The Good Liar (33 page)

‘I don’t know why we’re doing this, Vincent,’ he says when they

have finished. ‘I can’t use a computer for toffee and I’ll never remember all that. I don’t even own a computer.’

‘It’s important that you and Betty, as my clients, have twenty-

four- hour access to the account. You need to be able to check the

balance whenever you wish. Call it form if you wish, but it’s

important.’

Too right it’s important. But he simply looks at Betty and shrugs.

‘What did I say, Betty? He’s a stickler. A real stickler.’

Betty too is taken through the process, slightly bewildered it

appears to him.

‘Well then,’ says Vincent. ‘We’re all set up. With these little devices you can log into the account at any time. You have full access, but please don’t make any withdrawals without speaking to me because

at any stage I may be moving money around on your behalf to make

investments. I also have access as your broker. You can see how much remains in the joint account and every so often money will come

back into it. I will provide you with periodic profit and loss statements so that you know exactly how your investments are doing.’

‘Profit and loss?’ says Stephen.

‘A figure of speech. Loss will not come into it, provided my judge-

ments are correct. But I’ve explained the risk factors in depth.’

Betty sighs. ‘Phew. I’m glad that’s all over. It’s given me a bit of a headache. Time to celebrate, I think.’

‘Oh yes,’ says Roy.

Betty fetches glasses from the cabinet and chilled champagne

from the fridge. She asks Stephen to uncork the champagne and

pours four glasses.

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ says Roy.

‘Not for me, thank you,’ says Vincent. ‘I’m driving.’

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They toast each other and drink happily, while Vincent places the

signed forms in clear plastic folders, puts his laptop into its protective case and slots his pens into their designated places in his briefcase.

Finally, he offers a terse but civil goodbye.

3

They are alone. Stephen has departed after only one glass, leaving

Roy and Betty to empty the bottle. Roy has had the majority of the

champagne and in truth feels rather tipsy. He cannot hold his drink as he once could. It was a useful facility but it does not matter any more. Not with Betty.

‘Well now. The first day of the rest of our lives.’

‘Yes,’ says Betty. ‘Vincent will look after our money, won’t he?’

‘As if it was his own, my dear. He’ll do us proud.’

‘And we can expect some returns within six months?’

‘Indeed. Let’s start booking those cruises now.’ He smiles, quietly exultant.

‘It’s such a shame that you have to go up to London so soon. We

should be together this weekend. Couldn’t you invite Robert here

instead?’

‘Well no, not really. He’s only over here for a day or so. He’s off to a kitchen convention in Belgium. He’s just stopping off in London overnight. Besides, he’ll be on his way by now.’

‘I’d like to meet him.’

‘All in good time, I’m sure,’ says Roy. ‘We might even go over to

Sydney to see him now we’re fixed for money.’

‘I’d like that very much. I suppose you’ve seen much more of the

world than me.’

‘I’ve lived a bit. I’ve had my excitements. Alarms and excursions.

Capers and scrapes. I’ve had a rich and full life.’ His head floats gently from the drink and he understands vaguely he must be

cautious.

‘I’m sure,’ she says. ‘But you said you’d led a pretty humdrum

life.’

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‘Oh, one doesn’t like to be too boastful. I’ve witnessed things you could barely imagine.’ He smiles and thinks: how true. She hasn’t a clue. ‘But anyway, I’d better pack my bag. Are you sure Stephen’s

happy to take me to the station tomorrow?’

‘Quite sure.’ She smiles back at him.

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1

Though she did not fully understand it at the time, Lili Schröder’s life ended and a quite different one began with the assault in the

Tiergarten villa.

In Hans she had seen spite in all its purity for the first time. Before, she had sensed something of hatred in the way young men shouted

with creased, enraged faces on the streets and jostled frightened old men with beards. But her parents had ushered her into fashionable

coffee houses or luxurious cars or the KaDeWe department store as

she craned her neck. Until that winter twilight with Hans, these

were aspects of behaviour and character of which she was only dis-

tantly aware. She knew the world contained unpleasantness and

that she was insulated from it, but that was all. She did not imagine her privileges and protections could fall away.

She lay in pain as jagged pulses rippled through her body, accom-

panied by a dull but enveloping ache. She did not know whether the

pain was as severe as she imagined, or whether shame and horror

magnified it. She wondered if it would pass, conceiving it as at least possible that she might die in the next hours or days. Of course she would tell no one, not even her mother, not because Hans had

instructed her but because she felt such guilt. She had brought filth and disgrace on herself and somehow it would be infectious if she

told others.

Eventually the pain subsided a little. The sense of dirt did not,

however. She rushed to the bathroom, so that she would be ready in

time for the simple meal before the evening’s festivities. She washed herself as best she could at the basin, splashing water carelessly over 217

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the thick yellow carpet and her white dress, then washed again, and again. She rubbed soap on her underpants, trying to rid them of the specks of blood, disposing of them eventually in the washing bas-ket. In her bedroom, she checked that she was not still bleeding

before putting on fresh underwear, placing one of her handkerchiefs carefully inside in case she later did. None of this made her feel

cleaner, or safer.

The meal was a subdued affair, not as it should have been before

such a glittering evening and not as it usually was. Only her mother seemed as bright as ever. Her elder sisters appeared distracted and whispered to one another in a manner that suggested concern. She

knew Daddy was not fond of these grand balls but went along with

them for the sake of ‘the girls’, as he called them all, and for social convention. From where she usually watched at the top of the stairs, he did a good job of hosting despite his natural diffidence and seriousness. This evening, though, he looked absently at the snow

falling outside.

‘Are you worrying, my darling, that people will not turn up in this weather?’ asked Magda. The girls usually loved it when their mother called their father darling.

‘Pardon?’ he said. ‘What did you say? Sorry. Yes. I wonder how

many will cry off.’

‘I doubt any will. Snow isn’t going to put too many Berliners off.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’ He rallied and smiled. ‘Still, no harm in hoping, eh?’

‘Albert, you love these occasions as much as I do. You know that.’

‘I very much doubt that, my dear.’

‘You’ll get into the swing of it once people arrive.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said doubtfully, and turned to the win-

dow again.

‘Lili, you may watch the girls dress and then you must go to your

room. You may read until eight o’clock and then you will turn your

lights out.’

‘Yes, Mama,’ said Lili.

‘It’s a very strange atmosphere this evening,’ said Magda, with a

gayness that seemed forced. ‘Normally you three would be

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chattering away and I would be interrupting to remind you of your

duties. And Lili, you’d be asking question after question. No one

seems to be excited.’

‘Oh, but we are, Mama,’ said Hannelore with apparent enthusi-

asm. ‘Of course we are. It will be wonderful. I’m so looking forward to it.’

Lili followed her elder sisters to Charlotte’s bedroom, which was

designated as the dressing and make- up room for the party. Each of them bathed in the tub next door before returning to begin the task of dressing. First, there was a layer of underwear to be put on, then hair to be shaped and set with lacquer. Gowns were hoisted and

lowered with exquisite care so as not to disturb the elaborate coif-fures. Bracelets, necklaces and earrings were fastened and checked in the mirror. Finally, sitting in front of the dressing table, they each experimented with make- up from the extensive compendium of

items that Hannelore owned. There was less giggling and excitement

than normal. At one point Lili heard Anneliese say with some ear-

nestness, ‘Hansi . . .’, but she was stopped mid- sentence by a glance towards Lili. Then their mother came to hurry them along and they

were gone. She sat on the bed among the untidy, still- warm mess of clothes, lonely, distraught that she could not confide in her sisters.

The music struck up downstairs and guests began to arrive. Lili

waited several minutes before taking up her usual position on the

landing, overlooking the entrance hall. A cold breeze came up the

stairs each time the large front door was opened by one of the staff.

Smart young men in military uniforms, the friends of her parents,

her sisters’ giggling girlfriends and the obligatory social guests were announced by Bauer, at his self- important loudest, and shook hands with her parents and sisters.

Lili found she was no longer interested in the spectacle and went

quietly to her room. As she undressed she found the locket contain-

ing Hans’s golden hair. She pulled it from her neck, went to her bed and thrust it in the gap between the wooden floor and the skirting

board in which she had stored secret notes, mainly the childish love letters to Hans that she had never sent. She never wanted to see the locket again.

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2

It passed, as the shadow of a cloud passes. Guests may have com-

mented the next day that the Schröders had seemed rather less

delightful than in previous years, that Albert may have appeared

preoccupied and fractious and the girls a little aloof. Later, a context would be found.

The family awoke the next morning feeling that they should

have put more into the previous evening’s festivities. Magda had

drunk rather too much champagne, through nervousness and an

indistinct feeling of unease at her husband’s and daughters’ distraction, and was beset by an insistent headache. Albert went early to

his office and worried at the accounts while thinking about when he should see Taub again. Hannelore took her seat at her desk in

the same building an hour or so later as the day brightened and

her mood with it. Charlotte and Anneliese had a late breakfast and

went shopping for Christmas presents. The pain in Lili’s body had

passed and she could not quite believe that it had happened as she

recalled it. She sat in her window seat and read, distracted and

unhappy.

It was three mornings later that the SS came calling, at five a.m. Lili did not hear the commotion at first but came out to the landing to

see her father, head bowed, being led down the grand staircase in

handcuffs by two officers in smart uniforms. He did not turn to look at her, or at her three sisters, also standing outside their rooms in their dressing gowns. Magda waited by the door to watch the little

procession into the white landscape. She was not permitted to say

goodbye to her husband.

They were fortunate that they were a sufficiently prominent fam-

ily to attract the attentions of the SS proper rather than a group of grubby SA Brownshirts. They enjoyed the services not of mere

thugs but of sophisticated thugs. The officers understood that the

Schröders were well connected and adhered to procedure with an

insinuating politeness.

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The girls were permitted to dress in private and eat a rushed

breakfast with their mother.

‘The authorities will see that this is a mistake,’ she said, and Lili was not sure whether she was speaking to the four daughters, the

SS men or their servants, who stood and watched, not permitted to

prepare the meal. Or, quite possibly, to herself. At any rate, she

sounded desperate. ‘It’s a simple case of mistaken identity.’

The SS captain in charge said with courtesy, ‘Let’s hope so. In the meantime it is my duty to take you into protective custody. For your own safety. We cannot predict what citizens may do when they hear

of your husband’s arrest. Sadly all too many people are taking the

law into their own hands. You will be conveyed to a detention centre.

I am told it is comfortable enough. But of course not as luxurious as your beautiful house.’ He permitted himself a smile. ‘Would that be a Dürer I happened to see in your husband’s study? Magnificent. I

once studied the history of art. Now, if you are ready? One small bag each, please. And you have nothing to be afraid of. If what you say is true, you will be back in this house before you know it. We must

trust to the Reich’s system of justice.’

A van took them to an anonymous building on the outskirts of