The Glass Demon

by Helen Grant

  I bit my lip.

  ‘Dad? We have to do something.’

  ‘I know. I…’ He pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, suddenly looking tired. ‘Look, I’ll talk to Karl. Maybe he can recommend someone who can talk to Polly, someone who speaks English.’

  The vague tone of his voice was not reassuring but at least he wasn’t suggesting we let Tuesday handle the whole thing any more.

  ‘Could you call him from Baumgarten?’ I suggested.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, sounding a little dazed. ‘Yes, of course.’ He looked around him, as though searching for something. ‘I think I need that coffee,’ he told me, with a weak smile.

  His fingers were already curling around the handle of the coffee jug; I could see that I only had a nanosecond of his attention left. I stepped a little closer and fixed him with what I hoped was a gaze of laser-like intensity.

  ‘Dad, will you just promise me one thing?’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘That you won’t leave Polly alone here – not ever.’

  ‘Lin, she’s almost an adult.’

  ‘I know. But will you just promise anyway?’

  He glanced down at the coffee jug. ‘All right, I promise.’

  I folded my arms and watched him as he disappeared into the kitchen. I had extracted the promise, but it didn’t make me feel any better. If he breaks his promise I’ll never forgive him, I thought, and I could feel the anger already like a foul taste in my mouth, as though he had already broken it. That was all I thought about it at the time – how furious I would be if he broke his word. I never imagined what the other consequences would be.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  The next day, I decided, was to be the day when I spoke to Father Engels. I said nothing of this to Michel, of course, but he noticed that something was up anyway. When I got into the car he looked me up and down and gave a little whistle through his teeth.

  ‘You think it’s too much? For school, I mean?’

  ‘No.’ Even after he had started the engine, he kept giving me covert little glances. ‘You look good.’

  As the car pulled away from the castle I flipped down the passenger sun shield and eyed myself in the little mirror.

  ‘Is something special happening today?’ asked Michel, negotiating his way around a large pothole.

  ‘No,’ I said as innocently as I could, rubbing surreptitiously at my eyeshadow. I should have known better than to pinch Tuesday’s Dior – she always went for much more strident colours than I would ever have chosen for myself. As I adjusted the mirror the reflection of the castle flashed past my line of vision. Polly had still been asleep when I left – or pretending to be. I hoped my father would remember his promise.

  After a short pause Michel said in a casual voice, ‘The police came to see me.’

  That caught my attention. I flipped the sun shield back up and turned to face Michel. ‘What did they ask you about?’

  ‘You know. When your brother was attacked… what we were doing. Where we were.’

  An unpleasant thought struck me. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said we went to McDonald’s in Nordkirchen.’

  ‘Scheisse.’ I put my hand over my eyes. ‘I told them we went over to your place.’

  ‘What did you do that for?’ asked Michel incredulously.

  ‘What was I supposed to say?’ I said hotly. ‘I wasn’t going to tell them where we’d really been, was I? Not since you made such a fuss about me talking to Father Krause,’ I added. I hunched my shoulders angrily.

  ‘They didn’t know we’d been in the woods,’ Michel pointed out. ‘We could have been anywhere.’

  ‘Well, why did you say we’d been at McDonald’s?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want them poking around in the woods, checking our story.’

  ‘As if. We weren’t even at the castle when it happened. Why should they want to check our story?’

  Michel shrugged. ‘Look, I couldn’t tell them we were at my house. Those police, the ones from Bonn, they might believe it, but the ones from round here, they all know what my dad’s like.’ He sighed.

  ‘He wasn’t there that day,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but supposing they decided to check with him anyway? He might get suspicious.’

  I thought about this. ‘Michel, if your dad is – well, I don’t know, looking after the glass or something… won’t he have to talk to you about it sooner or later?’ I looked at him. ‘I mean, when he gets too old, or when he dies, what’s going to happen then?’

  The answer flashed across my mind before Michel had had time to reply.

  ‘Jörg,’ I said instantly.

  ‘No,’ said Michel. He was shaking his head.

  I took no notice; my imagination was streaking ahead. ‘Maybe he’s already told him,’ I said. ‘Maybe Jörg has already been there too.’

  I remembered the dark shadow writhing along the mosaic of windowpanes and for a moment I wondered whether it could have been Michel’s brother stalking us through the glass. I had never seen him, but the way Tuesday had described him he sounded like a gorilla. Was it possible? But no – Jörg had gone to Prüm that day with Michel Reinartz Senior, I remembered.

  ‘He wouldn’t tell Jörg,’ said Michel firmly.

  I eyed him doubtfully. ‘Why –’ I began, but he cut me off.

  ‘Forget Jörg. It’s got nothing to do with him. Look, we have to think what we’re going to tell the police if they try to check up on us. We can’t say we were at my house. You’ll have to say that you forgot, that we were actually at McDonald’s.’

  ‘But your car was outside the castle the whole time,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Verdammt.’

  We rode on in silence for another hundred metres, rattling and bumping over the uneven road surface.

  ‘We’re going to get into trouble, Michel,’ I said finally.

  He gritted his teeth. ‘No, we’re not.’

  ‘Well, what are we going to tell them, then?’

  ‘Maybe they won’t ask.’

  ‘And if they do?’

  ‘If they do,’ said Michel grimly, ‘we’ll tell them we went into the woods to –’ his voice sank very low and he used a word I was not familiar with – ‘knutschen.’

  ‘Knutschen? What does that mean?’

  ‘It means – you know – to kiss…’

  ‘To kiss?’

  Michel was red to the tips of his ears. ‘And stuff.’

  ‘And stuff?’

  By now I was clutching my school bag so tightly to my chest that if it had been a live thing I would have smothered it. ‘I’m not telling them that.’

  ‘Have you got a better suggestion?’ demanded Michel.

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘But what?’ He looked at me defiantly. ‘You needn’t look so shocked.’

  I realized that my mouth was hanging open and shut it hastily. There was a silence.

  ‘Maybe they won’t ask,’ I said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  When we got to the school I gave Michel the slip and went up to the Sekretariat.

  ‘I’d like to make an appointment with Father Engels.’

  I tried to inject a serious tone into my voice, but as soon as the words were out I could feel my face tingling. I hoped I was not blushing too obviously.

  The school secretary looked at me over the top of her glasses and said nothing at all.

  ‘How do I…’ I was floundering. ‘How do I do that, please?’

  ‘What’s it about?’ She was reaching under her desk for a thick file.

  ‘Um… I want to ask him about something.’

  ‘Counselling?’ Scepticism dripped from her voice like poison.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘We have a school counsellor, Frau Müller,’ she said, bringing the file down on to the desktop with a slap.

  ‘It’s… um… it’s a religious problem.’

  Now I was sure I was blushing; m
y skin felt as though it was burning. I could feel her gaze on me again.

  She opened the file with a firm thump, licked her finger and began to leaf through the pages inside it at high speed.

  ‘Fox, hmm?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Here’s your registration form. It says no religion.’

  ‘I know. I’m… thinking of converting.’

  ‘Converting to Catholicism?’

  Why did she have to make it sound as though I were converting to Satanism?

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a very long pause, during which the secretary managed to convey her doubts about my religious tendencies, my motivation and the general state of my mental health through the pursing of her lips and the strenuous knitting of her brow. Finally she said, ‘He has an office on this floor, at the end of the corridor, the last on the right. You’ll have to make the appointment yourself. I don’t manage his diary. Bitte schön,’ she added acidly to my retreating back, but I was halfway out of the room already.

  I looked at my watch. The bell for the first lesson was going to ring in approximately one minute. If I went to see Father Engels now, I would definitely be late. On the other hand, I realized, watching last-minute arrivals dashing into their classrooms, there probably wouldn’t be anyone else around to see me do it. I opted for a slow saunter down the corridor. When the bell had rung and there was a chorus of classroom doors slamming, I picked up speed and made a beeline for the last door on the right. My hand was actually on the door handle when a clear, cool voice behind me said, ‘Are you looking for me?’

  I jumped as though the door handle had been electrified. My school bag slipped from my shoulder and hit the floor, where it burst open, spilling folders and textbooks across the tiles. A pen rolled away until it came to rest against the door.

  ‘Oh, God!’ I tried to stamp on a fifty-cent piece which was rolling across the floor, but missed. Then I realized what I had said. ‘I mean – I didn’t mean…’ I crouched on the floor and tried to gather up the books as quickly as I could. Father Engels didn’t help me; he stood there as silent and immovable as a figure on a monument. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Eventually I had gathered up everything except the fifty-cent piece, which had vanished, and had stuffed it all back into my bag. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again.

  ‘This is my office,’ said Father Engels.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I was looking for… I mean, I wanted to make an appointment with you.’

  ‘I don’t believe you are one of my students.’

  ‘No – I… I wanted to ask your advice about something.’

  ‘Frau Müller –’ he began, but I shook my head.

  ‘It’s a – a religious – problem.’

  ‘What type of religious problem?’

  ‘It’s rather complicated,’ I said.

  ‘Hmm.’ He reached into his pocket and took out a key. ‘You’d better come in,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Don’t you have a lesson now?’ he asked, as he unlocked the door.

  ‘Yes, but – it’s quite urgent,’ I said, cringing inside about how stupid that must sound. He probably thought… well, I didn’t want to consider what he probably thought about me. Everyone has a crush on him, the girl from my class had said.

  Father Engels’s office was quite small and bare, as though he were trying to replicate a monastic cell. The chair he offered me was hard and upright, designed to prevent any visitor from becoming too comfortable. I settled myself under the tortured gaze of a crucified Christ that was the room’s only adornment and looked at Father Engels across the vast polished wasteland of his desk. There was not a single sheet of paper, not so much as a propelling pencil on it. I noticed that Father Engels had left the door wide open, although whether that was for my benefit or his was not clear.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘You are the daughter of Professor Fox, are you not?’

  I nodded, wondering whether I should point out that we had actually spoken before, outside the castle at Niederburgheim.

  ‘And how is Professor Fox’s research progressing?’

  ‘Um… good,’ I said.

  ‘Really?’ One sleek black eyebrow went up. There was a silence during which we both eyed each other. Then he seemed to make his mind up about something. Leaning forward, he said, ‘So what is the religious problem you wanted to talk to me about?’

  Faced with this straightforward question, what little confidence I had left seemed to shrivel up. Father Engels’s good looks were almost terrifying; being so close to him was like bathing in the dazzling brightness of a conflagration. It was impossible to come right out and say, Someone’s terrorizing my family and it might – just might – be a demon.

  ‘My brother…’ I started, and stopped. ‘My brother Reuben,’ I began again, ‘he’s only one – well, one and a half –’

  ‘He’s sick? You want me to pray for him?’

  ‘No…’ I shook my head. ‘He isn’t sick. Someone tried to – someone attacked him.’

  ‘Someone? Do you know who?’

  ‘No.’ This time I looked at him boldly, daring him to let slip one flicker of suspicion, the kind I had seen sliding across Uncle Karl’s face. ‘Someone broke in.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Father Engels, taking the safe option.

  ‘The thing is, I don’t think any of us is safe. I think my whole family is in danger –’

  ‘Wait a moment.’ Father Engels raised a hand as though warding me off. ‘If you think your family is in some sort of danger, shouldn’t you be talking to the police?’

  ‘The police are already trying to find the person who attacked Ru.’

  ‘Then why…’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Please don’t think I’m crazy or anything. I’m not completely sure it was a person who attacked my brother. I mean, not a human being. I saw something – I can’t explain it…’ I could see him opening his mouth to speak so I rushed onwards. ‘It wasn’t just Ru, there was Herr Mahlberg, and this man Werner – he was a relative of Michel’s – Michel Reinartz, I mean. Herr Mahlberg was supposed to talk to my father about the Allerheiligen glass, and Werner knew about it as well.’

  A deep furrow was appearing in Father Engels’s brow.

  ‘I think they were killed to stop them telling my father where the glass is.’

  ‘Killed?’ Father Engels’s voice was cold and incisive. He did not appear to be remotely shocked. ‘By “Herr Mahlberg”, do you mean Herr Heinrich Mahlberg – the local historian?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Herr Mahlberg is supposed to have drowned in his bath, is he not?’

  I had the uncomfortable feeling of being cross-examined by a prosecuting lawyer. ‘Yes…’

  ‘And you believe you have some information which suggests otherwise?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not information, not exactly.’

  I was beginning to feel dismayed. This was not going the way I had hoped it would. There was no warmth in Father Engels’s voice, no sympathy in his glance. We might have been discussing a discrepancy in the parish accounts.

  ‘And this Werner, what about him?’

  ‘Well, he was supposed to have fallen out of an apple tree, but Michel’s father said it looked like someone had hit him over the head.’

  I could feel myself starting to stumble over my words. Everything sounded so stupid and unlikely when I tried to explain it. All the same, I was committed now. If I left without saying what I had come to say, I would look even sillier. I blundered on.

  ‘And Michel said he – Werner – knew where the glass was.’

  I stopped short, horrified. I had not meant to tell Father Engels about the existence of the glass, not yet, not until I was sure he would help me. For a split second I hoped he would not notice what I had said, but I saw a fleeting shadow cross his face, before he smoothed it over again.

  ‘No one knows where the glass is,’ he said.

  I could not think of anything to say to this. I looked down at m
y hands.

  ‘I still fail to see why you came to speak to me about this,’ said Father Engels. ‘Attempted murder is a police matter.’

  I winced at the incredulous tone in which he pronounced the words attempted murder, as though he were handling something too disgusting to be touched.

  ‘If you know something, you should be talking to them.’

  ‘They wouldn’t believe me,’ I said.

  ‘Nevertheless –’

  ‘It’s not what happened that they wouldn’t believe,’ I said, cutting across his protestation. ‘It’s who did it.’

  Father Engels opened his mouth to say something and then shut it again. He studied me for a moment. ‘You said this was a religious problem. Are you telling me this because I am a priest? You think you can tell me something you wouldn’t tell other people, because it’s all under the seal of the confessional?’ He shook his head. ‘We’re not in the confessional. I’ve not seen you in any of my classes so I imagine you’re not even a Catholic, are you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Then if you have something incriminating to say, I suggest that you don’t say it to me. There would be no reason for me not to pass it on – to the police, perhaps.’

  ‘That’s not the reason,’ I said. I threw caution to the winds. ‘Look, I think the person who attacked my brother and those other people did it because of the pictures in the glass.’ I took a deep breath. ‘The thing is, we saw him – behind the glass. I think it was Bonschariant.’

  There was a silence, which I took as encouragement. There was still a chance I might persuade him to take me seriously.

  ‘You know, Bonschariant, the Glass Demon. He’s supposed to walk behind the glass and –’