The Sinner (38 page)

He didn't budge, although he suddenly felt it would be the best
solution. Psychiatry might seem horrendous to someone who didn't
need it, but Professor Burthe enjoyed an excellent reputation.
Burthe would discover why Georg Frankenberg had had to die.
He was also bound to discover whether, when and under what
circumstances Cora Bender had met Frankenberg and whether
heroin had played a part in it, or whether she had come into
contact with the drug later on. His own intentions in regard to her
were fundamentally nonsensical. They would yield no evidence
that would stand up in court, nor were they likely to establish a
connection with Frankenberg. As for his wish to satisfy himself
that her aunt had merely been launching another diversionary
manoeuvre ...

He drew a deep breath. "I realize you're angry with me, Frau
Bender. I also realize you've no wish to talk to me, but I didn't
come here to talk, just to ask you to do something for me."

Her look of surprise and enquiry was still alloyedwith satisfaction.
He felt in his jacket pocket. The hell with it! He'd got hold of the
stuff and now he wanted to know the truth. Taking a plastic bag
from his pocket, he went over to the table in the middle of the
ward and laid out the contents: a hypodermic syringe still in its
wrapping, a metal spoon, a candle end, a tourniquet and a small
sachet filled with white powder.

She surveyed them with a look of cold distaste. "What's this,
taking a leaf out of the Americans' book? Lethal injections save
the state a fortune, and we're pretty broke. What do you want me
to do, OD?"

"There isn't enough in there for that."

She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. `A little something to
cheer me up, then? Very nice of you, but no thanks. They give me
enough dope in here already. I'll be interested to see if I can give it
up as easily as I did that stuff there."

"Didyou find it easy to give it up?" He almost grinned. It seemed
a tiny indication that her aunt had been telling the truth in this
respect. "If so, you're the great exception," he added. "Other
people go through hell."

"I slept through it," she said tartly.

He nodded. "Thanks to that nice doctor of yours, I presume.
Doctors have ways of easing withdrawal symptoms, of course.
From all I've heard, though, most of them make an addict go
through hell as part of the cure. Ah well, there are different kinds
of hell. We'll talk about that later."

"I'm not talking at all," she said firmly. "Neither now nor later."

"Very well," he said. "You don't have to. You don't have to inject
yourself either. Just show me you can do it."

She chuckled derisively. `Ah, so that's it: you've been talking to
Margret. What did she tell you? That I didn't know how to fill
a syringe? It's different when you're at your wits' end, you know
When you're scared of being thrown out because you've already caused a lot of aggro and someone catches you shooting up. You
have to think of something fast." She chuckled again. "What
happens if I show you I can handle the stuff? Will you leave me in
peace at last?"

When he nodded she got up off the bed and came over to the
table. She raised her forefinger like someone bidding a child pay
attention. "Good, then let's make a deal. I'll show you. In return,
you must leave my father alone as well as me. I want you to shake
hands on it."

He held out his hand, momentarily surprised by the firm grip of
her slender fingers. Then he handed her a lighter.

She sighed, looking at the wrapped syringe and the tourniquet.
"But I'm not putting that round my arm," she said. "I never liked
the feel of it. It'll be good enough if I fill the syringe and apply
it to the back of my hand, won't it? I couldn't get it into my arm
anyway. Will that be all right?"

He nodded again.

"Let me think, then. It's been quite a while." She put a finger
to her head, then said: "First we stick the candle to the table. If
it leaves any wax behind, you can explain it to them. It was your
idea."

"You don't have to stick the candle to the table, Frau Bender," he
said, but she'd already lit the wick and was dripping wax onto the
tabletop by rotating the candle end.

"But it's safer if your hands shake," she said, "and they usually do.
That way the candle won't fall over, at least. You can concentrate
on the spoon and make sure you don't spill any of the precious
stuff. So, what next?"

She picked up the sachet, rubbed it between her fingers and
peered at the white powder through the transparent plastic. "What
is this? It isn't H! You can't give me H!"

She eyed him thoughtfully with her head on one side. "But you
wouldn't do that, you aren't that stupid. You know perfectly well
I'd grass on you as soon as your back was turned. What did you put
in there? It isn't flour - flour isn't as white as that."

When he didn't reply she said: "I'm only asking because of the solution. There mustn't be any lumps or it wouldn't go through
the needle."

He still didn't speak. With a shrug, she carefully tore open the
sachet and sniffed the contents. Then she moistened a finger and
inserted it. Never taking her eyes off him, she slowly put the finger
to her lips and dabbed it with the tip of her tongue.

"Icing sugar," she said. "That's not fair, when I've always had
such a sweet tooth. You wouldn't have a knob of butter in your
pocket, would you? I could make us a few nice caramels. They'd
be more enjoyable than this nonsense of yours."

When he didn't respond, feeling suddenly stupid and privately
cursing Margret Rosch and her opinions, which were just a tactical
smokescreen, she shrugged again. `All right," she said, "let's get it
over."

She tipped the contents of the sachet into the spoon, went over
to the washbasin and turned on the tap. Having adjusted it until
it was only dripping, she held the spoon underneath and gave a
nod every time a drop landed in it, almost as if she was counting.
Twice she carefully stirred the solution with a fingertip. Then,
apparently satisfied with the consistency, she turned off the tap
and came back to the table. She smiled at him as she held the
spoon over the candle flame. Grovian did his best to look noncommittal.

`At least the water here is clean," she said. "We used to scoop it
out of the loo. Heaven knows what sort of shit I pumped into my
arms. No wonder they look as if they've been gnawed by rats."

She was uncertain, that was unmistakable. Her eyes flitted back
and forth between his face and the spoon. Eventually she removed
the spoon from the flame, smiled at him and said casually: "I think
that's hot enough. I mustn't let it boil."

Grovian found it hard to suppress a grin. When she picked up
the hypo with her free hand, lie caught hold of her arm. "Thank
you, Frau Bender, that'll do. You don't have to fill it."

He didn't know whether to laugh or swear, nor did he know what
bearing this had on the Frankenberg case. He only knew that her
aunt had been right: Cora Bender genuinely had no idea how to prepare a fix. She had never shot up by herself; she could at most
have seen someone else fill a hypo on television.

He blew out the candle, took the spoon from her and rinsed off
the sugar solution under the tap. Then he stowed everything in the
plastic bag and replaced it in his pocket.

"So," he said. "Remember our bargain? If you showed me you
could handle the stuff, I'd leave you in peace. Well, now you've
shown me you can't handle it, I'm at liberty to ask you a few more
questions."

She was so startled, she simply stared at him for a few seconds
before shaking her head and glaring at him angrily. "Did I do
something wrong? Yes, I know, I ought to have unwrapped the
syringe first. But I'd have done that - I could have managed it with
my teeth and one hand. It was mean of you to grab my arm before
I could show you, and now you say I couldn't have done it."

"It wasn't that, Fran Bender."

"What was it, then?"

"Why do you want to know? If you've washed your hands of
heroin, you've no need to know"

To hell with fear and feelings of guilt, his own and hers. He was
feeling good at this moment - damned good, in fact. The first step
had been taken, now for the second. He was undeterred by the fact
that she'd sat down on the bed again and was ostentatiously staring
out of the window with a face like stone. He felt sure he could
induce her to talk. He'd always managed to loosen her tongue and
chip away at her wall in the past. Another few well-aimed hammer
blows were all it needed.

"I couldn't speak to your father," he began, "and I never even
tried to speak to your mother, but your neighbour proved helpful."
He inserted a minute pause before adding the name. "Grit Adigar.
I'm sure you remember her."

She didn't reply, just sucked in her lower lip and went on staring
out of the window

"She told me about Horsti and Johnny Guitar," he went on,
mingling Grit Adigar's statements with his own conjectures.
`Johnny was a friend of Georg Frankenberg's, and Horsti was a little weed with pale skin and colourless hair. You'd been his
girlfriend since you were seventeen. Your neighbour also told me
about Magdalena. She told me you were very fond of her. You did
everything for her, and her death sent you right off the rails."

Grovian never took his eyes off her, but all she did was stare
out of the window and bite her lower lip. She'd gone pale under
the rainbow-hued bruises and the big strip of plaster on her
forehead. He felt almost sorry for her, but not quite. Pity wouldn't
help her.

"So," he said again. The word was like an audible punctuation
mark. "I'd like you to get something straight, Frau Bender. I'm
not your father. I'm not your mother. I'm not your aunt or your
neighbour. I imagine you must have been subjected to a lot of
questions and recriminations when you came home that time, but
I'm not interested in Magdalena. I don't want to know why you
left your sister by herself on that particular night. It's completely
irrelevant to me, understand?"

She didn't respond, so he went on: 'All I want to know is, what
happened that night at the Aladdin and afterwards? I want to know
what became of Horsti, whether you stayed with Johnny, when and
where you met Georg Frankenberg, whether and when you came
into contact with heroin and who gave it to you. Above all, I want
to know the name of the doctor who treated your injuries."

Still no reaction. Her hands were lying in her lap as though she'd
forgotten them. Her lower lip should have been bleeding by now,
she was biting it so hard.

`And don't lie to me again, Fran Bender," he said sternly, as
though speaking to a child - which was, in a way, how he looked
upon her. "I'll find out one way or another. It may take time, but
I'll get there in the end. Two of my men have been on the phone
since lunchtime, each with a long list beside him. They're calling
every doctor, every hospital in the Hamburg area. You could save
us a lot of time and money if you volunteered the information."

He gave a start, it happened so suddenly. As she repeated the
words, her voice rose from a whisper to a shout: "I don't know I
don't know! I don't know! I've no wish to know, either; when are you going to grasp that? I didn't go out at all that night - I wouldn't
have left my sister alone on her birthday!"

He raised his hands in a soothing gesture. "Easy, Fran Bender,
easy. I'm not talking about your sister's birthday. I know you didn't
go out that night. I'm talking about the night in August when she
died."

She shook her head like a wet dog, breathing heavily. Almost a
minute went by. Then she slowly raised her arm and pointed to the
door. "I'm not talking, I've told you a dozen times. Once and for
all: get out! Go away, get lost, you're the bane of my existence. Do
you seriously believe I'd confide in you again? You'd have to beat it
out of me. If I tell you shit, I'll never be rid of the stink."

Still shaking her head, she underlined her refusal by stamping
her foot several times. "No! That's it! Enough! Stop it, or you'll
send me to join my sister. Go away, or I'll shout the house down.
I'll tell them you tried to give me some heroin and I tipped it into
the washbasin. They'll believe me - you've still got the stuff in your
pocket. I'll say you wanted to have sex with me. Try proving the
opposite! If you don't go this minute, I'll give you a dose of your
own medicine. The boss of this place - he's the only one I'll talk to.
I told him everything this morning."

"Everything?" he said, ignoring her threat altogether. "Did you
really tell him the whole story, Frau Bender?"

Seconds went by. She stared past him at the door with an
inscrutable expression. "I told him all he needed to know," she
said, rather more calmly.

`And what did you withhold from him?"

Another few seconds went by. She swallowed a couple of times,
girding herself to reply. "Nothing that matters." She faltered,
clearly finding it hard even to get a word out. "Nothing that isn't
irrelevant from your point of view That I had a sister who died of
heart failure at the age of eighteen."

Grovian cursed his conflicting emotions. Reason pointed to the
door; compassion urged him to take her in his arms. There, there,
it's all right, it wasn't your fault. You weren't responsible for any of
it. No one is born guilty.

Instead, he said: "Your sister was terminally ill, Frau Bender. She
came home to die when she left the hospital that April, only she
didn't tell anyone."

"That's not true." She sounded as if she could scarcely breathe.

"Yes, it is," he said firmly. "The doctors will confirm that. Ask
your aunt if you don't believe it; she has the hospital records. It's
all down there, Frau Bender. Your sister would have died in any
case, even if you'd remained at home that night. You couldn't have
prevented it."