The Zurich Conspiracy

somebody who was at Loyn too. Where is he?” He turned around to look. Before he could point out the person with his toothpick, Josefa had already discovered who it was and fled straight to the buffet.
    “Frau Rehmer, how nice to find you here!”
    She gave such a start that a hairpin came out of her chignon. Richard Auer was wearing a black suit and a dotted bowtie. His watery blue eyes glistened.
    “Frau Rehmer, I’m so happy to run into you. We went our different ways in a…er…rather unharmonious terms. But I did you wrong. I know that now!”
    Auer’s voice sounded artificially muted, like a priest’s in a confessional. Josefa felt her temperature rising. Auer gave the impression of being somewhat tortured, and she did nothing to make it any easier for him.
    “You know I’ve stopped working for Loyn?” he said, sounding like a conspirator.
    “No, I didn’t know that.” She tried to cover up her surprise and keep herself from asking, Did they throw you out?
    “Yes, two weeks ago now. I was able to leave immediately because I’d accumulated so much vacation time.”
    W hy has nobody told me?—Claire, for instance. But I haven’t talked to Claire in a long time. And Pius? He surely must have gotten wind of it.
    More and more guests were pushing their way to the buffet. Richard Auer steered her to a quiet corner.
    “You know, you were sooo right about Werner Schulmann. Too bad I didn’t spot it at the time. But then he showed his true face.” He lit a cigarette nervously. Josefa thought this wasn’t a good place to smoke, but she was so gripped by what he was saying that she didn’t want to interrupt.
    “His true face?” she asked with feigned indifference.
    “Yes, unpleasant business, extremely unpleasant. Schulmann took liberties that were simply inexcusable.”
    Now Josefa couldn’t hold back. “Like what?”
    “I can’t tell you. They were below the belt, if you get my meaning.”
    She didn’t get it, naturally. Auer nevertheless looked at her as if expecting some acknowledgement that he’d done the right thing. As if they were in the same boat now. Well, he could wait till the cows came home. So Auer was now back on the job market; she probably looked like a good contact, might even be useful to him. She asked herself why he was so open about leaving because of Schulmann—under highly mysterious circumstances, as he put it.
    As she was about to give a polite excuse and move on, an idea came to her. Use your enemies . “I admire the way you drew the consequences,” she said with a forced smile and could have killed herself for saying it. Auer returned the grin; if he’d seen through her mock flattery, he didn’t show it. “By the way, we have a common acquaintance,” she went on to say. “Helene Meyer.”
    “Oh, how interesting. You know Helene.” Auer faked surprise.
    “Yes, and I also met her distant cousin, Freya Hallmark.”
    “Oh, really.” Auer wet his lips.
    Josefa was feeling her way, as if on thin ice. “You know Freya too, Herr Auer?”
    “Yes, her father and mine were close friends. But Helene has certainly told you that.”
    Josefa ignored the remark. “Your father, Herr Auer, was also a friend of Peter Meyer’s, wasn’t he?”
    His eyes flitted back and forth as if looking for an escape. Some cigarette ash fell to the floor. “Yes, they became friends shortly before his…his demise. But Hilmar, Freya’s father, came off badly when Swixan went broke.”
    “Was Peter Meyer to blame?”
    “Blame…” Her former colleague scuffed the ground with his right foot and studied the floor. “Peter certainly got Hilmar involved. Hilmar really did think a lot of him. My father warned him not to put virtually his entire fortune in Swixan. And after it went belly up, Hilmar got very sick. He never got over it. He wanted to help all his kids build their homes—that was his goal. He worked his fingers to the bone and saved up for that his whole life long.” Auer fumbled around with his bowtie. “And when Peter took his life, Hilmar…he took the catastrophe personally. He totally withdrew from the world. He’s being treated now in a special clinic, but you can hardly speak to him. It’s a disaster for his daughters, especially Freya, who was closest to him.”
    Richard Auer sounded sincerely shaken. But he blew some smoke up into the air and said, “Hilmar didn’t listen to my father. You’ll always pay a big price for your stupidity at some point. I