Das Gift

Friday, 7 May, 2021

Behind tightly clenched eyelids, Bastian Schulz summoned a painful vision of ash blonde and sapphire blue, pert, cheeky and gorgeous, beneath a white woollen cap. Their last winter, a mere memory now. And there would never be another. He dared not open his eyes, for he knew his tears, already hotly prickling, would flow down his face and betray him.

A sudden explosion of breaking crockery shook his resolve. He blinked as everything swam into focus. Another crash, as a teacup shattered, hurled with considerable force to the quarry tiled floor. To his right, the betrothed couple looked on, several dinner plates flying and smashing amid the growing mess of pottery shards.

Bastian had loved Gisela all his life. He still loved her. But next week, she was going to marry Stefan Müller. Tonight was their polterabend, the traditional German pre-wedding celebration, when friends and family gathered to smash china, which the soon-to-be-wed couple would then clear up together, paving the way for their life of happy cooperation ahead.

Hefting the loving cup in his hand, Bastian recalled the worst day of his life; the day it had come to an end. On St Valentine’s Day, they had walked in the bright winter sun through the Brandenburg Gate and, after a dinner he could barely afford, at the Hotel Adlon, Bastian had dropped to one knee and proposed marriage to Gisela. A hand far colder than the continental winter had seized his heart as she had hesitated, caught her breath, avoided his gaze and run from the hotel, leaving him holding the ring in its padded box, as everyone stared in awkward silence. By the time he had made it to the front steps, she was already closing the door of an Uber, which powered away, taking with it every possibility of his future happiness.

Later, the irony had pressed down hard on his consciousness. The ring and the meal together had cost him more than a month’s salary and it would take him years to recover. Gisela, her family’s wealth behind her, could have paid for both out of her back pocket and barely noticed.

Drawing back his arm, Bastian flung the cup with all the force and venom he could find. With a crack like a gunshot, it atomised on contact with the tiles, tiny fragments of porcelain dusting the onlookers’ clothes as the happy couple took an involuntary step back. His face dark as summer thunder, Bastian turned and stomped from the building.

Monday, 9 May, 2021

Bastian’s head throbbed as he set himself down in the rearmost row in the compact, neat room.

After walking out of the polterabend, he had headed straight to a bar and begun what had turned into a two-day bender, the toxic effect of which was very much still upon him. This morning was the first time he’d been able to keep any food down since; he hoped he could continue to do so, through what was to come.

The scene was the Standesamt Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg von Berlin, where Gisela and Stefan’s life of matrimony was soon to begin. The few guests took their places among the six rows tidy, fabric-upholstered dining-style chairs beneath the electric glass chandelier.

Nodding and acknowledging the assembly, the engaged couple occupied their places in the front row. A few moments later, with teutonic punctuality, on the stroke of nine, the registrar entered and everyone rose.

The registrar cleared his throat. “Stefan and Gisela, do you come here voluntarily with hearts prepared, to receive each other in marriage?”

“Ja,” affirmed both.

“Will you love each other, respect, and be loyal to one another until death separates you?”

Like lasers boring into the back of Gisela’s head, Bastian’s eyes narrowed darkly. “Bis dass der Tod euch scheidet.” Until death separates you. The registrar was speaking again but Bastian was not hearing. His mind was away somewhere else.

A few minutes later, he snapped to full alertness, realising the legal ceremony was completed. Bride, groom and guests left the chamber on a warm tide of good wishes and bonhomie, save for the one member of the party with a murderous scheme upon his mind.

Friday, 11 February, 2022

In his back bedroom, with the curtains drawn, Bastian hunched over his tablet. Obsessively, he scoured Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok for any and every post by or about Gisela and Stefan Müller.

They were the archetypal happy couple. Even after correcting for the exaggeration and filteredness of social media, their love and utter contentment shone from the screen. #gistefmul had over twelve thousand followers. Bastian guessed that was thanks to Gisela’s family name, world famous as a designer leather goods brand.

If Bastian had ever felt real love for Gisela, it had evolved, via self-pity and envy, into a deep seated resentment and sense of injustice, and a burning conviction that she must be his or no-one’s. He told himself that her money had nothing to do with it. That said, the slug she had married was no more than a cynical gold digger.

Bastian scrolled through the social media feeds again. Nobody deserved to be that happy and carefree. Not when there were people in the world who would never find happiness, not in this life. He must do something about it.

In just three days, it would be their anniversary. His and Gisela’s. One year on from the day she had walked out on him at the Hotel Adlon. Suddenly, he needed a drink. He checked his watch. The bars were still open. Pulling on his coat, he slammed his front door.

Monday, 14 February, 2022, 6.30pm

Keeping to the shadows, the dark-clad figure in the black beanie stared up at the lighted bedroom window. Behind the thin lace curtain, the outline of the woman he knew so well moved alluringly around. His imagination and memory filled in what his eyes could not.

She would be waiting, as she had waited all day. She knew her husband was often home late, after a long day at the office. She would be slipping into something silky and welcoming, especially in view of the date. He licked his lips.

Under his arm, the heart-shaped box began to dig into his side. He took it in his hands and held it for a moment. The contents of the box were very special and had taken him some time to prepare. Well, it was no more than she had coming to her, and the date was most fitting. He had seen a movie once, where a man had laced a box chocolates with narcotics, cutting a small, circular hole in each delicately crafted piece of confectionery, using minuscule forceps to insert a tiny capsule, then replacing the sliver of surface chocolate, expertly and invisibly. He had been surprised how easy it had been, with only a set of electrician’s screwdrivers and a manicure kit.

The difference was, these chocolates were not laced with narcotics. The one he knew to be Gisela’s favourite - a large valentine heart, with rose design in the middle - now contained half a gram of sodium cyanide. After eating it, she would be dead within a minute. Bis dass der Tod euch scheidet.

Monday, 14 February, 2022, 6.35pm

Upstairs, Gisela Müller stopped and listened, hearing the sound of a key in the front door. Stefan must be early; she hadn’t been expecting him for another half hour. That’s what she had told Bastian, when he’d phoned her, out of the blue, that afternoon. “Yes, of course I’d love to see you,” she had said. “It’s been ages - the day Stefan and I got married, in fact. Yes, Stefan’s normally home around seven. Pop round. See you later.”

Heart in her mouth, she was half way down the stairs when the door opened and the tall figure entered the hallway. Removing his beanie and coat, he hung them on the hatrack, holding out his arms, and the box of chocolates with its secret lethal payload, to his wife.

“Stefan, darling! You’re home early!” Gisela did her best to affect delighted surprise, wondering if the man upstairs would be quick-thinking enough to get out of the bedroom window. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day, darling,” replied Stefan Müller, as his wife took the box from him. “I got your favourites.”

There was a creak of floorboards from the upstairs landing. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Stefan,” said Bastian, buckling his belt around his waist. He began to come down the stairs, with a smirk and an open toed, swaggering gait.

It was hard to tell whose expression - Stefan’s or Giselle’s - was the more classic picture of surprised and horrified.

Stefan spoke first. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Bastian leered in reply. “What do you think? She was always going to be mine and I was always the one she loves, not you. And talking of love, let’s all have a chocolate, shall we?” He had spotted the heart-shaped box, and he picked it up, running his fingernail around the edge of the lid and lifting it to reveal the glossy, pristine sweets inside.

Stefan froze, suddenly unable to speak, watching, unblinking, as Bastian’s hand moved over the confectionery. Still paralysed by the shock of being caught in flagrante by her husband with her lover, Gisela said nothing, her hands over her face.

Bastian’s fingers settled on the largest chocolate of them all, a fat, satiny heart with a rose in the centre. He palmed it and tossed it into his mouth, chewed a couple of times and swallowed, the leering smirk still fixed upon his features.

Sunday, 14 February, 2027

Gisela thought it fitting that her two suitors’ headstones were side by side, polished granite glinting in the cold midday sun. However, she knew it was just the way they did things here, methodically, by the book. The two men had died on the same day, in the same town, and their ashes were interred in adjacent plots.

Had it really been five years? It seemed far less long ago than that. She had learned so much about men - at least, about those two - in no more than a few minutes, that evening. She had been surprised at herself, having a flash affair with Bastian after nine months of what she had thought was blissful marriage to Stefan. She sort of wished she’d had time to explain to Stefan it had only been the once and it had not been planned. Bastian had just phoned up out of nowhere.

The finding at Bastian’s inquest had been murder. Fingerprint and DNA evidence, together with the timeline and the testimony from the confectionery shop assistant, pointed to Stefan as the sole suspect, and there was every reason to believe the cyanide had been meant for Gisela.

Self defence, they had said, in Stefan’s case. They had almost been right. Gisela had told the police Stefan had lunged at her when Bastian collapsed and stopped breathing, perhaps fearing she had realised his intentions with the chocolates, and she had grabbed the nearby knitting needle instinctively, swinging her arm up toward his face as he tightened his hands around her throat. She had been afraid for her life; she had not meant to push the sharp end of the needle into his eye, and certainly not so forcefully that it penetrated his brain. She had omitted to tell the police that the knitting needle had in fact been in her knitting basket, two rooms away, and that she had gone quietly to fetch it while Stefan was bending over Bastian’s lifeless body. She had called his name; he had turned his face toward her, and she had driven the needle in hard, her body weight behind it, where she knew it would have a soft and easy passage. Like a screwdriver through chocolate.

Wedded to her single and wealthy existence, Gisela turned away from the graves and went about her day.