Therapy by Sebastian Fitzek Page A

metres at least, and the lawn sloped down to the water's edge. There was a private beach and a jetty, and the house itself was huge. As far as I could tell, the architecture was neoclassical with a few extravagant flourishes – oriels, turrets and the like. No wonder Charlotte called it a “palace”.’
    Schwanenwerder .
    Once again Anna's description was uncannily accurate. Viktor had heard enough to know that she was definitely involved.
    ‘The house and the gardens were impressive enough, but I hadn't reckoned with the commotion outside. The whole place was swarming with people and cars. We had to get out and walk a couple of hundred metres over a little bridge because the road was chock-a-block with vans.’
    ‘Vans?’
    ‘Right. They were parked bumper-to-bumper. Everyone seemed to be heading . . .’
    . . . towards my house . . .
    ‘. . . in the same direction as us. The road was really narrow and we had to push our way through. A big crowd had gathered on the pavement at the end of the drive. No one noticed our arrival. In fact, they were all too busy staring at the house. Some were using binoculars, others had telephoto lenses. Barely a second went by without a mobile phone or a camera flash going off. A couple of men had climbed a tree to get a better view, but they couldn't compete with the helicopter circling overhead.’
    Viktor knew the exact location of the house. What was more, he could practically pinpoint the date of their visit. In the days following Josy's disappearance, the media had laid siege to his villa in Schwanenwerder, placing an intolerable strain on Isabell and himself.
    ‘Suddenly a cry went up from the crowd. The front door opened and someone stepped outside.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘I couldn't tell. We were standing at the top of the drive, seven or eight hundred metres from the house. I tried asking Charlotte who lived there, but she avoided the question. “It's my house,” she told me. “I grew up here.” Then I asked why she had brought me there, and she said, “Don't you get it? I live in this place – and the illness lives here too.”’
    ‘The illness?’
    ‘That's what she said. From what I could gather, something in the house was making her ill. That's why she left home – firstly, to establish the cause of her illness, and secondly, to break free.’
    So Josy's illness was caused by something in Schwanenwerder .
    ‘I was still deciding what to make of it all when she tugged on my sleeve and begged me to go. I ignored her at first because I wanted to get a proper look at the person on the drive. I still didn't know if it was a man or a woman, but whoever it was looked vaguely familiar and I wanted to stay. But then Charlotte said something that changed my mind.’
    ‘Well?’
    ‘She said: “We need to go. Remember the thing in the cabin? It followed us – and it's here.”’

20
    ‘May I use your bathroom?’
    Anna had clearly decided to take a break from her story. She stood up briskly.
    He nodded. ‘Of course.’ Not for the first time it struck him that Anna was unusually well spoken. It was almost as if she were compensating for the awfulness of her narrative by carefully enunciating each word.
    He wanted to rise to his feet, but a dead weight was pushing on his shoulders, keeping him down.
    ‘The bathroom is—’
    ‘Upstairs and second on the left – I know.’
    He gaped at her in disbelief, but she was already in the doorway and didn't turn round.
    She knew where the bathroom was? How?
    His plan of sitting and waiting was abandoned. Summoning his strength, he hauled himself upright, walked to the door, and stopped. A pool of water had formed on the floor where Anna's cashmere coat, dripping wet from her walk in the rain, was draped over a chair by the couch. He picked it up to move it to the hall and was surprised by its weight. The waterlogged cashmere couldn't account for the heaviness. He checkedthe silk lining: bone dry . There had to be another