Melanie Raabe - The Trap

“Be careful. Two human lives are at stake here — yours and mine. Are you sure?”

I don’t reply.

“Are you absolutely sure, Linda?”

I feel sick, my head is bursting. The room rotates in languid ellipses and I remember that the Earth is moving at an incredible speed through a cold and empty universe.

“Is 23 August 2002 the day your sister was killed?” asks Lenzen.

“Yes,” is all I can say.

Lenzen seems to be thinking. There’s more silence. He seems to come to a decision.

“I think I know where I was that day,” he says.

I stare at him. He stands before me with raised hands — a good-looking, intelligent man, whom I would probably like if I didn’t know what was hidden behind the charming exterior. I mustn’t let him fool me.

“Where was your sister killed?” Lenzen asks.

“You know very well where,” I say.

I can’t help it: my self-control is beginning to crack.

“I don’t know,” says Lenzen. “My research didn’t turn up anything about a sister who was murdered.”

“Do you want to know where my sister was murdered?” I ask. “In her flat. In Munich.”

Lenzen gives a sigh of relief.

“I wasn’t in Munich at that time,” he says. “I wasn’t in Munich at the time and I can prove it.”

He gives a short laugh of relief, a humorless sound, and then says again, almost incredulously, “And I can prove it.”

He sits down.

I forbid myself to let him take me in with this cheap bluff. Lenzen laughs again, hysterically. He’s like a man who’s been through hell, like a man who’d already given his life up for lost, and suddenly sees a glimmer of hope.

What’s going on here?

“If you weren’t in Munich at that time then where were you?” Lenzen’s eyes are bloodshot. He looks exhausted.

“Afghanistan,” he says. “I was in Afghanistan.”

24

SOPHIE

The events of the past night seemed like a dream to Sophie. The shadow crouching in her car, the footsteps hard on her heels, her pure, primeval fear. It must have been the same fear Britta had felt in the last minutes of her life.

Sophie wondered whether she should tell the police that she was being followed. But what could she say to them? Even to her, it all seemed so unreal. How could she explain it all to that arrogant young policewoman she was always put through to, even when she asked to speak to Superintendent Jonas Weber? (A fact that wounded Sophie more than she cared to admit.) It was true that the charges against her had been dropped, but she wouldn’t have the best reputation at the police station right now. She could, of course, hope that the man who had pursued her in the underground car park had been caught on a surveillance camera. That, at least, would finally prove his existence.

The only problem was that now, in broad daylight, in the safety of her flat, it seemed like a dream. What if the police were to go through the surveillance tapes and find no one? Wouldn’t that completely undermine Sophie’s credibility?

She’d sort things out somehow, even without any help. She sat down at her desk. It was covered in notes and newspaper cuttings on the case — a welter of contradictory information and false trails. An impenetrable jungle.

Sophie buried her face in her hands. She could feel her life falling apart. She hadn’t noticed at first; she’d had too much to do and had been running and running to avoid having to stop and think. But now there was nothing left to be done, and she had been forced to come to rest.

Sophie had talked to everyone in Britta’s life. She had painstakingly reconstructed Britta’s last days and looked into the two new employees from Britta’s company, but neither of them remotely resembled the man she had surprised in her sister’s flat. She had even checked up on every single guest at the party Britta had thrown for a friend shortly before her death. All without success. She had sifted through Britta’s social media profiles for new friends — nothing. Whenever she had the feeling she was getting somewhere, her hopes were always dashed. And the police were becoming obsessed with their stupid theory of an argument with a violent lover. They’d even questioned Paul, but that had soon been proved idiotic, just like that business with Britta’s landlord, who was perhaps a little senile but nothing more. It was hopeless. The police would never find the murderer.

Sophie’s mobile was ringing and she recognized her parents’ number. She didn’t have the slightest inclination to take the call. The last time her mother had rung, she’d accused her of being unnatural for not crying over her sister and told her she ought to be with them rather than running all over town playing James Bond.

The ringing stopped. Sophie stared at the improvised pin board with all the information and evidence she had gathered in connection with the murder; it took up nearly her entire study. There was so much that she didn’t understand. How was it possible that nobody else had seen the murderer? Why hadn’t he attacked her, the eyewitness? What would he have done if she hadn’t turned up? Why hadn’t he run away as soon as he heard somebody in the flat? Was he a burglar? If so, why hadn’t he stolen anything? And what the hell was the detail that had struck such a false note but that she couldn’t now lay her finger on, no matter how hard she racked her brains?

Of the countless agonizing questions, the worst was: why? Why did her sister have to die? Who had hated Britta that much? Britta, who was always ready to listen to everyone; Britta, who took such good care of others — perfect Britta! Sophie clung to her conviction that it must have been a stranger. But how was she supposed to find a stranger?

The flat seemed unbearably airless to Sophie. She slipped on her trainers, left the house, stepped onto the street and set off. It was a Saturday, and there must have been some football match on that afternoon because it was crowded when Sophie reached the underground station. Without knowing where she was actually going, she allowed herself to be carried down the escalator by the crowd and eventually came to a stop on the platform where the trains left for the town center. It reeked of sweat and trouble; the football fans were everywhere, with their beery breath and aggressive singing.

Sophie was borne onto a train by the stream of people. She stood there, squashed between three giants, and the train set off with a jolt. The rucksack of the man in front of her was in her face; the zip scratched her cheek as the train took a bend. The windows were steamed up and there were no longer people in the carriage, only a heaving, homogenous mass, breathing the humid, unwholesome air. Sophie tried to elbow herself a bit of space, but the crowd around her didn’t budge a millimeter. The air was no longer air; it was hot and doughy and solid. Someone switched on a ghetto blaster; “Seven Nation Army” blared out and the mass broke into a delighted roar.

Sophie clenched her teeth. She felt like a nail bomb.

At the next station, she was thrown out of the damp heat of the train onto the platform; the crowd carried her toward the exit. Sophie fought her way through the swarms of people, broke free and began to run.

Only when she had entered the museum did she breathe freely again. This was what she needed if she was to stay sane: a few hours with her favorite artists, with Raphael and Rubens and van Gogh. A little beauty, a little time to forget.

Sophie bought herself a ticket and wandered about, eventually coming to stop in front of one of van Gogh’s Sunflowers . She marveled at the radiant colors and at the vitality that always seemed to emanate from the painting, and for a moment she forgot her fears and worries. Then it came back to her — that detail in Britta’s flat that had struck such a frighteningly false note.