Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(77)
While his mother was going on about something in a self-pitying voice, Lars thought about that evening. He had come home from training sessions at the firm and in the hall almost ran into Laura. Her face swollen from crying, she had stormed past him and out the door. He hadn’t understood a thing back then, as he saw his father come out of the living room, stuffing his shirt back in his pants, his face flushed and his hair a mess. That swine!
At the time Laura had just turned fourteen. Only many years later did Lars accuse his father of sleeping with her, but he had denied everything. He said the girl had been in love with him, but he had rebuffed her overtures. And Lars had believed him. What seventeen-year-old wanted to think such things about his father? In retrospect he realized that he had doubted his father’s protestations of innocence. He had lied to him far too many times.
“Lars?” his mother asked. “Are you still there?”
“I should have told the police the truth eleven years ago,” he replied, making an effort to control his voice. “But my own father forced me to lie so that his name wouldn’t be dragged through the mud. What happened now? Did he snatch the missing girl this time too?”
“How can you say such an outrageous thing?” His mother sounded shocked. Christine Terlinden was a master of self-deception. Whatever she didn’t want to hear or see she simply ignored.
“My God, will you for once open your eyes, Mother!” Lars snapped. “I could say a lot more, but I won’t. Because for me that chapter is closed, understand? It’s over. Now I have to go. Please don’t call me anymore.”
* * *
The restaurant where Claudius Terlinden had spent that Saturday evening with his wife and friends was on Guiollettstrasse, across from the twin glass towers of the Deutsche Bank. That’s what his wife had told Pia last night.
“Let me get out here, while you go find a parking spot,” Oliver decided after Pia had driven around the block three times. Parking near the posh Ebony Club was impossible, and valets in English livery waited by the entrance to take the guests’ cars and park them in the underground garage. Pia let Oliver out and he ran with head down through the pouring rain to the entrance. Nobody stopped him when he walked right past the PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED sign. The ma?tre d’ and half the staff were making a big fuss over some VIP with an entourage who didn’t have a reservation. The restaurant was popular at midday, and apparently the financial crisis hadn’t spoiled the appetite of the managers from the surrounding banks from enjoying an extravagant lunch. Bodenstein looked around inquisitively. He had heard a lot about the Ebony Club; the restaurant decorated in Indian colonial style was one of the most expensive and most talked about in the city.
His gaze fell on a couple at a table for two on the riser a bit farther back. He caught his breath. Cosima. As if entranced she was listening to a revoltingly good-looking man who seemed to be explaining something with expansive, spirited gestures. The way Cosima was sitting, leaning slightly forward, her elbows on the table and her chin resting on her clasped hands, set off alarm bells in his head. She brushed a lock of hair out of her face, laughing at something the guy had said, and then, to make matters worse, put her hand on his. Bodenstein stood petrified in the midst of the melee while the service staff ran busily past him; he may as well have been invisible.
That morning Cosima had told him in passing that she would be busy all day at the editing room in Mainz. Had she changed her plans on short notice, or had she knowingly lied to him again? How could she possibly guess that his investigation would bring him at this precise time to this precise restaurant out of the thousands in Frankfurt?
“May I help you?” A plump young woman had stopped in front of him and given him a rather impatient smile. His heart started pounding again with the force of a blacksmith’s hammer. He was shaking all over, and he felt like he was going to throw up.
“No,” he said without taking his eyes off Cosima and her companion. The waitress gave him an odd look, but he couldn’t have cared less what she thought of him. Not twenty yards away his wife was sitting with the man whose company she looked forward to with three exclamation points. Bodenstein concentrated hard on breathing in and out. He wished he could simply go up to their table and punch the man in the face with no warning. But because he had been brought up with polite manners and self-control, he remained standing there and did nothing. The skilled observer in him automatically registered the obvious intimacy between the two, who were now putting their heads together and exchanging deep looks. Bodenstein saw out of the corner of his eye that the young waitress was informing the ma?tre d’, who in the meantime had found an acceptable table for his VIP. So he either had to go over to Cosima and her companion or leave at once. Since he didn’t feel up to guilelessly pretending he was pleased to see them, he decided on the latter option. He turned on his heel and left the overcrowded restaurant. When he walked out the door he stared for a moment at the fence surrounding the construction site across the street before he turned down Guiollettstrasse in a daze. His pulse was racing, and his stomach was churning. The sight of Cosima and that guy had burned its way indelibly into his retinas. The very thing he had feared so much had happened: He was certain that Cosima was cheating on him.
Suddenly someone stepped into his path. He tried to move aside, but the woman with the umbrella took a step in the same direction, so he had to stop.