Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(44)
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Amelie hid the roll of pictures in her chest of drawers and sat back down at her laptop. But she could no longer concentrate. It seemed that the pictures were calling softly to her: Look at us! Come on! Take us out!
She turned on her chair and stared at the dresser, wrangling with her conscience. Downstairs car doors slammed and the front door opened.
“We’re back!” her father called. Amelie hurried downstairs to say hello to the people she lived with. Although Barbara and the little tykes had welcomed her kindly, she could never bring herself to think “my family,” much less say it. Then she went back to her room and lay down on the bed. In the next room the toilet flushed. What could be in those pictures? Thies always painted such abstract stuff, except for that cool portrait of her that she’d seen yesterday. But why did he absolutely want to hide these pictures? It seemed to be damned important to him since he’d actually rung her doorbell and asked her not to show them to anybody. And that was really strange.
Amelie waited until peace and quiet returned to the house, then she went over to the chest of drawers and took out the roll. It was pretty heavy, so it must be more than only two or three pictures. And they didn’t smell as strongly of paint as freshly painted ones did. Carefully she untied the many knots in the ribbon that Thies had wrapped around the roll. There were eight pictures in a relatively small format. And they were completely different, not at all Thies’s usual painting style. Very representational and true to life with people that … Amelie froze and looked more closely at the first painting. She felt a tingle at the back of her neck and her heart started beating faster. In front of a big barn with a door wide open two boys were bending over a blond girl lying on the ground, her head in a pool of blood. Another boy with dark curly hair stood by, while a fourth was running with a panic-stricken expression straight toward the observer. And this fourth boy was—Thies! She feverishly began looking at the other paintings.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. The barn with the open door, next to it a somewhat lower stable building, the same people. Thies sat next to the barn, the boy with the dark curls stood at the open door of the stable and watched what was happening inside the stall. One of the boys was raping the blond girl, and the other one was holding her down. Amelie swallowed and turned to the next one. Again the barn, another girl with long black hair and a tight, bright-blue dress, kissing a man. He had his hand on her breast and she had wound one leg around his thigh. The image looked incredibly lifelike. In the rear of the dark barn was the curly-haired boy from the other pictures. The pictures looked almost like photographs. Thies had caught every detail: the colors of the clothes, the necklace on the girl, the text on a T-shirt. Unbelievable! The pictures undoubtedly showed the Sartorius barnyard. And they depicted the events from September 1997. Amelie smoothed out the last picture with both hands and was stunned by what she saw. The house was so quiet that she could hear her pulse pounding in her ears. The picture showed the man who had kissed the black-haired girl, but from the front this time. She knew him. She definitely knew him.
Friday, November 14, 2008
“Good morning.” Gregor Lauterbach nodded to his office manager Ines Schürmann-Liedtke and stepped into his big office in the Cultural Ministry of the state of Hessen on Luisenplatz in Wiesbaden. Today his calendar was totally booked up. For eight o’clock a discussion with his deputy minister was scheduled, and at ten he had to give a speech at the plenum in which he would present the budget proposal for the coming year. At noon an hour was reserved for a brief lunch with representatives of the teachers’ delegation from Wisconsin, the U.S. sister state of Hessen. On his desk the mail lay sorted according to importance in different colored resubmission folders. On top was the folder with the correspondence he had to sign. Lauterbach unbuttoned his jacket and sat down at his desk to take care of the most pressing items. Twenty to eight. The deputy minister would be punctual, he always was.
“Your coffee, sir.” Ines Schürmann-Liedtke came in and set down a cup of steaming coffee.
“Thank you,” he said with a smile. The woman was not only an intelligent and highly efficient office manager, but also a real feast for the eyes: an amply built brunette with big brown eyes and skin like milk and honey. She reminded him a bit of his wife, Daniela. Sometimes he permitted himself lusty daydreams in which Ines played a leading role, but in reality his behavior toward her was always above reproach. He could have replaced the staff in his office two years ago when he took over this position, but he had liked Ines immediately, and she thanked him for saving her job with absolute loyalty and unbelievable diligence.
“You’re looking wonderful again today, Ines,” he said, sipping his coffee. “That shade of green looks magnificent on you.”
“Thank you very much.” She smiled at the compliment, but turned professional at once and read off the list of callers who had asked that he call them back. Lauterbach listened with one ear as he signed the letters Ines had written, nodding or shaking his head. When she was done he handed her the correspondence. She left the office and he devoted himself to the mail that had already been sorted. There were four letters marked PERSONAL and addressed to him, and Ines had not opened those. He slit them open with the letter opener, scanned the first two quickly and put them aside. When he opened the third one, he caught his breath.