr Beer, this I didn’t expect! A girl who can’t move, big old plasters on the back. Pretty like an altar boy chewing his first wafer. And anything you say about it, Dr Beer, it’s bound to be horse-shit, so please don’t even start.’

He stood, rounded the bed, slipped a hand under the sheet and took hold of one of Eva’s feet. ‘You haven’t just shot her full of morphine, have you? No, you’d keep her tied in that case, making sure she didn’t wake and make a nuisance of herself; and I can’t see any straps.’

Through all of Teuben’s speech, Beer stood head bowed, helpless, the taste of gherkins in his mouth. He dearly wished to spit and wash his mouth; to strike Teuben, push a spike through both his eyes. His right hand remained clenched around the contours of the leather button. It seemed scarred to him, sown together from left-over scraps. A surgeon’s fingers might have admired the stitching.

‘Tell me,’ Teuben said, still holding on to Eva’s foot, and raising her leg beneath the bedsheet. ‘Is it still customary to examine female patients through their clothing? I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when our old coroner told me. He was talking about the difference between the live patient, and the dead.’