‘I don’t know any more. When you talk like that, it all seems so trivial. And you’re right – I’m not even sure it was him making those calls. Maybe my mind is just playing tricks on me. The thing is, though, the guy has moved to the village. He’s living here now. It’s freaking me out.’
‘You think he’s moved here because of you? Come on, Al, don’t you think that’s taking it a bit far? We live in a beautiful village. Everyone wants to live here once they’ve seen the place. The moment we set eyes on it we chose this place over somewhere in Zug, nearer to my work. It sounds like he wasn’t going home to Aargau, whatever the outcome of his actions in April. Don’t be giving yourself delusions of grandeur now, honey. It’s a coincidence. I mean, it’s not like he’s knocking on our door.’
I don’t know what kept me silent. I didn’t want to sever the last vestige of Simon’s support by telling him I’d met Manfred at the café or been to his apartment. I wanted his easy chatter and our family routine. The boys were still upstairs, home from their sports, stinking up loos and sculpting hair in front of bathroom mirrors. I relished Simon’s easy attitude, and couldn’t imagine how he would react once he knew I had initiated a meeting with Manfred. Words stuck in my throat. I couldn’t think how to start telling him. Casual voice? Worried voice?
‘I think it’s time to drop thoughts of this guy now,’ Simon continued a little impatiently. ‘He’s not an aggressor. He’s just a little lost.’
Simon’s tone bordered on sarcasm. I could tell he was sick of this story.
‘Well, you’re not much help. What happened to your caveman’s instinct to protect your wench?’
‘You’re a big girl now, Alice. You know what to do.’ He paused. ‘What do you think I can protect you from exactly?’
I bit my lip.
‘I know there’s ambiguity about stalking behaviour, but of all the countries in the world, I would have thought the Swiss would be all over something like this. You’re right, I need to go back to the police. But I’m going because I have to make an official complaint. It would be great if you could support me in this. But I get the feeling you don’t believe me.’
‘Stalking, Alice? Are you serious? It’ll be pretty hard to prove this guy Manfred’s actually doing anything wrong if he lives here now.’
I glanced at him. His comments made me feel suddenly uncertain.
A heavy set of teenage feet thumping down the stairs prevented any further conversation. Although I’d been unsure what Simon’s reaction would be, I knew without a doubt the boys shouldn’t know that their mother, in thinking she might be able to help a strange man, had effectively encouraged him to become part of their family life.
Chapter Twenty-Three
With a sinking feeling I saw Schmid behind the desk as I pushed open the door of the police station. I was hoping to see a different police administrator. His eyelids fluttered. I must have been the last person he wanted to see that morning. At least he remembered me; that much was obvious.
‘I’m here to make an official complaint now, Herr Schmid. About Herr Guggenbuhl. I think this man might be stalking us,’ I said.
‘I’m not sure I understand this word,’ said the policeman.
‘Wait!’ I pulled my dictionary out of my handbag and flicked through. ‘Pirschen!’ I proclaimed.
Schmid pursed his lips.
‘It is the wrong time of year for this, Frau Reed. Did you see a gun?’
Momentarily confused, I realised I had found the literal translation in the dictionary.
‘Yes… no… well… stalking is a word used for animals in the hunting season, but it is also used in English for a person who follows someone else, annoys them,’ I said uncertainly. Schmid’s reaction had flustered me.
‘The word you are seeking, I think, is Belauern, but now I think about it I have also heard the word, how do you say, stalking. But it is not something that happens in this country.’
My composure crumbled, and I continued in a rush.
‘What about my kids? He’s approached my son. Oliver described him. I’m sure it’s the same guy. Don’t you have a policy for strangers watching kids on the streets, outside schools? Surely that’s not normal? Please, you have to do something! This person needs help.’
My voice shook as I realised I could not know the extent of Manfred’s intentions, especially after his menacing words at his apartment.
‘We have no law that says someone cannot be in a public place in this country,’ Schmid continued. ‘This is all… how do you say… very soft, weak evidence, Frau Reed, and it is not possible for us to observe Herr Guggenbuhl unless he has threatened you, and it doesn’t sound like he has threatened your boy. You are not even absolutely sure that the man outside the school was Herr Guggenbuhl.’ He hissed this last phrase.
My shoulders slumped, and for the first time the police officer’s face displayed some sympathy. He stood up and rooted through one of the boxes beside his desk. He showed me an official-looking tome with the word Protokoll on the cover. It would be futile to show me the text within its pages as I wouldn’t understand a word.
‘I see you are not convinced. If there was a problem, the rules we have in these situations are normally for problems or disputes between husbands and wives. There is nothing that defines problems between strangers. I have never heard about this before. Sometimes we have physical problems between people. This can involve a fight, and very rarely we have problems where someone may have been assaulted. But for the situation you are describing, we have no formula. I am sorry, Frau Reed. I cannot deny you might have issues with this man, but … Maybe your husband can talk to him?’
I sighed. I was living in a male-dominated society where women were discouraged from working, and had only been awarded the right to vote in the 1970s. His words simply proved I was powerless. I was a woman and a foreigner.
‘My husband is a busy man. He has confidence that I can sort out the problem. He doesn’t have time. Most of all I’m worried for this man. He once attempted suicide. I believe he is still unstable.’
I was now exasperated.
‘When you make a complaint about someone in Switzerland, it is a very complicated process, Frau Reed. You effectively invited him to your house some weeks ago. Has anyone else seen him there since? And as for approaching your son, we cannot rely on the fantasies of an eleven-year-old boy.’
‘Fantasies? I can’t believe I’m hearing this!’
The policeman held up his hand.
‘I will make a report, but I cannot create a file about a person’s wish to kill himself when he is still alive today. If a report has been filed at the hospital, the Stadtpolizei in Zug will have talked to him.’
‘Is it possible to find out whether they have contacted him? He needs to be under the care of a psychologist. Perhaps at least you could ensure that did happen.’
I could hear the whine in my voice. The words dead horses and flogging came to mind. I thought briefly about mentioning the knife, but knew Manfred’s fleeting comment all those weeks ago would be even less believable now. To mention it would simply sound comical.
‘Unfortunately, hospital patient information is confidential. With such sensitive subjects, records will not be published unless an enquiry is raised, and this I cannot do if the person has not committed a crime. I am afraid there is little I can help you with, Frau Reed. Your visit here today is noted, and of course, if anyone else should make similar reports, or he should threaten you in any way physically or verbally, then we would have a duty to approach this person and, how do you say, intervene.’
‘He has approached one of my children more than once. My son is traumatised,’ I exaggerated. ‘I insist you do something. Surely the children should be protected? I can’t walk my kids to and from school every day. You’re the people who told us not to do that at the beginning.’
‘So we must make a Protokoll,’ he said with a sigh. ‘But I have to stress to you, Frau Reed, that there is no l
egislation for this kind of behaviour in our country. It might be different where you come from. However, unless you can provide me with solid evidence, we cannot make a charge.’
He pulled his keyboard towards him a little abruptly. We were both on a short fuse.
‘I’ve been studying the profiles of these people. People who stalk. Don’t you think it’s a little weird that this man has moved into our community, and so close to our home? Why are you finding it so hard to put two and two together? I have a little experience with psychological profiling. I have a degree—’
‘As a policeman, we also have to study this kind of psychology. Don’t think for a moment that we are not qualified to identify a certain type of person who breaks the law.’
He had interrupted me while he carried on typing slowly, peering at his computer screen. I took a breath, desperate for patience.
‘As I was saying, I looked into the type of stalker you mentioned last time. They are called Simple Obsession Stalkers. The ex-husbands who… annoy their wives. But the police should know that the other kind of stalker, the Love Obsession Stalker, can be dangerous too, perhaps more unpredictable. You should have the same rules…’
‘I understand what you are saying, Frau Reed, but I’m afraid the law states one thing, and we follow the law. There is also something else you should know, and may explain why your son has seen him around the school. Did you know Herr Guggenbuhl is now on the Board of Counsellors? He is increasing his respected profile in the village. If you accuse him of this stalking, you may be creating more tension in our community than you think.’
‘I don’t care if he’s the fucking president of the confederation,’ I growled. ‘I want a report.’
Schmid stared long and hard at me before turning to his computer and typing silently.
‘I have completed a Protokoll,’ he said some minutes later, pointing to the computer screen. ‘But I am afraid I cannot print it out for you. Our printer has been packed away. We are officially moving the office this week.’
‘Can you please make sure I am sent a copy?’
‘As you wish.’
He said it in a way that made me think he wouldn’t send it at all.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A few days later I arrived home, arms laden with groceries. I pushed the door to the apartment open, and with horror realised I must have forgotten to lock it when I left that morning.
Ever wary, I carried the heavy shopping bags to the kitchen. My head tingled with a cold chill and I dropped the bags onto the kitchen table as I saw a bunch of carefully arranged wildflowers sitting in our water jug on the counter. My heart pounded and I put my hand to my throat, staring at the bouquet. My eyes darted to the window, expecting to see Manfred waiting outside for me to acknowledge his gift. My mind went back to the time I thought I’d seen someone near the farm.
I grabbed the bunch of flowers from the jug, water spilling off their stalks, and threw them to the tiled floor. I stamped on their delicate heads, the pink petals of wild geraniums and the vivid blue of campanula bells staining the ceramic tiles. The heels of my shoes ground the chlorophyll out of their stalks until the palette resembled a fibrous rainbow pulp.
And then I heard a thump on the stair. Oh, my God, he’s still here. I reached for the jug, threw the water into the sink, and turned towards the door with it raised above my head.
‘Hey, Al!’ Simon stopped in his tracks. ‘What do you think you’re doing? I picked those for you! What are you doing?’
My mouth hung open, my eyes hot with the realisation that I had almost thrown the vase in my trembling hand at Simon’s head.
‘Those were for you – it’s our anniversary, for fuck’s sake!’
‘Oh, my God, Simon, I’m so sorry.’
‘I was going to surprise you. I planned an outing on the ferry on the lake. Thought we could have afternoon tea. I had something for you… Had you forgotten?’
‘Shit, Simon, yes. Oh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea what date it was today.’
‘Jesus, Alice. You are so distracted. That guy Manfred is occupying way too much of your thoughts. Did you think these were from him? Do you really think he’d come into our apartment? He can’t anyway now because you keep the place locked all the time. This whole situation is out of control. You’re reacting so badly. It has to stop now.’
Simon bent down and began the futile task of gathering the limp stalks together, no longer making eye contact with me.
I pressed my fingers to my temples, and tears of frustration squeezed out of my tightly closed eyes.
He picked up the floppy flowers and threw them into the sink, then turned and stormed out of the kitchen.
‘Seeing as I’ve taken the afternoon off, I’m going for a bike ride,’ he shouted as he headed up the stairs.
I stood staring at the empty kitchen doorway, arms hanging at my sides.
I figured I’d let him go, work out his anger on the bike. I had to find a way to make it up to him later.
But a challenging homework problem kept me with Oliver after dinner, and by the time I went upstairs for bed, Simon was deep into something for work on the computer in the office, and I knew not to disturb him. Instead I left an anniversary card I had made on his pillow.
I don’t know if he read it; by the time he came to bed late that night, I was already asleep.
Cracks were starting to widen in our relationship.
To stop myself dwelling on my failure to confront Simon, I ramped up the pace of my training schedule, ever aware of the commitment I had made, with Kathy, to run this marathon in autumn. I found it hard to believe almost three months had passed since my intervention with Manfred on the bridge on that first long run of spring.
To avoid the heat of the day, I regularly woke early to train. The cows were often still in the barn. I could hear the lazy shake of an occasional bell over the humming of the giant fans drying the hay in the attic space above them.
On one of these mornings, as I came running back down the track, I passed the small copse at the turnoff to the farm driveway. I backtracked to have a closer look at the gnarled trunk of an old plum tree. Its half-dead branches were covered in lichen and moss. The ground at the base of the tree, facing the house, had a well-trampled look, the area in front stunted from regular sitting or standing. A slight dip had formed where someone perpetually leaned against a fence post. I bent down, smoothing my hand over the patch of ground. It looked welcoming, inviting me to sit. And then I snatched my hand away.
Crouching on my heels, I looked back at our house. My hand flew to my mouth. I could see directly into our kitchen. From this distance I could make out the calendar and the clock on the wall. I could even see several pieces of Oli’s artwork tacked on the far cupboard near the cooker. I also had a view down the road leading away from our driveway. An observer would know everyone’s movements in and out of our home. I shuddered at the thought of having been so acutely scrutinised. The reality of it now so apparent.
Now that he lived in our village, I doubted Manfred would ever go back to his home in Aargau and rekindle a relationship with his son and his sister. Hopes were slim that he had confessed his suicide attempt and made it right with his family. In an ideal world he would ask them for forgiveness for his selfishness and wrap his sorrow around his son. But he was deceiving them, deceiving us all.
When I reached the apartment, I went straight to the computer without showering. I googled his name. It wasn’t a name one would easily forget. An online phonebook revealed about three hundred Guggenbuhls in Switzerland and, aside from the brand-new entry in Aegeri, which hadn’t been there a couple of weeks before, I saw that thirty others resided in the canton of Aargau. I figured he must still have a presence there. His family. His late wife’s family. There was a Matthias Guggenbuhl in Wohlen, and an M & G Guggenbuhl in a place called Buttwil.
Oh, Leon would love the name of that place.
If this ‘M’ was Manfred, what did the ‘G�
�� stand for? His sister? His son? I looked on Google Maps. Buttwil was a little village just above the town of Muri, a place I knew Simon had cycled through many times as he and his buddies criss-crossed the great Reuss River Valley on their weekend outings. I spontaneously grabbed the phone and rang the number on the computer screen. I don’t know what I would have done if someone had answered, and after the eighth ring I hung up.
I wondered where Manfred had worked before his suicide attempt, and whether his boss or the company had given him time off. Sickness leave? Had he been fired, made redundant? How could he still be spending all this time and energy on me? What expectations did he truly have?
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘This is not normal,’ said Esther when I confided in her after the next Chat Club meeting about Manfred having approached the children outside the school. ‘Every visit or telephone call to the police requires a writing report.’
My role as teacher over, I made no attempt to correct her grammar.
‘He didn’t give me a report, and I haven’t received anything by post.’
‘I do not understand. We Swiss are, how you say, addicted to administration. It is strange that the policeman did not ask you to sign anything.’
‘You must think I’m being a bit paranoid about this man talking to Oliver. It might not mean anything. After so many years living in England I know I’m being cautious. When I was a kid we walked to school too, but things have changed drastically.’
‘I admit it sounds surprising. I will ask Sara if she remembers this man. And I will ask the school commission what they think.’
‘I can’t believe he’s moved to our village, Esther. That’s the thing that worries me most. In a matter of weeks he’s integrated himself into a community it has taken me years to even feel a part of.’
Strangers on a Bridge Page 9
