Your Perfect Year(112)

“So what does that mean right now?”

“I’m taking a sabbatical. We’re going on a round-the-world trip with the children.”

“A round-the-world trip? With the children?”

“It’s the ideal time for it. Our eldest starts school in two years, so it’ll be impossible then.”

“But you don’t have to hand in your notice to do that!”

“I do. And I don’t intend to come back here. I’m looking for something else. Something less stressful.”

“You can stop right there! It’s not so stressful here.”

“Oh, Jonathan,” Markus Bode said, giving him a friendly clap on the shoulder. “If you were in my shoes, you’d know what I was talking about.” He winked. “As soon as I’m back from my travels, we could take up our tennis games again. I’ve really enjoyed beating you.”

“Oh.” Jonathan was speechless. “But . . . but . . . when do you leave? Grief & Son, I mean?”

“Effective immediately.”

“Immediately?! How—”

“I’ve been here for a good fifteen years, so my notice period is six months. But I’ve also built up far more than six months of leave, so I think that more than covers it.”

“Markus, I—”

“I wish you all the best, Jonathan,” Markus Bode said as he shouldered the box containing his things. “You’ll be fine! One more thing . . .” He pointed to some piles of paper on his desk. “There are some excellent manuscripts there. Maybe you could find the time to read through them?” No sooner had he spoken than he was gone.

So much for Bode and his sudden departure. But at that decisive, fateful moment, Jonathan didn’t want to think any more about it. Okay, if he was honest, he hadn’t wanted to think about it over the last few days either. In the office he had begun by pursuing a “business as usual” course, and beyond that prayed that everything would fall into place of its own accord. Somehow.

“It won’t just happen,” Leo had prophesied as soon as Jonathan told him of his plight, to which Jonathan had replied, “You just look after your scrambled eggs, pal!”

Now it was time to enter Da Riccardo. Behind the heavy front door, the restaurant turned out to be small and tastefully decorated in the Italian style. All the tables were occupied. Jonathan looked around nervously for the red-haired woman but couldn’t see her anywhere. There were no single women at any of the tables, and he felt a wave of ice-cold disappointment sweep over him.

“Buonasera.” A waiter approached him with a smile. “Do you have a reservation?”

“Yes,” Jonathan replied despondently. “In the name of Marks.”

“Follow me, please!” He gave an obliging nod and marched off. As Jonathan followed him through the restaurant, his heart began to beat wildly again. Was she there after all? Could it be she is actually here?

The waiter went up to a curtain and drew it aside. “Here you are, sir.”

There she was. Sitting right in front of him. The woman with the green eyes and the wavy red hair. It really was the woman from the café. He remembered her face perfectly.

She looked at him without expression.

“Good evening,” he said quietly. “My name is Jonathan Grief. Are you Frau Marks?”

She push her chair back a little, rose, and stepped toward him.

“Hannah,” she said. Then she raised her hand and slapped him hard.





62

Hannah

Friday, May 11, 9:20 p.m.

Another evening when Hannah was unable to appreciate the food at Da Riccardo, which had such an excellent reputation. After her frosty introduction, Riccardo had personally served them each a glass of Gavi and since then had not been seen on their side of the curtain. It didn’t look like he was going to reappear—he probably thought Hannah a madwoman who only showed up here to make men cry in this private booth.

When she explained to Jonathan the reason for the slap—that he had swiped a gift intended for a dead man—he looked truly shocked.

“I had no idea!” he said. “I’m so sorry! I started out trying to find the owner of the diary, but over time I became fascinated by what you had written. And, well . . . after my visit to the psychic . . . At some point I started to believe that fate had given me a massive gift. It blinded me to reality, and I stupidly went too far, so that I even bought the rings. I admit that was completely over the top. Please forgive me. But as I said, I thought it was fate.”

This little speech disarmed Hannah—how could she have argued with him, given all she believed?

She listened to Jonathan closely as he told her how he’d found the bag containing the diary hanging on the handlebars of his bike on New Year’s Day. How the handwriting had reminded him of his mother, who had left him when he was still a child. And how he had met the rather bewildered-looking “Harry Potter” by the Alster. Only now did it dawn on him who it must have been.

They talked for a long time, Hannah pausing only now and then to text Lisa to say everything was fine and she shouldn’t send the police or turn up herself. And it was true. Everything was fine, except that Hannah kept bursting into tears—so much so that on one occasion, Jonathan took her hand, but let go again as soon as she’d calmed down a little.