Self's Punishment Part 11

'Just like home,' I said.

The bell in the kitchen rang, and she removed her willing flesh from my table. I wolfed down the Sauerbraten Sauerbraten and the Wieslocher. and the Wieslocher.

On the way to the car I heard quick steps behind me. 'Hey, you!' The kid from the station cafe was running after me breathlessly. 'You wanted to hear something about the accident. Is there a hundred in it for me?'

'Depends what you've got to say.' She was a hard-boiled little s.l.u.t.

'Fifty upfront, and before that I don't even start talking.'

I wanted to know and pulled out two fifty notes from my wallet. One of them I gave to her, the other I rolled into a ball.

'So it was like this. That Thursday Struppi drove me home. When we came over the bridge, the delivery van was there. I wondered what it was doing on the bridge. Then Struppi and I, we, well, you know. And when the smash came I told Struppi to leave, as I was pretty sure my father would come any minute. My parents have something against Struppi because he's as good as married. But I love him. So what. Anyhow, I saw the delivery van drive off.'

I gave her the scrunched-up ball. 'What did the delivery van look like?'

'Strange, somehow. You don't see them round our way usually. But I can't tell any more. Its lights weren't on either.'

Her mother was peering out of the cafe doorway. 'Get over here, Dina. Leave the man in peace!'

'Okay, I'm coming.' Dina walked back at a provocatively slow pace.

Sympathy and curiosity prompted me to meet the man who'd been saddled with this wife and daughter. In the kitchen I came across a thin, sweating little guy juggling pots and pans and ca.s.seroles. He'd probably already made several attempts to kill himself with the tear-gas gun.

'Don't do it. The two of them aren't worth it.'

On the drive home I kept an eye open for delivery vans that aren't usually found round here. But I didn't see a thing, it was Sunday after all. If what Dina had told me was correct, there was, G.o.d knows, more to Mischkey's death than was contained in the police report.

When we met up in the evening at the Badische Weinstuben Philipp knew that Mischkey's blood group was AB. So it wasn't his blood I'd sc.r.a.ped off the side. What conclusions could be drawn?

Philipp ate his black pudding with relish. He told me about gingerbread hearts, heart transplants, and his new girlfriend, who shaved her pubic hair in the shape of a heart.

14

Let's stretch our legs

I'd spent half the Sunday with a case I didn't have a commission for any more. Private detectives don't do that, on principle.

I looked through the smoked gla.s.s out onto the Augusta-Anlage. Decided to decide at the tenth car how to proceed. The tenth car was a Beetle. I crawled behind my desk to write a closing report to Judith Buchendorff. Every end must have its form.

I took a writing pad and a pencil, and jotted down key points. What spoke against it being an accident? There was what Judith had told me, there were the two bangs that Dina's mother had heard, and above all there was Dina's observation. If I were continuing with the case, it was explosive enough to send me on an urgent hunt for the delivery van and its driver. Did the RCW have something to do with my case? Mischkey had done extensive research on it, with whatever intention, and it must be the large plant Fred had worked for once. Had Fred rained down punches that day in the War Cemetery on their behalf? Then I also had the traces of blood on the right side of Mischkey's convertible. And finally there was the feeling that something wasn't right, and various shreds of thought from the previous days. Judith, Mischkey, and a jealous, spurned rival? A different computer-hacking venture of Mischkey's, this time with deadly retaliation? An accident involving the delivery van, the driver of which committed a hit-and-run? I thought of the two bangs an accident in which a third vehicle was also involved? Suicide? Had it all got too much for Mischkey?

It took me a long time to compose these half-baked things into a conclusive report. And I sat almost as long wondering whether I should write Judith an invoice and what should be in it. I rounded it off to a thousand marks and slapped on sales tax. When I'd typed the envelope, and stamped it and put in the letter and invoice and licked down the envelope, pulled on my coat and was ready to go and post it, I sat down again and poured myself a sambuca with three coffee beans.

It had all got f.u.c.ked up. I'd miss the case, which had taken a stronger hold on me than work usually did. I'd miss Judith. Why not admit it?

When the letter was in the post box I turned to the case of Sergej Mencke. I called the National Theatre and made an appointment with the ballet director. I wrote to the Heidelberg Union Insurance asking if they'd be willing to foot the bill for a trip to the US. The two best friends and colleagues of the self-mutilated ballet dancer, Joschka and Hanne, had both accepted engagements in Pittsburgh for the new season and had already left, and I'd never been to the States. I discovered that Sergej Mencke's parents lived in Tauberbischofsheim. The father was an army captain there. The mother said on the telephone I could look in at lunchtime. Captain Mencke ate lunch at home. I called Philipp and asked him whether in the annals of leg-breaks, self-induced breaks and breaks caused by a slammed car door were recorded at all. He offered to present his student with the problem as a dissertation theme. 'Three weeks okay for the results?' It was.

Then I set off for Tauberbischofsheim. I still had enough time to drive slowly through the Neckar valley and to stop for coffee in Amorbach. In front of the castle a school cla.s.s was making a racket waiting for a guided tour. Can one really imbue children with a sense of the beautiful?

Herr Mencke was a bold man. He'd built himself a house, even though he might get relocated. He opened the door in uniform. 'Step right in, Herr Self. I don't have much time, I've got to head back in a minute.' We sat down in the living room. Jagermeister schnapps was offered, but no one drank.

Sergej was actually called Siegfried and had left his parents' house at the age of sixteen, much to his mother's distress. Father and son had broken ties with one another. The sporty son still wasn't forgiven for having evaded army service with a bogus spinal-chord injury. The path leading to ballet had also met with disapproval. 'Perhaps it's also got a good side, his not being able to dance any more,' his mother mused. 'When I visited him in hospital, he was just like my Sigi again.'

I asked how Siegfried had coped financially since then. There were apparently always some friends, or girlfriends, who supported him. Herr Mencke poured himself a Jagermeister after all.

'I'd have liked to give him something from Granny's inheritance. But you didn't want that.' She turned reproachful eyes on her husband. 'You've just driven him deeper into everything.'

'Leave it, Ella. That isn't of interest to the insurance man. I must be getting back. Come along, Herr Self, I'll see you out.' He stood in the doorway and watched me until I'd driven off.

On the journey home I stopped in at Adelsheim. The inn was full; a few business people, teachers from the boarding school, and at one table three gentlemen who gave me the feeling they were a judge, a prosecutor, and a defence lawyer from the Adelsheim local court, negotiating in peace and quiet without the bothersome presence of the accused. I remembered my days at court.

In Mannheim I met the rush-hour traffic and needed twenty minutes for the five hundred metres through the Augusta-Anlage. I opened the door to the office.

'Gerd,' someone called, and as I turned I saw Judith coming from the other side of the street through the parked cars. 'Can we talk for a moment?'

I locked the door again. 'Let's stretch our legs.'

We walked up Mollstra.s.se and along Richard-Wagner-Stra.s.se. It took a while before she said anything. 'I overreacted on Sat.u.r.day. I still don't think it's good you didn't tell me straight away on Wednesday about Peter and you. But somehow I can understand how you felt, and the way I acted as though you're not to be trusted, I'm sorry about that. I can get pretty hysterical since Peter's death.'

I needed a while, too. 'This morning I wrote you a final report. You'll find it along with an invoice in your mail, today or tomorrow. It was sad. It felt as though I was having to tear something out of my heart: you, Peter Mischkey, some better understanding of myself that I was getting from the case.'

'Then, you'll agree to continue? Just tell me what's in your report.'

We'd reached the art museum; a few drops were falling. We went in and, wandering through the nineteenth-century painting galleries, I told her what I'd discovered, my theories, and what I was pondering. In front of Feuerbach's painting of Iphigenia on Aulis she stopped. 'This is a beautiful painting. Do you know the story behind it?'

'I think Agamemnon, her father, has just deposited her as a sacrifice to the G.o.ddess Artemis so that a wind will start to blow again and the Greek fleet can set sail for Troy. I love the painting.'

'I'd like to know who that lady was.'

'The model, you mean? Feuerbach loved her very much. Nanna, the wife of a cobbler from Rome. He quit smoking for her sake. Then she ran away from him and her husband with an Englishman.'

We walked to the exit and saw it was still raining. 'What do you plan to do next?' Judith asked.

'Tomorrow I want to talk to Grimm, Peter Mischkey's colleague in the Regional Computer Centre, and with a few people from RCW again.'

'Is there anything I can do?'

'If something comes to mind, I'll let you know. Does Firner actually know about you and Mischkey, and that you've hired me?'

'I haven't said anything to him. But why did he never actually tell me about Peter's involvement in our computer story? To begin with he always kept me up to date.'

'So you never realized that I'd tied up the case?'

'Well yes, a report from you crossed my desk. It was all very technical.'

'You only got the first part. Why, I would like to know. Do you think you can find out?'

She'd try. The rain had stopped, it had grown dark, and the first lights were coming on. The rain had brought the stench from the RCW with it. On the way to her car we didn't talk. There was weariness in Judith's step. As I said goodbye I could also see the deep tiredness in her eyes. She felt my eyes on her. 'I'm not looking good at the moment, right?'

'No, you should go away somewhere.'

'In recent years I've always gone on holiday with Peter. We met each other at Club Med, you know. We should be in Sicily now, we always travelled south in the late autumn.' She started to cry.

I put my arm round her shoulders. I didn't know what to say. She kept crying.

15

The guard still knew me

Grimm was barely recognizable. The safari suit had been exchanged for woollen flannel trousers and a leather jacket, his hair was cut short, his upper lip sported, resplendent, a carefully sculpted pencil moustache, and along with the new look there was a new confidence on display.

'h.e.l.lo, Herr Self. Or should I say Selk? What brings you here?'

What was I to make of this? Mischkey wouldn't have told him about me. Who else then? Someone from the RCW. A coincidence? 'Good that you know. That makes my job simpler. I need to look at the files Mischkey worked on here. Would you show them to me, please?'

'What? I don't understand. There aren't any files of Peter's here any more.' He looked puzzled, and a shade mistrustful. 'Under whose mandate are you here, actually?'

'Two guesses. So you've deleted the files? Perhaps that's for the best. Tell me what you think of this.' I took the computer printout from my briefcase, the one I'd found in Mischkey's file.

He spread it in front of him on the table and leafed through it for quite a while. 'Where did you get this from? It's five weeks old, was printed here in the building, but has nothing to do with our stock.' He shook his head thoughtfully. 'I'd like to keep this here.' He glanced at his watch. 'I must be off to the meeting now.'

'I'll gladly bring you the printout again. I have to take it with me now.'

Grimm gave it to me, but it felt as though I were wrenching it from him. I put the obviously explosive contraband into my briefcase. 'Who took over Mischkey's responsibilities?'

Grimm looked at me in sheer alarm. He stood up. 'I don't understand, Herr Self . . . Let's continue our discussion another time. I really must get to this meeting.' He escorted me to the door.

I stepped out of the building, saw a phone-box on Ebert-platz, and called Hemmelskopf immediately. 'Do you have anything at all at the credit bureau on a Jorg Grimm?'

'Grimm . . . Grimm . . . If we have something on him, it'll come up on the screen in a second. Just a moment . . . There he is, Grimm, Jorg, born nineteenth November nineteen forty-eight, married, two children, resident of Heidelberg, in Furtw.a.n.glerstra.s.se, drives a red Escort, HD-S 735. He had debts once, seems to have made something of himself, though. Just around two weeks ago he paid back the loan at the Cooperative Bank. That was around 40,000 marks.'

I thanked him. That wasn't sufficient for Hemmelskopf, though. 'My wife is still waiting for that ficus tree you promised her in spring. When can you come by?'

I added Grimm to the list of suspects. Two people are involved with one another. One dies, the other gets rich, and the one who gets rich also knows too much I didn't have a theory, but it seemed fishy.

The RCW had never asked me to return my entry pa.s.s. With it I had no problem finding a parking s.p.a.ce. The guard still knew me and saluted. I went to the computer centre and sought out Tausendmilch without falling into the hands of Oelmuller. I'd have found it unpleasant having to explain to him what I was doing here. Tausendmilch was alert, keen, and quick on the uptake as ever. He whistled through his teeth.

'These are our data. A curious mixture. And the printout isn't from here. I thought everything was quiet again. Should I try to trace the printout?'

'Leave it. But could you tell me what these data are?' Tausendmilch sat down at a computer and said, 'I'll have to flip through a bit.'

I waited patiently.

'Here we have a list of people on sick leave from spring and summer nineteen seventy-eight, then registers of our inventions and inventors' royalties, way back to before nineteen forty-five, and here's . . . I can't open it but the abbreviations might also stand for other chemical companies.' He turned the machine off. 'I wanted to thank you very much. Firner called me in and said you'd praised me in your report and that he had plans for me.'

I left a happy person behind. For a moment I could picture Tausendmilch, on whose right hand I'd spotted a wedding ring, coming home after work that day and telling his elegant wife, who had a martini ready for him and in her way was contributing to his rise, about his success today.

At security I sought out Thomas. On the wall of his office hung a half-finished plan of the course for security studies. 'I had something to do in the plant and wanted to discuss your kind offer of a teaching appointment. To what do I owe the honour?'

'I was impressed by how you solved our data-security problem. You taught us some things here, Oelmuller in particular. And it would be indispensable for the curriculum to have a freelancer involved.'

'What would be the subject?'

'The detective's work: from the practical to the ethical. With seminars and a final exam if that's not too much trouble. The whole thing should start in the winter term.'

'I see a problem there, Herr Thomas. According to your concept, and it also seems sensible to me, I can only teach the students by using my experience with real cases. But think of the business here at the Works we were just discussing. Even if I didn't mention any names and I went to lengths to disguise the whole thing a bit, it would be a case of the king's birthday suit.'

Thomas didn't get it. 'Do you mean Herr King in export coordination? But he doesn't have a birthday suit. And besides-'

'You still had some trouble with the case, Firner told me.'

'Yes, things were a bit tough with Mischkey.'

'Should I have been harsher?'

'He was rather uncooperative when you left him with us.'

'After everything I heard from Firner he was given the kid-glove treatment. No talk of police and court and prison that would only encourage a lack of cooperation.'

'But Herr Self, we didn't tell him that. The problem lay elsewhere. He virtually tried to blackmail us. We never found out whether he really had something up his sleeve, but he made some noise.'

'With the same old stories?'

'Yes, with the same old stories. Threatening to go to the press, to the compet.i.tion, to the union, to the plant authorities, to the Federal Ant.i.trust Office. You know, it's tough to say this, and I'm sorry about Mischkey's death, but at the same time I'm happy not to be burdened with this problem any more.'

Danckelmann came in without knocking. 'Ah, Herr Self, you've been the topic of conversation today already. Why are you still involved in this Mischkey business? The case is long since closed. Don't go rattling cages.'

Just as I had been when talking to Thomas, I was on thin ice with Danckelmann. Questions that were too direct could make it crack. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. 'Did Grimm call you?'

Danckelmann ignored my question. 'Seriously, Herr Self, keep your nose out of this story. We don't appreciate it.'

'For me, cases are only over when I know everything. Did you know, for example, that Mischkey took another stroll around your system?'