The Trap (25 page)

‘Don't you like the Beatles? It's a great tune!'

I stare at him.

‘What exactly were you whistling by'—my mouth is dry—‘by the…by the Beatles?'

Ferdi looks at me as if I were completely off my head. Perhaps he's right.

‘It's called
All You Need is Love
. Everyone knows it!'

He shrugs.

‘It's funny,' he says. ‘Since I heard it coming from your house yesterday, I've had it stuck in my head.'

Now I'm wide awake.

‘You were here yesterday?' I say. ‘But you're never here on a Thursday.'

I can feel my knees trembling.

‘Yes, but you said the other day that I could arrange my time to suit myself, so I thought it would be okay to come on a Thursday just this once.'

For a few seconds, I gape at him.

‘Should I have let you know?' he asks.

‘No, rubbish,' I stutter. ‘Of course not.'

I don't know what to say. My face feels numb.

‘Ferdi, I need to speak to you. Would you mind coming in for a moment?'

He looks confused. Maybe he's worried I'm going to sack him.

‘Well, I was actually about to pack up. I've got to be getting on to another client.'

‘Just for a second. Please!'

He nods uneasily.

On the way to the front door I try, without success, to put my thoughts in order. When I reach the door and fling it open, Ferdi is already on the doorstep.

‘Did I frighten you or something? With my whistling?' he asks.

‘No, you didn't, but—' I stop short, not wanting to go into it standing in the doorway. ‘Come on in first, Ferdi.'

He wipes his feet, leaving big clods of dirt on the doormat, and steps into the house.

‘Sorry,' he says, rolling his R in that inimitable way of his, and I wonder at the fact that I've never got round to asking him where his dialect is from. Ferdi's been looking after my garden for many years now and it must be making him nervous that today, for the first time, I didn't greet him with a smile. He's not as young as he was—must be well past retirement age, despite his dark hair and dark brown bushy eyebrows. I like him a lot, and apparently he either needs the work or enjoys it because he's never shown any sign of wanting to give up. That's for the best: it would break Bukowski's heart if I lost Ferdi and had to look for a new gardener. Bukowski loves Ferdi more than he loves almost anyone else.

As if on command, I hear a noise upstairs. Bukowski has woken up and, at the sound of our voices, he comes shooting down the stairs and jumps up at us—first at me, then at Ferdi, then at me again, and I almost have to laugh at him—my dog, my mate, this bundle of fur and energy.

I pick him up, take him in my arms and hug him to me, but he has no truck with my sentimentality, and twists and turns until I let him down again, then begins to scamper up and down the hall, chasing invisible rabbits.

Ferdi shifts his weight from one leg to the other, like a schoolboy expecting trouble.

‘It's nothing serious, Ferdi,' I say. ‘Take a break and have a cup of coffee with me.'

My knees are like rubber. I go on ahead into the kitchen. If Ferdi really did hear the music, then maybe it means that… And then everything else might also…

Not so fast, Linda.

I offer my gardener the kitchen chair I sat on yesterday (was it really only yesterday?) to have my photo taken. He lowers himself with a groan, but only because sitting down with a groan is the done thing at his age; it's all put on. In actual fact, Ferdi is fitter than I am.

As the coffee machine gurgles, I grope for words.

‘So you were here yesterday and got a song stuck in your head?' I say.

Ferdi looks at me, his head on one side. Then he nods, as if to say:
Yes—so what?

‘You really heard that song?'

He nods.

‘Where?' I ask.

‘Through the window. I didn't want to bother you, I really didn't. I saw you had visitors.'

I can see Ferdi hesitating.

‘Why do you ask?' he finally says.

How much should I reveal?

‘Just wondering,' I say.

‘Wouldn't want you to think I'd been eavesdropping,' Ferdi adds.

‘Don't you worry yourself,' I say. ‘That's not why I'm asking.'

The coffee's ready.

‘Well,' he says, ‘the windows were open yesterday and I was digging in the bed outside the dining room when I heard the song. The music was quite loud. But you'll know that.'

I want to laugh and cry and rage all at once. Instead I take two cups out of the cupboard.

‘Yes,' I say. ‘Of course. I was there.'

As if on autopilot, I pour the coffee into the cups. This new piece of information is more than my brain can cope with.

‘No milk or sugar for me,' says Ferdi.

I hand him his cup and, clasping mine, I take a sip, then put the cup down when Bukowski comes bounding up to me and starts licking my hand.

I play with him for a while, almost forgetting that Ferdi is there until he says, ‘Thanks for the coffee. I'd better be on my way.'

Bukowski runs off after Ferdi, yapping and wagging his tail, leaving me to sink back onto the chair in a daze.

What kind of game are you playing, Herr Lenzen?

So the music
was
real. I wasn't imagining things.

But if it was real, who was behind it? Victor Lenzen? Because he'd read my book and come to the conclusion that I'd react to the song in the same way as my literary alter ego Sophie? Yes, if the music was real—and real it was, because I wasn't the only one to hear it—then Victor Lenzen must have been behind it. Because he had a plan. He was lying when he said he couldn't hear it.

Hang on a second. Thoughts are fluttering inside my head like a flock of startled birds. The photographer was there too! He must have heard the music and should have reacted to it in some way!

Unless Lenzen had an accomplice.

That's too weird, Linda.

It's the only possibility.

It doesn't make sense. You're not thinking straight.

What if one or both of them put something in my water or in my coffee?

Why in God's name should the photographer be involved?

He must have been.

A conspiracy? Is that what you're thinking? Lenzen's right; you need help.

Maybe the photographer tried to warn me. ‘Take care of yourself,' he said on his way out. ‘Take care of yourself.'

It's just a turn of phrase.

I get up. I cross the hall and dash upstairs—trip over, stumble, struggle to my feet, take the last steps up, run along the passage and reach my study.

I boot up my laptop and, still standing, begin to type with trembling hands—type and click and search—searching, searching, searching for the homepage Victor Lenzen showed me on his phone.
Spiegel Online
, August 2002: ‘Our correspondent in Afghanistan.' I search and search. It's not possible—how did he do that? But it's true. I can't find it; it's vanished—the archive page with Lenzen's reports—with Lenzen's alibi.

It's not there.

26

The website containing Lenzen's alibi has disappeared.

I blink dazedly and recall that I looked at it on his phone, not mine. It was Lenzen who typed in the address, not me. Whatever I saw, I can't find it now. I stare at the screen for a while. Then I take my laptop in both hands and hurl it at the wall. I rip the telephone out of the socket and throw that too. I yell, I kick my desk. I feel no pain. I grope about, blind with rage and hatred, grabbing everything I can lay my hands on—pens, stapler, ring binders—and fling them at the wall. I beat the wall with my fists until the white runs red. I feel nothing.

My study lies in ruins. I slump to the floor, in amidst the chaos. The heat in my body gives way to cold, and I start shivering. I've been turned inside out, my organs are turning to ice, shrivelling up, growing numb.

Lenzen duped me.

I don't know how he did it, but how hard can it be to set up a fake website?

Not much harder than playing a Beatles song on a small mobile device and pretending not to hear anything.

Not much harder than dosing yourself with an emetic to lend credibility to your shock.

Not much harder than spiking a woman's coffee to make her amenable and disorientated and susceptible to alien ideas.

That must be what happened. It explains the hallucinations, the strange blackouts and the fact that I was suddenly open to absurd ideas—almost without a will of my own. It explains why it's only now that I am beginning to see clearly again. Perhaps a small dose of bufotenine. Or DMT. Or mescaline. That would make sense.

How could I have thought even for a second that I might have harmed Anna?

The sun is falling onto the study floor. There is blood dripping from my hand. My ears are buzzing. I think of Anna; I see her before me quite clearly: my best friend, my sister. Just because Anna could sometimes be inconsiderate and vain and selfish doesn't mean she wasn't also naïve and sweet and innocent. Just because Anna could sometimes be incredibly hurtful doesn't mean she wasn't also capable of being selfless and generous. Just because I sometimes hated Anna doesn't mean I didn't love her. She was my sister.

Anna wasn't perfect. Not Saint Anna, just Anna.

I think of Lenzen. He was so much better prepared than me.

I have nothing I can use against him and now he knows it. That's why he came—to find that out. He didn't have to come and talk to me. But Victor Lenzen is a wise man. He knew that if he didn't, he would never find out how much I really knew—whether I had any concrete evidence against him, and whether I'd told anyone about him. How relieved he must have been when he realised that he was dealing with a woman who was lonely and unstable. His strategy was as simple as it was inspired: deny everything at all costs and make me feel as insecure as possible. It was enough to plunge me into doubt.

But now I have no more doubts. I listen. The voices have stopped arguing. There's only one now. And that voice is saying it is unlikely that I saw my sister's murderer on the TV after twelve years—highly unlikely—but not impossible. It is a highly improbable truth. Victor Lenzen killed my sister.

My anger is clenched tight like a fist.

I have to get out of here.