up, Ingo.”
I took binder number 15.6 and its video off the shelf, and he jumped up and tried to snatch them out of my hands. I held on to them tightly, but didn't have a chance. He was young, strong, and furious. There was a short scuffle, and the binder and video were in his hands.
He looked at me, malicious and ready to pounce.
“You won't get far with those,” I said.
He grinned and threw a mock punch at me with his right hand. I stepped back. He put down the binder and video and came closer. I had no idea what he was doing. He launched into a shadowboxing dance, throwing punches first with one fist, then the other, and I kept stepping back. Had he lost his marbles? Then one of his punches hit me, and I staggered backward through the open bathroom door, taking glass beakers, bottles, and trays with me as I fell, and lay in the rubble of his darkroom.
I struggled back to my feet. I could smell chemicals. There was the gentle puffing sound with which a gas range lights up, and the cigarette I had dropped as I fell lit the puddle beneath the bathtub. I tore past the startled Peschkalek into his living room. Behind me there was another puffing sound, then another. I felt the warmth of the fire, turned around, and saw the flames leap out of the bathroom and seize the carpet and the shelf. Peschkalek tore off his jacket and started beating at the flames. It was completely futile.
“Get out!” I yelled. The fire began to roar. In the bedroom, the bed and closet were in flames. “Get out!”
The jacket with which he was beating at the fire was burning. I grabbed hold of him, but he tore himself loose. I grabbed hold of him again and dragged him toward the door. I tore it open. A gust of wind blew in, and the whole room was in flames. The heat drove us onto the landing. Peschkalek stood there, staring hypnotized into the burning room. “Let's get out of here!” I shouted, but he wasn't listening. He began walking back toward the door like a sleepwalker, and I pushed him down the stairs, hurrying after him. He tripped, caught himself, tripped again, and went tumbling head over heels.
He lay at the foot of the stairs without moving.
31
Rawitz laughed
The lights went on in the apartments all around and windows opened. People were leaning out and calling to one another what they could all plainly see: Fire! The ambulance arrived even before the fire brigade and took the unconscious Peschkalek away. The fire trucks arrived. Men in blue uniforms and funny helmets, with little axes on their belts, pulled the hoses through the hallway with surprising speed and turned the water on. There wasn't much left to extinguish.
Then I poked around in the hot, wet, black gunk. Even before the fire chief ordered me off the premises I could see that there was nothing left to be found. There wasn't anything even remotely resembling a binder or a video cassette.
The police began taking statements from witnesses, and I stole out of the courtyard. I would rather have headed over to the Kleiner Rosengarten or home than to Brigitte's. But I couldn't just leave her waiting. I gave her a sanitized version of my encounter with Peschkalek. She didn't probe further, just as I didn't probe into why she and Peschkalek had been sitting cheek to cheek. Later that night we called the hospital, where he was recovering from a concussion. He had also broken an arm and a leg, but had no other injuries.
Then I lay in bed mulling over the ruins of my case. I thought of the death of Rolf Wendt, who could have lived in a stylish apartment and had his own hospital; of Ingo Peschkalek, the miserable murderer; and of Leo's life on the edge, between flight and prison. I was worried that I wouldn't sleep a wink, but I ended up sleeping the sleep of the righteous. I dreamed I was running down some stairs and along corridors, pursued by flames. The running soon turned into floating and gliding, and I flitted cross-legged, with billowing nightshirt, over stairs and through more corridors, until I finally left the flames far behind me, braked, and landed on a green meadow among bright flowers.
The shortest way from Brigitte's place to mine is over the footbridge that crosses the Neckar