Therapy (2 page)

Dr Viktor Larenz presented a predicament of an entirely different kind. For a start, he wasn't clad in dirty track pants or wearing a T-shirt riddled with holes. His face was free from oozing pimples and his feet were too elegant for battered trainers. In fact, there was something undeniably distinguished about his trim build, upright posture, broad shoulders, high forehead and assertive chin. A Berliner by birth and upbringing, he was frequently mistaken for a patrician from the north, and it was only his lack of greying temples and a classical nose that prevented him from appearing the perfect Hanseatic gentleman. Even so, there was something suavely appealing about his curly brown hair, which he had taken to wearing longer, and crooked nose, a painful reminder of a sailing accident. He was forty-three years old, but his age was indeterminate and his appearance left little doubt that this was a man whose handkerchiefs were mono
grammed and who never carried change. His skin was perhaps a little pallid, but that was the hallmark of a high-flying doctor with a busy career. All this served to heighten Maria's dilemma. Distinguished psychiatrists who spent a small fortune on tailor-made suits had a natural aversion to making spectacles of themselves, but Dr Viktor Larenz was shouting hysterically and waving his arms. Maria, unable to make sense of the outburst, had no idea what to do.

‘Larenz!’

Viktor turned in the direction of the gravelly voice. Alarmed by the disturbance, Dr Grohlke, a gaunt old man with sandy hair and hollowed eyes, had excused himself from his consultation and emerged from his office. His expression conveyed concern.

‘Is something the matter?’

The enquiry seemed to stoke Viktor's wrath. ‘What have you done with Josy?’

Dr Grohlke shrank back in alarm. He had known the Larenz family for almost ten years but he had never seen Viktor like this.

‘Listen, Larenz, old chap, why don't you come into my office and we can . . .’

But Viktor was no longer listening. His eyes were fixed on the door to the office, which the allergist had left ajar. He took off at a run, sending the door flying open with his foot. It crashed into a trolley holding instruments and jars. The woman with psoriasis was
lying on a couch. Her upper body was exposed, and in the shock of the moment she forgot to cover her breasts.

‘What's the matter with you, Larenz!’ shouted Dr Grohlke, but Viktor was out of the room and running down the corridor.

‘Josy!’

He doubled back, trying every door.

‘Josy! Where are you?’ His voice cracked with panic.

‘Dr Larenz, please!’

The elderly physician hurried after him as best he could, but Viktor, out of his mind with anxiety, was deaf to his pleas.

‘What about this room?’ he demanded when the final door on the left refused to yield.

‘Cleaning products. Nothing but cleaning products. The cleaner looks after the key.’

‘Open up!’ Viktor shook the handle like a man possessed.

‘Now look here . . .’

‘OPEN UP!’

Dr Grohlke seized his arms and gripped them with surprising strength.

‘Calm down, Larenz! You've got to listen to me. Your daughter isn't in that cupboard. The cleaner locked it first thing this morning and she won't be back till tomorrow.’

Viktor's breath came in gasps. He listened to the words without absorbing their meaning.

‘Let's deal with this logically.’ Dr Grohlke relaxed his grip and laid a hand on Viktor's shoulder.

‘When did you last see your daughter?’

‘Half an hour ago,’ Viktor heard himself say. ‘I left her in the waiting room and she went into your office.’

The old man shook his head in consternation and glanced at Maria, who had followed them out of the foyer.

‘I haven't seen Josephine,’ she told her boss. ‘She wasn't booked in for today.’

Nonsense!
Viktor wanted to scream at her. He clutched his head.

‘I know for a fact that Isabell made the appointment. We arrived here this morning before Maria started work. The fellow at reception told us to go through and wait. Josy was tired and frail, so I went to fetch her some water, and by the time I got back she was—’

‘Fellow?’ queried Grohlke. ‘The support staff are women.’

Viktor looked at him disbelievingly, still grappling with what he was hearing.

‘I haven't set eyes on Josy all morning. She didn't have an appointment.’

The doctor's words were all but obliterated by a high-pitched noise that reached Viktor's ears from a distance, becoming louder and more oppressive as it drew near.

‘Haven't seen her?’ he said distraughtly. ‘Of course you've seen her. I was on my way back from the water fountain when the man at reception called her through. I'd promised Josy that she could see you on her own. She's twelve now and she likes a bit of independence –
she even locks the bathroom door. In any case, when I got back and she wasn't in the waiting room, I assumed she was with you.’

It dawned on Viktor that he had failed to say a single word. His mouth was open and his mind was racing, but the thoughts were trapped inside his head. He looked around helplessly, feeling as though the world was slowing down. The noise became more piercing, more intolerable, until he could barely hear the hubbub around him. Everyone seemed to be addressing him at once: Maria, Dr Grohlke, even some of the patients.

‘I haven't seen Josy for nearly a year.’ That was the last statement that Viktor heard with any clarity. For a fleeting moment, everything became apparent. Like a dreamer on the cusp of waking, he glimpsed the awful truth. For a fraction of a second the whole business was laid open: Josy's illness and the pain that had haunted her for the past eleven months. He knew what had happened, knew what had been done to her and, with a lurching stomach, knew they would be after him too. Sooner or later they would get to him, he knew it with unshakeable conviction, but the moment passed and the horrible truth escaped him, disappearing as forlornly as a single drop of water in a flood.

Viktor raised his hands to his head. The piercing noise was getting closer all the time, agonizing and overwhelming, more than he could bear. It sounded like the shriek of a tortured animal, not a human cry, and it ended some time later, when his mouth eventually closed.

1

Years later

He could never have foreseen that he might one day change places. At one time the room he was in, a spartan private ward at Berlin-Wedding Psychosomatic Clinic, had been reserved for his most difficult patients, but now eminent psychiatrist Dr Viktor Larenz found himself strapped to the narrow hydraulic bed, legs and arms tied down with grey elastic straps.

Not a single person had visited in all the time he had been there – no friends, former colleagues or family. The only distraction, besides the yellowing woodchip paper, grease-spotted brown curtains and water-stained ceiling, was the twice-daily appearance of Dr Martin Roth, a young consultant psychiatrist at the clinic. No one had actually requested a visitor's permit, not even Isabell. Dr Roth had explained the situation, and Viktor could scarcely blame his former wife. Not after what had happened.

‘How long has it been since you stopped my meds?’

The psychiatrist paused his examination of the electrolyte drip hanging from a three-pronged metal stand at the head of Viktor's bed. ‘Three weeks, Dr Larenz.’

It was, Viktor felt, to Roth's credit that he continued to address him by his title. Over the last few days they had conducted a number of conversations and Roth always treated him with absolute respect.

‘How long have I been lucid?’

‘Nine days exactly.’

‘Right.’ Viktor paused for a moment. ‘So when will I be released?’

The quip brought a smile to Dr Roth's face. They both knew that he would never be discharged. If he ever left the clinic, it would be for another psychiatric facility of similar security.

Viktor gazed down at his hands and shook the straps lightly. The clinic had obviously learned from experience. He had been stripped of his belt and shoelaces as soon as he was admitted. There was no mirror in the bathroom, and during his twice-daily supervised trips to the toilet he had no means of seeing whether he looked as wretched as he felt. At one stage in life he had been complimented on his appearance, attracting attention because of his broad shoulders, thick hair and well-toned body, perfect for a man of his age. These days his declining physique left little to be admired.

‘Tell me truthfully, Dr Roth: how does it feel to see me lying here like this?’

The psychiatrist, mindful to avoid eye contact, stooped to pick up the clipboard at the foot of the bed. He seemed to be debating what to say.
Pity? Concern?

He decided on the truth: ‘Alarming.’

‘Because the same thing might happen to you?’

‘I suppose that strikes you as selfish.’

‘No, just honest. I appreciate your frankness. Besides, I'm not surprised that you feel that way. We have a good deal in common, after all.’

Roth merely nodded.

Present circumstances notwithstanding, the two men's lives were alike in many ways. They had both enjoyed privileged childhoods in the sheltered environment of Berlin's elegant boroughs: Viktor, descended from a long line of corporate lawyers, in Wannsee, and Roth, the child of two hand surgeons, in Westend. After studying medicine at Berlin's Free University, they had gone on to specialize in disorders of the mind. As the sole beneficiaries of their parents’ wills, they had come into possession of the family estate and a sizeable fortune – but instead of retiring for the rest of their days, they had ended up in the clinic as patient and doctor, brought together by coincidence or fate.

‘You can't deny there's a certain similarity between us,’ said Viktor. ‘So what would you have done if you were me?’

‘You mean, if it were
my
daughter and I found out who put her through such pain . . .’ Roth finished his notes, replaced the clipboard and allowed himself to meet Viktor's gaze. ‘To be honest, I don't think I'd survive what you had to cope with.’

Viktor laughed uncertainly. ‘I didn't. It killed me. Death can be unimaginably cruel.’

‘Perhaps you could tell me about it.’ Roth perched on the edge of Viktor's bed.

‘About what?’ He needn't have asked. Viktor knew exactly what the psychiatrist was suggesting. They had discussed the matter several times before.

‘All of it. I want you to tell me the whole story: what happened to Josephine, what was making her ill . . . Why don't you tell me what happened and start from the beginning?’

‘You've heard most of it already.’

‘I'd like to hear the details. I want to know step by step what happened and why it ended that way.’

The final catastrophe
.

Viktor allowed the air to escape from his lungs and stared at the patchy ceiling. ‘The awful thing is, during all those years after Josy disappeared, I thought nothing could be worse than not knowing. Four whole years without a reported sighting, with no reason to believe she was alive. Sometimes I longed for the phone to ring and a voice to tell me that her corpse had been found. I thought nothing could be more agonizing than being in limbo, never knowing, just suspecting. But I was wrong. There is something worse.’

Roth waited for him to continue.

‘The truth is worse.’ His voice was almost a whisper. ‘The truth. I almost glimpsed it at the start. It came to me while I was standing in Dr Grohlke's clinic on the day that Josy disappeared. It was so dreadful, so unbearable that I had to shut it out. Much later it caught up
with me again and this time I couldn't ignore it. It came after me and confronted me; quite literally confronted me. It stared me in the face.’

‘What happened?’

‘I found myself face to face with the person responsible and it was too much to bear. Well, you know better than most what happened on the island and what became of me after that.’

‘The island,’ said Roth musingly. ‘Parkum, wasn't it? What took you there?’

‘You're the psychiatrist; you tell me.’ Viktor smiled. ‘Very well, I'll give you my version of the answer. A news magazine requested an exclusive interview. I'd been approached by the press more times than I can remember and I'd always turned them down. Isabell didn't like the idea of talking to the media. Then
Bunte
emailed me some questions and I started to wonder: perhaps doing the interview would straighten out my thoughts. I wanted closure.’

‘And you thought Parkum would be the place to work on your response?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did anyone go with you?’

‘My wife was against the idea. She had an important business appointment in New York and didn't want to come. Frankly, I was glad of the solitude. I hoped Parkum would give me the space I needed.’

‘The space to say goodbye to your daughter.’

It was a statement, not a question, but Viktor nodded
all the same. ‘Yes, I suppose you could call it that. In any case, I loaded the car, put the dog in the back, and drove to the coast. We caught the car ferry to Sylt, then a passenger boat to Parkum. If only I'd known what was in store for me, I wouldn't have gone.’

‘Tell me about Parkum. What happened on the island? When did you start to notice the connections?’

Josephine's mystery illness. Her disappearance. The magazine article
.

Viktor lowered his chin to his chest and rotated his head. There was a cracking sound as the vertebrae in his neck clicked into place. Any other form of movement was impossible with his limbs tied to the bed. He inhaled slowly and closed his eyes. It never took more than a few seconds for his thoughts to lead him back to Parkum; back to the thatched cottage on the beach where he had hoped, four years after the tragedy, to get his life back on track. He had searched for a new beginning and tried to find closure, but the process had cost him everything he had.

2

Five days before the truth, Parkum

Bunte: What was it like in the aftermath of your daughter's disappearance?

Larenz: Like death. Of course, I was still eating, drinking and breathing and I sometimes managed to sleep for a couple of hours at a stretch, but I wasn't living anymore. My life was over the day that Josy went missing.