Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(86)

He opened the door. The dog jumped out of his basket and greeted him effusively. When Cosima appeared in the kitchen doorway, Oliver’s heart sank.

“Hello.” She smiled. “You’re kind of late today. Did you already eat?”

There she stood, in the same celadon green cashmere sweater that she’d been wearing at the Ebony Club at lunch, and looking the same as usual.

“No,” he replied. “I’m not hungry.”

“Just in case, I have meatballs and a noodle salad in the fridge.”

She turned away, heading back to the kitchen.

“You weren’t in Mainz today,” he said. Cosima stopped and turned around. He didn’t want her to lie to him, so he kept talking before she could say anything. “I saw you at the Ebony Club at lunch. With Alexander Gavrilow. Please don’t try to deny it.”

She crossed her arms and looked at him. Silence. The dog felt the sudden tension and crept soundlessly back to his basket.

“In recent weeks you’ve almost never been in Mainz,” Oliver went on. “A few days ago I came out of the forensics lab and you happened to be driving right in front of me. I called you on your cell and saw you pick up the phone. And then you claimed you were in Mainz.”

He stopped talking. He still hoped in a corner of his heart that she would laugh and give him a completely innocent explanation. But she didn’t laugh or deny it. She just stood there with her arms crossed. Without a sign of guilty conscience.

“Please be honest with me, Cosima.” His voice sounded pathetic in his ears. “Are you … are you having … an affair with Gavrilow?”

“Yes,” she replied calmly.

His world collapsed, but Oliver managed to remain just as calm as Cosima.

“Why?” he asked, torturing himself.

“Oh, Oliver. What do you want me to say?”

“Preferably the truth.”

“I met him this summer by chance at an opening in Wiesbaden. He has an office in Frankfurt, was planning a new project, and was looking for sponsors. We talked on the phone a few times. He had an idea that I could do a film about his expedition. I knew you wouldn’t like it, so first I wanted to hear what sort of ideas he had in mind. That’s why I didn’t tell you that I met with him. And somehow it just … happened. I thought it was only a fling, but then…” She broke off, shaking her head.

Unbelievable. How could she meet another man and start an affair without him suspecting a thing? Was he too stupid, too trusting, or too self-involved? The lyrics of a song came to mind, a song that Rosalie in her worst phase of puberty had blasted constantly all over the house. What does he have that I don’t have? Tell me the truth, what it is. Now it’s much too late, but what have you missed? Such a dumb song—and now all of a sudden it contained so much truth. Oliver left Cosima standing there and went upstairs to the bedroom. In another minute he would have exploded, screamed in her face what he thought of adventurers like Gavrilow who started affairs with married mothers of small children. He had probably conducted his dalliances all over the world, that bastard! Oliver opened all of the clothes cabinets, yanked his suitcase down from one of the top shelves, and stuffed it with underwear, shirts, and ties, throwing in two suits on top. Then he went into the bathroom and packed his personal things in a toiletry bag. Ten minutes later he dragged the suitcase downstairs. Cosima was still standing in the same spot.

“Where are you going?” she asked softly.

“Away,” he said without looking at her. Then he opened the front door and stepped out into the night.





Friday, November 21, 2008



At a quarter past six Bodenstein was torn out of a deep sleep by the ringing of his cell phone. In a daze he groped for the light switch until he remembered that he wasn’t at home in his own bed. He had slept poorly and had crazy dreams. The mattress was too soft, the comforter too warm, so that he had alternated between sweating and freezing. His cell kept on ringing obstinately, stopped, and then began ringing again. Bodenstein rolled out of bed, felt around in the dark with no point of reference in the strange room and cursed when he stubbed his big toe on a table leg. Finally he found the light switch next to the door and then located his cell phone in the inside pocket of his jacket, which he had thrown over the chair last night.

A forest ranger had found a male corpse in a car at a forest parking lot below the Eichkopf mountain between Ruppertshain and K?nigstein. The evidence techs were already on their way. Could he drive out and stop by to take a brief look? Of course he would—what choice did he have? His face contorted in pain, he hobbled back to the bed and sat down on the edge. The events of the other day seemed like a bad dream. For almost an hour he had driven around until he almost by accident happened to pass the turnoff to his family’s estate. Neither his father nor mother had asked him any questions when he showed up at the front door shortly before midnight and asked to stay for the night. His mother had made up a bed for him in one of the guest rooms on the top floor but hadn’t pressed him for an explanation. She certainly must have seen from his face that he hadn’t dropped by for fun. He was grateful for her discretion. There was no way he could have talked about Cosima and that guy.

With a sigh he got up, fished out his toiletry bag from his suitcase, and went across the hall to the bathroom. It was tiny and ice cold and reminded him unpleasantly of his childhood and youth, which had been devoid of any luxury. His parents had scrimped where they could, because money was always tight. Over there in the castle, where he had grown up, in the winter months only two rooms were heated; all the other rooms were only “lukewarm,” as his mother used to call the barely 64-degree room temperature. Bodenstein sniffed at his T-shirt and wrinkled his nose. He couldn’t avoid taking a shower. He thought nostalgically of the heated floors in his house, of the soft towels smelling of fabric softener. He showered in record time, drying himself with a rough, tattered hand towel, and then shaved with trembling fingers in the pale fluorescent light of the mirrored cabinet. Downstairs in the kitchen he encountered his father, who was drinking coffee at the scratched wooden table and reading the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.