Bernhard Aichner - Woman of the Dead - A Thriller

‘We’ll get through this, Blum.’

‘I’m so sorry, Reza. I really didn’t want to involve you in all this.’

‘Never mind that, Blum. I’m here.’

‘I’ve killed three people.’

‘I’ve killed ten.’

‘You don’t judge me?’

‘No, Blum. We’ll get this one underground, then we’ll see about that actor.’

‘We?’

‘Yes, you and I.’

‘Thank you, Reza. You’re wonderful.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘But, Reza, I feel so much better now I’ve told you. And it’s great that you want to help me, although you’re crazy to want to. If I were you, I’d run a million miles.’

‘I’d never let anything happen to you.’

‘But what about the man in the lay-by? He must have called the police.’

‘Everything’s going to be OK.’

Reza says so. He is standing in front of her touching her face affectionately. The sensation of his palms on her cheeks is almost imperceptible. Reza gives her courage, he tries to rouse her from her nightmare. He tells her that life will go on, that Uma and Nela won’t lose their mother, they are going to get through this. She feels Reza’s sudden closeness. The chef has come apart, and Reza’s help does her good. They stand still and look at each other. Two murderers, with not a word to waste.

For a few hours, everything is OK. Blum entertains the hope that they have weathered the worst of the storm. She and Reza sit on Blum’s sofa in the living room, having finished dinner and opened a bottle of wine. The children are asleep. Karl is finishing off in the garden. A gentle sense of security has crept back into her mind. It makes her cling to Reza; she doesn’t want to let him go. After a while Reza puts his head back and closes his eyes. He is still awake when Blum nestles close to him, as her head comes to rest on his chest, as her hands gently hold his. He is a friend and he is there for her, he catches her, he plucks her out of the air and stops her thudding on to the bottom of the empty pool. His hands don’t wander, he simply receives her. And she is grateful. Reza’s chest rises and falls. Blum just lies there, sensing his presence, and it feels good. She wants to stay awake. She feels the link between them, the proximity, his restraint. Everything is both familiar and strange. She has known him for years as a faithful soul, a colleague, a friend. It would never have entered her head to touch him, to lie in his arms. Reza is shy, like a wild creature hiding in the forest, sparing with his words. He is like a shadow, a shadow in which she hides.

Outside she hears Karl mowing the lawn. It is getting dark, and there is nothing more to be done. For the moment there is only Blum and Reza. But now Massimo is quietly coming upstairs, so quietly that she can barely hear him. Karl must have let him into the house. Blum has entirely forgotten that he was going to come, was offering her a shoulder to cry on. She hears his footsteps, closes her eyes and pretends to be asleep. Her eyelids are open just a tiny crack. She sees him standing in the doorway, staring at the sofa, wondering what to do, what to say, whether to wake them. Massimo’s eyes are wide. His face wears the expression of a beaten dog. Blum can see his disappointment, the pain she is inflicting by lying in another man’s arms. Massimo stares. He sees two people sleeping; he doesn’t know that Blum is awake and ashamed. He doesn’t know that she feels sorry for him and would have liked to spare him this.

Massimo stares at them for a long time. He has a bottle of wine in his left hand. He was going to drink it with Blum, he is here to console her, not to arrest her or question her. He doesn’t know what happened in the lay-by. Whoever saw her hasn’t gone to the police, or the uniformed men would have been here long ago to take her away. They’d have arrested her in the preparation room. There would have been no bottle in Massimo’s hand.

He watches them sleep for a couple of minutes, and then he goes away without making a sound. As he steals downstairs and disappears, Blum opens her eyes. She wishes she had spared him. She hears the door close, and Karl turns off the lawnmower to ask why he’s leaving so soon. Blum will explain, she will tell him that she was tired and lonely, it didn’t mean a thing. But Massimo won’t believe her, he will maintain he saw Blum and Reza’s intimacy with his own eyes. He saw her head on his chest and her hand in his. Blum lies where she is, she doesn’t want to get to her feet and run after him, she wants to stay with Reza.

That night she sleeps fitfully, plagued by bad dreams. Every time she wakes she is glad that he is still there, holding her. She keeps moving away, turning over, moving back towards him and falling back asleep. Then a time comes when she opens her eyes and the day has begun. Uma is standing there, smiling and saying, Mama, cocoa please . Blum sits up with a start. She turns left and right, looking for Reza, but Reza isn’t there. He didn’t want the children to see him lying on the sofa so close to their mother. Only Uma is here, smiling and asking for cocoa.

They eat breakfast in the garden. It is Saturday, and the children have nowhere to be. Blum is sitting at the little table under the cherry tree, reading the newspaper and drinking coffee, watching them play. Everything feels contained. No one suspects her, no one is hunting her down. The only thing weighing on her mind is Massimo. She will phone him, tell him a white lie and hope he believes her.

The morning sun is dazzling. Blum will sit here for a little while longer and then pack the girls’ swimming things. She has promised to take them to the lake and spend the day with them there, in the water, on the meadow on the banks of the lake, with books. There will be no work and no dead people. It’s not a day to spend in front of the computer; that will have to wait until evening. She and Reza will search together for the name that goes with the grinning face. And now a Mercedes turns into the drive.

Schönborn gets out. On this sunny Saturday morning, under the cherry tree, she sees his angry face. He is holding an envelope and sits down with her, just as Blum sat down with him two weeks ago. He lays the envelope in front of her. Then he leans back and raises his face to the sun.

‘You’re in the shit.’

‘No, I’m sitting under a cherry tree. It’s perfectly pleasant.’

‘You have real problems, young lady.’

‘Do I now?’

‘Yes, you do. So it would be better if you talked.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I want you to tell me where my son is. Or I’m taking these pictures to the police.’

‘What pictures?’

‘These photographs, here, look.’

Blum takes the envelope. It contains photos of a woman with a jack in her hand. They show a car with an open boot, a coffin and the woman hitting it. There are thirty or forty pictures documenting her fury, every last detail of the murder of Bertl Puch. Blum sits under the cherry tree with the pictures in front of her and Johannes Schönborn opposite. Blum doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know how this man came by them. Did he take the photographs himself, or did he send one of his henchmen, a private detective even? Has someone been watching her, following her every move? Did that person see her leaving Bertl Puch’s apartment, luring him into the underground garage and losing control? Blum has no words to express the turmoil she is in, she can hardly breathe. The children are still playing, running around the garden. Schönborn leans towards her. Blum tries to regain her self-control, react, think of something. She has risen to her feet and she is swaying. She almost falls over, but summons all her strength and stands upright.