The Lie by Petra Hammesfahr Page A

very thing Nadia was trying to avoid at all costs? Pack his bags! That sounded like a separation. The front door was opened.
    She put the glass down and hurried out into the hall. “Michael,” she cried, “I’m sorry.”
    The door swung to. Once more he was leaning with his back against it, a car key in his hand, giving her a suspicious look. As well as the suspicion, she could see fear in his eyes, but didn’t know how to interpret it. What lovely eyes he’s got, she thought. She felt at a loss, she had no
idea what to say now. She could have kicked herself for having started to talk at all. Every further word increased the risk of discovery. Quietly, tremulously, she repeated, “I’m really sorry.”
    Nothing changed in his strange look and tense posture. She desperately tried to think what was the best thing she could say to put his mind at rest before he went out. “I didn’t want to make a scene,” she said. “I wasn’t going to have a drink, either. I just thought…”
    She tried to act casual, giving him the shrug of the shoulders and the mocking smile with the little pout. “I thought you might stay if I pretended I was going to. But off you go, I know how important the new series is and that you can’t leave Kemmerling alone with Olaf. I won’t touch the bottles, any of them.” To emphasize her promise, she said, “Cross my heart and hope to die.” It made her sound like a little girl and would presumably never have crossed Nadia’s lips.
    Michael Trenkler’s only response was a rapid exhalation of breath, but it sounded disbelieving, derisive and very hurt. He gave a mechanical nod, turned round and opened the door. As he left, he said, “You’ve changed your tune! We’ll talk tomorrow, OK?”
    â€œOK,” she said, rubbing her wrist, which was still hurting. His grip had left red marks. When the door finally closed behind him, she took a deep breath and let the air out slowly in relief. Outside a car engine roared into noisy life. In all the excitement, she forgot that there hadn’t been a car parked anywhere in the street when she arrived.
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    She went back into the kitchen, tipped the Coke down the sink and set out on her first expedition into Nadia’s life. In the living room she picked out a few notes on the piano and looked at the music on the rest: Chopin, Nocturne in G Minor . It sounded very complicated and that was what it looked like, too. Under that were pieces by Wilhelm Friedemann, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein, Saint-Saëns and Telemann. The last two names meant nothing to her. She wandered over to the couch and asked the black-and-gold wrapping paper if it was the Beckmann. No answer.
    The kitchen cupboards were meticulously neat and tidy. She couldn’t find a remote control of the TV above the fridge but she didn’t waste time looking for it. In the drawing room with the open fire she found more framed works of art and a second television. It was fitted into the natural stone wall above the mantelpiece and was hardly bigger than the
palm of her hand. The miniature format made her realize it must be part of the alarm system. Nadia had told her so much about sensors that registered movement or heat and surveillance units that she’d imagined something futuristic.
    She went back into the living room and discovered a similar mini-screen there, which she’d missed on her first inspection. Now that she knew what she was looking for, she found the surveillance unit in the dining room straight away. Somehow it seemed ridiculous, grossly excessive. At the same time there was something unpleasant about it, she felt she was being observed wherever she went, even though all the monitor screens were dark. It was only the lavatory and the hall that seemed to lack the spying eyes.
    She had another look at the box hidden behind the leather jacket in the hall closet.