The Sinner (50 page)

Brauning found it slightly reassuring to have him closer at hand.
Not that lie was scared, but just in case. After all, she'd even gone
for Grovian. He took out a big brown envelope, put it on the table
and gave her an encouraging nod as he removed the prints.

She stared at them as if they were a nest of vipers. "Where did
you get them?" she asked.

"From Herr Grovian."

Her eyes betrayed a flicker of interest. "How is he?"

"Fine. He sends his regards."

"Is he angry with me?"

"No, why should he be?"

She leaned across the table. "I stabbed him," she whispered.

"No, Frau Bender." He shook his head vigorously. "No, you
didn't. You hit him, but he understands that. You were very upset
because he'd provoked you. He really isn't angry. He'd simply like
you to look at these photos. He went to a lot of trouble to collect
them all. There's even one of his son-in-law, so he told me."

She sat back, pursed her lips and folded her arms. `All right, I'll
take a look at them."

He slid the packet across to her. She bent over and looked at
the first print, then shook her head and laid it aside. The second,
the third, the fourth - all were rejected with a shake of he head.
"Which is his son-in-law?" she asked when she got to the fifth.

"No idea, Frau Bender. I'm not allowed to know"

`A pity," she said. She stopped short at the sixth print, frowning
and chewing a fingernail. "Could that be him? I've seen him before,
but I don't know where. I don't know his name, either. What shall
we do with him?"

"Put him to one side," he said.

She examined the seventh and eighth prints. At the ninth she
clamped her eyes shut. "Quick, take it away," she said hoarsely.
"That's Frankie."

He took the photo and added it to the pile she'd already discarded.
It was a couple of minutes before she could continue. The nurse
rested his hand soothingly on her shoulder. She looked up at him
and nodded. Then, with lips tightly compressed, she turned her
attention to the tenth, eleventh and twelfth prints.

At the thirteenth she said: "I don't want to know this swine, and
I don't want to know his name either." Abruptly, she pushed the
photo across to him.

"But I have to know his name, Frau Bender."

"Tiger," she said curtly. She gave the fourteenth print a long
look. The fifteenth brought a smile to her face.

"My God, what a big nose he's got!"

"Do you know him?"

"No, but look at that nose!"

It was going better than expected. He felt proud of himself and
had ceased to expect any dramatic incident, but the eighteenth
print proved critical.

Brauning didn't notice at first. It was the nurse who spotted that
something was wrong. He put his hand on her shoulder again.
Then Brauning saw the way she was staring at the latest photo.

"Do you recognize that man?" he asked.

She didn't react. He couldn't identify her expression. Sorrow or
hatred?

All at once she thumped the table with her fist. The cups gave a
jump, slopping some coffee on the table. Her voice rose above the
clatter. "What have you done to me? I only did it for you! I didn't
want her to die, just sleep. You said I should leave her to sleep and
come back to you. Did I? You should know!"

Brauning couldn't summon up the courage to repeat his question.
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped up the coffee
to prevent it from smudging the prints.

The nurse stepped in. Bending over her, he said soothingly:
"Hey, little lady, don't get upset, it's only a photo. He can't hurt
you, I'll make sure he doesn't. Tell me who he is, and I'll inform
them downstairs. Then they won't let him in if he shows up."

"He can get in anywhere," she sobbed. "He's Satan. Have you
ever seen a picture of Lucifer, Mario? They always show him with
a long tail, cloven feet and horns, like a billy-goat with a pitchfork.
But he can't look like that really. After all, he was one of the angels.
He drives the girls insane - they all want him. They won't listen
when they're warned against him. I didn't listen either. His friend
called him Billy-Goat. I should have known what that meant. You
always have a choice between good and evil. I chose evil."

Brauning didn't dare take the photograph away from her. Mario
did it for him. "Billy-Goat, eh?" he said. "Well, let's put him with
Tiger. I reckon that's where he belongs."

She nodded.

Mario continued the interrogation. "What about this guy here?
Does he belong with them too?"

She took another look at the first print she'd picked out and
shrugged. "I had the feeling I'd seen him with the chief, that's why
I thought it might be his son-in-law But it can't be. Or is his sonin-law a policeman too?"

"We'll ask the chief the next time he comes," said Mario. He
turned to Brauning. "Is that it, or do you need me still?"

Brauning replaced the prints in their envelope. He couldn't
afford to mark the ones of Billy-Goat and Tiger. She would have
to identify Hans Bueckler and Ottmar Denner to the examining
magistrate as soon as she could be brought before him. He shook
his head. "No, I think you can leave us now" He didn't sound too
convinced.

Mario went out. Brauning drank the remains of his coffee, which
was cold. She hadn't touched hers.

`Are we through?" she asked, gazing wistfully in the direction of
the window

"Not quite." He didn't know how to put it.

Rudolf Grovian had said: "If she can identify the men, it'll be
a big step forward. Then we'll need the name of the hospital. We
had no luck in Hamburg. We didn't interview every last doctor, of
course, but we can forget about the doctor in any case, even if her
aunt thinks otherwise ..."

She had been thoroughly examined in the interim. Her skull had
been X-rayed too, and the neurologist's report was with the DA.
It was highly improbable that such injuries had been treated in a
general practitioner's surgery. The X-ray had revealed a regular
spider's web of cracks. Among other things, there was a probability
that epidural bleeding had occurred.

It was naturally impossible to form a precise diagnosis after
five years. However, the very fact that Cora Bender had survived
her injuries without physical impairment was evidence of expert
treatment, and that entailed the requisite equipment. There was
no escaping it: she must have been treated in a hospital or, at the
very least, a private clinic.

Brauning pretended to be busy. He hoisted the briefcase onto his
lap and proceeded to rummage in it without removing anything.
Helene had given him a long lecture on Cora Bender's motives for
lying to the police on this point and others.

"She has nothing to lose," his mother had told him. "Make that
clear to her. We know about the drug-addicted whore. Coax her
out of her shell by telling her what Grovian thinks of her alleged
addiction. If you can also convince her she was never a whore,
Hardy, you've won. Then offer her what she so desperately craves:
a normal, decent life."

He tried, albeit half-heartedly. At least she listened, and there
were times when her expression seemed to justify Helene's
approach. When he'd finished, however, she shrugged and gave an
apologetic smile.

"Nice of you to say all that," she said. "I only wish it were true."
She sighed and looked past him. "What happens to a person who
thinks a crime has been committed and makes every attempt to
hush it up?"

"Nothing, if it doesn't come out. But now, Frau Bender, we must
talk about the hospital."

"No," she said and proceeded to polish a left-hand fingernail on
her right thumb. "We'll do that later. I must ask you something.
You're my attorney, so you mustn't tell anyone. Let's assume a
woman's body was found somewhere and buried. Nobody knew
her name - her bones were simply buried. Let's assume I knew
she'd wanted to be cremated. Could I go to the authorities and
say `I'd like to grant this poor woman's last request and have her
remains cremated.' Could I do that?"

"You could, if you'd known her."

"But I'd have to tell them her name, wouldn't l?" She continued
to polish the fingernail and avoided his eye. He possessed himself
in patience, not knowing where this was leading.

"Yes, you would."

"What if I couldn't do that?"

"I'm afraid you'd have to abandon the idea."

She raised her head at last with a look of fierce determination. "But I must! I must, or I'll go mad. Think of something. There
must be some way around it. If you think of something, perhaps
I will too."

He drew a deep breath. "Frau Bender, can't we discuss this
another time? It's a very complicated matter. I'll have to see if
there's some way out of the problem - and I will, I promise you.
But now you must tell me the name of the hospital that treated
you. If you don't know the name, tell me what town it was in. Give
me some clue - something that will enable me to prove you weren't
a drug-addicted whore. You weren't an addict, Herr Grovian has
already proved that, and he can't imagine that you ever associated
with perverts."

He was hoping that another reference to Grovian would revive
her willingness to cooperate, but in vain: she merely stared at him
without expression. To hell with Helene and her psychologist's
instructions. Being a lawyer, he had different arguments to hand.

"Do you really want to stew in here for the rest of your life,
counting to avoid having to think? Wouldn't it be far better to
clear your head by thinking things over thoroughly for once? You'll
survive a few years in prison - and it won't be more than a few, I
promise you. But this place" - he tapped the tabletop - "can drive
a person insane. Is that what you want?"

She didn't answer, just looked at him and chewed her lower lip.

"I don't think it is," he said firmly. He had talked himself into
form, and his voice carried more and more conviction. "You killed a
man, Frau Bender. Only a man, not the Saviour. I don't want to hear
you utter that word again. We shall find out why you did it. We shall
prove that you had a reason any normal person can understand.
And within a few years, Frau Bender, you'll be truly free. Think it
over. You're only twenty-four, you can make a fresh "

Her expression scarcely changed. A trace of bewilderment
crossed her face, but that was all. "He knew how old I was," she
broke in.

`Aha," he said, not knowing whom she meant and uncertain
whether to bring her back to the point. The look on her face betokened concentration.

"How did lie know that, when I had no papers on me? Naked
by the roadside, he said, badly injured, full of heroin and without
any papers. And then he said: `You aren't even twenty' Was it
guesswork? He couldn't tell from my face, I looked so awful. Check
my driving licence - I had to apply for a new one, and I still had
some old photos, but the authorities wouldn't accept them. They
didn't believe they were of me because I looked so old. He can't
have known my age."

She fell silent for a few moments, drew a hand across her brow
and sighed. "I really don't know his name," she said eventually.
"He didn't tell me, and I never even asked him where I was. He
didn't tell me that either. I can't remember how I got into the train.
A porter told me when to get out. I had a slip of paper with the
address on it. I also had money. Someone must have given the
cabby the slip of paper and the fare. Grit said I arrived in a taxi."

She sighed again and shrugged apologetically. "If you promise
to help me cremate my sister without getting Margret and Achim
punished for the death certificate and the dead girl's body, I'll
describe the doctor to you. I can't do more. Will you promise me
that?"

Brauning did so, and half an hour later he was on the phone to
Grovian. "I don't know what to make of it," he said. "She insists
there was only a doctor plus a nurse whom she seldom saw Her
room was very small, she says. No window, and just enough room
for a bed and a few items of medical equipment. It sounded to me
like a box room."

He went on to describe the man. Several seconds' silence followed.
"Herr Grovian?" he said, wondering if they'd been cut off.

"Yes, I'm still here. It's just that . . . " Another silence, then: "My
God, that's quite impossible. It must be ... How far is it? Four
hundred miles at least. But that's impossible!"