Ursula Archer - Five

Summoning up all her strength, she lifts her gaze to the bed.

There! Silver. It glistens and shines, brought to life by a beam of sunlight.

Nail varnish.

Evelyn’s…

nail varnish.

The floor comes closer and everything falls, falls slowly towards the red: first the croissants, landing in a saucer-sized puddle, the red eating greedily into the paper bag, the printed image of the baker grinning away as it reaches his mouth, his eyes…

She only realises she’s screaming when someone grabs her from behind, turns her around, pulls her in towards them. Her screams are smothered by a sweaty body in a washed-out T-shirt. She hits out, bites and scratches until she catches a glimpse of the face above the T-shirt. Holger from next door. His hands tug at her, trying to drag her into the kitchen, MyGodmyGodohmyGod , he cries.

She tries to close her eyes but it won’t work, she can’t, she’s forgotten something. But what?

The croissants.

One of them has tumbled out on the floor, the left tip saturated with blood. Raspberry jam, thinks Beatrice, vomiting on the kitchen floor.

The policewoman speaking to her is focused and friendly, but Beatrice can see her own horror reflected in her eyes. She hates her for that. And for the fact that every single one of her words confirms something that should never have happened.

‘You lived here with Frau Rieger?’

Rieger, pronounced like Tigger but with a long ‘e’ instead of ‘i’ and Rrrrr , says Evelyn in Bea’s head. ‘When did you last see her?’

‘Yesterday lunchtime. We were planning to—’ She stops as she sees two men in white overalls walk into Evelyn’s room wearing masks and gloves. Anonymous, veiled figures.

‘They’re my colleagues,’ explains the policewoman. ‘You were just about to say you were planning to do something together?’

Go to a party . Again, Beatrice’s body reacts more quickly than her mind, crumbling into sobs.

The policewoman is patient. ‘Take your time.’

Gradually, Beatrice manages to choke out words. The address of Nola’s house, where the party was held. The rough times of Evelyn’s first and last call.

It is around this time that Beatrice’s brain begins the ‘what if’ game. For years to come, it will be her constant companion. The ‘what if’ game can last hours, and never fails to unleash its exhausting impact.

If I had picked her up, if I had driven there with David, if I hadn’t left her alone, if…

‘We’ll get you some counselling,’ says the policewoman as Beatrice breaks down yet again.

In the end, it’s an injection which erases the red images in her head and stops the ‘what if’ game. For a short while. After that, the whole thing starts all over again.

The police reconstruct Evelyn’s last night. The party guests provide detailed statements, and it soon becomes clear what must have happened. The phone call at half-past three, the one that reached the sleepy and love-drunk Beatrice, was the last Evelyn had made in her life. She hadn’t tried to call a taxi or any other friends.

‘She said she was going to hitch-hike,’ sobbed Nola on the phone. ‘But she could have stayed here – the first bus into town would have left at five.’

New what-ifs for Beatrice’s game. If Evelyn had waited, if she had been more careful…

But it was Beatrice, and only Beatrice, who Evelyn had asked for help.

She can no longer bear David’s presence; he has become an accomplice. She hardly eats and sleeps very little, walking through the streets and staring into people’s faces. Which of them could be capable of it? Maybe it’s the man standing next to her in the metro, or the man letting her go ahead of him at the supermarket checkout. Maybe it’s the young guy on the other side of the street pushing the blue polka-dot pushchair, or the bald man with the worn-out trousers reading the newspaper as he walks along. Of course. He’s looking for reports about what he did .

Beatrice besieges the investigators with phone calls. The policewoman gave her the direct line in case she thinks of anything else that might be relevant, and she calls three times a day. She reports minute details from Evelyn’s life, things that suddenly seem to be full of significance. But above all, she just wants to know, know, know.

No one tells her anything. All she finds out is the same information that’s in the paper. That the murder of Evelyn Rieger resembles another case from three years ago which was never solved. On that occasion, too, the victim was raped, slashed and practically disembowelled.

Alongside the article, they always print the same photo of Evelyn, taken by Beatrice barely two months ago. Such a beautiful picture of her. An angel with deep red locks and bright green, knowing eyes.

I miss you so much .

I’m sorry .

If I had known .

If I had listened to you .

If .

At the funeral, she tries to imprint the face of every man present on her memory, but the crowd of people is too big. There are two policemen there too, but they keep their distance, looking on awkwardly.

Her mother and Richard have come, even though they barely knew Evelyn. They’ve closed Mooserhof for two days, which Beatrice is very grateful to them for. She told them about her guilt. I could have prevented it. So easily .

‘There’s no way you could have known,’ said her mother. ‘The only guilty party is the man with the knife. The knife killed her, and the man who used it. No one else.’

The thought comforted Beatrice for a mere five minutes, but then it became stale, like over-chewed gum.

David comes to the funeral too, wearing a black polo-neck jumper despite the twenty-four-degree heat outside. He comes over to stand next to Beatrice and tries to hold her. She pushes him away.

‘There’s nothing I can do to change what happened,’ he says sadly. ‘And neither can you.’

He has no idea what’s going on in her mind, but he does seem to have genuine feelings for her. And that just makes it worse. She avoids looking at him, punishes herself by looking at Evelyn’s mother instead. She lets Rheinberger’s Stabat Mater soak into her, trying to swallow away the metallic taste in her mouth. Guilt tastes like blood.

In the weeks that follow, she waits. The case gradually disappears from the news, and the police don’t arrest anyone. David has given up on trying to see her again, while she has given up on trying to finish her studies. After a while, Richard turns up on her doorstep to take her back to Salzburg.

She doesn’t try to protest. She calls the policewoman in Vienna just once a week now, and there’s never any news. She hates the police. At some point, four or five months after Evelyn’s death, she tells the woman, ‘You’re an incompetent waste of space.’

Hearing the policewoman’s sharp intake of breath, she prepares herself for a strong retort. But the answer, when it comes, is totally calm. ‘You know what?’ she says. ‘You try and do a better job, you know-it-all.’

‘Fine, I will!’ Beatrice hangs up. But the thought sticks in her mind. Every time she thinks about it, it lifts a little of the weight off her shoulders. After six months of therapy, when she finally makes the decision, she is welcomed with open arms.

It happens during the first year of her training. Along with five of her colleagues, she’s on duty at a ball at the Hohensalzburg Castle. A blond man in a tuxedo keeps strolling past her, smiling. She can see his hesitation.

‘There are hundreds of women dressed in expensive dresses in that ballroom, but none of them look as beautiful as you in your uniform.’ Achim Kaspary is the junior manager of a saw factory just outside Salzburg. He treats her well, doesn’t rush things. He’s not anywhere near as exciting as David, and he’s not the kind of man she would let down a friend for.