The Zurich Conspiracy

event? Even though he’d driven Swixan into the ground? Thüring was the most hated man in Zurich. He’d caused a lot of people a lot of grief.” Paul laughed dryly. “He was trying to reestablish himself as a respectable entrepreneur, and who was helping him do it? Loyn. Oh, yes, the brotherhood sticks together, through thick and thin. After all, every one of them has a skeleton or two in the closet.”
    Josefa sometimes found it hard to follow what her old friend was saying. His clientele was drawn from prominent business circles, and Paul was helping them do a better job of selling themselves to the public. He was polishing their image. And here he was, sitting in a luxury hotel, drinking what was surely the most expensive cognac in the place, and talking about human misery. But Paul had always been a riddle to her; when other high school students were acting like revolutionaries in the struggle against the establishment, Paul was reading anniversary brochures from Swiss businesses. And after those same revolutionaries were transformed into respectable members of capitalist society, Paul joined the advisory board of an ethical mutual fund and promoted alternative energy.
    “Oh, well, Schulmann will be pissed off if you jump ship after so short a time. He’ll have to do the heavy lifting by himself. He’s in for a big surprise, that phony.” Paul suddenly seemed to be having fun.
    “You hate him, don’t you?”
    Paul’s smile froze. The corners of his mouth twitched nervously.
    “No. Why should I hate Schulmann?”
    “Not Schulmann. Thüring.”
    “Oh, Thüring. No, I don’t hate him. Why should I? He hasn’t done me any harm. Not me.”
    Josefa was cold, shivering from lack of sleep. “I think it’s time for me to get home and catch up on my sleep,” she said apologetically.
    Paul stood up at once. “I just wanted to recommend that you stay out of it, Josefa. Don’t talk to anybody about these accidents. Think of our motto for this business: ‘We keep our nose out of it.’” He gave her a quick hug.
    As Josefa turned toward the exit, she saw a man disappearing around the corner. She could have sworn it was Richard Auer, but maybe she was already hallucinating.

The Grossmünster looked like one of Christo’s art installations. The twin towers of the medieval cathedral were being renovated and had been enveloped in brown plastic tarpaulins, frustrating the tourists who were robbed of Zurich’s most photographed building now partially hidden under a shabby plastic shell.
    Helene had other worries. She wanted to check on how many alpine swifts—the colony nested every summer under the towers’ protuberances and edges—were being scared off by the construction work. Josefa followed her over the dressed cobblestones of Münsterplatz, finally stopping before an inconspicuous wooden door at the back of the church. Helene took out a large, old-fashioned key and opened the door. Josefa slipped in behind her. It was dark and cool inside. When the heavy wooden door banged into the lock, Josefa gave an involuntary start. Helene switched on the light and opened another door with a second key.
    “It’s like being in a bank vault,” Josefa mused. They crossed the dark nave and climbed up one wooden staircase after another until Josefa was completely out of breath. From the highest platform you could walk onto a tower battlement. Josefa was able to look down, through gaps in the tarpaulins, on the roof tiles of the old town and on roof patios with little gardens and sun screens. She could see a bit of the mud-green Limmat and view the summit of the Üetliberg in the background. It was so hot; the air was shimmering.
    “How nice would it be to be an alpine swift!” Josefa declared. “To survey the world on high and afar, to up and fly away whenever it turned cold.”
    “A lot of people have had this highly original idea before you,” Helene remarked dryly. Spider webs clung to her red hair—heaven knows where she’d been scrambling about.
    “Stefan’s been transferred to New York,” Josefa dispensed with a preamble.
    Helene went on inspecting the stone walls. “So, a long-distance affair?”
    Josefa sat down on the wooden planks. “Do you recommend it…? Is your Canadian boyfriend still around?”
    She realized she was being nothing short of presumptuous. Helene didn’t talk about her feelings much. She once showed Josefa Greg’s picture: He had a broad, bearded face, framed by a