“I couldn’t do a thing.” Pia shook her head in shock. “It all happened so fast.”
She was still shaking all over and could barely hold the bottle of Coke that Bodenstein had pressed into her blood-smeared hands.
“Don’t blame yourself,” said Oliver.
“But I do, damn it. Where’s Tobias?”
“He was still there.” Bodenstein looked around, searching. The lobby was cordoned off, and yet there was a throng of people. Police, doctors with tense, shocked expressions, and the officers in their white overalls looked on as the body of Hartmut Sartorius was lifted into a zinc coffin. “Just stay right here.” Bodenstein put his hand briefly on Pia’s shoulder and got up. “I’m going to look for Tobias and make sure he’s okay.”
Pia nodded and stared at the sticky, dried blood on her hands. She straightened up and took some deep breaths. Gradually her heartbeat calmed down and she could think clearly again. Her gaze fell on Claudius Terlinden, who sat slumped on a chair, staring into the distance. In front of him stood an officer who was apparently trying to take down an account of what happened. The death of Hartmut Sartorius was an accident, there was no doubt about that. Terlinden had acted in self-defense and with no malice aforethought, and yet he seemed to be gradually comprehending the weight of guilt on his shoulders. A young female doctor squatted down in front of Pia.
“Shall I give you something to calm your nerves?” she asked with concern.
“No, I’m okay,” replied Pia. “But could I maybe wash my hands somewhere?”
“Yes, of course. Come with me.”
Her knees shaking, Pia followed the doctor. She kept an eye out for Tobias Sartorius, but didn’t see him anywhere. Where was he? How would he cope with this horrible occurrence, seeing his father die right before his eyes? Pia was usually able to keep a cool head and remain composed even in a crisis, but the fate of Tobias Sartorius had shaken her to her core. Little by little he had lost everything that a human being can lose.
* * *
“Tobi!” Amelie sat up in bed and smiled in disbelief. She had thought of him so often during the past horrible days and nights; she had talked to him in her mind, imagining how it would be to see him again. The memory of the warmth in his sea-blue eyes had kept her from going crazy, and now he was right here in the room. Her heart skipped wildly with joy. “Oh, I’m so happy that you came to visit me! I’ve wanted so much…”
Her smile faded when in the dim light she noticed Tobias’s expression. He closed the door of the hospital room behind him and came closer with hesitant steps to stand at the foot of her bed. He looked terrible, deathly pale, with swollen, bloodshot eyes. Amelie could tell that something dreadful must have happened.
“What happened?” she asked softly.
“My father is dead,” he whispered. “It just happened … down in the lobby. Terlinden was coming toward us … and my father … and he…”
Tobias fell silent. His breathing was ragged, and he pressed his fist against his mouth, fighting for self-control. In vain.
“Oh God.” Amelie stared at him in horror. “But how … I mean, why…”
Tobias grimaced and doubled up, his lips quivering.
“Dad tried to … attack that … bastard.” His voice was toneless. “And Terlinden shoved him … against a glass door…”
He broke off. Tears were streaming down his haggard face. Amelie tossed back the covers and held out her arms to him. Tobias sat down on the edge of the bed and allowed Amelie to pull him close. He pressed his face against her neck, his body shaking with wild, desperate sobs. Amelie held him tight. Her heart ached for him as she realized that Tobias had nobody left in the world—she was the only one he could turn to in his boundless grief.
* * *
Tobias Sartorius had vanished without a trace from the hospital. Bodenstein sent a patrol to his parents’ house, but so far he hadn’t shown up there. Claudius Terlinden had gone home with his wife. He was not directly responsible for Hartmut’s death; it had been an accident, an unfortunate accident with a tragic result. Bodenstein glanced at his watch. Today was Monday, so Cosima would be at her mother’s. The bridge nights at the Rotkirch house were a dependable ritual going back decades, so he was pretty sure he wouldn’t run into her when he picked up some fresh clothes before he drove back to the station. Dirty and sweaty, he was longing for a good long shower.
To his relief the house was dark, only the little lamp on the chest in the hall was burning. The dog greeted him with effusive joy. Oliver petted him and looked around. Everything seemed so normal and so painfully familiar, but he knew this wasn’t home anymore. Before he could get sentimental he determinedly climbed the stairs to the bedroom. He turned on the light and was shocked to see Cosima sitting in the easy chair by the window. His heart skipped a couple of beats.
“Why are you sitting here in the dark?” he asked, because he couldn’t think of anything better to say.
“I wanted to think in peace and quiet.” She squinted in the glare of the light, then stood up and stepped behind the chair as if seeking protection.
“I’m sorry that I lost my temper like that this morning,” Oliver began after a brief pause. “It … was all a bit too much for me.”
“That’s all right. It was my fault,” Cosima replied. They looked at each other without a word until the silence turned awkward.
“I just came by to pick up some clothes,” he said, and left the bedroom. How could he suddenly feel nothing at all for someone for whom he had felt nothing but love for twenty-five years? Was he fooling himself by resorting to some sort of emotional defense mechanism? Or was this simply proof that his feelings for Cosima had long since become nothing but habit? He realized that over the past few weeks and months they’d had numerous minor quarrels, and each time more of his love had faded. Oliver was surprised that he was able to analyze the situation with such clarity. He opened the hall closet and studied the suitcases standing there. He didn’t want to take any of the luggage that Cosima had used in her trips around the world. That’s why he decided on two dusty but brand-new hardshell suitcases that Cosima found too unwieldy.
As he was passing the door of Sophia’s room, he stopped. There should be time for a brief look in at the little one. He set down the suitcases and went into the room, which was illuminated by a small night-light next to the bed. Sophia was sleeping peacefully with her little thumb in her mouth, surrounded by her stuffed animals. Oliver looked at his youngest daughter and sighed. He bent over the bed, reached out his hand, and lightly touched the sleep-warm face of the child.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered softly. “But even for your sake I can’t pretend that everything is fine.”
* * *
The way the female police officer had knelt down in the huge pool of blood was a sight that Tobias would never forget. He had sensed that his father was dead even before anyone uttered those most final of words. As if turned to stone he had stood there, speechless and empty of all feeling, letting himself be pushed aside by doctors, medics, and police officers. In his heart there was no more room for emotion after so much horrible news. As in a ship that was filling up with water, the last protective bulkheads had closed to prevent the vessel from sinking.
Tobias left the hospital and took off walking. Nobody tried to stop him. He marched straight through the dark Eichwald, and the cold gradually cleared his thoughts. Nadia, J?rg, Felix, Papa. They had all left, betrayed, or disappointed him, and now he had no one else he could turn to. Mixed in with the paralyzing gray of his helplessness were mixed bright red sparks of anger. With each step he took his resentment grew toward the people who had destroyed his life, squeezing all the air out of him and leaving him to stop and gasp for breath. His heart cried out for revenge because of everything that they had done to him and his parents. Now he had nothing more to lose. In his mind more and more loose ends were coming together, and suddenly it all made sense. In a flash he realized that with his father’s death he was now the last person who knew the secret of Claudius Terlinden and Daniela Lauterbach. Tobias clenched his fists as he recalled what happened twenty years ago—an event that his father had helped the two of them conceal.
He had been seven or eight years old at the time, and had spent the evening in the side room of the restaurant, as he did so often. His mother wasn’t there, so nobody had thought about putting him to bed. At some point he woke up on the couch in the middle of the night. He got up, crept to the door, and overheard a conversation that he couldn’t understand. Only Claudius Terlinden and old Dr. Fuchsberger, who ate at the Golden Rooster almost every night, were still sitting at the bar. Tobias had seen drunks often enough to recognize that the honorable notary public Dr. Herbert Fuchsberger was completely plastered.
“So what’s the problem?” Claudius Terlinden said, giving Tobias’s father a sign to refill the notary’s glass. “My brother doesn’t give a damn. He’s dead.”
“I’ll be in deep shit,” Fuchsberger had muttered indistinctly, “if it ever gets out!”
“Why would it get out? Nobody knows that Willi changed his will.”
“No, no, no! I can’t do it,” Fuchsberger moaned.
“I’ll raise the fee,” Terlinden countered. “In fact, I’ll double it. A hundred thousand. How’s that?”
Tobias had seen how Terlinden motioned to his father for more drinks. Things went on like this for a while until the old man finally gave in.
“All right,” he said. “But you stay here. I don’t want anyone seeing you in my office.”
After that Tobias’s father had disappeared with Dr. Fuchsberger in tow while Claudius Terlinden remained sitting at the bar. Tobias would probably never have understood what went on that night if years later he hadn’t been searching for the car insurance papers in his father’s office and found a will in the safe. At the time he hadn’t given much thought to why Wilhelm Terlinden’s will would be in his father’s safe. Getting his very first car registered was much more important. And Tobias hadn’t thought about it since then, pushing the discovery aside and finally forgetting all about it. But the shock of his father’s death seemed to have opened a secret chamber in his brain, and suddenly it all came back to him.
“Where are we going?”
Amelie’s voice pulled Tobias out of his gloomy reveries. He looked at her, put his hand on hers, and it warmed his heart. Her dark eyes were full of genuine care for him. Without all that metal piercing her face and that crazy hairdo she was beautiful. Much more beautiful than Stefanie had ever been. Amelie hadn’t hesitated a second to sneak out of the hospital with him when he said that he still had a score to settle. Her gruff, prickly manner was only a fa?ade; he had seen that at their first meeting in front of the church. Since people had so often disappointed and betrayed Tobias, he was continually astounded at Amelie’s selfless honesty and lack of guile.
“First we’re driving to my house, and then I have to talk to Claudius Terlinden,” he now replied. “But you’ll have to wait in the car. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I’m not leaving you alone with that fucker,” she argued. “If we’re together he won’t dare do anything to you.”
In spite of everything Tobias had to smile. She was certainly brave enough. A tiny gleam of hope flickered inside him like a candle whose light was seeking a path through the fog and darkness. Maybe there would be a future for him when all of this was over.
* * *