Five (36 page)

Then her phone rings.

‘I’m not answering it.’ She holds her empty glass out towards David and he fills it up halfway. They drink. The phone continues ringing – beeping, to be precise – boring shrill holes in the mood.

‘Fine then.’ Beatrice swings her legs out of bed. Where was her bag?

‘Why doesn’t your answerphone kick in?’

‘Because I deactivated it. Otherwise I’d never receive any calls – by the time I’ve found the phone the mailbox has always picked up.’

Evelyn
. Oh, God, yes, the stupid party. She’d completely forgotten.

‘Hi, Eve.’

‘Hey, sweetie, where are you?’

‘I’m … um, I’m busy.’

‘Busy … oh, I get it, with Michelangelo’s David. Understood. How long will you be there for?’

‘That’s hard to say.’ He’s behind her now, lifting the hair from the nape of her neck and kissing the sensitive spot. ‘It’s likely to be a while. A very long while.’

‘Does that mean you’re not coming to Nola’s? I’m already there, and I can tell you you’re missing a good party.’

She suppresses a blissful sigh. ‘I very much doubt that.’

‘Oh, come on. Just bring him with you. Make everyone else jealous of how happy you are.’

‘That’s a good idea in theory, but …’ Did she really have to spell it out?

‘Fine then, stay in bed for all I care. The only thing is, I don’t know how I’ll get home later, this place is in the middle of nowhere. I was counting on you.’

Just like you always do
. For the first time that day, her elated mood is starting to deflate.
I’m the one with the car and the driving licence, and you’re in absolutely no hurry to get yours. That way, the question of who’s drinking and who’s the designated driver never even comes up
.

‘There are loads of people there. I’m sure someone will give you a lift.’

‘Yes, probably.’ Evelyn giggles. ‘There’s a really cute blond guy with dark brown eyes, so let’s hope he lives near us.’ She hangs up.

‘Evelyn?’ asks David. ‘The fiery-headed flatmate?’

‘That’s the one. I stood her up, and she’s not used to that.’ Smiling, she goes back to bed, into David’s arms, into the space beyond the passing of time, into the chaotic paradise.

Four hours later, the phone rings again. ‘Hi, sweetie. Listen, I can’t get a lift home. Some people left early and the others are sleeping here.’

Beatrice had been sleeping too – not for long, maybe fifteen minutes or so. Her mind is foggy and she’s barely able to grasp what Evelyn is saying. ‘Then sleep there too.’

‘No way. There’s no space left, apart from on the floor. And there are two drunken, annoying guys I want to get away from. Would you be an angel and pick me up?’

You can’t be serious
. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m tired and I’ve been drinking and—’

‘And David is about to ravish you again.’ She hears Evelyn sigh. ‘I’m happy for you, really I am. It’s just a difficult situation – but I know it’s my own fault. I really have to get around to doing my driving licence. Never mind, it’s been a while since I hitch-hiked. So, hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow and hear all the dirty details?’

For a split second Beatrice considers giving in. Getting dressed and driving twenty miles through the night to pick up her friend from a party and take her home. Then David’s hands win out, on her back, around her waist, on her buttocks, moving down and in between.

‘Sure. See you tomorrow.’

‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.’ Evelyn blows her a kiss down the line before hanging up.

Their night comes to an end shortly after seven the next morning. David has to get up and start work at the call centre job with which he’s financing his medical studies. She leaves the house with him, breathing in Vienna’s morning air and scraping together a few coins to buy croissants for breakfast. She plans to brew some fresh coffee at home, hoping that there is still some of the raspberry jam left that her mother had sent her.

‘Will I see you this evening?’ David whispers into her hair. She’s happy that the question comes from him; otherwise she would have had to ask. She nods, kisses him and is still warming herself with his words even once she’s sitting on the metro.

Five stops on the U6. David’s place is in Vienna’s ninth district, her flatshare with Evelyn in the sixth. She can still smell David on her. She closes her eyes and smiles, breathing in his scent. In the small branch of one of the large bakery chains, she buys four croissants, pleased to find they’re on offer. As she skips down the narrow Turmgasse towards her home, she feels like bursting out into song.

Evelyn is evidently already back and awake. Pink Floyd’s
The Wall
is blaring out into the hallway, and old Frau Heckel glares at her as they meet at the main door. ‘I’m going to call the police at some point, you know, if you keep making such a racket all the time. It’s been on for hours – it’s just not acceptable!’

‘I’m sorry, Frau Heckel. It won’t happen again.’ She feels the urge to hug the old woman, wanting her to be cheerful too. Her happiness won’t tolerate any sullenness today.

She dashes up the stairs to the third floor, feeling as though she could run for ever,
The Wall
accompanying her on her climb. She and Evelyn have been listening to the CD constantly over the last few weeks, and know every song by heart. ‘One of My Turns’ is a favourite, even though its sombre lyrics are laughably inappropriate this morning. She spins around as she reaches the front door, her eyes closed, smiling indulgently at Roger Waters’s depressing contemplations on life.

She fumbles her key out of her bag and puts it in the lock. Frau Heckel did have a point; the music was on really loud. Luckily the other flats in the building are rented to students, so hardly anyone ever complains.

The door now open, the song blares out into the hallway.

Beatrice sings along to the words. She holds the paper bag filled with croissants up in front of her face like a microphone.

She smells it before she sees it, and wonders why her heart has suddenly begun to beat faster, why something within her wants to turn back.

Ignoring the feeling, she closes the door. It smells … smells of …

‘Evelyn?’

No answer. She passes through the tiny kitchen and is about to knock on Evelyn’s door, but it’s already standing ajar so she pushes it open.

Evelyn isn’t there. The room has been trashed and it looks as though an animal has been slaughtered on the bed, splattering the walls with blood, dripping all over the floor, all over the room.

The thing, whatever it is, is splayed out on the bed amongst the duvet and pillows. It’s well disguised amidst all the red, glistening in parts.

Something smacks against Beatrice’s head. The door frame, but why? She grabs onto it, the breath streaming out of her body with a whistling sound. Now something hits her left knee. The floor. A speck of red is just a few centimetres away; she can’t tear her eyes away from it. What if it creeps and flows over to her, touches her?

Summoning up all her strength, she lifts her gaze to the bed.

There! Silver. It glistens and shines, brought to life by a beam of sunlight.

Nail varnish.

Evelyn’s …

nail varnish.

The floor comes closer and everything falls, falls slowly towards the red: first the croissants, landing in a saucer-sized puddle, the red eating greedily into the paper bag, the printed image of the baker grinning away as it reaches his mouth, his eyes …

She only realises she’s screaming when someone grabs her from behind, turns her around, pulls her in towards them. Her screams are smothered by a sweaty body in a washed-out T-shirt. She hits out, bites and scratches until she catches a glimpse of the face above the T-shirt. Holger from next door. His hands tug at her, trying to drag her into the kitchen,
MyGodmyGodohmyGod
, he cries.

She tries to close her eyes but it won’t work, she can’t, she’s forgotten something. But what?

The croissants.

One of them has tumbled out on the floor, the left tip saturated with blood. Raspberry jam, thinks Beatrice, vomiting on the kitchen floor.

The policewoman speaking to her is focused and friendly, but Beatrice can see her own horror reflected in her eyes. She hates her for that. And for the fact that every single one of her words confirms something that should never have happened.

‘You lived here with Frau Rieger?’

Rieger, pronounced like Tigger but with a long ‘e’ instead of ‘i’ and Rrrrr
, says Evelyn in Bea’s head. ‘When did you last see her?’

‘Yesterday lunchtime. We were planning to—’ She stops as she sees two men in white overalls walk into Evelyn’s room wearing masks and gloves. Anonymous, veiled figures.

‘They’re my colleagues,’ explains the policewoman. ‘You were just about to say you were planning to do something together?’

Go to a party
. Again, Beatrice’s body reacts more quickly than her mind, crumbling into sobs.

The policewoman is patient. ‘Take your time.’

Gradually, Beatrice manages to choke out words. The address of Nola’s house, where the party was held. The rough times of Evelyn’s first and last call.

It is around this time that Beatrice’s brain begins the ‘what if’ game. For years to come, it will be her constant companion. The ‘what if’ game can last hours, and never fails to unleash its exhausting impact.

If I had picked her up, if I had driven there with David, if I hadn’t left her alone, if …

‘We’ll get you some counselling,’ says the policewoman as Beatrice breaks down yet again.

In the end, it’s an injection which erases the red images in her head and stops the ‘what if’ game. For a short while. After that, the whole thing starts all over again.

The police reconstruct Evelyn’s last night. The party guests provide detailed statements, and it soon becomes clear what must have happened. The phone call at half-past three, the one that reached the sleepy and love-drunk Beatrice, was the last Evelyn had made in her life. She hadn’t tried to call a taxi or any other friends.

‘She said she was going to hitch-hike,’ sobbed Nola on the phone. ‘But she could have stayed here – the first bus into town would have left at five.’

New what-ifs for Beatrice’s game.
If Evelyn had waited, if she had been more careful …

But it was Beatrice, and only Beatrice, who Evelyn had asked for help.

She can no longer bear David’s presence; he has become an accomplice. She hardly eats and sleeps very little, walking through the streets and staring into people’s faces. Which of them could be capable of it? Maybe it’s the man standing next to her in the metro, or the man letting her go ahead of him at the supermarket checkout. Maybe it’s the young guy on the other side of the street pushing the blue polka-dot pushchair, or the bald man with the worn-out trousers reading the newspaper as he walks along.
Of course. He’s looking for reports about what he did
.

Beatrice besieges the investigators with phone calls. The policewoman gave her the direct line in case she thinks of anything else that might be relevant, and she calls three times a day. She reports minute details from Evelyn’s life, things that suddenly seem to be full of significance. But above all, she just wants to know, know, know.

No one tells her anything. All she finds out is the same information that’s in the paper. That the murder of Evelyn Rieger resembles another case from three years ago which was never solved. On that occasion, too, the victim was raped, slashed and practically disembowelled.

Alongside the article, they always print the same photo of Evelyn, taken by Beatrice barely two months ago. Such a beautiful picture of her. An angel with deep red locks and bright green, knowing eyes.

I miss you so much
.

I’m sorry
.

If I had known
.

If I had listened to you
.

If
.

At the funeral, she tries to imprint the face of every man present on her memory, but the crowd of people is too big. There are two policemen there too, but they keep their distance, looking on awkwardly.

Her mother and Richard have come, even though they barely knew Evelyn. They’ve closed Mooserhof for two days, which Beatrice is very grateful to them for. She told them about her guilt.
I could have prevented it. So easily
.

‘There’s no way you could have known,’ said her mother. ‘The only guilty party is the man with the knife. The knife killed her, and the man who used it. No one else.’

The thought comforted Beatrice for a mere five minutes, but then it became stale, like over-chewed gum.

David comes to the funeral too, wearing a black polo-neck jumper despite the twenty-four-degree heat outside. He comes over to stand next to Beatrice and tries to hold her. She pushes him away.

‘There’s nothing I can do to change what happened,’ he says sadly. ‘And neither can you.’

He has no idea what’s going on in her mind, but he does seem to have genuine feelings for her. And that just makes it worse. She avoids looking at him, punishes herself by looking at Evelyn’s mother instead. She lets Rheinberger’s Stabat Mater soak into her, trying to swallow away the metallic taste in her mouth. Guilt tastes like blood.

In the weeks that follow, she waits. The case gradually disappears from the news, and the police don’t arrest anyone. David has given up on trying to see her again, while she has given up on trying to finish her studies. After a while, Richard turns up on her doorstep to take her back to Salzburg.

She doesn’t try to protest. She calls the policewoman in Vienna just once a week now, and there’s never any news. She hates the police. At some point, four or five months after Evelyn’s death, she tells the woman, ‘You’re an incompetent waste of space.’

Hearing the policewoman’s sharp intake of breath, she prepares herself for a strong retort. But the answer, when it comes, is totally calm. ‘You know what?’ she says. ‘You try and do a better job, you know-it-all.’