The Lie (52 page)

After a while she risked a call to Dieter. It was Ramie who answered, but that wasn't a problem any more. “This is Nadia Trenkler. I'd like to speak to Herr Lasko.”

Dieter was delighted that everything had gone according to plan in Luxembourg. “So why do you sound so depressed?”

She told him and he tried to reassure her. He found Michael's reaction perfectly understandable. “He'll get over it,” he said. “If not today, then tomorrow. And if he doesn't, a divorce would really be the best solution anyway.”

Then he offered to contact all the other investors before any of them got as bolshie as Zurkeulen. He'd found out with which banks the money
was deposited and was convinced he could persuade the eight men to bide their time until the dust had settled.

“But we can't get at the money,” she said.

“No, but I imagine Hardenberg can. And after his experiences with Zurkeulen, I'm sure I can get him to see what's in his best interest.”

She was grateful to him for taking her mind off the man down in the pool, if only for a few minutes. “Why didn't you give Wolfgang the letters or the laptop?”

Dieter interrupted her with a soft laugh. “The letters have long since been burned to ashes, the rest as well. As for the laptop - no one would have let that out of their hands, except to give it to an accomplice. I didn't want to come under suspicion of being involved in the fraud if you'd been found out.”

He couldn't rule out that still being a possibility, he said, but he felt there was somewhat less risk now that she'd even dealt with Jacques.

But at what cost! The thought of what Michael must be going through at that moment hurt terribly. She waited half an hour before she ventured down and stood there, six feet from the edge. He was halfway down the pool, thrashing the water with long strokes. When he reached the end, he saw her and panted, “I don't believe it. I simply don't believe it.”

She didn't know what to say. That she was sorry, that she loved him? Nadia would presumably have done that, but she wasn't Nadia. She knew from her own experience the agony of feeling betrayed - even if her marriage hadn't been perfect. Perhaps the hurt went even deeper then, because you were suddenly forced to face up to the fact that what you'd been holding on to was an illusion.

He levered himself out of the pool and said, “I need something to eat. Let's go to Demetros's.”

“No, let's stay here,” she begged. “I'll make us something.”

“Don't bother. I have to get out of here before I go out of my mind.”

Perhaps he was right. With other people around they'd be forced to keep themselves under control. And perhaps once he could stand back from it a little… After a brief hesitation, she nodded. On the stairs he asked, “Where's the money? Can I see it?”

There was no reason not to let him have a look at the contents of the briefcase. He made no comment on the fact that it was beside the safe instead of in it. After he'd stared at the neat bundles of banknotes for
a few seconds, he wanted to know if she found it difficult to hand the briefcase over to Zurkeulen.

“No,” she said.

With a scornful laugh he went into the dressing room and put on a shirt and trousers. He brought the mink jacket for her. He hadn't filled his car and since the Alfa was still parked in the street, they took that. He drove. Hardly had they got away from the houses than he asked, “Whose child is it?”

“Yours,” she assured him. “Really. You must believe me.”

Presumably Jacques had given him a different version. Michael just nodded, his jaw clenched, and asked, “Does Alina know you're pregnant?” When she shook her head, he went on, “Then you should tell her as soon as possible. Perhaps the prospect of becoming a grandmother will make her amenable to a reconciliation.”

For a second her brain seemed to freeze. Ignorance comes out sooner or later. As Dieter had predicted. Michael was calm, much calmer than he ought to have been. All the feelings that must have followed his realization seemed to have been washed away in the water of the swimming pool. But now he knew she wasn't Nadia, there was no doubt about that. He spoke in a monotonous voice that made her quiver with fear.

He listed the differences, starting with minor ones. Everything could have been explained, had been in most cases. Her difficulties in the pool - she'd hit her head when he pushed her in. That she hardly spoke a word of English in Paris and no French at all - Pamela had been determined to improve her German. That she hadn't taken the clothes hanger off the hook with the jacket in the cloakroom - she'd been afraid Zurkeulen might kill him and Andrea; Ramon wouldn't have hesitated if a patrol car had driven up outside. That she hadn't put the briefcase with the money in the safe - it wasn't worth it because she had to hand it over to Zurkeulen the next day. And she had known about Arosa. But she didn't know her own mother's first name.

 

Jacques Niedenhoff had never split up with Alina, that was Nadia's father. And Nadia had always called her mother by her first name. Alina had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth and had never had much sympathy for people who endeavoured to make as much money as
possible. It was just about acceptable for men, but when a daughter tried to tread in her father's footsteps, that was it for Alina.

It was Nadia's unbridled pursuit of money that had led to the breakup of her parents' marriage because Alina blamed it on her husband. Michael told her that because it was something she couldn't know. He assumed she'd got her information about his wife from Hardenberg or by snooping round the house. Nadia would certainly never have said a word about her parents, it was not for nothing that she'd burned almost everything that might remind her of them: her school reports, her certificates, her whole past. He had managed to salvage one single photograph album and hidden it among his old things in the loft.

Michael knew the touching letter to
Jacques, mon chéri
only too well. He'd been the one who'd been in the house when it had been returned from Geneva. Not because Jacques had refused to accept it, but simply because he was no longer staying in the hotel where Nadia had sent it. And Nadia hadn't been asking Jacques for a reconciliation but for mediation. She wanted him to put in a good word for her with her father, whom she loved dearly. Jacques had done so, though unfortunately in vain.

As he'd already told her, Nadia's catastrophe had ushered in a terrible time for him. Only it hadn't been just the alcohol and the scenes Nadia had made in the lab, it was the realization that he could only play second fiddle in Nadia's life. The first fiddle, however, was not Jacques Niedenhoff. It was Nadia's father. Michael had imagined he had been promoted to first fiddle when, after his father-in-law had broken off all contact, Nadia had marched into the lab and threatened to feed Beatrice Palewi to the mice if she so much as touched him ever again.

At that point, he gave a laugh, though it came out more as a sob. Nadia had definitely been in love with him, he said. In her own way she had even been deeply in love with him. And she'd been unfaithful, if at all, perhaps once, with Wolfgang. In the summer he'd come across the two of them in a slightly compromising situation. Nadia had presumably relished the idea of getting her hands on a man who could be dangerous to her or to Hardenberg and twisting him round her little finger. But an affair with Jacques Niedenhoff?

Nadia had given him several nasty surprises, which was why his suspicions hadn't been immediately aroused when she'd started to act out the farce with Jacques. An affair with Jacques would have been a
bit much, but he couldn't entirely rule out the possibility. Even Jacques's vehement denials could be seen as fitting in. It would have been more than simple adultery. Jacques Niedenhoff was Nadia's cousin. That was why he'd got so worked up and made such a fuss: “If she should take it into her head to tell Aunt Alina this nonsense!”

She was trembling all over and couldn't reply when he asked, “Did you kill her?”

She couldn't even shake her head, only stare at him in horror. He gave a hollow laugh. “No. You left that to those swine and moved in with me. What did you think you'd achieve by that? Or was it Hardenberg's suggestion? Did he think there was incriminating evidence against him in the house? Nadia had frequently downloaded files from him, was he afraid she might have got hold of the wrong files?”

At least she'd got her voice back, if only a hoarse whisper. “No. That wasn't the way it was. I was here before that.”

“What?” He cleared his throat. “Since when have I had the pleasure then?”

“Since the twenty-eighth of November,” she whispered, “And twice before that, once in…” She couldn't finish the sentence.

“My God!” he exclaimed. Then, more vehemently, “Nonsense! The twenty-eighth was a Thursday. I know that because we had a lot of bother in the lab. She rang…” He broke off and bit his lip.

“I rang the lab,” she whispered. She couldn't tell whether he'd heard and understood.

He shook his head, again and again, at the same time making short, harsh sounds. When, after a few seconds, he went on again, she realized that he couldn't believe her because he didn't want to believe her. For him Nadia had died because he'd upbraided her so scathingly that Thursday night and been so nasty to her early on the morning of the twenty-ninth. Because on the thirtieth, the Saturday, he'd driven off to Munich in the morning. He spent minutes wallowing in self-reproach. All the things he'd reproached her with in the bathroom that morning no longer seemed true, nothing more than a toy that could be taken out of the drawer when required. All that counted now was that he hadn't been there when Nadia had truly needed him.

He had his own idea of what had happened. Wolfgang had told him that the presumed Susanne Lasko had been killed at some time on the
Saturday night. And on that Saturday night Nadia had been at Lilo's party, where she'd collapsed and been seen safely home by Jo - only to then be lured into a trap by her or Hardenberg. After she'd been killed they'd planted the false papers on her. And she'd taken up residence in the house.

But then she'd found she couldn't get on the computer, so she'd decided to clear off again. If he hadn't returned unexpectedly from Munich on the Sunday she'd have been miles away with Nadia's papers and Zurkeulen's money. And he would never have found out the truth about what had happened to his wife.

She tried once more. “No. It was quite different.”

And he laughed again, a contemptuous laugh, and insisted on details. She started with the first meeting by the lift in Gerler House. He brushed it aside. Wolfgang, he said, saw that quite differently, namely that she and Hardenberg had met. Otherwise Nadia would definitely have told him about an encounter with a double.

His image of Susanne Lasko was based entirely on what he'd heard from Wolfgang: a crafty little devil, an artful bitch who'd hoodwinked everyone and even stolen from her own mother. Wolfgang - with Dieter's all-too willing help - had unearthed some ugly facts about Susanne Lasko.

She was far too churned up inside to pay attention to where they were going. And every time she tried to clear something up or said Nadia's name, he interrupted her. She did manage to get as far as mentioning Nadia's request that she stand in for her as the sulky wife, but when she went on to the dress rehearsal on the Sunday afternoon in August, he didn't want to know. And he refused to hear anything about the twelfth of September. He apologized sarcastically if, given the situation, he felt he couldn't take any more lies. All he wanted to find out was who he'd been duped by for days on end, as if he was a complete idiot.

The Alfa bumped slowly along an unmade track, coming to a halt on a tiny patch of rough ground. He switched off the headlights. Immediately it was pitch dark. Nothing, absolutely nothing could be seen. Not even his face. Only after several seconds, which seemed endless, did her eyes adjust to the darkness. She could make out vague shapes outside the car. Tree trunks! Massive tree trunks. “Where are we?” she asked.

He'd put his face in his hands and didn't reply. She repeated her question, unable to keep a quiver of panic out of her voice. He lowered his hands and, staring fixedly out into the darkness ahead, said, “Demetros's.”

“But there's no restaurant anywhere around here?”

He laughed. “Who said Demetros's was a restaurant? It's a club, a meeting-place for like-minded people or whatever you want to call it. We often came here, my wife and I.” He made an odd sound that was almost a sob. Then he went on. “A relationship needs a breath of fresh air now and then. It was her idea. She was afraid I might get the feeling I was missing out on something. It's very relaxing - jacuzzis, saunas for two. There's things to eat, too.”

He got out. She followed him, forgetting to take her jacket and handbag. She stood by the Alfa, trying to get her bearings. He locked the car and disappeared into the trees. “Wait,” she called and stumbled after him along a narrow footpath. “Wait a minute Michael, I—”

She broke off as she ran into him. He'd stopped at the edge of a small clearing. Not even the outline of a building was to be seen. She was almost choking with panic, but there was something inside her that refused to believe he'd lured her out of the house and driven with her to this lonely spot with a specific purpose in mind. And not as a spontaneous decision, he must have made it while he was still in the pool.

“But there's no one here at all,” she stammered. “And anyway, I don't believe you. Nadia was immensely jealous. She'd never have gone somewhere with you where there were women you…”