The Zurich Conspiracy (13 page)

“This is Agnes. This is for Stefan, in case he’s there. Christian’s had an accident on his bicycle and has a head injury and is in the canton hospital. Get there as soon as you can.” A click, and the message ended.

Stefan grabbed his clothes hastily. “Where’s my watch?” he asked
. As if his watch means something when his son’s in the hospital,
Josefa thought. Stefan, who was rushing to the john, slamming the door, having a pee, tearing open the door, grabbing his jacket, looking around for his car keys, hurrying out the door, and tossing off a “Sorry” on his way out the door.

Josefa found his watch afterward, behind the bed. At two in the morning she was still awake, sitting on the sofa, rolled up in a duvet, staring off into nothingness.

There was no going through the kitchen: cables were lying every which way, tools were blocking the path. A white layer of powder lay over everything. There was a large, gaping hole between the refrigerator and the pan cupboard. A man in blue overalls was bent over and kneeling in the gap as if praying before a domestic altar. His drill was deafening.

Josefa stood in the entranceway beside a washing machine covered with a plastic sheet and bellowed, “He needs glasses!” She made a ring with her thumbs and forefingers and put them up to her eyes. “Glasses!” she repeated. Sali’s father was standing across from her, trying to understand her words.

“Glasses?” he asked. “Why glasses?”

Josefa was holding the piece of paper from Sali’s teacher that his father had brought her.

“Sali doesn’t see very well, his eyes are too weak,” she explained.

“Who pay glasses?” Sali’s father was now more annoyed than concerned. “School?”

Herr Emini had a job, Josefa knew that but not where it was. She sometimes saw him parking an old delivery truck in front of the apartment building.

“I no buy glasses,” he said stubbornly. “Glasses cost much money, much money. I no have glasses.”

Josefa’s biggest question was whether kids in his homeland wore glasses; she knew absolutely nothing about how they lived in Kosovo—no Loyn products for sale there! All she knew was that the people apparently ate salty pita with yogurt, because Sali had made her a present of it yesterday. Embarrassed, she had reciprocated by pressing a chocolate bar into his hand.

“Glasses are important for Sali.” She was insistent now. “He can’t see words without them. He can’t read without glasses.”

The drill blared away in the kitchen. Herr Emini was getting on her nerves. She would talk the matter over with Frau Yilmaz.

“I’ll talk to them at the school,” she relented. That calmed him down, as if she’d promised to pay for the glasses.

“Good, good,” he said with an inquisitive glance into the kitchen. “Washing machine,” he muttered. Josefa was at the point of throwing him out when the phone rang. She picked it up.

“Just a minute,” she shouted. Sali’s father moved toward the door.

“Good, good, good,” he murmured again and left without another word. Josefa couldn’t understand whoever it was on the line. She shut herself up in the bedroom.

“Hello?”

“OH WHY was Joan’s date POST-PONED?” Joan Caroll’s agent.

“Kelly, didn’t they tell you? The new marketing head, Werner Schulmann, arranged it and—”

“OH WHY was I not IN-FORMED A-BOUT THIS?”

“I e-mailed and faxed you and—”

“OH WHY do you people not stick to our A-GREE-MENTS?”

“Kelly, you have to talk to Werner Schulmann, he approved it. He authorized it. He—”

“Werner WHO? We do not wish to speak to Werner. We shall speak to Francis Bourdin, CHEEO-SE-PHEEEN!” Click. That was that.

When she opened the door, the workman was standing in front of her.

“Name’s Japp. I’m taking a lunch break,” he announced.

Josefa didn’t believe her ears. She stared at the man in utter bewilderment. “You are taking a lunch break?” she asked slowly, stressing each word.

“Yep,” the workman replied. “Back around one-thirty.”

Josefa shook her head. Then she let him have it. “No siree, you are definitely
not
taking a lunch break. I took this morning off just for your sake. You didn’t get here until
eleven
, and you already want to take a break! That’s outrageous! I
have
to go to the office this afternoon, and you’re
still
not finished!”

Then her voice got louder and shriller. “Can you imagine the things I had to do so I could be here this morning? Do you think
I
can simply saunter into the office at eleven? Do you believe you can earn your money that easily? And make life difficult for other people on top of that?” She was practically shouting now. She was red in the face and there were beads of sweat on her forehead.

“I shall complain to your boss, you can bet on it! I don’t have to take this lying down. You probably think you can get away with this with a woman, right? But not with me, my good man, NOT WITH ME!”

Quaking with rage, she threw the receiver that was still in her hand onto the floor. The plastic casing broke with a crunch, exposing the inmost secrets of modern technology. Josefa tore into the bedroom and slammed the door. She whimpered as she beat her fists on the bed.
She grabbed the steel cable. The heavy ball began to swing, slowly at first, then faster and faster, more and more powerfully, unstoppable. Better get out of the way, you blockheads, you ass-kissers, you backstabbers! Nothing can stop the ball, it is stronger than anything, it circles and circles, wiping out everything in its path of destruction. Bashing, breaking, sparing nothing. How it turns and turns, blasting everything in its way! Bam! Bam! Bam!

It’s over. Finished. Release.

Some light slowly made it through. The armoire. The oil painting. Josefa looked around in confusion. How much time had passed? How light she felt all of a sudden. What had happened? The man and the washing machine. Oh, my God! The phone on the floor. She opened the bedroom door.

The man in blue overalls was standing in the front hall. He stared at her as if she were an alien. Josefa’s shoulders dropped.

“Please excuse me,” she muttered. “My nerves are all shot. It’s been a bit too much lately. I…I didn’t want to be so…” She put her middle fingers between her eyes to calm herself down.

The workman rubbed his rough hands nervously. “Just leave the key,” he said. “It’s what I do with all my customers. I’ll put it back in the mailbox afterward.”

Josefa wasn’t comfortable with that idea at all. How could she check on how well he’d done his job or how long it took? But come to think of it, just about everything in her life had been beyond her control the past few weeks; a workman was the least of her troubles. She sighed and gave him a key. The door fell shut behind him.

She stumbled into the living room and collapsed onto the sofa. What was the matter with her? Would these sudden temper tantrums never go away? She’d almost thrown the receiver at that poor man’s head! Her stomach was in a knot at the thought of it. Fortunately nothing like this had ever happened at the office.

Josefa closed her eyes, exhausted. Like a mantra, she had to repeat these words to herself a hundred times:
Calm and controlled. Calm and controlled.
Calm and controlled
.

Her cell phone rang. Kelly again, she thought. But it was a man’s voice on the line.

“Sebastian Sauter, Zurich Criminal Investigation Department.”

The police detective.

“I had a coffee at your place and must have left my cap behind.”

“Ah, yes, I remember. Yes, your cap is still here.” Josefa could hear a flutter in her voice.

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to drop by and pick it up.”

“Today? No, it doesn’t work today. There’s no way. I…uh…everything’s turned upside down here. The washing machine, you know…a new washing machine…And in the office…”

She fell silent.

“Frau Rehmer? Are you still there?”

“Yes.” That was all she could bring herself to say.

“I don’t want to be a bother, we can make it another day; can you hear me?”

“I…I don’t know what’s the matter with me today,” she stammered, and then her voice broke and tears ran down her cheeks. “It’s been so hectic today, please excuse me.”

“Frau Rehmer, you don’t have to apologize. We all have days like that. Can I do something for you?”

“No, no, I’m better already. I’ll give you a call, OK?”

“Sure, no problem.”

Keep calm, Josefa. Sit down, take a deep breath.
And now concentrate, think.
How did Sebastian Sauter get your cell phone number?

She opened the door of the cabin, pushed down on the rusty door handle, and banged her shoulder against the wood as powerfully as she could. The old door yielded with a loud creak. Got lucky this time. In cold weather the lock often resisted every attempt to turn it. The only thing that worked in that case was the hot flame of a cigarette lighter she’d hold against the recalcitrant metal.

It wasn’t very cold today, just soaking wet. She pushed the door closed, locked it again, and put the key in a hidden crack of a high beam over the door. Then she felt her way ahead by using her lighter until she found a candle. She’d left her flashlight in the car but didn’t want to go back in the rain and growing darkness. She was of course well acquainted with the narrow path—she knew every turn, every overhanging bough—but it was quite soggy by now. She’d almost slipped on a protruding root on the way here.

She lit the oil lamp on a plain wooden table in the middle of the room. Then it occurred to her that she’d also forgotten the newspapers in the car that she wanted to light the fire with. How distracted she was today! She wiped her wet hands on a towel hanging over a string line. A whodunit was in her rucksack; the title fascinated her:
The Inferno of Cold Calculation
. She ripped out a few pages and threw them in the oven of the old-fashioned cook stove. She heaped on thin wood shavings; there was still enough kindling and split wood, but she’d have to bring in a load next time. She carefully lit the literary scraps, and after the shavings caught fire, she put a large log in through the oven door. Smoke blew into the little room whenever it wanted. No smoke, no fire.

She waited until the warmth gradually spread around. The firs in front of the window were no longer recognizable. Only the crackling of the fire and the splattering of the rain on the windowpanes were audible. She wasn’t afraid. The woods were her protection, her den of thieves. Nobody knew she was here.

Nobody knew who she really was.

How easily she could fool other people. Man or woman, didn’t matter, everybody saw in her what they wanted to see. And that was what she presented to them—a masquerade, a deliberate confusion, an illusion born of calculation.

Nobody knew why she came here or what she did.

Tomorrow, as soon as enough light came through the windows, she would set to work. She would line up all the pieces in a row, connect them, push them together, bind them into a large, mighty whole. Everything would go according to plan. Because she would not let anything stand in her way. She would make use of her enemies. Nobody should even try to deprive her of what she deserved.