Melanie Raabe - The Trap

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.

28

JONAS

Jonas relished the feeling that spread through his stomach as he sped along the dark road. He was exhausted and wanted to get home.

His head was buzzing with all the facts his team had gathered that day concerning the second murder victim.

Apart from the physical similarity, there was no connection whatsoever with Britta Peters. The search for a culprit from the small circle of shared acquaintances had been called off for the time being. They would have to come up with another method of approach. It wouldn’t be easy.

After work, Jonas had let off steam as best he could with some boxing practice and had felt a bit better afterward. Since seeing Sophie Peters, however, the relaxation that goes with hard physical training had been blown away. She was the reason he was taking this case so personally. He wondered whether it was having an adverse effect on him — whether it made him overlook things, make mistakes.

Sophie had been different this evening. She had seemed gloomier and more vulnerable. It was only a feeling, but Jonas instinctively reduced the speed at which he was hurtling along the road. He’d seen Sophie’s face before him — her look of resignation. The way she’d said, “Goodbye, Superintendent Weber.” So sad, so final.

Should he drive back? Rubbish.

Sophie wasn’t the kind to harm herself.

Less than a quarter of an hour later, Jonas was lying fully clothed on his bed. He wanted to have a rest before going over the case again in his study. He could sense the emptiness beside him that his wife had left when she’d gone to live with her best friend to “get a few things clear in her mind.” Jonas closed his eyes. He had the feeling that he was at last stepping off the carousel of thoughts he’d been riding around on all day.

When his mobile pinged with a text message, he gave a groan. Maybe it was Mia? Picking the phone up from the bedside table, he didn’t immediately recognize the number, but eventually it dawned on him. Sophie.

Jonas sat up and opened the message.

It consisted of only two words: He’s here.

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, amid 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, shriveling 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 naive 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.