The Sinner (48 page)

He repeated his first question, which Alice Winger had already
answered. Ute Frankenberg confirmed her reply in a low, almost
inaudible voice. He turned to the subject of her husband's former
friends. She knew only what Frankie had told her, not that he
liked talking about them. Once, when she questioned him about
the tune lie listened to every night, claiming that he couldn't go
to sleep without doing so, lie showed her a few old photos and
told her the music was associated with the silliest thing he'd ever
done.

She had never heard him mention the name Cora, but he'd
never been a skirt-chaser, unlike the other two. He said he'd often
felt disgusted by what they got up to. Girls and coke, coke and girls.
And once he'd told her he'd been waiting for her forever, his dream
woman -just the person he needed to cure him.

From the way she spoke, Ute Frankenberg seemed to be heavily
sedated. Grovian could only nod from time to time, although her
reference to photographs had electrified him. Careful, he told
himself, careful.

"These old photos, Frau Frankenberg - do they still exist?"

"Frankie wanted to throw them away, but I wouldn't let him. I
think I put them ..." She got up off the sofa with an effort andwent
over to a chest of drawers. Bending down, she opened a drawer
and removed a photograph album. "They may be in here."

They weren't. There was another album in the bedroom, she
said, but she didn't feel up to fetching it. Alice Winger went instead.
Ute Frankenberg sat down again with the album on her lap. Her
gaze fastened on a postcard-sized snapshot: Frankie! She stroked
the print with her fingertips and burst into tears, unable to go on
turning the pages.

Grovian strove to suppress his impatience. Alice Winger took the
album from her. She looked through it and removed a photograph.
"Is this what you mean?"

Yes, it was! Relief dispelled the constricted feeling in his chest.
He wouldn't have to lie or manipulate, wouldn't have to do what
he'd suggested to her lawyer less than an hour ago: "If it comes to
the pinch, we'll make Frankie a nice but ill-brought-up youngster
of good family who - possibly under the influence of alcohol and
cocaine - allowed his friends to rape a girl in August five years
ago. This can't be proved, but neither can it be disproved. His arm
would have healed by the sixteenth of August, if we stick to that
date. Let's make use of her stories. I can produce a witness who'll
testify under oath that she saw Cora Bender getting into Georg
Frankenberg's car on the night of August the sixteenth. I'm sure
her neighbour will do that for her if we guarantee there won't
be any untoward consequences. You must impress on your client
that she mustn't say a word in court about the Saviour and Mary
Magdalene or pimps and prostitution. What we need is a nice love
story with a dramatic outcome."

Yes, there it was! The photograph was underexposed, but with
a little goodwill and her description at the back of one's mind it
was possible to make out quite a lot. The musical instruments
on the platform in the corner. Even the figures of two men. The
one behind the drums had to be Frankie. His arms were raised;
his face was just a blur. The figure at the keyboard was clearer,
plump and fair-haired, with a dreamy expression. Not very tall
but thickset.

"Who's that?"

Ute Frankenberg bent over his outstretched hand. "That must
be Ottmar Denner."

Tiger, lie thought. "Did your husband ever mention Denner's
nickname? Tiger?"

"No, never."

"No other nicknames? Billy-Goat or Johnny Guitar?"

"No."

What a pity! "There are only two people in this photograph, Frau
Frankenberg. Where's the third, Hans Bockel?"

Where indeed? Behind the camera!

"Bueckler," she said mechanically. "Not Bockel, his name was
Bueckler."

Winfried Meilhofer mumbled an apology. "I must have misheard
the name, then."

"But there must also be a photo of Hans Bueckler," Ute
Frankenberg muttered to herself. She took the album back and
turned a page, shook her head, turned another. "Here," she said,
extracting a print from its transparent sleeve and handing it to him.

Grovian registered two things at the same time: the man in the
photo, who matched Melanie Adigar's description perfectly - a fairhaired Adonis who might have been a Greek sculptor's model for
the god Apollo; and Ute Frankenberg's hair. Still held by a barrette
on the nape of her neck, it reached to her waist.

He felt his heart give a jump, because at the same instant he saw
himself standing in front of the old bedside table holding the silverframed photo in his hand. Magdalena, he thought. This woman was
the trigger.

Damnation, that gnome of a psychologist was right! But it couldn't
be! The snapshot he was holding was evidence. He concentrated on
it once more. Hans Bueckler was standing at the cellar bar, glass in
hand.

"Do you know where these photos were taken, Frau Frankenberg?"

She nodded. "The cellar where they used to practise."

"Where is this cellar?"

"I don't know Is it important to you?"

"Very much so."

"I really don't know Maybe in Denner's parents' house, maybe at
Hans Bueckler's. Yes, that would be it. I don't know where he lived, though. Somewhere up north. His father had something to do with
music. I think he was an agent, but I'm not sure."

"I'll have to take these photographs with me, Fran Frankenberg.
These and any others that show the cellar. There may even be one
of the house itself"

There wasn't, but there were another two good prints of the
cellar, one of them showing Georg Frankenberg seated on the sofa
with the low table in front of it. There was also a snapshot of him
and Denner standing beside a red sports car.

"Do you know who the car belonged to?"

Ute Frankenberg merely nodded, gazing at the photo in his
hand. She couldn't trust herself to speak. Winfried Meilhofer
answered for her. "That was Frankie's car. He still had it when I
first met him."

Grovian left feeling relieved, but only a little. He didn't have
much to go on, just a photograph that might or might not be of
the famous Johnny. Besides, an inner voice told him he would have
done better to take one of Ute Frankenberg and show it to her.
"Who is this, Frau Bender?" he ought to ask her.

In his mind's eye he saw her smile as fondly as she had at the
photo in her bedroom, and in his head he heard her say, in a low,
melancholy voice: "That's Magdalena."

Her hair was still damp. She'd washed it after breakfast, and she
had no hairdryer. It was afternoon now, she knew She knew little
more than that, only that her hair was still damp. She could feel it
lying cool against the nape of her neck. When a puff of wind came
in from outside, she also felt the coolness on her scalp. That apart,
she felt nothing.

Some time ago her right calf had started itching just below the
hollow of the knee, as if some insect had landed there, possibly
a mosquito. She'd debated whether to scratch the spot or shoo
it away. Concentrating hard, she'd tried to discover whether she
could identify the creature or induce it to fly off by an effort of the
will alone. She hadn't looked at the spot or touched it. The itching
had eventually stopped half an hour ago. She was sure of that,
having counted off the seconds.

Counting had been her exclusive occupation ever since she returned
from seeing the professor. She had got to well over ten thousand when
her itching leg interrupted her, and she had to start afresh. Eighteen
... Magdalena's age when she died. Nineteen ... Her own age at
that time. Twenty ... She'd gradually begun to live. Twenty-one ...
The age at which she'd imagined she could lead a life like a thousand
others with a husband too stupid to be dangerous. But that had been
a mistake. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four ...

"I see you've washed your hair, Frau Bender," the professor had
said.

It was still wet at that stage, not just damp. The professor was
pleased. He asked how often she used to wash it before. Every day, surely! Were those curls natural or a permanent wave, and what
shampoo did she use? It had such an agreeably fresh smell.

"It's a very good shampoo," she replied. "The chief brought it
for me. Where is he? Did I kill him?"

She knew she'd stabbed him - with the little knife lying on the
bar. She'd managed to get hold of it somehow, and the moment
she stabbed him he wasn't the chief any more, just someone doing
something he shouldn't. Then she'd seen his face again, just for a
fraction of a second. She'd recognized him too but without being
able to tell if he was bleeding - even if he was still alive. The next
moment, darkness fell.

Then she was lying in a white bed with a thin, worried face
bending over her. The neatly trimmed beard was missing. He's
shaved it off, was her first thought - he must have shaved while
I was asleep. She waited for him to make her drink some orange
juice or move her arms and legs, ask her to recite a poem from her
schooldays or inject something into the cannula in the back of her
hand. Or check the bandage around her head or prick her heels.

And the fear, this terrible fear that everything had begun again
from the beginning - that she must go through it all once more:
her homecoming. Mother's uncaring voice in the doorway: "Cora
is dead. Both my daughters are dead."

And Father at her bedside: "What have you done, Cora?"

And Grit with her anxious, worried expression, not knowing
whether to speak or remain silent, groping her way along, every
sentence a hammer blow: "You've no need to worry, Margret has
taken care of everything. Her death certificate says it was cardiac
and renal failure. Margret fetched the papers from Eppendorf and
got hold of a body, a junkie, I believe. Her boyfriend helped her.
He made out the death certificate too."

Grit had shaken her head and shrugged. "It was a young
woman. Margret brought her here by car. A suicide mission,
but we needed something for the funeral. We had her cremated.
Magdalena wanted it that way, and Margret said that wrapped it
up. If anyone asked any stupid questions later on, there wouldn't
be any answers."

It almost stifled her, the dreadful fear of having to hear it all
again. She cried out, reached for the hand that was taking her
pulse and clung to it tightly. "I don't want to go home. Please
don't send me away, let me stay here. I can assist the staff - I'll
do anything you ask, but don't send me home. My sister is dead.
I killed her."

She didn't know how long she begged and pleaded and clung to
that hand. It seemed an age before she realized her mistake. He
hadn't shaved - he'd never had a beard in the first place. It was the
professor, and now she'd told him. He knew, however many times
he pretended not to have heard and however many times he asked
her what shampoo she'd used to wash her hair. He had attained his
objective - squeezed the truth out of her at last.

Four thousand three hundred and twenty-seven ...

Four thousand three hundred and twenty-eight ...

Magdalena's bones lying in the dust, parched grass all
around ...

Four thousand three hundred and twenty-nine ...

Four thousand three hundred and thirty ...

An unidentified girl! A skeletonized body near a military training
area on Luneburg Heath.

Four thousand three hundred and thirty-one ... Don't think!
She mustn't think and had no wish to.

Grit had said: "I couldn't believe it at first when your father
knocked on my door that Sunday morning in May and said: `The
girls have gone.' I thought you must have taken Magdalena to
Eppendorf. We called the hospital, but no dice. That afternoon we
foundyour car parked outside the Aladdin. We couldn't understand
it and didn't know what to do. I told your father he should go to
the police, but he was dead against it. I almost got the feeling he
thought you'd done away with Magdalena."

Grit had heaved a big sigh. "I'll never understand how he could
have got such an idea into his head - him, of all people, who knew
you'd have cut off your right hand for her. Well, we let it be known
in the neighbourhood that Magdalena was going downhill fast and
that you wouldn't leave her side. It was lucky Melanie was sleeping over at a friend's place that weekend. She mightn't have been able
to keep her mouth shut."

Then Grit had spoken of August. "I still think it's wrong, what
Margret did, and I reproach myself for saying anything at all when
I read in the newspaper about a body being found. I didn't want
to mention it to your father at first - I thought it would upset him
unnecessarily. And it did. He called Margret right away, and do
you know what he told her? `Magdalena has been found.' I said:
`Wilhelm, that's just not true! They've simply found a body, the
remains of some unidentified girl. It can't be Magdalena. They'd
have been bound to find some clothing. A nightie at the very least
- she always wore a nightie.' But he gave me a funny look and
shook his head. And Margret said: `It doesn't matter who the dead
girl was. We must do something - we've waited far too long as it
is.' And she was right, really. We couldn't go on saying you were
sitting beside her bed, not indefinitely. Besides, we didn't believe
she was still alive."