Raven Sisters (Franza Oberwieser Book 2)

by Gabi Kreslehner

  I’ll start counting, she thought, and if it doesn’t strike this house within fifty seconds, then Tonio’s son will have provoked a storm and nothing will ever be the same again.

  She took Tonio’s photo in her hand and looked into his face, the face that had suddenly come back into her life with an inevitability that took her breath away. Lightning did not strike the house. She nodded and murmured softly to herself, “Then that’s how it’s going to be.”

  And that was how it was.

  7

  I received the letter . . . dear hanna . . .

  Everything comes to an end. You shut it away in a dark corner in your heart. You don’t interfere with it. Perhaps it darkens the soul, but that’s life.

  You don’t interfere with it. No.

  But now, since I received that letter, I’ve had the feeling that the world is awakening. The old world that I’d shut away—the world that had nothing to do with me anymore—it’s awakening. The ghosts . . . the black birds . . . The stories like grains of sand trickled through my fingers, then scattered and vanished.

  But now it’s all come back.

  And the birds fly, swooping upward. I hear their wings beating, I feel the rush of air. I’ve felt them since I received the letter. They want to fly. Now. Yes.

  . . . dear hanna . . .

  So I was. Yes.

  8

  “My wife has vanished,” the man said.

  He was trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice, but Felix Herz heard it all the same. He leaned forward in his chair and stirred his coffee. He watched as his colleague, Hansen from Missing Persons, tried to calm the visitor.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” Hansen said. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  The man nodded, sat, and gratefully accepted the coffee placed before him.

  “So,” Hansen said, “let’s begin at the beginning, Herr . . .”

  “Belitz,” the man said. “Jonas Belitz.”

  “Well, then, Herr Belitz, what has happened, exactly?”

  Belitz took a drink of his coffee and tried to gather his thoughts. “We actually live in France, my wife and I, but she’s originally from this town. She spent half her life here.” He fell silent, as if he’d lost the thread, but then continued. “Something must have happened about two weeks ago—I don’t know what—but she changed very suddenly.”

  “Changed in what way?”

  Belitz hesitated and briefly closed his eyes as if looking inside himself. “I don’t know how to put it. It was as if she was afraid of something. Then last Tuesday she told me she wanted to come here. She had something to sort out.”

  “What was it?”

  “She didn’t say. She only told me the name of the hotel where she would be staying. It was enough for me. My wife travels a lot with her work, so it’s nothing unusual.”

  “Then why are you so worried?”

  “Well, at first we spoke on the phone every day, or sent texts or e-mails, as we always do when one of us is away. But she’s not been in touch for two days now, and I can’t get hold of her. Not on her cell phone, not over the Internet, and not at the Babenberger, the hotel. When I called and asked about her, they told me she checked out two days ago. That’s why I’ve come here.”

  “But you said your wife was from around here. She’s probably gone to visit relatives or friends, decided to stay with them, and simply forgotten to tell you.”

  Jonas Belitz shook his head vehemently. “No, she would have told me. We’re very careful about things like that.”

  “Hm . . .” Hansen tapped his pen on the sheet of paper that lay before him.

  Peter Hansen, chief inspector of the Missing Persons department, had been a good friend of Felix Herz’s for many years, often dropping in to his office for a coffee.

  “But you understand none of this necessarily means anything?” said Hansen.

  “But it does.” Belitz was agitated. “I’m sure it means something! Listen to me, it’s very unusual for Hanna not to tell me where she’s going! We’re in touch every single day! Please, I’m asking you, take me seriously!”

  “Of course we are,” Hansen said in a soothing voice. “All I meant was that we quite often find that people in these cases withdraw a little and then reappear after a few days. You really shouldn’t worry too much at this stage. Do you have a photo of your wife with you?”

  Belitz nodded and drew his wallet from his coat. He took out a photo and handed it across the table.

  “Oh,” Hansen said in surprise when he looked at the picture. “Rather a . . . young woman!” He cleared his throat as he passed the photo over to Herz. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .”

  “No.” Belitz shook his head. “You’re quite right. Some people might wonder what such a young woman is doing with an old man like me.”

  He smiled slightly and then fell silent. Felix studied the photo. The woman was in her early to midforties, with an open, intelligent face, light skin, short red hair, and radiant blue eyes. The man sitting opposite him at the table was at least twenty years older than she was, gray haired, tall, gaunt but elegant.

  Felix frowned. “She looks familiar to me somehow.”

  “Hanna Umlauf,” the visitor said, raising his head. “The photographer. The photo artist.”

  “Oh yes. That’s right. I saw some photos of hers recently in the paper. She takes really striking pictures.”

  A smiled flashed across Belitz’s face, along with a slight blush of pride, a tremor of happiness that momentarily lightened his fear. Felix was touched. Like a father, he thought, who was proud of his daughter. Or in this case, his wife, who was young enough to be his daughter.

  Felix cleared his throat. “Could it be, perhaps, that she . . . How can I put it? You said yourself that your wife travels a lot. That means meeting a lot of people, including other men. Maybe—”

  “No!” Belitz’s voice was resolute and sharp, and for a brief moment Felix found him unlikeable. “No, I’d know. And if that were the case, there’d be no need for her to disappear. She could simply go.”

  “All right,” said Hansen. “When was the last time you spoke to her?”

  9

  She looked at the chrysanthemums—orange, yellow, red—and touched the petals. There were still a few hours to go—a few hours’ grace. Still a few hours until life would begin to leak from her with every drop of blood that flowed from her veins, staining the floor of her kitchen.

  She knew nothing. Had no idea. How could she? She looked at the chrysanthemums—orange, red, a couple of yellow ones. She loved chrysanthemums, loved their warm, vibrant colors. Those in her garden were particularly beautiful, lit up by the mild freshness of the day, lit up by Moritz’s warmth, his bright child’s voice when he said “Mama.”

  “Will you be here when I come home tomorrow, Mama?”

  “Of course, darling. I always am.”

  Then his smile, his hug, his rough child’s lips on hers. He was out through the door.

  Gertrud smiled, and her eyes moved again to the chrysanthemums and the basket beneath the damson tree laden with juicy blue-purple fruit. Suddenly, she felt a tightening in her throat. She looked up, paused, listened . . . it was as if she sensed . . . as if she saw. Fleeting images, like lightning flashes: an onion falling from the table, deep red jelly, a biting pain, tears, release, death.

  She shook her head rapidly. No, she thought. It’s summer, still summer.

  But the images persisted in her head, crept into her heart. She thought of Christian, of her work, of the children. She stayed for a long while on the terrace, fending off the images, defending herself. But the clock was ticking. It had all begun and would all come to an end. Self-defense would be pointless.

  There were only a few hours. She looked out over her garden. She loved chrysanthemums and asters, and in spring, the tulips and the lilacs. She was less fond of roses. Roses distorted reality, roses pretended and put on a show, and when the leaves fell, they fell imm
ediately, decisive and certain.

  She looked out over her garden and resigned herself to the coolness of the change, accepted it like a quiet, constant blow to the breast. She looked into the transparent sun, thought of rain, of drizzle in a park. She listened to the music drifting out of the open living room door—Norah Jones, Sinéad O’Connor, Tracy Chapman. She saw the car turn into the drive.

  Later, she would rinse the blade and lay it down next to the sink. Later still, it would fall with a quiet clink beside her on the floor. She was already barred from the world of the living, from those who were able to maintain her happiness, who held it in their hands, fiercely determined not to let it go.

  10

  Franza stood in the garden of her house, which, if everything went according to plan, would not be hers for much longer.

  She looked around. It was all growing wild after nine months without care or nurturing. It was as if the garden knew there was no longer anyone here who wanted anything from it.

  Everything had gotten a little strange. Franza could feel it as she walked across the overgrown lawn, as she ran her fingers over the leaves of the rose bushes.

  She was thinking about how she and Max had finally made the irrevocable decision to sell. It had been during those days the previous winter when it had become ever clearer that Ben was not going to return, that he would stay in Berlin.

  After Marie’s death, she and Max had fetched him home. They’d traveled to the capital and brought their son back to his childhood home, and the thing she had hoped so fervently for, but hadn’t truly expected, had happened. The house gave them sanctuary and allowed them to grieve. They were able to support one another in safety. While Ben grieved for Marie, his first great love, who had been murdered, Max and Franza grieved once again for themselves and their love, which had not worked out. They grieved for the house they would lose, for the world that had not turned out the way they had dreamed in their youth, and for the fact that Ben had been forced to learn this at such a young age.

  Ben eventually packed his things and returned to Berlin, to the city in which he had hoped to settle with Marie.

  “Are you sure?” Franza had asked him on the day he was due to leave, standing on the station platform as they waited for the train to arrive. She knew what his answer would be before he opened his mouth. The answer was clear; there was no doubt.

  Long after the train had departed, she was still standing on the platform.

  “We didn’t do everything wrong,” Max had said, hesitantly putting an arm around her and encouraging her to lean on him.

  “No,” she said. “Not everything. Coffee?”

  She raised her head and looked at her husband, who had not been her husband for some time now. He nodded with a smile.

  “Coffee. Yes, of course. Coffee. And cake.”

  “No. No cake. Look at me.”

  He sighed, throwing a covert glance at her hips and realizing that he still felt a twinge of longing for her, for her hips that had always been so wonderfully soft, offering him security that he still missed every now and then.

  They drove home, and he made the coffee while she got out fresh-baked cookies, a new recipe that had not turned out quite to her satisfaction.

  Then they had sat on the couch, contemplating the dusk slowly gathering in the garden, and talked about Ben as a baby, as a small child, as a teenager, and about how he’d had to learn about grieving. She’d smiled and laughed over the memories, felt renewed anger and sadness, and was finally calm.

  She worried about her son, feared for him, but she sensed the strength he had suddenly found in himself. She sensed his courage simply to live his life, without a plan, without a supporting framework. She secretly admired her son’s immediate return to his life. It was working. Not entirely without a hitch, but it was working. It made it easier for her to let him move away and to sell the house. Things were going well for him, her Ben.

  A car swept up and stopped. High heels clicked on the asphalt. The prospective purchaser had arrived. Franza went to the garden gate to let her in. This young woman with her firm handshake, large mouth, and shining eyes didn’t fit in this tired garden or the house beyond it, with its paint flaking off in places. She was too young, too pretty, too sharp.

  Her blouse was tight across her breasts in just the right way, her skirt reached to just above the knee, and her stilettos were high and pointed and no longer clicked but sank deep into the lawn, which didn’t seem to bother her.

  “Uh-huh,” she said, looking around. “So this is the object of desire.”

  She laughed a little foolishly at her own joke, and Franza forced a small smile so as not to appear impolite.

  Since the beginning of the year, Franza had been living in an apartment in town, in a neighborhood close to the river and the wetlands. Two months later, Max had found an apartment four blocks away from her, and they’d put the house up for sale.

  At first it had felt like the collapse of an old order, as if years of their lives had simply been wiped out and replaced by a deep pain. She knew Max felt the same, but neither of them admitted it to the other.

  The house sale dragged on. It was more difficult than they had anticipated. A constant stream of people came to view it, but they always managed to find something that didn’t suit them. The garden was too small or too big, the house too old or too modern. There were too few rooms or too many.

  They probably found it too expensive and were seeking to drive the price down with their petty faultfinding.

  And now here was another prospective buyer.

  “Yes,” Franza said. “It is.”

  She studied the young woman’s face, as if to discover what was going on behind it, and noticed the beginnings of a pimple to the right of her top lip, a blackhead blemishing the surface of her skin. It immediately made her feel less old and ugly, and she began to smile.

  “Welcome!” She extended her hand. “Are you here on your own? Couldn’t your husband spare the time?”

  “No,” the young woman said apologetically. She looked like an attorney or a banker, at any rate, something to do with finance, with facts and cool objectivity. “He’s stuck in a meeting, but he’s going to try and get away.”

  Her gaze swept over the garden, and Franza had to smile. She’s already looking for faults, she thought, for something she can use to bargain with.

  “Well,” said the banker, “it’s a little unkempt, isn’t it? Quite a bit of work to do.”

  She turned and looked at Franza, aggressive, observant, ready to fight for every cent.

  “Law firm? Bank?”

  The woman frowned in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I was just asking what your profession is,” said Franza with a smile, thanking God or whichever power was out there for her composure and calmness, which grew as she aged.

  “The former,” said the woman in the garden a little sharply, raising her eyebrows and allowing her eyes to glide slowly over Franza, who knew she was not looking her neatest that day.

  Franza nodded. She’s probably thinking I’m a frustrated women’s libber, she thought, and of course that I’m sexually unsatisfied and undisciplined, as I obviously overeat. And of course there’s that stain on my shirt, level with my left breast because I was a bit careless when having coffee with Port earlier. Because Port made me spill it, big kid that he is.

  “Don’t go trying to drive the price down,” she said. “It won’t work. Either you want the house or you don’t. Either the house wants you or it doesn’t. There’s no middle ground.”

  She gave a small smile and enjoyed seeing the young woman’s irritation. Franza was sure the woman was thinking she was completely stupid because she was behaving like such a sourpuss and not sucking up to her, something she really should do if she wanted someone to buy this house.

  But perhaps, she thought with a small inner sigh, the house doesn’t want to be sold. Perhaps the house simply wants to stay ours.

  Her
cell phone rang. The display showed Herz’s office number. Oh dear, she thought, not a good sign. Can’t I take an afternoon off without people killing each other?

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to go. Perhaps you could call my husband. He might be able to show you around the house.”

  She took the call. They had found a body. September 12.

  11

  Herz’s first thought was of Hanna Umlauf. Maybe her husband was right to worry? Should we have taken him more seriously? Could we have done something—prevented something?

  “What are you brooding about?” Franza asked as she joined him in the car.

  “Nothing.” Felix smiled and patted her arm. He would tell her about Belitz later. Nothing could be done about it now anyway. “I’m sorry I called you, but I thought you’d want to be there from the start. Sold your house?”

  “We didn’t finish the showing, but I don’t think she was really interested.”

  He laughed. “I’m sure you managed to put a wrench in the works. Like you usually do.”

  She gave him a sideways look, eyebrows raised. “Am I that bad?”

  “Yes,” he said with a sly grin, “that bad.”

  They arrived. With its tree-lined drive and leafy surroundings, the house reminded Franza of her own.

  As they opened the front door, Franza sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

  “Damsons,” said Arthur, who was waiting for them in the hallway. “A whole load of damson jelly has been made here during the last few days.”

  “Oh.” She nodded. “Where is it?”

  Arthur quickly showed them the way. As soon as they entered the room, they felt the stillness they met at every homicide scene.

  Franza looked around. The room was bright, spacious, with white kitchen appliances. There was a sideboard with a vast array of jars filled with dark red glistening jelly.