The Trap (13 page)

17

The tune is still ringing in my ears when I return to the dining room.

I sit down, determined to keep my cool from now on.

Lenzen still has on his friendliest face.

‘You look pale,' he says. ‘If you need a little break, it's no trouble at all. I have plenty of time—I can fit in around you.'

If I didn't know he was a wolf, I would have no trouble believing his concern to be genuine.

‘No need,' I say coldly. ‘Feel free to continue.'

Inside, however, I am in turmoil. I try to remember all the things Dr Christensen taught me. But the shock is deep; it's as if my head has been swept clean.

‘All right then,' says Lenzen. ‘What about writing? Do you enjoy writing?'

I look him in the eye. ‘Very much,' I reply mechanically.

My sister was called Anna.

‘So you're not one of those authors who wrestle with every sentence?'

When I was little, I envied Anna her name that you could read backwards as well as forwards. She was very proud of that.

‘Not at all. Writing for me is like having a shower or cleaning my teeth. In fact, you could almost say it's part of my daily hygiene. If I don't write, I feel as if all my pores are blocked.'

Blood gave Anna the creeps.

‘When do you write?'

When I grazed my knee as a child, I would ignore it, and when I cut my finger, I would pop it in my mouth and marvel at the taste of iron, and that I knew what iron tasted like. When Anna grazed her knee as a child, or cut her finger, she would scream and cry and I would say, ‘Don't be such a girl!'

‘I prefer to start early in the morning, when my thoughts are still fresh and I'm not yet saturated with phone calls and news and everything that I see and read and hear in the course of the day.'

‘Tell me about your working methods.'

My sister Anna was stabbed seven times.

‘I'm disciplined. I sit down at my desk, spread out my notes, open my laptop and write.'

‘You make it sound so easy.'

‘Sometimes it is.'

‘And when isn't it?'

The human body contains four-and-a-half to six litres of blood.

I shrug my shoulders.

‘Do you write every day?'

The body of a woman my sister's size contains roughly five litres of blood. After thirty per cent blood loss, the body enters a state of shock. This serves to slow down the rate at which the blood is pumped out of the wound and to reduce the energy and oxygen requirement of the body.

‘Nearly every day, yes. Of course, when I've finished a book, there's a phase when I'm looking for new ideas and researching—when I'm still preparing for the next project.'

‘On what basis do you decide what your next project will be?'

The last thing Anna saw was her murderer.

‘Gut instinct.'

‘Your publisher gives you a free hand?'

Before I got my driving licence, I did a first-aid course.

‘He does now, yes.'

‘How much of yourself do you put in your characters?'

Most of the time, however, I spent flirting with the instructor.

‘That's never really a conscious decision. I don't sit down and decide: this character should have thirty per cent of my feelings and that one should have the same childhood memories. But, of course, there's a bit of Linda in all my characters.'

‘How long did you take to write your last novel?'

The paramedics and the police all told me that Anna was already dead when I entered the flat.

‘Six months.'

‘That's not long.'

‘No, it's not.'

But I'm not so sure.

‘What made you write this book?'

Perhaps the last thing Anna saw was her useless sister.

I don't reply. I reach for a new bottle of water and open it. My hands tremble. I take a sip. Lenzen's eyes track my every move.

‘What illness do you have again?' he asks casually, pouring himself a glass too.

Clever wolf. He says it as if it were common knowledge. But we both know that I have never talked publicly about my illness.

‘I'd prefer not to talk about it,' I say.

‘When did you last leave the house?' Lenzen continues.

‘About eleven years ago.'

Lenzen nods.

‘What happened eleven years ago?'

I have no answer.

‘I'd prefer not to speak about it,' I say.

Lenzen accepts that, only raising his eyebrows slightly.

‘How do you cope with being housebound?' he asks.

I sigh. ‘What can I say to that?' I reply. ‘I don't know how to describe it to somebody who has never experienced it. The world is suddenly very small. And, at some point, you have the feeling that your own head is the world and that beyond your head there is nothing. Everything you see through the windows, everything you hear—pelting rain, deer at the edge of the woods, electric storms over the lake—it all seems so far away.'

‘Is that painful?'

‘At first it was very painful, yes,' I say. ‘But it's amazing how quickly something that begins as unbearable becomes normal. We can resign ourselves to anything, I suppose. Maybe not get to like anything, but resign ourselves. Pain, despair, servitude…'

I make an effort to provide detailed answers, to keep the conversation flowing. A standard interview. Let him stay on his guard. So what if he's left guessing, kept on tenterhooks?

‘What do you miss most?'

I consider for a moment. There are so many things that don't exist in my world: other people's brightly lit living rooms for peeking into during the evenings, tourists asking the way, clothes wet from the rain, stolen bikes.

Dropped ice-cream cones melting on hot asphalt, maypoles.

Disputes over parking spaces, meadows of flowers, children's chalk drawings on the pavement, church bells.

‘Everything,' I say at length. ‘Not necessarily the big things—safaris in Kenya or parachuting over New Zealand or lavish weddings, although of course all that would be nice too. More the little, everyday things.

‘Such as?'

‘Walking along a street, seeing someone you like the look of, smiling at him and watching him smile back. The moment when you find out that a new, promising-looking restaurant has opened on the premises that have been empty for so long.'

Lenzen smiles.

‘The way little children sometimes stare at you.'

He nods.

‘Or the smell in a florist's… Things like that. Having the same human experiences as everyone else and feeling…how can I put it?… connected to everyone else as a result, in life and death and work and pleasure and youth and old age and laughter and anger and everything.'

I pause and realise that, although this isn't really about the interview, I'm making an effort to answer the questions honestly. I don't know why. It feels good to talk. Maybe because I so seldom have anyone I can talk to, or anyone asking me questions.

Bloody hell, Linda.

‘And I miss nature,' I say. ‘A lot.'

I suppress a sigh because I can feel desire rising in my throat like heartburn.

Maybe all this would be easier if Lenzen were repulsive.

Lenzen is silent, as if to let my words resonate. He seems to be reflecting on them for a moment longer.

But he is not repulsive.

‘Are you lonely?' he asks.

‘I wouldn't really describe myself as lonely. I have a great many friends and acquaintances, and even if they can't visit me all the time, there are plenty of ways and means to keep in touch nowadays without constant personal contact.'

It is hard to be immune to Lenzen's presence. He is an excellent listener. He looks at me and, without meaning to, I wonder what he sees. His gaze rests on my eyes, strays to my lips, my neck. My heart beats faster with fear and I-don't-know-what.

But when he asks, ‘Who are the most important people in your life?' alarm bells are set off in my head.

I'm damned if I'm going to reveal my vulnerabilities to a murderer. I could lie, but decide it would be better to play the cagey celebrity.

‘Listen,' I say, ‘this is starting to get a bit too personal. I'd prefer to concentrate on questions about my book, as we agreed beforehand.'

Everything is churning away inside me. Somehow I have to get Lenzen to answer my questions.

‘Sorry,' says Lenzen, ‘I didn't want to intrude.'

‘Good,' I reply.

‘Are you in a relationship?' Lenzen asks, and I can't help frowning.

He immediately backs off and follows up with another question.

‘Why exactly are you giving an interview again after such a long time?'

As if he's not quite sure why he's here.

‘I'm doing it at the request of my publishers,' I lie, without batting an eyelid.

A smile plays on Lenzen's lips.

‘Back to my last question,' he says, parrying my move. ‘Are you in a relationship?'

‘Didn't you say you didn't want to intrude?' I ask.

‘Oh, sorry. I didn't know that asking about a partner was too private,' Lenzen says. He's put on a remorseful expression, but his eyes are smiling. ‘All right then, back to the book. Your main character, Sophie, goes to pieces when her sister dies. I very much like the passages where we are plunged into Sophie's thoughts. How did you manage to work your way into the mind of such a broken and ultimately self-destructive character?'

The hit below the belt is unexpected. After all, Sophie—the broken woman—is me. I swallow hard; my throat is dry. I tell myself that this is the beginning of a conversation that I have to put myself through. I am here as prosecutor, jury and judge. Trial, presentation of evidence, verdict.

Here goes then.

‘I would consider it one of my personal strengths that I am extremely good at empathising with all my characters,' I say. ‘But, as I see it, Sophie is by no means broken. She almost breaks down at the death of her sister—that's true, I suppose. But in the end she musters all her strength to prove her sister's murderer guilty and eventually succeeds.'

Just as I will succeed. That is the subtext of what I've just said, and Victor Lenzen knows it. He seems to swallow it.

‘Another interesting character for me is the police officer. Is he based on a real person?'

‘No,' I lie. ‘I have to disappoint you there.'

‘Didn't you consult real policemen when you were working on the book?'

‘No,' I say. ‘I do admire fellow authors who go to such lengths and carry out meticulous research. But I was more interested in the dynamics between the characters. Psychology is more important to me than technical niceties.'

‘As I was reading, I had the feeling that the main character and the married police officer had got quite close to one another—that there were the beginnings of a romance there,' says Lenzen.

‘Really?'

‘Yes! Reading between the lines, I felt that something could have happened.'

‘In that case, you know more than the author,' I say. ‘The two characters like each other; that was important to the story. But that's as far as it goes—a few moments of complicity, nothing more.'

‘Did you specifically avoid incorporating a love story?' Lenzen asks.

I don't know what he's driving at.

‘To be honest with you, it didn't occur to me for a second.'

‘Do you think you'd write different books if you led a normal life?'

‘I believe that everything we do and experience has an influence on the art we produce, yes,' I say.

‘If you were in a relationship, then maybe boy would have got girl at the end of the novel?'

I try not to snort. How stupid does he think I am? But it's a good thing he's getting personal again, because I've had an idea.

‘I don't quite follow your line of reasoning,' I say. ‘And I've already told you that I don't want to talk about personal matters.'

I hope he won't leave it at that, and my prospects are good, because he's bound to be under orders to wheedle as much personal information out of me as possible. My new book may be of some interest, but there is no doubt that a glimpse into the psyche of the famous and mysterious Linda Conrads is worth so much more.

‘It's hard to separate the artist from her work,' says Lenzen.

I nod. ‘But you must also understand that I feel uncomfortable talking about personal matters to a stranger,' I reply.

‘Okay,' he says, hesitantly. He seems to be wondering how to continue.

‘Do you know what,' I say, then pause, pretending I've only recently hit upon the idea, ‘I'll answer your questions if, for every question you ask, I can ask one of my own.'

He looks at me in bewilderment, but recovers, conjuring an amused expression.

‘You'd like to ask me something too?'

I nod. Lenzen's eyes blaze. He senses that the preliminary skirmish is now over. He imagines I'm going to open the game at last.

‘That sounds fair,' he says.

‘Then ask away,' I say.

‘Who are the most important people in your life?' asks Lenzen without a moment's hesitation.

My thoughts stray to Charlotte, who's still wandering around somewhere in the house, unaware that she met a murderer a moment ago, and maybe a psychopath. To Norbert, who is goodness knows where, but probably fuming. To my parents. To my sister, who has been dead a long time now, but who has also become the most important person in my life since her death. Like a tune you can't get out of your head.

Love, love, love, la-da-da-da-da.

‘Nowadays, it's mainly people connected with work,' I say. ‘My publisher, my agent, the other people in the company, a handful of friends.'

That is vague and it's best that way. Now it's my turn. I'll begin with innocuous questions to find out how Lenzen replies and reacts when he's relaxed, and then proceed to more provocative questions. Like a lie-detector test.