Therapy (7 page)

He helped her clumsily into her coat and escorted her to the door. Anna stepped outside, then turned round suddenly. Her mouth was almost touching his face.

‘Oh, that reminds me. You know you asked about the title?’

‘Yes?’ Viktor took a step backwards, feeling a rush of nervous energy.

‘I don't suppose it's relevant, but the book had a subtitle. Oddly enough, it didn't have anything to do with
the plot. The idea came to me in the bath and I went along with it because it sounded sort of funny.’

‘What was it?’

For a split second he wondered whether he really wanted to know. Then it was too late.

‘
The Blue Cat
,’ said Anna. ‘Don't ask me why. I was going to have a picture of a blue cat on the jacket.’

10

‘OK, let's get this straight . . .’

Viktor could tell that the paunchy detective was shaking his head incredulously on the other end of the line. He had rung the PI as soon as Anna left the house.

‘You're telling me that a mental patient turned up on your doorstep in Parkum?’

‘Correct.’

‘And this woman is convinced that she's being hounded by characters from her own books.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you want me to find out whether the delusional ramblings of Ms . . . What was her name again?’

‘Sorry, Kai, but I'd rather not say. She's a patient – not
my
patient – but a patient all the same. Everything she tells me is confidential.’

To a point
.

‘And you reckon Ms What's-Her-Name's hallucinations are connected to Josy's disappearance?’

‘Right.’

‘You know what I think?’

‘You think I'm crazy.’

‘That's putting it mildly.’

‘I don't blame you, Kai. But I can't dismiss what she told me. It's too much of a coincidence.’

‘You can't – or you don't want to?’

Viktor pretended not to hear. ‘A small girl succumbs to a mysterious illness and disappears without trace. And not just anywhere –
in Berlin
.’

‘OK,’ said Kai, ‘but the woman could have been lying when she said she hadn't read the papers. What if she knew about Josy?’

‘I considered that too, but Josy's health problems weren't public knowledge.’

Viktor remembered how the police had advised them to keep back the information regarding Josy's sickness. The media would have seized on the story of the mystery symptoms and sensationalized the case.

Besides, there was another advantage to withholding the details, as the young officer in charge of the investigation explained, ‘It gives us a means of identifying the real abductor. We're expecting all kinds of calls from opportunists who claim to be holding Josy in the hope of getting their hands on your cash.’

The tactic proved effective. The appeals for information about Josy prompted a flurry of calls from people all claiming to be the kidnapper. In response to the question ‘How is Josephine?’ they invariably reported that she was doing ‘just fine’ or ‘quite well, considering the circumstances’. Both replies were definitively wrong. Josephine fainted on a daily basis and being abducted was hardly likely to have improved her health.

‘OK, Doc, so a little girl gets sick and runs away from home,’ said the PI. ‘So far, so good, but what about that stuff about a royal palace and an island?’

‘Technically, Schwanenwerder
is
an island. It's only accessible from Berlin-Zehlendorf by a bridge. And the house is practically a palace, you said so yourself. As for the stuff about the princess, Isabell used to call . . . or rather, Isabell calls our daughter her
little princess
. It all adds up.’

‘Listen, Victor, don't get me wrong. We've known each other for four years now, and I'd like to think we're friends – but you shouldn't take this woman seriously. She hasn't told you anything you didn't already know. Her story's like a horoscope – too vague to be useful.’

‘You're probably right, but I owe it to Josy to check out every possible lead, no matter how unlikely.’

‘All right, you're the boss. But let's remind ourselves of the facts. The last credible sighting of Josephine came from an elderly couple who saw a man walk out of Dr Grohlke's clinic with a little girl. They didn't challenge the guy because they assumed he was the father. Their statement was backed up by the man who runs the kiosk on the corner. Your daughter was abducted by a middle-aged man. And she was twelve years old, not nine.’

‘Don't forget the blue cat! Josy's favourite toy was a fluffy blue cat called Nepomuk.’

‘Hallelujah! Supposing this woman abducted your daughter, why would she come to you? She hides out with Josy for four years and then one day, out of the
blue, she hops on a ferry to Parkum. It doesn't make sense.’

‘I'm not saying she was responsible for Josy's disappearance; I'm saying she knows something, that's all. And I'll do my utmost to get it out of her in the course of her analysis.’

‘You're seeing her again?’

‘I invited her for another chat tomorrow morning. I hope she'll come; I was a bit unfriendly at first.’

‘Why don't you cut to the chase and ask what she knows about Josy?’

‘How?’

‘Show her a picture. Ask if she recognizes her, and if she says yes, call the police.’

‘I've only got a photocopy of a newspaper article. I didn't bring any decent photos.’

‘I can fax you one.’

‘It's not worth it. I wouldn't be able to use it – yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘In one respect my patient was definitely telling the truth: she's schizophrenic. As a therapist, I have to earn her trust. She's already signalled to me that she doesn't want to talk about what happened. If she thinks that I'm accusing her of perpetrating a crime, she'll never speak to me again. She'll shut down completely. I can't take that risk if there's the slightest chance that Josy might be alive. She's my last hope.’

Hope
.

‘You know what, Viktor? Hope is like a shard of glass.
Tread on it, and you'll end up wincing with every step. The best policy is to tweezer it out. Sure, it will hurt like billy-o and the wound will take a while to heal, but after that you can walk again. There's a thing called grieving, and you should try it. The kid's been missing for four years! For Christ's sake, Viktor, a jumbled story from a mental patient isn't exactly a promising lead!’

Unknown to the PI, his perorations on the nature of hope had furnished Viktor with the answer to
Bunte
’s second question.

‘OK, Kai, we'll make a deal. I'll stop searching for Josy in return for one last favour.’

‘What?’

‘Find out if there's any record of a car accident taking place in the vicinity of Grohlke's clinic between 15.30 and 16.15 on November 26. Can you do that for me?’

‘Yep. But in the meantime I want you to back off and put all your energy into finishing your bloody interview. Understood?’

Viktor simply thanked him for his help. It seemed silly to make promises that he had no intention of keeping.

11

Three days before the truth, Parkum

Bunte: It was obviously an immensely stressful time for you. What helped you cope?

Viktor chuckled. In a few moments, his next session with Anna would begin, provided she turned up. They had made the arrangement the previous day, but Anna had refused to commit. Working on the interview was a way of distracting himself. He had deliberately chosen the easiest question in order to take his mind off Charlotte.
And Josy
.

What helped you cope?

He didn't have to think about the answer. It consisted of one word:
alcohol
.

At first it was a sip or two, but the longer Josy was missing, the more it took to numb the pain. In the end he was drinking a full tumbler for every bad thought. Alcohol repressed the memories – and gave him some answers as well. More specifically, alcohol
was
the answer.

Viktor leant back and stared at the ceiling. He was impatient to hear the end of Anna's story. There was still no news from Kai about the car crash, but he wasn't prepared to wait. He had to know what happened next. He needed more details, details that might reveal new connections, no matter how remote. And he needed a drink.

He chuckled again. It would be easy to convince himself that there were valid medical grounds for adding a dash of rum to his tea. Some varieties of alcohol were supposed to help against colds, but Viktor had left his trusted helpmates on the mainland and come to Parkum alone. Over the past few years most of his conversations had been conducted with Jim Beam and Jack Daniel's. In fact, he had come to depend on them so completely that his mind had been filled with a single obsessive thought: when could he call on them again?

Isabell had tried to intervene. She had talked to him, looked after him, commiserated with him, and pleaded with him.

When the angry phase was over, she did what anyone would advise an alcoholic's wife to do: she dropped him. Without so much as a goodbye, she upped and moved to
a hotel. She didn't even call. He only noticed her absence when he ran out of supplies and felt too wretched to make the trip from the house, past the busy Wannsee lido, to the service station.

Then came the pain of sobriety – and with it, the memories.

Josy's first tooth.

Her birthdays.

Starting school.

Unwrapping a bike at Christmas.

Car journeys.

And Albert.

Albert
.

Viktor gazed out of the window at the dark sea. He was so lost in thought that he didn't hear the light footsteps in the hall.

Albert
.

If there was one reason why he had stopped drinking, it was him.

Back in the days when Viktor had a life and a job, he would leave the office at five o'clock and take the motorway in the direction of Spanische Allee. Shortly after the Funkturm interchange he would pass the dilapidated grandstands that in times gone by had been packed with spectators enjoying an evening out at the Avus speedway, now converted into highway A115. As he drew level he would see an old man with an ancient ladies’ bicycle standing by a gap in the fence. The old fellow waited in the same place almost every evening, gazing after the
passing cars. It was the only section of motorway from Wedding to Potsdam that hadn't been blocked off by noise barriers and tall screens. And whenever Viktor hurtled past at a hundred kilometres per hour, he would find himself wondering why a person would be interested in watching the rear lights of car after car. Viktor never had time to look at him properly. He passed him on hundreds of occasions, but he was always driving too fast to make out the expression on his face. In spite of their almost daily encounters, he would never have recognized him on the street.

One evening, after a family outing to the Franco-German Volksfest in Reinickendorf, Josy noticed him too.

‘What's he doing?’ she asked, leaning round to watch through the rear window.

‘He's confused,’ was Isabell's phlegmatic response.

It didn't seem to satisfy Josy. ‘I think he's called Albert,’ she murmured softly, just loud enough for Viktor to hear.

‘Why Albert?’

‘Because he's lonely and old.’

‘I see. And lonely old men are called Albert, are they?’

‘Yes,’ she said simply, and so it was settled. From then on, the old man was no longer a stranger and Viktor caught himself nodding at him as he drove home from work.

‘Hello, Albert!’

Several years later, when he woke from an alcoholic stupor on the marble bathroom floor, it dawned on him that Albert was looking for something too. Whatever Albert had lost, he was obviously trying to find it in the stream of passing traffic. He and Albert were two of a kind. Viktor jumped into his Volvo and raced to the gap in the fence. Even from a distance he could tell that the old man wasn't there. He wasn't there the next day or the next day either. Albert was nowhere to be found.

Viktor knew exactly what he wanted to ask him. ‘Excuse me, I was wondering what you were looking for. Have you lost someone too?’

But Albert steadfastly refused to show himself. He was gone.

Like Josy
.

On the eighteenth day of driving to Albert's old haunt, Viktor gave up and drove home to start another bottle. Isabell was waiting at the door. She handed him a letter. It was from the editor of
Bunte
, requesting an interview.

‘Dr Larenz?’

The voice scattered his thoughts. He stood up suddenly, ramming his right knee against the desk, then breathed in a mouthful of tea and spluttered frantically.

‘Oh goodness,’ said Anna who was standing right behind him. ‘It's my fault, Doctor, I shouldn't have startled you again.’ She stayed where she was, watching passively as he struggled for air. ‘The door came open as soon as I knocked. I'm awfully sorry.’

Viktor knew full well that the door had been locked, but accepted her apology with a nod. He raised a hand to his head and realized that he was pouring with sweat.

‘You look worse than yesterday, Doctor. I should probably go.’

He could feel her looking at him and he suddenly realized that he hadn't said a word.

‘No, stay,’ he said, his voice a little louder than intended.

Anna tilted her head to the side as if she hadn't fully understood.

‘Stay,’ he said again. ‘I'll be fine. Take a seat. I'm glad you came. There's a couple of things I'd like to ask you.’

12

Anna took off her scarf and coat and made herself comfortable on the couch. Viktor returned to his usual position at the desk. He clicked his mouse and pretended to be scrolling through her case notes when really the information was saved in his head. It was just a ploy to buy himself time – he needed to steady his nerves if he was to quiz Anna about what she knew.