Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Juli Zeh
Dedication
Title Page
The Foreword
The Judgment
Midday, Mid-Century
Pepper
The Ideal Inamorata
A Nice Gesture
Genetic Fingerprint
No High-flown Beliefs
Through Plexiglas
A Special Gift for Pain
Tin of Beans
An Ordinary Juicer
Not Made to Be Understood
Personal Matter
Pointed Horns: Part I
Smoke
No More Mediation
Nice Guy
Monitored
Centre of Operations
People’s Right to Illness
The End of the Fish
The Gavel
Which Side Are You On?
Inadmissible
Snails
Ambivalence
Without the Tears
Our Home
Vigilance Required
Hedge-riding
Pointed Horns: Part II
The Right to Remain Silent
Exemption
That’s Our Mia
Maximal Triumph
The Second Category
The Nature of the Question
A Matter of Trust
Cushion
Statue of Liberty
The Healthy Mind
Colourless, Odourless
Wörmer
No Love in the World
The Middle Ages
‘It’ is Raining
Thin Air
See Above
Finished
Copyright
About the Book
Mia Hall lives in a state governed by The Method, where good health is the highest duty of the citizen. Everyone must submit medical data and sleep records to the authorities on a monthly basis, and regular exercise is mandatory. Mia is young and beautiful, a successful scientist who is outwardly obedient but with an intellect that marks her as subversive. Convinced that her brother has been wrongfully convicted of a terrible crime, Mia comes up against the full force of a regime determined to control every aspect of its citizens’ lives.
The Method, set in the middle of the twenty-first century, deals with pressing questions: to what extent can the state curtail the rights of the individual? And does the individual have a right to resist? Juli Zeh has written a thrilling and visionary book about our future, and our present.
About the Author
Juli Zeh was born in 1974 and lives in Brandenburg. She studied International Law, worked with the UN in New York, and completed her studies in Creative Writing. Juli Zeh has won numerous awards, including the international Per Olov Enquist Award and the French Prix Cévennes for Best European Novel. Her work has been translated into thirty languages.
Sally-Ann Spencer studied Modern and Medieval Languages at the University of Cambridge. She is the translator of several contemporary German novels, including Frank Schätzing’s The Swarm, for which she was awarded the Schlegel-Tieck prize. At present she is working on a PhD on literary translation at the University of Victoria in Wellington, New Zealand.
Also by Juli Zeh
Eagles and Angels
Dark Matter
For Ben
HEALTH IS A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of infirmity or disease.
Health is the unrestricted flow of life in the physical body, through every organ and cell. Health is body and mind in harmony, biological energy achieving its fullest potential without obstacle or interruption. A healthy organism will interact positively with its environment. A healthy human will feel invigorated and capable. He or she will feel invulnerable to infirmity, be mentally vigorous and emotionally balanced.
Health is not static; it is the dynamic relationship between body and brain. Health must be maintained and enhanced on a daily basis over a period of years and decades, long into old age. Health is not a statistical average, but a potentiated norm; the highest possible individual accomplishment. It is willpower in visible form, a lasting monument to the strength of our will. Health is the optimisation of the individual for the optimal social good. Health is what we naturally desire for ourselves and is therefore the natural objective of society, politics and law. If we cease to strive for health, we are not at risk of illness, we are already ill.
Foreword to Heinrich Kramer, Health as the Principle of State Legitimacy, Berlin/Munich/Stuttgart, 25th edition
In the name of THE METHOD
Judgment in the case of Mia Holl, German national and biologist
1. The Charge
The Defendant was charged with anti-Method activities.
2. Composition of the Court
Judgment was given in a public sitting of the second penal chamber of the criminal court, composed as follows:
– Dr Ernest Hutschneider, chairperson and presiding judge
– Dr Hager and Frau Stock, associate judges
– Lay judges:
Irmgard Gehling, housewife
Max Maring, businessman
– Dr Barker, public prosecutor
– Dr Lutz Rosentreter, defence counsel
– Herr Danner, clerk of the court
3. Decision of the Court
i. The Defendant has been found guilty of anti-Method activities on the following counts: orchestrating a terrorist campaign, conspiring to cause civil unrest, unauthorised use of toxic substances and non-participation in compulsory testing to the detriment of the general good.
ii. The Defendant is sentenced to freezing for an unlimited term.
iii. The Defendant is ordered to pay court fees and all associated costs.
4. Background to the Case
The court’s decision was based on the following facts:
THE HILLS FORM a tree-lined ring around towns that have grown into each other. Transmitters reach up to the clouds, where fleecy undersides are no longer grey with the foul breath of a civilisation that marked its presence on the planet by expelling filth on an epic scale. A few wide-eyed lakes with long, reedy lashes gaze up at the sky – gravel pits and quarries, now abandoned and flooded. Not far from the lakes, disused factories are home to community centres. A stretch of abandoned motorway and some abandoned churches with belfries are the main attractions of a scenic but seldom visited open-air museum.
These days nothing stinks here. Nothing is mined, drilled, burnt or covered in soot; the people here have found peace, have stopped fighting nature and stopped fighting themselves. White houses, small and box-like, are scattered across the hillsides; here and there they join together in rows, lining the slopes like tiers of an apartment block. A vista of flat roofs fills the horizon, mirroring the blue of the sky – a frozen ocean stretching endlessly into the distance, solar panels by the million, an almost unbroken expanse.
Magnetic train tracks cut long metallic pathways through the woods, heading straight for the middle of the glassy ocean of roofs. This is where our story begins, in the middle of the city, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the twenty-first century.
Beneath one of these roofs, longer and wider than most, Justitia is going about her usual business. Room 20/12, the room for conciliation hearings F–H, is maintained at a steady 19.5 degrees – the temperature at which humans think best. Sophie never comes to work without her cardigan, which in criminal hearings she wears beneath her robes. By her right hand are the files from the morning’s session; by her left, a smaller stack of cases is waiting to be heard. With her blonde hair and high ponytail, Sophie looks like the eager student she once was. She chews on a pencil and studies the image on the wall. Noticing that the counsel representing the public interest is looking at her, she removes the pencil from her mouth. Eight years ago, when she and Barker were at law school together, he used to drone on incessantly about the dangers of placing germ-riddled objects near the mouth. Not that anyone was likely to find a germ in a civic building.
A short distance away, Barker faces her, his files distributed across the desk, leaving a small corner for the private counsel to stack his notes. To signal their unity of purpose, the defenders of the public and private interest share a desk – in practical terms, an uncomfortable arrangement, but a worthy legal tradition all the same. Barker raises his right index finger and a new image is projected onto the wall. The picture shows a man in his twenties.
‘A trivial offence,’ says Sophie. ‘Any previous charges or convictions?’
Rosentreter, the private counsel, is a nice young chap. When nervous, he has a habit of pulling out his hair and dropping it quietly to the floor. ‘Nothing,’ he assures her.
‘An isolated case of excessive blood caffeine levels,’ says Sophie. ‘A written warning and no further action. Are we agreed?’
‘Absolutely.’ Rosentreter turns and looks expectantly at the public counsel, who nods. Sophie transfers a file from the left to the right.
‘Well, folks,’ says Barker. ‘I’m afraid the next case isn’t quite so easy. You’re not going to like it, Sophie.’
‘Is there a child involved?’
Barker raises his index finger and the image changes again, this time to show a middle-aged man. Full body shots, naked. Front and back. Inside and out. X-rays, ultrasounds and an MRI of the brain.
‘You’re looking at the father,’ says Barker. ‘Multiple prior convictions for abuse of toxic substances, primarily nicotine and ethanol. This time he’s up for violating the laws on early detection of disease in infants and children.’
‘How old is the little one?’
‘Eighteen months. Female. Non-attendance at stages G2 plus G5 through to G7 of the compulsory medicals. More seriously, the father didn’t bring her for screening – cerebral condition unknown and no information on allergies.’
‘Very remiss. Couldn’t someone have acted earlier?’
‘The civic doctor did his best to remind the respondent of his legal obligations, but the situation couldn’t be resolved. In the end, a counsellor was appointed – not a moment too soon, I’m afraid. He found the child in a terrible state: undernourished with a serious case of diarrhoea and vomiting … She was lying in her own filth. Another few days, and it would have been too late.’
‘How awful. Surely he knows a baby can’t look after itself?’
‘There were problems at home,’ explains Rosentreter. ‘He’s a single parent—’
‘We’re aware of the circumstances, but to treat your own daughter with such …’
Rosentreter raises a weary hand to signal his agreement with Sophie. The gesture is barely over when the door behind him opens. The new arrival doesn’t knock or apologise for the disturbance: he moves with the confidence of a man accustomed to going where he pleases. His suit is perfectly tailored and worn with the carefully measured insouciance that true elegance requires. His hair is dark, his eyes are almost black, and his limbs are long but not lanky. He has the deceptive ease of a predator – a big cat with its eyes half closed, but ready to attack at any time. Only those who know Heinrich Kramer would notice the tremor in his fingers, which he disguises by keeping his hands in his trouser pockets. When outdoors, he wears a pair of white gloves, which he now removes.
‘Santé, one and all!’ He places his briefcase on a spare table and pulls up a chair.
‘Santé, Herr Kramer!’ says Barker. ‘Still on the hunt for a good story?’
‘The fourth estate never sleeps.’
Barker laughs for a second, stopping only when he realises that Kramer isn’t joking.
Kramer leans forward with a frown, staring intently at the private counsel as if to remember who he is. ‘Santé, Rosentreter,’ he says, inflecting every syllable.
Rosentreter looks up briefly and buries his head in his files. Kramer straightens the crease of his trousers, crosses his legs, tilts his head, and cultivates the look of a casual observer, a difficult role for a man like him.
‘Back to the case,’ says Sophie briskly. ‘Let’s hear the recommendations from the public advocate.’
‘Three years.’
‘Isn’t that overly harsh?’ objects Rosentreter.
‘Not in my opinion,’ says Barker. ‘The fellow needs to realise he endangered his daughter’s life.’
‘I suggest a compromise,’ intervenes Sophie. ‘Two years of correctional measures to be undertaken at home. In addition, appointment of a medical guardian for the little one and compulsory attendance at medical and hygiene classes for the father. That way the child will be safe and the family will get another chance. What do you think?’
‘Exactly what I was going to suggest,’ says Rosentreter.
‘Marvellous.’ Sophie smiles and turns to Barker. ‘Can you justify your original recommendation?’
‘The father’s failure to fulfil basic sanitary and medical requirements was detrimental to the child’s well-being,’ says Barker. ‘Parents have rights, but that doesn’t include the right to endanger their offspring. Legally, there’s no difference between deliberately exposing a child to danger and inflicting actual injury. In other circumstances we’d be talking grievous bodily harm.’
Sophie makes a note. ‘Agreed,’ she says, placing the file to the right. ‘Let’s hope the matter has been resolved in everyone’s best interest.’
Kramer uncrosses and recrosses his legs before settling back down.
‘Next case,’ says Barker, raising an index finger. ‘Mia Holl.’
The woman on the screen could be as young as twenty or as old as forty. Her date of birth puts her somewhere in the middle, a predictable place for the truth to be found. Her face glows with a special aura of cleanliness, which we also detect on the other faces in the room; it imparts a sense of innocence, of agelessness – an almost childlike air. It is the look of human beings who have never felt pain. Mia seeks our gaze trustingly. Her naked body is slight, but her physique is wiry and resilient. Kramer sits upright.
‘Another petty offence.’ Sophie glances at the topmost file and barely suppresses a yawn.
‘What was her name again?’ The question comes from Kramer. Although the words are spoken softly, everyone stops at the sound of his voice. Surprised, lawyers and judge look up from their files.
‘Mia Holl,’ says Sophie.
With a leisurely gesture, as if to bat away a fly, Kramer signals for the hearing to continue. With his other hand, he pulls a digital notebook from his trouser pocket and starts to take notes. Sophie and Rosentreter exchange glances.
‘What have we got?’ asks Sophie.
‘Violation of duty to provide medical data,’ says Barker. ‘Nutritional records and sleep patterns overdue for the current month. Sudden cessation of sporting activity. Failure to provide home blood pressure readings and urine samples.’
‘What of her general stats?’
At Barker’s command, long lists of numbers appear on the wall: blood values, energy expenditure, metabolic rate, plus graphs recording physical performance.
‘She looks well enough to me,’ says Sophie, giving Rosentreter his cue.
‘No prior offences. A successful biologist with an exemplary CV. No signs of physical impairment or social disability.’
‘Has she availed herself of the Central Partnership Agency?’
‘They haven’t received her application yet.’
‘It’s obviously an aberration, isn’t it, chaps?’ says Sophie. She laughs at the lawyers’ faces: Barker, disgruntled, and Rosentreter, shocked. ‘I’d rather not issue an official caution,’ she continues. ‘Mediation seems appropriate. We’ll invite her to see us.’
‘Whatever you think,’ says Barker with a shrug.
‘An aberration?’ Kramer smiles and taps his handheld display. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’
‘Are you acquainted with the respondent?’ enquires Sophie in a friendly tone.
‘The judge’s discretion is admirable.’ Kramer’s eyes twinkle at her, full of charming scorn. ‘You’ve also met the respondent, Sophie, even though under different circumstances.’
Sophie thinks for a moment. If it weren’t for her naturally ruddy complexion, it would be obvious she is blushing. Kramer returns his digital notebook to his pocket and gets up to leave.
‘Finished already?’ asks Barker.
‘Far from it; I’m just getting started.’
With a brief wave, Kramer leaves the room, while Sophie closes the file and reaches for the stack to her left.
‘Next, please.’
‘I’M TELLING YOU: it came from the nursery. Like this …’ Lizzie lets go of the stair rail, swoops forward dramatically and simulates a sneeze. ‘Achoo!’
‘Are you sure?’ Pollie glances around nervously as if a ghost were ascending the stairs. ‘You mean someone was actually …?’
‘Go on, say it!’
‘Someone was sneezing?’
‘Exactly! It came from the nursery; I was there in a flash!’
‘Sneezing? What nonsense!’ Completing the trio is Driss: tall, slender and without curves, like a sapling. Her flat face rests moonlike on the collar of her white tabard, her big eyes are mirrors, reflecting the others’ gaze. Even without her freckles she would look younger than her years.
‘Why is it nonsense?’ asks Pollie.
‘The common cold was eradicated in the twenties,’ says Driss.
‘Thank you, Fräulein Lightning.’ Lizzie rolls her eyes.
‘There was a warning just recently,’ murmurs Pollie.
‘Did you hear that, Driss? Pollie reads The Healthy Mind. So here’s me, with my heart in my throat, standing in the doorway, and what do I see? Ute’s little lad crouching next to my poppet, who’s got her nose in a bag of pepper – sneezing for all she’s worth!’
Pollie starts to laugh. ‘Goodness,’ she says, ‘they were playing!’
‘She was pretending to be sick!’ says Driss, joining in.
‘Honestly, I could have done with a doctor myself, they gave me such a fright.’
The three women are standing in the hallway, as if to recreate the constellation of the previous day – and the day before that, and every other day. The eternal chain of recurrence reaches forward as well as back, offering the exact same picture for days and weeks to come: Lizzie, propped against the coiled hose of the disinfection machine, Pollie resting on the bacteriometer, and Driss with both arms on the stair rail. The main door opens, and the women stop talking at once. It’s him again: the man in the dark suit. The lower half of his face is obscured by a white cloth, but anyone can see from his eyes that he is dashingly handsome.
‘Santé! Good afternoon, ladies!’
‘I’ve seen better,’ says Lizzie, sticking out a hip and resting a hand on her waist. ‘A really good afternoon is when there’s nothing for us to do.’
Driss points to the man’s face. ‘You know you don’t have to …?’
‘She means you don’t need a hygiene mask,’ says Pollie quickly.
‘This is a monitored house,’ explains Lizzie. ‘You won’t catch anything here.’
‘Ah, the plaque by the door!’ Kramer loosens the band at the back of his head. ‘I should have realised.’
He stuffs the mask into his jacket pocket. Silence ensues.
Since no one is likely to speak for some time, we may as well go over some facts with regard to monitored housing. Certain households, selected for their reliability, have the privilege of carrying out prophylactic measures otherwise performed by the hygiene board. Duties include regular monitoring of air quality, testing of household waste and sewage, and disinfection of all areas accessible to the public. Monitored buildings are identified by a plaque outside the front door and residents are entitled to cut-price water and power. The initiative has exceeded expectations on all fronts: not only does the state save money on public health, but individuals learn the value of community spirit. In the dark and distant past, it was claimed that people were too stupid or lazy to pool their resources and contribute democratically to public life; this view has been discredited. The residents of monitored houses are living proof that humans are absolutely capable of working together for the common good; in fact, they enjoy it. It gives them a chance to meet up, talk and make decisions: to have something to do with each other for a change.
The man before us is positioned among the trio of white tabards with the pride of a stallion among goats. Heinrich Kramer was instrumental in introducing the monitored housing scheme, but he was famous beforehand. There isn’t a person in the country who doesn’t know who he is. This is the reason for the protracted silence and the explosion of chatter.
‘Holy dirt, if it isn’t …’
‘Well, I’ll be …’
‘Is it really you?’
‘For pity’s sake, Driss, stop staring!’
Kramer places a hand on his chest and bows. ‘The pleasure is mine, ladies. Perhaps you can direct me to Frau Mia Holl?’
‘Mia!’ squeals Driss, clapping her hands. If anyone had asked her which of her neighbours might receive a visit from Heinrich Kramer, she would have picked Mia Holl. Not for any reason – she just thinks Mia is special, that’s all. ‘She lives on the top floor: the apartment with the balcony to the rear.’
‘It’s a nice pad,’ adds Pollie. ‘I wouldn’t mind being a scientist myself.’
‘She does a difficult job,’ says Lizzie reprovingly.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ says Kramer. ‘Is she in?’
‘She’s always in,’ says Driss. ‘Well, at the moment, at least.’ She moves closer as if to impart a secret. ‘We hardly see her any more.’
‘What Driss means,’ Lizzie corrects her, ‘is that Frau Holl is taking a break from work.’
‘Ah, a holiday …’
‘Hardly,’ snorts Pollie. ‘Such a pretty girl and always up there by herself. The poor thing is trawling through possible matches.’
‘We think Frau Holl is looking for a partner,’ explains Lizzie knowingly.
Kramer nods. ‘Thank you, ladies. Now if you’ll excuse me.’
‘Mia’s a decent person.’
‘Herr Kramer never thought otherwise. Honestly, Driss!’
‘This is a monitored house, remember!’
‘Thank you, ladies,’ says Kramer, exiting the circle. He nods to each in turn. ‘You’ve been most helpful. And congratulations on your impeccable house.’
Their mouths are open but no one says anything as Kramer, long legs and elastic body, disappears up the stairs.
‘SINCE LIFE,’ SAYS Mia, ‘is meaningless and yet you have to keep going, I sometimes feel like making sculptures out of copper pipes. I could weld them together and make a crane, or pile them up randomly like a nest of fossilised worms. Afterwards, I’d put them on a plinth and give them a name: “Temporary Structures” or “The Ideal Inamorata”.’
Mia is sitting at her desk with her back to the room; from time to time she jots something down on one of the sheets of paper in front of her. Meanwhile, the ideal inamorata is reclining on the couch, clad in her beautiful hair and the light of the afternoon sun. We don’t know if she understands what Mia is saying or even if she can hear her voice because she doesn’t show any sign of listening or understanding. For all we know, the ideal inamorata may live in another dimension that borders on Mia’s world. Her gaze, as she stares into space, resembles the lidless stare of a fish.
‘I’d like to make something that will last,’ says Mia. ‘Something useless. Things with a purpose become redundant once their purpose is fulfilled. God’s purpose was to give us solace, and look what happened to him! So much for his being immortal. Am I making any sense?’
The room is a mess. It looks as though no one has cleaned, tidied or aired the apartment for weeks.
‘Of course you know what I’m talking about; I was quoting Moritz. “Anyone interested in the eternal must abandon all notion of purpose, including the purpose of one’s continued presence on this earth,” he used to say.’
When the ideal inamorata says nothing, Mia swivels round in her chair. ‘An artist, that’s what he said I should be. He was trying to provoke me. In his view, I was corrupted by science. How can you look at an object, let alone a person you love, if at the same time you’re thinking that everything – the viewer and the viewed, the world and everything in it – is just a mass of spinning atoms? How can you cope with knowing that the brain, our only way of seeing and understanding, is made of the same basic material as everything we see and know? What are we left with? A world of matter staring at itself. That’s how he put it.’
The ideal inamorata’s relationship to matter is tenuous, which might be why Mia enjoys their conversations. She carries on talking without waiting for a response. ‘Science,’ she says, ‘destroyed the divine and shifted humankind to the heart of the action. It left us stranded without any answers in a position that’s patently absurd. Moritz said so all the time, and he was right. He and I had the same way of thinking; our conclusions were different, that’s all.’
Mia points her pen at the ideal inamorata as if to accuse her of an unspecified crime.
‘He wanted to live his life for love. From the way he said it, love was just a word for anything he liked: love was nature, freedom, women, catching fish, hellraising. Being different. Hellraising. That’s what he meant by love.’
Mia turns back to her desk and continues to talk while noting things down.
‘I need to write it down. I need to write him down. Ninety-six per cent of information is deleted from our memories after only a couple of days. Four per cent isn’t enough for Moritz. If all I have is four per cent of Moritz, I can’t carry on.’
She writes furiously for a moment, then she lifts her head.
‘When we talked about love, he used to be very rude. You’re a scientist, he would say. He accused me of putting everyone – friends and enemies – under an electron microscope. Tell me, Mia, when you say the word love, does the word feel foreign in your mouth? Because your voice sounds different when you say it. You’re half an octave higher. Your larynx is constricting and your voice sounds shrill. Love. When you were little, you practised saying it in front of the mirror. Love. You used to look yourself in the eye and ask yourself why it took such an effort to say. Love. The fact is, Mia, you can’t pronounce it properly. For you, it belongs to a foreign language, you have to contort your tongue. Go on, Mia, say I love you. Say, love is more important than anything. Say, my love, my beloved. Do you love me? – Mia, you’re giving up already! Don’t walk away!’
She swivels round in her chair, this time impatiently.
‘What were his last words? “Life is an offer you can also refuse.” Where’s the love in that? Sometimes a sentence cuts into the mind like a machine press, changing the template of your thoughts. How am I supposed to forget? How am I supposed to remember? You knew him, probably better than I did. I have no idea if he knew how much I loved him! I don’t even know if I miss him enough!’
‘That’s rubbish,’ says the ideal inamorata. ‘We’re missing him right now; day and night, all we do is miss him. We miss him together. Now come here!’
Mia gets up and walks towards the outstretched arms of the ideal inamorata. Just then, the doorbell rings.
THERE ARE MOMENTS when time seems to stop. Two human beings look into each other’s eyes: matter staring at itself. For a few seconds the whole world seems to spin around the axis of their gaze, which passes through both skulls, extending to infinity. To avoid any possible confusion, let it be noted: we are not talking about love at first sight here. If we were to describe what is currently occurring between Mia and Kramer, we might compare it to the silent roar of a story about to unfold.
Mia has opened the door, and for a moment no one says a word. It is hard to guess what Kramer is thinking; possibly he is waiting for Mia to remember her manners and invite him inside. He is a patient man. In all likelihood, he is trying not to rush her, waiting respectfully in the doorway to give her time because he understands her present situation is unusual. She is face to face with the person whom she has killed in her imagination in multiple and agonising ways. It isn’t the sort of thing that happens all the time.
‘How odd,’ says Mia when she finally finds her voice. ‘The television isn’t on and I can still see you quite clearly.’
Kramer responds with a charming, open-hearted smile, a smile that no one who knows his media personality would ever believe was his. It is a private smile. A smile that says, despite his celebrity, he is still the same person at heart.
‘Santé,’ he says, removing his right glove and offering Mia his bare hand. She considers it closely, as if examining an exotic insect, then places her fingers in his.
‘A nice gesture,’ she says. ‘Straight from an old movie. It seems incongruous somehow. Aren’t you afraid of infection?’
‘Nothing is more important in life than style, Frau Holl – and hysteria is the enemy of stylishness.’
‘I suppose your face is like a label,’ says Mia pensively. ‘You can stick it on whatever opinion you like.’
‘May I come in?’
‘Surely you’re not asking me to welcome my brother’s murderer into my home?’
‘I wouldn’t insult your intelligence with such a melodramatic question. But you could offer me a drink … Perhaps some hot water?’
Kramer strolls past Mia and heads for the sofa, causing the ideal inamorata to roll hastily aside. As soon as Kramer sits, the sofa seems made especially for him. He is untroubled by the look of revulsion on the ideal inamorata’s face – not because he doesn’t care what she thinks, which he probably doesn’t, but because he can’t see her.
‘Just to set things straight; I’m not the one who killed your brother. We could ask ourselves how he came by the fishing twine to hang himself in his cell.’
Mia stops in the middle of the room, hugging her body. Her fingernails press into her flesh; she seems to be clinging to herself as if she is scared of falling. Or perhaps she is worried that her hands will break away and throttle Heinrich Kramer.