Self’s Murder

1 Drive!

I drove off, and at the same moment Welker leapt toward me. I saw his face, his gaping mouth and wide eyes, at the passenger-side window and heard his fists banging against the car door. What does he want? I thought. I stepped on the brake, leaned across the seat, and rolled down the window. He reached in, pulled up the lock, tore the door open, jumped into the car, slumped down on the passenger seat, reached over me, locked my door, did the same with his, and rolled his window back up, all the while shouting: “Drive! Drive, damn it! As fast as you can!”

I didn’t react immediately, but then I saw the yard gate beginning to swing shut, threw the gear into reverse, and made it out just in time, with only a few scratches to the front fenders. Samarin was running alongside the car, trying to get the door open. “Faster!” Welker kept shouting, holding on to the door from inside. “Faster!”

I floored the gas pedal and raced over the Schlossplatz into the Schlosstrasse. “Quick, give me your cell phone!” Welker said, reaching over to me.

“I don’t have one.”

“Damn!” He slammed his fists down on the dashboard. “How can you not have a cell phone?”

I pulled into a parking lot in the Hebelstrasse and stopped in front of a public phone where he could use my phone card. “Not here! Let’s go where there are lots of people!”

It was Sunday noon and the parking lot was still empty. But what was he afraid of? That Samarin and a few young men in suits would turn up and abduct him? I drove to the Schwetzingen train station, which wasn’t exactly pulsating with life, but there were taxis, a waiting bus, a newsstand, an open ticket counter, and some passengers. Welker took my phone card, his eyes darting in all directions, and went to a phone. I saw him pick up the receiver, insert the card, dial a number, wait, and begin to talk. Then he hung up and leaned against the wall. He looked as if he would collapse if the wall weren’t there.

I waited. Then I got out and walked over to him. He was crying. Crying silently, tears running down his cheeks, gathering on his chin, and dripping onto his sweater. He didn’t wipe them away. His arms hung limply at his sides, as if bereft of all power. He suddenly noticed that I was standing in front of him. “They’ve got my children. They drove off with them half an hour ago.”

“Drove off? Where to?”

“ Zurich, back to their boarding school. But they’ll reach the boarding school only if I go back to Samarin.” He straightened up and wiped away his tears.

“Please tell me what’s going on. What are you mixed up in? What is this all about?”

“As a private investigator, are you pledged to silence? Like a doctor or priest?” But he didn’t wait for an answer. He began to talk and talk. It was a cold day, and after a while my legs and stomach began to hurt from standing. But his flow of words didn’t stop, and I didn’t interrupt him. A woman wanted to use the phone, so we got back into the car. I started the engine and put the heater on high, whatever the damage to the environment. He ended up weeping again.

2 Double insurance

His story began in August 1991. There had been a failed military putsch in Moscow. Gorbachev’s star was on the wane, Yeltsin’s on the rise. Gregor Samarin had proposed that Weller & Welker send him to Russia to look into investment opportunities; the failed putsch signified that the fate of Communism was sealed and that the triumph of capitalism was unstoppable. This was the perfect moment, he argued, to make investments in Russian enterprises, and with his knowledge of Russia, its language, and its people, he could guarantee Weller & Welker a competitive edge.

Until then Samarin had been a jack-of-all-trades at the bank: chauffeur and errand boy, a handyman at the bank and the apartment, someone who could help out as a teller and with the bookkeeping and filing. He had completed high school but had not been interested in continuing with his studies-nor did anybody encourage him to. Even as a schoolboy he had made himself useful, and it was quite convenient that he was even more available now. He lived in the servant’s room in old Herr Welker’s house in the Gustav-Kirchhoff-Strasse and was paid a modest salary and given a little extra whenever he wanted to buy something or go on vacation. But he rarely asked for anything. He had studied Russian at school because of his mother, and he traveled to Russia once a year. He drove cars handed down to him by the two families. He had become a fixture.

Everyone was taken aback by his idea about Russia. But then again, why shouldn’t he be given a chance to prove himself? If nothing came of it, he would at least have gotten out and about and had a vacation of sorts. If something did come of it-which nobody really believed would happen-then so much the better. It was decided that he would be sent to Russia.

Samarin stayed there for almost six months. He kept in touch with regular phone calls, faxes, and telegrams. He proposed a series of investments in the energy sector, from electrical power plants in Moscow and Sverdlovsk to securing drilling options in Kamchatka. From time to time he introduced Russian businessmen who were looking to invest money in the West, who would then turn up in Schwetzingen. None of his schemes panned out, nor did the Russian businessmen. But Gregor Samarin returned to Germany a changed man. Not only did he bring back a Russian accent, he also dressed and comported himself as if he were one of the bank’s directors. Old Herr Weller had just retired and moved to the assisted-living section of the Augustinum. Bertram and Stephanie didn’t want to hurt Gregor. Hadn’t they resolved to be different as directors than their fathers had been and to avoid all arrogance and conceit? Hadn’t Bertram and Gregor grown up together? Hadn’t Gregor always been fully committed to the families and their bank?

Then Gregor began talking about Weller & Welker initiating a takeover of the Sorbian Cooperative Bank, and Bertram and Stephanie tried to make him see why a takeover would be a mistake. The future of Weller & Welker lay in investment counseling, not in handling small savings accounts. The bank had survived the crisis of the eighties by downsizing, drop ping everything that was inessential, and concentrating exclusively on what was essential. But Gregor Samarin wouldn’t let go. One day he came back from a trip to Berlin and announced that he had completed negotiations he’d been involved in for weeks with the Treuhand Agency, which was privatizing former East German state institutions such as the bank, and that he had bought the bank for a song. He had forged a power of attorney, and they could report him, take him to court, and have him thrown in prison if they liked; if they took action fast enough they could perhaps even cancel the deal with the Treuhand Agency. But how would that look for Weller & Welker? How thrilled would their clients be, reading about all the turmoil in the firm? Wouldn’t it make more sense to let him handle the Sorbian Cooperative Bank? He’d get it back on its feet. It was the bank of the common man, and he knew all about the common man since he was one himself. Didn’t Weller & Welker owe him the chance?

Bertram and Stephanie gave in, and to their surprise it seemed to work. After a year, the Sorbian bank might not have been showing a profit, but it wasn’t showing a loss, either-and this despite the extensive modernization of its main branch in Cottbus and the branches in the provinces, and despite all the Sorbian Cooperative employees having been kept on, as the Treuhand Agency had been promised as part of the takeover. It seemed that the East Germans had more money than was generally assumed. Gregor Samarin also seemed to have the knack of procuring subsidies from local, state, and European institutions. An East German success story!

Until Stephanie caught on. She didn’t trust the pretty picture, didn’t trust Gregor, and had no scruples about peeking into Gregor’s filing cabinet or his computer. An émigré Russian economist whom she hired in Berlin helped her figure out what she didn’t understand. She told Bertram what she found out, and together they confronted Gregor. They gave him a month to remove himself and his dirty deals from their bank and their lives. They would not go to the police, but they didn’t want anything to do with him.

Gregor’s reaction was quite unexpected. He had no idea what had gotten into them. He had done them no wrong, he had even furthered their business, and now they wanted to ruin him. He was a businessman-he had obligations and could not afford not to fulfill them. He was going to stay right where he was! And while they were at it, he was sick and tired of having to transport the money from the West to Cottbus. Henceforth, he’d collect the money and feed it into the system right here in Schwetzingen.

“We’re giving you one month to remove yourself,” Stephanie said, “and that’s that. Don’t force us to go to the police.”

Two weeks later Stephanie was dead. If Bertram wasn’t prepared to play Samarin’s game, his children would be next-first one, and then the other-and in the end it would be his turn. Samarin wasn’t about to give up all he’d worked for.

The children were then sent to school in Switzerland, with two young men in dark suits or in ski suits, in tennis or jogging outfits, or in hiking gear-always at their sides. Bertram had been forced to explain to the headmaster that the men were bodyguards; after the mysterious disappearance of their mother-involving a possible case of abduction or blackmail-one couldn’t be too careful. The headmaster had no objections. The young men kept a certain discreet distance, to the extent they could.

“As for me,” Welker continued, “you yourself have seen what I’ve been reduced to. I had to move from my house to the bank, and I haven’t been allowed to take a single step on my own. Then you showed up, and I managed to draw you into all this with the tale of the silent partner. In Gregor’s view, your investigation would hardly pose a threat; not to mention that he was worried that you’d grow suspicious if he threw you out. I didn’t hire you because of this idiotic silent partner. I was hoping all along that you’d realize what was going on at my bank and that you’d be at hand when the time came. But you weren’t.”

I looked at him blankly.

“No, no, I’m not reproaching you; far from it. I’d only hoped you might notice what was going on. I’d hoped it might be a sign to you that something wasn’t right at the bank when Gregor wouldn’t let me call you, when he didn’t give a damn about what I said, or that time when he exploded and ordered me to believe what he says, or when the attaché case was so important to him while I didn’t show any interest in it. I’d also hoped you’d come earlier today. But I’d hoped, too, that the children would stay longer. I wanted to get out of Gregor’s grip with your help while the children were visiting some friends of mine in Zurich. Do you see what he’s done? He has gotten himself double insurance: if the children elude his grip he still has me, and if I elude his grip-for instance, at a business meeting or social occasion, where he cannot intervene in what I say-then he’s got the children. While they were at my friends’ place in Zurich, he lost them. Now he’s got them again.”

“We should go to the police.”

“Are you out of your mind? They’ve got my kids. They’ll kill them if I go to the police.” He stared at his hands. “The only place I can go is back to the bank. That’s the only place I can go.” This time he cried like a child, sobbing pitifully, his shoulders shaking.

3 No longer my kind of world

I assured Welker that there was no reason he couldn’t wait a few hours before going back. Nothing would happen to the children as long as Samarin couldn’t get in touch with him. The children would be of no use to Samarin if they were dead; he needed them in order to threaten Welker. And he could only do that if he managed to talk to Welker.

“How is waiting going to do any good?”

“A few hours without Gregor Samarin-isn’t that something? I’d like to have a word with an old friend of mine, a retired police officer. I know you don’t want to hear of the police being involved. But things can’t go on this way, neither for the children nor for you. Something has to give. And we can do with all the help we can get.”

“Well, go ahead.”

I called Nägelsbach and then Philipp. I asked Philipp if we could use his apartment as a meeting place, since Gregor’s men knew where I lived and probably had already followed me to Nägelsbach’s and Brigitte’s. Avoiding the autobahn, we meandered over Plankstadt, Grenzhof, Friedrichsfeld, and Rheinau to Philipp’s apartment at the Waldparkdamm. There was no blue Mercedes anywhere to be seen, nor a black or green one, and there were no young men in dark suits. On the Stephanienufer promenade along the Rhine, couples who had already had lunch were pushing baby strollers while barges chugged along the river.

Welker was wary. Nägelsbach brought his wife, and Philipp insisted, if we were going to get together at his place, on being present and listening in. Welker looked from one of us to another and then glanced at Philipp’s bedroom door, which stood ajar, revealing the mirror on the ceiling above the water bed. He turned to me and said, “Are you sure that…”

I nodded and began to tell his story. From time to time he added something, finally taking over himself. In the end, he began to cry again. Frau Nägelsbach got up, sat on the armrest of his chair, and hugged him.

“No longer my kind of world,” Nägelsbach said, shaking his head sadly. “Not that everything in my world was right-I wouldn’t have become a policeman if it had been. But money was money, a bank was a bank, and a crime was a crime. Murder was driven by passion, jealousy, or desperation, and if it was driven by greed, it was burning greed. Calculated murder, laundering millions, a bank that’s a madhouse in which the insane have locked up the doctors and nurses-all that is foreign to me.”

“Oh, that’s enough,” Frau Nägelsbach said irritably. “You’ve been talking like this for weeks now. Can’t you forget being grouchy about your retirement and come to grips with it and tell this poor fellow and your friends something that might be useful to them? You were a good policeman. I was always proud of you and want to continue being proud.”

Philipp stepped in. “I understand him. It’s no longer my kind of world, either. I’m not quite sure why: the end of the Cold War, capitalism, globalization, the Internet? Or is it that people no longer have morals?” I must have been staring at him nonplussed. He stared back coolly. “You seem to think that morality isn’t my thing? The fact that I have loved many women doesn’t mean I don’t have any morals. Let’s not forget that wherever money’s being laundered, women are being exploited, too. No, I’m not prepared to give up my world without a fight, and I hope the rest of you aren’t, either.”

Somewhat taken aback, I looked at Philipp, and then at Nägelsbach.

“Without a fight?” Frau Nägelsbach said, shaking her head. “You don’t have to prove to the world that you’re not yet ready for the scrapheap or that you can still show the younger generation a thing or two. Call the police! See to it that they don’t rattle Samarin! You know the right people, Rudi. If Samarin catches on that the game is up, he won’t be stupid enough to harm the children.”

“I don’t think he’d do anything to them, either. But as for being sure-no, I’m not sure. Are you? A culprit might see reason when the game’s up, but he might also lose his reason. So far I haven’t seen Samarin lose his cool. But recently he almost did, and I’m afraid that if he does in fact explode he’d be capable of anything,” I said.

“Of one thing you can be certain,” Welker cut in. “He’s quite capable of exploding. He’s quite capable of murder, too. No, going to the police is not an option. Thank you very much, but I-” Welker stood up.

“Sit down, please,” I said. “We must use what we have: a doctor, an ambulance.”

Philipp nodded.

“A policeman in uniform.”

Nägelsbach laughed. “If I still can squeeze into my uniform-I haven’t worn it in years.”

“We also have the choice of the meeting place. Herr Welker, you need to give a convincing performance over the phone-you must sound so panic-stricken that Samarin will be ready to meet with you wherever you want rather than having you flip out completely. Can you manage that?”

Philipp grinned. “Don’t worry. I can get Herr Welker there.”

“We’ll tell Samarin to come to the Mannheim Water Tower,” Nägelsbach said, sliding an ashtray to the center of the table to represent the water tower. He put a newspaper in front of it to represent the Kaiserring and pointed at it with his pen. “Needless to say, Samarin will position his men around the water tower. If he has four cars, he’ll have them wait by the four streets leading away from the tower. But he can’t have all his men waiting in the cars, and if he…”

Nägelsbach explained his plan, answered questions, and weighed objections, and the venture took shape. Frau Nägelsbach looked at him with pride. I, too, was proud of my friends. I was particularly amazed at Philipp’s calm concentration and authority. Did he plan his surgical operations this way? Did he prepare his colleagues for their roles on the surgical team the way he was preparing Welker for his role on the phone? He talked at him, cross-examined him, ridiculed him, reassured him, and yelled at him, and soon enough he had shaken him so thoroughly that when Welker called Samarin he was on the verge of losing it.

Samarin agreed to the meeting: five o’clock at the water tower. “No police. You and I will talk. You will speak to your children on the cell phone, and then we’ll drive back to Schwetzingen.”

4 Blow-by-blow

If wishes came true, I would be living in one of the pavilions on top of the two elegant sandstone houses at the corner of Friedrichsplatz and Augusta anlage. I would put a lounger out on the balcony, set up the Zeiss telescope I inherited from my father, and watch what happened from a distance. Instead, I found myself standing by the water tower, where I couldn’t be of any use.

Welker got there well before five. He walked around the water tower, looked into the empty basins, and kept peering from the Rosengarten all the way to the Kunsthalle Museum. He was very nervous. He kept hugging his chest as if he were trying to hold on to himself. He walked too fast, and whenever he stopped he stepped nervously from one foot to the other. Nägelsbach, in his police uniform, sat on a bench, relaxed as if enjoying a break. His wife was sitting next to him.

From the pavilion I would probably also have had all of Samarin’s men in view. I saw the blue Mercedes-it was standing in front of the bus station on the Kaiserring, and a man was sitting at the wheel. I didn’t see the other young men. I didn’t see Samarin, either, until he crossed the Kaiser-ring and came walking toward Welker. He had a heavy, strong gait, as if nothing could sway or stop him. More likely than not, he had inspected the perimeter and had assured himself that everything was fine. If Welker had involved the police, they would not have sent a policeman in uniform to the meeting place and have him sitting next to a woman. Nor would the police have tolerated my presence. Samarin peered at the water tower, shook his head, and chuckled.

Later I forgot to ask Welker what Samarin had said, and what his reply had been. They did not talk for long. We had planned everything blow-by-blow.

The ambulance waited in the Kunststrasse until the light turned green. It drove across the Kaiserring and around the fountain in front of the water tower and turned on its siren and flashing lights a few meters away from Welker and Samarin. Samarin was annoyed. He turned and looked at the ambulance. Philipp, in a white coat, came out from the front, and Füruzan and another nurse hopped out from the back, in uniform and wheeling a stretcher. Then Samarin saw Frau Nägelsbach collapsed in front of the bench, and his annoyance subsided at the very moment Philipp placed a hand on his shoulder and plunged a syringe into his arm. Samarin staggered, and it looked as if Philipp were grabbing hold of him to steady him and prop him up. Then Samarin collapsed onto the stretcher, which in the twinkling of an eye was wheeled into the ambulance. The nurses pulled the doors shut, Philipp jumped into the driver’s seat, and the ambulance sped off along the Friedrichsring. Nägelsbach saw to his wife, who was savoring her role by not regaining consciousness. She came to her senses only once the ambulance’s siren died away in the distance, and Nägelsbach walked her to the taxi stand in front of the Deutsche Bank. Within a minute it was all over.

The Mercedes lunged forward with squealing tires, tore over the median strip and the streetcar tracks, and sped along the Friedrichsring in fruitless pursuit of the ambulance. I still couldn’t see the other young men. None of the people strolling in the park stopped: nobody was surprised, nobody spoke to anyone, nobody asked what had happened. It had all happened so quickly.

I sat down on the bench where the Nägelsbachs had been sitting and lit one of my rare cigarettes. Rare cigarettes don’t taste good. They taste like one’s first cigarette, which doesn’t taste good, either. In half an hour Samarin would regain consciousness in a windowless storeroom in the hospital, laced into a straitjacket and strapped to the bed. I would negotiate with him-we knew each other. Welker insisted that Samarin be exchanged for his children. He wanted Samarin to experience his defeat to the fullest. “Otherwise he’ll never leave me in peace.”

5 In the dark

I found Samarin with his eyes closed. There wasn’t enough space for a chair; I leaned against the wall and waited. He was still in a straitjacket and strapped to the bed.

He opened his eyes, and I noticed that he’d been keeping them shut only in order to feel, hear, and sniff out my mood and state of mind. He looked at me stonily but said nothing.

“Welker wants his children back. He will exchange you for his children. And he wants you out of his life and his bank.”

Samarin smiled. “So that all will be right with the world once more. Those up there among themselves, and we down here among ourselves.”

I didn’t say anything.

“How long do you intend to keep me here?”

I shrugged. “As long as necessary. This room isn’t used. If you make trouble, you’ll be pumped full of pills and dragged before a judge, who’ll have you committed to a psychiatric ward. Though you should really be dragged to court for murder. But that can come later.”

“If I don’t return to my men soon they will harm the children. That was the plan: if something happens to me, something will happen to the children.”

I shook my head. “Think about it. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Philipp, Füruzan, and her colleague were in the nurses’ room drinking cognac. Füruzan was fluttering adoringly around Philipp. The other nurse was thrilled at having been taken along on a mission that seemed important and dangerous, even though she didn’t quite understand it. Philipp had regained his debonair swagger, kept going over the escapade with glee, and was bubbling over with excitement. “His look when he felt the prick of the needle! And the way Frau Nägelsbach lay on the ground! How fast and smoothly it went! And the wild drive with sirens blaring!”

Welker relaxed only gradually. At the water tower he had sat down silently beside me on the bench. A few minutes later we got in the taxi the Nägelsbachs had sent us from the taxi stand. Before we had the driver take us to the hospital we drove through the streets of Mannheim until we were certain that nobody was following us. Throughout the trip, Welker had sat pale and silent. Now he was listening to Philipp as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. “Can I have a cognac, too?”

When the hour was up, I went back to Samarin.

“What about my money?”

“Your money?”

“Okay, only part of it is mine. That’s why I need it. My… my business partners will not be too happy if their money’s gone.”

“If you will disappear more reliably with the money than you would without it, I’m certain Welker won’t mind your taking it. I’ll ask him.” I left and talked to Welker.

Welker recoiled. “Good God! The last thing I want is his dirty money! If I had found it, I’d have given it to charity. Once it’s gone, it’s gone: let him come tomorrow and take it.”

I reported this to Samarin. He looked stunned. “That’s what Welker said? The meanest and most miserly man I know?”

“That’s what he said.”

Samarin closed his eyes.

“You need more time? I’ll come back later.”

Philipp wanted to head out with the others to eat, drink, and celebrate. “We’ll go now, and you can follow us later. The Nägelsbachs will be coming, too. When Samarin finally plays along, it’ll still be hours before the children get here. You don’t have to stand guard over him. He won’t get away, and if he kicks up a fuss the night nurse will give him an injection.”

“Sure, go ahead. I’ll stay here and maybe catch an hour or two of sleep.”

I sat in the nurses’ room and heard the others’ laughter along the corridor. Then the elevator doors closed, swallowing their laughter, and there was silence except for the soft hum of the central heating. We had decided to tell Samarin as late as possible the time and place of the exchange so he would have just enough time to tell his people where to go. For now he was only to instruct them to bring the children to Mannheim.

“I’ve got to pee,” he said when I returned to his room.

“I can’t untie you.”

Though he was wearing the straitjacket and was strapped to the bed, he looked strong and dangerous. I went to the nurses’ room and found a urine bottle. He turned his head away as I unbuttoned his pants, pulled down his underwear, took out his penis, and held it as best I could into the opening of the bottle.

“Go ahead,” I said.

When I had zipped him up again he looked at me. “Thanks.” After a while he asked me, “Who am I supposed to have murdered?”

“Oh, come on now. First Welker’s wife, and then… Not that I can prove it, but I am certain that someone frightened Schuler to death. Whether it was you or your mafiosi hardly matters.”

“I had known Stephanie since I was a little boy. Schuler taught me reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography. All about the Celtic Ring Wall on Heiligenberg, the Roman Bridge over the Neckar River, the Heilig-Geist Church that was torched by Mélac.”

“That doesn’t make the murders any better.”

He waited for a while and then asked: “And what kind of connection am I supposed to have with the Mafia?”

“Stop playing games! It’s hardly a secret that you’ve been laundering money for the Russian Mafia!”

“And that’s supposed to make me and my people mafiosi?” He scoffed. “You really have no idea what’s going on. Do you think Welker would still be alive if we were the Russian Mafia? Or you, for that matter? Or the bunch of clowns who’ve tied me up here? I was raised under the thumb of Weller and Welker and will never again allow myself to be under anyone’s thumb. Yes, I launder money. And yes, I don’t care who I do it for-just like any other banker. Yes, my men are Russians and professional. As for me”-he scoffed again-“I am my own boss.”

He closed his eyes. Just as I thought he wouldn’t say anything more he said: “I didn’t like the families, neither the Wellers nor the Welkers. Bertram’s grandfather and Stephanie’s mother had heart. But as for Bertram’s father… and Bertram himself… I ought to have killed the two of them.”

“Didn’t Bertram’s father raise you?”

He laughed. “ Siberia would have been better.”

“What about Welker’s kids?”

“What about them? No one’s touched a hair on their heads. They think my men are their bodyguards and show off with them. The girl even flirts with them.”

“Are you going to call your men? So they’ll bring the kids here?”

He nodded slowly. “I’ll have them set out right away. The exchange can take place tonight; I don’t want to stay here like this any longer.”

I found his cell phone, dialed the number he told me, and held the phone to his ear. “Speak to them in German!”

He gave them a few brief instructions. Then he asked me: “Where is the exchange to take place?”

“We’ll tell you once your men are in Mannheim. By when can they make it?”

“In five hours.”

“Good. We’ll talk again in five hours.”

I asked him if I should leave the lights on or off. He wanted to lie in the dark.

6 I guess that’s that

My fever returned, and I had the night nurse give me two aspirin. “You don’t look too good,” she told me. “Why don’t you go home and lie down?”

I shook my head. “Is there somewhere here I can sleep for a few hours?”

“We’ve got a second storeroom at the end of the corridor. I can have a bed set up.”

As I lay there, my thoughts went to Samarin. Was the air in his room as stuffy as it was in here? Did he too feel claustrophobic? Did he hear the humming of the central heating? The room had no window, and it was pitch-dark. I held my hands in front of my face but couldn’t see them.

Sometimes I think something is over and done with when in fact things are just beginning. That’s what had happened to me in the morning, when Welker and Samarin had walked me to my car. Sometimes I also think I’m in the middle of something, but in fact it’s already over. Was what we had wanted to bring to an end that night, in effect, already over? Of course it hadn’t happened yet. But were the roles already doled out in such a way and the conditions such that whatever happened, whatever we chose to do, would still have the same result?

It was only a feeling. A fear. The fear of being too slow again, of not being fast enough to see what was actually taking place. So I weighed everything that Welker wanted, what Samarin wanted, at best what both of them would get, at worst what both would lose, what they might surprise each other with, and what they might surprise us with.

Immersed in these reflections, I fell asleep. At midnight the nurse woke me up. “The others are back.”

Philipp, Nägelsbach, and Welker were sitting in the nurses’ room, discussing where the exchange was to take place. Welker wanted a hidden, secret place, preferably somewhere on the outskirts of the city.

Nägelsbach preferred an open, brightly lit area, or a street somewhere downtown. “I want to be able to see these people!”

“Everybody started to chip in. So we can make sure they don’t try to trick us? We’ll tell them where and when we’ll meet. We’ll inform them of the time of our meeting so they won’t be able to trick us.”

“But a place that is well-lit and open…”

“During the exchange, one or two of us should be standing by-someone who can see everything, but won’t be seen. Someone who can step in if need be.”

We decided on the Luisenpark. There were trees and shrubs behind which one could hide, but there was also a wide lawn. Samarin’s men were to drive up the Werderstrasse, while we would come up the Lessingstrasse with Samarin. The exchange would take place in the middle of the park.

“Shall we do the exchange, Philipp, while the two of you stand in reserve?” I suggested. The others nodded, and Nägelsbach agreed to wear his police jacket and cap again. “Perhaps it’s good if we can act as if the police are on our side.”

All we could do now was wait. The big old alarm clock in the nurses’ room chopped the time into little pieces. Nägelsbach had found some boxes of matches and was building a little tower, two matches one way and two the other, all the heads facing outward. Welker kept his eyes shut. His face was tense, as if he were concentrating on a difficult mathematical equation. Philipp was excitedly looking forward to the exchange as an adventure.

I went to the storeroom, turned on the light, and had Samarin talk to his men. “They’ve already been at the Augusta-anlage for ten minutes.”

“Tell them to wait there until they get further instructions.”

Then I released his straps and helped him off the bed.

“What about this?” he asked, nodding down to the strait-jacket that tied his arms across his chest.

I hung his coat over his shoulders. “Your men can take that off for you.”

Even in the straitjacket he looked dangerous, as if he could crush me against the wall with his massive, powerful body. I kept my distance until we got to the car. He didn’t say a word, not when he saw the others, among them Nägelsbach in uniform, not when Nägelsbach and I had him sit between us on the backseat, not during the drive.

We parked in the Lessingstrasse, and Welker and Nägelsbach got out and walked off. I explained to Samarin where his men were to take the children into the park, and he informed his men.

Then we got out, too, and waited at the entrance to the park, Philipp to the right of Samarin, I to the left. I couldn’t see Nägelsbach and Welker, but I could see the shrubs at the other end of the park where they were going to hide. There was a half moon, bright enough for the bushes, trees, and benches to be clearly visible. The broad lawn shimmered gray. I was again beset by the fear that I had overlooked something and tried once more to weigh everything. We would send Samarin and they would send us the children. Or would they just shoot Philipp and me? Might they fail to turn up for the exchange and simply watch us and wait for us to retreat, exhausted and rattled, and then attack us? Might they… But my fever wouldn’t let me think straight. Suddenly I found the situation unreal, bordering on the absurd. Somewhere in the distance Nägelsbach and Welker lay in wait, ready to jump out and shout “Surprise!,” terrifying the enemy. Next to me Samarin stood like a bear with a ring in his nose and a chain on the ring. I wouldn’t have been surprised had I heard the chain clink with every step. Philipp peered into the darkness with anxiety and pleasure, like a hunter on the prowl.

At the other end of the park headlights appeared. A big car stopped and two men got out. They opened the back doors and helped a boy and a girl get out. They walked toward us and we walked toward them. There was silence, except for our steps on the gravel.

When we were twenty meters away I said to Samarin: “Tell them to stop and send the children to us.”

He barked some orders in Russian. The men stopped and said something to the boy and the girl that sounded like “Go on!” The children came toward us.

“I guess that’s that,” I said.

Samarin nodded and walked toward his men. He reached them and they exchanged a few words, then began to walk toward Werderstrasse. The children asked what was happening and where their father was, but Philipp growled at them to keep quiet and hurry. When we got to the entrance of the park we looked back. We looked back at the very moment it happened.

We didn’t see where the shot came from; we only heard it. After the first shot there was immediately a second one. We saw Samarin collapse and his two companions crouch down to assist him, or to shield themselves, or both. I thought Oh God! and heard the silence in the park and the echo of the shots in my head, and then mayhem broke loose. Samarin’s men got up and, still firing shots, ran toward their car, jumped in, and were gone.

Before I could even formulate the thought Get the children in the car, one of us with them! they were running off, shouting, “Dad!”

Welker had come out from behind the bushes at the other end of the park. He came toward them and hugged them. Philipp ran over to Samarin. When I got there, out of breath, Philipp straightened up. “He’s dead.”

“Where’s Nägelsbach?”

Philipp looked around. “Where’s Nägelsbach!” he shouted at Welker.

Welker pointed to the bushes at the end of the path. “That’s where he…”

Then we saw him. He came toward us, dragging his feet, his hand pressed to his side.

“You idiot!” Philipp said to Welker. I had never seen him so furious. “Quick, Gerhard! We’ve got to get him to the car.”

We ran over to Nägelsbach, propped him up, and slowly, step-by-step, made our way to the car.

Welker followed us. “What should I-”

“Wait for the police to come!”

The lights went on in some of the houses.

7 Loss of pension

We managed to get Nägelsbach to the car, to the hospital, and into the operating room. Within two hours Philipp had removed the bullet and sewn him up. He sat down next to me, took off his scrub cap and mask, and grinned at me brightly. “I’ve got something for you.”

I took the bullet. “The police will want that,” I said.

“No, this is the one the police will be wanting.” He was holding another bullet between his thumb and index finger.

I looked at him nonplussed.

“He must have caught a shot years ago, and I guess it would have been too dangerous back then to remove the bullet. But the old bullet wandered and ended up not far from the new one.” He looked around. “Have the police been here yet?”

I shook my head.

“It was Welker who shot Samarin, wasn’t it?”

“It seems Samarin had a gun, which Welker had taken from him,” I said. “Did Welker pay Samarin a visit in the storeroom?”

“Perhaps while you were asleep,” Philipp said. “He didn’t tell us he was going, and I didn’t keep an eye out. Wouldn’t Samarin have noticed Welker coming in? Wouldn’t he have said something?”

“I’m sure he noticed. But as for saying something… No, it wouldn’t have been his style to tell us that Welker had taken his gun away.”

“Everything was going so well until that idiot-”

“Are you talking about me?” Welker said, suddenly appearing in front of us. “You didn’t see what happened. Gregor and his men were whispering among themselves, then they reached for their weapons, and just at the moment when-”

“That’s nonsense! Samarin was in a straitjacket-he could hardly have attacked anyone! And why didn’t you aim at his men? Why shoot him in the back?” Philipp asked.

“I…” Welker fought back his tears. “I realized it wasn’t going to work. Samarin had lost the battle, but not the war. I knew he’d stay on my case, and then I’d be back at square one.” The tears he was fighting back were tears of anger. “Damn it, don’t you see? That man was terrorizing me, month after month! He had my bank under his thumb, he murdered my wife, he threatened my children! No, I’m not sorry for what I did! I’m at my wit’s end, but I’m not sorry!”

“What did the police say?”

“I didn’t wait for them.”

“You just up and left?”

He sat down next to us. “I found a taxi at the Collini-Center and got the children out of there. It had been a day from hell for them. I wasn’t about to expose them to the ordeal of the investigation.” He laid his hand on my arm. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure if you were serious about the police. It’s not my field-I know nothing about legal matters. Was everything we did kosher? What you and your friends did? How’s the policeman, by the way?”

“He’ll be back on his feet soon enough.”

“Particularly in his case I was wondering what the consequences might be. Retired police officer runs amok-won’t there be a disciplinary hearing? Loss of pension? I didn’t want to bear that responsibility on my own, which is why I’m bringing all this up. I don’t know if we can take the initiative together without consulting him. When do you think we could talk to him?”

“In a few days,” Philipp said, shaking his head. “You don’t seriously think we can stay out of all this. There are four of us, and then there are Füruzan, her colleague the night nurse, and Frau Nägelsbach who are in the know-not to mention that someone might have seen our car, or seen Gerhard and me with Nägelsbach when he was wounded. As for Samarin working in your bank, the police will find that out in no time at all. What will you tell them?”

“The truth. That he was involved with the Russian Mafia, that he tried to use my bank for his money-laundering schemes, that he has a number of deaths on his conscience, and that things ended up spinning out of control for him.”

Philipp had called Frau Nägelsbach after operating on her husband. Now she was standing before us, eyeing us. “Who shot my husband?”

“Samarin’s men.”

“Why?”

“Samarin was shot.”

“By whom?”

“We’ve just been weighing what we can and should contribute to the police investigation,” Welker said, looking at Frau Nägelsbach entreatingly. “And if your husband would be pleased if the police… and the public…”

She read in his face that he was the one who had shot Samarin. She looked at him and shook her head.

“Take me to my husband,” she said to Philipp. “I want to be with him when he wakes up.”

They left. Welker stayed. “I’ll wait for your friend. I want Nägelsbach to have whatever he needs-the best of everything, whatever the expense. You must believe me: I am terribly sorry he was shot.” He looked at me as if he really were terribly sorry.

I nodded.

8 A sensitive little fellow

Outside the hospital I hoped to find a taxi at the stand. But it was still too early in the morning.

A man came up to me. At first I didn’t recognize him. It was Karl-Heinz Ulbrich. “Come along, I’ll drive you home.”

I was too sick and too tired to turn his offer down. He took me to his car-no longer a beige Fiesta, but a light green Polo. He opened the door for me and I got in. The streets were empty, but he didn’t exceed the speed limit.

“You don’t look too good.”

What could I say?

He laughed. “Not that I’m surprised, after all you’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours.”

Again I said nothing.

“The water tower meeting-that was impressive. But in the park you had more luck than brains.”

“You really aren’t my son. You might be my deceased wife’s son, but I’m not your father. When you… when you were conceived, I was in Poland, far away from my wife.”

He wasn’t swayed. “I imagine you already know that the men in the blue Mercedes are Russians. They’re from Moscow, and have been in Germany for two or three years, first in Berlin, then in Frankfurt, and now here. I spoke to them in Russian, but their German isn’t bad.”

“They really trained you to be a pro in shadowing.”

“Shadowing was always my specialty. Do you see now that we’d make a great team?”

“The two of us a team? From what I can tell, you’re working not with me but against me.”

He was hurt. “It’s not like you’re letting me work with you. Anyway, it’s always good to know as much as possible.”

I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “It’s got nothing to do with you. It’s just that I’m not a team player. I’ve never been one, never wanted to be one, and in my old age have no intention of becoming one.” Then I felt there was no reason not to tell him the whole truth. “Not to mention that the days of small detective agencies are numbered. The only reason I’ve been able to stay above water is that I know everything so well here-the area, the people, their way of life-and because I know to whom I can turn for help, and when. But nowadays that’s not enough. The few cases I still get barely pay for my office. If there were two of us, we wouldn’t be generating any more work.”

He drove along the Luisenpark. The police had gone by now. The lawn, the bushes, and the trees were serene in the gray of dawn.

“Couldn’t you… I don’t know whether you’re not my father or just don’t want to be. I’d like to see a picture of my mother and find out what kind of person she was. And if you’re not my father, then who might be? You must have some notion. I know you want me to leave you alone, but you can’t just pretend I don’t exist, that we don’t exist!”

“We?”

“You don’t have to keep asking the same question. You know what I’m talking about. To you we’re a nuisance. You’d be happiest if we’d all stayed in the East and you would neither see us nor hear another word from us.” He was hurt again. What sensitive little fellows the Stasi recruited!

“That’s not true. I just got back from Cottbus and found it to be a pretty little town. I’m simply not your father. Regardless of where you’re from, I’m not your father. Where are you from?”

“I’m from Prenzlau, north of Berlin.”

I glanced at him sideways. His dutiful, hurt face. His neatly parted hair. His beige anorak. His shining rayon pants and light gray loafers. I’d rather have bought him something to wear than tell him about Klara. But I could see there was no way to avoid it.

“How long will you be in Mannheim? How about dropping by next Sunday? But give me a little space till then.”

He nodded. “Will four o’clock do?”

We agreed on four. We pulled into the Richard-Wagner-Strasse. He got out and hurried over to my side to open the door.

“Thank you.”

“I hope you feel better soon.”

9 Othello

I stayed in bed all day. Turbo curled up on my legs and purred. At noon Brigitte dropped by with some chicken soup. In the evening I got a call from Philipp. His conscience was bothering him that he hadn’t sent me home on Sunday. Had my heart been up to all this? Nägelsbach was doing well enough; I could visit him on Wednesday. It would be good for the three of us to talk. “The police didn’t come by today. Can you imagine us staying out of the fray? I can’t.”

But it seemed that we were staying out of the fray. Welker was the only one questioned by the police. He told them about Gregor Samarin’s Russian origin, his trips to Russia, the six months he spent there, his shady contacts, and his attempts to deposit large amounts of cash at Weller & Welker for supposed Russian investors. The police found the gun with which Gregor had been shot, a Malakov, in a trash can in the Luisenpark near the entrance by Werderstrasse. Samarin was found wearing a straitjacket; he had been shot in the back. An execution. People living near the park had heard shots, car doors slamming, cars driving away-a gang affair.

The Tuesday edition of the Mannheimer Morgen sported the headline EXECUTION IN LUISENPARK, and the Wednesday edition GANG WAR IN MANNHEIM. A few days later the papers wondered whether the Russian Mafia had taken hold in Mannheim ’s and Ludwigshafen ’s underworld. But by then it was only a small item.

Philipp and I sat by Nägelsbach’s hospital bed and were strangely diffident, like boys who played a prank they have gotten away with, but for which someone else had to pay the price. The boys hadn’t intended that. But it was too late to fix things. Probably Welker should be sentenced. Probably Nägelsbach and Philipp should be disciplined. Probably I should be charged with reckless something or other.

“Damn it all!” Philipp said. “In fact, I grow more optimistic every day that the police won’t come looking for us. Today I’m twice as optimistic as I was on Monday, and by tomorrow I’ll be four times as optimistic.” He grinned.

“I’m not sure you’ll see eye-to-eye with me,” Nägelsbach said, looking at us apologetically, “but I don’t want to keep the police out of this. I’ve always been on the level in matters concerning me or the law. It’s true I discussed my cases with Reni, which I shouldn’t have. But she’s discretion personified, and I’ve had a case or two in my time that I couldn’t have cracked without her help. But this is something else. Welker has to be charged. What Samarin did to him is no doubt an extenuating circumstance, but at the end of the day a judge must decide whether Welker is to serve a few years, end up on parole, or be acquitted.”

“What does your wife think?” Philipp asked.

“Her view is…” He blushed. “She says it’s a matter of my soul, that she and I can handle the consequences, and that she’s prepared to go out and work if it comes to that.”

“A matter of your soul?” Philipp said, looking at Nägelsbach as if he had gone mad. “What about my soul?”

Nägelsbach looked at him despondently. “I’ve spent my life making sure that people are called to account for their actions. I can’t suddenly-”

“The law doesn’t expect you to go to the police or see to it that Welker is charged,” I cut in. “You can be on the level with the law if you don’t go.”

“But you know what I mean,” Nägelsbach replied.

Philipp got up, hit his palm against his forehead, and left the room.

Nägelsbach doesn’t play chess, so I had brought along my Othello board game.

“Shall we play?” I asked him.

We sat down and laid out the double-sided pieces along the grid, flipping them from their white sides to their black sides and back. When that game was over, we played a second game in silence, and then another.

“I do see your point,” I told Nägelsbach. “I also see what your wife is saying. There is, by the way, another good reason to go to the police: Do you remember the man who came to your retirement party unannounced and wanted to talk to me? He’s been watching us, and there’s a good chance he might be out to blackmail us-though probably Welker rather than you, Philipp, or me.”

“I don’t remember seeing him at my party,” Nägelsbach said, smiling with a touch of embarrassment. “I admit I had a glass or two too many.”

“Of the three of us, I have the least to lose if you go to the police. Involuntary manslaughter, because we let Welker take Samarin’s pistol. We could explain the sequence of events, though I guess it would sound quite contrived. But unlike you or Philipp, I wouldn’t be facing disciplinary proceedings. Not to mention that for a private investigator our escapade would not generate negative publicity: quite the opposite. For a retired police officer, though, and for a surgeon at the municipal hospital, it’s another matter altogether. So don’t worry on my account. But three of us were involved in this-we planned it, set it up, and carried it out. So it’s only fair that we three come to a decision as to whether we will inform the police or not. I’d say you either have to convince Philipp that that’s the way to go or you’ll have to live with the fact that Welker won’t be charged.”

I waited, but Nägelsbach didn’t say anything. He lay there with his eyes shut.

“As for Welker’s justification for shooting Samarin,” I continued, “I think he’s right: Samarin would never have left him alone. In the long run, neither the police nor the law would have managed to protect Welker from Samarin. There’s no way they could have. You know that as well as I do.”

He slowly opened his eyes. “I’m going to have to give this some thought. I-”

“I want to say one more thing about the soul,” I said. “You won’t compromise your soul if, for once, you aren’t level in a matter concerning you and the law. If you’re always on the level, you don’t need a soul. We have a soul so we can look at ourselves in the mirror, even when we think we can’t. I don’t like corrupt policemen. But I know some who at one time or another didn’t stick to the book, and who then had a rough time of it but got over it, and precisely because of that became fine policemen. Policemen with a lot of soul.”

“I know such policemen, too. But I must admit I always looked down on them a little.” He propped himself up in bed and with a sweeping gesture pointed at the room, the empty space for a second bed, the TV, the telephone, and the flowers, and made a stab at a joke. “You see, I, too, am corruptible. I could never pay for all of this. Welker’s paying.”

10 Like a new case

That evening I sat in my office writing a letter to Vera Soboda, saying that there would be no more money laundering at Weller & Welker; that the bank had been a madhouse in which the patients locked up the doctors and the nurses and were passing themselves off as doctors and nurses; that Samarin, their leader, was dead; and that the institution was once again being run by its doctor, Welker. I liked Nägelsbach’s metaphor.

I found a letter from Welker in the mail. He thanked me with a check for twelve thousand marks. He also invited me to a party the Saturday after next to celebrate his move back to the Gustav Kirchhoff Strasse-it would be a pleasant opportunity for us all to meet again.

I wondered whether I should draw up a detailed invoice for him, as I had promised when I took on the case. I usually also submit a written report to my clients once a case is closed. But was the case closed? My client wasn’t expecting anything more from me. He had thanked me, paid me, and the convivial get-together to which he was inviting me would also serve as a farewell party. As far as he was concerned, the case was closed. But was it, as far as I was concerned?

Who had frightened Schuler to death? Samarin had neither admitted it nor denied it. I couldn’t believe that he got rid of Schuler just because of the money; otherwise, he wouldn’t have mentioned that Schuler taught him to read and write. If Samarin had killed him, or had him killed, there was more behind it than the attaché case with the money. But what? And by what means had Schuler been frightened to death?

Or was I on the wrong track? Could it be that I didn’t want to accept that I was the reason for Schuler’s death? Was I looking for a plot when it was nothing more than Schuler’s infirmity and disorientation, and my slowness to react? A weak constitution, a bad day, a perplexing amount of money-wasn’t that enough to put Schuler into the state he was in when I met him?

I got up and walked over to the window. His Isetta had been parked over there, he had given me the attaché case over there, and then had driven in a long, crooked line across the street and onto the grassy island between the traffic light and the tree. He had died at that tree. The light turned red, yellow, green, and then yellow and red again. I couldn’t take my eyes away: the funeral lights of the teacher Adolf Schuler, retired.

Regardless of whether Samarin had frightened him to death or if his advanced years had gotten him into such a state, I could have saved him but didn’t. I owed him. I couldn’t do anything about his death now. All I could do was to throw light on it. It was like a new case.

Red, yellow, green, yellow, red. I owed it not only to Schuler to clear up his death but also to myself to solve my last case. Which in fact it was: my last case. I hadn’t had one in months when this one came along thanks to a chance encounter on the Hirschhorner Höhe. Perhaps I might be sent out again to investigate people filing false claims for sick leave. But I wouldn’t want to do such a job anymore.

It’s a shame one can’t choose one’s last case. A high point, a finale, one that rounds off with a flourish everything one has achieved. Instead, the last case is as accidental as all the others. That’s how it goes: you do this, you do that, and before you know it, that was your life.

11 A thousand and one reasons

I ran into Philipp in the corridor. “I’d be happy if I didn’t have to go back in there,” he said, nodding toward Nägelsbach’s room.

“Did you get the forensics report?”

“The forensics report?” Then he remembered what I wanted and that the report was lying on his desk. “Come with me.”

Both chairs in front of his desk were heaped high with files and mail, so I sat down on his examination table, as if he were going to come over and tap my knee with a little hammer to check my reflexes. He leafed through the report. “Schuler: chest and stomach crushed, vital organs damaged, neck broken. It was a bad accident.”

“I was with him just minutes before it happened. Something was wrong with him. It was as if someone had frightened the living daylights out of him.”

“Perhaps he was sick. Perhaps he’d taken too many sleeping pills. Perhaps his medications interacted. Perhaps he had an adverse reaction to a new sedative or blood-pressure medication. By God, Gerhard, there are a thousand and one reasons why someone might be in a bad state and have an accident.”

But I just couldn’t believe that Schuler could have taken the wrong blood-pressure medication or too many sleeping pills. He was no fool. The piles of books and folders seemed chaotic but were in meticulous order, and surely his medications would have been, too.

“There’s also the matter of-” Philipp began insistently.

“What if I track down the medications he was taking?” I cut in. “If I locate his doctor, could you give him a call?”

“What could his doctor tell us?”

“I have no idea. Maybe he did prescribe a new medication that backfired. Or maybe Schuler got some pills on his own, and the doctor could confirm that whatever he’d taken interfered with the medication he’d been prescribed. His doctor could even tell us whether he had a strawberry allergy and that someone might have made him eat a strawberry, or that he had asthma and might have had a fatal shock during an attack when he realized that someone had taken away his inhaler. If I know what might have frightened him, I’d have a better chance of finding out who it was.”

“If you come up with something, I’ll see to the rest,” Philipp said, trying his best to appear interested. But something else was preoccupying him. “You’ve got to stop Nägelsbach! You’ve got to stop him before it’s too late. I haven’t told you this, because I don’t believe in counting my chickens before they’re hatched, but I’ve been put forward for the directorship of the surgical department of an absolutely first-rate private clinic. Right now I need disciplinary proceedings like I need a bullet in the head.”

“I thought your retirement was in the works.”

“I’ll be retiring soon enough. But private clinics are more flexible when it comes to retirement age. Tending flowers on my balcony from morning to night and moving my boat around isn’t my cup of tea. And the nurses at the new clinic… Imagine, a chance to start all over again from scratch! And then the thought of working somewhere where Füruzan can’t keep an eye on me and frighten off all the other nurses! I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason I feel like an old circus horse is because Füruzan’s never more than half a step away.”

“I’ve already had a word with Nägelsbach,” I said.

“His soul, his soul… My soul will go to the dogs if I no longer have my hospital!”

He looked at me in utter desperation. What did women find so attractive in Philipp? Was it that when he was in a certain mood, he was in every way totally in it?

“Even if you don’t like the idea of facing Nägelsbach,” I said, “if you want something from him, you’ve got to talk to him yourself.”

“I’m no good at that sort of thing.”

“Give it a try. He’s not stiff-necked-he’s just extremely conscientious. But he’ll take whatever you say very seriously.”

“I’ll make a scene, even if I’d rather not,” Philipp said sadly. “The nurses like it when I start bellowing at them, but Nägelsbach won’t.” He glanced at the clock and got up. “I’ve got to move on. What do you think-will Nägelsbach play along?”

“He’ll either go straight to the police when he’s discharged or he won’t go at all. But before he goes he’ll tell us. You’ll have to wait till he’s discharged.”

Philipp laughed and shook his head as if I ought to know better. “Do you expect me to wait that long?”

12 Traveling

I went to Schwetzingen and knocked on the doors of Schuler’s neighbors, asking them for his niece’s address, until one of them sent me to the Werkstrasse, beyond the railroad tracks.

There the garden gate stood open, and a note on the door said Frau Schubert would be right back. I waited. In the yard across the street some garden gnomes were being given a bath in a zinc tub, plunged into the water dirty sad, emerging happy and clean.

Frau Schubert came riding up on her bicycle.

“Oh, hello! I’ll make us some coffee,” she called out.

I helped her carry her groceries inside. The deliveryman for whom she had left the note on the door appeared, and I carried in the cases of beer, lemonade, and soft drinks that he unloaded at the gate. By the time I finished, the coffee was ready.

Frau Schubert struck me as being a little embarrassed.

“I didn’t remember your name,” she said, “so I couldn’t send you a death notice. Is that why you dropped by? The burial will be next week, on Tuesday.”

I promised her that I would attend, and she invited me to the reception after the service. I told her that I had lent her uncle some books that I needed, and she offered to drive me to his house so I could look for them. As we drove there, she told me about the offer she had gotten for her uncle’s library.

“Imagine. Fifteen thousand marks!”

“Are you his sole heir?” I asked.

“He didn’t have any children, and my cousin died a few years ago in a hang-gliding accident. I’m inheriting his house, though it will need so much work that I’d be very happy to get fifteen thousand for the books.”

I can’t tell what old books are worth, but as I looked around Schuler’s house I saw that he had amassed a rather unusual library. On the one hand, he had collected books about the area between Edingen and Waghäusel, and on the other, books about railways and banks in Baden. I couldn’t imagine that there would be anything published on these topics that wouldn’t be here. Most of the publications were small pamphlets, but there were also thick linen-and leather-bound volumes among them, at times whole series of works from the nineteenth century. About the channeling of the Rhine and the stabilization of its meadows by Major Tulla, the viaducts and tunnels of the railroad of the Odenwald Range, or the river police on the Rhine and the Neckar, from their founding until today. I resisted the temptation to claim as one of the books I’d lent Schuler a volume concerning the details of the construction of the Bismarck Tower on the Heiligenberg.

The cabinet above the sink in the bathroom was packed with medicines: pills for heart and blood pressure, insomnia, headaches, constipation, and diarrhea; pills for strengthening the prostate and calming the vegetative nervous system; ointments for varicose veins and rheumatism; corn plasters and corn scrapers. Many medicines were duplicated, and many had expired. Some of the tubes had dried out, and some of the pills that had once been white were now yellow. I ignored the scrapers, plasters, and ointments, the constipation and diarrhea pills, and the strengthening and invigorating medicines. But I took with me the tranquilizers, the sleeping pills, and the heart and blood-pressure pills-seven in all. The cabinet was still full enough for their absence not to be noticed.

Frau Schubert had opened all the windows and the spring air battled with Schuler’s smell. The kitchen no longer stank of rotting food but of lemony detergent. A sparkling cleanliness had settled in.

“You didn’t find your books?” Frau Schubert said, seeing me come out of the study empty-handed.

“I gave up. Your uncle had too many books.”

She nodded sympathetically, but also with some pride.

“Just like with his medicines,” I added. “He simply had too many. I had to use the bathroom, and noticed it was filled with them.”

“He couldn’t bring himself to throw anything away. And also, he liked those old medicines, the ones that came in little bottles. With his gouty fingers he couldn’t open the new plastic or aluminum packets. I always had to take out the pills and put them in little bottles for him.” She wiped a tear from her eye.

“Who was his doctor?”

“Dr. Armbrust in Luisenstrasse.”

As we walked to the front door we passed the wall where Schuler had hung his photographs. One was of him as a young man with a broad grin standing next to his Isetta, his hand resting on the car like a general’s resting on his map table. We looked at the photographs until Frau Schubert began crying again.

I called Philipp from the phone booth in the Hebelstrasse, the one Welker had not wanted to use. “It’s Dr. Armbrust in the Luisenstrasse in Schwetzingen.”

“Oh, come on, Gerhard.” It was clear I was getting on his nerves. But he gave in. “Okay, I’ll call him right away.”

When I called Philipp back a little while later, he told me that Dr. Armbrust was on vacation for three weeks. “Will you get off my back now?”

“Can’t you call him at home?” I asked. “Who knows whether he’s gone anywhere.”

“You mean-”

“Right away. Yes, call him now.”

Philipp sighed, but he found the number. “Stay on the line; I’ll call him on my cell phone.”

Dr. Armbrust wasn’t at home, either. His housekeeper explained that he’d be traveling till the last day of his vacation.

13 Apple pie and cappuccino

Ulbrich came by on Sunday afternoon. He no longer held my refusal to be his father against me. I once read somewhere that East Germans have a taste for the finer things in life, so on Saturday I had baked an apple pie. He ate a piece with pleasure and asked for some chocolate sprinkles for the whipped cream I had made so he could turn his cup of coffee into a cappuccino. Turbo let Ulbrich cuddle him, and I can’t imagine things having been any cozier back in the old Socialist days.

I had selected some photographs of Klara for him to look at. There are five albums on my shelf: one with pictures of Klara as a baby and little girl with her brother and parents; one with Klara as a beautiful tennis and ski debutante, one devoted to our engagement, marriage, and honeymoon; and one to our last months in Berlin and our first years in Heidelberg. All these albums make me sad. The one that makes me saddest is the last album, of the postwar period and the fifties and sixties. Klara, who had dreamed of a sparkling life at the side of a public prosecutor with a glittering career, and in these dreams had herself glittered and sparkled, had had to readjust her sights to a scrimping reality and had become increasingly bitter. Back then I had held her bitterness and reproaches against her. I simply could no longer be a public prosecutor, first because I was no longer wanted on account of my past in the Third Reich, but also because I resisted, body and soul, acting with my colleagues as if we had no past, even if we were expected to. So I had become a private investigator. Couldn’t she accept that? Couldn’t she love me as I was? I have come to realize that love can be as much a matter of the expression, the laughter, the wit, the intelligence, or the other one’s caring as it can be a matter of his standing in the world and his circumstances. Would she have been a happy mother? After giving birth to Karl-Heinz Ulbrich, she could no longer have children; during his birth something must have gone wrong.

But you couldn’t tell just by looking at her. She was laughing in the photograph of April 1942, which I’d taken outside our house in the Bahnhofstrasse after her so-called Italian trip with Gigi. And again in a picture from June 1941, where she is walking along Unter den Linden and comes across as cheerful. Had the other man taken this picture? I had also brought out a picture from her school days, one from the 1950s where she was finally playing tennis again, since I was once more earning enough, and a picture taken shortly before she died.

Ulbrich looked at the photos slowly, without saying a word. “What did she die of?”

“Cancer.”

He assumed a troubled look and shook his head. “It’s still not fair though. I mean, once a child is born it also has to…” He didn’t continue.

What would I have done if Klara had wanted to keep the child? Had she ever asked herself this and concluded that I couldn’t have handled something like that?

He shook his head again. “It’s all very unfair. What a beautiful woman she was. The man… the man must have also been quite handsome. And take a look at me.” He held his face toward me as if I’d never seen it before. “If you’d been my father, I could understand. But with two such good-looking people…”

I burst out laughing, and he was taken aback. He made himself another cappuccino and had another slice of apple pie.

“I read that article in the Mannheimer Morgen. I must say, your police force goes about things quite casually. Back in the East things would have been done very differently. But perhaps things will be done differently here, too, if someone points the police in the right direction.” His look was no longer sad but defiant, the way he had looked at me when we first met. Could it be that today he wasn’t so disappointed in me because he felt he had the upper hand?

I didn’t say anything.

“You haven’t really done anything. But the other guy, the one from the bank…” He waited, and when I was still silent, he continued feeling his way forward. “I mean, he clearly preferred not to tell the police that he… And I imagine that he’d also prefer that nobody else would tell them that-”

“You would tell them?”

“You needn’t say that so sharply, as if I were some… All I’m saying is, he’d do better not to leave anything to chance. Are you still working for him?”

Did he intend to blackmail Welker?

“Are you in such bad financial shape?” I asked him.

“I-”

“You’d do better to go back where you came from. I’m sure the security network will soon be flourishing there the way it is everywhere else. Firms will be looking for representatives, and insurance companies will be looking for agents who know their way around. There’s nothing for you to gain here. It’ll be your word against ours-how far will you get?”

“My word? What do you think I’m going to say? I was only asking. I mean…” After a while he said quietly: “I tried to get a job as a security guard, and also as an insurance agent, even as a zookeeper. It’s not that easy.”

“That’s a pity.”

He nodded. “There are no free rides anymore.”

After he left I called Welker. I wanted to warn him. Should Ulbrich seek him out, I didn’t want him to find Welker unprepared. “Thank you for informing me,” he said. He took down Ulbrich’s name and address and seemed quite unruffled. “See you next Saturday.”

14 One and one that makes two

The children enjoyed Welker’s party most. They were the right age-Manu and Welker’s son, Max, were a little older than Isabel, Welker’s daughter, and Anne, the daughter of Füruzan’s colleague who had taken part in the operation at the water tower. At first the boys sat at the computer, ignoring the girls, who went to another room and dolled themselves up. Brigitte crinkled her nose-she’d rather have seen them at the computer than falling into the beauty trap. But once the girls were all prettied up the boys forgot about the computer and began to flirt. Manu with Isabel, who had inherited the dark hair and fiery eyes of her mother, and Max with Anne, both blond. The garden was large, and when Brigitte and I took a walk over to the pear tree by the fence, we saw that one of the teen couples was making out on the bench beneath the blackthorn, and the other couple was sitting on the wall by the roses. It was a sweet and innocent sight. Still, Brigitte was worried when it got dark and the children didn’t come to the table that had been set up in the garden, so she went looking for them. They were sitting on the balcony drinking Coca-Cola and eating potato chips and talking about love and death.

The Nägelsbachs were there, along with Philipp and Füruzan, Füruzan’s colleague and her boyfriend, and Brigitte and me. I could see how relieved Philipp was that Nägelsbach had decided not to go to the police. There was also a young woman there whom Welker introduced as Max’s teacher at the Kurfürst-Friedrich Gymnasium and on whom he lavished as much attention as a young widower with two children could afford to. I’ve forgotten who the other guests were. They were Welker’s neighbors and friends, or acquaintances from his tennis club.

At first the conversation was a little stiff, but the awkwardness quickly evaporated. The wine, a chardonnay from the Palatine, went down so easily, the food was so simple and convincing-from thick green spelt soup and Victoria perch to blackberry trifle-and the glow of candles was so cozy. Welker gave a little speech; he was happy to be reunited with his children. He thanked the water tower commandos-though he preferred not to touch on why he had been away or what he was thanking us for. But everyone was pleased.

It grew cooler, and a fireplace was glowing inside the house.

“Shall we go for a stroll in the garden before we go inside?” Welker said, taking me aside.

We crossed the lawn and sat down on a bench beneath the blackthorn.

“I’ve thought a lot about Gregor Samarin-and us Welkers, too. We took him in, but everything we gave him was like a handout. Because we gave, we also expected his services. When I was a boy I had the room in the attic, while his room was in the cellar so he could take care of the central heating, which back then still ran on coal, not oil.” He slowly shook his head. “I’ve been trying to remember when I first realized that he hated me. I can’t recall. Back then it simply didn’t interest me, which is why I can’t remember.” He looked at me. “Isn’t that terrible?”

I nodded.

“I know that shooting him was even worse,” Welker continued. “But somehow it’s terrible in the same way. Do you know what I mean? What happened in our childhood bore fruit, as the Bible says. In his case, it was murdering my wife and everything else he did, and in my case, that I could only save myself from him the way I did.”

“He told me he liked your wife.”

“He liked Stephanie the way a servant might like the daughter of a master he hates. At the end of the day her place is on the other side, and when the chips are down, that’s all that matters. When Stephanie confronted him, the chips were down.”

The lights went on in the house and their glow fell on the lawn. It remained dark beneath the blackthorn. Someone put on a Hildegard Knef record: “One and One That Makes Two.” I wanted to take Brigitte in my arms and dance a waltz. “As for Stephanie,” he continued, “I don’t know where it was that they… Were they waiting for her up at the hut? I have no idea how they could have followed us without our noticing. We thought we were alone.” He pressed his hands against his eyes and sighed. “I still can’t rid myself of this nightmare. And yet all I want is to wake up and put it all behind me.”

I felt sorry for him. At the same time, I didn’t really want to hear what he was telling me. I wasn’t his friend. I had completed the case he had hired me for. I now had another case.

“What did you talk about with Schuler the evening you went to see him?” I asked.

“Schuler…” If I had hurt him by the abrupt change of topic, he showed no sign. “Gregor and I went to see him together. He told us about his work with the files and about the Strasbourg lead concerning the silent partner, which you later followed. Otherwise…”

“Did you ask him for the money? The money in the attaché case?”

“He talked about it, but back then I wasn’t quite sure what it was all about. Schuler said that a person becomes suspicious when he finds money in a cellar and starts wondering whom it might belong to, knowing that no good comes of evil, and had we forgotten that? He was looking at Gregor when he said it.”

“What did you-”

“I wasn’t there the whole time. I had… I had diarrhea and kept having to go to the toilet. Schuler must have found the money Gregor had stashed away in a part of the old cellar, where he had no business being. He put two and two together and suspected Gregor, because I am a Welker and Gregor doesn’t belong to the family. He wanted to get his former pupil back on the straight and narrow.” Welker laughed with a touch of mockery and sadness. “I suppose you’ll also want to know what state Schuler was in. He smelled bad, but he was fine. Furthermore, he didn’t make any threats. He didn’t even say that he had the money. Gregor found that out the next day.”

Hildegard Knef’s song had ended. I heard applause, laughter, voices, and then the song was played again, louder this time. If I couldn’t take part in the dancing, I’d at least have liked to sing along: “God in Heaven is all-seeing, he’s seen right through you, there’s no point in fleeing.”

Welker laid his hand on my knee. “I won’t ever forget what you did for me. One day, thank God, the memories of the last few months will pale. Until now the good things that have happened to me have remained clearer in my mind than the bad, and what you did for me as my private investigator was a good thing.” He got up. “Shall we go inside?”

When Hildegard Knef sang the song for a third time, I danced with Brigitte.