Behind her she heard his hesitant footsteps and equally hesitant voice trying to formulate an apology, which he obviously didn’t think he owed Nadia. “Sorry I got so worked up. We’ll discuss this calmly when I’ve more time. I have to go now. You know how much depends on this new series. If I leave Kemmerling to play around with Olaf by himself we’ll have all sorts of results in the morning, but nothing that’s any use.” Just ignore him, she thought. Go into another room. Easier said than done. He was standing in the doorway out into the hall. To his left, also on a rug, was a grand piano. There were some sheets of music on the rest. Behind the glass front of the rustic-style dresser she saw some glasses - and bottles! A little tot of schnapps to calm her down! Her father had sworn by it. It had helped before her second interview with the bank and she certainly hadn’t been more nervous then than she was now.
She went over to the dresser, opened one of the doors, took out a glass and examined the bottles. They contained a wide range of expensive brands of alcohol. She looked in vain for the simple schnapps her father had recommended for medicinal purposes. But vodka would do in an emergency. As she picked up the bottle, she heard Michael Trenkler say, “What are you playing at?”
It was a sharp reprimand and she presumed it referred to her silence until she felt him grasp her wrist again. It was impossible to ignore him any more. His grip was extremely painful and the sharp tone contained an unmistakable threat. “If you’re really serious, then I might as well just pack my bags and leave.”
He took the bottle from her, squeezing her wrist as he did so, as if he were trying to break it. He put the bottle back, closed the cupboard and dragged her out into the hall.
“You’re hurting me, Michael!” Her wrist felt as if it were stuck in a vice. The words were out before she could stop them. She was just glad that his name came out naturally with them.
He dragged her into the kitchen, pushed her to the fridge, pulled open the door and pointed to a veritable battery of bottles of fruit juice, mineral water, lemonade and ketchup. “If you need a drink, help yourself.”
At last he let go. She took a bottle of Diet Coke out of the fridge. Leaning back against the worktop, his arms crossed, impassive, he watched her pour the drink. As she took her first sip, he asked, “Do I have to take the bottles with me, or are you going to be sensible?”
It gradually dawned on her. Nadia must have a little problem with spirits. And her husband didn’t like it. She just had to think of Heller to remember how much she hated drunks herself.
“I wasn’t going to get drunk,” she said softly, assuming a muted voice was less likely to give her away. “I just wanted a little pick-me-up because…”
For twenty seconds or so she rattled off something about the Mr Moneybags he’d mentioned who’d stood her up and really pissed her off. She hadn’t intended to say so much, but it appeared to be exactly what Michael Trenkler expected. He certainly didn’t look surprised. When she finally stopped, he just gave a snort of contempt. Then he turned back into the hall, leaving her standing by the open fridge with her Diet Coke.
Hearing him go upstairs, she examined her surroundings: luxury wherever she looked. Even a TV in the kitchen. There was a small set fixed to the wall above the fridge. Not very practical, she thought, you’d have to stand on a chair to switch it on. Presumably there was a remote control.
After a few seconds she heard steps on the stairs again and Michael Trenkler reappeared in the doorway, a light jacket over his arm. “If you feel the need to get drunk, then don’t let me stop you. But I tell you, I’m not going through all that again.”
“Don’t worry,” she murmured, took a deep breath and held up her glass of Diet Coke, “I’ll stick to this.”
Again he frowned. For a moment she wondered if he’d seen through her. Then she realized she’d picked the wrong bottle again. That should never have happened! Nadia had lugged gallons of mineral water up to her flat and just once the orange juice. She could have bet her bottom dollar Nadia never drank cola.
Without replying, Michael Trenkler turned round and went out. At first she was relieved, but then she started to wonder whether it was right just to let him go like that. Could her mistake with the vodka bottle have triggered off the very thing Nadia was trying to avoid at all costs? Pack his bags! That sounded like a separation. The front door was opened.
She put the glass down and hurried out into the hall. “Michael,” she cried, “I’m sorry.”
The door swung to. Once more he was leaning with his back against it, a car key in his hand, giving her a suspicious look. As well as the suspicion, she could see fear in his eyes, but didn’t know how to interpret it. What lovely eyes he’s got, she thought. She felt at a loss, she had no idea what to say now. She could have kicked herself for having started to talk at all. Every further word increased the risk of discovery. Quietly, tremulously, she repeated, “I’m really sorry.”
Nothing changed in his strange look and tense posture. She desperately tried to think what was the best thing she could say to put his mind at rest before he went out. “I didn’t want to make a scene,” she said. “I wasn’t going to have a drink, either. I just thought…”
She tried to act casual, giving him the shrug of the shoulders and the mocking smile with the little pout. “I thought you might stay if I pretended I was going to. But off you go, I know how important the new series is and that you can’t leave Kemmerling alone with Olaf. I won’t touch the bottles, any of them.” To emphasize her promise, she said, “Cross my heart and hope to die.” It made her sound like a little girl and would presumably never have crossed Nadia’s lips.
Michael Trenkler’s only response was a rapid exhalation of breath, but it sounded disbelieving, derisive and very hurt. He gave a mechanical nod, turned round and opened the door. As he left, he said, “You’ve changed your tune! We’ll talk tomorrow, OK?”
“OK,” she said, rubbing her wrist, which was still hurting. His grip had left red marks. When the door finally closed behind him, she took a deep breath and let the air out slowly in relief. Outside a car engine roared into noisy life. In all the excitement, she forgot that there hadn’t been a car parked anywhere in the street when she arrived.
She went back into the kitchen, tipped the Coke down the sink and set out on her first expedition into Nadia’s life. In the living room she picked out a few notes on the piano and looked at the music on the rest: Chopin, Nocturne in G Minor. It sounded very complicated and that was what it looked like, too. Under that were pieces by Wilhelm Friedemann, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein, Saint-Saëns and Telemann. The last two names meant nothing to her. She wandered over to the couch and asked the black-and-gold wrapping paper if it was the Beckmann. No answer.
The kitchen cupboards were meticulously neat and tidy. She couldn’t find a remote control of the TV above the fridge but she didn’t waste time looking for it. In the drawing room with the open fire she found more framed works of art and a second television. It was fitted into the natural stone wall above the mantelpiece and was hardly bigger than the palm of her hand. The miniature format made her realize it must be part of the alarm system. Nadia had told her so much about sensors that registered movement or heat and surveillance units that she’d imagined something futuristic.
She went back into the living room and discovered a similar mini-screen there, which she’d missed on her first inspection. Now that she knew what she was looking for, she found the surveillance unit in the dining room straight away. Somehow it seemed ridiculous, grossly excessive. At the same time there was something unpleasant about it, she felt she was being observed wherever she went, even though all the monitor screens were dark. It was only the lavatory and the hall that seemed to lack the spying eyes.
She had another look at the box hidden behind the leather jacket in the hall closet. Nadia’s handbag was still on the chest. The ring with the marked keys was beside it; she assumed the car key was still in the bag.
Then she t
urned her attention to the curved staircase, first of all going down to examine the basement area. There was a utility room and a larder with crates of drinks and shelves, which were mostly empty, just a few tins of chicken soup and ravioli on them. She’d expected more. But the two freezers were well filled, mainly with ready meals.
Then she suddenly found herself immersed in lime-green reflections. The swimming pool! It was roughly as big as the living room and presumably deep enough for a non-swimmer to drown in. Half of the outside wall consisted of sliding glass doors. Beyond them a lawn sloped up to the garden. A door in one wall led to a tiny chamber full of machinery, presumably belonging to the pool. She didn’t examine it too closely, the place was too cramped and too dark. And Nadia wasn’t paying her to find out about circulating pumps, water filters and the like. In an adjoining room she found fitness equipment, a sunbed and the sauna.
This was the life! It was an alien world, but familiar from her dreams. She’d read about it a thousand times, suffering with the maids or the daughters of destitute counts, hoping they’d be rescued from their poverty, yet not believing such things actually existed - at least not for an ordinary bank clerk.
After a few minutes she went back up the stairs and on to the first floor. Six closed doors gave the impression of forbidden entry. But behind the very first she opened was a room where she immediately felt at home. It had everything she’d looked for and not found in the living room. There was an archetypal comfortable couch with three dozen cushions scattered about. It looked infinitely more used and nothing like as sterile as the suite downstairs. Beside the couch was a cupboard with two drawers and two doors which concealed a stack of towels and two bottles. “Massage oil”, she read. What that brought to mind was the tensed-up neck muscles, she’d been living alone too long for any other thoughts. On the wall opposite the couch was a proper television, a video recorder, a satellite box and a stereo system.
Behind the second door was a bathroom. On the edge of the bath was a jar full of pink balls. For a second she thought they were sweets - but only for a second. One sniff told her they must be bath salts. She used the lavatory and for a while couldn’t see the how to flush it until she found the plate in the wall behind the loo, which looked almost the same as the tiles around it. She couldn’t suppress a brief grin.
Behind the third door was the bedroom. At least she assumed it was the bedroom. She only realized it must be a guest room when she saw exactly the same furnishings behind the next door. Their bedroom was behind the fifth door. Top quality, expensive, tasteful, pure white relieved by glass here and there and a touch of brass. The royal suite, there was no other name for it. There was no wardrobe but a dressing room with large mirrors, drawers and rails full of clothes. And not only city clothes, there were several evening dresses on the hangers.
A further door led from the bedroom to a huge bathroom. In fact a double bathroom. The shower cubicle was a separate room and considerably bigger than the recess which figured in her lease as a bathroom-cum-shower. A few steps led up to the circular bathtub. There was a smell of Nadia’s perfume and fragrant bath oil. Open-mouthed, she admired the two washstands with bathroom cabinets either side and a white set of basketwork shelves with a collection of men’s toiletries. The inescapable surveillance monitor was beside the door and clearly visible from the bath. Having discovered the tiny screen, she decided she had sufficiently familiarized herself with everything. She would just have a quick look in the sixth room and then leave. But things turned out differently.
Behind the sixth door was Michael Trenkler’s study. At least that was what she assumed. There was no security screen there. A monitor, keyboard, mouse, telephone, answerphone, a small photocopier and a flatbed scanner all fought for space on the desk. There were no papers lying around, but then there wasn’t room for any. Beside the desk was a metal cabinet with an ultramodern laser printer on it. The computer was underneath the table. A green light glowed. Michael must have been working at it and forgotten to switch off.
All round the walls were shelves overflowing with books. It was mainly specialist literature: biology, chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacy, medicine; some in German, most in English. Among them she discovered handbooks for a variety of computer programs. One of them was about the word-processing package that had sealed her fate when she’d worked for the insurance company. She leafed through it until there was a clattering sound from somewhere.
She quickly replaced the book and listened intently. It had been a quiet, metallic noise followed by an equally quiet but perfectly comprehensible swear word. A man’s voice. Michael must have come back, perhaps he’d remembered his computer was still on. She tiptoed to the door and listened for noises in the hall. Only when she heard a woman’s voice behind her calling for Terry and a kind of whining did she turn round and see the change on the computer monitor.
There was a small image in the top right-hand corner. She recognized the front garden and a section of the road, even part of the properties on the other side. The garden on the right, as she was looking at it, had a high wall separating it from the road. A wrought-iron gate was open. On the ground at the edge of the road was a man’s bicycle, one of those racing bikes on which young people terrorized the pedestrian precinct in the city centre. Next to the bike was a very large shaggy dog that was sniffing at a man in lurid shorts lying on the ground, only his back visible. A flustered-looking woman, who looked vaguely familiar though she couldn’t quite identify her, came hurrying out to the road, shouted “Terry!” again and went over to the man on the ground. “Have you hurt yourself?”
She watched, fascinated, as the man stood up, felt his left knee, bent down to pick up his bike and started to swear again. “Dammit, Eleanor, can’t you tie the bloody beast up?”
It was all spoken quietly, but perfectly comprehensible. She’d discovered the surveillance unit in the study; strangely enough, she didn’t find it disturbing there. She picked up the handbook again and calmly turned a few more pages.
Next she turned to the metal cabinet. It contained several thin files and three fat ones. One had “House” written on it, another “Insurance policies”.
The third, which only had an M on the cover to indicate what it contained, was the one that aroused her curiosity the most. The latest item to have been filed was a contract between Michael Trenkler and a pharmaceuticals company. The annual salary was astronomical and dissuaded her from examining the other documents. The only other detail she noticed was Michael’s age. He was thirty-five. She would have made him younger.
In the file marked “House” the purchase of everything from the house to the last movement sensor could be followed. Everything was in Nadia’s name and it didn’t look as if there were any unpaid bills or a mortgage to pay off. In “Insurances” were documents recording everything an insurance agent could desire, among other things a life-insurance policy for Nadia.
And although she had only worked in insurance for three months, she saw at a glance that it was a term insurance, not one that built up capital. Only payable on death. With Nadia dead Michael Trenkler would be richer by a million euros!
Part Two
Susanne Lasko read the sum in words and in figures. In both cases the effect was equally disturbing. The policy had been taken out seven years ago and revised after the changeover to euros. Perhaps Nadia had just wanted to provide security for her husband, since during the first years of their marriage he’d had no income of his own.
By that time it was past seven and she felt she’d sufficiently familiarized herself with everything. She went down to the kitchen and drank a mouthful of mineral water to wash out her mouth, which had gone dry at the sight of the figures. Then she closed the French windows, went out of the house, locking the front door behind her - the blue key was the one that fitted - and walked round to the drive. She looked around, to make sure the shaggy dog wasn’t still there, and felt in the handbag for the car key, but before she could establish that it w
asn’t there, she saw that the drive outside the garage was empty.
Beside the low fence in the neighbouring garden the man who’d fallen off his bicycle earlier was vigorously polishing up his machine with a soft cloth. Wolfgang Blasting, the policeman with too much time to devote to his neighbours. He stood up and asked, “Doc off milking his mice again, then?” There was something common about his broad grin. It reminded her of Heller and didn’t seem to fit in with this neighbourhood. Nor did his next question. “Did he bring that switch for me?”
She just shrugged her shoulders.
“He said he would,” said Wolfgang Blasting. “Go and have a look.” It sounded like an order and made her furious - with him and with Nadia, who would have had no problem looking for a switch and wouldn’t have been desperately wondering how to get away. On the other hand, Blasting’s request made it easy for her to go back into the house without arousing suspicion.
She closed the front door and leaned back against it for a moment, as Michael Trenkler had done. That explained why he’d asked her why she hadn’t put the car away. She’d parked the Alfa right in front of the double garage and blocked the way out. And since he urgently needed to go to the lab, he’d taken Nadia’s car - without bothering to ask.
At that point she remembered the alarm, went to the coat rack, pushed the leather jacket to one side and keyed in the code. A metallic click went round the whole house. She registered it but assumed it represented no danger as nothing else happened.
The Lie Page 8
