Self's deception - By Bernhard Schlink & Peter Constantine Page 0,70

in the files,” I said.

“To tell you the truth, we didn't know what else we could do,” Nägelsbach said. “Now that you have brought us all these new leads, we can set things rolling again. But who is Lemke? Where did his and Wendt's paths cross? Might Wendt have been the fifth man in the attack after all?”

“No, he wasn't.”

“You're handing me that on a silver platter, too. I guess you won't want to tell me how you come to know that either?”

“If you're hinting that I haven't told you where I have the bullet from, I'll be glad to make amends.”

I told him about my encounter with Lemke.

“But now you have definitely found out a good deal more from me than I have from you,” I said.

Frau Nägelsbach agreed with me. “I think you owe Herr Self something, too.”

He disagreed. “I will keep him posted, I assure you. But he had a bullet, and I had one. Both he and I had to bring them together so we could compare them and ascertain that they came from the same weapon. Now we're both moving forward. My progress I have already mentioned. And he can call his client tomorrow morning and announce his first success.”

12

Tearing along

That is exactly what I did. Frau Büchler was pleased. No, I could not speak to Herr and Frau Wendt yet. They were in Badenweiler with their daughter.

The morning was cool, and I wore a sweater with my corduroys and hiking boots. I drove over the Friedrich-Ebert Bridge, the Friedrich-Ebert Strasse, through Käfertal and Vogelstang, and over the Entlastungsstrasse to Viernheim, where the Nibelungenstrasse took me to yet another Friedrich-Ebert Strasse. Everything flows: We drive along the same Friedrich-Ebert Strasse and yet it is not the same Friedrich-Ebert Strasse, we are the same and yet not the same.

To my left the fence reached the Lorscher Weg Road, and I parked my old Opel and walked. I followed the fence westward through the woods. The ground was springy beneath my feet, the birds were singing, the trees were rustling in the wind, and an aroma of pine resin, decaying foliage, and fresh green hung in the air. I didn't see any watchdogs or security patrols on the asphalt path behind the fence, nor did the fence look as if it had been damaged or repaired in the last few months. After a quarter of an hour, the rustling grew louder—it wasn't the wind anymore, but the autobahn. The fence ran northward alongside it. The cars tore past me, and once an empty can barely missed my head. I was glad when the fence veered back into the woods again.

But then I changed my mind. I knew that the tire tracks left by the car Leo's group had used to get to the depot would no longer be there, but I wanted to see what route they might have taken. The embankment that I found posed no problem for a regular car. I also found a wide path through the woods that a car could easily have used, and which could be reached from the embankment. The path led out of the woods and into an open area with stunted shrubs, dried grass, blueberry bushes, and wildflowers. Leo had said that they followed a path leading across the meadows to the woods, and I followed the path to where I imagined the fence to be behind the trees. I made a mental note of the rampant brambles along the edge of the woods so I could come back in August for some berry picking. In the woods I soon came upon the fence again.

I saw right away that this part of the fence had been repaired. I listened for the bulldozers, the conveyer belts, and the trucks that I had seen from the airplane. I heard the birds, the wind, the distant rumbling of the cars—otherwise there was silence. My watch showed ten o'clock. Was the construction crew on a break? I sat down on a rock and waited.

Then I heard something that at first I couldn't place. Did conveyer belts rattle like that? Did bulldozers squeak like that? But the rumble of engines was missing. I couldn't believe the guards would be patrolling the fence on mountain bikes, but that is exactly what it sounded like. Then I heard voices, one light and one deep.

“Do be careful, Eva!”

“I am being careful, Grandpa, I am.”

“If you keep tearing along like this I'll end up with a broken