The Carnival Master

3.

Leave it, he thought to himself. Let it lie.

It had still been reasonably early by the time Fabel got home. Bartz had wanted to spend more time together at the bar after the meal, but Fabel explained that he had an early start in the morning. He had a report to write out on the Aichinger incident. Bartz had sighed and said, ‘Never mind…’ but had skilfully communicated a growing impatience with his soon-to-be international sales director.

Susanne had come over to Fabel’s place after work. He hadn’t seen her all that day: she hadn’t been in the Presidium but had instead been working at the psychiatric department of the Institute for Legal Medicine in Eppendorf. He poured them both a glass of wine while he waited for her to come out of the shower. He gazed out of the tall window that looked out over the Alsterpark and the dark glittering shield of the Alster lake beyond it. He loved his apartment. He had landed it through bad luck and good timing: his marriage had collapsed just as the Hamburg property market had hit an all-time low. It had still been a stretch on his Principal Chief Commissar’s salary, but it had been worth it. It had, however, been very much a place for one. His personal and undivided space. Now, with his change of career, had come another change: the decision that he and Susanne should sell their respective apartments, find somewhere new and move in together. Another decision that had seemed so clear at the time yet now lay shrouded in doubt.

Fabel watched the distant moving twinkle of car headlights along the Schone Aussicht on the distant shore of the Alster. He thought of his meal with Bartz. Of his future. Of the file that lay dumped on the coffee table yet filled the room with its presence. If I pick it up, he thought, I’ll be sucked into it all again. Leave it. Let it lie.

Susanne came into the room and Fabel placed a Hamburger Morgenpost on top of the file. He turned and smiled. Susanne was beautiful. Smart. Sexy. Her long thick hair was wet and hung over the shoulders of her white towelling bathrobe in glossy black kinks. She sat down on the sofa and he handed the glass of wine to her.

‘Tired?’ he asked, sitting down beside her on the sofa.

‘No. Not really.’ She smiled languidly.

‘Hungry?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said and pulled him towards her, allowing the bathrobe to fall open.