‘Yes I was there,’ Jenny yelled, and Erika felt as if she was watching her younger self argue with a younger Max when they were students in Freiburg outside a bar where they’d had a disagreement. She could hardly remember what the argument was about now, and it didn’t matter, the point was she wanted it to be her arguing with Max now, she wanted it to be him arguing with her, instead of the way it was: her watching from the side-lines like a ghost as someone else did the living with him. ‘Yes I was there,’ Jenny said, ‘but she wasn’t.’
Erika hoped Jenny was referring to her, trying to bring her into the debate, just as she’d desired. Once again the housekeeper was saying all the right things, Erika thought. Until she enlightened them all.
‘Netta wasn’t in Gegesha, was she, Max? So how the hell is she supposed to know what you went through? How the hell is she supposed to know what changed for you in there?’
Erika was silently screaming now at the glass wall she felt she was stuck behind. Screaming at Max to see the sense in what Jenny was saying. But in a desperate flood of selfishness, she wanted him not to see it for Netta’s sake, but to see it and apply it to her, to Erika, his wife, the love of his life.
Max hung his head for a moment. Nodded it. Shook it. Wiped at his eyes aggressively. Then hurried from the garden, leaving the ladies to listen to the motorbike roar in a way that Max only dreamed he could.
Martha eased herself into the wing-back chair with a great sigh of weariness. Netta, who was practising the piano, found it overdramatic. All adults did it; even her mother had started doing it recently. But they couldn’t all be that tired all the time, could they? After a pause in which Netta thought Martha was waiting for someone to respond to her little show – either her Opa who was engrossed in the newspaper, or her mama who had just returned from a house call and was finishing her notes here in the living room whilst her papa finished up in the surgery – no response came so Martha herself spoke.
‘Did you see the article in there about that carpenter?’
‘Mmm?’ Karl kept his eyes on the piece he was reading about the confiscation of German patents by the Allies, but he found it difficult to take in the words now anticipating a lengthy interruption by his wife.
‘It says he’s been released.’
Erika stopped writing and looked up, and Martha was content to have at least her attention.
‘He has a watertight alibi, that’s the way they put it. He was with his sister the night of the murder. And the sister’s neighbour even saw them that night too. Watertight alibi! Rather a conscienceless sister and a liar for a neighbour.’
Martha was a little defeated that her news had still failed to lift Karl’s eyes from the paper, but Erika was certainly affected by the news. Not surprisingly, thought Martha with an icy glance at her unfaithful daughter-in-law. She just hoped that Erika’s now heaving chest was the result of fear of this killer being on the loose again and not some amorous anticipation of his return to the community.
Netta listened to her Oma’s frightening news as she played. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be listening, she knew the adults thought she couldn’t hear or understand, especially if she was in another room. But that was just another of those strange adult things – did they think she had anything more exciting to do at home than listen to the sordid secrets of grown-ups?
The sound of the surgery door shutting gave Erika’s chest even greater cause to heave. Max was done for the day. He marched through the living room and into the kitchen.
‘Well, at last!’ Martha said. ‘Perhaps we can all have some dinner now.’
The sound of a glass being filled from the tap and Max stomped back through the living room with it, heading upstairs and calling back over his shoulder, ‘I’m not hungry, I have some study to do. You go ahead without me.’
‘But we waited. My God,’ Martha wailed and finally Karl had put the paper down and watched as Erika followed his son up to their room.
‘Who’s there?’ Tante Bertel called out as Erika passed over the first landing, but this was no time to get drawn into Bertel’s palaver.
‘It’s me, Erika,’ she called out. ‘I’ll be right back to help you, Tante, just give me a minute please.’
Erika paused on the tiny landing between her bedroom door and Jenny’s. She wondered if the housekeeper was in there and tried desperately to remember where she’d last seen her. Was she in the kitchen? Was she out for the night? She hated the thought that the conversation she was about to attempt would be overheard by anyone, let alone her.
She listened for a moment. Satisfied herself Jenny had gone out and went into her own room to find Max sat by the Tiffany window staring out through the translucent glass, no hint of any studying going on. She had an overwhelming urge to find a hammer, nails and wood and board up that blasted window, so he had to look somewhere else for a change. Look into the room. Look at her. He didn’t even turn to look when she came in, but she knew damn well he knew she was there and why.
‘Max. About this morning. With Netta. And the sandwiches.’ She hated his silence and the way it teased each additional phrase from her. Of course she was talking about Netta and the sandwiches! What else happened this morning of greater note? She forged on. She had to talk about things with him now in a way they weren’t really used to doing. But she was not going to let the housekeeper have a more articulate and expressive relationship with her husband than she had. ‘I know it’s been really difficult for you since you got back. I know that you went through some terrible things and that your mind is—’
‘Please do not presume to tell me what’s going on in my own mind!’ he snapped, eyes still on the window. ‘You do not know what’s going on in my head.’
‘So tell me!’ she cried. ‘Let me in! I’m your wife and I want to know.’ She refrained from adding as Jenny does, but hurried over to the bed and perched on the nearside, a sea of blankets between her and where he sat. ‘I want to help you.’
Those last words seemed to prick him. She saw him flinch and knew she was onto something. She knew he always thought of himself as the helper, the curer, not the victim or the casualty.
‘You can’t help me. Even the demob officer thinks…’ He picked up a medical book.
She hurled herself across the bed to stop him opening it and disappearing into it. ‘Even the demob officer thinks what?’ she implored him to respond, hand on his book as if it were a Bible.
He knew she wasn’t going anywhere till he gave her something, but it couldn’t be the answer to that question, so instead he said, ‘You do not want to hear about my time in Gegesha. I mean, I do not want to burden you with such horrible stories. There are Allied soldiers crawling all over this country still. If I told you what went on in those camps you’d be afraid to leave the house, and that’s no way to live.’
‘We live in an occupied state, not a labour camp. I promise it won’t upset me to hear—’
‘Look, it’s bad enough one of us having nightmares. We don’t need two of us at it. And besides,’ he sat up suddenly, realising he held the trump card, ‘you’ve got the baby to think about now, you can’t be getting unnecessarily anxious.’
‘But you not talking to me is making me unnecessarily anxious, you foolish man!’
He shrivelled again.
‘My father is still in one of those labour camps, Max.’
He twitched at the mention of her overbearing father. Or was his reaction something more sympathetic than that? Was it the awful notion of a man still stuck in one of those Siberian hell holes?
‘And he has been sentenced to twenty-five years there. Twenty-five years!’ She was bawling now. ‘My God, you were there for four and this is what you’re like. What the hell have I got to look forward to when he is finally released? I… I… Anxious? I’m terrified, darling.’
He was about to turn on her, missing her point entirely, focusing on what he saw as her belittling his stretch in the camp. ‘My God, you were only there fo
r four years.’ That’s what he heard, but that, of course, was what she was very careful not to have said. But he didn’t get a chance because at that moment there was a commotion on the stairs and the door burst open.
Hummel strode across the room pursued by Martha and Karl and, licking his lips where he could already taste the flavour of a celebratory beer, he announced, ‘Dr Portner, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Karin Kranz.’
‘Please don’t take him away. Please don’t put those things on him. Can’t you just talk to him here? We can straighten all this out in no time.’ Erika was distraught. The wall that Max had built between them would only get higher, she was sure, if his liberty was taken from him again. But Hummel was not interested in discussing anything here. He was leading Max to the door slaloming round each of the prisoner’s bewildered parents as he went, saying over his shoulder to his young colleague, ‘Amsel, I would start your search in this room if I were you.’
‘Right you are,’ Amsel said and began opening drawers.
‘What are you doing?’ Erika tried to stop Officer Amsel delving into her underwear as her body strained to follow Hummel and her husband downstairs.
‘Stay and watch this fellow!’ Karl found his voice and his headmaster’s authority at last. ‘I’ll go down to the station with Max.’
Erika and Martha did what they were told and, as Amsel pulled Max’s suitcase from under the bed, Netta ran in and clung to her mother’s legs. ‘What’s happening, Mama? Why is the policeman taking Papa away?’
‘Don’t worry.’ Erika crouched and squeezed Netta so hard it almost hurt the little girl. ‘There’s just been a big mistake. He’ll be home in a little while when it’s all been straightened out.’
But Netta had heard that phrase he’ll be home in a little while many times before, as she had lain in the big bed with her mama looking at photos of the smart, strong, gentle looking man Mama told her was her father, so naturally she thought now that she wouldn’t be seeing him again for another four years. And if it wasn’t for her mama and Oma, from whom she was taking her lead on crying, she couldn’t be sure she would really be that upset about it.
Amsel sat back on his haunches, satisfied with his find. It was a picture, a very faded, curled, stained image of the baby Jesus held by a black Madonna. And on the back just fifteen words, but enough, he congratulated himself, to sentence the suspect to at least as many years behind bars.
My dear brave Max,
May you never lose me again!
With admiration always
from Jenny. X x
There was something bizarrely anaesthetising about being shackled and locked in a cell. It should have filled him with terror. It should have been the greatest trigger yet to those awful flashbacks which had become part of his life as a free man. But being incarcerated in this way was perhaps the most recognisable thing that had happened to Max since his return to suburban life. His existence in this little room was in many ways less terrifying than the world beyond, where there were so many more unknown and ever-changing exterior agents which could intrude on his fragile being.
But Hummel, every time he peeked through the grate and saw the prisoner sitting stoically on the cot, took Max’s demeanour as even more evidence of his guilt.
Since time in the cell was not causing the suspect to crack up and start spewing confessions, Hummel had him brought into the interview room, as sparsely furnished as the cell, where they sat opposite each other like chess players – at least that’s how Hummel liked to think of it. And since he was, of course, playing white pieces he made the first move.
‘So tell me about Karin Kranz, Dr Portner.’
‘Officer, I think there has been a terrible—’
‘Mistake? Accident?’ Hummel couldn’t resist making great sweeps across the board with his major pieces already. ‘Was it an accident? Perhaps it was and you can let me know that and then perhaps it will make the judge look more favourably on you when it comes to sentencing.’
‘Was what an accident?’
‘You killing Karin Kranz.’
‘Why are you accusing me of her murder?’
‘Well, it appears you had a very good reason for wanting to get rid of Karin.’
‘Did I?’
‘OK, let’s talk about your new housekeeper. Jenny Blau.’ Hummel noticed the change in Max’s colour and rejoiced in what he saw as himself lining up black pieces all over the board to be taken. ‘Your advertisement in the Zeitung asked for an experienced housekeeper. Is Jenny experienced?’
‘I—I—I—’
‘Oh she’s experienced all right,’ Hummel leered, ‘but not in the domestic sense, eh, Doctor? You see I had been interviewing some of your patients in relation to my investigation into Karin’s murder. After all, patients come and go from your house all the time. One of them could be the murderer, couldn’t they?’
Max nodded with genuine interest, as he had never thought of this possibility before.
‘And I came across a patient called Frau Beltz. You know her?’
‘Of course.’
‘Yes, rather unforgettable, isn’t she!’ Hummel said wryly. ‘Hard to stop her talking in fact, which is a gift for an investigating officer. Sometimes.’ He blinked the spectre of Frau Beltz from his eyes. ‘And she told me she’d taken on a new housekeeper recently, just like you did. And her new housekeeper is called Isabel. Isabel Dreher. Ring a bell, Doctor?’
Isabel Dreher. Dreher, no, thought Max. But Isabel… The hiss of that name did blow the dust from an abandoned memory; a memory of the apartment crowded with girls where Jenny lived in the town near the labour camp; a memory of him going there to check the girls for sexually transmitted diseases; a memory of one of the girls clearly being jealous of the friendship he had with Jenny and trying to make him feel awkward with prying personal questions whenever he visited; a memory of a bitch.
‘No, not really,’ he answered.
‘No, not really.’ Hummel chewed on that phrase. Like to be honest with you, it was one of those phrases he loved and loathed. He loathed it because it spoke of an imprecision, a wishy-washy nature in the speaker – because surely either something is or it isn’t, isn’t it. But he loved it because no, not really also meant that the speaker, nine times out of ten at least, meant yes. ‘Well, let me help you out, Doctor. Isabel, much like her new employer, has a big mouth and she told Frau Beltz that she and Jenny know each other. That they travelled here together, in fact, to Dortmund after all the Russians they worked for dispersed when the labour camp you were a prisoner of war in closed. Jenny was a prostitute, Isabel said, and I daresay Isabel was too, although she claims she only knew Jenny “to speak to”, not as a colleague. She claims she was a housekeeper up there in Siberia. Which I imagine Jenny does too. But why come all the way to Dortmund to find work as a housekeeper, I asked dear Frau Beltz? And do you know what she said? She said because Jenny was coming to look for you, Doctor.’
‘Yes, it is true I knew Jenny in Siberia. It is true she was a prostitute. She was my patient, actually. They all were. I had to check them over for diseases regularly before the Russians would go near them. We got on well. We became friends. And now she wants to start a new life, a decent life. And she knew I would be happy to help her if I could.’
‘Friends, eh?’ Hummel said, reaching in his pocket and pulling out the picture of the black Madonna. ‘Does this sound like the kind of message a friend writes to another? Because to me it sounds more like the kind of message a lover would write to another. My dear brave Max. May you never lose me again.’ It was all Hummel could do not to shout out Check!
‘The reason it says that,’ Max said with some irritation, ‘is because I lost the picture once and she found it and gave it back to me. You see, it’s the picture that is saying don’t lose me again, not Jenny.’ Although it was the truth, his excuse sounded lame even to Max.
‘So your wife knows that Jenny was a prostitute?’
‘
No, of course not. Jenny is trying to forget her past—’
‘Your wife knows about this picture, then?’
‘Yes,’ Max lied. He wasn’t sure why he lied for the first time now, but it was the worst time to do so.
‘Well, that’s funny because when my colleague pulled it out of your suitcase, your wife took a look at the inscription and went berserk, apparently.’
Max blanched and was speechless.
‘You might be better off doing fifteen years than going back to her right now, eh, Doctor.’ Hummel laughed and admired the picture for a moment before going on. ‘So I put it to you that in order to get your lover under the same roof as yourself, the only way was to concoct this story about her being a housekeeper, but of course you needed to get the other housekeeper out of the way first, didn’t you.’
The absurdity of the suggestion caused Max to sit forward and raise his voice for the first time. ‘If what you say is the case, then why on earth would I not just sack Karin? It would be very easy for me to do that. A lot easier than murdering her anyway.’
‘Perhaps you did try sacking her,’ Hummel immediately countered, unfazed. ‘Perhaps she didn’t just roll over as you expected her to. Perhaps she didn’t like it and refused to be sacked for no good reason. And then perhaps you argued about it and the argument, shall we say, got out of control.’
‘That’s…’
‘Yes, Doctor?’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Well how about you tell—’
The door flew open just then and Max got a glimpse of his father waiting anxiously outside before a tiny hurricane blew through the room depositing its briefcase with a slap on the table between Max and Hummel, sending all the policeman’s carefully positioned chess pieces scattering across the room.
‘Who the hell let you in?’ Hummel barked.
The Watcher Page 11
