‘Hello, Salim.’
‘Good morning, Frau Doktor.’
Emma had waited for the delivery man to climb the few steps before opening the door a crack, as far as the metal bolt inside would allow.
Sitting beside her, Samson started wagging his tail, as he always did when he heard the delivery man’s voice.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting so long, I was upstairs,’ Emma apologised with a frog in her throat.
She wasn’t used to speaking any more.
‘No problem, no problem.’
Salim Yüzgec put the delivery on the top step under the porch, kicked some snow from his heels and smiled as he fished the obligatory treat from his trouser pocket. As he did every time, he checked that Emma didn’t mind and, as every time, she gave Samson the sign to grab the dog biscuit.
‘How are you today, Frau Doktor?’ he asked.
Fine. I’ve just swallowed ten milligrams of Cipralex and spent from nine o’clock till half past ten breathing into a bag. Thanks for asking.
‘Getting a little better by the day,’ she lied and felt that her attempt to return his smile was a desperate strain.
Salim was a sympathetic chap, who occasionally brought over a pot of vegetable soup his wife had made. ‘So you don’t lose any more weight.’ But his concern for the psychiatrist was based on false assumptions.
To stop the neighbourhood from gossiping wildly about why the Frau Doktor no longer stepped outside the house, spent the whole day in her dressing gown and was neglecting her practice, Philipp had told the woman who owned the kiosk that Emma had suffered severe food poisoning, which had attacked her vital organs and almost killed her.
Frau Kolowski was the biggest gossip on the estate and by the time the message had reached Salim’s ears, the poisoning had escalated into cancer. But it was better for people to think that Emma had lost her hair through chemotherapy than for them to chinwag about the truth. About her and the Hairdresser.
Why should strangers believe her if her husband didn’t? Of course, Philipp tried as hard as he could to hide his doubts. But he’d done his own investigation and found practically nothing that supported her version of the events.
In everyday Chinese, Japanese and Korean the number four has a similarity to the word ‘death’, which is why it’s considered unlucky in some circles. In the areas where Cantonese is spoken, the number fourteen even means ‘certain death’, which is why the Le Zen owners, who were from Guangdong, not only did away with the corresponding room numbers, but the fourth and fourteenth floors too.
Not even the suspicion that Emma had mistaken her room number was of much help. From her description of the view the only possibilities were rooms 1903 and 1905. Both had been booked for the entire week by a single mother from Australia with three children, who were having a holiday in Berlin. In neither room was there any sign of forceful entry or a physical assault. And neither room had a portrait of Ai Weiwei, which wasn’t a surprise as there wasn’t a picture of the Chinese artist anywhere in the hotel. This was another reason why the investigating team didn’t accord Emma’s ‘case’ a particularly high priority.
And why she increasingly doubted her sanity.
How could she blame Philipp for being sceptical, given such an unbelievable story? A rape in a hotel room that didn’t officially exist and which she’d searched thoroughly just before the alleged attack had taken place?
Emma also claimed she’d been abused by a serial killer notorious for shaving the heads of his victims. But all of these so far had been prostitutes and none had lived to tell the tale. For that was another of the Hairdresser’s trademarks: he killed female escorts who he’d ambushed in their rooms.
I’m the only one he let live. Why?
It was no surprise that the police were reluctant to attribute her case to the Hairdresser. Amongst Philipp’s colleagues she was seen as a self-mutilating madwoman who invented horror stories. But at least she wasn’t being hassled by the press.
Only by the delivery man.
‘I didn’t expect you so early,’ Emma said, opening the door to Salim.
‘I just fell out of bed this morning,’ the delivery man laughed.
Since she’d stopped leaving the house (even walking the dog was Philipp’s job), she had many things she needed delivered to her door. Today Salim stood there with relatively few packages. She signed for the receipt of her contact lenses; the online pharmacy had finally sent the painkillers; and the larger, lighter box probably contained the warm slippers you could put in the microwave. Finally there was her daily crate of food for which she’d set up a standing order with the online supermarket.
Philipp was responsible for drinks and all non-perishable items such as preserves, detergents or loo paper. But it was better that vegetables, milk, fish, butter and bread didn’t hang around in his car when, as so often, he was suddenly called away and came home hours later than expected.
Recently he hadn’t spent several days away at a time, as he did that fateful weekend. Not since the madman had rendered Emma immobile with an injection, stripped off her pyjamas and lain on top of her with all his weight.
In the last few months Philipp had insisted on spending the nights with her. He was even prepared to cancel the Europa Meeting this weekend, even though it was the most important workshop of the year. The leading profilers throughout Europe met only once every twelve months to pool their knowledge. Two days, and a different city every year. This time it was in Germany, in a hotel in Bad Saarow beside the Scharmützelsee. A must-attend event for this sworn band of extraordinary personalities who had to spend every day engaging with the worst things that mankind was capable of – and on this occasion Philipp even had the honour of giving a lecture about his work.
‘I insist! If anything happens I’ll call you right away. I mean you’re practically round the corner, only an hour away,’ Emma had said this morning as she gave him a goodbye kiss, while actually wanting to scream, ‘An hour? It didn’t take that madman much longer to turn me into a psychological wreck.’
‘Step by step I’ve got to drag myself out of this hole,’ she’d said, hoping he’d realise that she was merely parroting hollow phrases from the psychiatry manual that she no longer believed in. Nor did she believe the final lie she sent Philipp off with: ‘I’ll cope on my own.’
Yes, for five whole seconds as she waved to him from the kitchen window. Then she’d lost her composure and started headbutting the wall until Samson jumped up at her and stopped her from doing herself further injury.
‘Thanks very much,’ Emma said once she’d taken everything off the delivery man and trudged back into the hallway.
Salim offered to carry the boxes into the kitchen (I’m not that bad yet) then slapped his forehead.
‘I almost forgot. Could you take this for your neighbour?’
Salim picked up a shoebox-sized package from the floor. Emma had thought it couldn’t be for her, and she’d been right.
‘For my neighbour?’ Her knees began trembling as she evaluated the potential consequences of this dreadful request if she were to be so crazy as to agree to it.
Just like the last time, when she’d kindly accepted the book delivery for the dentist, she’d sit for hours in the darkness, unable to do anything but think constantly about when it would happen. When the bell would shred the silence and announce the unwanted visitor.
As her hands became clammier and her mouth drier, she would keep counting the minutes and later the seconds until the strange object had vanished from her house.
But that was not the worst thought running amok in her mind when she read the name of the addressee on the sticker.
Herr A. Palandt Teufelssee-Allee 16a 14055 Berlin
Having the strange object in her house was one thing – she might be able to cope with that. It would change her routine and throw her emotional balance into disarray, but in itself the package wasn’t a problem.
It was the name.
Her pulse racing and hands getting wetter by the second, she stared at the address printed on the package and just wanted to weep.