The Trap (30 page)

‘And I tell her that she should shut up, but she carries on.

‘“Don't think you can get rid of me. By the time I'm finished with you, you'll have nothing left. No wife, no job, no child. And don't think I'm not serious. Don't go thinking that!”

‘I'm stunned. Rigid with fury. Almost blind. And she laughs.

‘“The way you're looking at me, Victor! Like a dog in disgrace! Maybe I should call you Vicky from now on. That's a lovely name for a dog, isn't it? Come on, Vicky. Heel! Good doggy.”

‘She laughs her naughty laugh—her boyish laugh that I'd fallen so desperately in love with, but that now makes me feel sick. She laughs and laughs; she won't stop. She carries on until…'

Lenzen breaks off. He's silent for a moment, caught up in his memories. I hold my breath.

‘
Family man stabs mistress
,' he says at length. ‘That's the kind of headline the papers run in these cases. Four words:
Family man stabs mistress
.'

He laughs again. I'm speechless. I don't know what shocks me more—the fact that Anna had a secret affair with a married man for almost a year, or the incredible and awful banality of Lenzen's motive. A lover's tiff. A man who is provoked by his mistress and ends up killing her in a fit of rage. I hear Julian's voice:
It's always the partner.

Life is often so much less spectacular than fiction.

‘You're a murderer,' I say.

Something rips inside Lenzen.

‘No!' he screams.

He thumps his fist down on the glass table.

‘Fuck!' he roars.

But he recovers his composure at once.

‘Fuck,' he says again, this time quietly.

Then, in short sharp bursts, it comes tumbling out of him.

‘I didn't mean to do it. I hadn't planned it. I didn't kill anyone to protect myself or cover anything up. I simply freaked out. I saw red. It was only a few seconds before I came to my senses again. Only a few seconds. Anna—the kitchen knife—all that blood… I stared at her—stared and stared. Stunned. I couldn't get my head round what had happened, what I'd done. Then the doorbell rang and straight after that a key turned in the lock. I'm standing there as if I've turned to stone, and suddenly this woman comes into the room. And looks at me. I can't describe what it felt like. But then I could move again, and all I wanted was to get away. So I went out through the terrace door and ran. Scared—my face a mess from crying. I ran through the night. Home—where else? Instinct, I guess. Threw away my clothes, threw away the knife, automatically, like a robot. Went to bed. To my wife, the baby in her cot beside us. And waited for the police. Stared at the ceiling, rigid with terror, waiting for the police. Lay awake in panic all night, and went to work as if on autopilot the next day, but nothing happened. Lay awake in panic another night—and the next and the next. But nothing happened. I couldn't believe it. I almost wanted it to happen—wanted them to come and get me, if only to put an end to the waiting. At times I managed to persuade myself that it was only a bad dream. Might even have ended up believing it, if it hadn't been all over the papers. I tried to save my marriage, but it was going down the pan, in spite of the baby. Might have done anyway, even if I hadn't been completely distraught after that night. Even setting aside the fact that I could hardly bring myself to hold our baby—with these hands that had… I don't know. The fear certainly remained. The intense fear of the first days and weeks became less acute, but it was still there. Not just fear the police might pull up outside my house with screaming sirens, but the fear that I might meet the woman with the short dark hair and the shocked look in her eyes, who had surprised me in Anna's flat. Bump into her in the supermarket. Or at a party, or… I was in a permanent state of fear. But no one came. At some point, I realised that Anna had kept her word. She really hadn't told anyone about us. Nobody knew about us. I didn't feature in her life. There was no connection between us. I was a chance acquaintance nobody knew existed. I was unbelievable lucky.
Unbelievably
lucky. After a while, you start to think there might be a reason why you've got off. That you've been given a second chance. Maybe have some task to perform. Then this job cropped up in Afghanistan. No one wanted it, no one felt like venturing to the front line in a war-ravaged, dusty country. But
I
wanted the job. I thought it was important work. So I went, and when my contract came to an end, I carried on. It was work that mattered.'

He nods emphatically, almost as if he needs to convince himself. Then he is silent.

I blink, dazed. Victor Lenzen has finally confessed.

For so many years, I have thought it would be a relief to know the truth. But now I feel only emptiness. Silence is filling the room. You can't hear a thing—not so much as a breath.

‘Linda,' Lenzen says at last, leaning forward in his armchair. ‘Please give me your phone.'

I look at him.

‘No,' I say with a firm voice.

You must pay for what you've done.

My eyes rest on the heavy ashtray on the coffee table. Lenzen notices. He sighs sadly and leans back.

‘Some years ago I reported on death-row candidates in the States,' he says.

My mind is whirring. I'll never let Lenzen have my phone. He's going to pay for what he's done; I'll make sure of it.

‘They were fascinating, those men,' Lenzen continues. ‘Some of them had been on death row for decades. In Texas I got to know one of them a bit. He'd been sentenced for a robbery and murder he'd committed with a few mates in his mid twenties. In prison he converted to Buddhism and began to write children's books. He donated the proceeds to charity. The man had been sitting in jail for almost forty years when he was executed. The question a case like that raises is: is the sixty-five-year-old who's been sitting on death row for forty years for a murder he committed as a twenty-five year old still the same person? Is he still the murderer?'

I look at Lenzen, hoping he'll keep talking, because I don't know what's going to happen when he stops.

Where are you, Julian?

‘What happened that night was a dreadful mistake,' he says. ‘A momentary loss of control—only a moment. Terrible and unforgiveable. I'd give anything to be able to turn the clock back. Anything. But I can't.'

He falls silent.

‘But I've done penance,' he begins again, ‘as well as I could. Every morning I wake up with the intention of doing my best. Of doing good work. Of being a good person. I support a lot of wonderful organisations. I do voluntary work. I even saved somebody's life, for God's sake! A child! In Sweden, in a river. No one dared go in the water. But I did.
That's
me! What happened back then, that…that was only a moment. Am I to be judged by that all my life? In my own eyes? In the eyes of my colleagues? My daughter? Am I never to be anything but a murderer?'

For quite some time he hasn't been talking to me but to himself.

‘I'm more than that,' he says quietly.

Now I know why I was taken in by him, why I believed him. He wasn't lying to me when he said he was innocent—just a journalist, just a father, just a good man. He really believes it. It's his truth—his skewed, distorted, cobbled-together, self-righteous truth.

Lenzen glances up at me.

There's determination in his eyes. A cold shudder runs down my back. We're alone. Julian's not going to come. Who knows whether he ever got home? Who knows whether his girlfriend will ever pass on my message? It no longer matters. It's too late.

‘You can still do the right thing,' I say. ‘You can go to the police and confess what happened that night.'

Lenzen shakes his head. ‘I can't do that to my daughter.'

He doesn't take his eyes off me.

‘Do you remember asking me whether there was anything I'd kill for?' he asks.

‘Yes,' I say, swallowing heavily. ‘Your daughter.'

He nods.

‘My daughter.'

At last I understand the strange expression on Lenzen's face that I wasn't able to interpret. Lenzen is sad. Sad and resigned. He knows what's next and he doesn't like it. It makes him sad.

I look at him—the journalist, the war correspondent. What a lot his grey eyes have seen, what a lot of stories in those lines on his face. I think to myself that in different circumstances, I would probably have liked him—in different circumstances, it would be nice to sit here with him and talk about Anna. He would remind me of things I had forgotten or never known about—little quirks. But these aren't different circumstances and there are no others.

‘I've made sure that someone will come and look for me if I don't report back,' I remind him huskily.

‘Give me your phone, Linda.'

‘No.'

‘What I've told you is only meant for you,' he says. ‘It's true what you said earlier—you more than deserve the truth. It was only fair to tell you what you wanted to know. But now give me your phone.'

He gets up. I stand too, and back away a few steps. I could make a dash for the stairs, but I know he'd be quicker and I don't want him behind me—him and that heavy ashtray.

‘Okay,' I say.

I put my hand under my jumper and pull out the phone. Lenzen's body relaxes. What follows happens quickly. I don't stop to think. I make a dive for the windows, fling one open and hurl the phone out in a high arc. It lands somewhere in the grass. A hot pain grips my arm. I turn around.

And find myself looking into Lenzen's cold eyes.

33

For such a long time I had only one wish: to find Anna's murderer. Now that I'm standing face-to-face with him and everything has been said, I want something else.

I want to live.

But there's no way out of here. With two short steps, Lenzen has blocked the way to the front door, and the balcony is out of the question. Nevertheless, I fling open the door and step outside. A cool wind brushes my face. Another two steps and I'm at the balustrade.

I can't go any further. Looking down, I can make out the lawn in the dark and, beyond it, the road where the taxi stopped. It's too far to jump. No escape. I hear a metallic noise and sense Lenzen behind me.

I turn to face him—can't believe my eyes.

He's crying.

‘Why didn't you stay in your house, Linda?' he asks. ‘I'd never have done anything to you.'

In his hand he's holding a gun. I stare at him aghast. He can't get away with that. People will hear the shots, especially here, in this quiet residential area. How can he possibly hope to get away with it?

‘The police will be here almost the second you pull the trigger,' I say.

‘I know,' Lenzen replies.

I don't understand what's going on. I look into the muzzle. I'm stunned—as if hypnotised. It looks exactly like my pistol—the one I threatened him with, the one he ended up throwing in the lake. My synapses click as it becomes clear to me.

‘You recognise it,' says Lenzen.

It
is
my gun. There's nothing in the lake at all. I see it before me—Lenzen's arm moving through the darkness, making to throw but not letting go. Lenzen dropping the gun somewhere, unnoticed—on the grass, perhaps—to be picked up again later, unobserved, just in case. Canny. Quick-witted. He can't have planned that. It practically fell into his lap—a gun, procured by me illegally and covered in my fingerprints.

‘That's my gun,' I say feebly.

Lenzen nods.

‘It was self-defence,' he says. ‘You're clearly mad. You had me followed, you had me watched. You threatened me—I have that on tape. And now you turn up in my house with a gun. There was a tussle…'

‘Did you ever intend to leave the country?' I ask.

Lenzen shakes his head. I understand at last. It was a trick to make sure I came here. In a rush. In a panic. Before the night was over. A simple and elegant trick to lure me to his house and get rid of me at last. With my own gun.

A trap is a device to catch or kill.

The trap that Victor Lenzen set for me is masterly.

He's got me. I can't get away now. But his gun hand is trembling.

‘Don't do it,' I say.

I think of Anna.

‘I have no choice,' Lenzen replies.

His forehead is beaded with sweat.

‘We both know that's not true,' I say.

I think of Norbert, of Bukowski.

‘But it sounds like the truth,' says Lenzen.

His upper lip twitches.

‘Please, don't do it!'

‘Be quiet, Linda.'

I think of Mum and Dad.

‘If you do this, you really are a murderer.'

I think of Julian.

‘Shut up!'

Then I have only one thought: I'm not going to die here.

I turn around, clear the parapet of the balcony with one leap, and fall.

I land heavily. It's not like in a film. I don't roll over and hobble away; I come crashing down and my right ankle is gripped by such intense pain that for a moment it's as if I'm blinded, and I crouch there on all fours like a wounded animal, confused and almost sightless with fear. I shake my head, trying to drive away the dazed feeling. Then I look about me, expecting to see Lenzen standing at the balustrade, looking down at me. But there's no one there. Where is he?

Then I hear him. Oh God, how long have I been crouching here? I try to get up, but my right leg lets me down, giving way.

‘Help,' I scream. But no sound comes out. I realise that I've landed in one of my own nightmares—that I've dreamt this so often, whimpering and drenched in sweat, this dream where I scream and scream and no sound comes out. Again, I try to get up, and this time I succeed.

I hop on my good leg, stumble, catch my fall on my bad leg, whimper with pain, go down on my knees, can't go on, but must go on, crawl along, blind and scared, through the darkness. Then I see him, before me. I don't know how he did it; he should be behind me, coming from the house, but he's coming from ahead; he emerges from the darkness without warning and comes towards me. I ignore my pain and stand up. I see only his silhouette, the gun in his hand, and stand to face him.