‘The town in the woods, near the lake. I’ve heard of it.’
The guard was too delighted with herself to hear Liese’s voice shaking.
‘So, to business. How does this work? Do you have a pattern book, some ideas I could look at?’
The notion that Liese could possibly do anything as normal as make this woman a coat was so preposterous, she found herself acting as she would with any other customer. She nodded and waved the woman to a chair placed next to a small table. Gestured to the pile of magazines lying on it as if she was an actress playing a role so well learned it didn’t require her brain to take any part in it.
‘Such a good selection – how perfect.’
That word again, that expectation that the world would fall the exact way she required it. As it had clearly kept on doing for her, and no doubt all the others who had gripped hold of power with their dogs and their whips and walked away when the war was done, as if no part of the horror they presided over was any of their doing.
Liese had seen the reports of the Ravensbrück trial, despite Andrew and Michael’s efforts to keep her away from them. The number of arrests was laughable: a handful of faces standing in for a mob.
She moved a step closer, ran through the next set of lines.
‘Can I get you a tea or a coffee while you look through the designs?’
The woman opened a magazine and began taking off her gloves.
‘Coffee would be delightful, as long as it’s the real stuff. And you have sugar.’
She doesn’t know me. I doubt she’s ever seen me.
Liese stood perfectly still, watching the leather unpeel from the skin, watching the white hands emerging. They were too big to be elegant, the right one too scarred to show off.
Scream. Snap. Splash.
Liese didn’t move. She hadn’t expected to see anything other than that scar to emerge. She carried on quietly watching until the gloves were folded and stowed in the shiny black handbag. Until the woman’s attention was fixed on the models and their blank haughty faces.
There was no startling moment when she made a decision. There was no need to work out a plan, or think through what she was doing. Every move that was needed was already known and had been set in motion when the door first opened. Now they unfolded and Liese felt them as much a part of her as her heart’s steady beating. There was no voice in her head screaming stop. There was no voice in her head except: this is punishment, pure and simple. This act Liese now knew was coming was as much a mother’s job as her lake-watching vigil had been.
This is what has been keeping me alive.
The realisation ran through her like a charge and made the rest simple.
Four paces to the cutting desk, four paces back. All the stored fury turning to fuel now it had finally found its purpose.
‘Here you are.’
‘My, aren’t you quick.’
It was surprisingly easy. And surprisingly silent.
The blonde head lifted. The black eyes went searching for their sugary treat. If the guard saw what was coming, she didn’t have time to react.
One swift move: scissors up, scissors down. Glinting blades finding their own path from fleshy lobe to sinewy throat. A red scarf springing into the air, flying out in a curve as if caught by a breeze and then dropping, pooling back round the limp neck.
The body slumped. Eyes wide, eyes closed.
All over, in seconds.
‘Where are the keys, Liese. Look at me: where are the door keys?’
The shop was in shadow, the window blinds pulled down, although Liese didn’t remember drawing them. Time must have ticked on quicker than she thought because Andrew was here, waiting, she assumed, to walk her home, to offer her dinner. He was standing closer than he normally would and his face was so colourless, she wondered if he was ill.
‘Why don’t you give those to me and then tell me where the keys are. It would be best for everyone if I could lock the door.’
That made sense. It was obviously getting late and no one else would come in on such an unpleasant night. And the scissors, which she hadn’t realised she was still holding, were slippery and sticky.
She looked down at them. Why were they in such a mess?
‘Liese…’
She dropped the blood-soaked blades. Whirled round. The guard was still sitting in the chair. Her coat had stiffened and smelled metallic, and a stain had spread out like an ink blot under her chair.
‘What have I done?’
Liese remembered the door opening, the woman coming in as vividly as if it had just happened. And that terrible moment of recognition. And that voice talking, going on and on. The rest was a blur, a series of snapshots; some she desperately wanted to stay out of focus.
‘Babies. Oh, dear God, she had babies.’
Once she let the images spool back, they wouldn’t stop coming.
‘I’ve killed her and she had babies. Unless, please God, she’s not dead?’
Liese ran to the body, grabbed its wrist and began scrabbling for a pulse.
‘Is it possible she’s not dead?’
‘No. No, it’s not.’
Andrew pulled her away from the cold skin she was clutching.
‘Look at the blood, Liese. No one could survive that.’
He was right. There was so much of it, on her as well as on the body. Liese sank onto her heels and stared at her scarlet-stained hands. The need to explain, to somehow make it right, overwhelmed her.
‘It was the guard. The one who killed Lottie. She walked in like a customer, wanting a coat. She didn’t know me at all. I didn’t think. I just did it. I’ve longed to do it. Dear God, I’ve longed for it all this time. I just didn’t know.’ She rubbed at her hands, but the blood wouldn’t shift. ‘And now it’s done, and we have to call the police.’
Andrew pulled her back to her feet with a roughness she didn’t know he was capable of. ‘Are you crazy? We can’t call them. Look at her: you can hardly say this was self-defence.’
‘Why would I want to?’
‘Because they’ll hang you! And don’t you dare tell me that’s what you want. Don’t you dare. Where are the keys?’
‘What?’
His grip was so tight, she could feel her arms bruising.
‘Where are the keys, Liese? For the front door?’
‘Let go of me and I’ll get them.’
He released her. She ran and grabbed them from the hook, gave them to Andrew and turned back to the telephone. He pulled her away before she could lift the receiver.
‘Leave that. As soon as the door’s locked, we need to clean this place up, and you.’
‘No. I told you: we need to call the police. This is a crime, a terrible crime.’
Andrew’s eyes were so dark it was frightening.
‘And I’ve told you already, we’re not going to do that. Go and wash your hands while I tackle the floor.’
He pushed her through the velvet curtain into the kitchen and grabbed a cloth and soap flakes.
‘Hurry up. And then fetch me some sturdy cloth and some string.’
He was too wound up to argue with. Liese scrubbed her hands until they were raw and then collected a pile of old potato sacks and a bundle of twine. When she came back into the shop, ready to stand up to him again, she was thankful to see he had come to his senses and was speaking on the telephone.