Silence (22 page)

Chapter 41

April 25, 1998

Hanna had sat down in the chair in front of Karl van den Boom’s desk. Deep in thought, she was plucking at the big white bow at her breast, which seemed to bother her. She was not comfortable in her skirt either, and kept smoothing it down. Karl reflected that she looked as if she were in fancy dress.

“First, that Albers woman came to the farm with the photo. She acted innocent, wanted to know what had become of Therese, if we knew anything about her. She had already been to old Heuer, claimed to have Therese’s name from him.”

Karl rumbled his understanding, but did not say a word to interrupt Hanna. He thought about her sparing, monosyllabic way with words. Today, it seemed to him, she was using up a year’s worth of words.

“I called Therese, told her she was sniffing about.” Her work-hardened hands were scuffing the finely woven fabric of her shawl, pulling little threads loose. She noticed and put her hands in her lap. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the desk. Then she stopped and looked at him. “On the television they always have some kind of recording machine. Don’t you need one?” Karl pursed his lips and shook his head. “You’ll have to say all this again to my colleagues in Kalkar,” he said evenly, and she looked at him suspiciously. “But I won’t do that,” she said decisively, her voice firm. He held up his hand soothingly. “I suggest you finish your story first, and then we’ll see what’s to be done.” Her broad forehead creased in a frown, and then she seemed to agree.

“Good. So, I thought . . . they won’t get much out of us if we don’t say anything. What can they find anyway? But you get to thinking, don’t you, and . . .” Her hands seemed to be fighting each other in her lap. “Paul inherited the farm because . . . well, he was the son. He hadn’t had an easy life, and I . . . I had promised Father I would take care of the farm and Paul. But when Sofia came . . . we didn’t get along, and then I went away too. Sofia was no farmer, and Paul, he’s a hard worker, but he needs someone to tell him what to do. When the market for milk went down, everyone else switched over to pigs, and Paul just kept going, hoping it would get better someday. But it didn’t, and then he leased or sold the land. He didn’t think far enough ahead to realize he wouldn’t be able to grow feed for the cattle anymore and would have to buy it at a high price . . . He shouldn’t have been allowed to lease out the cottage, but Sofia didn’t understand why, and of course he couldn’t explain, so he just did it.” Hanna had tears in her eyes now. She picked up her handbag, which she had placed on the floor, and took out a carefully ironed handkerchief. Embarrassed, she wiped her eyes. Karl was moved to see the surly Hanna in such a vulnerable state. She lowered her head in embarrassment, avoiding his gaze.

“I thought, if Paul has to go to jail because of what he and Father did with the stranger all that time ago . . . he won’t survive. Not him.” She sucked air into her lungs and, as she breathed out slowly, shook her head resignedly. “I thought perhaps we’d be spared that, but then Schoofs called, asking about the well. Then I knew she’d found out.” She unfolded the handkerchief and blew her nose loudly. “I couldn’t sleep that night. I got up around midnight and looked out of the window. There was still a light on in the cottage. I thought Paul had given her the lease on the place for a ridiculously low rent, and for thanks she was sending him to the slaughter. I was so furious.” She raised her head and stared past Karl at the wall, as if she might be able to find that evening there.

She got dressed and left the farmhouse; she wanted to think it over in the fresh air, what was to be done now. Then she was on the path through the fields. It was pitch-dark. She stopped, searched for sentences, words with which she could stop Rita Albers, but what could she say? All she could think of were empty threats.

Moving on, she stumbled over a tussock of grass, fell down, and was overcome by an intolerable feeling of helplessness as she lay on the ground. From the road in the distance, the white light of a pair of headlights wandered across the night, and the sound of an engine died away. She struggled to her feet and went on, closer and closer to the brightly lit cottage, driven by a red heat within her that seemed to scream,
Make her keep silent.

She entered the property through the garden, saw that the terrace door was open, and went in. Rita Albers was sitting at the kitchen table when she stopped in the corridor. Rita did not notice her. She was absorbed in the papers that lay spread out over the table. Hanna saw the heading “Mende Fashion” on one of the sheets of paper.

The red heat in her head exploded.

She looked at Karl van den Boom, and now her hands lay still in her lap. “And then I had her meat hammer in my hand and she was lying with her head on the table among the papers. Then there was peace.” She said this with a childlike surprise, and after a short pause she added matter-of-factly, “I took the hammer and the folder with the papers outside with me. Her rubber gloves were lying on the table on the terrace. I thought, if it looks like a break-in . . . I put the gloves on, scattered the papers over the floor, smashed the vase against the ground, and took the laptop away.” She lowered her head in shame.

Karl stood up, went to the window, and lost himself in the young greenness of the linden tree. He considered whether he should tell Hanna that Rita Albers knew nothing about the well. That Schoofs had only wanted to know how deep he would need to drill for the new well.

He remained silent.

Epilogue

The remains of Friedhelm Lubisch, deceased in 1950, were buried in the cemetery at Kranenburg on May 7, 1998.

When Hanna found out that Paul’s crime—the disposal of Friedhelm Lubisch’s body—was long since statute-barred, she broke down. She spent the time leading up to her trial at the Höver farm. Therese Mende posted her bail. In the fall of 1999, Hanna was given a three-year prison sentence, of which she served two years. In 2007, at age eighty-six, she died on the farm.

Therese Mende was able to talk to her daughter before the press pounced on the case. Her lawyers made skillful tactical use of petitions and identified various procedural errors. She died in 2002 at her house in Mallorca, before the case went to trial.

Robert Lubisch did not have the name on his father’s grave changed. In 1999, he donated his entire inheritance to a charitable foundation.

Paul leased the boarding stables to a trainer with a family. He retains a lifelong right to live on the property and now dedicates himself to his vegetable garden.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo © 2011 Private

Born in 1960, Mechtild Borrmann lives in Bielefeld, Germany. She spent her childhood and youth in the lower Rhine region—the setting for her crime stories. She works as a dance and theater instructor, among other professions. She is the author of
Morgen ist der Tag nach Gestern (Tomorrow Is the Day After Yesterday
, 2007) and
Mitten in der Stadt
(
Right in the City
, 2009). The German-language version of
Silence
(
Wer das Schweigen bricht
) won the 2012 Deutscher Krimi Prize for best crime novel, and it marks her English debut.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Aubrey Botsford has previously translated Katia Fox’s
The Silver Falcon
and
The Golden Throne
, as well as novels by Yasmina Khadra and Enrico Remmert. He lives in London.