Nicholas Searle - The Good Liar

‘Yes,’ he replies dully.

‘Wonderful, wasn’t it? The sunset over the Spree. The Berliner

Philharmoniker in full flow. I did think we needed some time to

ourselves, though. You seemed somewhat jaded and bored.’

He allows her to continue.

‘I thought I’d go back to those lovely villas near the Tiergarten. In fact I knocked on one of the doors. No, I’m teasing you now. I’d

made the arrangements weeks before. The owners were delightful.

They were only too happy to let me have a look around. I hope

you’re keeping up, Hans.’

He is sullenly silent.

‘There was a specific purpose. We weren’t there just to see the

house in which the Schröders lived. We trooped up to the first floor.

There was Albert’s study, newly done out and very high- tech. None of that horrid dark wood any more. Rather oppressive, I always

used to think. A bit intimidating. We looked in one of the bed-

rooms. They’ve all been carpeted now, with a rather plush pile in a tasteful shade of beige. I’m afraid we had to prevail on them to pull up a small corner. They didn’t mind at all, since it was for a good cause. You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you, my dear?’

‘I don’t have a clue.’

‘Bear with me, please. When we pulled back the carpet it was still

there.’

‘What,’ he says with forced patience, ‘was there?’

‘The gap between the skirting board and the floor, of course. And

even more surprisingly after all these years, so was the locket. We could see it with the help of a torch but we couldn’t reach it. The owner of the house managed to winkle it out with a screwdriver. I

will get to the point, I promise. In fact I’m there, almost. We managed to retrieve the letters and the locket. But of course it was the locket that was of greatest importance.’

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‘Oh, really.’

‘The letters were the ramblings of a silly little girl. But the locket contained your hair.’

‘My hair? What do you mean, my hair?’

‘Don’t you remember? It was in my room. I persuaded you to let

me have a lock. You had obviously had second thoughts, though,

and you were glowering madly. A bit like you are now. But I pressed on regardless and pretended I hadn’t noticed. Gay as a spring lamb.

You got very angry when I cut off rather more than you bargained

for. I laughed. But of course you remember. Happy days.’

She beams at him and sighs.

‘Of course one applies one’s intellect to such situations. And

technology too. Recovering the locket wasn’t simply a matter of

nostalgia. There was rather more to it. It was a matter of proof.

Gerald’s a rather fussy man and, like you, wanted everything to be

conclusive. And DNA testing’s a marvel. You left us plenty of sam-

ples in the house while you lived here and it was simply a matter of sending them off to a lab together with the hair from the locket and waiting for the results. I rather think you’ve caught up with me now, more or less.’

4

‘It was a long time ago, Betty,’ he says wearily. ‘What should I call you? Betty or Lili?’

‘Elisabeth is my given name. I prefer it spelled and pronounced

the German way. One of my idiosyncrasies.’

‘But . . .’

‘They’re just diminutives of the same name. Tut- tut. Keep up.

Still, here we are. Yes, it’s been a long time. I’m not quite sure what that’s meant to signify. The distance of time doesn’t seem to me to erase the facts.’

‘Why I’m in the skin of Roy Courtnay is complicated.’

‘Actually, to be precise, you’re not in the skin of Roy Courtnay,’

she interrupts. ‘Rather the reverse.’

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‘I stand corrected. So exact. Originally it was a series of misun-

derstandings. Roy died a horrible death and I was badly injured. I

was unconscious and the Russians were in a rush to get us back to

the British sector. They confused the two of us and it snowballed

from there. It got out of control.’

She looks at him sceptically.

‘I took advantage, I’ll freely admit. But I had little choice. I was only a translator. I had no guarantee of employment. I’d have had

no military pension.’

‘Your English must have been good, even back then. It was quite

a chance you were taking.’

‘I’d spent four years in England, three of them at school. I’m

good at languages. You know me. I’ll chance my arm at anything. It

was a calculated risk.’

‘You didn’t even think of Roy’s family.’

‘Well, no. You forget, Lili, those were tough times . . .’

‘I don’t forget, Hans.’

‘No. Of course not. You know all too well. You know what it is to

have to survive. That’s all I was doing. Surviving. And nothing was going to bring Captain Courtnay back. Lili, I’m so glad you came

through. I always hoped you would.’

She regards him steadily. ‘I really would prefer you to call me

Elisabeth. Or should I call you Hansi?’

He looks down at his clasped hands. ‘It was an insane time. The

world went mad for a few years. But your family’s incarceration had little to do with me. The Gestapo pressured me. They put words

into my mouth.’

‘That’s not quite what the record indicates. The East Germans

had pretty comprehensive records.’

‘They tricked me, Elisabeth. You have to believe that.’

‘Do I really?’ she asks. ‘And what do I have to believe about what

you did to me?’

‘When?’

‘When you assaulted me.’

‘Assaulted you?’

‘Shall I be more specific? In my bedroom the night of the

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Christmas party. When your father was talking with mine. When

you probed me with your brutish fingers. When you showed me

how inhumane human beings can be. Perhaps I should have been

grateful for the insight into inhumanity. It came in handy.’

‘I don’t recall any of it. You’re imagining –’

‘What? That it happened? That it was you?’

She speaks evenly and he listens without comment. He raises his

eyelids for a flash of a contemptuous look towards her, but he can-

not sustain her gaze.

‘It’s funny. The most vivid memory is of you sniffing your fingers

afterwards. You seemed so casually disappointed by the whole

thing.’

He draws a breath. ‘What is it you want, then?’

‘You wish to cut to the chase. There’s always a deal to be cut. So

let’s get to the nub of it and work out the details.’

‘Well then?’ He raises the courage to look at her. ‘What do you

want?’

‘It’s a very good question. But let me ask you: did you ever

imagine the consequences of what you did?’

‘Not fully. I suppose I understood your parents would be in some

kind of trouble.’

‘Hmm. Why did you do it, then? Had I so disappointed you by

not responding to you in the way you desired?’

‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Your sisters were unpleasant to me. I was upset. My father was such a fool. I was angry with him. My parents

were idiots. I saw them being imprisoned and dragging me down

with them. This was a way of solving that problem, temporarily at

least.’

‘And solving the problem of the happy, prosperous Schröders too.’

‘I don’t know.’ He shrugs his shoulders, the sullen fourteen- year-old again.

‘What made you make those allegations? Just petty spite?’