Lenzen is silent for a moment. “How?” he asks at last. I can’t help frowning.
“How can you know?”
What kind of a game is this, Victor Lenzen? You know that I know.
“How can you know?” he asks again.
Something inside me rips. I can’t take any more.
“Because I fucking well saw you!” I yell. “Because I looked you in the eye the same way I’m looking at you now. So save your lies and your posturing because I can see you. I can see you.”
My heart’s pounding and I’m gasping as if I’d run a sprint. Lenzen stares at me in disbelief. Once again he holds up his hands.
I’m trembling. I force myself to remember that I’ll never find out why Anna had to die if I shoot him now.
“That’s not possible, Frau Conrads,” says Lenzen.
“And yet it’s the case.”
“I didn’t know your sister.”
“Then why did you kill her?”
“I didn’t kill her! You’ve made a mistake!”
“I have not made a mistake!”
Lenzen looks at me as if I were a stubborn child refusing to listen to sense.
“What happened back then?” he asks.
I close my eyes briefly. Specks of red dance on my retina.
“What were the circumstances of your sister’s death? Where did she die?” Lenzen asks. “If I knew a bit more about it, maybe I could convince you…”
Dear God, give me the strength not to shoot him.
“I recognized you straightaway, when I saw you on television.”
I spit the words at him.
“Maybe you really did see somebody…”
“You’re damn right, I did! Of course I saw somebody!”
“But not me!”
How can he say that? How can he? We were both there, in that room, on that hot summer’s night, with the smell of iron in the air. How can he say that and seriously hope to get away with it?
I give a start when Lenzen swoops to his feet. Instinctively, I get up and point my gun straight at his chest. No matter what he does, I want to be able to stop him in time.
He puts up his hands.
“Think about it, Linda,” he says. “If I had anything to confess, I’d have confessed long ago.”
The gun is heavy.
“A human life is at stake here, Linda. You’re the jury; I’ve grasped that now. You think I’m a murderer and you’re the jury. Is that right?”
I nod.
“Then at least grant me the right to defend myself,” says Lenzen.
I nod again, reluctantly.
“Do you have any other evidence against me, apart from the fact that you think you saw me?”
I don’t reply. The answer is galling: no.
“Think about it, Linda. It’s twelve years ago, isn’t it. Isn’t it?” I nod.
“Twelve years. And, quite by chance, you see your sister’s murderer on TV? What are the odds?”
I’d like to ignore the question. I’ve put it to myself often enough, in the long nights since the earthquake struck. I feel sick. My head is bursting. Everything’s spinning.
“What are the odds?” I don’t reply.
“Are you sure I’m guilty, Linda? Not fairly sure, not ninety-nine percent sure, but absolutely sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt? If you are, then shoot me right here on the spot.”
Everything’s spinning.
“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.