The Lie (31 page)

“Tuesday morning,” Helga sobbed. “He said. What if he doesn't come, Nadia? What do I do then? I'm not going to the office on Monday, I'm too scared.”

The conversation was brought to an end by the dog in the hall when Jo appeared at half-past nine. She hadn't had breakfast, but she didn't feel like eating. The bruises on Philip Hardenberg's ribs and the cut across his face were a leaden weight on her stomach. Unlike Helga she wasn't just pretty sure but absolutely certain that Zurkeulen's thug had given Philip a going-over.

Jo insisted she get something inside her. He fetched a tin of tomato juice from the larder, seasoned it well with salt and pepper and whisked it up with a raw egg. She could have drunk it, if it hadn't been for the egg. Then he sat down opposite her at the kitchen table and waited for her to start. She desperately needed someone she could talk to and his fatherly concern made it extremely difficult to keep everything to herself. Even more so when she learned that she had already let out some things. Fortunately they were not too clear, but still clear enough to suggest to the whole neighbourhood, or at least that section of it gathered in the Koglers' living room, that fraud on the grand scale was being perpetrated at Alfo Investment. One of Hardenberg's clients, she'd said, had gone berserk and threatened her, even though she'd had nothing to do with the man personally. She'd only just managed to get away from him.

What she really wanted to do was to tell Jo the whole story then let him take her in his arms and reassure her. But he was the one who wanted reassurance. From her. He started talking about the Deko Fund. His hesitant, embarrassed tone made it clear he felt anything but comfortable.

“You don't need to worry,” she said quietly. “It's not just window dressing with nothing behind it. Deko's our in-house abbreviation, that's why Wolfgang couldn't find out what there is to it. But it's OK.”

Jo sketched a nod. “So what did I earn thirty points with? Even though I'm pretty ignorant about this business, you could at least try to explain it to me.”

She stared at the glass with the cloudy red mixture and took a deep breath. At least she'd been trained in this field and even if she herself had never had much to do with investment advice, she did know how one could quickly lose or gain a lot of money. “Commodity futures. Mainly Indian cotton, tea and fuel oil.”

“Fuel oil?” Jo asked, baffled.

“Yes. With commodity futures you have to have a mixture,” she declared. “Cotton was a big risk, you never know what the weather's going to be like in India. But if that market had collapsed, I could have offset it with tea. You wouldn't have made much of a profit, but not much of a loss either. Oil was stable.”

It might have been complete nonsense, but it sounded professional. Jo relaxed, even though he still looked slightly sceptical. “Have you the figures on the computer?”

“Yes,” she said. “I can show you them all if we can get the thing going.” It was obvious what she should show him, since his name was in the NTA file. Let him rack his brains over the rest himself.

He stood up. “Then let's get on with it.”

There was nothing to show him. The computer didn't respond to Arosa and even Jo couldn't find a way of circumventing the password. Again he mentioned his suspicion that Michael might have been playing a trick on her and offered to have a serious talk with him. Given the way things were, it wasn't beyond the bounds of possibility that Michael had messed about with her computer, perhaps only the previous day, because he was angry she had to go to work.

She hung her head and mumbled, “Don't bother. I haven't been too well recently. I don't know if you've noticed, I've been doing the best
I can not to let it show.” She heaved a long sigh as she stared at the darkened screen. “I suppose it's just possible I changed something myself and can't remember. I have had the odd drink now and then - but don't tell Michael.”

Jo looked at her with an expression of pity and understanding and advised her again to insert a jumper. “Do it tomorrow. If you've inadvertently changed more than the password you could have problems with the system.”

She hadn't the least idea what a jumper was. “I won't be able to manage it tomorrow,” she said, hoping he might offer to do it.

But all he said was, “Then I'll check things up above.” He headed for the door. She had no idea where he was going. Up above?

 

As far as she was concerned, she was already “up above”. Of course, the house didn't have a flat roof, so it must have a loft. Only there was no staircase up to it and so far she hadn't noticed a hatch in the landing ceiling where there could be an extension ladder, as there had been in her parents' house and her mother-in-law's.

Jo was already on the landing. All she could think of was to call him back. “The figures are on the laptop as well.” She switched it on. Nothing happened. “What's all this?” she cried. “Everything's conspiring against me today. Now this one's not working either!” He came back and stood in the doorway. She pointed at the dark screen. “Perhaps you can repair this one?”

“No, no,” he said, waving the suggestion away. “I don't touch those midgets, I don't know anything about them. You'll have to take it in. Come on now.”

“Just a sec,” she said tapping a few keys at random, “perhaps it's just… You go on ahead.”

He went off. When she peeked out a few seconds later, the door to one of the guest rooms was open. Hesitantly she went up to it. Jo had opened the wardrobe and was pressing the back. It swung aside, revealing some stairs. A light immediately went on.

The roof space was huge and it was brightly lighted by a good dozen fluorescent tubes. Every last corner was illuminated. The first thing she saw was a massive safe. Beside it was a metal cabinet about three feet high. Jo was already crouching down by it. He opened the front, took
some little instruments out of his pocket and started to check the beating heart of his alarm system. He took quite a long time looking at wires and circuit boards, checking the resistance here, measuring something there. Finally he was satisfied. It didn't look as if the security system had been affected.

Whilst he was working, she looked round. Nadia certainly didn't use the loft for storing junk. There were just two tatty cardboard boxes stuck under the slope of the roof, but the rest of the things kept there showed that at least one of the occupants of the house was very keen on sport: skis, a snorkel, diving equipment, a surfboard, a saddle and other articles.

After Jo had left, she went back up and examined the contents of the cardboard boxes. The first contained a motley assortment of old household equipment, such as you'd expect a poor student to have, the second some man's clothes that must have been there for several years. Only three pairs of socks and some holey underwear among worn jeans and shirts. Underneath were two photo albums.

The first had pictures of an adolescent Michael with his mother, father and brother, taken on various occasions. She opened the second expecting to see a grinning boy, showing his missing front teeth, on his first day at school, or pictures of him as a baby. There was a baby, held by a pretty woman. Standing beside her was a man who looked almost like her own father in younger years. So nature had played the trick once before. The man was looking down at the baby, a proud smile on his face. Underneath the photo was a date. Michael had been born five years later.

The photos documented the very good start Nadia had had in life, richly blessed with worldly goods from the very beginning. Countless pictures of her as a child, taken in various surroundings, each grander than the last, were followed by photos showing her as she grew up: boarding school - dozens of girls in front of an ostentatious, castle-like building; holidays - alone in the stables and with Papa on board a motor boat; Nadia at eighteen in evening dress at some ball, on the arm of her proud father; Nadia at twenty, seated at a grand piano, beside her a blond Adonis, probably two or three years older, in white tie and tails - they were playing a duet. Without exception the date was given under every picture, sometimes the place, a note on the occasion or details of
the people who had been photographed with her. Beneath the picture showing her at the piano with the Adonis was: “Jacques”.

A series of photos with palm trees, white sand and turquoise water showed Nadia from twenty-four to twenty-eight in a jeep, in diving gear, on water skis, at the wheel of a motor boat, on the back of a horse, in and beside an open-air swimming pool, at a hotel bar. And always accompanied by Jacques. The relationship must have lasted quite a while.

Then came Nadia's career. At a Christmas party in stately surroundings and the company of distinguished-looking men, Nadia, in her early thirties, was standing in the foreground, radiant, a glass of champagne in her hand. The last page had a single large-format black-and-white picture. Nadia, at thirty-five, was with an older man who was handing her a certificate. They took up most of the picture, hardly leaving enough space for the third person, who was standing beside Nadia and looking at her, adoration written all over his face.

It was a young man. She recognized him at once, even though he must have been a good five years older when he'd crossed her path in Schrag's office. Röhrler! In January he'd obviously taken her for Nadia. In her mind's eye she saw herself walking in the woods with Nadia, heard herself telling her about Röhrler and Herr Schrag and assuring her she hadn't had her fingers in the till. The bitch! Nadia must have known she was the one Röhrler had been talking about. But why had she tipped Wolfgang Blasting off about him? Hadn't she been afraid that under interrogation he might have revealed there were two Nadias? Apparently not. But perhaps Röhrler hadn't known that. Presumably he hadn't mentioned the name Nadia Trenkler to Herr Schrag, otherwise Schrag would have had no reason to fire Susanne Lasko on the spot. Whatever, that was two jobs she'd lost because of Nadia.

She went downstairs and dialled the number with the double-nought prefix again. The woman moaning away in French had presumably been Nadia's mother. They spoke French in Geneva. And that, according to the postmark on the card, was where Jacques had been living in August two years ago. But if Nadia had been born in Düsseldorf, then it could be assumed that her mother spoke at least some German. And she might happen to know if her daughter was staying with her former lover. Seconds later the woman came on the line with a questioning “
Oui?
”

“Good morning,” she said in German, enunciating very clearly. “
Parlez-vous allemand?
”

“Yes,” the woman replied in German.

“Am I speaking with Nadia Trenkler's mother?”

“Yes,” the woman repeated.

Giving a sigh of relief, she went on, retaining the slightly stilted tone, “This is Helga Barthel of Alfo Investment speaking. I urgently need to contact Nadia. She flew to Geneva on Thursday and—”

At that point she was interrupted. Nadia's mother knew nothing about her being in Geneva and, for her part, wanted to know what Alfo Investment was. When told, she didn't seem to be at all pleased. She hung up without a word. Redialling immediately produced no result, no one answered.

She got the note with Jacques's mobile number out of the car boot and tried it. She didn't have much hope she'd be able to communicate with him, but if the Beckmann had led to a reconciliation and Nadia was with him, presumably it would be enough to ask for her. But the number appeared not to exist any longer.

Strangely enough, that seemed to calm her down and she went over recent events and what she'd learned. That she appeared at Alfo Investment as a furniture company didn't necessarily mean anything. Hardenberg could scarcely have told his partner what or, to be more precise, who Lasko really was. He could still have rented a nice, bright apartment on the outskirts of the city from Behringer on Thursday, though that wasn't what he would have told Helga. Perhaps Philip really had fallen over at the airport and only wanted to send Helga to stay with her sister so that she wouldn't be alone all weekend. If she needed pills then that probably meant she was ill. And the fact that Nadia hadn't rung up again to make it clear when she was coming back - well, Nadia couldn't know that Michael was in Munich.

Perhaps Nadia, aware that her generous offer would have spurred her stand-in on to make a special effort, was treating herself to a long weekend with Hardenberg in Berlin - where there was no danger of them being pestered by Zurkeulen. Nadia's last instructions at the airport and the first, reasonably comprehensible, question in her distorted call on Friday had reflected her concern that Michael remain in ignorance. If Nadia had gone off with her lover and Zurkeulen's money, why should
she be bothered whether Michael noticed it was only her double in bed with him? And Wolfgang Blasting's odious remark about her stud suggested her marriage was very important to Nadia. Apart from that, would she abandon a house which, according to the title deeds, had cost one-and-a-half million marks for a mere two hundred thousand euros? Hardly.

She decided she must stay calm. Wait and see. At least until Monday. Monday was no problem, it was her day off. And until then the fact that Michael wasn't there meant she could live two lives at once. And for Susanne Lasko Sunday meant going to see her mother.

 

She got herself ready, tipped the tomato juice and egg down the sink, refilled the glass and seasoned it with salt and pepper. It perked her up. Shortly before one, without having tidied up in the kitchen or set the alarm, she got in the Alfa, used the remote control to raise the garage door - and took her foot off the accelerator.