Authors: Sebastian Fitzek
‘Madam, someone is at the door.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Annoyed at the interruption, Isabell put down the
latest edition of
InStyle
magazine and shaded her eyes with her hand.
‘Madam, there's a gentleman to see you. Would you like me to show him in?’
‘I suppose so,’ she said, standing up and signalling impatiently for him to get on with it. She was hungry, the waiters had outstayed their welcome, and she was looking forward to her lunch. While she waited, she dipped her big toe into the pool and looked critically at her nails: it was time for the hotel's beauty therapist to pay another visit to her suite. Yesterday's choice of nail varnish would look dreadful with the outfit she was planning to wear tonight.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Larenz.’
Groaning inwardly, Isabell turned round and saw a stranger standing in the sliding doors to the lounge. He was of medium height, his hair was tousled and he was neatly, but not expensively, dressed.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded, wondering where the waiters had gone. They usually hung around for a tip, but this time they had disappeared without dishing up the vegetables. She tutted in displeasure.
‘My name is Roth, Dr Martin Roth. I'm your husband's doctor.’
‘I see,’ said Isabell. She couldn't sit down and start eating without asking her visitor to join her, so she hovered uncertainly by the pool.
‘I'm here with an important message, something your husband told me before he suffered his last relapse.’
‘Why the urgency? Surely you haven't flown here from Berlin to pass on a message? Couldn't you have called?’
‘It's something we should probably discuss in person.’
‘Very well, Dr Roth. It seems like a fuss about nothing, but if you insist.’ She gestured to the chair with feigned politeness. ‘Would you like to take a seat?’
‘No thanks, it won't take long.’ Dr Roth strolled across the patio, stopped in the middle of the lawn, and positioned himself in the sun. ‘Beautiful apartment.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you stayed here before?’
‘I haven't visited Europe in over four years . . . Look, I know you've come a long way, but could we get this over with quickly? My lunch is getting cold.’
‘You moved to Buenos Aires, didn't you?’ persisted Roth as if he hadn't heard. ‘You left Berlin after Josy passed away.’
‘I needed to get away. Anyone with children would understand.’
‘Indeed.’ He looked at her intently. ‘Mrs Larenz, your husband confessed to inducing an allergic reaction in your daughter over a period of eleven months. He also admitted to drowning her accidentally.’
‘The lawyers I hired acquainted me with the facts.’
‘In that case, they probably told you that his confession triggered a serious relapse.’
‘Yes, he hasn't shown any sign of recovery, as far as I'm aware.’
‘But I don't suppose they mentioned the subject of our last conversation. In the final moments before Viktor returned to his state of catatonic paralysis, he agreed to tell me what happened to the body.’
Isabell showed no visible sign of emotion. She reached for the Gucci sunglasses perching on her head and lowered them over her eyes.
‘Well?’ she said steadily. ‘What did he say?’
‘We know where she is.’
‘Where?’ she asked.
Roth, who had been studying her face intently, detected the first sign of emotion. Her lower lip was trembling. He crossed the lawn and leant over the railings. The hotel was situated at the top of a bluff, several hundred metres above the sea.
‘Come and join me,’ he said encouragingly.
‘Why?’
‘Please, Mrs Larenz, this isn't easy for me. I'd rather tell you here.’
Isabell hesitated, then joined him at the railings.
‘Do you see the main pool?’ asked Roth, pointing to the terrace diagonally below them.
‘Yes.’
‘Why don't you swim there?’
‘For heaven's sake, Dr Roth, I've got my own pool. And quite frankly, I'd rather we stuck to the matter at hand.’
‘Of course,’ he murmured without looking up. He
seemed to be staring at the people in the pool. ‘The thing is, I've been trying to work out what that gentleman is doing there.’ He pointed to a well-toned figure in red-and-white trunks. The man, who must have been in his early forties, was dragging his lounger into the shade.
‘How should I know? We've never met.’
‘He lives in the suite next door. Like me, he's a member of the medical profession, and like you, he paid for an apartment with a pool . . . But he never seems to use it.’
‘I'm beginning to lose my patience, Dr Roth. I thought you wanted to tell me what happened to my daughter, not to cast aspersions on the bathing habits of people who needn't concern us.’
‘Absolutely. I apologize. It's just . . .’
‘What?’ snapped Isabell, removing her sunglasses and glaring at him with her jet-black eyes.
‘Well, maybe he prefers the main pool because it gives him a chance to eye up the girls. He seems to like the look of that pretty teenager. Blonde hair, three loungers to the left, not far from the shower.’
‘That's it,’ snapped Isabell. ‘I've got no interest whatsoever in your—’
‘Oh really?’ Dr Roth put two fingers in his mouth and let out a shrill whistle.
The noise attracted the attention of a number of people around the pool, including the fair-haired girl. She put down her book. On seeing Dr Roth waving, she returned the greeting.
‘
Hola?
’ she called hesitantly, getting up and taking a few steps back from the lounger to get a better look.
Isabell froze as the girl stared first at Dr Roth, then at her.
‘
Hola. Qué pasa?
’ she shouted in Spanish. ‘
Quién es el hombre, mami?’
Isabell, as predicted by Dr Roth, immediately tried to flee. She got as far as the patio doors before a man burst into the apartment.
‘Isabell Larenz, I'm arresting you on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, and for criminal negligence,’ said the French official.
‘That's ridiculous,’ she protested.
The handcuffs snapped shut.
‘You'll regret this!’
The policeman muttered something into his walkie-talkie and seconds later a helicopter thudded into view, approaching the hotel from a distance of a hundred or so metres.
‘No one could fault your ingenuity, Mrs Larenz,’ said Roth, following the policeman outside. Isabell kept walking but he knew she was listening.
‘Josy didn't drown. She was unconscious when you found her. You smuggled her out of Berlin and put her on a boat to South America. Viktor's schizophrenia made him suggestible, and you encouraged him to believe that Josy was dead. Naturally, he broke down when he thought he had killed her. After that, you had power of attorney
and could claim his fortune for yourself. Your lawyers took care of the paperwork, and there was enough money in the bank to silence the rumours about the psychiatrist's wife and her little girl – that's the advantage of Argentina, I suppose. It worked nicely for four years, but you made a mistake. You were wrong to bring Josy back to Europe. After Viktor's confession, you thought you were safe.’
The police officer frogmarched Isabell up the stairs to the fifth floor and escorted her on to the roof of the Vista Palace Hotel. The helicopter pad had been intended for use by affluent guests, but it was currently occupied by a military chopper belonging to the French police. Isabell maintained a stony silence and paid no attention to the questions shouted after her by Dr Roth.
‘What did you tell Josy? Did you persuade her that she'd be better off in Buenos Aires without the media watching her every move? How did she like her new identity? Does she ask to see her father?’
Isabell didn't reply. She showed no interest in answering his questions – or in asking any of her own. Most people would have demanded a lawyer or begged for the right to say goodbye to the teenager who was being comforted by a policewoman on the poolside below. Isabell said nothing and was marched away without a fight.
‘Your husband was ill,’ shouted Dr Roth, hoping that his voice wasn't being drowned out by the helicopter blades. ‘But you . . . you're just mercenary.’
At last Isabell stopped and turned. The policeman
immediately drew his gun. Isabell seemed to be saying something, but Roth couldn't hear what. He took a step closer.
‘How did Viktor find out?’
The words reached him loud and clear.
‘How did my husband find out?’
Oh he knew straightaway
, thought Roth without replying. Viktor had known as soon as his head cleared and he was able to think. He had known long before Roth asked him about the body. The police had discovered no evidence of Josy's corpse in the boathouse, and so Viktor had concluded that his daughter wasn't dead. And if Josy wasn't dead, someone must have spirited her away. It wasn't hard to do the maths.
Viktor's insistence on returning to Parkum had puzzled Roth at first. But then he realized that his patient had wanted to retreat from reality precisely
because
his daughter was alive. He was afraid. Horribly afraid. Afraid of what he might do to his daughter. He had hurt her, almost killed her. His illness was incurable, and as a psychiatrist, he was well aware of that. And so he had chosen the only place where Josy would be safe from him: Parkum.
‘How did Viktor find out?’ repeated Isabell, struggling to make herself heard above the din of the thudding blades.
‘
She
told him,’ shouted Roth. For a moment he was surprised to hear himself saying exactly what Viktor would have wanted his wife to hear.
‘Told him?
Who
told him?’
‘Anna.’
‘Anna?’
The policeman gave Isabell a little shove and ordered her to keep moving. She stumbled forward but kept looking back. She wanted to talk to Dr Roth, to ask a final question. But she was moving away from him and he couldn't make out the words. He didn't need to. He could read her question from the movement of her lips.
‘Who the hell is Anna?’
Her uncomprehending expression, the helplessness in her eyes as the helicopter took off, was the last that Martin Roth saw of her. It was an image he never forgot.
Slowly, he turned and headed for the stairs. As he made his way down, he knew that the real challenge lay ahead. In the coming months he would face the first true test of his ability as a therapist. A new patient was waiting for him and it was his job to break the truth to her. He had given her father his word.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I'd like to thank you, the reader. Not because I have to, but because I think we share a certain solidarity. Reading and writing are solitary and intensely personal activities, and I'm honoured to be the recipient of the most valuable gift in the world: your time. Especially if you've made it all the way through to these acknowledgements.
Maybe you'd like to tell me what you thought of the book. You can contact me via my website:
www.sebastianfitzek.de
Or send me an email:
Next I'd like to thank all the people who had a hand in ‘creating’ me, for example:
My literary agent, Roman Hocke, who treated me like one of his many bestselling authors and never made me feel like a novice.
My UK agent Tanja Howarth who opened the doors to Pan Macmillan where I was given the warmest of welcomes by Stefanie Bierwerth and Daniela Rapp, my editors in London and New York. Thank you for all your
hard work in making a dream come true and getting a first-time novelist from Berlin published in the language of his literary heroes, the world's greatest thriller writers.
My translator, Sally-Ann Spencer, who did such a thorough and wonderful job with the English edition that I like the book even better than before.
My German editor, Dr Andrea M. Müller, who ‘discovered’ me and played a significant role in shaping the novel.
My friend Peter Prange, who unselfishly shared the lessons learnt from years of writing bestselling novels, and his wife, Serpil Prange, who offered excellent guidance and comments. They were very generous with their time, and I hope I managed to follow their advice.
Clemens, my brother, who helped with the medical content. It can never hurt to have an expert on neuroradiology in the family, and it's a relief to our parents that one of us is working in a sensible profession. To ensure that Clemens doesn't get blamed for my mistakes, I should point out that he didn't check my drafts.
Every book represents the culmination of a long journey, and mine began with my parents, Christa and Freimut Fitzek. I thank them for their love and unstinting support.
Stories are only worth telling if you've got someone to tell them to. Gerlinde deserves recognition for listening to
Therapy
in its entirety at least six times and giving each new version her enthusiastic approval. Of course, her objectivity may be somewhat in doubt.
Then there are all the people whose names I don't know but without whom this book wouldn't exist in its current form: the designers who came up with the brilliant cover, the typesetters, the printers, the booksellers who put the novel on the shelves.
And I couldn't finish these acknowledgements without thanking you, Viktor Larenz. Wherever you may be . . .
Sebastian Fitzek,
the sunniest day of the year
,
Parkum