Your Perfect Year(22)

Hannah pressed the “Stop” button on the CD player with a flourish. Panting, Simon and the children stopped in their tracks. A boy named Finn flopped, gasping, onto the floor, then scrabbled his way hastily toward the kitchen. Lisa did have a point, Hannah admitted to herself when she looked at her boyfriend more closely. He seemed totally wiped out; she’d bring it to an end after the next round.

She started the music one last time. The song would be over in a few moments and Simon could call it a day. It would be nearly five o’clock by then, in any case, and they could spend half an hour making and hanging popcorn chains before starting the tidying and cleaning as parents drifted in to pick up their children.

Hannah was putting this afternoon down as a complete success. Her little clients had partied like there was no tomorrow, joining in every game with gusto. There had been no arguments, crying, or demands of “I want Mom!” and—most importantly!—there had been no accidents.

Thanks to Simon, they had been able to accept twenty-four rather than sixteen children, which meant there’d been no need to turn anyone away. Hannah thought it important, especially at the start, not to have to send away any disappointed children.

And then there was the income: four hours per child at six euros an hour made . . . twenty-four times twenty-four . . . so . . . and then divide by two . . . well, by three . . . before tax, of course . . . that made . . .

“Argh!”

Hannah looked up from her fingers, which she had been using as a calculation aid. She saw a crowd of shocked children’s faces all staring in the same direction. She stared too. And saw Simon, his right hand pressed against his chest, fall to the floor.

For a dreadful moment she simply gazed at the clown slumped facedown in the middle of the room. Then she heard a bloodcurdling scream. It was coming from her own throat. “Siiiiiiiimon!”





11

Jonathan

Tuesday, January 2, 4:04 p.m.

Half an hour later, after several vain attempts to get his father to talk to him again, Jonathan was sitting at the wheel of his car, agitated and frustrated in equal measure. Transfixed and on edge, he couldn’t even stir himself to start the engine. He had no idea what to think.

Although he was perfectly aware that dementia had long since carried Wolfgang Grief away into a parallel universe, Jonathan still found it hard to come to terms with his father’s claim that Sofia regularly came to visit him. She’d been absent for decades, for God’s sake!

Before leaving Sonnenhof, Jonathan had even talked to Dr. Knesebeck and two of the nursing assistants, half hoping, half fearing that they would confirm his father’s story—but as he expected, they’d assured him that they had never set eyes on Sofia Grief. Nor Sofia Monticello, for that matter.

And no, there was no way they would have failed to notice a regular visitor; after all, Sonnenhof wasn’t a railway station with people wandering in and out for fun, but “a first-rate facility.” Dr. Knesebeck had repeated the latter assertion more than once, which sounded to Jonathan like an attempt to justify the not-inconsiderable sum they charged him each month.

Nevertheless. A hint of doubt, a scrap of uncertainty, remained.

Whatever the nursing home’s ratings, it wasn’t Fort Knox either. Jonathan had strolled down deserted corridors on more than one occasion, and at midday, Sonnenhof was like an office building whose occupants had all gone to lunch. His father had talked about Sofia so clearly, with such conviction, that it was difficult for a healthy observer to believe that she had merely sprung from his deluded imagination.

And then, of course, there was the diary. As he thought of the Filofax on his desk at home, Jonathan realized that its existence had become even more of a mystery since the conversation with his father.

Could it be true? Was it really possible?

No, Jonathan silenced such thoughts. Even if his mother had decided to break her silence after almost thirty years and turn up in his life, surely there were far less complicated ways of making contact. She could have phoned, for example. Written a letter. Or come by his apartment.

Well, said the inner voice that had grown all too familiar, maybe if your father’s telling the truth, she did at least go to see him.

However absurd it might seem, Jonathan simply had to investigate further, or the whole thing would never leave him in peace.

He pressed the little green telephone icon on his car’s onboard computer with more force than needed, and with a voice command asked the system to put him through to Renate Krug. If anyone knew for sure whether or not Wolfgang had been visited by his ex-wife, it would be his longtime assistant.

“Hello, Herr Grief,” Renate Krug said in her usual efficient but friendly tone.

“Yes, hello, Frau Krug.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Do you know . . .” He gave a little cough. “I’ve just been to see my father . . .”

“Is he all right?” She sounded worried.

“What? Oh, no, not that, I mean, everything’s fine. But I, ah, need to ask you, well, something strange.”

“Something strange?” she echoed. “What is it?”

“Well, you may find this peculiar, but do you happen to know if my father’s recently had a visit from my mother?”

Renate Krug said nothing.

“Are you still there?”