The Lie Read Online Free Page B

pocket. Then he followed her up into the main hall.

    Pale-faced, the cashier was emptying the tills. The manager and two of her colleagues were standing by their desks, hands raised, and beside the manager stood a figure like the one who’d put the fear of death into her all those years ago with a plastic toy. She wasn’t going to put up with that again.
    Herr Schrag stared at the masked man and opened his mouth, but all that came out was a groan as he clasped his hands to the left side of his chest. Not for one second did she think of the envelope in his jacket pocket, only of her father’s sudden death. Ignoring the gun, which she assumed was as harmless as the previous one, she placed herself in front of Herr Schrag and pushed him backwards to the exit. The masked man waved his gun around wildly. “For God’s sake, Frau Lasko,” the manager cried, “don’t do anything stupid.”
    â€œDon’t worry,” she shouted back, “it’s not a real one. I’ve been here before.”
    The manager believed her and hit the masked man’s outstretched arm. Then everything seemed to happen at once. She heard a bang, saw a red stain appear on the manager’s shirt and rapidly spread, heard a piercing cry from the cashier and saw the look of disbelief on the manager’s face as he grasped his wounded shoulder. Then the gun was pointing at her. Herr Schrag was uninjured because she fell on top of him when the masked man—
    â€œDon’t tell me he shot at you,” Nadia broke in, breathless and horrified.
    â€œNo.” He’d tried, but after the first shot the pistol must have jammed. The masked man had knocked her to the ground with a punch, dragged her along with him, shoved her into a car, drove her to a disused factory, aimed and pressed the trigger twice, to no effect, then in his fury hit her again and again with the butt of the gun, hissing, “If you move, you’re dead.”
    Of course she moved - after he’d gone. For a long time - it was two whole days - she crawled round among rubble and debris with a fractured skull and a raging headache, unable to find a way out. Eventually there was someone bending over her. She thought it was the masked man who’d returned. But it was only a dosser who’d come to spend the night in the disused factory and happened to trip over her. Since then she was incapable of working as a bank clerk; just the thought of having to go into a bank set off palpitations…

    What happened next she recounted only reluctantly. It didn’t reflect very well on her. She passed over her job with the insurance firm, which she’d messed up because of her lack of IT expertise. It had only lasted three weeks anyway. She went straight on to the two years she’d spent working for Herr Schrag.
    The old man felt he owed her something and, on closer inspection, his business turned out to be flourishing. So far his wife had done the office work, but now she had fallen ill and he needed someone he could trust to replace her; the only requirement was the ability to use a typewriter. He didn’t give her a contract, they just shook hands on it. There were five others Herr Schrag employed on the same basis; the only ones in regular employment were two electricians.
    She got two thousand marks a month, net, cash in hand. When the new currency came in, it was converted exactly into euros. She could survive on that - without health insurance, that would have swallowed up half her income. But apart from a headache following physical exertion she’d felt she was generally in good health and preferred to put something aside for a rainy day.
    Given the ailing state of government finances, Herr Schrag felt it made more sense for each individual to take personal responsibility in providing for their old age. Private clients - as most of Herr Schrag’s were - could pay in cash and enjoy a discount to the value of the