The Zurich Conspiracy (23 page)

“But I pay for it with my blood, isn’t that a fair exchange?”

“Even Swiss blood isn’t compensation enough for Italian espresso, Herr Sauter.” Her eyes were flashing.

“What’s Swiss blood got to do with it—my great-grandfather came from the Black Forest. We Swiss have all been ennobled by foreign genes anyway.”

She laughed. “Yes, thanks for ‘ennobled.’ My mother came from Piedmont.”

“Aha. Just as I thought.” He looked at her profile, which triggered a shudder in her. “Your eyes and complexion—there’s something Mediterranean about you. And where does the name Josefa come from?”

The man was asking so many questions she couldn’t eat her breakfast!
Once a cop, always a cop
, she thought, though she admitted to enjoying his company. She told him how her mother had really wanted to have a son so she could name him after Josefa’s grandfather, Giuseppe. But a girl turned up and she amended the name to Josefa.

Sauter smiled, and then his face suddenly showed concern.

“You look a little pale, Frau Rehmer. Are you all right?”
How the guy can change the subject so fast!
Josefa felt taken by surprise one more time.

“Yes…I’m…It’s better. I…”

A man in uniform opened the door and beckoned to Sauter; he hesitated, searching for words, his gray eyes scrutinizing her face. “Look out for yourself, very carefully,” he said gravely. “You’ve got my phone number.” And he was gone in an instant.

Josefa watched him leave, dumbfounded. Dumbfounded and somehow frustrated. She couldn’t even say why.

The Red Cross coffee was so potent that by afternoon she felt strong enough to take Sali sledding at the Üetliberg. Two hours before leaving she sat cross-legged on her living room carpet checking her camera battery. She intended to document Sali’s adventure in the snow. When the phone rang, she hesitated. Maybe it was another reporter. She let the answering machine pick up.

“Josefa? Are you there?” It was Helene. Josefa dove for the phone; she had to talk to her friend in peace and quiet.

“I’ll be right at your door with a bottle of champagne. There’s something to celebrate.”

That’s just like Helene, Josefa thought as she ran to the kitchen to take some smoked salmon out of the fridge and start heating up some rolls in the oven.

“Yummy, yummy,” Helene exclaimed, entering the kitchen. She probably got the expression from her Canadian boyfriend. “It smells like fresh bread!” Josefa kissed Helene’s ice-cold cheeks in greeting, noticing her friend was sporting a new hairdo, more feminine than usual.

Helene put the champagne down on the table. “I’ve got a lectureship in California, for one year,” she announced, beaming. “And guess what the best thing about it is? Greg’s coming to California too!”

Josefa’s jaw dropped. California. She tried to smile but didn’t quite succeed. “And when does it start?”

“In the summer.” Helene unwrapped the cork. “Don’t look at me like that, Josefa! Be happy for me.”

Josefa rubbed her chin. Well, she couldn’t possibly feel Helene out now on the thorny subjects she’d planned to. “I’m a little surprised,” she confessed, and it was the truth. “Just give me a minute to digest the news.”

Her last words were drowned out by the sound of the cork exploding from the bottle and rocketing to the ceiling. Champagne spilled onto the table, but Helene rescued the rest of it, finally raising her glass in a toast.

“
Prost
, to our future!”

Josefa clinked her friend’s glass without much enthusiasm. “Whatever it may bring,” she muttered.

“You’ve got a new camera?” Helene had discovered the camera lying on the rug. “Show me…It looks terrific.”

Josefa waved her off.

“You’ve probably got much better equipment, Helene. But I’m pleased with it. Pictures come out well. Have a look.”

Josefa fumbled around in a drawer for a thick envelope with photos of Tenerife. Helene leafed through them, commenting now and then about the colors and composition. Then she suddenly fell silent. In her hand was the picture of Ingrid on the hotel patio. Something in Helene’s expression made Josefa perk up.

“That’s a German lady I met a few times. Do you know her?”

Helene just mumbled something unintelligible, then continued thumbing through the stack. The next picture she stopped on was a close-up of Ingrid.

“That’s Freya,” she said clearly this time.

“Freya?” Josefa was puzzled. “No, her name’s Ingrid, and she comes from Germany.”

Helene put the picture back into the pile. “Ingrid’s her second name. She’s really Freya Hallmark, but she hates the name, so she calls herself Ingrid.”

Josefa gave her a blank stare. “You know her?”

“Yes, she’s my cousin. Second cousin or something like that. In any case the daughter of my mother’s cousin.”

“I thought your mother’s name was de Rechenstein?”

“My grandmother was German. Her husband was from a patrician family in Berne. When he died she took the children and moved in with her parents. That’s why my mother grew up in Germany.”

“And…Why was Ingrid—I mean Freya—on Tenerife at the exact same time I was, and in the same hotel, of all things?”

Helene had a swig of champagne. “That’s the way life is. I believe my mother told me that Freya was going there; that’s how I got the idea to recommend it to you. The rest is pure coincidence.” Helene could surely see the doubt on Josefa’s face so she added in feigned indignation, “Hey, I feel like I’m being grilled…Why are you looking at me so funny—something up?”

Josefa took a sip of champagne before answering. “I saw a picture of Freya in the paper. She was with Beat Thüring in a bar. On Tenerife.”

Helene had just started buttering one of her still-warm rolls but put it aside. She didn’t ask who Beat Thüring was. “Freya’s a lawyer, Josefa,” she explained, with forbearance, as if being quizzed by a curious child. “She advises Germans living abroad, and sometimes she goes out with them. And maybe meets a few Swiss too. It’s a global village, Josefa; haven’t you had the same experience at some time or other?”

Everything always sounded so simple when it came out of Helene’s mouth, so normal. And yet this time Josefa wasn’t finding it so easy to trust her.

“So Freya goes to Tenerife often?”

“Depends on the job situation, I suppose. Why do you want to know?”

But Josefa was already on to her next question. “Why did she not reveal her identity? Why did she not tell me who she was?”

Helene licked some creamed cheese and herbs off her finger. “I suspect she was on a delicate mission and didn’t want you trumpeting it about. You’d have certainly asked her a lot of questions, even out of curiosity, and she wouldn’t have been able to answer many of them because of the type of activities she’s involved in. She very often has to be discreet. But you know that from your own job, don’t you?” Helene looked at her encouragingly. “And what else would you like to know?”

Josefa felt she was playing the judge to her own friend. Nonetheless she couldn’t help but ask, “Why did you never tell me about you and Richard Auer?”

There was a long pause as Helene cut her salmon in pieces and scattered onion rings artfully around it. “I was so ashamed. I can’t explain it to you any other way. I thought that if you knew nothing about it, then this painful episode would never have existed.” She leaned back. “In those days I wanted to do what my parents expected of me. Richard’s father was one of my father’s business acquaintances. We both went to business school in St. Gall; I did it for Dad’s sake. But at some point nothing was working out quite right for me anymore. I had a job over the summer holidays at the ornithological station in Zurich—you know the one, don’t you? And all at once I knew what I wanted. What
I
wanted. That was that. All over with Richard, all over with Dad’s firm…That’s the way it was.” Her eyes were glued to the table as if she were reliving her decision.

They ate in silence. Josefa felt that the time for questions had passed. She didn’t want to bring up her father’s suicide now. There would surely be a better opportunity later.

When Sali rang the doorbell, Helene said goodbye as heartily as ever, and Josefa felt a little guilty for having pumped her friend so hard. But sledding with Sali took her mind off things for a while, including her difficult conversation with Helene—everything except a growing suspicion that she was being tailed.

Two men, who had been sitting behind her and Sali on the streetcar, got into the red railway car on the Üetliberg just when they did. Josefa then saw them at some distance on the sledding path, then at the mountain restaurant, and afterward the same two rode back to the city with her and the boy as far as their apartment building.

She absolutely had to relax and not panic. She decided to run a hot bath for herself when she got home. Maybe she was imagining everything, maybe her senses were overstimulated and her mind had gone haywire. And Helene—what was she supposed to think of her? She’d showed up at Josefa’s full of joy, bearing a bottle of champagne, and instead of celebrating her good news with her Josefa riddled her with questions that smacked of distrust!

Maybe she was jealous. Something was in play in Helene’s life; for Josefa everything was on ice. She had no plans for the future; she didn’t even know what she’d do for Christmas. She’d always either worked or flown off to sunnier climes. Her strongest desire was to travel far away, preferably right now. Far away from murders and extraordinary accidents, away from dark suspicions and unpleasant questions.

She climbed out of the tub, dried off, and slipped into her comfy housecoat.

Every time she checked her e-mail, as she did now, she was afraid of finding one of those threatening messages, but there hadn’t been any for weeks. Instead she found a message from Claire.

Dear Josefa,

Sorry you haven’t heard from me. But you can imagine how fast things are moving here. With Schulmann out and Bourdin close to a nervous breakdown, I’ve had to fill in everywhere. I’m helping Bourdin with marketing and Walther with communications. Maybe it’s a good thing that Schulmann never filled your position. He always wanted to control everything himself anyway. Luckily he’s now in control of absolutely nothing. Walther is very pleased with me, and I get a kick out of that. I’ve always wanted to be really challenged. I’m doing all I can to keep our stars from flying the coop.

I’ll be in touch soon as things have settled down here.

Talk to you soon,

Claire

The next day the biggest newspaper in town featured an in-depth article on Francis Bourdin, complete with a full-color picture of the man and a headline that read: “What Has This Man Got To Hide?”

The reporter claimed that Bourdin had long planned to take over Loyn from Walther; she asserted that Bourdin had made inquiries of interested investors in financial circles and intimated to friends that he had “the means” to force the old gentleman to sell the company at a low price. Bourdin did not have an airtight alibi for the time of Schulmann’s murder, the reporter continued, giving late Thursday afternoon as the time of the crime, according to her “reliable sources.” The article alleged it was Bourdin and not Schulmann who did the eavesdropping; Schulmann found out about it later. The reporter had questioned the Filipino chambermaid who helped Schulmann clear out Bourdin’s room and had drawn the logical conclusions. She closed with an astonishing speculation: Had Francis Bourdin become too threatening for someone, and was Schulmann—who was brought into Loyn to strengthen Bourdin’s grip on the firm—the fall guy?

Josefa pressed a hand to her mouth. Who was the reporter’s guesswork pointing to?
Not Walther!
He was a model entrepreneur, and Loyn a gem of the Zurich business world.

Josefa read on. Schulmann apparently gave his lawyer the tapes for safekeeping. The reporter surmised that Schulmann or Bourdin could be up to no good with the tapes and asked, “Which of the guests was going to be blackmailed with those tapes?”

Josefa thought this was hopelessly muddled. Moreover, she was astounded to see the guests list printed—including Thüring, Salzinger, Van Duisen, and of course Westek, though they weren’t singled out for special attention. The reporter only quoted two guests who had participated in the golf tournament. One was an old friend of Walther’s, who said, “I feel sorry for Hans-Rudolf Walther because his company’s making headlines that can hurt it. He doesn’t deserve this. And these kinds of crimes usually involve people who are close to each other anyway.”

Josefa took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. The newspaper would achieve one thing with this story, that was for sure: Bourdin would have to break his silence and take a public stand.

It was quiet in her apartment. Normally she would hear Esther practicing her dance steps at this time of day. The stillness was eerie. Why didn’t somebody phone to ask what she thought about the article? Why did none of her colleagues from Loyn call her? Was she already consigned to oblivion?

She turned to the blue envelope that she’d picked up along with the newspaper. No sender was indicated. She tore it open and a picture fell out: a photograph of herself. Her face was bathed in soft light, her body at a slight angle forward. She was apparently leaning toward somebody. The gentle curve of the top of her breast was subtly visible in the décolletage of her suit jacket. Her lips were full and open in a mysterious smile. Her eyes had an almost seductive sparkle. Her hair had a shimmer to it and was swept up into a loose knot so that there were no curls on her neck, which appeared long and slender from this perspective. Was it really her?