Emma felt as if she were being buffeted by a cold draught, a psychosomatic stress reaction. One part of her brain told her she had to go back to fetch her mobile; the other asked if she was seriously so insane as to want to return to the lion’s den.
She froze and took her thick, sky-blue towelling dressing gown from the cupboard in the hall. It smelled of the perfume that she’d fished out again only yesterday, in the hope that the scent Philipp had bought her on the first day of their honeymoon in Barcelona would remind her of the happiest days of the time before. At that moment, however, all the mixture of cassis, amber and lotus did was to confirm Emma in her belief that she’d irretrievably lost the happiness of the past.
With sluggish steps she dragged herself to the kitchen, where she took the cordless house telephone from its charging station beside the coffee machine.
Her back leaning against the vibrating fridge, she looked out into the garden and keyed in Philipp’s number.
Please pick up. Please pick up…
A crow landed in the middle of the garden on the splintered trunk of a headless birch tree, which had been hit by lightning years before, and which they ought to have removed ages ago. Outside it was already getting dark and the lights of the neighbouring houses were shimmering cosily between the trees like small sulphur lamps.
In the time before, she would have poured herself a cup of tea at this hour, lit a candle and put on some classical music, but now the only soundtrack accompanying her depressive mood was the endlessly ringing telephone.
She was expecting to hear it go to voicemail when there was a click on the line and she heard a cough.
‘Yes? Hello?’
Emma moved away from the fridge, but the vibrations in her back remained. They got stronger when she realised who had answered her husband’s mobile.
‘Jorgo?’
‘Everything alright?’ the policeman whispered.
‘Yes. Where’s Philipp?’
‘He’s… hold on a sec.’ She heard a rustling, then footsteps and finally something like a door closing. Jorgo spoke louder now; his voice sounded strangely distorted, as if he were standing in an empty room.
‘He can’t talk right now.’
‘I see.’
‘He’s just giving his lecture. I’ve had his mobile all this time.’
Was that an excuse?
Emma pressed the receiver closer to her ear, but couldn’t detect any background noises that might either confirm or refute Jorgo’s claims.
‘And you don’t want to listen to your best friend talk?’
‘I left the room especially because of you. Is there a problem?’
Yes. My life.
‘How much longer will it go on?’ she asked.
‘A while yet. Listen, if it’s about his visit to Le Zen again…’
An icebox opened in Emma’s stomach.
‘How do you know about that?’ she gasped.
The explanation was as simple as it was embarrassing. ‘Philipp had his phone on speaker in the car when he listened to his messages earlier.’
She blinked nervously.
Shit.
She’d completely forgotten her first call. And Jorgo had heard everything.
‘Four weeks ago Philipp was at the hotel in a professional capacity. I know, because I accompanied him. We got them to show us all the rooms on the nineteenth floor again. What else could he have said when he suddenly found himself face to face with that vet? Hello, I’m waiting for the hotel manager? We want to find the room where my wife was raped.’
Emma gave an involuntary nod.
The icebox in her stomach closed again.
‘Haven’t you listened to your voicemail?’ Jorgo asked after a slight pause.
‘Sorry?’
‘Philipp called you back a number of times. But you didn’t answer your mobile or landline.’
Because I broke into Palandt’s house, where I lost my phone, Emma almost said.
What a fuck-up.
As soon as her neighbour found it in his hallway it was just a matter of time until he discovered who’d made their way into his house.
He also saw me in his bedroom!
Emma froze at the memory of those wide, unblinking eyes.
‘Could you please tell Philipp that I’m contactable again. He should call me on the landline. And thanks for your note.’
It grew louder in the background, as if Jorgo had put the phone on speaker.
‘Which note?’ he asked.
‘You know, the one you put in my hand earlier. Thanks for believing me.’
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘What?’
Emma felt woozy, as if she’d been running too quickly. She sat at the desk and stared out into the garden, looking for a fixed point that at least her eyes could latch onto, even if her mind had become derailed.
She saw the splintered birch again.
The crow had gone.
‘But you… you gave…’
The note!
Emma hastily felt in her trouser pockets, but couldn’t find it. She tried to concentrate, but couldn’t remember where she’d put Jorgo’s note. Far too much had happened in the meantime; maybe she’d lost it at the vet’s, on the way to Palandt’s or even in his house with her mobile.
‘I didn’t give you any note,’ she heard Jorgo say, his voice suddenly sounding strangely irritable.
‘YOU’RE LYING!’ she was about to yell, but then noticed an object on the desk, so large that it would have been impossible to miss. Like the proverbial wood you fail to see for the trees. Emma shuddered.
‘Is there anything else?’ she heard Jorgo ask as if from a great distance.
Emma couldn’t prevent her shudder from intensifying into a shake.
‘No,’ she croaked and hung up, even though what she really wanted to scream was, ‘YES. THERE IS SOMETHING ELSE. SOMETHING DREADFUL!’
She was shaking so badly now that she dropped the cordless phone. This extreme reaction had nothing to do with Palandt’s eyes or her escape from his house.
But with the package.
The item that Salim had given her this morning for her mysterious neighbour.
It was there again.
On the desk.
In the very place she’d put it earlier.
As if it had never been anywhere else.