Sophie leaped up, drained her wine, and went along the hall to the bedroom, grumbling at the removal boxes that Paul still hadn’t collected. She was furious — at herself, at the world — and would have liked to take one of the stupid golf clubs that were sticking out of the box labeled “Misc.” and bash something with it. She rummaged around in her carryall for the pepper spray she had bought a short while ago, put it in her handbag along with her wallet, keys and mobile, left the flat and stormed down the stairs.
The darkness was velvety and smelled autumnal. Sophie realized that the stifling hot summer had given way to a moody autumn.
She walked along the night streets, moving further and further from the busier parts of town, deeper and deeper into the shadows. She hadn’t really stopped to think about her plan.
A trap for a murderer. With her as bait.
Perfect, provided you weren’t overly attached to life. Sophie realized that she was thinking in the terms of a TV crime drama, with the murderer, the victim, the pesky eyewitness, the nice police officer. Somehow it was easier that way: to view the affair not as a genuine tragedy, not as a real part of her life, but as just another case.
Sophie walked and walked. Fewer and fewer people passed her. It turned chilly — cold, even — and the wind was biting. Sophie unbuttoned her jacket; she wanted to be cold, to shiver, to feel something other than grief or anger at last, even if it was only coldness. Or pain.
Something inside her understood how self-destructive such thoughts were, how crazy this plan was, driven only by her overwhelming feelings of guilt. But Sophie silenced the warning voice and turned into the dark park that lay before her.
She sat down on a bench and waited. She stared into the shadows, growing colder. It wasn’t long before she saw him.
24
I’m drinking tea in small sips. I had put on music in the hope it would drive away the voices in my head, but it’s not working. Ella Fitzgerald is singing to me about the summertime and easy living, but summer is a long way off and my life feels hard and the voices in my head are still arguing about the truth. In the morning sun, the lake gleams indigo, violet, deep red, orange, yellow, and then pale blue.
I saw Victor Lenzen on that terrible, hot, deep-red night — I’m sure I did.
Linda and her stories.
I saw him.
The way you saw that fawn in the clearing all those years ago?
I was only a child then. All children tell fibs, make things up.
And you’re still at it now.
I know what I saw. I’m not mad.
Oh, aren’t you?
Those pale eyes, the shape of his eyebrows, the look on his face — that mixture of fear and belligerence — all those things I saw twelve years ago, and all those things I recognized when he stood before me yesterday.
He has an alibi.
I saw him.
A bombproof alibi.
Still, it was him. I saw him.
Then why didn’t the police catch him?
The police didn’t “catch” me, either. If everyone thinks I’m crazy and murdered my own sister, then why haven’t the police arrested me?
You were lucky.
I’ve never been lucky.
You’re a good liar.
I didn’t lie. I saw him. At the terrace door.
You’ve been telling your stories for so long that you’ve come to believe them yourself.
I know what I saw. I remember that evening. I remember it precisely.
You’re mad, Linda.
Nonsense!
You hear music that isn’t there.
But I remember.
You see things that aren’t there, you’re constantly dizzy, your head’s almost bursting with pain — you can’t even help yourself.
I remember it precisely. He was there. I saw it in his eyes; he recognized me as well. And he hated me for bringing it all back to him. He was there. He killed Anna. Maybe I was wrong all along. Maybe Anna wasn’t an accidental victim. Maybe the two of them knew each other. Just because I didn’t know anything about an affair doesn’t mean there was no affair. Who knows? Perhaps a jealous lover. A stalker. A lunatic.
It’s YOU who’s the lunatic. Maybe you’re schizophrenic. Or have a brain tumor. Maybe that’s what’s causing the pain — and the dizziness and the music.
That ghastly music.
I look out the window. The water glistens and sparkles, and a fair distance away, on the eastern shore of the lake, something stirs. There’s a movement of branches, and it steps out from between the trees, majestic and incredibly big: a red deer — dignified and beautiful, its head held high. I catch my breath and watch it as a painter might, drinking in its movements, its grace, its vigor. For a few moments it stands motionless in the light mist that is rising from the lake, and then it vanishes again between the trees.
So often have I sat here in the hope of seeing an animal, and so seldom have I actually seen one. And a red deer? Never. The animal seems to me like a sign.
There’s no such thing as signs. You see things that aren’t there. For a long time, I remain sitting at the window in the big peaceful house that is my entire world, looking out, hoping that the red deer will return — knowing full well that it won’t, but sitting and waiting all the same. I wouldn’t know what else to do. I sit there, and the sight of the lake, its surface rippled by the wind, soothes my mind. The sun rises higher and higher, unmoved by the chaos that has descended on my world. It has its own world to shine on.
The sun is about 4,500 million years old. I know that kind of thing; I’ve had a lot of time to read over the past ten or eleven years. It’s already shone on a great deal of things. Its morning rays warm me through the glass. It’s as if somebody were touching me and I relish it.
It’s a lovely day. Maybe I can forget what I’ve been through and simply be grateful for this day, for the edge of the woods and the lake and the sunshine. The sun rises higher; it’s not tired, even after 4,500 million years. There’s nothing I have to do, and I’m thinking that I could sit here forever, calm and serene — that it’s best if I don’t budge so much as an inch, because even the slightest change might destroy everything — when I hear it. The music.
Love, love, love.
No. Please, please, no.
Love, love, love.
Not again. Please, I can’t stand it anymore.
I let out a dry sob, curl up on my chair and press my hands to my ears.
The music vanishes. I whimper and hold my head so tight that it hurts, while my heart pumps fear through my body. I don’t know whether it was the despair or the pain or my extreme physical and mental exhaustion, but it’s only now that it occurs to me: if I’m only imagining the music — if the music is only in my head and has only been in my head all along — then how is it possible that it’s silenced as soon as I put my hands over my ears? I take my hands off my ears and listen. Nothing. I’m almost disappointed. I was beginning to think…
Love, love, love.
There it is again. I feel dizzy, like every time I hear it. But this time it sounds different. It swells and fades away and…moves about. The music is moving.