The Zurich Conspiracy

Fetz would certainly never have dreamed that she’d have to cope with a nightmare like this at her age.” She looked at Josefa, who was lying on her yellow sofa wrapped up in a soft blanket. “But then…two years ago we’d never have dreamed of the things that have happened in just a few months, would we have?”
    “Never, not in a thousand years,” Josefa replied pensively, twirling one of her black-and-gray curls around her index finger. She was wearing a comfortable velvet lounge suit and warm wool socks. She didn’t exactly know why she was showing the letter from Claire’s aunt to her former secretary, of all people. Maybe because Bianca Schwegler was a woman with so much life experience, someone who had raised her son all by herself. Someone who had been working for Loyn for thirteen years. She’d survived a long string of bosses thanks to her down-to-earth temperament.
    Bianca Schwegler had sent her a sweet card with a homemade cut-out and offered to come for a visit “as soon as you’re better and would like to see me.” And one day Josefa did indeed phone her. They had never found time for a good long chat since she left Loyn, and that was Josefa’s fault, not Bianca’s. She had never really found time for people she basically liked a lot.
    But now, she found that people were her salvation. Salvation from death and salvation from fear.
    “Berta Fetz will get another rude awakening,” Bianca continued, pulling up her sleeves. “What she says about men, I think she’s got that wrong. Sorry to gossip like this—but Claire beguiled and manipulated men every which way. I know, Frau Rehmer, you must think I’m jealous, but I’ve often watched how Claire would turn on the charm. That coquettish look, that Marilyn Monroe whisper. That’s how she aroused men’s protective instincts—but we both know that Claire could very well take care of herself. She knew exactly what she was doing and why.”
    Josefa wrapped the blanket more tightly around her. “Isn’t it crazy that she conned Schulmann? Claire had no fear of him at all…She outclassed him.”
    “Outclassed? I’m not so sure. But you’re right, there was more to her than we thought. After Schulmann was dead and Herr Bourdin…you know already…she really ran the show, I mean communications and event marketing and everything. Walther relied on her totally. I saw a totally different side of her. Even her voice got lower.” Bianca sighed. “But she was already going down the wrong road, and that was the beginning of the end…Now we don’t know what will happen to Loyn. What the new owners have in mind—the Americans. They don’t give a damn for Switzerland, and they probably haven’t any serious interest in our products. But there’s where you see Herr Walther’s true character. Money. It’s always and only about money.”
    She was rocking back and forth. “I’ve got to give Claire credit for one thing. I don’t think it was money that mattered to her . I think she simply wanted to be the queen of Loyn. What would have happened if you’d stayed? She would never have rebelled against you, right? Don’t take this the wrong way, Frau Rehmer, but you and Claire always were a team that gave me the creeps.”
    Josefa raised herself up, irritated. “The creeps? How so?”
    “Because you never argued. There was never really an angry word between you and Claire.” Bianca toyed with her necklace. “It would have only been normal for you to get in each other’s hair now and then, with all that stress.”
    “We had our conflicts, Frau Schwegler, even if they weren’t as noisy and wild as Francis Bourdin’s, for example.”
    Bianca leaned forward. “It often crossed my mind that at some point one of those two volcanoes had to erupt.”
    “So? Which one did you think would blow first—Claire or me?”
    “I couldn’t say at the time, Frau Rehmer.” Bianca smiled. “But it turns out that you were the first to erupt.”
    “Me?” Josefa looked dumbfounded.
    “Yes, of course, all of a sudden you just up and left Loyn.”
    “Oh… that’s what you mean. Yes, of course, you’re right,” Josefa said in a wobbly voice.

Spring blossomed at the end of April with a force that Zurich hadn’t experienced that early in years, and everybody streamed outdoors to savor the end of the cold season. Ducks sunned themselves on the edge of the pond, a safe distance from dogs, small children, and young football players.
    Girls in