‘And she was limping.’
‘Your wife was carrying a heavy suitcase. Even I was limping earlier when I had to haul mine to the taxi.’
‘So how do you explain this?’
Leon waved the warped shoes around, like a piece of evidence in a courtroom. This was exactly how the pair looked that he had put in the oven at his foster parents’ house while sleepwalking, just a few days after he arrived there.
A teasing smile danced on the doctor’s lips. His gaze wandered to the empty wine bottle on the sideboard.
‘Were you drinking alone?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘The whole bottle?’
Leon sighed, irritated at himself for not having cleared it away. ‘My wife was late coming home. I opened the bottle anyway and I guess I lost track of how much I was drinking.’
‘And you can’t remember what happened after that, right? You don’t know how you got undressed and into bed. You didn’t notice when Natalie came home. And maybe you also forgot what you did to your trainers?’
Leon shook his head. ‘Why would I nuke my trainers in the microwave while I was drunk?’
‘Well, why would you hit your wife?’
Dr Volwarth looked at the clock and repeated what he had said in the video recording: ‘I’m sure there’s a harmless explanation for all of this. It’s possible that Natalie came home late, got mad because you were drunk, and went to stay with her best friend for a few days.’
‘I already called her.’
‘Well, maybe she’s gone to a hotel. The problems in your relationship didn’t appear overnight, am I correct?’
Leon nodded absent-mindedly.
‘Is it because of the miscarriage?’
The question hit Leon like a slap in the face.
‘How do you know about that?’ he asked, stunned.
‘It was a shot in the dark. You told me you’ve been trying for a baby for almost a year now. But I don’t see any baby books, or catalogues for changing tables and prams on the coffee table, not even the slightest sign of nesting.’
Leon nodded pensively, feeling strangely exposed.
When they managed to secure their dream apartment, they saw it as a good omen for the future. But things had changed after the miscarriage.
‘And how are things going professionally?’ was Dr Volwarth’s next question.
‘Natalie just opened a gallery with her best friend,’ answered Leon, happy to change the subject.
‘I meant with you.’
‘Oh, right. Everything’s great there too, technically.’
‘And non-technically?’
‘We’re in the middle of a bid for a big project. Sven and I—’
‘Who is Sven?’
‘Sven Berger, my best friend and co-owner of the practice. He was the one who pulled in this big potential commission. A children’s hospital. Our first designs went down really well, and we have a good chance of winning the commission. I just need to make a few changes and submit the scale model by Thursday at the latest.’
Volwarth looked at the time again. ‘That’s in a few days’ time. So you’re not just under extreme stress personally, but professionally too.’ He stood up.
‘Yes. I mean . . . no. That’s not the problem.’ Leon, who had stood now too, knew what the psychiatrist was getting at. He had suffered from sleep disturbances even before the car accident, but they had got worse afterwards. It was only when he found a caring home with the Naders that the emotional pressure started to recede. His subconscious had finally been able to find some peace. The stronger the love for his foster parents became, the less reason he had to run from his fears in the night. That was Volwarth’s theory, who back then had seemed almost sad that Leon’s violent outburst at the Molls had not repeated itself. The trainers had been the last act of destruction, and they hadn’t even been living things.
‘How can you be so sure?’ Leon persisted as they walked out of the living room. ‘I mean, my behaviour was strange even as a child.’
‘Strange, but not violent, Leon. Countless sessions, dozens of recordings, and we weren’t able to document a single violent attack.’
‘Maybe there’s nothing on the tapes because we stopped the experiment too soon.’
Volwarth shook his head and, in a familiar gesture, laid his hand on Leon’s shoulder. ‘We didn’t see anything because there was nothing to see; we knew that even before we put the sleep camera on your head.’
‘Oh really? So why did you do it?’
‘Because I didn’t want to cure your somnambulism, but your psychosis. That’s what made your case so interesting: you convinced yourself you were going to do something evil in your sleep. You were so scared that in the end you didn’t want to go to sleep. And this fear of going to sleep, also known as hypnophobia, was what I wanted to take away from you with those tapes. Recordings that, when all is said and done, proved the only person you’re a danger to is yourself, like if you bump into the corner of a table in your sleep or stumble over something. If anything, you probably would have injured yourself with that knife.’
He scrutinised Leon’s face as though searching for a sign that he had got through. Then he sighed. ‘To me it sounds like you’re going through an emotional endurance test right now. And just like all those years ago, when everything got back on the right track after you were taken in by the right people, things will figure themselves out once the stress has abated a little.’
Leon wanted to interject, but Volwarth didn’t give him the opportunity.
‘I have a suggestion for you: complete your work for the bid, submit the model, give your wife a few days of space, and once things have calmed down a bit, come into my lab and we’ll plug you in again and have a more detailed look if that would put your mind at rest. OK?’
Volwarth took a prescription pad from the back pocket of his leather trousers and asked to borrow a pen. Leon moved to hand him his fountain pen from the telephone table, but it wasn’t there, even though he was sure he’d seen it just recently.
‘No problem.’ Volwarth pulled a biro from his jacket pocket, scribbled a few indecipherable words, then tore off the slip of paper and handed it to Leon.
‘What’s this?’
‘A gentle sedative. It’s based on a herbal remedy and helps to provide a dreamless sleep. The dose I’ve prescribed should last you until I’m back in the country again.’
‘Nocturnalon,’ Leon read out loud.
Once the psychiatrist was gone, Leon suddenly felt so tired it was as though he’d already taken a whole packet of it.
6
‘Do it!’
The sex was like it always was. Wild, unrestrained and of an intensity that would be embarrassing to him as soon as he could think straight again. But right now orgasm was still a myriad of kicks, bites and screams of lust away. Right now Leon was still relishing whispering all the frivolous abuse into Natalie’s ear that he knew turned her on so much.
Bitch. Slut.
Normally she just repeated the insults. As if she had earned them.
Because I’ve been a naughty girl.
But today she threw him off his rhythm with an unexpected request.
‘Come on, do it!’
Leon grabbed at her breasts, pulling her closer.
‘No, not like that.’
He slowed down.
‘How?’
She reached for his hand and pulled it to her face.
‘Hit me,’ she gasped beneath him.
Leon propped himself up with his hands either side of her head, in confusion.
‘Do it. Please.’
Natalie grabbed his ass and pulled him deeper inside her.
Hit you?
‘I don’t understand. How—’
‘What is there not to understand?’ It was another voice. He looked to the right and froze in shock as he recognised his mother sitting on the chair next to the bed. ‘The horny slut wants it harder.’ She grinned wantonly. ‘
It’s not like you have to reach straight for the whip like your father. A slap will do for now.’
Leon felt his penis go limp inside Natalie.
What’s going on?
‘It’ll figure itself out. It does in most cases.’
The words were coming from his wife’s mouth, but Natalie was suddenly speaking with the grating voice of an old man. It took a while before Leon recognised the officer he had spoken to after saying goodbye to Dr Volwarth yesterday, when he had called the police station to file a missing person’s report.
‘With adults we don’t tend to start looking into it until fourteen days after the disappearance.’
Leon’s mother, too, was now speaking in the voice of the detective as she said: ‘Just wait for a while, then give the whore a good hiding if she turns up.’
No! Leon wanted to scream, but he couldn’t utter a single sound.
He tried to disentangle himself from Natalie, but the more he tried, the weaker he became. She reached for his hand and pressed his fingers into a fist. He tried to wriggle free, but couldn’t, it was as though his joints had been locked. Leon felt Natalie grab him by the wrist, spurred on by the cheers of encouragement from his mother. Then she smiled and opened her mouth, inside which a living thing was moving around.
Morphet!
The cockroach’s feelers came darting out from between her lips like the tongue of a snake. And Natalie rammed Leon’s fist into her face.
There was a crunching sound, as though he had kicked in a rotten old door. At the same time he heard a dull echo.
‘Bull’s-eye,’ laughed Natalie, spitting out a piece of her front tooth. As she did so, Morphet crawled from her mouth and scuttled across her cheek towards her eye.
Oh God, screamed Leon silently, unable to stop it from happening. Powerless to stop her, he let Natalie use his own fist to beat herself with again. This time on her open eye, where the cockroach had positioned itself, its pincers about to bore into her pupil.
‘Hit me. I deserve it.’
Natalie magnified the force of the punches by jerking her head forward just before impact. There was a popping sound like an exploding air balloon as Leon’s fist crushed her eyeball.
Then another sound was reverberating in his head, high and sonorous. Leon sat up in shock. He blindly fumbled around for the cordless telephone on his nightstand, surprised that it wasn’t on the unit in the hallway where he normally put it before going to bed so that the ancient thing could charge overnight. Part of his consciousness was still imprisoned in the nightmare, but the other part registered the familiar number on the vibrating display.
‘Where the hell are you?’ said Sven. ‘We were supposed to go through the presentation!’
His best friend was really mad, that was clear from the tiny pauses scattered between his words.
When he was younger Sven’s stutter had been much more pronounced, and Leon was the only one in their class who hadn’t bullied him for it. Their deep bond of friendship, much more than a mere working relationship, was based primarily on a foundation of respect that had been obvious even at the tender age of fourteen. Leon accepted Sven’s speech impediment, and Sven didn’t see him as an exotic orphan like many of their other classmates did. To this day Sven believed that it was thanks to Leon’s friendship and the increased confidence it gave him that he was finally able to overcome the stuttering. Nowadays it was only noticeable to those who knew him, and then only when he was very worked up. Leon, however, felt certain that it was much more down to the speech therapist whose exercises Sven still followed even now.
‘I, I . . . oh damn.’ Leon looked at the alarm clock on his nightstand; the thing must have stopped, because it was showing 4 a.m., and Sven would never call him in the middle of the night.
‘Shit.’
‘Yes, exactly. I’ve been waiting for you in the office for an hour now. Where are you?’
‘Sorry, I overslept.’
‘Overslept?’ asked Sven in disbelief. ‘We were planning to go through the alterations. It’s gone six in the evening!’
‘What?’
That was impossible. Leon had gone to bed very early last night because of a persistent headache making it impossible for him to carry on working. He didn’t take one of the sleeping tablets that Volwarth had prescribed. He didn’t even leave the house to pick up the prescription, and it was impossible that he could have slept that long. Although the headache had subsided, he still felt numb and woozy.
‘I think I must be coming down with something,’ he mumbled into the receiver.
‘Don’t get sick on me, Leon. Don’t slack off when we’re on the home stretch.’
‘I won’t, don’t worry. The model will be ready.’
‘Man, this thing with Natalie really seems to have thrown you for a loop.’
‘Natalie?’
Leon sat up straight in shock.
How does he know about
‘Yes. Has she turned up yet?’
‘No,’ said Leon in confusion.
He pushed the bed-sheet off and noticed to his surprise that he was only wearing boxer shorts. He was sure he remembered having fallen into bed fully clothed, exhausted.
Did I get drunk again? For God’s sake, what else can’t I remember?
A ringing sound, similar to the one in the dream, made Leon jump. He stood up.
‘Hang on, I have to answer the front door.’
He padded barefoot into the hallway. Before he opened the door, he looked through the peephole. Relief flooded through him.
Thank God.
At least his memory hadn’t let him down with this. He had spent ages searching on the internet yesterday before finally finding what he was looking for, and, as promised, the company was delivering the very next day.
‘Just a moment,’ called Leon through the closed door. He grabbed a coat from the cloakroom before opening the door to the delivery guy.
The man, who was around Leon’s age, wore a uniform that was threadbare at the knees and elbows, the brown of which matched his closely shorn hair. The name badge above the company logo (United Deliveries – We Love What We Do) declared him to be Jonas K., although Jonas K. didn’t appear to identify with the logo particularly. He was chewing gum listlessly and listening to music on clunky headphones.
While Leon awkwardly scribbled his signature on a clipboard, he promised Sven he would bring the new designs into the office that evening. ‘I’ve arranged the lifts around the atrium to save space. And there’s a show-stopper that the clinic management are going to love.’
He was just about to close the door when the courier took off his headphones abruptly and said, ‘Excuse me, I have a problem.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Could I use your toilet quickly?’
‘What?’
‘Your toilet. You do have one, don’t you?’
Leon blinked nervously; the question was too much for him right now. A reasonable request that was just as difficult to grant as it was to refuse.
He took a closer look at the man. Now that he had stopped chewing gum, he looked a lot more intelligent. A high forehead, alert eyes, his nose a little too big in relation to the rest, albeit not damaging the overall impression any more than the missing left earlobe, which only became noticeable now he’d taken off the headphones.
Leon stepped to the side to let the uninvited guest pass.
‘Thank you, that’s very kind. I have diarrhoea, you see.’
‘Excuse me?’
Leon thought he must have misheard, but the man’s expression didn’t change. It was only after a few moments that his trembling lower lip betrayed him. ‘Oh man, you should take a look at your face in the mirror,’ he choked, exploding with laughter. ‘You look as though you just shit your own pants.’
Now the courier was laughing manically at his own absurd joke, while Leon struggled to bring his expression back under control.
Has everyone here gone crazy?
‘
No harm meant, mate, but I have to keep my spirits up with this tedious job somehow.’ With a chuckle, the joker put his headphones back on and turned on his heel.
‘Who was that?’ asked Sven, once Leon had closed the door.
‘Just some weirdo. Where was I?’
He looked through the peephole, but the courier had disappeared.
‘You were telling me about the show-stopper you’ve built into the presentation.’
‘So I was. An underground tunnel system, connecting the most important wings of the hospital. But not just for pedestrians, as is usually the case: for emergency vehicles too.’
‘Which means we’ve solved the radiology problem and patient transport,’ said Sven with delight. Their first designs had been criticised for the location of the diagnosis centre – it was too out of the way. An inevitable problem arising from the rambling hospital grounds. ‘And we can keep the basic concept.’
‘Yes. Let’s just hope they accept the enormous additional costs.’
With the telephone clamped between his chin and collarbone, Leon carried the package in both hands along the hallway to his study, pushing the door open with his foot.
‘As I already said, I like it a lot,’ said Sven. ‘But we still need to discuss it in detail. You’re coming to the party with me, right?’
‘Yes, of course,’ answered Leon tonelessly, not paying attention. His feeling of elation at Sven’s approval had evaporated the second he walked into the study.
With his gaze fixed on the empty desk, he said softly, ‘But please give me a bit more time.’
What the hell is happening here?
The scale model, the one he had been working on day and night for the last few weeks, was no longer where he had left it.
7
‘Natalie? Please just call me back, will you? I’m out of my mind with worry.’
With the telephone to his ear, Leon flung open one door after another: bedroom, hallway, kitchen, loungediner. A fleeting glance was enough. For an object the size of a suitcase, there were very few possible hiding places even in their large apartment, and Leon was unable to find it in any of them. The model had completely vanished.
Leon couldn’t make sense of it. The cardboard model had been on the desk, there and nowhere else. Besides that, it was much too bulky to move around. He had been dreading carrying the cumbersome thing into the office by himself. If he had sleepwalked with it, he wouldn’t have had a free hand to close the door behind him afterwards.