The Zurich Conspiracy

daily. Does he always do it himself or does Verena help him? Would my father miss me if I don’t come back?
    It was Josefa’s body that reacted first. She had to catch her breath. Her pulse was racing. And then a terrifying image entered her consciousness. Pius. The syringe. Schulmann.
    Her thoughts were all a jumble. Somebody must have given Schulmann the injection, somebody who knew a thing or two about how to do it. About fatal poisons. About overdoses.
    A nurse! Was it possible that Pius…? Schulmann would have let him into his house without giving it a thought. After all, Pius would sometimes come and show him photographs, even late at night. But what motive would Pius have for poisoning Schulmann? Schulmann couldn’t hurt him. There were no indications or rumors that he was harassing the photographer.
    Josefa’s ears were buzzing. Maybe the scream of the whistle had affected her eardrums. She closed her eyes.
    The buzzing was more clearly audible now. More of a soft rustling sound. But it wasn’t her ears. It came from somewhere deep down there. Water!
    Josefa leapt to her feet. She tried to locate where the rustling was coming from. How far away is it? Suddenly she was overcome with panic the likes of which she’d never felt before. Maybe I won’t freeze after all. Maybe I’ll drown instead.
    At that moment the light in her lamp started to flicker.

It was one of the greatest moments in Heinz Zwicker’s life. He had taken the night flight back from London for the sole purpose of opening the morning meeting. Franz Kündig was already on his way to the Waadtländer Jura and had left the field to him.
    “To summarize,” Zwicker said, his voice noticeably deeper than usual. The whole staff was gathered there, eight in all.
    “Pamela Hartwell began her affair with Pius Tschuor in March of last year at the presentation of the new Loyn collection in London. For both of them it was apparently mainly about sex. Moreover Tschuor took art photographs of Frau Hartwell, who had acting ambitions. Everything took place in secret. During the golf event in September the two took advantage of the break after lunch to engage in sexual activities under one of the tables in the tent. Tschuor had given Frau Hartwell two earrings that day as a gift, apparently an heirloom from his great-aunt.
    “The table under which the incriminating acts took place was outfitted with a microphone, about which the two people knew nothing at that point, according to Frau Hartwell’s statement. The sexual acts—involving mutual oral gratification—lasted roughly ten minutes. They were on the tape discovered in Tschuor’s apartment and confiscated by us. When Frau Hartwell went to her hotel room shortly after her rendezvous with Herr Tschuor, she discovered an earring had disappeared. This caused her to look for it under said table in the party tent, with negative results, however. Both she and Herr Tschuor were very worried about the situation. Frau Hartwell was afraid it could lead to troublesome questions because she said Pius Tschuor told her that the earrings were very valuable.”
    Zwicker took a drink of water. You could have heard a pin drop in the room.
    “Tschuor found out shortly afterward about the existence of the recording. He called Frau Hartwell at the end of September to tell her about it. He said that Schulmann had played the tape for him, but in the belief that the man under the table was Richard Auer. Tschuor said Schulmann regarded the matter as a huge joke. He told Tschuor he wanted to lure Auer out of his usual reserve.
    “Pius Tschuor, so said Frau Hartwell, was afraid that Werner Schulmann would play the tape for Herr Auer, and then it would come out that it wasn’t Auer who was involved but Tschuor.
    “Tschuor and Hartwell were both terrified that Schulmann might blackmail them with the tape, especially Frau Hartwell. She said they could not understand how Schulmann acquired the tape. She then said that Schulmann explained to Tschuor that a reporter just happened to forget his pocket recorder and left it lying around nearby; Schulmann had played the tape to find out whose it was and stumbled across that passage on the tape.
    “Tschuor and Hartwell thought his explanation did not hold water. She said they thought about strategies for resolving the situation. First, they would simply deny everything in case they were discovered because it was easy to fake a tape recording. But Pamela Hartwell was afraid