I put down the phone and stare at the wall. Then I sink back into bed.
My name is Linda Conrads. I am thirty-eight years old. I am an author and a murderer. Twelve years ago I killed my younger sister Anna. No one can explain why. I probably can’t explain it myself. I’m probably quite simply mad. I am a liar and a murderer. That is my life. That is the truth. At least, it is for my parents.
A black thought that has been swirling around in my subconscious drifts to the surface, big and heavy, stirring up a maelstrom of other thoughts in its wake. Lenzen’s voice.
“The Disney princess up on her high horse. If I were a woman — if I were Sophie — I would detest Britta.”
And I think: I did too.
The pain of that realization. The memories. Yes, I did detest her; yes, I hated her; yes, I was jealous; yes, I thought it was wrong that my parents always favored her — the younger one, the prettier one, the one who knew how to manipulate them, who looked so sweet and innocent with her blonde hair and her around child’s eyes that she had everyone wrapped around her little finger. Everyone except me, because I knew what she was really like; I knew how hurtful she could be, how inconsiderate, how cruel, how incredibly mean.
Mum and Dad will believe me, want to bet?
Do you like that bloke? I can make him come home with me, want to bet?
No wonder Theo reached the point where he couldn’t stand her anymore; after all those years of their relationship, he’d had a glimpse behind the scenes; he knew her almost as well as I did.
Oh no, Anna wouldn’t do a thing like that, Anna wouldn’t say a thing like that, you must have got it wrong — she’s only little. You’re trying to tell me Anna did that? There must have been some misunderstanding; that doesn’t sound like her at all. Honestly, Linda, why do you always come up with such lies?
Anna, Anna — Anna, who could always wear white without spilling on it — Anna, who had mix tapes made for her by the boys — Anna, who inherited our grandmother’s ring — Anna, whose name you could read backward as well as forward, whereas my name backward is a joke.
If you read your name backwards, you get Adnil. Sounds like Adolf or Arsehole. Now don’t go and get angry again, Adnil, I was only joking. Adnil — hahahahaha.
Saint Anna.
Yes, I detested my sister. That is the truth. That is my life. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about the police, who aren’t here although they ought to be by now, or about my parents, or Victor Lenzen or my own black thoughts.
I reach out for the bedside table, pull open the drawer, take out a packet of pills (a bumper pack from the USA — I love the Internet), shake a few into my hand, wash them down with stale water, retch and then notice I’m hungry. My stomach rebels — my stomach full of pills. I curl up in a fetal position and wait for the cramps to stop. I want to sleep. Tomorrow is another day. Or, with a bit of luck, not. My stomach feels like a fist. Liquid collects in my mouth and I can’t help thinking of the pool of shock and poison and gall that Victor Lenzen left on my dining-room floor. Everything is spinning around me.
Pressing my hand to my mouth, I slip off the bed and totter toward the door. Bukowski glances up, sees that I’m beyond help and leaves me to my own devices. I stagger to the upstairs bathroom and just make it to the basin before throwing up. I turn on the taps, wait a moment and retch again, suddenly sweating — suddenly cold.
I stand in front of the mirror and contemplate my reflection. The woman looking back at me is a stranger. I frown, and examine the wrinkle that divides my forehead down the middle like a crack, and I realize that it’s not my face but a mask. I raise my eyebrows and more cracks appear, branching out, further and further. I press my hands to my head in an attempt to stop the pieces from falling and shattering, but it’s too late; I’ve started a process that I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.
I let go. My face falls to the floor with a clatter, and behind it is emptiness.
Am I mad?
No, I’m not mad.
How can you tell you’re not mad?
You just can.
How can you tell if you are mad?
You just can.
But if you really are mad — how can you know? How can you know anything with absolute certainty?
I listen to the voices arguing in my head, and I no longer know which of them is the rational one.
I’m back in bed. I’m lying quite still, but my thoughts are racing. I’m scared. I’m still cold.
Then a peculiar noise penetrates my consciousness: a buzz. No, a drone. It swells, subsides, starts up again. It’s throbbing, alive and menacing, and it’s getting louder. I hold my ears and almost fall out of bed. When I take my hands away, I realize that what I’m hearing is silence. That is all that remains, after this day that should have decided everything. Silence.
I sit up and listen until it dies away. Now there’s nothing — only the cool of the night. Everything is muted. My heart is beating dully, as if it no longer believes that this Sisyphean work is worth it. My breathing is quite shallow, my blood is flowing wearily, and my thoughts have almost come to a standstill. I think of nothing except a beautiful pair of different-colored eyes.
All of a sudden I’m sitting up with the phone in my hand, although I can’t remember having made a decision, and I’m dialing a number.
My heart is now beating like mad and my breathing is galloping and my blood has started flowing again and my thoughts are coming thick and fast, because I’m finally making the call I’ve put off for eleven years. I know the number by heart; I’ve dialed it often enough only to cut off the connection immediately, every time.
The first ringing tone is nearly more than I can bear; I almost hang up again from pure reflex — but I push on. The second ring sounds, the third, the fourth, and with a kind of relief I’m beginning to think he’s not there. Then he picks up.
25
JONAS
Jonas Weber’s mobile was vibrating for the third time in half an hour. He took it out of his trouser pocket, looked at the display, saw that it was Sophie and cursed himself for having given her his number. After a brief internal struggle, he answered.
“Jonas Weber.”
“It’s Sophie Peters. I have to talk to you.”
“Listen, Sophie, this isn’t a good time,” he said, sensing Antonia Bug and Volker Zimmer turn to look at him as he spoke her name. “Can I ring you back?”
“It won’t take a second and it’s really, really important,” said Sophie.
Something in her voice alarmed Jonas. She sounded odd — manic.
“Okay. Hang on.”
With an apologetic glance at his colleagues, he left the scene of the crime they’d been called to, extremely glad, in fact, to step outside for a bit.
“Okay, I’ve got away for a moment,” he said.
“Are you in a meeting or something?”
“Something.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I was in the museum a moment ago. I was looking at van Gogh’s sunflowers. And…you know that I told you it must have been a stranger? That no one who knew Britta would have hurt her in any way? You said I made her sound like an angel? That’s what she was, you see. A kind of angel.”