Strangers: A Novel(71)
“Are you at home, Frau Berrigan?”
I violently shake my head and wave my hand to indicate no.
“No, I … I couldn’t stand being at home anymore, I went to see a friend.”
Very good. That buys us some time.
“That was a good idea. Whereabouts? Is it nearby?”
Joanna gives me a questioning look, but before I can react, she says, “You have my number on your screen, please call me if you hear anything. I’ll contact you again tomorrow morning.” With that, she hangs up, takes a deep breath, and puts the phone aside.
“That was very well done,” I say. “It sounded real.”
The look she gives me is defiant. “All I needed to do was remember this afternoon. It was real.”
33
Pull down the blinds, draw the curtains, turn off the main lights. From outside it needs to look like nobody’s home. Ideally, I would go around and knock on all the doors in the neighborhood, to check whether anyone has seen Erik, but that would probably be overdoing it a little.
There are other things I can do, though: like call the hotline for next of kin, and beg the woman at the other end to tell me whether my fiancé has turned up anywhere. Yes, I’m sure that he was there at the time of the attack. No, I haven’t heard anything from him yet, nothing at all. Yes, of course I’ll leave my name, address, and telephone number.
“Please call me as soon as you know anything, it doesn’t matter how late it is,” I say in a choked whisper before hanging up.
Erik looks at me thoughtfully. “I had no idea how convincing a liar you can be. It’s astonishing. And scary, to be honest.”
I open my mouth to respond, but then decide to stay silent after all. My day wasn’t as horrific as his, but it was still terrible. Right now my nerves are so raw that I could come out with any conceivable form of emotional outburst: hysterical laughter, or fits of tears. Or an attack of rage.
I don’t dare to even try to explain it. It’s better to stay quiet.
My next call is to one of the biggest hospitals in Munich, where I get through to someone on the switchboard after the third attempt and give another acoustic breakdown performance. This woman, too, notes down my details.
The more frequently our names turn up on the lists of the missing and those searching for them, the better. If Gabor were to report Erik missing, then he might find out that Erik’s fiancée already called. Multiple times. Everywhere. Right now, an open display of worry is the best disguise.
The next hospital. And then the next. At some point Erik stands up, gets a bottle of wine from the kitchen, and opens it. He hands me a half-filled glass, but I wave my hand to reject it. I need a clear head; it’s already after midnight. The fact that I’m ignoring my exhaustion doesn’t mean it’s not there.
So Erik drinks alone, lost in his thoughts as I call hospital number four and am kept waiting in the phone queue for ages. When someone finally picks up, I have to make a considerable effort to sound desperate instead of irritated.
By the time I finish the call, Erik has closed his eyes and leaned his head back. The glass in his hand is empty, as is the second, intended for me.
“You know what I find interesting?” he says, without looking up.
“What?”
“It’s possible to interpret your sudden flurry of activity in two different ways. That you’re trying to fake my death in order to protect me. Or—”
“Or?” My voice sounds irritated. Pull yourself together, I order myself silently.
“Or you’re getting everything ready for my actual death. If you wanted to kill me, you’d never get such a great opportunity as this again. No one officially knows whether I’m still alive or not, so if I don’t turn up again, the police won’t make any effort in their investigations.” He opens his eyes again and leans forward, to grab the bottle of wine and pour what little remains of it into his glass.
“They won’t find my body at the station, that’s the only flaw. But then again I could have been right next to the bomb and pulverized. Right?”
For a few seconds I just stare at him, lost for words. If it wasn’t for the episode with the knife, I would have every reason to be outraged. But … his train of thought wasn’t illogical. It’s clear I’ll never be able to convince Erik that he’s wrong.
I get up from the couch, go into the kitchen, and pick up the tapas cookbook from the shelf. Toward the back of it, there’s an envelope clipped between the pages. I pull it out and take it into the living room, where I throw it on the coffee table.
“There. There’s twenty thousand euros in it; that should keep you going for a while without having to worry about bills. If you really think I want to kill you, then take it and go to the airport, get on the first plane out of Germany, and hide somewhere.”
Erik barely glances at the envelope, his eyes have narrowed. “You think I’ll take your money?”
“It’s not about money, it’s about you being able to feel safe. Money isn’t the solution here, interestingly enough it never is, but it helps.”
I can see the gears turning in his head, contemplating whether my suggestion can in any way be linked to the theory that I’m in league with Gabor.
“There’s no way I’m going,” he says eventually. “Bernhard said you’re in danger; you really think I could just take off?”