The Sinner (28 page)

Grovian smiled. `And to look, from where you were sitting, as
if he were attacking her. You were afraid he would hit her. Did it
remind you of what happened in the cellar?"

She didn't reply at once, just heaved a deep, weary sigh. Several
seconds went by. Then she said curtly: "If you insist on sticking to
that story, find out for yourself. Question a few more people. You're
fond of asking questions. Why should I spoil your fun?"

So saying, she took a blouse, a skirt, a set of underclothes and her
toothbrush from the desk. She didn't ask again for permission, just
walked to the door with Grovian at her heels. Werner Hoss joined
them in the passage, where Grovian tried once more.

"Frau Bender, it really doesn't pay to be so stubborn. If Georg
Frankenberg

"Who's being stubborn?" she broke in. "Not me, for sure. I
just don't like this probing of yours. You've seen what comes out:
a load of filth! And I spun you such a pretty yarn. Romantic to
begin with and pathetic at the end. A dead baby - dead babies are
always pathetic, not dirty. The truth is dirty. The truth is riddled
with worms and maggots; it turns black and stinks to high heaven.
I don't like filth or foul smells."

"Nor do I, Frau Bender, but I like the truth, and in a case like this
it would only be to your advantage to be frank with us."

She laughed mirthlessly. "Don't worry about my advantage, I
can look after it myself. I always did, even as a child. I went astray
quite early on. Someone like me goes right off the rails sooner or
later. There's the truth for you. No one had to give me anything,
least of all `stuff'. Anything I wanted I took."

He stood outside in the passage, chaperoned by Hoss, while she
was having a quick wash and changing her clothes - with the door
open. As he listened to the unmistakable sounds he ran through
the nocturnal dialogue between her and Margret Rosch again and
again.

It got to the point where he felt he must be paranoid to detect
a covert message in their harmless words and suspect her shocked
and worried aunt of being a bringer of death. But, paranoid or
not, he would have to take another good look at the contents of
her little suitcase. He could have sworn that she had preserved her
imperturbability only because Margret Rosch had brought her
something more lethal than painkillers. Perhaps they had merely
been a ploy to distract attention from a razor blade or something
similar.

Her brain still resembled a block of ice, impossible to melt or chip
away, no matter how hard the chief tried. The only warmth inside
her was a searing pain behind the ribs. Margret shouldn't have
brought that photo with her.

It had jolted her badly to see the boy again, looking so innocent and carefree, but that had been her last backward glance. Lot's wife
had promptly congealed into a pillar of salt. She was stiff inside,
as stiff and cold as Mother had been when she sat on the bed with
Magdalena and spoke of the sins the Lord had not forgiven.

But the boy was in good hands with his grandparents - she no
longer thought of them as her parents-in-law - and sooner or later
they could tell him his mother was dead. When they told him it
would be the truth. The chief could take as many precautions as
he liked; she knew what she had to do. She also knew how to do it!
Margret also seemed to have known that opportunities in a prison
cell were limited and that she must restrict herself to something
outwardly natural and innocuous-looking. The authorities were
bound to close the case after the death of the accused. Why should
they go on rooting around in filth?

They drove to Briihl in silence, Werner Hoss at the wheel, the
chief sitting beside her in the back. He seemed at last to have
grasped that she would remain adamant whether he threatened,
implored or even entreated her on his knees.

Her confrontation with the examining magistrate passed off
surprisingly quickly. In a businesslike tone, the chief stated what
she was charged with. She listened to it all with an impassive
expression. The magistrate asked if she wished to say anything. She
said she had already made a detailed statement and had no wish to
keep on repeating herself. The magistrate advised her of her rights
and formally remanded her in custody. Then it was over.

A minor shock awaited her when the chief re-examined her
suitcase with the greatest care. He even felt the lining as if he
suspected the presence of a couple of grains of sand and ended by
confiscating the tights.

"Hey, what are you doing?" she protested. "You've no right to
pinch my things."

"I've every right," lie said. "Besides, it's too hot for tights. You
aren't wearing any at the moment."

Then he left her alone. She had lunch in her cell. It wasn't bad.
Compared to what her mother used to dish up, in fact, it was
excellent.

So there she was. It was as if the past had been her life's true
objective - as if she were having to recollect once more, with
extreme clarity, what a bad person she'd been. Yet the memories
she had broached hitherto were still comparatively innocuous.

She could hear a noise outside the door at brief, regular intervals.
So the chief really had given instructions for her to be watched,
but he was much mistaken if he imagined he could compel her to
delve into the past. Resentment of him stiffened her resolve; and
her head, still frozen, generated ideas as clear as glass. She waited
for someone else to ask her some questions, but she didn't have to
wait for long.

Around ten on Monday morning she was taken to be interviewed
by the district attorney. A thoroughly amiable young man with
a big sheaf of papers in front of him, he pointed out that her
statement was worthless in its present form. He couldn't accept
it until she told him the names of the two men concerned. Not
those absurd nicknames, Billy-Goat and Tiger. He needed their
real names - and, of course, the name of the girl. It would, he said,
be in her own best interests to cooperate.

She almost laughed. Did this youngster imagine he knew what
was in her best interests? "Didn't Herr Grovian tell you I retracted
all that nonsense yesterday?" she asked.

He shook his head. She stared at him uncertainly. "Then what
shall I tell the judge?" she asked, managing to sound resigned.
"What do you advise?"

"Tell him the truth," he said.

She bowed her head, looking disconsolate. "But the truth amounts
to so little," she said quietly. "I was furious with the woman."

The DA raised his eyebrows. "What had she done to infuriate
you?"

"Nothing, really," she said in a low voice. "My husband thought
she was hot stuff - he said she'd got some fire down below I'd
always done my best to satisfy him. Then along comes a tart like
that, and his eyes are out on stalks. It wasn't the first time either.
He used to leer at the talent whenever we went to the lido, and
afterwards he'd often want to do things I didn't like and call me a prude. I could well imagine what I was in for that night, and
I'd had it up to here, understand? I wanted to teach one of those
brazen bitches a lesson, but I couldn't get at her, so I thought ..."

She looked over his shoulder at some indeterminate point. "I
thought it didn't matter who I stabbed, her or the man. He was
enjoying it too. They're all pretty much alike, those bastards."

The DA had had enough. He enquired about the stab wounds,
which lie said she'd inflicted "with precision". When she merely
shrugged he asked how she'd sustained the injuries to her head.
She repeated what she'd told the chief the last time: she was high
on H and had walked in front of a car. The good Samaritan - the
tipsy doctor who had driven into her - was a pure invention on
her part. Her injuries had been treated at the district hospital in
Dulmen.

Cora couldn't help smiling as she said this. She didn't even
know if there was a district hospital in Dulmen. Manni Weber
had been born and raised in Dulmen, and his grandmother still
lived there. A year ago he'd asked her for a few days' unpaid leave.
His grandmother had had a fall and was in the hospital with a
fractured thigh. Exactly where, he hadn't said.

The DA didn't smile. "We'll check that," he said.

She thought lie would at last get her to sign a confession, but no.
The whole thing must be taken down again from scratch, he told
her, and it would be better to wait until her statements had been
verified. Her confession could then be signed and submitted to the
examining magistrate.

Shortly after noon she was taken back to her cell. She spent half
the afternoon wondering how to end things. Eventually she hit on
the tissue idea. Although she didn't have any tissues, she felt sure
they would give her some if she asked. Tissues were as innocuous
as going for a swim. When they brought her supper she asked for
some.

"Have you got a cold?" the wardress asked.

She nodded and sniffed a bit. "I'll bring you some in a minute,"
the woman said and moved on.

She ate a little. She was still feeling good - not hungry, but all right in other respects. Having pushed the tray aside, she kneeled
in front of the bed and folded her hands.

It was the first time in ages, and she found she could do it only
because there wasn't a crucifix there. It wasn't too hard to ask an
invisible Saviour to forgive her for committing the ultimate sin. She
saw the man's bloodstained face as she did so. Georg Frankenberg!
And his expression ... He had forgiven her, that was certain.

Something inside her was still firmly convinced that it had been
right to kill him. Frankie, she thought. A gentle soul! Married three
weeks as opposed to her three years. Three was a magic number, it
suddenly struck her, but she didn't immediately grasp what was so
remarkable about it. When it dawned on her ...

There had been three crosses on Golgotha, and the two men
who were crucified with the Saviour had deserved to die. The man
in the middle had been guiltless.

It smote her like a red-hot iron, transfixed her between the
shoulder blades, crept up her neck into her brain and began to
melt the frozen mass. How could she have lost sight of that, even
for a moment? The Saviour was utterly unblemished, purer and
more innocent than any mortal man could be. She trembled
convulsively for minutes on end. Her father seemed to be standing
over her. "What have you done, Cora? What have you done?" And
hovering above her father's head was the cross with its guiltless
occupant.

She struggled to her feet at last and shuffled over to the washbasin.
When the tray was collected soon afterwards she was still washing
her hands, forgetful of the tissues she'd asked for. The wardress
had forgotten them too.

Rudolf Grovian had spent some hours at the Otto Maigler Lido on
Sunday afternoon. Not on her recommendation, nor had he driven
there with his wife. By the time he got into his car Mechthild was
on her way to Cologne. She had waited lunch for him, naturally
hoping that he would come with her, but he baulked at the idea of spending a fruitless afternoon at their daughter's flat when he
hadn't even inspected the scene of the crime.

Except that there was nothing to see apart from water and
crowds of people. No question, either, of sitting in the sun and
letting the atmosphere or surroundings work on him. Grovian was
feeling depressed - wavering between his own belief and Werner
Hoss's opinion that Johnny, Tiger and Billy-Goat had nothing to
do with Georg Frankenberg.

He sat on the trampled grass, watching the half-naked people,
young and old, men, women and children. An elderly couple
strolled down to the water's edge hand in hand. The man must
have been on the verge of retirement age, if not older. Grovian
couldn't remember the last time he'd walked hand in hand with
Meclithild. In the old days they'd often talked of all the things they
planned to do when their daughter left home - weekend trips into
the blue, a few days in the Black Forest or beside the North Sea
- but nothing had come of them to date.