The Sinner

by Petra Hammesfahr

  Around ten on Monday morning she was taken to be interviewed by the district attorney. A thoroughly amiable young man with a big sheaf of papers in front of him, he pointed out that her statement was worthless in its present form. He couldn't accept it until she told him the names of the two men concerned. Not those absurd nicknames, Billy-Goat and Tiger. He needed their real names - and, of course, the name of the girl. It would, he said, be in her own best interests to cooperate.

  She almost laughed. Did this youngster imagine he knew what was in her best interests? "Didn't Herr Grovian tell you I retracted all that nonsense yesterday?" she asked.

  He shook his head. She stared at him uncertainly. "Then what shall I tell the judge?" she asked, managing to sound resigned. "What do you advise?"

  "Tell him the truth," he said.

  She bowed her head, looking disconsolate. "But the truth amounts to so little," she said quietly. "I was furious with the woman."

  The DA raised his eyebrows. "What had she done to infuriate you?"

  "Nothing, really," she said in a low voice. "My husband thought she was hot stuff - he said she'd got some fire down below I'd always done my best to satisfy him. Then along comes a tart like that, and his eyes are out on stalks. It wasn't the first time either. He used to leer at the talent whenever we went to the lido, and afterwards he'd often want to do things I didn't like and call me a prude. I could well imagine what I was in for that night, and I'd had it up to here, understand? I wanted to teach one of those brazen bitches a lesson, but I couldn't get at her, so I thought ..."

  She looked over his shoulder at some indeterminate point. "I thought it didn't matter who I stabbed, her or the man. He was enjoying it too. They're all pretty much alike, those bastards."

  The DA had had enough. He enquired about the stab wounds, which lie said she'd inflicted "with precision". When she merely shrugged he asked how she'd sustained the injuries to her head. She repeated what she'd told the chief the last time: she was high on H and had walked in front of a car. The good Samaritan - the tipsy doctor who had driven into her - was a pure invention on her part. Her injuries had been treated at the district hospital in Dulmen.

  Cora couldn't help smiling as she said this. She didn't even know if there was a district hospital in Dulmen. Manni Weber had been born and raised in Dulmen, and his grandmother still lived there. A year ago he'd asked her for a few days' unpaid leave. His grandmother had had a fall and was in the hospital with a fractured thigh. Exactly where, he hadn't said.

  The DA didn't smile. "We'll check that," he said.

  She thought lie would at last get her to sign a confession, but no. The whole thing must be taken down again from scratch, he told her, and it would be better to wait until her statements had been verified. Her confession could then be signed and submitted to the examining magistrate.

  Shortly after noon she was taken back to her cell. She spent half the afternoon wondering how to end things. Eventually she hit on the tissue idea. Although she didn't have any tissues, she felt sure they would give her some if she asked. Tissues were as innocuous as going for a swim. When they brought her supper she asked for some.

  "Have you got a cold?" the wardress asked.

  She nodded and sniffed a bit. "I'll bring you some in a minute," the woman said and moved on.

  She ate a little. She was still feeling good - not hungry, but all right in other respects. Having pushed the tray aside, she kneeled in front of the bed and folded her hands.

  It was the first time in ages, and she found she could do it only because there wasn't a crucifix there. It wasn't too hard to ask an invisible Saviour to forgive her for committing the ultimate sin. She saw the man's bloodstained face as she did so. Georg Frankenberg! And his expression ... He had forgiven her, that was certain.

  Something inside her was still firmly convinced that it had been right to kill him. Frankie, she thought. A gentle soul! Married three weeks as opposed to her three years. Three was a magic number, it suddenly struck her, but she didn't immediately grasp what was so remarkable about it. When it dawned on her ...

  There had been three crosses on Golgotha, and the two men who were crucified with the Saviour had deserved to die. The man in the middle had been guiltless.

  It smote her like a red-hot iron, transfixed her between the shoulder blades, crept up her neck into her brain and began to melt the frozen mass. How could she have lost sight of that, even for a moment? The Saviour was utterly unblemished, purer and more innocent than any mortal man could be. She trembled convulsively for minutes on end. Her father seemed to be standing over her. "What have you done, Cora? What have you done?" And hovering above her father's head was the cross with its guiltless occupant.

  She struggled to her feet at last and shuffled over to the washbasin. When the tray was collected soon afterwards she was still washing her hands, forgetful of the tissues she'd asked for. The wardress had forgotten them too.

  Rudolf Grovian had spent some hours at the Otto Maigler Lido on Sunday afternoon. Not on her recommendation, nor had he driven there with his wife. By the time he got into his car Mechthild was on her way to Cologne. She had waited lunch for him, naturally hoping that he would come with her, but he baulked at the idea of spending a fruitless afternoon at their daughter's flat when he hadn't even inspected the scene of the crime.

  Except that there was nothing to see apart from water and crowds of people. No question, either, of sitting in the sun and letting the atmosphere or surroundings work on him. Grovian was feeling depressed - wavering between his own belief and Werner Hoss's opinion that Johnny, Tiger and Billy-Goat had nothing to do with Georg Frankenberg.

  He sat on the trampled grass, watching the half-naked people, young and old, men, women and children. An elderly couple strolled down to the water's edge hand in hand. The man must have been on the verge of retirement age, if not older. Grovian couldn't remember the last time he'd walked hand in hand with Meclithild. In the old days they'd often talked of all the things they planned to do when their daughter left home - weekend trips into the blue, a few days in the Black Forest or beside the North Sea - but nothing had come of them to date.

  Not far away a man and a little boy were playing football. The boy, who wasn't much older than his grandson, kicked the ball maladroitly in his direction. He picked it up and threw it back. The youngster smiled at him, and it occurred to him that his grandson would soon have little to smile at. Or maybe he would!

  It was likely that Marita and her young son would move in with them if her marriage were really on the rocks. A sobering thought, and one that temporarily overshadowed all else. Goodbye to domestic peace and tranquillity! He had no objection to a few building bricks on the living-room floor, no objection to childish laughter or tears, but his restful evenings on the sofa would be a thing of the past once his daughter was back home.

  He pictured the way it used to be: the living-room table strewn with nail varnish, lipsticks, mascara and all the other stuff she daubed on her face. He had asked her innumerable times to apply her war paint in the bathroom, but no! The light was too poor, she said, and Mechthild backed her up. "Leave her alone, Rudi. Must we have the same fuss every evening?"

  Barely an hour later he was sitting in his daughter's apartment, determined to save whatever could be saved. His son-in-law wasn't there, and his attempts to intervene were cut short. "Stay out of it, Rudi, you've no idea what this is all about."

  Mechthild, who was holding their grandson on her lap, kept saying: "Yes, but what are you going to " She never got any further; Marita had it all worked out. She wouldn't hear of coming home, of swapping a spacious apartment for a room in her parents' house or life in the big city for their claustrophobic suburban ambience. The financial aspect presented no problems: Peter would have to pay up, naturally. Three thousand marks a month, Marita envisaged.

  "There are smaller sums," said Grovian.

  `And larger," said his daughter. `And with an income like his, at least
he'll know what he's slaving away for." Thereafter she forgot he was there and talked exclusively to her mother. She spoke of gross neglect, of irreconcilable differences, of a man with nothing on his mind but bits and bytes, RAMs and ROMs, the Internet and other such nonsense - a man with whom you couldn't hold a sensible conversation, still less enjoy a night out on the town.

  "But that's how it is when a man works for a living and wants to get on in his profession," Mechthild said feebly. `A wife has to grin and bear it sometimes. Still, she gets something out of life too."

  Yes, said Marita: nappies, saucepans and, just for a change, the two-year-olds' playgroup twice a week. Grovian couldn't listen to it any more. He kept trying to draw comparisons, but there weren't any. His daughter and Cora Bender were like day and night, fire and water. One of them didn't need his advice - didn't even want to know what he thought. Keep out of this, Rudi ... What was a man to do when such limits were constantly imposed on him in private? His only option was to bury himself in his work.

  On Monday morning Grovian did precisely that. He had a longish discussion with the DA that evening, and by Tuesday he had assembled sufficient material to confront her with her lies once more and chip away at her wall.

  It was late afternoon when he entered the cell. He saw her start at the sight of him and was just as startled himself. The last two days had transformed her into an apathetic creature, seemingly incapable of any reaction.

  He began with the district hospital at Diilmen. That had only cost him a telephone call and a few minutes' waiting around on the line.

  He had spoken with Georg Frankenberg's father the afternoon before. He couldn't get through to Ute Frankenberg, who was still unfit to be interviewed, but it was doubtful if she could tell him much in any case, having met her husband for the first time only six months before their marriage.

  `And I hardly think," he said with a faint smile, "that he would have discussed his previous affairs with her."

  In his head he could hear the DAs voice: "I respect your commitment, Herr Grovian, but I must urge you not to investigate so one-sidedly. Let us assume that the woman really didn't know her victim."

  But she must have known him! In the past two days, Grovian had compiled a few details that indicated as much. To call them evidence would be an overstatement. Facts would be a better description, and one of those facts was the body of a young woman.

  There really was one - with two broken ribs! No missing persons report had been filed in Buchholz at the time in question, but then, Cora had stated that she'd never seen the girl there before. The missing persons report could be anywhere. Only the authorities at Luneburg had documents relating to an unknown female aged fifteen to twenty at most.

  Her skeletonized body had been found near a military training area on Luneburg Heath, cause of death unascertainable. No head injury, larynx and hyoid bone intact. In the police pathologist's opinion, the ribs could have been broken after death, possibly by animals - a frequent occurrence.

  The corpse must have been lying in the open for at least three months. Naked! No articles of clothing had been found at the scene, nor had anything else that might have facilitated identification. Appeals for information were published, but to no avail. The local police assumed that the girl had been a hitch-hiker. Given that Cora Bender and her helpful aunt had lied through their teeth, however, it was quite conceivable that she was the girl from the cellar. It didn't take much imagination to see that, just some intuition, a little knowledge of human nature and an ability to memorize casual remarks and assign them due importance at the crucial moment.

  Provided, of course, that Cora had been persuaded to go for a drive with Johnny and his fat friend back in May, not in August. That would fit. It was strange how she and her aunt had harped on about August.

  Grovian intended to consult the CID's central records office and check all the missing persons reports for the time in question. A name would have made things considerably easier.

  He had, in fact, elicited two names from Winfried Meilhofer on Monday morning: Ottmar Denner and Hans Bockel.

  "Do they mean anything to you, Frau Bender?"

  She shook her head. He continued to smile, just smile and be friendly and speculate on why she and her aunt should both have cited August as the source of her troubles. Why? Because they knew that the body had been discovered, he would have bet on it! Because they didn't want to be associated with it - because they dreaded what might happen if such a connection were established.

  "They do to me," Grovian said. "I think Hans Bockel and Ottmar Denner are Billy-Goat and Tiger respectively. Denner was the group's composer, I'm told, and composers like to immortalize themselves. One of the numbers on that tape was called `Tiger's Song'. Remember? You described it as your tune."

  The DA had poured scorn on his theory. Billy-Goat and Tiger? As fictitious as the district hospital at Dulmen! She merely shook her head again, but he pressed on regardless: "I also find it interesting that Ottmar Denner came from Bonn. He studied at Cologne University with Georg Frankenberg and lived at home while there. At that time he drove a silver VW Golf GTI with - logically enough - a BN licence plate. We're currently trying to discover his whereabouts, but it isn't easy. It appears lie may have gone abroad - a development aid job."

  He had interviewed Ottmar Denner's parents only a few hours ago. And got nowhere. They claimed not to know where their son was at present. Ghana, Sudan, Chad - somewhere or other. His request for a photograph had also been rejected. Why did he need one? What was Ottmar charged with, if anything? The father had been a fat, forceful little man who knew his rights and those of his son.

  Grovian had envisaged laying out five or six photographs on the desk and asking her to pick out Johnny's fat friend. No such luck! However, as things stood she would probably have shaken her head at a photo as well.

  They still hadn't discovered anything about Hans Bockel. Grovian assumed that Bockel was the one from north Germany, but if he'd ever had any connection with a house in Hamburg, there were no reports of it. Nor could he have been a fellow student of Georg Frankenberg. There was no such name on the university roll.

  Instead, there was a statement from Frankenberg's father. Grovian had been unable to interview his mother - she was still too traumatized - and Professor Johannes Frankenberg denied all knowledge of the names Denner and Bockel. His son's flirtation with music had been just a brief episode, a craze that had lasted only a few weeks. Georg had soon realized that his time was too precious to waste on playing around.

  And in May five years ago Georg Frankenberg had been at home in his father's private clinic, recovering from a fractured arm. The clinic's records stated that he had broken it on 16 May. Precisely the day on which Cora Bender - according to her original version, which fitted the discovery of the body so neatly - had yearned to make his acquaintance at a disco in Buchholz.

  According to his father, Georg Frankenberg had come home for the weekend on Friday night and suffered a bad fall on Saturday morning. Fortunately, it was a simple fracture, and his father's clinic was only a few yards away. It hadn't even been necessary to call in another doctor.

  Professor Frankenberg's statement had sufficed to convince the DA that Cora Bender's retraction was simply a belated adherence to the truth. It didn't convince Grovian. The timing of the broken arm had galvanized him. Records could be doctored if you headed your own clinic and knew that your son was in trouble. May 16, of all days! Another date mightn't have aroused his suspicions, but ...

  "Professor Frankenberg is a respectable man," he told Cora. "He won't be too easy to discredit. We can only hope that Ottmar Denner and Hans Bockel will confirm your story if we locate them."

  Till then she had merely listened, wishing he would go to blazes but secretly admiring his obstinacy. He shrank from nothing, not even from harassing the father of her victim.

  She'd panicked when he mentioned the silver Golf GTI, but she soon recovered her poise. It had to be a coin
cidence that Johnny's friend had driven the same car as a friend of Georg Frankenberg. It was a typical young man's car, after all. Meantime, the chief was watching her intently.

  "Nobody can confirm anything," she said. "I told you a pack of lies."

  Grovian hadn't heard her voice for two days. In front of the magistrate it had sounded resolute and hostile, cold and indifferent. Now, her harsh, unemotional tone and hunched, introverted pose counselled caution.

  He shook his head emphatically. "No, no, Frau Bender, lies don't deposit dead bodies on the edge of a military training area. I've found the girl who was in the cellar with you. A dead girl with two broken ribs, Frau Bender, and you heard them snap."

  He'd saved that till last, intending it as a bolt from the blue in the event of her not admitting anything, but perhaps it was just a damp squib. If she really hadn't made that trip until August, the dead body was irrelevant. But her reaction conveyed that it was a skyrocket rather than a damp squib. She came to life from one moment to the next, and he saw her bosom heave before she spoke.

  "Don't talk nonsense! Use your head, man! I can't have heard a thing in all that noise - if it had been the way I said. It wasn't, but let's assume it was. There'd have been five people down there and deafening music. I don't know what a snapping rib sounds like, but it can't be as loud as all that."

  Her hands started to shake. She clasped the left with the right. He remembered that from three nights ago. It was the preliminary alarm signal. Or, as prior experience of her prompted him to regard it, the precursor of a truth she was unwilling to face. Reason bade him pay the closest attention, but, at the same time, raised an admonitory finger: "Stop it, Rudi. Leave it to the shrinks."

  "You're a ..." she said hoarsely. Either the appropriate term eluded her, or she considered it too coarse. Instead, she asked: "Do you think it's right, what you're doing? Some nerve, bullying his father like that! The poor man must be finding it hard enough as it is. Does he have any more children?"