Melanie Raabe - The Trap

“What are meadows, Mummy?” my children will ask.

“Meadows are great tracts of land, very green and very soft, and covered all over with grass — cheeky stalks that tickle children’s legs as they skip across them. They are so big that you can run until you’re quite out of breath without getting anywhere near the edge.”

“But they can’t be that big, Mummy,” one of my children will say. “No, Mummy, they can’t be that big. Nothing’s as big as that.”

When I think of the world out there, I am overwhelmed by infinite longing. It is a feeling I know well; I have felt it while writing, on the running machine and in my dreams — even when talking to Lenzen.

I want to stand on a market square in a small town, and I want to look up into the summer sky, shade my eyes from the sun and watch the breakneck maneuvers of the swifts as they race around the church tower. I want the smell of wood and resin on a forest ramble. I want the distinctive movement of a butterfly — that blithe aimlessness. I want the cool feeling you get on your sun-warmed skin, when a small cloud thrusts itself in front of the summer sun. I want the slimy feeling of waterweed tickling your calves when you’re swimming in a lake. And I think: I can have those things again.

Yes, I am afraid. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past weeks and months, it’s that fear is no reason for inaction. On the contrary.

I have to return to the real world. I’m going to be free. Then I’ll deal with Lenzen.

30

JONAS

Superintendent Jonas Weber stood at his office window watching the last of the swifts as they played in the sky. It wouldn’t be long until they too left for the south.

He’d had to get a grip after receiving Sophie’s text. He had stepped on the accelerator, sped through town and arrived even before his colleagues in the patrol car, whom he’d alerted on his way. He’d run the last few meters to Sophie’s flat and leaned on the bell, forcing himself to keep calm when no one opened up. He’d rung the neighbors’ bells until a furious old lady let him into the building — it’s okay, it’s the police — and he’d run up the stairs, pounded at the door and been on the point of forcing an entry, when it had swung open.

Jonas tried not to think of that terrible moment when he hadn’t been sure whether he’d got there in time.

Sophie had opened the door to him, white as a sheet, but calm. With relief, he had registered that she was unhurt. Then he’d seen the man lying dead or injured on the floor. He had felt for his pulse and established that he was still alive, then called an ambulance. His colleagues had arrived, the ambulance had come, and everyone had set to work. It had turned out all right, after all.

Jonas moved away from the window and sat down at his desk. He wondered what Sophie was doing now. For days, he had been resisting the temptation to give her a call. She would get over the shock, he was sure of that; she’d soon be her old self again. People like Sophie always landed on their feet. But he was struggling with himself; he felt like hearing her voice. He took his phone, entered her number, hesitated — and gave a start when Antonia Bug stormed into his office.

“Dead man in a wood,” she said. “Are you coming?” Jonas nodded. “Be right with you.”

“What’s the matter?” Bug asked. “You’ve got a face like a wet week.”

Jonas didn’t answer.

“Are you still thinking about our journalist?” she asked.

It annoyed Jonas that Bug should speak so matter-of-factly about the murderer. After all, the man had gone on to kill another woman after Britta Peters. But they all talked like that. The press in particular had been in a frenzy after the revelation that the wanted man was one of their own.

“We should have got him,” Jonas replied. “He shouldn’t have been given the opportunity to strike a second time. When Zimmer found out that Britta Peters had complained about her landlord letting himself into her flat, we should have pursued it.”

“We did pursue it.”

“But we shouldn’t have just accepted the old man’s denial. If we’d been more persistent, we might have realized that it wasn’t him who’d let himself into the flat; it was his son.”

“You’re right,” said Bug. “Maybe things would have turned out differently. But what use is it now?”

She shrugged. She had dismissed the entire case astonishingly quickly.

Jonas, however, was still coming to terms with the murderer’s coldness. He hadn’t borne any kind of grudge against Britta Peters; he hadn’t really known her at all. He’d simply seen her one day on a visit to his father, and she’d happened to be his type; she’d triggered something in him. So pure, so innocent. He had killed her “because he wanted her and because he could.” There had been no other motive. He had thought the white roses in the victims’ flats “a nice touch,” something “original”—“like in the movies.”

Jonas Weber was going to be plagued by thoughts of this man, whose trial was soon to begin, for a long time to come.

“Are you coming?” Antonia repeated.

Jonas nodded again and put his mobile away. It was for the best. Sophie had got what she wanted; her sister’s murder had been solved. That was what it had been about — that and nothing else.

By the time Charlotte shows up in the early morning and starts to unpack my shopping, I have already put in several hours of hard work. I have watched the surveillance technicians with their impassive faces remove the microphones and cameras from my house. I have cleaned up. I have eliminated all traces of Victor Lenzen. I have seen the videos of the crazy author and the bewildered reporter. I have kept my anger in check — no more rooms laid to waste, no more bloody fists. Instead, I have prepared myself.

Now all that remains is to get Charlotte on board, but it’s not that easy. We’re standing in the kitchen. Charlotte is putting fruit and vegetables and milk and cheese in the fridge, and gives me a suspicious look. I can sympathize; my request must seem odd to her.

“How long do you want me to keep Bukowski?” she asks.

“A week? Would that be all right?” Charlotte scrutinizes me, then nods.

“Sure — why not? Love to. My son will go wild. He adores dogs; he’d like one of his own.”

She hesitates, casting a stolen glance at the bandage on my right hand — the hand I smashed against my study wall like a madwoman and injured so badly that I had to ask my GP to come and attend to it. I know there’s something else Charlotte wants to say: that she’s worried about this peculiar employer of hers, who never sets foot outside, has been through at least one depressive crisis recently, and is now asking her to take care of her dog. It sounds as if I’m planning my suicide and want to make sure that somebody will take care of my beloved pet when I’m dead. Of course it does — normal people don’t give their pets to other people to look after unless they’re going on holiday, and the idea that I might have plans to travel is absurd.

“Frau Conrads,” she says falteringly, “are you all right?”

I feel such immense fondness for Charlotte that I can barely stop myself from hugging her, which would surely unsettle her even more.

“Everything’s fine — really it is. I know I’ve been strange these last weeks and months, maybe even depressed, but I’m better now. I just have an awful lot to get done in the next few days and Bukowski needs so much attention at the moment…”

I pause. I know I sound ridiculous, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

“It would be really great if you could take him for a few days. I’ll pay you, of course.”