Self's punishment - By Bernhard Schlink & Walter Popp Page 0,55
up in a murder. He’s dead, the guy you took care of back then.’
Fred scrambled to his feet. I showed him the sink and poured him a sambuca. He gulped it down and was in a hurry to leave.
‘That’s fine,’ he mumbled. ‘But I’ve had enough, I’m out of here.’ Maybe he found my behaviour acceptable from a professional point of view. But we’d never be best friends.
Another piece to fit in, but the picture was no less blurry. So the confrontation between the RCW and Mischkey had reached the stage of professional thugs. But from the warning beaten into him at the War Cemetery to murder was a huge step.
I sat down at my desk. The Sweet Afton had smoked itself and left nothing but its body of ash. The traffic raced by in the Augusta-Anlage. From the backyard I could hear the shrieks of playing children. There are days in autumn where there’s a whiff of Christmas in the air. I wondered what I should decorate my tree with this year. Klärchen loved the traditional way and decked the tree year in, year out with shiny silver baubles and tinsel. Since then I’ve tried everything from matchbox cars to cigarette packs. I’ve got a bit of a reputation for it among my friends, but I’ve also set standards I’m stuck with now. The universe doesn’t have an endless supply of little objects that can be used as Christmas tree decorations. Cans of sardines, for example, would be ornamental, but are very heavy.
Philipp called and demanded I come and admire his new cabin cruiser. Brigitte asked what I was planning that evening. I invited her round to dinner, ran out and bought a fillet of pork, boiled ham, and endives.
We had braised pork, Italian style. Afterwards I put on The Man Who Loved Women. I knew the film already and was curious to see how Brigitte would react to it. When the womanizer, chasing after beautiful women’s legs, ran in front of a car, she thought it served him right. She didn’t particularly like the film. But when it was over she couldn’t resist posing in front of the floor lamp, as if by accident, showing her legs off to advantage against the light.
18
A little story
I dropped Brigitte off at work at the Collini Centre and drank my second coffee at the Gmeiner. I didn’t have a smoking gun in the Mischkey case. Naturally I could keep on looking for my stupid little jigsaw pieces, trying them helplessly this way and that, and combining them to make some picture or other. I was fed up with it. I felt young and dynamic after the night with Brigitte.
At the sales counter the boss was fighting with her son. ‘The way you’re carrying on makes me wonder if you really want to become a pastry cook.’ Did I really want to follow my leads the way I was carrying on? I was timid about those that led to the RCW. Why? Was I afraid of discovering I had delivered Mischkey to his death? Had I messed up the trails deliberately out of consideration for myself and Korten and our friendship?
I drove to Heidelberg and the RCC. Grimm wanted to deal with me quickly, on his feet. I sat down and fetched Mischkey’s computer printout from my briefcase.
‘You wanted to take another look, Herr Grimm. I can leave it with you now. Mischkey really was a helluva guy, broke into the RCW system again although the connection was already cut. I suspect via telephone, or what do you think?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He was a bad liar.
‘You’re a bad liar, Herr Grimm. But that doesn’t matter. For what I’ve got to tell you it’s not important whether you’re a good one or a bad one.’
‘What?’
He was still standing, looking at me helplessly. I made an inviting gesture. ‘Wouldn’t you care to take a seat?’
He shook his head.
‘I don’t have to tell you who the red Ford Escort HD-S 735 sitting in the parking lot down there belongs to. Exactly three weeks ago to the day on the bridge over the railroad between Eppelheim and Wieblingen, Mischkey plummeted in his car onto the tracks after being hit by a red Ford Escort. The witness I managed to unearth even saw that the number plate of the red Escort started with HD and ended with 735.’
‘And why are you telling me this? You should go to the police.’