The Sinner Read Online Free

time
with his grandmother.
    It was a peculiar feeling, standing there in the midst of all
those people. A large family lay stretched out on several blankets
behind the little tree to their rear. Father, mother, grandfather,
grandmother and two little girls of four or five in ruched bikinis. A
baby sat kicking in a bouncy chair beneath a sun umbrella.
    Just as she had in the supermarket, she wondered what was
going on inside the other people's heads. The grandmother was
playing with the baby. The two men were dozing in the sun. The
grandfather had spread a newspaper over his face; the father was
wearing a cap whose peak shaded his eyes. The mother looked
harassed. She called to one of the little girls to blow her nose,
rummaging in a basket for some tissues. An elderly couple were
seated in deckchairs on their right. Some children were playing
with a ball on an open stretch of grass to their left.
    Cora pulled her T-shirt over her head - she was wearing a
swimsuit underneath - and let her skirt fall around her ankles.
Then she felt in the shoulder bag for her sunglasses, put them on
and sat down on one of the chairs.
    Gereon was already sitting down. "Like me to rub some sun
cream on you?" he asked.
    "I already did, at home."
    "You can't reach the whole of your back."
    "But I'm not sitting with my back to the sun."
    He shrugged, sat back and closed his eyes. She looked out over
the water, sensing its almost magnetic attraction. It wouldn't be easy, not for a good swimmer like her, but if she went on swimming
until she was utterly exhausted ... She got up and removed her
sunglasses. "I'm going in," she said. It was unnecessary to tell him
that. He didn't even open his eyes.

    She walked across the grass and the narrow strip of sand and
waded out through the shallows. The water was cool and refreshing.
An agreeable frisson ran through her when she submerged and it
closed over her head.
    She swam out to the boom that separated the supervised lido
from the open lake, then along it for a little way. She felt a sudden
temptation to do it at once - climb over the boom and swim out.
It wasn't prohibited. There were a few groups of figures sprawled
on blankets on the far shore, people who were reluctant to pay the
admission charge and didn't mind lying among rocks and scrub.
The lifeguard on his little wooden platform kept an eye on them too,
but he couldn't see everything and wouldn't be able to reach the spot
in time if something happened out there. Besides, a person would
have to shout for help or at least wave their arms. If a lone head in
the midst of all this turmoil simply sank beneath the surface ...
    Some man was said to have drowned in the lake and never been
found; she didn't know if it was true. If it was, he must still be down
there. Then she could live with him among the fish and waterweed.
It must be nice in his watery world, where there were no tunes and
no dark dreams, where nothing could be heard but faint gurgles
and everything was a mysterious shade of green or brown. The
last thing the man in the lake had heard wasn't a drum, that was
certain, only his own heartbeat. No bass guitar or shrilling organ,
just his own blood throbbing in his ears.
    After nearly an hour she swam back. It came hard, but she had
already left most of her strength in the water. Besides, she felt
she needed to play with the child for a while and explain to him,
perhaps, why she had to go away - not that he would understand.
She also wanted to bid Gereon a covert farewell.

    When she got back to their patch the elderly couple on the right
had disappeared. Only the two deckchairs were still there, and the
expanse on their left was no longer unoccupied. There wasn't a sign
of the children playing ball. In their place, a pale green blanket had
been spread out so close to her folding chair that it almost touched
the tubular frame. Music was oozing into the afternoon air from a
big radio cassette