Snow White Must Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

silence turned awkward.
    “Well, then.” Terlinden stood up, and Hartmut Sartorius instantly jumped to his feet. “You know where to find me. Let me know what you decide.”
    Tobias merely nodded and watched him leave. He stayed in the kitchen as his father showed their guest to the door.
    When his father returned two minutes later, he said, “He means well.”
    “I don’t want to be dependent on his benevolence,” Tobias replied fiercely. “The way he walks in here, like … like a king bestowing the favor of his presence on his subjects. As if he’s better than us!”
    Sartorius sighed. He filled the kettle and put it on the stove.
    “He’s helped us a lot,” he said softly. “We had never saved up anything, always put it into the farm and the restaurant. The lawyer cost a lot of money, and then people stopped coming here to eat. Eventually I couldn’t make the mortgage payments to the bank. They threatened to foreclose on the property. Claudius took care of our debts to the bank.”
    Tobias stared at his father in disbelief.
    “You mean, the whole farm actually belongs … to him ?”
    “Strictly speaking, yes. But we have a contract. I can buy back the farm at any time and have the right to live here until I die.”
    Tobias needed to digest this news. He declined the tea that his father offered him.
    “How much do you owe him?”
    Hartmut Sartorius hesitated a moment. He knew his son’s fiery temper well. “Three hundred and fifty thousand euros. That’s how much I owe the bank.”
    “The land alone is worth at least twice that!” said Tobias, making an effort to control himself. “He exploited your situation and got an unbelievable bargain.”
    “Beggars can’t be choosers.” Hartmut Sartorius shrugged. “There was no alternative. Otherwise the bank would have auctioned off the farm, and we would have been out on the street.”
    Something suddenly occurred to Tobias. “What about the Schilling land?” he asked.
    His father looked away, staring at the teapot.
    “Dad!”
    “Good Lord.” Hartmut Sartorius looked up. “It was just a meadow!”
    Tobias was beginning to understand. The pieces were snapping into place in his mind. His father had sold the Schilling land to Claudius Terlinden, and that’s why Mother had left him! It was not merely a meadow, but the dowry that she had brought into the marriage. The Schilling land had been an apple orchard with little true value. But after the change in the land-use plan in 1992 it had become probably the most valuable piece of land in the Altenhain district, because it comprised almost fifteen-hundred square meters in the very center of the planned industrial park. Terlinden had had his eye on the property for years.
    “How much did he pay you for it?” asked Tobias in a low voice.
    “Ten thousand euros,” his father admitted, hanging his head. A lot that big in the middle of the industrial park was worth fifty times that amount. “Claudius needed it urgently, for his new construction project. After everything he’d done for us, I couldn’t refuse. I had to let him have it.”
    Tobias’s jaw tightened as he clenched his fists in helpless fury. He couldn’t reproach his father, because he was the one to blame for the regrettable situation into which his parents had fallen. He suddenly had the feeling that he might suffocate in this house, in this damned village. Still he would stay—for as long as it took him to find out what had really happened eleven years ago.
    *   *   *
     
    Amelie left the Black Horse shortly before eleven, going out the back way through the kitchen. She would have liked to stay longer tonight so she could hear more about the topic of the day. But Jenny Jagielski strictly adhered to the labor regulations for minors, since Amelie was only seventeen and she didn’t want to risk any hassle with the authorities. Amelie didn’t care; she was happy to have the waitress job and earn her own keep. Her father had