The Sinner

by Petra Hammesfahr

  Cora's words came back to Grovian: "I always kept one hand on her chest . . ." That was enough for him. You quacks, he thought, unaware that he had adopted her own way of thinking. Listen to you for half an hour, and you'll end up believing in Santa Claus.

  But not him! He had assembled some facts. "I'll make you a suggestion," he said, getting to his feet. "You do your work, and I'll do mine. Put all that in your report, and I'll demolish it in three sentences." Professor Burthe expressed a wish to hear the three sentences right away. Grovian listed his facts. First, Cora had been absent from home for three months when her sister died. She was lying in some private clinic with a fractured skull and hadn't been discharged until November. Secondly, prostitution after her sister's death as a form of atonement, coupled with a subconscious desire for an incestuous relationship with her father. Prettily phrased, that. He could never have put it so well. Unfortunately, however, there hadn't been time. No one prostituted themselves with a fractured skull. That apart, there hadn't been any subconscious desire or idolized father.

  "You should consult the Bible, Professor Burthe. It's all down there. The Bible keeps trying to tell us the truth in its own way. Magdalena was the whore."

  He shook his head and laughed. "Magdalena did the spadework, and they finished her off in the cellar. If you don't believe me, try experimenting with a lighting console or play her `Tiger's Song'. That was the trigger, not Frankenberg's wife, I'll bet you anything you like. She herself said it was the tune. If you try it, though, make sure there's someone else with you for safety's sake. You've got some tough male nurses here."

  He made slowly for the door and played his last trump card. `And sometime ask Frau Bender how many drops of water a junkie scoops out of the toilet to lend his fix the requisite consistency."

  Professor Burthe wrinkled his brow "I'm not sure I ..."

  Grovian's hand was already on the door handle. "You heard me. Give Frau Bender a junkie's works and inspect every square centimetre of her body. If you find even one scar indicative of sadomasochistic practices, I'll turn in my badge. But I won't have to."

  He opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. "Bear that tune in mind, Professor. I didn't dare play it to her, I'm afraid, but I'll make up for lost time the next chance I get. My investigative methods may have landed Frau Bender in this place, but they'll get her out again. That's a promise, Professor."

  Grovian had seldom felt so angry as when he left the district hospital. Or so helpless. He'd worked his way up the police service without a university degree. How, if it came to the pinch, could he hope to rebut the findings of an eminent professor? He couldn't commission a second opinion.

  He drove to Hiirth and consulted a phone book. There were two numbers listed under the name Eberhard Brauning, one professional and one private. Grovian dialled the former. Herr Brauning wasn't available, unfortunately, and his courteous receptionist couldn't arrange an appointment until tomorrow at the earliest. However, a little pressure persuaded her to put Grovian through after all.

  Eberhard Brauning was startled when Grovian stated his name and urgent business. 'Ali yes," he said, "the chief." He chuckled, then turned businesslike. "I was going to call you anyway in the next few days. There are a few points that need clarifying."

  "Only a few?" Grovian gave a mirthless laugh. "I'd much appreciate it if you could spare me a little of your time. I realize you're a busy man, but my own time is in short supply. I won't have any at all for the next few days, and the matter's urgent."

  That was putting it mildly. From the way Burthe had spoken, it sounded as if his work was drawing to a close. Once his confounded report was with the DA . . . Burthe's assertions were buzzing through his head like a swarm of bees. It could have happened to any man accompanied by a woman ...

  That wasn't altogether true. At all events, he himself hadn't been accompanied by a woman when she struck him. Grovian could still hear her counting out the blows. Unaware that Brauning was hesitating, he didn't return to the present until a long, drawn-out "Well . . ." came down the line. "Looking at my desk diary, I see ..." Brauning didn't disclose what he saw Instead, lie asked: "Would this evening suit you? Do you have my home address?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Shall we say eight o'clock?"

  "Can't you make it a bit sooner?" It wasn't even four, and he didn't know how he would while away the afternoon. Until he'd got this off his chest, he couldn't concentrate on anything else. "How about six?" They compromised on seven.

  That settled, he brewed himself some coffee. While drinking his first cup he dipped into the tapes again. "I only wanted to lead a normal life, can you understand that?" And: "Gereon shouldn't have done that to me." Oral sex, he thought, Magdalena's dream. That was why she'd freaked out when her husband tried it. In a way, that explained everything.

  Over his second cup he noted down her description of the cellar as far as he recalled it. The reconstruction was excellent. He could see it in front of him. The bottles on the shelf with the mirror behind them. In front of them, a pudgy little man sprinkling white powder on the back of his hand, licking it off and biting into a lemon. Tequila, he thought. Tequila, coke and "my turn". Her own desire rebounded on her? What nonsense! All the same, he had Margret Rosch's statement about the nightmares Cora had suffered from at a time when everything was still fresh in her mind.

  He wondered whether she had regained consciousness and had found the way back on her own, or whether she was cursing him again for having left her in the cellar despite his promise.

  His gloomy deliberations were interrupted by Werner Hoss, who came in with a few items of news. There was still no clue to Ottmar Denner's whereabouts, and Hans Bockel was still just a name. They'd had no luck with the Hamburg hospitals, but Ute Frankenberg had been discharged.

  Wonderful! He must definitely have a word with her. Perhaps Frankie had told her where he and his friends had made music together. He pocketed one of the interrogation tapes and set off for Cologne.

  He got there almost on the stroke of seven. Eberhard Brauning's home address was an oldish but very well maintained apartment house with an ornate, freshly painted facade. He rang the bell, and the electrically operated door clicked open.

  The lobby was dim and agreeably cool, the floor tiled in black and white. Her words came back to him: "White flagstones with little green squares between them ..." They simply had to find the house in question.

  There was a lift, but he decided to use the stairs. Brauning's apartment was on the second floor. Big old rooms with high ceilings and tall windows, choice antique furniture interspersed with a few luxuriant pot plants. All the doors to the hallway stood open, bathing the apartment in the subdued light of early evening.

  Cora Bender's attorney greeted him at the door. The impression he made was tense rather than diffident. He ushered Grovian across the spacious hallway and into the living room. "I hope you don't mind," lie said, "but I'd like my mother to sit in on our conversation."

  Hell, thought Grovian. Aloud, he said: "Not at all." He saw her as soon as he entered the room, a distinguished-looking old lady with an alert expression and a neatly cut helmet of silver-grey hair. She probably goes to the hairdresser twice a week, he thought, and wondered if Cora Bender had used the shampoo he'd brought her.

  Grovian said a polite good evening and returned her firm handshake. The heavy gold ring on her right hand was set with a ruby the size of a thumbnail, but all he could see in his mind's eye was Cora Bender's stringy hair. Why hadn't she washed it yet? Had she written herself off so completely? Perverted clients! She must realize that a statement like that would bar her way back for good and all. Her husband wasn't the type to come to terms with it.

  Then he was sitting in an armchair with candy-striped upholstery. Beside him, on a little knee-high table with barley-sugar legs and an inlaid top, was a dainty china cup. The decaffeinated coffee was just the right colour. He didn't know where to begin.

  Robin Hood,
he thought wryly. Avenger of the disinherited and protector of widows and orphans. And of the legally incapacitated! Go on, Robin, make it clear to this youngster what his client needs: a sensible expert who won't brand her on the forehead. She needs a woman to talk to. She can't trust an older man - she might see her father in him - but a woman ... Then he visualized Elsbeth Rosch sitting at the kitchen table and shook his head. It was all nonsense.

  He gave the distinguished-looking old lady a faint smile and transferred his attention to her son. "I paid Frau Bender a visit today. She said she'd spoken to you. Did you visit her in person?"

  When Brauning nodded hesitantly he asked: "You consider one interview sufficient?"

  "Of course not, but I don't yet have all the documentation. I'm still awaiting the psychologist's report."

  "I can tell you what it'll say: not responsible for her actions. Georg Frankenberg was a chance victim. It could have happened to anyone."

  Brauning stared at him, frowning slightly. Having waited in vain for some comment, Grovian asked: "What impression did Frau Bender make on you?"

  He was well aware that the distinguished-looking old lady had been watching him closely. He also noticed the smile with which she awaited her son's reply, not that lie could interpret it. She seemed almost amused. Brauning still said nothing.

  Grovian grinned. "Come now, Herr Brauning, this can't be the first such interview you've had. What did you make of Frau Bender? She told you a load of nonsense, am I right? Did she also quote from the Bible - stuff about the Saviour and Mary Magdalene?"

  Eberhard Brauning was by nature an exceedingly cautious and suspicious man. This certainly wasn't the first such talk he'd had. Policemen like Grovian were normally in favour of long custodial sentences and strove to impress that on you.

  He still had a vivid recollection of the "nonsense" his client had talked, and he'd discussed it with his mother often enough in the last few days. Not just the nonsense, but also the clearly intelligible statements about her sister. "I had to get her off my back somehow or other ..."

  Helene shared his opinion. Having read the interrogation transcripts, she'd said: "I can't assess this woman's mental condition from my armchair, nor can I tell you if she knew her victim. One shouldn't altogether exclude the possibility that he was merely a former client - prostitutes often appeal to young men from respectable families - but the police will find it hard to establish such a connection, and it'll be to your disadvantage even if they do. I don't want to meddle in your work, and I'm aware that you regard psychiatry as an unsatisfactory solution, but perhaps you'll reconsider your attitude. In this case it would be the best solution. You can't do much for this woman in any case. Persuade her to tell Burthe how God the Father appeared at her bedside. That sounds more intriguing than the irrational act of a former prostitute." Helene was right!

  "Herr Grovian," he said with a knowing smile, speaking slowly and deliberately, "I'm not of the opinion that Frau Bender told me a lot of nonsense. I can well imagine that you'd sooner see her in the toils of the penal system, but

  Grovian cut him short with a single, emphatic "Wrong!" After a momentary pause he went on: "I'd sooner see her sitting in her garden, putting her little boy to bed or busying herself at the kitchen stove - even working in the cubbyhole she called her office. She felt good there - she felt mature, efficient and contented. Have you seen the place? You should; it doesn't even have a window In the Bender household she was no more than a welcome beast of burden, but she was free, despite that. It was her heaven on earth. One wonders what her hell must have looked like!"

  He could hardly believe lie was saying all this, but it flowed from his lips with ease. It was the truth too. For the first time, he admitted to himself that Burthe hadn't been altogether wrong about him. The hell with it! Nineteen years with Elsbeth Rosch were punishment enough. A person sentenced to life imprisonment could hope to be released after fifteen years. From that angle, Cora Bender had already served four years too many.

  "How much do you know about her childhood and adolescence, Herr Brauning? Only what's on file, or has she told you about it?"

  She hadn't, so he did it for her. He summarized those miserable years in fifteen minutes and took the cassette from his pocket as he brought his account to a close. `And then it happened," he said. "I'm absolutely sure it happened just as she describes it, but I can't prove it, Herr Brauning. I can't prove it!"

  A pinch of sarcasm was the only antidote to the depression those words aroused in him. "You've got a nice hi-fi there, a tape deck and all the trimmings. I'm now going to grant you the opportunity Frau Bender denied you: to be present at her interrogation. You've missed a great deal. One has to have heard it - reading a transcript isn't the same. Start the tape, it's at the right place."

  Her voice issued from the big loudspeakers as if she were sitting beside the distinguished-looking old lady on the sofa. He heard once more her tear-choked, imploring, faltering words, her agonized cry of "Help me!"

  He saw Brauning swallow hard a couple of times and took a sip of coffee to suppress his own urge to do likewise. After a few minutes, Cora Bender's voice died away. "I brought her back to that pitch today," he said quietly. "She went for me just as she went for Frankenberg. If she'd had a knife, I wouldn't be sitting here now"

  Brauning didn't reply, staring at the tape deck as if he felt there must be more to come. His mother remained equally silent and uncommunicative.

  "I don't quite understand what you expect me to do, Herr Grovian," Brauning said at length.

  Grovian felt annoyed. It was on the tip of his tongue to say: "What do you usually do as a court-appointed counsel, just go through the motions?" But he controlled himself "Get her another psychologist," he demanded and was rather surprised when the distinguished-looking old lady suddenly intervened. "Professor Burthe has a first-class reputation," she said.

  "Maybe," he retorted, "but even the finest reputation isn't proof against Cora Bender's stories. She tossed him a tasty morsel, and lie swallowed it whole. Prostitution and perverts!" It struck him, as he went on, that Eberhard Brauning's expression was changing. He wouldn't have won many hands of poker. "Did she spin you that yarn too?" He got no answer, just that meaningful expression.

  "Listen," he said, "I have to know what she told you - every word, even if you think it's rubbish. She drops a lot of hints. You only have to interpret them correctly."

  Brauning removed the cassette from the tape deck and handed it to him. "I'll need copies of all the tapes," he said for form's sake. "Including the one that was played beside the lake."

  "Did she talk to you about that?"

  Brauning didn't answer at once. Very deliberately, he resumed his seat with a disapproving frown. "Really, Herr Grovian, you can't expect me to divulge my conversations with a client to the other side."

  "But I'm not the other side, damn it all! Do I have to go down on my knees to persuade you to talk? I may be here in my capacity as an investigator, but I'm not the woman's enemy."

  "She thinks otherwise." Privately - Helene wasn't helping, just sitting there smiling - Brauning came to the conclusion that it couldn't hurt to disclose a few of Cora Bender's effusions.

  He began with David and Goliath, went on to the three crosses with the guiltless figure in the middle and ended with God the Father, who sometimes appeared beside her bed at night, bent over her and assured her of his son's innocence.

  Grovian listened attentively, but he soon realized that any input on his part would be a waste of time. "Well," he said, rising from his armchair and giving the distinguished-looking old lady another brief smile, "we're all tempted to take the line of least resistance sometimes, and in a case like this it suits us all perfectly. Don't condemn the poor creature, just lock her up - no need to wonder why she did what she did. I'd reached that stage at one time, but then I developed this itch to get to the bottom of the affair. And now I'm up to my neck in it. However, I'm afraid they won't let me delve any deepe
r. Burthe blames my investigative methods for Frau Bender's presence in a psychiatric ward. That should be grist to the mill of any good defence counsel."

  That was the moment when Eberhard Brauning remembered his role, or rather, had his nose rubbed in it. Defence counsel ... He felt a trifle uneasy. He would have to discuss the matter with Helene, of course, and work out what was to be done, if anything. Perhaps he shouldn't leave the initiative to the DA. If a policeman was rooting for this woman, her chances couldn't be that bad.

  He cleared his throat. `Just between the two of us, Herr Grovian: if I produce a contrary expert opinion, do I stand a chance of an acquittal?"

  "No," Grovian replied calmly, "you don't. But a few years' imprisonment are better than a death sentence, and that, I'm afraid, is the way she's headed. Cora Bender needs no judge or jury. She has already passed sentence on herself and is currently engaged in providing us with the grounds for it. She may be luckier carrying it out the next time. Once in prison with normal offenders, I think she'll refrain from committing suicide. To get there, all she needs to do is admit she recognized Georg Frankenberg and wanted to take revenge on him."

  "Revenge for what?" asked Brauning, and Grovian told him. What he suggested was far from legal. He was sticking his neck out, but at that moment he didn't care.

  It was nearly nine o'clock when he took his leave. During that last hour with the Braunings he'd kept asking himself why the mother should seem so interested until the son explained what her profession had been. Not a bad combination, he thought, and wondered if Cora Bender would be prepared to cooperate with Helene Brauning.

  Although it was pretty late to go calling on someone else, Ute Frankenberg had so far been treated with great consideration. No one had asked her any distressing questions. Two or three answers were all he needed.