Emma had a beautiful view from her room in the clinic. Not quite as glamorous as that from his office, but at least it wasn’t taped, Konrad thought.
If Emma were standing beside him at the window she’d be able to see a small family of hares hopping across the snowy lawn of the park and leaping two metres out of the beam of the spherical garden lanterns into the darkness, shortly afterwards to leave visible prints in the powdery whiteness once more.
She’d also be able to see his old Saab in which he sometimes used to drive her to university. But to see all of this Emma would have to get out of bed, and at the moment she was too weak. The convertible was covered in a thick layer of snow and stood in the small car park that was actually reserved for senior doctors. Roth had offered him his space.
‘Have you searched everything?’ he heard Emma ask from her bed. It was wider and more comfortable than the one on which she’d been pushed into the fake office a few hours earlier.
‘Yes,’ Konrad said.
At her request he’d combed the entire room for hidden cameras and microphones, searching very thoroughly even though Roth had assured him that up here on the ward nothing and nobody was wired up. He wouldn’t dare undertake such an intrusion into his patients’ privacy.
‘I’m sorry,’ Konrad said contritely, and that was the truth. In the text books of the future it would look good when people wrote of Dr Roth that he’d treated a supposed liar with a lie. But this didn’t alter the fact that Konrad had hoodwinked his best friend and ward.
‘No, I’m the one who’s sorry,’ Emma countered wearily. She sounded oblivious to everything around her; the skin around her eyes was sunken and crumpled, as if she hadn’t drunk anything in a long time.
‘Maybe it would be better if we spoke tomorrow. You look exhausted, darling.’
‘No.’
She patted the duvet beside her. ‘Please come and sit close to me.’
He moved away from the window bench and was beside her in a couple of steps. He loved being close to her. Now that he no longer had to affect a professional distance, Emma wasn’t his client, but his little darling protégée once more.
She whispered as he pushed the bedside table slightly aside so he could sit on the mattress.
‘I wanted to speak to you up here. In my cell.’
‘In your clinic room, you mean.’
She smiled as if he’d cracked a joke.
Roth had immediately agreed to let Emma return to her room. The mock-up lawyer’s practice had done its job. When Emma discovered the HD television was a fake window she realised that humans can lose the capacity to distinguish between fiction and reality. Konrad couldn’t judge the psychiatric benefit of this awareness, but he agreed with the head of the clinic that Emma was better off in her hospital bed than down in the gymnasium.
‘I didn’t want to tell you down there. Not in front of all those cameras. And microphones.’
Konrad nodded.
He took her hand. It was dry and as light as a piece of paper.
‘Nobody should hear us,’ she said and it sounded as if she had a hot potato in her mouth. Her tongue was heavy. Roth had given her another tranquiliser, which seemed to work slowly, and then left them, saying that he’d wait in the corridor.
‘Relax,’ Konrad said, squeezing her hand affectionately.
‘What I’ve got to say is for your ears only,’ she said.
Konrad felt a pang in his heart, as he always did when someone close to him was in a bad way and he didn’t know how to help. On the battlefield of articles and clauses he always had the right weapons to hand. But when it came to personal problems he was often clueless. Especially with Emma.
‘What’s troubling you?’ he asked.
‘Do you know what? As time goes by I’m less and less sure that I was in that hotel.’
He gave her his gentlest smile. ‘Well done, Emma. Well done for saying it. And believe me, nobody’s going to blame you. We’re going to do all we can now to cure you.’
‘There’s no cure in psychotherapy,’ she objected.
‘But there is help.’
‘I don’t want help.’
‘No? What do you want then?’
‘To die!’