Self's Punishment

1 Korten summons me

At the beginning I envied him. That was at high school. The Friedrich Wilhelm in Berlin. I was getting the last bit of wear out of my father’s old suits, had no friends, and couldn’t pull myself up on the horizontal bar. He was top of the class, in P.E. too, was invited to every birthday party, and when the teachers called him Mr Korten in class, they meant it. Sometimes his father’s chauffeur collected him in the Mercedes. My father worked for the state railway and in 1934 had just been transferred from Karlsruhe to Berlin.

Korten can’t stand inefficiency. In gym, he taught me how to do the upward circle forwards and the full-turn circle. I admired him. He also showed me what makes girls tick. I trotted along dumbly at the side of the little girl who lived on the floor below and attended the Luisen, just opposite the Friedrich Wilhelm, and gazed adoringly at her. Korten kissed her in the cinema.

We became friends – studied together, national economy for him, law for me – and I was in and out of the villa at Wannsee. When his sister Klara and I got married, he was our witness, and presented me with the desk that is still in my office today, heavy oak, with carved detail and brass knobs.

I hardly work there these days. My profession keeps me on the move, and when I drop in to the office briefly in the evenings, my desk isn’t piled high with files. Only the answering machine awaits, its small window letting me know how many messages I have. Then I sit in front of the empty surface and, fiddling with a pencil, listen to what I should take on and what I should avoid, what I should sink my teeth into and what I shouldn’t lay a finger on. I don’t like getting my fingers burnt. But they can just as easily get jammed in the drawer of a desk you haven’t looked in for a long time.

The war was over in five weeks for me. A wound that got me home. Three months later they’d patched me together again, and I completed my legal clerkship. In 1942, when Korten started at the Rhineland Chemical Works in Ludwigshafen and I began at the public prosecutor’s office in Heidelberg, we shared a hotel room for a few weeks before we found our own apartments. The year 1945 saw the end of my career as a prosecutor in Heidelberg, and he was the one who got me the first cases in the financial world. Then he began his rise, and he didn’t have much time, and Klara’s death heralded an end to the Christmas and birthday visits. We move in different circles and I read about him more often than I see him. Sometimes we bump into each other at a concert or a play and we get on. Well, we’re old friends.

Then… I remember the morning clearly. The world was at my feet. My rheumatism was at bay, I had a clear head, and I looked young in my new blue suit – I thought so anyway. The wind wasn’t carrying the familiar chemical odour in the direction of Mannheim, but towards the Pfalz. The baker at the corner had chocolate croissants and I was having breakfast on the pavement in the sun. A young woman was walking along Mollstrasse, drew closer and grew prettier, and I put my disposable container on the window sill and followed her. A few steps later, I was in front of my office in the Augusta-Anlage.

I am proud of my office. I’ve had smoked glass put in the door and windows of this former tobacco shop, and on the door in elegant golden letters:

‘Gerhard Self – Private Investigations’.

There were two messages on the machine. The company chairman of Goedecke needed a report. I’d proved his brand manager guilty of fraud, but the manager had contested his dismissal before the labour court. The other message was Frau Schlemihl from the Rhineland Chemical Works requesting her call be returned.

‘Good morning, Frau Schlemihl. Self here. You wanted to talk to me?’

‘Hello, Doctor Self. General Director Korten would like to see you.’ No one apart from Frau Schlemihl addresses me as ‘Doctor’. Since I stopped being a public prosecutor, I’ve not used my title. A private detective with a Ph.D. is ridiculous. But being the good personal assistant Frau Schlemihl is, she’s never forgotten Korten’s introduction when we first met at the beginning of the 1950s.

‘What about?’

‘He would like to tell you over lunch at the executive restaurant. Is twelve-thirty convenient?’

2 In the Blue Salon

In Mannheim and Ludwigshafen we live beneath the gaze of the Rhineland Chemical Works. It was founded in 1872, seven years after the Baden Aniline and Soda Factory, by Professor Demel and Entzen, His Excellency, both chemists. The Works have grown since then, and grown and grown. Today they encompass a third of the developed land of Ludwigshafen and boast around a hundred thousand employees. In collaboration with the wind, the rhythm of RCW production determines whether the region, and which part, will reek of chlorine, sulphur, or ammonia.

The executive restaurant is situated outside the grounds of the plant and enjoys its own fine reputation. Besides the large restaurant for middle management, there is a separate area for directors with several salons still decorated in the colours that Demel and Entzen synthesized in their early successes. And a bar.

I was still standing there at one. I’d been informed at reception that the general director would unfortunately be somewhat delayed. I ordered my second Aviateur.

‘Campari, grapefruit juice, champagne, a third of each.’ The red-haired, freckled girl helping out behind the bar today was happy to learn something new.

‘You’re doing a great job,’ I said.

She looked at me sympathetically. ‘The general director’s keeping you waiting?’

I’d waited in worse places, in cars, doorways, corridors, hotel lobbies, and railway stations. Here I stood beneath gilded stucco and a gallery of oil portraits where Korten’s face would hang one day.

‘My dear Self,’ he said, approaching. Small and wiry, with alert blue eyes, grey crew-cut, and the leathery brown skin you get from too much sport in the sun. In a band with Richard von Weizsäcker, Yul Brynner, and Herbert von Karajan he could take the Badenweiler, Hitler’s favourite march, play it in swing, and he’d have a worldwide hit.

‘Sorry to be so late. You’re still at it, the smoking and the drinking?’ He frowned at my pack of Sweet Aftons. ‘Bring me an Apollinaris! How are you?’

‘Fine. I’m taking it a little slower these days, not surprising at sixty-eight. I don’t take every job any more and in a couple of weeks I’ll be sailing the Aegean. And you’re not relinquishing the helm yet?’

‘I’d like to. But it’ll take another year or two before anyone can replace me. We’re going through a sticky patch.’

‘Should I sell?’ I was thinking of my ten RCW shares deposited at the Baden Civil Servants’ Bank.

‘No, my dear Self,’ he laughed. ‘In the end these difficult phases always turn out to be a blessing for us. But still there are things that worry us, long term and short term. It’s a short-term problem I wanted to see you about today and then put you together with Firner. You remember him?’

I remembered him well. A couple of years ago Firner had been made director, but for me he’d always remain Korten’s bright-eyed assistant. ‘Is he still wearing Harvard Business School ties?’

Korten didn’t respond. He looked reflective, as though considering whether to introduce a company tie. He took my arm. ‘Let’s go to the Blue Salon. It’s ready.’

The Blue Salon is the best the RCW has to offer its guests. An art-deco room, with table and chairs by van de Velde, a Mackintosh lamp, and on the wall an industrial landscape by Kokoschka. Two places were set. When we were seated a waiter brought a fresh salad.

‘I’ll stick to my Apollinaris. I’ve ordered a Château de Sannes for you. You like that, don’t you? And after the salad a Tafelspitz?’

My favourite dish. How nice of Korten to think of it. The meat was tender, the horseradish sauce without a heavy roux, but rich with cream. Korten’s lunch ended with the crunchy salad. While I was eating, he got down to business.

‘I’m not going to get well acquainted with computers at this point. When I see the young people sent to us from university these days, who take no responsibility and are incapable of making decisions without consulting the oracle I think of the poem about the sorcerer’s apprentice. I was almost glad to hear the system was acting up. We have one of the best management and business information systems in the world. I’ve no idea who’d want to know, but you could find out on the terminal that we’re having Tafelspitz and salad in the Blue Salon today, which employees are currently training on the tennis court, which marriages among the staff are intact and which are floundering, and at what intervals which flowers are planted in the flowerbeds in front of the restaurant. And of course the computer has a record of everything that was previously housed in the files of payroll, personnel, and so on.’

‘And how can I help you with this?’

‘Patience, my dear Self. We were promised one of the safest possible systems. That means passwords, entry codes, data locks, Doomsday effects, and what have you. All of this is supposed to ensure no one can tamper with our system. But what’s happened is just that.’

‘My dear Korten…’ Addressing each other by our surname, a habit from schooldays, is something we’d held on to, even as best friends. But ‘my dear Self ’ annoys me, and he knows it. ‘My dear Korten, as a boy even the abacus overwhelmed me. And now I’m supposed to tinker about with passwords, entry codes, and data what-do-you-call-them?’

‘No. All the computer business is sorted out. If I understand Firner correctly, there’s a list of people who could have created the mess in our system. Our sole concern is finding the right one. That’s exactly where you come into it. Investigate, observe, shadow, ask pertinent questions – the usual.’

I wanted to know more, but he fended me off.

‘I’m none the wiser myself. Firner will go into it with you. Let’s not spend all of lunch talking about this miserable situation – there’s been so little opportunity to meet since Klara’s death.’

So we talked about the old days: ‘Do you remember?’ I don’t like the old times, I’ve packed them away and put a lid on them. I should have sat up and paid attention when Korten was talking about the sacrifices we’d had to make and ask for. But it didn’t occur to me until much later.

So far as the current day went we had little to say to each other. I wasn’t surprised his son had become a member of parliament – he had always seemed precocious. Korten seemed to hold him in contempt but was all the prouder of his grandchildren. Marion had been accepted into the Student Foundation of the German People, Ulrich had won a ‘Young Research’ prize with an essay about the twinning of prime numbers. I could have told him about my tomcat, Turbo, but let it go.

I drained my mocha, and Korten officially ended the meal. The restaurant supervisor bid us farewell. We set off for the Works.

3 Like getting a medal

It was only a few steps away. The restaurant is opposite Gate 1, in the shadow of the main administrative building, a twentyfloor banality that doesn’t even dominate the skyline.

The directors’ elevator only has push-buttons for floors fifteen to twenty. The general director’s office is on the twentieth floor, and my ears popped on the way up. In the outer office Korten entrusted me to Frau Schlemihl, who announced my arrival to Firner. A handshake, my hand clasped in both of his, an ‘old friend’ instead of ‘my dear Self ’ – then he was gone. Frau Schlemihl, Korten’s secretary since the fifties, has paid for his success with an unlived life, has faded elegantly, eats cakes, wears a pair of unused spectacles round her neck on a thin gold chain. She was busy. I stood at the window and looked out over the jumble of towers, sheds and pipes to the trading port and to a hazy Mannheim. I like industrial landscapes and would be hard pressed to choose between the romance of industry and the forest idyll.

Frau Schlemihl interrupted my idle musings. ‘Doctor Self, may I introduce you to our Frau Buchendorff? She runs Director Firner’s office.’

I turned around. There stood a tall, slim woman of about thirty. She wore her dark-blonde hair up, which lent her youthful face with its rounded cheeks and full lips an air of experienced competence. Her silk blouse was missing the top button, and the one below was open. Frau Schlemihl looked on disapprovingly.

‘Hello, Doctor.’ Frau Buchendorff reached out her hand and looked at me squarely with her green eyes.

I liked her gaze. Women only become beautiful when they look me in the eye. There’s promise in such looks, even if it’s a promise not kept, nor even proffered.

‘May I take you through to Director Firner?’ She preceded me through the door, with a pretty swing to her hips and bottom. Delightful that tight skirts are back in fashion.

Firner’s office was on the nineteenth floor. At the elevator I said to her, ‘Let’s take the stairs.’

‘You don’t look like my idea of a private detective.’

I’d heard this often enough. In the meantime I know how people imagine private detectives. Not only younger. ‘You should see me in my trench coat.’

‘I meant it in a positive way. The guy in the trench coat would have his work cut out for him with the dossier Firner’s going to give you.’

Firner, she’d said. Was she involved with him?

‘You know what it’s all about, then?’

‘I’m one of the suspects even. In the last quarter the computer paid five hundred marks too much into my account each month. And via my terminal I do have access to the system.’

‘Have you had to pay the money back?’

‘I’m not the only one. Fifty-seven colleagues are affected and the firm is considering whether to ask for it back.’

In her office she pressed the intercom. ‘Director, Herr Self is here.’

Firner had put on weight. The tie was now from Yves Saint-Laurent. His walk and movements were still nimble, and his handshake hadn’t grown any firmer. On his desk lay a bulging folder.

‘Greetings, Herr Self. It’s good that you’re taking this on. We thought it best to prepare a dossier with the details. By now we’re certain we’re dealing with targeted acts of sabotage. We have managed to limit the material damage thus far. But we have to reckon with new surprises at any time and can’t rely on any information.’

I looked at him enquiringly.

‘Let’s start with the rhesus monkeys. Our long-distance correspondence, unless it’s urgent, is saved in the word-processing system and the fax is sent out when the cheaper night rate applies. That’s how we deal with our Indian orders, for example, and every half-year our research department requires around one hundred rhesus monkeys with an export licence from the Indian Ministry for Trade. Two weeks ago, instead of a hundred, an order went out for a hundred thousand monkeys. Luckily the Indians thought this odd and double-checked with us.’

I imagined 100,000 rhesus monkeys at large in the plant, and grinned.

Firner gave a pained smile. ‘Yes, well, the whole thing does have its comic aspects. The mix-up with the tennis court bookings caused a lot of amusement too. Now we have to check every fax one last time before it’s sent out.’

‘How do you know it wasn’t just a typo?’

‘The secretary who wrote the message gave a printout of it as usual to the responsible party to have it proofed and initialled. The printout contains the correct number. So the fax was tampered with while it was in the queue on the hard-drive waiting to be sent. We’ve also examined the other cases in the dossier and can discount errors of programming or data gathering.’

‘Good, I can read about that in the file. Tell me something about the circle of suspects.’

‘We approached that in a conventional way. Among the employees who have right of access or access possibilities we eliminated those who’ve proven their worth here for more than five years. As the first incident occurred seven months ago, we can also discount all those who were only employed after that time. In some cases we could reconstruct what happened the day the system was meddled with; for example, the day of the fax message. Those absent that day are scored off. Then we examined virtually all input on a selection of terminals over a specific period of time and dug up nothing. And finally,’ he smiled smarmily, ‘we can rule out the directors.’

‘How many does that leave?’ I asked.

‘A good hundred.’

‘Then I’ve got years of work. And what about outsider hackers? You read about stuff like that.’

‘We were able to eliminate that with the help of the telecom office. You speak of years – we can see it’s not an easy case. And yet time is pressing. The whole thing isn’t just a nuisance: with all the business and production secrets we have in the computer, it’s dangerous. It’s as though, in the midst of battle-’ Firner is a reserve officer.

‘Forget the battles,’ I interrupted. ‘When would you like the first report?’

‘I’d like you to keep me constantly up to date. You can avail yourself of the men from security, from the computer centre and the personnel department, call on their time as you like. I needn’t tell you that we ask for utmost discretion. Frau Buchendorff, is Herr Self ’s ID ready?’ he asked over the intercom.

She entered the room and handed Firner a piece of plastic the size of a credit card.

Firner came round the desk. ‘We took a colour photo of you as you entered the administration building and scanned it in straight away,’ he said proudly. ‘With this ID you can come and go in the complex as you please.’

He attached the card with its plastic clip to my lapel.

It was just like getting a medal. I almost felt obliged to click my heels.

4 Turbo catches a mouse

I spent the evening hunched over the dossier. A tough nut to crack. I tried to recognize a structure in the cases, a pattern to the incursions into the system. The culprit, or culprits, had managed to worm their way into payroll. For months they’d transferred 500 marks too much to the executive assistants, among them Frau Buchendorff, had doubled the vacation benefits of the low-wage groups, and deleted all salary account numbers beginning with a 13. They had meddled with intra-company communication, channelled confidential messages at the directors’ level to the press department, and suppressed the automatic reminders of employees’ anniversaries of service that were distributed to department heads at the beginning of the month. The programme for tennis court allocation and reservation confirmed all requests for the Friday most in demand so that one Friday in May, 108 players assembled on the sixteen courts. On top of that there was the rhesus monkey story. I could understand Firner’s pained smile. The damages, around five million, could be handled by an enterprise as large as the RCW. But whoever had done it was able to saunter through the company’s management and business information system at will.

It was getting dark. I turned on the light, switched it off and on a couple of times, but, although it was binary, no deeper revelation about electronic data processing came to me. I pondered whether any of my friends understood computers, and noticed how old I was. There was an ornithologist, a surgeon, a chess grandmaster, the odd legal eagle or two, all gentlemen of advanced years to whom the computer was, as for me, a terra incognita. I reflected on what sort of person it is who can work with, and likes, computers, and about the perpetrator of my case – that it was a single perpetrator was becoming pretty clear.

Belated schoolboy’s tricks? A gambler, a puzzle-lover, a joker, pulling the leg of the RCW in grand style? Or a blackmailer, a cool-headed type, effortlessly showing that he was capable of bigger coups? Or a political statement? The public would react negatively if this measure of chaos came to light with a business that handled highly toxic material. But no. The political activist would have thought out different incidents. And the blackmailer could long since have struck.

I shut the window. The wind had changed.

I wanted to talk to Danckelmann, the head of Works security first thing in the morning. Then on to the files of the hundred suspects in the personnel office. Although I was hardly hopeful that the trickster I had in mind would be recognizable from his personnel files. The thought of having to examine one hundred suspects by the book filled me with utter horror. I hoped that word of my hiring would get around and provoke some incidents through which the circle of suspects could be narrowed.

It wasn’t a great case. It only struck me now that Korten hadn’t even asked whether I wanted to take it on. And that I hadn’t told him I’d think it over first.

The cat was scratching at the balcony door. I opened up and Turbo laid a mouse at my feet. I thanked him, and went to bed.

5 With Aristotle, Schwarz, Mendeleyev, and Kekulé

With my special ID I easily found a parking place for my old Opel at the Works. A young security guard took me to his boss.

It was written all over Danckelmann’s face that he was unhappy about not being a real policeman, let alone a proper secret serviceman. It’s the same with all Works security people. Before I could even start asking my questions he told me that the reason he’d left the army was because it was too wishywashy for him.

‘I was impressed by your report,’ I said. ‘You imply there could be hassle from communists and ecologists?’

‘It’s hard to get your hands on the guys. But if you put two and two together, you know which way the wind is blowing. I have to tell you that I don’t quite understand why they brought you in from outside. We’d have managed to sort it out ourselves.’

His assistant entered the room. Thomas, when he was introduced to me, seemed competent, intelligent, and efficient. I understood why Danckelmann could hold sway as head of security. ‘Have you anything to add to the report, Herr Thomas?’

‘You should know that we’re not simply going to leave the field open for you. No one is better suited than us to catch the perpetrator.’

‘And how do you intend to do that?’

‘I don’t have the least intention of telling you that, Herr Self.’

‘Yes, you do. Don’t force me to point out the details of my assignment and the powers conferred on me.’ You have to get formal with people like that.

Thomas would have remained resolute. But Danckelmann interrupted. ‘It’s okay, Heinz. Firner called this morning and told us to offer unconditional cooperation.’

Thomas made an effort. ‘We’ve been thinking about setting a trap with the help of the computer centre. We’ll inform all system users about the provision of a new, strictly confidential and, this is the decisive point, absolutely secure data file. This file for saving specially classified data is empty, however, it doesn’t exist, to be precise, because no data will be entered. I’d be surprised if the announcement of this absolute security doesn’t challenge the perpetrator to prove his ability by infiltrating the data file. As soon as it’s entered, the central computer will show the coordinates of the user and our case is over.’

That sounded easy. ‘So why are you doing it only now?’

‘The whole story didn’t interest a soul until one or two weeks ago. And besides,’ his brow furrowed, ‘we here at security aren’t the first to be informed. You know, security is still regarded as a collection of retired, or even worse, fired policemen who might be capable of setting an Alsatian on someone climbing over the fence, but who have nothing in their heads. Yet these days we’re pros in all questions of company security, from the protection of objects to the protection of people, and data. We’re currently setting up a course at the technical college in Mannheim which will offer certification in security studies. In this, as ever, the Americans are-’

‘Ahead,’ I finished. ‘When will the trap be ready?’

‘This is Thursday. The head of the computer centre wants to see to it himself over the weekend, and on Monday morning the users are to be informed.’

The prospect of wrapping the case up on Monday was enticing, even if the success wouldn’t be mine. But in a world of certified security guards guys like me don’t have much of a place anyway.

I didn’t want to give up immediately, however, and asked, ‘In the dossier I found a list with around a hundred suspects. Does security have any further information on one or another of them, something that’s not in the report?’

‘It’s good that you mention that, Herr Self,’ said Danckelmann. He heaved himself up from his office chair and as he came over to me I noticed he walked with a limp. He followed my gaze. ‘Vorkuta. In nineteen forty-five, age eighteen, I was taken to a Russian prisoner-of-war camp. Came back in fiftythree. Without old Adenauer I’d still be there. But to return to your question. We are in fact privy to some information about the suspects that we didn’t want to include in the report. There are a couple of political cases that the Secret Service keeps us up to date on. And a few with problems in their private life – wives, debt, and so on.’

He rolled off eleven names. As we worked through them I quickly gathered that the so-called political ones concerned only the usual trifles: signed the wrong leaflet as a student, stood as candidate for the wrong group, marched at the wrong demonstration. I found it interesting that Frau Buchendorff was among them. Along with other women she had handcuffed herself to the railings in front of the house of the Minister for Family Affairs.

‘Why were they doing it?’ I asked Danckelmann.

‘That’s something the Secret Service didn’t tell us. After divorcing her husband, who apparently coerced her into such things, she stopped attracting attention. But I always say, whoever was political once can’t shake it off from one day to the next.’

The most interesting person was on the list of ‘Losers’, as Danckelmann called them. A chemist, Frank Schneider, mid-forties, divorced several times. A passionate gambler. He’d grown conspicuous when he started going to the wages office too often to ask for advances.

‘How did you latch on to him?’ I asked.

‘It’s standard procedure. As soon as someone asks for an advance a third time, we take a look at him.’

‘And what does that mean exactly?’

‘It can, as in this case, involve going so far as shadowing a person. If you want to know, you can talk to Herr Schmalz, who did it at the time.’

I had a message sent to Schmalz that I’d expect him for lunch at twelve noon at the restaurant. I was about to add that I’d be waiting for him by the maple at the entrance, but Danckelmann brushed me aside. ‘Leave it. Schmalz is one of our best. He’ll find you all right.’

‘Here’s to teamwork,’ said Thomas. ‘You won’t hold it against me that I’m a bit sensitive when our responsibility for security is removed. And you are from the outside. But I have enjoyed our pleasant chat, and’ – he laughed disarmingly – ‘our information on you is excellent.’

On leaving the redbrick building where security was housed, I lost all sense of direction. Maybe I used the wrong stairs. I was standing in a yard along the lengths of which the company security vehicles were parked, painted blue with the company logo on the doors, the silver benzene ring and in it the letters RCW. The entrance at the gable end was fashioned as a portal with two sandstone pillars and four sandstone medallions from which, blackened and mournful, Aristotle, Schwarz, Mendeleyev, and Kekulé regarded me. Apparently I was standing in front of the former chief administration building. I left the yard, and came to another, its façades completely covered with Virginia creeper. It was oddly quiet; my footsteps resounded exaggeratedly on the cobblestones. The buildings appeared to be disused. When something struck my back I whirled around in fright. In front of me a garishly bright ball gave a few more bounces and a young boy came racing after it. I retrieved the ball and approached the boy. Now I could make out the windows with net curtains in the corner of the yard, behind a rosebush, next to the open door. The boy took the ball from my hands, said ‘thank you’, and ran into the house. On the nameplate by the door I recognized the name Schmalz. An elderly woman was looking at me suspiciously, and shut the door. Again it was absolutely quiet.

6 A veal ragout on a bed of mixed greens

When I entered the restaurant, a small, thin, pale, black-haired man addressed me. ‘Herr Self?’ he lisped. ‘Schmalz here.’

My offer of an aperitif was declined. ‘No thank you, I don’t drink alcohol.’

‘And what about a fruit juice?’ I didn’t want to forgo my Aviateur.

‘I have to be back at work at one. Happy if we could directly… Little to report anyway.’

The answer was elliptical, but without sibilants. Had he learned to eradicate all ‘s’ and ‘z’ words from his working vocabulary?

The lady at the reception area rang the bell for service, and the girl I’d seen serving at the directors’ bar took us up to the large dining hall on the first floor to a window table.

‘You know how I love to begin a meal?’

‘I’ll see to it straight away,’ she smiled.

To the headwaiter Schmalz gave an order for ‘A veal ragout on a bed of mixed greens, if you would.’ I was in the mood for sweet and sour pork Szechuan. Schmalz eyed me enviously. We both passed on the soup, for different reasons.

Over my Aviateur I asked about the results of the investigation of Schneider. Schmalz reported extremely precisely, avoiding all sibilants. A lamentable man, that Schneider. After a row over his demand for an advance, Schmalz had tailed him for several days. Schneider gambled not only in Bad Dürkheim but also in private backrooms and was accordingly entangled. When his creditors had him beaten up, Schmalz intervened and brought Schneider home, not seriously injured, but quite distraught. The time had come for a chat between Schneider and his superior. An arrangement was entered into: Schneider, indispensable as a pharmaceutical researcher, was removed from work for three months and sent to a clinic, and the relevant circles were informed that they were not to allow Schneider to gamble any more. The security unit of the RCW used its influence around Mannheim and Ludwigshafen.

‘A good three-year gap while the guy lay low. But in my opinion he remained a ticking bomb, even ticking today.’

The food was excellent. Schmalz ate his at a rush. He didn’t leave a single grain of rice on his plate – the obsessive behavior of the food neurotic. I asked what, in his opinion, should be done with whoever was behind the computer shambles.

‘Above all, interrogate him thoroughly. And then make him get in line. He can’t be a threat to the plant any more. Bright guy. He could…’

He flailed around for a non-sibilant synonym for certainly or surely. I offered him a Sweet Afton.

‘Prefer my own,’ he said, and took a brown plastic box from his pocket containing homemade filter cigarettes. ‘Made by my wife, no more than eight a day.’

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s homemade cigarettes. They are way up there with crocheted modesty covers for toilet paper. The mention of his wife reminded me of the janitor’s apartment with the nameplate ‘Schmalz’.

‘You have a young son?’

He looked at me guardedly and deflected the question with a ‘Meaning what?’

I told him about how I’d lost my way in the old factory, of the enchanted atmosphere of the overgrown yard and the encounter with the little boy with the brightly coloured ball. Schmalz relaxed and confirmed that his father lived in the janitor’s flat.

‘Member of our unit, too. The general and he knew one another well from the war. Now he… keeping an eye on the old plant… In the morning we take the boy to him, my wife being an employee here in the company, too.’

I learned that lots of the security people had lived in the compound and Schmalz had more or less grown up there. He’d been through the rebuilding of the Works after the war and knew its every corner. I found the idea of a life spent between refineries, reactors, distilleries, turbines, silos, and tankers, for all its industrial romance, oppressive.

‘Didn’t you ever want to look for a job beyond the RCW?’

‘Couldn’t do that to my father. His motto: we belong here. Did the general throw in the towel? No, nor do we.’ He looked at his watch and leapt up. ‘Too bad, can’t linger. Am on personal security’ – words he spoke almost error free – ‘duty at one o’clock. Kind of you to invite…’

My afternoon in the personnel office was unproductive. At four o’clock I conceded I could quit studying the personnel files once and for all. I stopped by to see Frau Buchendorff, whose first name I now knew to be Judith, also that she was thirty-three, had a degree in German and English, and hadn’t found a job as a teacher. She’d been at the RCW for four years, first in the archives, then in the PR department where she’d come to Firner’s attention. She lived in Rathenaustrasse.

‘Please don’t get up,’ I said. She stopped feeling for her shoes with her feet under the table, and offered me a coffee. ‘I’d love one. Then we can drink to being neighbours. I’ve read your personnel file and know almost everything about you, apart from how many silk blouses you own.’ She was wearing another one, this time buttoned up to the top.

‘If you’re coming to the reception on Saturday, you’ll see the third one. Have you received your invitation already?’ She slid a cup over to me and lit a cigarette.

‘What reception?’ I peered at her legs.

‘We’ve had a delegation from China here since Monday, and as a finale we want to show them that not only our plants, but also our buffets are better than the French. Firner thought it would be a chance for you to get to know a couple of people of interest to your case, informally.’

‘Shall I also have the chance to get to know you informally?’

She laughed. ‘I’m there for the Chinese. But there is one Chinese woman, I haven’t figured out what she’s in charge of. Perhaps she’s a security expert, who wouldn’t be introduced as such, so a kind of colleague of yours. A pretty woman.’

‘You’re trying to fob me off, Frau Buchendorff! I shall have to lodge a complaint with Firner.’ Scarcely had the words left my lips than I regretted them. An old man’s hackneyed charm.

7 A little glitch

The next day the air lay thick over Mannheim and Ludwigshafen. It was so muggy that, even without moving, my clothes stuck to my body. Driving was staccato and hectic, I could have used three feet to work the clutch, the brake, and the gas pedal. Everything was clogged on the Konrad Adenauer Bridge. There’d been a collision, and immediately after it another one. I was stuck in a traffic jam for twenty minutes. I watched the oncoming traffic and the trains, and smoked to avoid suffocating.

The appointment with Schneider was at half past nine. The doorman at Gate 1 told me the way. ‘It’s not even five minutes. Go straight on, and when you come to the Rhine it’s another hundred metres to your left. The laboratories are in the light-coloured building with the large windows.’

I set off. Down at the Rhine I saw the small boy I’d met yesterday. He’d tied a piece of string to his little bucket and was ladling water out of the Rhine with it. He emptied the water down the drain.

‘I’m emptying the Rhine,’ he called, when he recognized me.

‘I hope it works.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m going to the laboratories over there.’

‘Can I come with you?’

He shook out his little bucket and came. Children often attach themselves to me, I don’t know why. I don’t have any, and most of them get on my nerves.

‘Come on then,’ I said, and we made our way together to the building with the large windows.

We were about fifty metres away when several people in white coats came rushing out of the entrance. They raced along the banks of the Rhine. Then there were more, not only in white coats, but also in blue overalls, and secretaries in skirts and blouses. It was an odd spectacle, and I didn’t see how anyone could run in this heat.

‘Look, he’s waving at us,’ the little boy said, and indeed one of the white-coats was flailing his arms and shouting something at us I couldn’t understand. But I didn’t have to understand; it was obviously about getting away as quickly as possible.

The first explosion sent a cascade of glass shards raining down the road. I grabbed the little boy’s hand, but he tore loose. For a moment it was as though I were paralysed: I didn’t feel any injury, heard a deep silence in spite of the continuing rattle of glass, saw the boy running, skidding on the glass shards, regaining his balance then finally falling two steps later and somersaulting forward from the impetus of movement.

Then came the second explosion, the scream of the little boy, the pain in my right arm. The bang was followed by a violent, dangerous, evil-sounding hissing. A noise that struck panic into me.

It was the sirens in the distance that made me act. They awakened reflexes inculcated in the war to flee, to help, to seek cover, and give protection. I ran to the boy, tugged him to his feet with my left hand, and dragged him in the direction we’d just come from. His little legs couldn’t keep up, but he pedalled his feet in the air and didn’t let go. ‘Come on, little one, run, we’ve got to get out of here, don’t slow down.’ Before we turned the corner I looked back. Where we’d been standing a green cloud was rising into the leaden sky.

In vain I waved at the ambulance tearing past. At Gate 1 the guard took care of us. He knew the little boy, who was clinging tightly to my hand, pale, scratched, and frightened.

‘Richard, in the name of God what happened? I’ll call your grandfather right away.’ He went over to the phone. ‘And I’ll call the medics for you. That doesn’t look good.’

A splinter of glass had torn open my arm and the blood was staining red the sleeve of my light-coloured jacket. I felt dizzy. ‘Do you have a schnapps?’

I only faintly recall the next half-hour. Richard was collected. His grandfather, a large, broad, heavy-set man with a bald head, shaved clean at the back and sides, and a bushy, white moustache, gathered up his grandson effortlessly into his arms. The police tried to get into the Works to investigate the accident, but were turned away. The doorman gave me a second and a third schnapps. When the ambulance men came they took me with them to the Works doctor, who put stitches in my arm and wrapped it in a sling.

‘You should lie down for a while next door,’ said the doctor. ‘You can’t leave now.’

‘Why can’t I leave?’

‘We have a smog alarm, and all traffic has been stopped.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? There’s a smog alarm, and no one can leave the centre of the smog?’

‘Your understanding of it is completely wrong. Smog is a meteorological overall occurrence and has no centre or periphery.’

This I considered complete nonsense. Whatever other sort of smog there might be, I’d seen a green cloud growing larger. It grew larger right here over the compound. And I was supposed to stay here? I wanted to talk to Firner.

In his office a crisis headquarters had been set up. Through the door I could see policemen in green, firemen in blue, chemists in white, and some grey gentlemen from the management.

‘What actually happened?’ I asked Frau Buchendorff.

‘We had a little glitch on site, nothing serious. But the authorities foolishly turned on the smog alarm, and that caused some excitement.’

‘I got myself some little scratches at your little glitch.’

‘What were you up… ah, you were on your way to Schneider. He’s not here today, by the way.’

‘Am I the only injured person? Were there any deaths?’

‘What are you thinking of, Herr Self? A few first-aid cases, that’s all. Is there anything else we can do for you?’

‘You can get me out of here.’ I had no desire to battle my way through to Firner and be saluted with a ‘Greetings, Herr Self.’

A policeman sporting several badges of rank emerged from the office.

‘You’re driving back to Mannheim, aren’t you, Herr Herzog? Would you mind taking Herr Self with you? He got a few scratches and we don’t want to keep him waiting here any longer.’

Herzog, a vigorous type, took me with him. Gathered in front of the gates to the Works were some police vans and reporters.

‘Do avoid having your photograph taken with that bandage, please.’

I had absolutely no desire to be photographed. As we drove past the reporters I bent down to reach for the cigarette lighter, which was low on the dashboard.

‘Why did the smog alarm go off so rapidly?’ I asked on our drive through deserted Ludwigshafen.

Herzog proved to be well informed. ‘After the spate of smog alarms in the autumn of nineteen eighty-four we in Baden-Württemberg and the Rhineland-Palatinate started an experiment with new technology under a new law, with overriding authority over both states. The idea is to record the emissions directly, to correlate with the weather report, rather than just setting off the smog alarm when it’s already too late. Today the model had its baptism of fire. Until now we’ve only had dry runs.’

‘And how is cooperation with the Works? I gathered that the police were being turned away at the gate.’

‘That’s a sore point. The chemical industry is fighting the new law tooth and nail. At the moment there’s a complaint about infringement of the constitution before the Federal Constitutional Court. Legally we could have entered the plant, but we don’t want to rock the boat at this stage.’

The smoke of my cigarette was irritating Herzog, and he rolled down the window. ‘Oh Lord,’ he said, rolling it up straight away, ‘could you please stub out your cigarette.’ A pungent odour had penetrated the car, my eyes began to stream, on my tongue was a sharp taste, and we both had a coughing fit.

‘It’s just as well my colleagues outside have their breathing apparatus on.’ At the exit to the Konrad Adenauer Bridge we passed a roadblock. Both police officers stopping traffic were wearing gas masks. At the edge of the approach were fifteen or twenty vehicles. The driver of the first one was in the midst of talking with the police officers. With a colourful cloth pressed to his face, he looked funny.

‘What’s going to happen with the rush-hour traffic this evening?’

Herzog shrugged. ‘We’ll have to wait and see how the chlorine gas develops. We hope, in the course of the afternoon, to be able to get out the workers and the RCW employees. That would considerably relieve the problem of rush-hour traffic. Some may have to spend the night at their workplace. We’d inform them of this via radio and loudspeaker vans. I was surprised before how quickly we cleared the streets.’

‘Are you considering evacuation?’

‘If the chlorine gas concentration doesn’t decrease by half in the next twelve hours we’ll have to clear east of Leuschnerstrasse and maybe also Neckarstadt and Jungbusch as well. But the meteorologists are giving us grounds for hope. Where should I let you off?’

‘If the carbon monoxide concentration in the air permits it, I’d be delighted if you’d drive me to Richard-Wagner-Strasse and let me off at my front door.’

‘The carbon monoxide concentration alone wouldn’t have been enough for us to set off any smog alarm. It’s the chlorine that’s bad. With that I prefer to know people are safely at home or in their office, not, at any rate, out on the street.’

He drew up in front of my building. ‘Herr Self,’ he added, ‘aren’t you a private detective? I think my predecessor had something to do with you – do you remember the case with the senior civil servant and the sailboat?’

‘I hope we’re not sharing a case again now,’ I said. ‘Do you know anything yet about the origins of the explosion?’

‘Do you have a suspicion, Herr Self? You certainly didn’t just happen to be at the site of the occurrence. Had attacks been anticipated on the RCW?’

‘I don’t know anything about it. My job is innocuous by comparison and takes a quite different direction.’

‘We’ll see. I might have to call you down to headquarters to ask you a few more questions.’ He looked skywards. ‘And now pray for a gusty wind, Herr Self.’

I walked up the four flights of stairs to my apartment. My arm had started to bleed again. But something else was worrying me. Was my job really going in a quite different direction? Was it coincidence that Schneider hadn’t come to work today? Had I cast off the idea of blackmail too quickly? Had Firner not told me everything after all?

8 Yes, well then

I washed down the chlorine taste with a glass of milk and tried to change the bandage. The telephone interrupted me.

‘Herr Self, was that you leaving the RCW with Herzog? Have the Works called you in for the investigation?’

Tietzke, one of the last honest journalists. When the Heidelberger Tageblatt folded, he’d got a job with the Rhine Neckar Chronicle by the skin of his teeth, but his status there was tricky.

‘What investigation? Don’t get any wrong ideas, Tietzke. I had other business at the RCW and I’d be grateful for you not to have seen me there.’

‘You’ve got to tell me a little bit more if I’m not supposed simply to write what I saw.’

‘With the best will in the world I can’t talk about the job. But I can try to get you an exclusive interview with Firner. I’ll be calling him this afternoon.’

It took half the afternoon before I caught Firner between two conferences. He could neither confirm sabotage nor rule it out. Schneider, according to his wife, was in bed with an ear infection. So Firner, too, had been interested in why Schneider hadn’t come to work. He reluctantly agreed to receive Tietzke the next morning. Frau Buchendorff would get in touch with him.

Afterwards I tried calling Schneider. No one picked up, which could mean anything or nothing. I lay down on my bed. In spite of the pain in my arm I managed to fall asleep and woke up again in time for the news. It was reported that the chlorine gas cloud was rising in an easterly direction and that any danger, which had never really existed anyway, would be over in the course of the evening. The curfew, which had never really existed either, would be lifted at ten o’clock that night. I found a piece of gorgonzola in the fridge and used it to make a sauce for the tagliatelle I’d brought back from Rome two years ago. It was fun. It took a curfew to make me cook again.

I didn’t need a watch to know when ten o’clock came around. Out on the streets a din broke out as if a Mannheim football team had won the German championship. I put on my straw hat and walked to the Rose Garden. A band calling itself Just For Fun was playing golden oldies. The basins of the terraced fountains were empty, and the young folk were dancing in them. I fox-trotted a few steps – gravel and joints crunched.

The next morning in my letterbox I found a bulk mail delivery from the Rhineland Chemical Works that contained a perfectly worded statement on the incident. ‘RCW protects life,’ I discovered, also that a current focus of research was the conservation of the German woodlands. Yes, well then. The delivery included a small plastic cube with a healthy fir-seed suspended in it. How cute. I showed the object to my tomcat and put it on the mantelpiece above the fireplace.

Out on my stroll around the neighbourhood I picked up my week’s provision of Sweet Afton, bought a warm meatloaf sandwich, with mustard, from the butcher on the marketplace, visited my Turk with the good olives, watched the Green Party members at their info-stand on Parade-Platz fruitlessly trying to disturb the harmony between the RCW and the population of Mannheim and Ludwigshafen. Among the bystanders I noticed Officer Herzog being supplied with fliers.

In the afternoon I sat in Luisenpark. It costs something, just like Tivoli. So at the beginning of the year, for the first time, I’d acquired a year’s pass. I wanted to get my money’s worth out of it. When I wasn’t watching pensioners feeding the ducks I read Keller’s Green Henry. Frau Buchendorff ’s first name had led me to the Judith in the book.

At five o’clock I went home. Sewing a button onto my dinner jacket took me a good half-hour with my dodgy arm. I took a taxi from the Wasserturm to the RCW restaurant. There was a banner stretched over the entrance with Chinese characters on it. On three masts flew the flags of the People’s Republic of China, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the RCW, flapping in the wind. To the right and left of the entrance were two Rhineland maidens in folk costume, looking about as authentic as Barbie dolls dressed as Munich beer-maids. The procession of cars was in full swing. It all looked so upright and dignified.

9 Groping the décolleté of the economy

Schmalz was standing in the foyer.

‘How’s your little son doing?’

‘Good, thank you. I would like to talk and thank you later. I’m tied up now.’

I went up the stairs and through the open double-doors into the large reception room. People were clustered in small groups, the waitresses and waiters were serving champagne, orange juice, champagne with orange juice, Campari with orange juice, and Campari with soda. I ambled around a bit. It was like any other reception before the speeches were given and the buffet is opened. I sought familiar faces and found the red-haired girl with the freckles. We smiled at each other. Firner drew me into a circle and introduced me to three Chinese men whose names were made up of various combinations of San, Yin, and Kim, as well as Herr Oelmüller, head of the computer centre. Oelmüller was trying to explain computerized data protection in Germany to the Chinese. I don’t know what they found so funny about that but in any event they laughed like the Hollywood Chinese in a Pearl S. Buck adaptation.

Then came the speeches. Korten was brilliant. He covered everything from Confucius to Goethe, left out the Boxer Uprising and the Cultural Revolution, and touched on the former RCW branch in Tsingtao solely to weave in the compliment to the Chinese that the last head of branch there had learned a new process for the production of ultramarine from the Chinese.

The Chinese delegation leader replied no less elegantly. He recounted his university years in Karlsruhe, took his hat off to German culture and the economy, from Böll to Schleyer, spoke technical jargon I didn’t understand, and closed with Goethe’s ‘The Orient and Occident can no longer be divided’.

After the president of the Rhineland-Palatinate’s speech even a less superb buffet would have seemed exciting. For my first helping I chose the saffron oysters in a champagne sauce. Good thing that there were tables. I hate the stand-up receptions where you have to juggle cigarette, glass, and plate – really you should be spoon-fed at them. I spotted Frau Buchendorff at a table with a free chair. She was looking charming in her raw-silk, indigo-coloured suit. The buttons of her blouse were there in their entirety.

‘May I join you?’

‘You can get another chair, unless you plan on perching the Chinese security expert on your lap straight away?’

‘Tell me, did the Chinese pick up on the explosion?’

‘What explosion? No, seriously, they were up at Castle Eltz first thing yesterday, and then they tried out the new Mercedes on the Nürburg Ring. When they got back, everything was over. Today the press has really been going at it, mainly from the meteorological angle. How’s your arm? You’re something of a hero – that couldn’t get into the papers, of course, though it would have made a lovely story.’

The Chinese lady appeared. She had everything that German men who dream of Asian women could dream of. Whether she was in fact a security expert I wasn’t able to establish either. I asked whether there were private detectives in China.

‘No plivate plopethy, no plivate detectives,’ she answered, and asked whether there were also female private detectives in the Federal Republic of Germany. This led on to observations about the waning women’s movement. ‘I’ve lead almost evelything published in Gehmany in the way of women’s books. Why is it that men in Gehmany ahrite women’s books? A Chinese man would lose face.’

Fohtunate China.

A waiter brought me the invitation to Oelmüller’s table. On the way I selected a second course of sole roulades, Bremenstyle.

Oelmüller introduced me to the gentleman at his table, who impressed me with his skill in arranging his sparse hair over his head: Professor Ostenteich, head of the law department and honorary professor at Heidelberg University. No coincidence that these gentlemen were dining together. Well, back to work. Since my talk with Herzog, a question had been bothering me.

‘Could the gentlemen explain the new smog model to me? Herr Herzog of the police talked about it, said it is not entirely uncontroversial. What, for example, am I to understand by the direct recording of emissions?’

Ostenteich felt called upon to lead the discussion. ‘That is un peu délicat, as the French would say. You should read the expert opinion by Professor Wenzel that most meticulously lays out the relevant distribution of powers, and unmasks the legislative hubris of Baden-Württemberg and the Rhineland-Palatinate. Le pouvoir arrête le pouvoir - the Federal law on Emissions Protection blocks any special paths the states might choose. Added to that is freedom of property, protection of entrepreneurial activity, and a company’s privacy. The legislature hoped to disregard that with a single stroke of the pen. But la vérité est en marche, the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe still exists, heureusement.’

‘And how does this new smog alarm model work?’ I looked at Oelmüller invitingly.

Ostenteich didn’t relinquish his lead quite so easily. ‘It’s good that you enquire about the technical side of things, too, Herr Self. Herr Oelmüller can explain all that to you in a minute. The crux, l’essence, of our problem is: the state and the economy only have a mutually beneficial arrangement if a certain distance prevails between the two. And, please allow me this rather bold metaphor: here the state has overstepped itself and groped the décolleté of the economy.’ He roared with laughter, and Oelmüller dutifully joined in.

When quiet had again descended, or, as the French would say, silence, Oelmüller said, ‘Technically the whole thing isn’t a problem at all. The basic process of environmental protection is the examination of the vehicles of emissions – water, or air – to check the concentration of harmful substances. If an emission exceeds the accepted levels, one attempts to trace its source and shut it off. So, smog may be created if some factory or other emits more than their allowance. On the other hand, smog may also be created if the level of the emissions at the individual factories remains within the stated limits, but the weather cannot cope.’

‘How does whoever’s in charge of the smog alarm know what sort of smog he’s dealing with? He surely has to react quite differently to each.’ The business was beginning to enthrall me. I postponed my next trip to the buffet, and shuffled a cigarette out of the yellow packet.

‘Correct, Herr Self, indeed both sorts require a different reaction, but they’re difficult to tell apart using conventional methods. It’s possible, for example, that traffic has to be stopped and factories have to grind to a halt because a single coal power station that drastically oversteps its accepted emission level can’t be identified and stopped in time. What makes the new model irresistible is that, theoretically at least, problems like the one you raised can be avoided. Via sensors, emissions are measured where they originate and transmitted to the Regional Computing Centre that consequently always knows where which emissions are occurring. Not only that, the RCC feeds the emissions data into a simulation of the local weather expected in the next twenty-four hours – we call it a meteorograph – and the smog can be to a certain extent anticipated. An early-warning system that doesn’t look as good in practice as it sounds in theory because, quite simply, meteorology is still in its infancy.’

‘How do you view yesterday’s incident in this respect? Did the model prove its worth?’

‘The model worked all right yesterday.’ Oelmüller tugged the end of his beard, contemplatively.

‘No, no, Herr Self, here I must expand upon the technicians’ perspective to present the broader picture. In the old days, quite simply, absolutely nothing would have happened. Yesterday instead we had chaos with all the loudspeaker announcements, police controls, curfews. And to what purpose? The cloud dispersed, without any assistance from environmentalists. Yesterday’s event just fanned the flames of fear and destroyed trust and damaged the image of the RCW – tant de bruit pour une omelette. I think this is the very case to make clear to the Federal Constitutional Court how disproportionate the new law is.’

‘Our chemists are checking whether yesterday’s counts really justified the smog alarm,’ Oelmüller inserted. ‘They immediately began to evaluate the emissions data, which we also record in our MBI, management and business information, system.’

‘At least they deigned to grant the industry online access to the state emissions analysis,’ Ostenteich interjected.

‘Do you consider it possible, Herr Oelmüller, that the accident and the incidents in the computer system are in some way connected?’

‘I’ve thought about it. Here practically all production processes are controlled electronically, and there are multiple links between the process computers and the MBI system. Manipulations via the MBI system – I can’t completely discount it, in spite of all the built-in security measures. Regarding yesterday’s accident, however, I don’t know enough to say whether a suspicion in that direction makes sense. If so, I would hate to think what could be in store for us.’

Ostenteich’s interpretation of yesterday’s accident had almost made me forget my arm was still in a sling. I raised my glass to the gentlemen and made my way over to the buffet. With a loin of lamb in its herb crust on my pre-warmed plate, I was steering my way to Firner’s table when Schmalz came up to me.

‘May my wife and I invite the doctor to coffee?’ Schmalz had evidently dug out my title and gladly adopted it to neutralize another sibilant.

‘That’s extremely kind of you, Herr Schmalz,’ I thanked him. ‘But I’ll hope you’ll understand that until the end of this case, my time is not my own.’

‘Oh, well, another time, maybe.’ Schmalz looked downcast, but understood the Works came first.

I looked around for Firner and found him on his way to his table with a plate from the buffet.

He stood still for a moment. ‘Greetings, have you found out anything?’ He held his plate awkwardly at chest level to hide a red-wine stain on his dinner shirt.

‘Yes,’ I said simply. ‘And you?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean, Herr Self?’

‘Let’s imagine there’s a blackmailer who wants to demonstrate his superiority, first of all by manipulating the MBI system and then by creating a gas explosion. Then he demands ten million from the RCW. Who in the company would be the first person to get that demand on his desk?’

‘Korten. Because he’s the only one who could decide about sums of that size.’ He frowned and glanced instinctively at the slightly raised table where Korten was sitting with the head of the Chinese delegation, the president, and other heavyweights. I waited in vain for an appeasing remark like ‘But Herr Self, whatever are you thinking?’ He lowered his plate. The red-wine stain did its bit to reveal a tense and uncertain Firner beneath the veneer of relaxed serenity. As though I were no longer there, he took a few steps towards the open window, lost in thought. Then he pulled himself together, rearranged the plate in front of his chest, nodded curtly at me and moved in a determined fashion to his table. I went to the toilet.

‘Well, my dear Self, making progress?’ Korten arrived at the next stall and fumbled with his fly.

‘Do you mean with the case or the prostate?’

He peed and laughed. Laughed louder and louder and had to put a hand out on the tiles to support himself, and then it came back to me, too. We’d stood next to each other like this before, in the urinals at the Friedrich Wilhelm. It had been planned as a preparatory measure for playing hookey, and then, when the teacher noticed we were missing, Bechtel was to stand up and say, ‘Korten and Self were feeling sick and went to the lavatory – I can go in quickly and check how they are.’ But the teacher checked on us himself, found us there having a great time, and, as a punishment, left us standing there for the rest of the lesson, supervised by the janitor.

‘Professor Barfeld with the monocle will be here any minute,’ snorted Korten. ‘Barfing Barfer, here comes Barfing Barfeld.’

I remembered the nickname, and we stood there, trousers open, clapping each other on the shoulder. Tears sprang to my eyes and my belly hurt from all the laughing.

Back then things almost took a nasty turn. Barfeld reported us to the headmaster and I had already imagined my father raging and my mother weeping and the scholarship evaporating into thin air. But Korten took it all on his shoulders: he had been the instigator and I’d just joined in. So he got the letter home, and his father only laughed.

‘I’ve got to go.’ Korten buttoned up his fly.

‘What, again?’ I was still laughing. But the fun was over and the Chinese were waiting.

10 Memories of the blue Adriatic

When I returned to the hall it was all drawing to a close. Frau Buchendorff asked how I was getting home, I couldn’t be driving with my arm.

‘I took a taxi before.’

‘I’d be glad to give you a lift, since we’re neighbours. Quarter of an hour by the exit?’

The tables were deserted. Small knots of people formed and dispersed. The red-haired girl was still standing with a bottle at the ready, but everyone had had plenty to drink.

‘Hello,’ I said to her.

‘Did you enjoy the reception?’

‘The buffet was good. I’m amazed there’s anything left over. But seeing there is – could you pack a little something for a picnic tomorrow?’

‘How many in your party?’ She bobbed an ironic curtsy.

‘For two, if you have time.’

‘Oh, can’t do that. But I’ll have something packed for two nonetheless. Just a moment.’

She disappeared through the swing-doors. When she returned she had with her a largish box. ‘You should have seen the face of our chef. I had to tell him that you’re peculiar but important.’ She giggled. ‘Because you’ve dined with the general director he took it on himself to add a bottle of Forster Bischofsgarten Spätlese.’

When Frau Buchendorff saw me with the carton she raised an eyebrow.

‘I’ve packed the Chinese security expert. Didn’t you notice how petite and dainty she is? The delegation leader shouldn’t have let her go with me.’ In her presence all I could think of were stupid jokes. If this had happened to me thirty years ago I’d have been forced to admit I was in love. But what was I to make of it at an age where falling in love no longer happens?

Frau Buchendorff drove an Alfa Romeo Spider, an old one without the ugly rear spoiler.

‘Should I put the roof up?’

‘I usually ride my motorbike in swimming trunks, even in winter.’ It was getting worse and worse. And on top of it, a misunderstanding – she was putting up the roof. All because I hadn’t dared say that I could think of nothing finer than to be on the road on a mellow summer night with a beautiful woman at the wheel of a cabriolet. ‘No, leave it, Frau Buchendorff, I like driving in a sports car with the top down on a mellow summer night.’

We drove over the suspension bridge, below us the Rhine and the harbour. I looked up at the sky and the cables. It was a bright and clear starry night. When we turned off the bridge and before we were submerged in the streets, Mannheim with its towers, churches, and high-rises lay before us for a moment. We had to wait at a traffic light and a heavy motorbike drew up alongside. ‘Come on, let’s drive out to the Adriatic,’ shouted the girl on the back of the bike to her boyfriend. In the hot summer of 1946 I’d often been out at the gravel pit, its name, Adriatic, imbued with Mannheimers’ and Ludwighafeners’ yearning for the South. Back then my wife and I were still happy and I enjoyed our companionship, the peace, and the first cigarettes. So, people still went out there, more rapidly and easier these days, a quick dip in the water after the movies.

We hadn’t spoken throughout the journey. Frau Buchendorff had driven fast, and with focus. Now she lit a cigarette.

‘The blue Adriatic,’ she mused ‘when I was small we sometimes drove out in our Opel Olympia. There was coffee substitute in the thermos flask, cold cutlets, and vanilla pudding in the preserving jar. My big brother was streetwise, a rocker, as they called it; on his moped he soon went his own way. Back then the notion of going for a quick dip in the night was just getting fashionable. It all seems so idyllic now, looking back – as a child I always suffered those outings.’

We’d reached my house but I wanted to savour a little longer the nostalgia that had engulfed us both.

‘In what way suffered?’

‘My father wanted to teach me how to swim but had no patience. My God, the amount of water I swallowed.’

I thanked her for the ride home. ‘It was a beautiful drive.’

‘Goodnight, Herr Self.’

11 Terrible thing to happen

A glorious Sunday saw the last of the good weather. At our picnic by the Feudenheim Locks my friend Eberhard and I ate and drank much too much. He had brought a miniature wooden crate with three bottles of a very decent Bordeaux, and then we made the mistake of downing the RCW Spätlese, as well.

On Monday I woke up with a blazing headache. On top of that the rain had coaxed out the rheumatism in my back and hips. Perhaps that’s why I dealt with Schneider all wrong. He had reappeared, not flushed out by the Works security service, just like that. I was to meet him in a colleague’s laboratory; his own had been burnt to a shell in the accident.

When I entered the room he straightened up from the fridge. He was tall and lanky. He invited me with an indeterminate flick of the hand to take a seat on one of the lab stools and remained standing himself, shoulders stooped, in front of the refrigerator. His face was ashen, the fingers of his left hand yellow from nicotine. The immaculate white coat was supposed to hide the decay of the person inside. But the man was a wreck. If he was a gambler then he was the sort who had lost and had no shred of hope left. The sort who fills out a lottery ticket on a Friday, but doesn’t bother to look on the Saturday to see if he’s won.

‘I know why you want to talk to me, Herr Self, but I’ve nothing to tell you.’

‘Where were you on the day of the accident? You’ll know that surely. And where did you disappear to?’

‘I unfortunately do not enjoy great health and was indisposed in recent days. The accident in my laboratory was a real blow, important records of research were destroyed.’

‘That’s hardly an answer to my question.’

‘What do you really want? Just leave me alone.’

Indeed, what did I really want from him? I was finding it more and more difficult to picture him as the brilliant blackmailer. Broken as he was, I couldn’t even imagine him the tool of some outsider. But my imagination had duped me in the past and there was something not right about Schneider. I didn’t have that many leads. His, and my own, misfortune that he’d found his way into the security files. And there was my hangover and my rheumatism and Schneider’s sulky, whiny manner that was getting on my nerves. If I couldn’t intimidate him then I might as well kiss my job goodbye. I gathered myself for a fresh attack.

‘Herr Schneider, we are investigating sabotage resulting in damages reaching into the millions and we’re acting to prevent further threats. I’ve encountered nothing but cooperation during my investigation. Your unwillingness to lend your support makes you, I’ll be perfectly honest, a suspect. All the more so as your biography contains phases of criminal entanglement.’

‘But I put a halt to the gambling years ago.’ He lit a cigarette. His hand was trembling. He took some hasty drags. ‘But, okay, I was at home in bed and we often unplug the telephone at the weekend.’

‘But Herr Schneider. Security was round at your house. There was nobody home.’

‘So you don’t believe me anyway. Then I won’t say another word.’

I’d heard that often enough. Sometimes it helped to convince the other person I believed whatever he said. Sometimes I’d understood how to address the deep-seated trouble at the source of this childish reaction so that everything came gushing out. Today I was capable of neither one nor the other. I’d had it.

‘Right, then we’ll have to continue our discussion in the presence of Security and your superiors. I’d have liked to spare you that. But if I don’t hear from you by this evening… Here’s my business card.’

I didn’t wait for his reaction, and left. I stood under the awning, looked into the rain and lit a cigarette. Was it also raining on the banks of the Sweet Afton? I didn’t know what to do. Then I recalled that the boys from Security would have set their trap and I went over to the computer centre to take a look. Oelmüller wasn’t there. One of his co-workers whose badge revealed him to be a Herr Tausendmilch showed me on screen the message sent to users about the false data file.

‘Should I print it out for you? It’s no problem at all.’

I took the printout and went over to Firner’s office. Neither Firner nor Frau Buchendorff were there. A typist regaled me on the subject of cacti. I’d had enough for one day and left the Works.

If I’d been younger I’d have driven out to the Adriatic regardless of the rain to swim off my hangover. If I could just have got into my car I’d maybe have done it anyway, regardless of age. But with my injured arm I still couldn’t drive. The guard, the same one as on the day of the accident, called a taxi for me.

‘Ah, you’re the fellow who brought in Schmalz’s son on Friday. You’re Self? Then I have something for you. He scrabbled beneath the control and alarm desk and came back up with a package that he handed over with ceremony.

‘There is a cake inside as a surprise for you. Frau Schmalz baked it.’

I had the taxi take me to the Herschel baths. It was women’s only day in the sauna. I had it take me to the Kleiner Rosengarten, my local, and ate a saltimbocca romana. Then I went to the movies.

The first movie showing in the early afternoon has its charm, regardless of what’s playing. The audience consists of tramps, thirteen-year-olds, and frustrated intellectuals. When there were still students who lived out of town, they went to the early showing. Pupils who matured earlier used to go to the early showing to make out. But Babs, a friend who’s headmistress of a high school, assures me that pupils now make out at school and are all made out by one o’clock.

I’d ended up in the wrong theatre – the cinema had seven of the things – and had to watch On Golden Pond. I liked all the actors but when it was over I was glad I no longer had a wife, and never had a daughter or some little bastard of a grandson.

On the way home I looked in at the office. I picked up a message that Schneider had hanged himself. Frau Buchendorff had spoken with extreme matter-of-factness on the answering machine and asked to be called back immediately.

I poured myself a sambuca.

‘Did Schneider leave a note?’

‘Yes. We have it here. We think your case is over now. Firner would like to see you to talk about it.’

I told Frau Buchendorff I’d be there straight away, and called a taxi.

Firner was light of heart. ‘Greetings, Herr Self. Terrible thing to happen. He hanged himself in the laboratory with an electric cable. A poor trainee found him. We tried everything to revive him of course. No use. Read the suicide note, we have our man.’

He handed me the photocopy of a hastily scrawled sheet of paper, apparently meant for his wife.

My Dorle – forgive me. Do not think you didn’t love me enough – without your love I’d have done this a long time ago. I can’t go on now. They know everything and leave me no option. I wanted to make you happy and give you everything – may God grant you an easier life than in these past dreadful years. You deserve it so much. I embrace you. Unto death – your Franz.

‘You have your man? This leaves everything open. I spoke with Schneider this morning. It’s gambling that had him in its clutches and drove him to death.’

‘You’re a defeatist.’ Firner bellowed with laughter in my face, his mouth wide open.

‘If Korten thinks the case has been solved, he can of course relinquish my services at any time. I believe, though, that you’re jumping to conclusions. And you yourself don’t take them that seriously. Or have you already deactivated the computer trap?’

Firner wasn’t impressed. ‘Routine, Herr Self, routine. Naturally the trap is still in place. But for the time being the matter is over. We just have a few details to clear up. How, above all, Schneider managed to manipulate the system.’

‘I’m quite certain you’ll be on the phone to me soon.’

‘Let’s see, Herr Self.’ Firner, honest to God, stuck his thumbs into the waistcoat of his three-piece suit and played ‘Yankee Doodle’ with his remaining fingers.

On the way home in the taxi I thought about Schneider. Was I responsible for his death? Or was Eberhard responsible for bringing so much Bordeaux that I had been hungover today and too gruff with Schneider? Or was it the senior chef, with his Forster Bischofsgarten Spätlese that finished us off? Or the rain and the rheumatism? The links between cause and effect and guilt went on and on.

Schneider in his white lab coat was often in my thoughts in the days that followed. I didn’t have much to do. Goedecke wanted a further, more detailed report on the disloyal branch manager, and another client came to me not realizing he could have got the same information from the town clerk’s office.

On Wednesday my arm was on the mend and I could finally collect my car from the RCW parking lot. The chlorine had eaten into the paint. I’d add that to the bill. The guard greeted me and asked whether the cake had been good. I had left it in the taxi on Monday.

12 Among screech owls

While playing Doppelkopf with my friends, I presented them with the links between cause and effect and guilt. A couple of times a year we meet on a Wednesday in the Badische Weinstuben, to play cards: Eberhard, the chess grandmaster; Willy, the ornithologist and an emeritus of the University of Heidelberg; Philipp, surgeon at the city hospital; and myself.

At fifty-seven Philipp is our Benjamin, and Eberhard our Nestor at seventy-two. Willy is half a year younger than me. We never get particularly far with our Doppelkopf, we like talking too much.

I told them about Schneider’s background, his passion for gambling, and how I’d cast suspicion on him that I didn’t really believe in myself but nonetheless had used to take him harshly to task.

‘Two hours later the man hangs himself. Not, I think, because of my suspicion, but because he could foresee the uncovering of his continued gambling addition. Am I to blame for his death?’

‘You’re the lawyer,’ said Philipp. ‘Don’t you have any criteria for this sort of thing?’

‘Legally I’m not guilty. But it’s the moral aspect that interests me.’

The three of them looked at a complete loss. Eberhard ruminated. ‘Then I wouldn’t be allowed to win at chess any more because my opponent might be sensitive and might take a defeat so to heart that he kills himself over it.’

‘So, if you know that defeat is the drop that will make the glass of depression overflow, leave him alone and look for another opponent,’ Philipp suggested.

Eberhard wasn’t satisfied with Philipp’s hypothesis. ‘What do I do at a tournament where I can’t select my opponent?’

‘Well, among screech owls…’ Willy began. ‘It gets clearer by the day why I love screech owls so much. They catch their mice and sparrows, take care of their young, live in their tree-hollows and cavities in the earth, don’t need any company, nor a state, are courageous and sharp, true to their family. There’s real wisdom in their eyes, and I’ve never heard any such snivelling outpourings about guilt and expiation from them. Besides, if it’s not the legal but the moral side that interests you, all people are guilty of all things.’

‘Put yourself under my knife. If it slips from my grasp because a nurse is turning me on, is everyone here guilty?’ Philipp made a sweeping hand gesture. The waiter understood it as the ordering of another round and brought a pils, a Laufen Gutedel, an Ihring Vulkanfelsen, and a grog for Willy, who was suffering from a cold.

‘Well, you’ll have us to deal with if you hack up Willy.’ I raised my glass to Willy. He couldn’t drink back to me, his grog was still too hot.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not stupid. If I do something to Willy, we won’t be able to play Doppelkopf any more.’

‘Exactly, let’s play another round,’ said Eberhard. But before we could start he folded his cards together pensively and laid the little pile on the table. ‘Although, seriously, I’m the eldest so it’s easiest for me to broach the subject, what’s to become of us if one of us… if… you know what I mean.’

‘If there are only three of us left?’ Philipp said with a grin. ‘Then we’ll play Skat.’

‘Don’t we know another fourth player, someone we could bring in now as a fifth?’

‘A priest would be no bad thing at our age.’

‘We don’t have to play every time, we don’t anyway. We could just go out for a meal, or do something with women. I’ll bring a nurse for each of you, if you like.’

‘Women,’ said Eberhard mistrustfully, and took up his hand of cards again.

‘The idea of a meal isn’t a bad one.’ Willy asked for the menu. We all ordered. The food was good and we forgot about guilt and death.

On the way home I noticed that I’d managed to distance myself from Schneider’s suicide now. I was just curious as to when I’d next hear from Firner.

13 Are you interested in the details?

It’s not often I stay home in the mornings. Not only because I’m out and about a lot, but because I can barely keep away from the office even if there’s nothing for me to do there. It’s a relic from my time as an attorney. Perhaps it also stems from the fact that as a child I don’t remember my father ever spending a workday at home, and back then you worked six days a week.

On Thursday I was the leopard that changed its spots. The previous day my video recorder had come back from the repair shop. I’d rented a couple of Westerns. Even though they are scarcely shown any more I’ve remained true to them.

It was ten o’clock. I’d put on Heaven’s Gate: I’d missed it at the cinema and it was unlikely to be shown there again, and I was watching Harvard graduates at the graduation party in their tails. Kris Kristofferson stood a decent chance. Then the telephone rang.

‘I’m glad to reach you, Herr Self.’

‘Did you think I would be at the blue Adriatic in this weather, Frau Buchendorff?’ Outside the rain was pouring down.

‘Ever the old charmer. I’ll put you through to Herr Firner.’

‘Greetings, Herr Self. We believed the case was over, but now Herr Oelmüller tells me that something has happened in the system again. I’d be happy if you could come over, today if possible. What’s your schedule like?’

We agreed on 4 p.m. Heaven’s Gate was about four hours long, and you shouldn’t sell yourself too cheaply.

On the drive to the Works I pondered why Kris Kristofferson had cried at the end. Because early wounds never heal? Or because they heal and, one day, are nothing more than a bleached-out memory?

The security guard at the main gates greeted me like an old friend, hand on the brim of his cap. Oelmüller was distanced. The other member of the party was Thomas.

‘Remember I told you about the trap that we’d planned and instigated?’ said Thomas. ‘Well, today it snapped shut…’

‘But the mouse ran away with the cheese?’

‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Oelmüller said sourly. ‘Here is exactly what occurred: yesterday morning the central computer reported that our bait data file had been opened via terminal PKR 137 by a user with the number 23045 ZBH. The user, Herr Knoblauch, is employed in the main accounting department. He was, however, at the time the file was accessed, in a meeting with three gentlemen from the tax authority. And the said terminal is at the other end of the Works at the purification plant and was being serviced by our own technician off-line.’

‘Herr Oelmüller means to say that the machine wasn’t workable during its inspection,’ added Thomas.

‘Which means that another user and another terminal are hidden behind Herr Knoblauch and his number. Didn’t you figure the culprit would disguise himself?’

Oelmüller took up my question eagerly. ‘Oh yes, Herr Self. I’ve spent the whole of last weekend thinking through how we can catch the culprit regardless. Are you interested in the details?’

‘Try me. If it gets too difficult I’ll let you know.’

‘Good, I’ll attempt to keep it comprehensible. We’ve seen to it that when a special control command is issued by the system, the terminals that are logged on will set a special switch in their working memory. It’s not noticeable to the user. The safety precaution was sent to the terminals at the moment the bait data file was accessed. Our intention was that all terminals in dialogue with the system at that second could later be identified by the state of the switch, and this even independent of the terminal number the culprit could have used to disguise himself.’

‘Could I imagine it being like a stolen car being identified not by its false licence plate, but by the engine number?’

‘Well, yes, somewhat along those lines.’ Oelmüller nodded at me encouragingly.

‘And how do you explain that, in spite of all this, there was no mouse in the trap?’

Thomas responded. ‘At the moment we have no explanation. Something you may be considering – outside intervention – we still discount. The wiring the telecom people installed to trace things is still in place and signalled nothing.’

No explanation. And that from the specialists. My dependence on their expertise bothered me. I could follow what Oelmüller had described. But I couldn’t check his premises. Possibly the pair of them weren’t particularly bright and it wasn’t a big deal to outwit their trap. But what was I supposed to do? Immerse myself in computers? Follow up the other leads? What other leads were there? I was at a loss.

‘The whole thing is very embarrassing for Herr Oelmüller and myself,’ said Thomas. ‘We were sure we’d trap the culprit and stupidly we said so. Time is ticking by and nonetheless the only possibility I see is to go through all our assumptions and conclusions with a fine-toothed comb. Perhaps we should also speak to the man who set up the system, don’t you think, Herr Oelmüller? Can you tell us, Herr Self, how you are going to proceed?’

‘I’ve got to sift through everything in my head first.’

‘I’d like us to stay in touch. Shall we get together again on Monday morning?’

We were standing and had said our goodbyes, when my thoughts returned to the accident. ‘What, incidentally, came out of the investigation of the causes of the explosion? And did the smog alarm function properly?’

‘According to the RCC it was right that the smog alarm went off. So far as the cause of the accident is concerned, we have at least arrived at the point where we know it had nothing to do with our computer. I don’t have to tell you how relieved I was. A broken valve – the engineers will have to answer for that.’

14 A lot of static

With good music playing I can always think well. I’d switched the stereo on but hadn’t started playing The Well-Tempered Clavier as I wanted to fetch a beer from the kitchen first. When I returned, the neighbour on the floor below had turned her radio up loud, making me listen to her current favourite: ‘We are living in a material world and I am a material girl…’

I trampled on the floor, to no avail. So it was off with the dressing gown, on with the shoes and jacket, and down the stairs I went and rang the doorbell. I intended to ask the ‘material girl’ if there was no consideration left in her ‘material world’. No one answered, nor was any music coming from the flat. Obviously no one was home. The other neighbours were away on holiday and there’s nothing but the attic above my flat.

Then I realized that the music was coming from my own loudspeaker. I don’t have a radio attached to the system. I fiddled with the amplifier and couldn’t get rid of the music. I put on the record. Bach in the forti sections easily managed to drown out the sinister other channel, but the piani he had to share with the newscaster of South-West Radio. My stereo was apparently screwed up.

Perhaps it was due to the lack of good music that I didn’t get much more thinking done that evening. I played through a scenario in which Oelmüller was the culprit. Apart from the psychology it all fitted. He certainly wasn’t the rascal or prankster – could he be the blackmailer? According to everything I’d ever gathered about computer criminality, people who worked with a computer could also use it for criminal purposes, but not make a mockery of it.

The next morning I went to a radio repair shop before breakfast. I’d tried out the stereo again and the interference had gone. That really did annoy me. I can’t abide unpredictable machinery. A car may be roadworthy and a washing machine still wash, but if the last, most insignificant indicator light doesn’t work with Prussian precision, my mind will know no rest.

I got a competent young man. He had compassion for my lack of technical know-how, almost called me ‘Grandpa’ in friendly condescension. Of course, I know that radio waves aren’t brought to life by the radio – they’re always there. The radio merely makes them audible, and the young man explained to me that practically the same circuit that achieves this in the receiver is also present in the amplifier and that, under certain atmospheric conditions, the amplifier may act as a receiver. There was nothing you could do about it, just had to accept it.

On the way from Seckenheimer Strasse to my café in the arcades by the Wasserturm I bought a newspaper. At my kiosk, lying next to Süddeutsche is always the Rhine Neckar Chronicle and for some reason the abbreviation RNC stuck fast in my head.

When I was sitting in Café Gmeiner, coffee in front of me, awaiting my ham and eggs, I got that feeling of wanting to say something to someone but not remembering what. Was it related to the RNC? It struck me that Tietzke’s interview with Firner hadn’t appeared in the paper yet. But that wasn’t what I was looking for. Hadn’t someone spoken to me yesterday about the RNC? No, Oelmüller had said the RCC had had reason to trigger the smoke alarm. That was apparently the office responsible for the smog alarm and analysis of emission data. But there was something else I wasn’t getting. It had something to do with the amplifier functioning as a receiver.

When the ham and eggs arrived I ordered another coffee. The waitress didn’t bring it until I’d asked for a third time. ‘Sorry, Herr Self, there’s a lot of static in the air today. I’m miles away. I was taking care of my daughter’s boy last night because the young folk have a subscription for the opera and got back late yesterday. Wagner’s Götterdämmerung went on and on.’

A lot of static, miles away, long-distance. Of course, that was it, the long-distance reception at the RCC. Herzog had told me about the direct emission model. The same emission data are also recorded in the RCW system, Oelmüller had said. And Ostenteich had spoken of the online connection with the state monitoring system. Somehow the computer centre of the RCW and the RCC had to be connected. Was it possible to penetrate the MBI system via the RCC? And was it possible that the people at RCW had simply forgotten this? I cast my thoughts back and remembered clearly that there had been talk of the terminals in the plant and of telephone lines to the outside when we’d been discussing possible breaches in the system. A cable running between RCC and RCW, as I was now picturing it, had never been mentioned. It belonged neither to the telephone lines nor to the terminal connections. It differed from those by not being a mode of direct communication. Rather a silent flow of data migrated from the various sensors onto tape. Data that interested no one at the plant and could be immediately forgotten unless there happened to be an alarm or an accident. I understood why the musical confusion on my stereo had preoccupied me for so long: the interference came from inside.

I played around with my ham and eggs and the multitude of questions going through my mind. Above all I needed additional information. I didn’t want to speak with Thomas, Ostenteich, or Oelmüller now. If they had forgotten an RCW-RCC connection, that would ultimately cause them more concern than the connection itself. I needed to take a look at the RCC and find someone there who could explain system connections to me.

From the phone booth next to the restroom I gave Tietzke a call. The RCC, it transpired, was the Regional Computer Centre in Heidelberg. ‘To a certain degree even trans-regional,’ said Tietzke, ‘as Baden-Württemberg and the Rhineland-Palatinate are hooked up to it. What do you have in mind, Herr Self?’

‘Do you ever let up, Herr Tietzke?’ I retorted, and promised him the rights to my memoirs.

15 Bam bam, ba bam bam

I drove straight to Heidelberg. In front of the law school I found a parking space. I walked the few steps to Ebert-Platz, the former Wrede-Platz, and found the Regional Computer Centre in the old building with the two entrance pillars where the Deutsche Bank used to be. The doorman sat in the former banking hall.

‘Selk from Springer Publishing,’ I introduced myself. ‘I’d like to talk to one of the gentlemen from emission supervision, the publishing house called ahead.’

He picked up the telephone. ‘Herr Mischkey, there’s someone here from Springer Publishing, he says he wants to talk to you and has an appointment. Should I send him up?’

I interjected. ‘Can I talk to Herr Mischkey myself?’ And as the doorman was sitting at a table not screened by glass and since I was already reaching for it, he handed the receiver to me, nonplussed.

‘Hello, Herr Mischkey, Selk from Springer Publishing here, you know? We’d like to include a report on the direct emission model in our computer journal, and after talking with the industry I’d like to hear the other side. Will you see me?’

He didn’t have much time but invited me up. His room was on the second floor, the door was open, the view opened onto the square. Mischkey was sitting with his back to the door at a computer that had his full concentration and on which he was typing with two fingers at great speed. He called over his shoulder, ‘Come on in, I’ll be finished in a second.’

I looked around. The table and chairs were awash with computer printouts and magazines from Computer Weekly to the American edition of Penthouse. On the wall was a blackboard with ‘Happy Birthday, Peter’ scrawled on it in smudged chalk. Next to that Einstein was sticking his tongue out at me. On the other wall were film posters and a still that I couldn’t assign to a particular film. ‘Madonna,’ he said without looking up.

‘Madonna?’

Now he did look up. A distinctive, bony face with deep furrows in the brow, a small moustache, an obstinate chin, all topped with a wild mop of greying hair. His eyes twinkled at me in delight through a pair of intentionally ugly spectacles. Were the national health glasses of the fifties back in fashion? He was wearing jeans and a dark-blue sweater, no shirt. ‘I’ll call her up on screen for you from my film file.’ He beckoned me over, typed in a couple of commands, and the screen filled in a flash. ‘You know how it is when you’re fishing for a tune that you can’t quite remember? Problem of all music and movie buffs? I’ve solved that with my file, too. Do you want to hear music from your favourite film?’

‘Barry Lyndon,’ I said, and in the space of seconds came the squeaky but unmistakable start of the Sarabande by Handel, bam bam, ba bam bam. ‘That’s fantastic,’ I said.

‘What brings you here, Herr Selk? As you can see, I’m very busy at the moment and haven’t much time to spare. It’s to do with emissions?’

‘Exactly, or rather, with a report on them for our computer journal.’

A colleague entered the room. ‘Are you messing around with your files again? Do you expect me to deal with the registration data for the church? I must say I find you extremely uncooperative.’

‘May I introduce my colleague Grimm? That’s really his name, but with two “m’s” – Jörg, this is Herr Selk from the computer journal. He wants to write about the office culture in RCC. Keep going, you’re being most authentic.’

‘Oh, Peter, really…’ Grimm puffed out his cheeks. I placed them both in their mid-thirties, but one came across like a mature 25-year-old and the other like a man in his fifties who’s aged badly. Grimm’s grimness was only accentuated by his safari suit and his long, thinning hair. I kept what was left of my hair trimmed short. I wondered whether my hair situation might still get worse at my age, or whether the balding was over, just as getting pregnant is over for post-menopausal women.

‘You could have called up the church report on your computer ages ago, by the way. I’m in the middle of the traffic census. It has to go out today. Yes, Herr Selk, it doesn’t look good for the two of us. Unless you want to buy me lunch? At McDonald’s?’

We arranged to meet at twelve-thirty.

I strolled up the main street, impressive evidence of the city council’s will towards destruction in the seventies. It wasn’t drizzling at the moment. Yet the weather couldn’t make up its mind what to offer for the weekend. I decided to ask Mischkey about the meteorograph. In the Darmstadt shopping centre I came across a record shop. Sometimes I like to sample the zeitgeist, buy the representative record or the representative book, go to see Rambo II or watch an election debate between the chancellor and his challenger. There was a special offer on for Madonna. The girl at the till took a look at me and asked if she should gift-wrap it. ‘No. Is that the impression I give?’

I walked out of the Darmstadt shopping centre and saw Bismarck-Platz ahead of me. I’d have liked to visit the old man on his pedestal. But the traffic didn’t allow it. On the corner I bought a packet of Sweet Afton, and then time was up.

16 Like an arms race

It was rush hour at McDonald’s. Mischkey pushed us skilfully to the front. Following his recommendation, I chose a Fish Mac with mayonnaise, a small portion of fries with ketchup, and a coffee.

Mischkey, tall and lanky, ordered a quarter-pounder with cheese, a large portion of fries, three portions of ketchup, another small hamburger to ‘fill the little gap afterwards’, an apple pie, two milkshakes, and a coffee.

The full tray cost me almost 25 marks.

‘Not expensive, is it? For lunch for two. Thanks for inviting me.’

First of all we couldn’t find two seats together. I wanted to move a chair to a free space, but the chair was attached to the floor. I was bemused; neither as an attorney, nor as a private detective, had I ever come across the offence of theft of restaurant chairs. Eventually we installed ourselves at a table with two high school students who eyed Mischkey’s assortment enviously.

‘Herr Mischkey, the direct emission model file led to the first lawsuit dealing with computers since the national census, the first, also, to reach the Federal Constitutional Court. The computer journal wants a legal report from me since legal journalism is my field. But I’ve realized I need to figure out more of the technical side, and that’s where I’d appreciate some information.’

‘Mmm.’ He chomped contentedly on his quarter-pounder.

‘What sort of data-sharing is there between yourselves and the industrial firms you supervise the emissions for?’

Mischkey swallowed. ‘I can tell you a thousand things about that, the transmission technology, the hardware, the software, you name it. What do you want to know?’

‘Perhaps as a lawyer I can’t formulate the questions precisely enough. I’d like to know, for example, how a smog alarm is triggered.’

Mischkey was in the process of unwrapping the hamburger for that little gap afterwards and drenching it in ketchup. ‘That’s actually quite banal. Sensors are attached at the points where the harmful substances escape from the plant, and we receive round-the-clock reports on the fallout. We record the levels and simultaneously they go into our meteorograph. The meteorograph is the result of the weather data we get from the German weather service. If emissions are too high or the weather can’t cope with them, an alarm sounds in the RCC and the smog alarm machinery chugs into motion – as it did most excellently last week.’

‘I’ve been told the factories receive the same emissions data as you. How does that work technically? Are they also linked to the sensors, like two lamps on a two-way adaptor?’

Mischkey laughed. ‘Something like that. Technically it’s a bit different. Since there’s not one, but lots of sensors in the factories, the individual lines are already brought together within any one factory. From that collection point, if you like, the data come to us via fixed cable. And the factory in question draws its data from the collection point like we do.’

‘How secure is that? I was thinking the industry might have an interest in falsifying the data.’

That got Mischkey’s attention and he let his apple pie sink down without taking a bite. ‘For a non-technician you ask some pretty good questions. And I have things I’d like to say about that. But I think that is for after this apple pie.’ He gazed tenderly at the sickly pastry, which was giving off a synthetic cinnamon smell. ‘We shouldn’t stay here, we should finish our lunch in the café in Akademiestrasse instead.’ I groped for a cigarette and couldn’t find my lighter. Mischkey, being a non-smoker, couldn’t help me.

The way to the café took us through the Horten department store; Mischkey bought the new Penthouse. We lost each other briefly in the crowds but found each other again at the exit.

In the café Mischkey ordered a piece of Black Forest gateau, a mixed-fruit tart, and a pastry to accompany his pot of coffee. With cream. Obviously he was a good burner of food. Thin people who can shovel so much down make me envious.

‘And what about a good response to my good question?’ I asked, picking up the thread.

‘Theoretically there are two exposed flanks. First of all you could play around with the sensors, but they’re so well sealed that it wouldn’t go unnoticed. The other possible breach is the connection between the collection point and the factory’s cable. There the politicians agreed to a compromise I consider rotten through and through. For at the end of the day you can’t discount the possibility that, from this connection, emissions data may be falsified or, even worse, the programme of the smog alarm systems tampered with. Naturally we’ve built in security measures that we’re constantly fine-tuning, but you can view this as being like an arms race. Every defence system can be out-tricked by a new attack system and vice versa. A never-ending, and never-endingly expensive, spiral.’

I had a cigarette in my mouth and was going through all my pockets looking for the lighter. In vain again, naturally. Then Mischkey, from the right breast pocket of his fine nappa leather jacket, took out two disposable lighters packed in plastic and cardboard, one pink, the other black. He tore open the packet.

‘Is pink all right, Herr Selk? Compliments of the department store.’ He winked at me, pushed the pink one over the table, and offered me a light from the black one.

‘Former public prosecutor deals in stolen lighters.’ I could just picture the headlines, and fiddled a bit with the lighter before pocketing it and thanking Mischkey.

‘But what about the opposite direction? Would it be possible for someone to penetrate the factory’s computer from the RCC?’

‘If the factory’s cable leads to the computer and not to an isolated data station… But actually you should be able to work that out yourself after all I’ve said.’

‘So you really face off like the two superpowers, with offensive and defensive weapons.’

Mischkey tugged at his earlobe. ‘Be careful with your comparisons, Herr Selk. If we follow your analogy, capitalist industry can only be the Americans. That leaves us employees of the state in the role of the Russians. As a public servant,’ he straightened up, pulled back his shoulders, and made a suitably stately face, ‘I must renounce this impertinent insinuation most strongly.’ He laughed, slouched down, and gobbled his pastry.

‘Something else,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I’m amused by the thought that the industry that fought for this damaging compromise has damaged itself. One competitor could naturally take advantage of our network to tamper with the system of another. Isn’t that sweet, the RCC as the turntable of industrial spying?’ He spun his pastry fork on his plate. When it stopped, the prongs were pointing at me.

I suppressed a sigh. Mischkey’s amusing, playful reflections suggested an explosion in the circle of suspects. ‘An interesting variant. Herr Mischkey, you’ve been a great help. In case I think of anything else may I give you a call? Here’s my card.’ I felt around in my wallet for the business card with my private address and telephone number on which I pose as freelance journalist Gerhard Selk.

We shared the route back to Ebert-Platz.

‘What does your meteorograph say about the coming weekend?’

‘It’ll be fine, no smog, not even rain. It looks like a weekend at the pool.’

We said goodbye. I took the Römer roundabout to Bergheimer Strasse to get petrol. Listening to it running through the hose I couldn’t help thinking of the cables between the RCW and the RCC and now God knows which factories. If my case was one of industrial espionage, I thought on the motorway, then there was something missing. The incidents in the RCW system, so far as I could recall, didn’t add up to a case of espionage. Unless the spy had used them to cover his tracks. In which case, wouldn’t his only reason have been that he feared someone was on his trail? And why should he fear that? Did one of the first incidents perhaps risk undoing him? I needed to take another look at the reports. And I needed to call Firner and get hold of a list of the firms connected to the smog alarm system.

I reached Mannheim. It was three o’clock, the blinds of Mannheim Insurance had already closed for the evening. Only the windows that showed an illuminated M at night were still on duty. M as in Mischkey, I thought.

I liked the man. I also liked him as a suspect. Here was the joker, the puzzle-lover, the gambler I’d been looking for from the beginning. He possessed the necessary imagination, the requisite talent, and was sitting in the right place. But it was no more than a hunch. And if I wanted to nail him with that he’d serenely send me packing.

I’d tail him over the weekend. Right now I had nothing but a feeling and I didn’t see how else I could follow the lead. Maybe he’d make a move that would bring me new ideas. Had it been winter I’d have stocked up at the bookshop for the weekend on computer crime. Shadowing someone is a cold and hard business in winter. But in summer it’s fine. Mischkey was going to the pool.

17 Shame on you!

Mischkey currently lived in Heidelberg at number 9, Burgweg, drove a Citroën DS cabriolet with the licence plate HD-CZ 985, was unmarried and childless, earned 55,000 marks as a senior civil servant, and had a personal loan from the Cooperative Savings Bank for 30,000 marks, which he was paying back in an orderly fashion: all this I’d been told on Friday by my colleague Hemmelskopf at the credit bureau. On Saturday at 7 a.m. I was at Burgweg.

It is a small stretch of street, closed to traffic, and the upper part of it becomes a footpath leading to the castle. The residents of the five or so houses in the lower part are allowed to park their cars there and have a key for the gate that divides Burgweg from Unteren Faulen Pelz. I was glad to see Mischkey’s car. It was a beauty, bottle-green with gleaming chrome and a cream-coloured hood. That’s where the loan money had gone. My own car I parked in the hairpin bend of Neue Schlossstrasse from which steep, straight stairs lead to Burgweg. Mischkey’s car was facing uphill; if he were to drive off I ought to have time enough to be in Unteren Faulen Pelz when he arrived. I positioned myself in such a way that I could watch the entrance without being visible from the house.

At half past eight a window opened at eye-level in the house I had taken to be the neighbour’s and a naked Mischkey stretched out into the already mild morning air. I just had time to slip behind the advertising column. I peered out. He was yawning, doing some forward bends, and hadn’t seen me.

At nine o’clock he left the house, walked to the market by Heiliggeist Kirche, ate two salmon rolls there, drank a coffee in the drugstore in the Kettengasse, flirted with the exotic beauty behind the bar, made a phone call, read the Frankfurter Rundschau, had a quick game of power chess, bought some more stuff, went home to drop off the shopping, and came out again with a big bag and got into his car. Now it was time to go swimming, he was wearing a T-shirt with ‘Grateful Dead’ printed on it, cut-off jeans, Jesus sandals, and had thin, pale legs.

Mischkey had to turn his car but the gate below was open so I had real trouble getting my Opel behind him in time, one car between us. I could hear the music blasting from his stereo at full volume. ‘He’s a pretender,’ sang Madonna.

He took the motorway to Mannheim. There he drove at eighty past the ADAC pavilion and the Administrative Court, along Oberen Luisenpark. Suddenly he braked sharply and took a left. When the oncoming traffic allowed me to turn I could no longer see Mischkey’s car. I drove on slowly, and kept an eye out for the green cabriolet. On the corner of Rathenaustrasse I heard loud music die out all of a sudden. I nudged forward. Mischkey was getting out of his car and going into the corner house.

I don’t know what struck me, or what I noticed first, the address or Frau Buchendorff’s silver car gleaming in front of Christuskirche. I rolled down the right-hand window and leaned over to take a look at the building. Through a cast-iron fence and an overgrown garden I looked up at the first-floor balcony. Frau Buchendorff and Mischkey were kissing.

Of all people, the two of them had to be involved! I didn’t like it at all. Tailing someone you know is bad enough, but if you’re discovered you can always pretend it’s a coincidental meeting and extract yourself reasonably well. Theoretically that could also be the case for two people, but not here. Would Frau Buchendorff introduce me as private detective Self, or Mischkey as freelance journalist Selk? If things progressed to swimming I’d be staying outside. Too bad, I’d been looking forward to it and had packed my Bermudas especially. They were kissing fervently. Was that something else I didn’t like?

I assumed they would set off in Mischkey’s car. It was waiting with the top down. I drove a little further into Rathenaustrasse and parked so that the garden gate and Citroën were reflected in my back mirror. Half an hour later they drove past me, and I hid behind my newspaper. Then I followed them through what we call the Suez Canal to Stollenwörth-Weiher, a little lake in the south that boasts two beaches.

Frau Buchendorff and Mischkey went to the Post Office beach. I stopped my car outside the entrance. How long do young people in love go swimming these days? In my day at Müggel Lake it could go on for hours, probably that hadn’t changed much. I had dismissed the idea of swimming but the prospect of sitting in the car, or leaning propped against it for three hours made me cast about for a different solution. Was this beach within sight of the other one? It was worth a shot.

I drove round to the beach opposite and packed my Zeiss binoculars in my swimming bag. I’d inherited them from my father, a regular officer who lost the First World War with them. I bought an entrance ticket, pulled the Bermudas on and my stomach in, and stepped into the sunshine.

I found a space from which I could view the other pool. The lawn was full of families, groups, couples, and singles, and some of the moms too had dared to bare their breasts.

When I extracted my binoculars from my bag I encountered the first, reproachful eyes. I pointed them at the trees, at the few seagulls there were, and at a plastic duck on the lake. If only I’d taken my ornithology guide, I thought, I could use it to inspire their confidence. Briefly I got the other pool in my sights; so far as distance was concerned I could have easily tailed the two of them. But I wasn’t allowed to.

‘Shame on you!’ said a family father whose paunch hung over his bathing trunks, and his breasts over his paunch. He and his wife were the last thing I’d want to look at, with or without binoculars. ‘Stop it right now, you peeping Tom, you, or I’ll smash them.’

It was absurd. The men around me didn’t know which way to look, whether to see everything or nothing, and I don’t think it’s too old-fashioned to believe the women knew exactly what they were doing. And there I was, not interested in the whole business at all – not that it couldn’t have interested me, but at the moment it really didn’t, now I only had my job on my mind. And now of all times I was suspected of lecherousness, accused, convicted, and pronounced guilty.

Such people can only be dealt with using their own weapons. ‘Shame on you,’ I said. ‘With your figure you really ought to wear a top,’ and tucked my binoculars into the bag. I also stood up and topped him by a full head. He contented himself by twitching his mouth disapprovingly.

I jumped into the water and swam over to the other pool. I didn’t even have to get out; Frau Buchendorff and Mischkey had lain down near the water in the baking sun. Mischkey was just cracking open a bottle of red wine so I figured I had at least an hour. I swam back. My adversary had pulled on a Hawaiian shirt, was solving crosswords with his wife, and left me in peace. I fetched a bockwurst with fries and lots of mustard and read my newspaper.

An hour later I was waiting back at the car in front of the other pool. But it wasn’t until six p.m. that the pair of them came through the turn-stile. Mischkey’s thin legs were red, Frau Buchdorff had her shoulder-length hair loose and her tan was emphasized by her blue silk dress. Then they drove back to her place in Rathenaustrasse. When they came out again, she had on a boldly checked pair of Capri pants and a knitted leather sweater, and he was in a pale linen suit. They walked the few steps to the Steigenberger Hotel in the Augusta-Anlage. I skulked around in the hotel lobby until I saw them leave the bar with their glasses and make their way to the restaurant. Now I headed for the bar and ordered an Aviateur. The barman looked puzzled, I explained the mixture to him, and he nodded approvingly. We got talking.

‘We’re pretty damn lucky,’ he said. ‘There was a couple in here just now, wanted to eat in the restaurant. A card slipped out of the man’s wallet and landed on the bar. He tucked it away again immediately but I’d seen what was on it: Inspecteur de bonne table with that little Michelin man. He was one of those people, you know, who do those guides. Our restaurant is good, but still, I alerted the maître d’ right away, and now the two of them will get service and a meal they’ll never forget.’

‘And you’ll get your star at last, or at least three sets of crossed knives and forks.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

Inspecteur de bonne table – well, damn. I don’t think there are identity cards of that sort. I was simultaneously fascinated by Mischkey’s imagination, and uncomfortable with this little con game. Also the state of German gastronomy gave me reason for concern. Did you have to resort to such means to get decent service?

I knew I could call it a day so far as tailing them was concerned. The two of them, after a last calvados, would return either to Frau Buchendorff’s or to Mischkey’s in Heidelberg. I would take a Sunday morning walk to Christuskirche and quickly ascertain whether both cars, no cars, or only Frau Buchendorff ’s were in front of the house in Rathenaustrasse.

I went home, gave the cat a can of cat food, and myself a can of ravioli, and went to bed. I read a bit more of Green Henry and wistfully pictured myself at Lake Zurich before falling asleep.

18 The impurity of the world

On Sunday morning I took tea and butter cookies back to bed and mulled things over. I was certain: I had my man. Mischkey corresponded in every way to the image I’d formed of the culprit. As an employee of the RCC he had the opportunity to penetrate the systems of the interconnected firms, and as Frau Buchendorff ’s boyfriend he had the motive to select RCW. The raising of the executive assistant salaries was an anonymous friendly gesture to his girlfriend. This circumstantial evidence alone wouldn’t stand up in court if everything there was handled by the book. Yet it was convincing enough for me to think less about whether he was the one than about how to convict him.

To confront him in front of witnesses so that he’d fold under the weight of his guilt – ridiculous. To set him a trap, along with Oelmüller and Thomas, this time targeted and better prepared – on the one hand I wasn’t sure of success, and on the other I wanted to have this duel with Mischkey myself with my own weapons. No doubt about it, this was one of those cases that packed a personal punch. Perhaps it even offered too personal a challenge. I felt an unhealthy mixture of professional ambition, respect for my opponent, burgeoning jealousy, the classical rivalry of the hunter and the hunted, and even envy for Mischkey’s youth. I know much of this is simply the impurity of the world: only fanatics believe they can escape it and only saints do. Yet, it bothers me sometimes. Because so few people admit to it I tend to think I’m the only one who suffers from it. When I was a student at university in Berlin my professor, Carl Schmitt, presented us with a theory that neatly differentiated the political from the personal enemy, and everyone felt justified in their anti-Semitism. Even then I was preoccupied by the question of whether the others couldn’t stand their own impurity and had to cover it up, or whether my ability to erect a barrier between the personal and the objective was underdeveloped.

I made some more tea. Could I get a conviction via Frau Buchendorff? Could I get Mischkey, through her, to tamper once more, this time identifiably, with the RCW system? Or could I make use of Grimm and his obvious desire to put one over on Mischkey? Nothing convincing came to mind. I’d have to rely on my talent for improvisation.

I could spare myself any further tailing, but on my way to the Kleiner Rosengarten, where I sometimes meet friends for lunch on a Sunday, I didn’t take my usual route past the Wasserturm and the Ring, but instead walked past the Christuskirche. Mischkey’s Citroën was gone and Frau Buchendorff was working in the garden. I crossed to the other side of the street so I wouldn’t have to say hello to her.

19 Anyone for tennis?

‘Good morning, Frau Buchendorff. How was your weekend?’ At half past eight she was still sitting over her newspaper, opened to the sports page, and was reading the latest on our newest tennis marvel. She had the list of roughly sixty businesses linked to the smog alarm system laid out for me in a green plastic folder. I asked her to cancel my appointment with Oelmüller and Thomas. I only wanted to see them after the case was solved, and even then preferably not.

‘So you’re crazy about our tennis wunderkind, too, Frau Buchendorff?’

‘What do you mean, “too”? Like yourself, or like millions of other German women?’

‘I do find him fascinating.’

‘Do you play?’

‘You’ll laugh, but I have difficulty finding opponents with whom I don’t wipe the floor. In singles, younger players can sometimes beat me just because they’re fitter, but in doubles I’m almost invincible with a reasonable partner. Do you play?’

‘To brag like you, Herr Self, I play so well that it gives men complexes.’ She stood up. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. South-west German Junior Champion nineteen sixty-eight.’

‘A bottle of champagne against an inferiority complex,’ I offered.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means that I’ll beat you, but, as a consolation, I’ll bring a bottle of champagne. However, as mentioned, preferably in mixed doubles. Do you have a partner?’

‘Yes, I have someone,’ she said pugnaciously. ‘When should we do it?’

‘I’d opt for this afternoon at five, after work. Then it won’t be hanging over us. But won’t it be difficult to get a court?’

‘My boyfriend will manage it. He seems to know someone at the court reservation office.’

‘Where will we play?’

‘At the RCW sports field. It’s over in Oggersheim, I can give you a map.’

I hurried to get into the computer centre and had Herr Tausendmilch, ‘but this remains between the two of us,’ print me out the current status of the tennis court reservations. ‘Are you still here at five o’clock?’ I asked him. He finished at four-thirty but was young and declared himself willing to make me another printout at five on the dot. ‘I’ll be glad to tell Firner how efficient you are.’ He beamed.

When I got to the main gate I bumped into Schmalz. ‘The cake proved palatable?’ he enquired. I hoped the taxi driver had eaten it.

‘Please pass on my warm thanks to your wife. It tasted quite excellent. How is little Richard?’

‘Thank you. Well enough.’

Don’t worry, poor Richard. Your father wants you to be extremely well. He just can’t risk the sibilant.

In the car I took a look at the printout of the tennis court reservations, although it was already clear to me that I wouldn’t find a reservation for Mischkey or Buchendorff. Then I sat in the car for a while, smoking. We actually didn’t have to play tennis; if Mischkey turned up at five and a court was reserved for us, I had him. Nonetheless I drove to Herzogenried School to inform Babs, who owed me a favour, that she was duty-bound to play doubles. It was the morning break and Babs was right: kids were carrying on with one another in every corner. Lots of students had their Walkmans on, whether standing alone or in groups, playing, or smooching. Wasn’t the outside world enough, or was it so unbearable for them?

I found Babs in the staffroom talking to two student teachers.

‘Anyone for tennis?’ I interrupted, and took Babs to one side. ‘Really, you must play tennis with me this afternoon. I need you urgently.’

She kissed me, reservedly, as is appropriate for a staffroom. ‘What an opportunity! Didn’t you promise me a springtime excursion to Dilsberg? You only let me clap eyes on you when you want something. It’s nice to see you, but frankly I’m annoyed.’

That’s how she was looking at me, both delighted and pouting. Babs is a lively and generous woman, small and compact, and agile. I don’t know many women of fifty who can dress and act so lightly without trying to play young. She has a flat-ish face, a deep furrow above the bridge of her nose, a full, determined, and at times severe mouth, brown eyes beneath hooded lids, and closely cropped grey hair. She lives with her two grown-up children, Röschen and Georg, who are far too comfortable at home to make the leap to independence.

‘And you really forgot we went to Edenkoben for Father’s Day? If you did, then I’m the one to be annoyed.’

‘Oh dear – when and where do I have to play tennis? And do I get to find out why?’

‘I’ll collect you from home at quarter past four, all right?’

‘And you’ll take me at seven to choir; we’re rehearsing.’

‘Gladly. We’re playing from five till six at the RCW tennis courts in Oggersheim, mixed doubles with an executive assistant and her boyfriend, the chief suspect in my current case.’

‘How thrilling,’ said Babs. Sometimes I have the impression she doesn’t take my profession seriously.

‘If you’d like to know more I can fill you in on the way. And if not, that’s all right too, you just have to behave naturally.’

The bell rang. It sounded the way it did in my day. Babs and I went out into the corridor, and I watched the students streaming into the classrooms. They didn’t just have different clothes and hairstyles, their faces were different from the faces back then. They struck me as more conflicted and more knowing. But the knowledge didn’t make them happy. The children had a challenging, violent, and yet uncertain way of moving. The air vibrated from their shouts and noise. It almost felt threatening.

‘How do you survive this, Babs?’

She didn’t understand me. Perhaps because of the noise. She looked at me questioningly.

‘Okay then, see you this afternoon.’ I gave her a kiss. A few students wolf-whistled.

I welcomed the peace of my car, drove to the Horten parking lot, bought champagne, tennis socks, and a hundred sheets of paper for the report I’d have to write that evening.

20 A lovely couple

Babs and I were at the grounds shortly before five. Neither the green nor the silver cabriolet was parked there. It was fine with me to be first. I’d changed into my tennis things at home. I asked them to put the champagne on ice. Then Babs and I perched ourselves on the uppermost step of the flight of stairs leading from the restaurant terrace of the clubhouse to the courts. The parking lot was in full view.

‘Are you nervous?’ she asked. During the drive she hadn’t wanted to know more. Now she was just asking out of concern for me.

‘Yes. Perhaps I should stop this work. I’m getting more involved in the cases than I used to. This time it’s difficult because I find the main suspect very likeable. You’ll get to know him in a moment. I think you’ll warm to Mischkey.’

‘And the executive assistant?’

Could she sense that, in my mind, Frau Buchendorff was more than just a supporting actress?

‘I like her, too.’

We had chosen an awkward place on the steps. The people who had played until five went trooping up to the terrace, and the next lot came out of the changing rooms and bustled down the stairs.

‘Does your suspect drive a green cabriolet?’

When my view was clear too I saw that Mischkey and Frau Buchendorff had just pulled up. He sprang out of the car, ran round and flung open her door with a deep bow. She got out, laughing, and gave him a kiss. A lovely, vibrant, happy couple.

Frau Buchendorff spotted us when they reached the foot of the stairs. She waved with her right hand and gave Peter an encouraging nudge with the left. He, too, raised an arm in greeting – then he recognized me, and his gesture froze, and his face turned to stone. For a moment the world stopped turning, and the tennis balls were suspended in the air, and it was absolutely still.

Then the film moved on, and the two of them were standing next to us, and we were shaking hands, and I heard Frau Buchendorff say, ‘My boyfriend, Peter Mischkey, and this is the Herr Self I was telling you about.’ I went through the necessary introduction.

Mischkey greeted me as though we were seeing each other for the first time. He played his part composedly and skilfully, with the appropriate gestures and the correct sort of smile. But it was the wrong role, and I was almost sorry that he played it with such bravado, and would have wished instead for the proper ‘Herr Self? Herr Selk? A man of many guises?’

We went over to the groundsman. Court eight was reserved under Frau Buchendorff ’s name; the groundsman pointed it out to us curtly and ungraciously, involved as he was in an argument with an older married couple who insisted they had booked a court.

‘Take a look yourselves, if you please, all the courts are taken and your name isn’t on the list.’ He tilted the screen so that they could see it.

‘I can’t allow this,’ said the man. ‘I booked the court a week in advance.’

His wife had already given up. ‘Oh, leave it, Kurt. Maybe you mixed things up again.’

Mischkey and I exchanged a quick glance. He wore a disinterested expression but his eyes told me his game was up.

The match we launched into is one I’ll never forget. It was as though Mischkey and I wanted to compensate for what had been lacking in open combat before. I played beyond my capabilities, but Babs and I were properly thrashed.

Frau Buchendorff was in high spirits. ‘I have a consolation prize for you, Herr Self. How about a bottle of champagne on the terrace?’

She was the only one to have enjoyed the game uninhibitedly and didn’t mask her admiration for her partner and her opponents. ‘I hardly recognized you, Peter. You’re enjoying yourself today, aren’t you?’

Mischkey tried to beam. He and I didn’t say much as we drank the champagne. The two women kept the conversation going.

Babs said, ‘Actually, that wasn’t really a game of doubles. If I weren’t so old, I’d hope you two men were battling for me. But as it is, you must be the one they’re wooing, Frau Buchendorff.’

And then the two women were on to age and youth, men and lovers, and whenever Frau Buchendorff made some frivolous remark, she gave the silent Mischkey a kiss.

In the changing rooms I was alone with Mischkey.

‘How does it go from here?’ he asked.

‘I’ll hand in my report to the RCW. What they’ll do with it, I don’t know.’

‘Can you leave Judith out of it?’

‘That’s not so easy. She was the bait to a certain extent. How else could I explain how I got on to you?’

‘Do you have to say how you got on to me? Isn’t it enough if I simply confess that I cracked the MBI system?’

I thought it over. I didn’t believe he wanted to make trouble for me, nor could I see how that would be possible. ‘I’ll try. But don’t pull any fast ones. Otherwise I’ll have to submit that other report.’

Back at the car park we joined the two ladies. Was I seeing Frau Buchendorff for the last time? I didn’t like the thought.

‘See you soon?’ was her goodbye. ‘How’s the case coming along by the way?’

21 You’re such a sweetheart

My report for Korten turned out to be short. Nonetheless, it took me five hours and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon before my draft was finished at midnight. The whole case replayed in front of me, and it wasn’t easy to keep Frau Buchendorff out of it.

I saw the RCW-RCC link as the exposed flank of the MBI system that allowed not only people from the RCC but also other businesses connected to the RCC to access the RCW. I borrowed Mischkey’s characterization of the RCC as the turntable of industry espionage. I recommended disconnecting the emission data recording system from the central system.

Then I described, in a sanitized way, the course my investigation had taken, from my discussions and research in the Works to a fictive confrontation with Mischkey at which he had declared himself willing to repeat a confession and to reveal the technical details to the RCW.

With an empty, heavy head I went to bed. I dreamt of a tennis match in a railway carriage. The ticket inspector, in a gas mask and thick rubber gloves, kept trying to pull out the carpet I was playing on. When he succeeded we continued to play on the glass floor, while beneath us the sleepers raced by. My partner was a faceless woman with heavy, hanging breasts. Her movements were so powerful, I was constantly afraid she’d crash through the glass. As she did I woke up in horror and relief.

In the morning I went to the offices of two young lawyers in Tattersallstrasse whose under-burdened secretary sometimes typed for me. The lawyers were playing Amigo on their computers. The secretary promised me the report for eleven o’clock. Then, back in my office, I looked through the mail, mostly brochures for alarm and security systems, and called Frau Schlemihl.

She hemmed and hawed a great deal, but eventually I got my lunchtime meeting with Korten in the canteen. Before I collected the report, I booked a flight on the spot at the travel agent’s for that evening to Athens. Anna Bredakis, a friend from university days, had asked that I give her plenty of prior warning. She had to get the yacht she’d inherited from her parents sail-worthy and assemble a crew from amongst her nieces and nephews. But I’d prefer to be in Piraeus, haunting the harbour bars, than reading about Mischkey’s arrest in the Mannheimer Morgen and having Frau Buchendorff connect me to Firner, who’d congratulate me with his silver tongue.

I arrived half an hour late for lunch with Korten, but I couldn’t use that to make a point. ‘Are you Herr Self?’ asked a grey mouse at reception who’d caked on too much rouge. ‘Then I’ll call the general director straight away. If you’d be so kind as to wait.’

I waited in the reception hall. Korten came and greeted me rather curtly. ‘Things not advancing, my dear Self? You need my help?’

It was the tone of a rich uncle greeting his tiresome, debt-producing, and money-begging nephew. I looked at him in bewilderment. He might have a lot of work and be stressed and hassled, but I was hassled, too.

‘All I need is for you to pay the bill in this envelope. You could also listen to how I solved your case, but then again you could also let it be.’

‘Not so touchy, my dear friend, not so touchy. Why didn’t you tell Frau Schlemihl right away what this is about?’ He took my arm and led me into the Blue Salon once again. My eyes searched in vain for the redhead with the freckles.

‘So, you’ve solved the case?’

I briefly summarized my report. When, over the soup, I came onto the slip-ups of his team, he nodded earnestly. ‘Now you see why I can’t hand over the reins yet. Nothing but mediocrity.’ I didn’t comment. ‘And what sort of man is this Mischkey?’

‘How do you imagine someone who orders a hundred thousand rhesus monkeys for your plant and deletes all account numbers that begin with thirteen?’

Korten grinned.

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘A colourful character, and a brilliant computer expert to boot. If you’d had him in your computer centre, these mess-ups wouldn’t have happened.’

‘And how did you get on to this brilliant chap?’

‘What I choose to say on that is contained in the report. I don’t have any wish to expand greatly on that now. Somehow I find Mischkey likeable and I don’t find it easy to turn him in. I’d appreciate it if you weren’t too severe, not too hard – you know what I mean, don’t you?’

‘Self, you’re such a sweetheart!’ Korten laughed. ‘You’ve never learned to do things thoroughly or not at all.’ And then, more reflectively, ‘But perhaps that’s your strength – your sensitivity lets you get inside things and people; it lets you cultivate your scruples, and at the end of the day you do actually function.’

He rendered me speechless. Why so aggressive and cynical? Korten’s observation had got me where it hurt, and he knew it and blinked with pleasure.

‘Don’t worry, my dear Self, we won’t cause any unnecessary trouble. And about what I said – I admire it in you very much, don’t get me wrong.’

He was making it even worse and looked me mildly in the face. Even if there was some truth in his words – doesn’t friendship mean treading carefully when it comes to the lies the other person builds into his life? But there wasn’t any truth in it. I felt a surge of fury.

I didn’t want dessert any more. And preferred to have my coffee in the Café Gmeiner. And Korten had a meeting at two.

At eight I drove to Frankfurt and flew to Athens.