The Devil's Sanctuary (16 page)

AN ASSORTMENT
of men and women were gathered around the conference table, shuffling their papers. When Daniel, escorted by two hosts, came into the room, they all looked up at him as one, with expressions that seemed interested, expectant, and possibly—Daniel wasn’t quite sure—friendly.

One of them stood up and came toward him. Gisela Obermann, more smartly dressed than when he had last seen her. She had done something with her hair as well, he couldn’t say what. With a glance she indicated that the two hosts should leave the room, and then she gently touched Daniel’s arm in welcome. She invited him to sit down on the vacant chair next to her, then turned to address her colleagues.

“Most of you have met Max before, of course, and are aware of his background. The reason I’ve asked him to come here today is partly because of an incident that occurred a couple of hours ago, and partly as a result of a process that has been going on for a while and that I believe could be of interest to us. I’m very happy you could join us today,” she went on, facing Daniel, “and that you’re willing to help us with our research.”

Daniel gave her a cold look. She made it sound like he was attending voluntarily. When the truth was that he had been brought back to the clinic in handcuffs and had spent the last hour in a waiting room. He had sat there reading German and American magazines while a nurse looked in on him every now and then, bringing him juice and sandwiches and asking him to wait a bit longer. Then two men in pale-blue hosts’ uniforms had suddenly appeared and politely asked him to accompany them up to the doctors’ floor.

“Can you start by telling us your name?” Gisela Obermann said.

“What sort of nonsense is this?” an older man interrupted. Daniel recognized him from the clinic’s inspection rounds. Doctor Fischer. Director of the clinic, and its chief physician. Hair like a metal brush.

“Please, just listen. This might be more important than you think, Doctor Fischer.” Gisela turned back to Daniel again. “What’s your name?” she asked with exaggerated lip movements, as though she were talking to someone who was hard of hearing.

“Daniel Brant,” Daniel replied in a firm, clear voice. “Max’s twin brother.”

“Exactly.”

Gisela looked at the other participants around the table in triumph. The man next to Doctor Fischer was smiling cautiously. He was the only one in the room wearing a white coat. And the only one with dark skin. Indian background, Daniel guessed. Someone raised a pen and opened his mouth to say something, but Gisela had already turned back to Daniel.

“You’ve been unsettled over the past few days. You asked the hostesses to call a taxi, because you wanted to leave Himmelstal. Is that right?”

“My visit is over. So naturally I want to leave Himmelstal,” Daniel said irritably.

“Naturally.” Gisela Obermann nodded. “You’ve explained how you come to be here to me and the hostesses. Would you mind telling my colleagues?”

Daniel took a deep breath and composed himself.

“We’ll listen to you with open minds and without any preconceived opinions,” Gisela added.

He repeated the story as briefly and factually as possible. But Gisela wanted more detail.

“Why did Max want to get away from here?”

Daniel explained about his brother’s dealings with the Mafia, and the threat against his Italian fiancée.

“And how did…er…Max receive news of this threat?” a man with a short red beard wanted to know.

“He got a letter.”

“A letter? Here, in Himmelstal?”

“Yes. At least that’s what he said. Somehow they had found out that he was here.”

“And where is this letter now?” the red-bearded man asked.

No one was looking down at their papers or gazing at the magnificent view from the window any longer. All eyes were on Daniel.

“I’ve no idea. I assume he got rid of it. But I know where the photograph is.”

“What photograph?” two of the doctors asked at the same time.

“They sent a photograph of a girl they’d beaten up. To make him understand they were serious. It’s down in the cabin if you want to see it.”

Gisela was nodding intently.

“So Max got out of Himmelstal, and you were left behind?”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t very nice.”

“No, but that’s what he’s like. Although I suppose something could have happened to him as well.”

Several hands were in the air now, but Gisela ignored them.

“I’m sure you all have plenty of questions, but I propose that we move on to what happened earlier today. You were on an outing with a girl from the village, is that right? Could you tell us what happened?”

Daniel recounted the whole nightmarish episode with Tom and the wounded man tied to the tree.

“So you crept up on him and disarmed him?” Gisela summarized. “Why?”

Daniel looked at her, taken aback.

“To stop him, of course. He was harming a bound man. Torturing him. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

An older woman spoke up. She looked like someone’s grandmother, with old-fashioned glasses, her hair in a bun, and a shawl around her shoulders.

“Did you know how dangerous Tom is?” she asked quietly.

“Well, obviously I could see what he was doing to the man tied to the tree. He’s mad!”

“Weren’t you worried you might get hurt?” the grandmotherly woman went on.

“I was terrified.”

The grandmotherly woman nodded, then made some notes.

“Had you met Tom before?” someone asked, Daniel didn’t see who.

“I actually met him a few days ago when I was trying to get a lift out of here. I realized even then that he was crazy. But I didn’t know he was so violent.”

“Did you have any dealings together, you and Tom?”

This came from the man with the red beard. He looked up eagerly, almost cheerfully, from a notepad covered in writing.

“Dealings?” Daniel said. “What sort of dealings?”

“Concerning wood. Or anything else?”

“No,” Daniel laughed. “I wouldn’t have any dealings with someone like him.”

“Did you have any dealings with André Bonnard?” the red-bearded man went on.

“Who?”

“The man who was being tortured,” Gisela explained.

“No. I have no idea who he is.”

The red-bearded man turned a page of his pad and wrote quickly, like a stenographer.

Daniel looked at the men and women around the conference table. He had been waiting to meet these respected doctors, and here they were, all together. A gathering of idiots.

“I saved the life of that Bonnard, or whatever his name is. But I was treated as if I’d escaped from a madhouse, then was brought back here in handcuffs by some kind of guards. And the other day I was locked in a ward and almost died in a fire because your clinic has such atrocious safety procedures. I’m actually considering suing you.”

“Just a moment,” Gisela Obermann said. “I haven’t been told about any fire.”

She looked around questioningly.

“A minor incident during routine testing,” Doctor Fischer clarified. “A fire in a mattress. A discarded cigarette. It was quickly dealt with by the staff.”

“A minor incident? We could have died!” Daniel said angrily. “Marko was knocked out by the smoke. I tried to pull him out. The whole room was full of smoke.”

“Your patient’s exaggerating,” Doctor Fischer said to Gisela Obermann.

“I should still have received a report.”

“There was nothing to report. He’s just trying to pretend he was a hero.”

“But this is actually of interest to me,” Gisela said, her cheeks now starting to burn. “This is extremely interesting.”

“Are we done with this now?” Daniel said. “If we are, perhaps I can go.”

“Of course,” Gisela Obermann said. “You’ve been through an extremely unpleasant experience and need to get some rest. You don’t have to worry about Tom from now on, I can assure you of that.”

Daniel snorted.

“I’m not remotely worried about Tom. For God’s sake, haven’t you realized you’ve got the wrong patient here? You let a sick man go and you’re holding a healthy one.
You
ought to be worried about
that.
”

“We’ve got plenty of time to discuss that,” Gisela Obermann said.

“You might have, but I haven’t. I’m getting out of this place right now.”

“By all means. You’re welcome to go back to your cabin if you like.”

“Obviously I mean I’m leaving the clinic.”

He stood up and pushed in his chair.

The red-bearded man stopped taking notes and sat there with his pen poised, as though he were waiting for some fresh remark. There was a faint sound of snoring from the Indian doctor, who appeared to have fallen asleep in spite of his upright posture. Doctor Fischer cleared his throat loudly and the Indian snapped his eyes open like a doll.

“Good-bye,” Daniel said, and left the room.

THE NIGHT
was beautiful and still.

Daniel was at the eastern end of the valley, crossing the bridge. On the right-hand side the water flowed as sluggishly as an old river. To the left it threw itself down steep rocks and carried on its course deep down between the walls of a narrow, impenetrable ravine, dramatically lit up by moonlight as if in some nineteenth-century Romantic painting.

He followed the road on the other side of the rapids and now had the vertical wall of the mountain with its water stains to his left.

On the other side of the valley he could see the village with its church tower and, higher up the slope, the clinic. Above him the sky hung like a dark-blue semitransparent canvas strung up between the two mountainsides. There was a smell of earth and grass and water.

He had realized that the road for vehicle traffic followed the oblong shape of the valley in an elliptical, closed circuit. Like a loop. A noose.

But the loop wasn’t entirely closed. It joined another road, it must, because how else would anyone ever get into the valley?

His plan was to avoid the road on the north side of the river where the village and clinic were. Instead he would stick to the south side and follow the road along the vertical cliff he called the Wall. The way the taxi had come when he arrived. Unfortunately he had been asleep for the last part of the drive, so didn’t know exactly where they had entered the valley and joined the loop. Probably either just before or after they had been stopped by the guards with the metal detector. Where the mountain was covered with ferns. Or had the ferns been part of his dream? Oh well, sooner or later he had to reach a junction where one of the roads would lead out of the valley.

He was better prepared this time and had packed his rucksack for a long hike. His plan was to get as far as he could under cover of darkness. If a vehicle approached he would take cover until the coast was clear. When he got tired he would rest in an old barn or under a tree, maybe get a few hours’ sleep. Then he would continue his hike. He wouldn’t try to get help from anyone, or ask for directions. He couldn’t expect anything from the villagers; they were all in the pocket of the clinic one way or another, even the lovely Corinne. The amount of respect she had for the doctors was frankly absurd. It made him think of old Swedish spa resorts with their complicated, double-edged loyalties.

The valley broadened out and he could see fields and small clumps of deciduous trees between the road and the mountainside. He couldn’t see any animals in the fields. Maybe they sought shelter amongst the trees at night. If there were any there at all. Because what animals would allow themselves to be penned in by such a ridiculously simple barrier—a length of wire strung up scarcely three feet above the ground?

There were signs hanging from the wire at regular intervals. They swayed gently in the night wind. When the moon peered out he grabbed hold of one of them and read “Zone 1.” The next one said “Warning” in three different languages. Every other sign said “Zone 1” interspersed with those that said “Warning.”

Daniel looked at the grassy slope on the other side of the barrier. He could see nothing to suggest the need for any warning. No shooting range, no building site, no sign of human activity at all. Just grass and trees and the rock face.

He heard an engine in the distance. The vehicle was coming toward him from behind, from the direction of the clinic. He ducked quickly under the wire and hurried across the meadow toward a clump of trees. He wondered about the warning, but the approaching vehicle constituted a clear and immediate danger, whereas the warning was incomprehensible and vague, and possibly no longer even accurate. He stood still in the darkness between some thickets of hazel, waiting for the vehicle to pass. But instead of going past, it pulled up and stopped. Two clinic guards got out.

The next moment a car approached at speed from the other direction and stopped next to the first one. Two more guards got out, and after a brief exchange all four of them ducked under the wire and spread out across the meadow. Two of them hurried off toward the rock face and two made their way toward the clump of trees where Daniel was hiding.

He pulled back deeper into the trees, well aware that he couldn’t go more than about a hundred and fifty feet. After that the mountain got in the way. Then he was forced to carry on westward along the rock face, hoping that the trees would continue, protecting and concealing him.

Now he could see the far side of the meadow; the signs hanging from the wire fluttered like big white moths in the darkness.

The uniformed men were behind him. The cones of light from their powerful flashlights exposed the tree trunks, signs, and rock face in brief, incoherent flashes.

“Can you see him?” one of them called.

“No, but he’s got to be here.”

He quickly ducked under the wire.

The next moment something terrible leapt up from the grass and hit him, cutting through his skin and muscle.

ONE BY
one the members of Himmelstal’s research team came into the conference room. Squinting against the morning sun flooding in through the plate-glass window, they sat down in the seats that had become theirs over time, opened their briefcases, and took out their notebooks and plastic folders.

Gisela Obermann was standing at the head of the table, smiling anxiously at her colleagues as they arrived. When they were all there she closed the door.

“I hope you have an extremely good reason for calling this meeting,” Karl Fischer said as he irritably opened a bottle of mineral water and poured himself a glass. “Max,” he read from the summary that Gisela had left at all their places. “Again. What’s he come up with now?”

“I’m sorry to call a meeting at such short notice this morning,” Gisela Obermann said. “But of course that’s the advantage of our all being in the same place. Things happen, and we can meet at once to discuss them.”

“What’s happened?” Hedda Heine wondered. She leaned across the table and peered over the top of her glasses like a worried mother owl.

“Has he done any more heroic deeds?” Karl Fischer said tartly.

“I’m about to tell you what’s happened. But first I’d like to remind you of yesterday’s meeting. You remember that we sat here yesterday and listened to Max? You remember what he claimed?”

“That he was called something else,” Hedda Heine said.

“Daniel Brant,” Brian Jenkins read with his forefinger on his notes. “Max’s twin brother. They’d changed places.”

“Yes, dear God,” Fischer said, taking a large sip of mineral water.

“You also remember the reason for yesterday’s meeting?” Gisela went on, pretending not to have noticed Karl Fischer’s derisive tone. “He risked his own life to save another person. Would you, with all your experience and knowledge of Max, say that this was characteristic behavior for him?”

“No,” several people muttered.

“He just wants some attention. And he certainly got it,” Karl Fischer said. “Besides, we don’t know exactly what happened.”

“What happened was exactly what he told us. The guards have confirmed it. Well, his behavior certainly surprised
me
a great deal. It made me think about what he told me before. That he’s Max’s twin brother, physically almost identical, but a completely different person.”

“I honestly don’t see why you’re making such a fuss about this,” Karl Fischer said. “Lying is part of these people’s personalities. As far as I understand it, this particular individual lies more often than he tells the truth. It’s hardly anything new.”

Gisela nodded.

“That’s what I thought as well. But this is so well thought out, so carefully planned and executed. Those of you who have met Max before know that his lies blossom instantly and are abandoned shortly thereafter. Of all the untruths he’s tried to get me to believe, he’s never actually repeated a single one of them. He simply gets fed up with them. He’s far too quixotic and impatient to be able to stick to a lie with any degree of consistency. But this time he’s done precisely that. For four days now, he’s been telling exactly the same story to different people.”

“I daresay his imagination is running dry,” Fischer muttered. “Even the best storytellers repeat themselves sometimes.”

“The question we must always ask ourselves,” Hedda Heine said, “is what does the person in question stand to gain by this? These people do nothing without it benefiting them somehow.”

“He’s already explained that very clearly. He wants to be released,” Fischer interrupted abruptly. “Naturally that’s impossible, but hope is always the last thing to die. And you’re far too experienced to let yourself be manipulated, Gisela. So why are you taking up our time with this?”

Gisela took a deep breath, composed herself, then said, “At the moment Max is lying in intensive care with burns to the right side of his body. He went into Zone Two last night.”

There was a moment’s silence around the table. Doctor Fischer was drawing geometric patterns on his pad.

“Is he badly hurt?” Hedda Heine asked.

“It was dark, and the security staff didn’t find him immediately. He was left lying there rather too long. But he’ll be okay.”

Brian Jenkins was leafing through a bundle of papers with a look of concentration.

“Wasn’t he the one who… Yes, here it is.” He tapped his finger at a line he had just found. “August last year. The culvert.”

Gisela fixed him with an intense look.

“Precisely! Max went into Zone Two almost a year ago. Don’t you see what that means?”

The others looked at her rather uncertainly.

“This is extremely significant. After all, we usually say that no one goes into Zone Two more than once,” Doctor Pierce pointed out.

“Exactly!”

Gisela’s cheeks were red. The others were still looking thoughtful.

“There’s something that doesn’t make sense with this man,” she went on. “I’ve felt it since my conversation with him on Tuesday. I sat up last night looking at the recordings of our meetings.”

She paused, then looked hesitantly at Doctor Fischer, who was whispering something to Doctor Kalpak. The others waited. Hedda Heine gave her a gesture of encouragement and she went on.

“I compared our most recent meeting with previous ones. And that only confirmed my suspicions. Something was very different. His gestures, posture, choice of words, facial expressions, the way he moved his head, the way he walked and sat down. All the things that are so characteristic of a person, the things that are so obvious that neither the person themselves or anyone else actually thinks about them. This simply isn’t Max, I thought. It’s Max’s body. But there’s someone else inside it.”