Melanie Raabe - The Trap

“Beautiful house you have here,” says Lenzen, going over to the window. He looks across at the edge of the woods.

“Thank you,” I say, getting up to join him.

When I opened the door to him, the sun had been shining through the clouds. Now there’s a light drizzle falling.

“April weather in March,” says Lenzen. I don’t reply.

“How long have you been living here?” he asks.

“More than ten years.”

I jump when I hear the landline ringing in the living room. No one ever rings me on the landline. Anyone who wants to get ahold of me calls my mobile. I see Lenzen give me a sidelong glance. The telephone is still ringing.

“Don’t you want to answer it?” he asks. “I don’t mind waiting.” I shake my head, and the ringing stops.

“I’m sure it wasn’t important,” I say and hope I’m right.

I take my eyes off the edge of the woods and sit back at the table. It’s the place that gives me the strongest sense of security — my back to the wall and the door within eyeshot.

If Lenzen wants to sit opposite me, he’ll have to sit with his back to the door. That makes most people nervous and reduces their powers of concentration, but he accepts without protest. If he notices at all, he doesn’t let it show.

“Shall we?” I ask.

Lenzen nods and takes a seat opposite me.

He takes out notepad, pen and digital recorder from the bag that he has placed on the floor beside his chair. I wonder what else he has in there. He’s focusing his mind. I sit up straight. I feel the urge to cross my legs and fold my arms, but I resist. No protective gestures. I place both feet firmly on the ground. I rest my lower arm on the table and lean forward, taking up space, asserting myself — what Dr. Christensen calls “power poses.” I watch Lenzen straighten his papers and square up the recorder with the corner of the table.

“Well,” he begins. “First of all I’d like to thank you for your time. I know that you rarely give interviews and I feel honored that you’ve invited me to your house.”

“I’m a great admirer of your work,” I say, hoping to sound noncommittal.

“Really?” He puts on a face, as if he were genuinely flattered. There is a pause and I realize that he’s expecting me to elaborate.

“Oh yes,” I say. “Your reports from Afghanistan, Iran, Syria — you do some important work.”

He lowers his eyes and smiles modestly, as if embarrassed by the praise that he has elicited from me.

What are you playing at, Herr Lenzen?

With my upright posture and my controlled, steady breathing, I am sending my body all the signals it needs to be focused yet relaxed, but still my nerves are tense, almost snapping. I can’t wait to find out what questions Lenzen has prepared and how he intends to conduct the interview. He must be just as tense, wondering what I’m hoping to achieve, what kind of a hand I’ve dealt myself, what trumps I have up my sleeve. He clears his throat and glances at his notes. The photographer is busy with his camera; he takes a trial shot, then goes back to looking at his light meter.

“All right,” says Lenzen. “My first question is the one all your readers must be asking. You’re famous for your literary, almost poetic novels. Now, with Blood Sisters , you’ve written your first thriller. Why the switch in genre?”

That is the question I’d expected him to start with and I relax a little. I do not, however, get around to answering, because at that moment I hear noises coming from the hall — a key turning in the lock, then footsteps.

I catch my breath.

“Excuse me,” I say, and get up.

I have to leave Lenzen alone for a minute. But the photographer is there with him, and the idea that he might be in cahoots with Lenzen doesn’t make any sense at all.

I go out into the hall and my heart sinks.

“Charlotte!” I cry, unable to conceal my dismay. “What are you doing here?”

She frowns at me, her coat dripping.

“Isn’t it the interview today?”

She hears the murmurs of the two men coming from the dining room and looks at her watch in bewilderment.

“Oh God, I’m not late, am I? I thought the whole thing didn’t start until twelve!”

“I wasn’t actually expecting you at all,” I whisper, because I don’t want Lenzen to hear. “I left a message on your voice mail. Didn’t you get it?”

“Oh, I lost my mobile the other day,” Charlotte says casually.

“But now that I’m here…”

She leaves me standing there, puts her bunch of keys down on the sideboard next to the door and hangs up her flimsy Little Red Riding Hood coat.

“What can I do for you?”

I have to restrain myself from slapping her and pushing her back out with force. The murmuring in the dining room has stopped — the men must be eavesdropping.

I need to get a grip on myself. Charlotte is looking at me expectantly. In this brief moment of silence, the telephone starts to ring again. I do my best to ignore it.

“I’ve finished getting everything ready,” I say. “But you could make some coffee — that would be great.”

I have already made coffee; it’s in the thermal pot on the table. But no matter — I don’t know whether I can avoid an encounter between Charlotte and Lenzen, though I’ll try to at all costs.

“Sure,” says Charlotte. She glances in the direction of the living room, where the insistent ringing continues, but she passes no comment.

“I’ll come and collect the pot in a minute,” I call after her. “I’d like to be left undisturbed until then.”

Charlotte frowns again, because I’m not normally like that, but presumably puts it down to the unusual situation: I never have strangers to the house and certainly never give interviews. The telephone goes quiet. I toy with the idea of looking to see who the persistent caller was, but think better of it. Nothing can be as important as this.

I return to the dining room.

12

SOPHIE

From her car, Sophie watched a ginger and white cat lying on the lawn in front of the house giving itself a thorough wash. For a good ten minutes now, she’d been trying to psych herself up to enter the building where Britta had lived.

The day had got off to a bad start. When she had finally dropped off after a sleepless night, Sophie had been woken by a journalist wanting to speak about her sister. She had hung up, furious. Then she had rung Britta’s landlord to find out when she could collect Britta’s belongings from the flat, but couldn’t get ahold of him. Instead, she had talked to his son, who had offered her his condolences and then plunged into a story about his brother, who had died in a car crash as a schoolboy — so, of course, he knew exactly what Sophie was going through.

Now she was sitting here, in the car. It was a hot day; the sun was beating down on the black roof. Sophie didn’t want to get out; she wanted to sit and watch the cat for a little while longer. But, as if the creature had guessed her thoughts and didn’t fancy being watched, it rose elegantly, casting a disdainful look in her direction, and marched off.

Sophie sighed, summoned all her energy and got out. From somewhere nearby, maybe from behind the house, came the sound of children playing. There was no sign that anything terrible had ever happened here. All the same, Sophie had to force herself to take every step that brought her nearer the front door. When she finally stood at the door of the block of flats, she swallowed, scanning the names on the doorbell panel. Britta’s makeshift label was still there, written in her schoolgirl handwriting and stuck on with sticky tape. Sophie averted her eyes and, pressing her lips together, rang the bell of the elderly lady on the second floor. A crackle indicated that someone had activated the intercom.