Fatal Lies (16 page)

‘What plans?' asked Freitag.

‘Oh, do shut up, Freitag,' said Wolf. ‘Can't you see that I'm trying to read?'

IT WAS LATE
afternoon when Rheinhardt arrived in Landstrasse. He had not forewarned the Zelenkas of his intention to visit; consequently, he was not surprised to find the bungalow empty. Removing a box of cigars from his coat, he passed the time puffing contentedly and contemplating the gasworks through a trail of rising smoke. Perhaps, on account of his elated state, these bleak edifices no longer looked ugly. They appeared romantic – like the dolmen tombs of mythic warriors, or the watchtowers of Valhalla.

Meta was the first to return. She immediately apologised – for no obvious reason – and ushered Rheinhardt through the door. The cramped living space was just as he remembered it: shadowy and claustrophobic. After offering him a chair, she began making tea.

‘Your husband left a message – you wanted to see me?'

‘Yes,' said Meta. ‘It's about Thomas's things.'

‘Things?'

‘His possessions . . . we received a parcel from the school, yesterday morning.' She paused, and struggled to control a sudden swell of grief that made her chest heave. ‘His clothes, a little money . . . his school work and some books. But something was missing. His dictionary.'

Meta came to the table and placed a cracked cup in front of the Inspector. He thanked her, and indicated that she should continue.

‘It was very expensive . . . Hartel and Jacobsen: bound in green leather, with gold lettering. Fanousek worked very hard to get the
extra money we needed. We thought Thomas should have something like that – so that he wouldn't stand out so much. We thought the other boys would have such things.'

Meta sat down opposite Rheinhardt and searched his face for a response. He felt vaguely disappointed. His expectation had been that the Zelenkas would have something interesting to tell him – something that would help him solve the mystery of their son's premature demise. The loss of the boy's dictionary, however valuable the book might have been, seemed rather trivial under the circumstances.

‘Are you suggesting that it has been stolen?'

Meta shrugged.

‘We just want it back.'

Rheinhardt nodded.

‘I will make some inquiries.'

‘Thank you, Inspector.'

His promise to make
some inquiries
was hollow, disingenuous. He might ask one or two questions, he supposed, but that was all.

Rheinhardt sipped his tea.

There was nothing more to say – and the silence became increasingly brittle. Yet the Inspector was reluctant to leave. He did not want to depart under a pall of disappointment, feeling that his earlier high spirits had been dissipated and that he had wasted his time.

‘You said that there were other things in the parcel. May I see them?'

‘Yes,' said Meta. ‘Everything we received is in Thomas's room. I put the clothes in the chest – the other things are on top of it.'

She gestured towards the closed door. As before, she was disinclined to follow.

Rheinhardt entered the boy's room and was struck by its terrible stillness – more so than before. He recalled sitting in his parlour, listening to Therese playing the piano and Mitzi humming, he recalled
contemplating the horror of being predeceased by one's own children, and as he recalled these things he felt as if the back of his neck was being chilled by an icy exhalation. He turned around nervously, half expecting to see the Erlkönig.

The strange presentiment passed, and Rheinhardt was visited by a sad realisation. Fanousek and Meta did not want Thomas's dictionary back in order to sell it. They wanted it back because it was Thomas's – and everything that Thomas had owned was here. This was all they had left of their son.

Rheinhardt knelt by the chest and began to flick through the boy's exercise books. The margins were filled with teachers' comments – most were helpful, but a significant number were merely sarcastic. Beneath these exercise books was a much larger volume with hard cloth covers and thick yellow paper. It contained sketches: a vase, naked bodies in various Olympian poses, and a seated woman. They were not very accomplished works of art – the athletic figures in particular were flawed by errors of proportion. However, the seated woman was executed with just enough proficiency to suggest the distinctive lineaments of Frau Becker.

The next exercise book was full of numbers and algebraic equations. Throughout, the left page had been used for rough work and was a chaotic mess of scribbled operators and products. The opposite page, however, was much neater, showing, step by step, the precise method employed to calculate answers.

Something caught Rheinhardt's attention: a systematic regularity among the rough work – number pairs, arranged in neat columns of varying size. Rheinhardt had forgotten most of his school mathematics. Even so, he was reasonably confident that these pairings had nothing to do with Zelenka's calculations. Moreover, although some were in Zelenka's hand, most of them were in someone else's – someone whose numerals were much smaller. Inspection of the
marginalia soon established that the additional number pairs had been produced by the mathematics master, Herr Sommer.

What did they mean?

Rheinhardt remembered that Liebermann – for reasons the young doctor had not cared to disclose – was of the opinion that Herr Sommer should be closely questioned. Liebermann's penchant for mystification was extremely irritating, but Rheinhardt could not suppress a smile, impressed as he was by his friend's perspicacity.

LIEBERMANN HAD SPENT
much of the afternoon conversing with a patient who had once been a distinguished jurist and who now suffered from
dementia praecox
. One of the symptoms of the old lawyer's illness was incontinence of speech. He had expounded upon a bizarre but entirely cohesive philosophical system that had been revealed to him – so he claimed – by an angelic being (ordinarily resident on Phobos, a satellite of the planet Mars). It was the jurist's intention to record this new doctrine in a volume that he maintained would one day become the scriptural foundation of a new religion.

The old lawyer's speech was ponderous, and after the first hour Liebermann's concentration began to falter. An image of Miss Lydgate insinuated itself into his mind and, as was usually the case whenever he thought of the Englishwoman, he found himself wanting her company and conversation.

The jurist droned on, speaking of circles of influence, Platonic ideals, and the progress of souls; however, Liebermann had disengaged. The jurist's words carried no meaning, and became nothing more than a soporific incantation.

Miss Lydgate
.

Amelia . . .

What an extraordinary woman she was. How different from all the other women he had met in his life. Liebermann thought of his adolescent infatuations, the dalliances of his university years – and
Clara Weiss, to whom he had once been engaged: beautiful, amusing, and from a family much like his own. Yet he had not really enjoyed her company. Clara was too superficial, preoccupied as she was with fashion and society gossip. Unable to sustain a meaningful conversation, she was the very opposite of Amelia.

Liebermann whispered her name: the weak syncopation of the ‘A', followed by the subtle lilt of the last three syllables. The second of the four, he noticed, required him to bring his lips together – as in a kiss.

Amelia, Amelia . . .

How he wanted to see her, to sit with her in her modest parlour, breathing the subtly scented sweet must of old volumes, drinking tea, and listening to her precise and ever so slightly accented German. Something inside him, something profoundly deep, altered – an inner movement or shifting. The sensation was impossible to describe, but a memory came to his aid that captured – at least in part – the quality of his experience. Once, in the Tyrol, he had watched a great lake thawing. He had listened to the groaning sounds emanating from the frozen-solid surface – a doleful music reminiscent of human lamentation. Then, quite suddenly, the keening had been silenced by a thunderous crack. A jagged black rift had appeared and two massive ice floes slowly drifted apart. This was how he felt now. As if something locked – something frozen – had suddenly been released.

It was a moment of revelation, every bit as mysterious as those described by the jurist.

He wanted to see Miss Lydgate, not only because her conversation was stimulating, but also – more truthfully – because he was haunted.
Yes, haunted!
By the redness of her hair, the gleaming whiteness of her shoulders, the intensity of her pewter eyes, and the memory of her waist – held close – as they'd danced; by the precious rarity of her smile, the accidental touching of hands, and
the ghostly imaginings that anticipate the transformation of sensual dreams into reality. In short, he wanted to see Miss Lydgate because he was in love with her. He had never permitted himself to use
that
word before in relation to Miss Lydgate but, as he did so, he recognised that it possessed the authority of an indisputable diagnosis.

‘Thank you,' said Liebermann, interrupting the jurist's disquisition. ‘Most interesting. We shall continue our discussion tomorrow.'

‘But I have only just begun to explain the
principle of equivalence
,' protested the jurist.

‘Indeed.'

‘An essential teaching, particularly if you are to appreciate fully the moral implications of the
principle of plurality
.'

‘Very true – I'm sure; however, regretfully, I really must draw our meeting to a close.'

Liebermann summoned a nurse and instructed her to escort the old jurist back to his bed. He returned to his office where he made some perfunctory notes. Then, grabbing his new coat (another stylish astrakhan) he departed the hospital with long, purposeful strides.

Unexpectedly, the weather had become more clement. The air was warmer, and carried with it a foretaste of distant spring – the promise of renewal.

Liebermann felt elated, relieved of the onerous burden of pretence and self-deception. He would arrive at Amelia Lydgate's door unencumbered by excuses or insincere justifications. It was not his intention to declare his love, but rather to initiate a process of change. His intercourse with Miss Lydgate had always been formal. This was attributable, in part, to the Englishwoman's character (the famed reserve of that indomitable island race); but it was also due to their shared history, their past roles as doctor and patient, something of which had persisted well beyond the termination of Miss Lydgate's treatment. If their relationship could be placed on
a different footing, then perhaps there was hope . . . She was a thoroughly undemonstrative person, yet he had reason to believe that honesty would now prevail. In the minutiae of her behaviour, he had more than once observed – so he flattered himself – evidence of a burgeoning attachment. His love would be reciprocated! And if he was wrong?
Well, so be it!
At least, in Nietzsche's eternally recurring universe, the dissatisfaction, frustration, and pain arising from his inauthentic existence would be short-lived.

The young doctor had become so preoccupied by his racing thoughts that his journey through Alsergrund seemed to take no time at all. Suddenly, Frau Rubenstein's house reared up in front of him. He paused, collected himself, took a deep breath, and raised the knocker. Three decisive strikes announced his arrival.

What should I say to her?

On such occasions, it was usually Liebermann's custom to rehearse a speech of some kind – to decide upon a few ready phrases. But he had been too agitated to discipline his thoughts to this end, and he now found his head filled with a yawning emptiness.

He waited . . . and waited.

Perhaps . . . I shall invite her to the opera – or another ball?

More time passed – and he knocked again.

The door opened and he drew back in surprise. It was not Miss Lydgate's face that had appeared but the wrinkled visage of Frau Rubenstein.

‘Herr Doctor Liebermann.'

‘Frau Rubenstein.' He bowed and took her hand.

‘I am afraid that Amelia is not here,' said the old woman. ‘She left about an hour ago.' After a slight pause, she added: ‘With a gentleman.' This addendum was coloured by a frown and a note of disapproval.

‘From the university?'

‘No . . . no, I don't think so, his German wasn't very good.' Again, Frau Rubenstein hesitated before continuing. ‘And his English . . . There was something about it . . . it sounded strange.'

But she never receives visitors
, thought Liebermann.
She never entertains
.

‘Was he a young gentleman?'

‘Yes . . . about your age, I imagine.' The old woman's eyes narrowed. ‘Do you know him?'

Liebermann tried to conceal his unease with a smile.

‘No.' He felt awkward – his arms seemed to stiffen in unnatural positions. ‘Did she say where they were going?'

‘Yes,' Frau Rubenstein replied. ‘Café Segel.'

‘I see. My apologies for disturbing you, Frau Rubenstein. When Miss Lydgate returns, please tell her that I called. It was not a matter of . . .' his chest tightened ‘. . . importance.'

As he prepared to retreat, Liebermann noticed something odd about Frau Rubenstein's expression – a puckering of her lineaments indicative of concern. She seemed about to offer an afterthought, but instead shrank back into herself.

‘Frau Rubenstein?' Liebermann enquired. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Yes,' said the old woman. ‘It's just . . .' Liebermann encouraged her to continue with a hand gesture. ‘Perhaps I am mistaken – but Amelia seemed . . . not herself.'

‘Not herself?' Liebermann's soft repetition created a flat echo.