Self's punishment (17 page)

21

Praying Hands

After a feverish night I called Brigitte. She came immediately, brought quinine for my temperature and nose drops, massaged my neck, hung up my clothes to dry that I’d dropped in the hallway the previous evening, prepared something in the kitchen that I was to heat up for lunch, set off, bought orange juice, glucose, and cigarettes, and fed Turbo. She was professional, industrious, and worried. When I wanted her to sit for a little on the edge of the bed, she had to leave.

I slept almost the whole day. Philipp called and confirmed the blood group, O, and the rhesus negative factor. Through the window a rumble of traffic from the Augusta-Anlage and the shouts of playing children drifted into the twilight of my room. I remembered sick days as a child, the desire to be outside playing with the other children, and simultaneously the pleasure in my own weakness and all the maternal pampering. In a feverish semi-sleep I kept running from the panting dog and Energy and Stamina. I was making up for the fear I hadn’t felt yesterday where everything had happened too quickly. I had wild thoughts about Mischkey’s murder and why Schmalz had done it.

Towards evening I was feeling better. My temperature had gone down and I was weak, but I felt like eating the beef broth with pasta and vegetables that Brigitte had prepared, and smoking a Sweet Afton afterwards. How should work on the case proceed? Murder belonged in police hands, and even if the RCW, as I could well imagine, pulled a veil of oblivion over yesterday’s incident I’d never find out anything more from anyone in the Works. I called Nägelsbach. He and his wife had finished dinner and were in the studio.

‘Of course you can come by. You can listen to
Hedda
Gabler
, too, we’re in the third act just now.’

I stuck a note on the front door, to reassure Brigitte in case she came to check on me again. The drive to Heidelberg was bad. My own slowness and the quickness of the car made uneasy companions.

The Nägelsbachs live in one of the Pfaffengrunder settlement houses of the twenties. Nägelsbach had turned the shed, originally meant for chickens and rabbits, into a studio with a large window and bright lamps. The evening was cool and the Swedish wood-burning stove held a few crackling logs. Nägelsbach was sitting on his high stool, at the big table on which Dürer’s
Praying Hands
were taking shape in matchstick form. His wife was reading aloud in the armchair by the stove. It was a perfect idyll that met my eyes when I came through the garden gate straight to the studio and looked through the window before knocking.

‘My word, what a sight you are!’ Frau Nägelsbach vacated the armchair for me and took another stool for herself.

‘You must really have something on your mind to come here in this state,’ was Nägelsbach’s greeting. ‘Do you mind if my wife stays? I tell her everything, work-wise, too. The rules of confidentiality don’t apply to childless couples who only have one another.’

As I recounted my tale, Nägelsbach worked on. He didn’t interrupt me. At the end of my narration he was silent for a little while, then he switched off the lamp above his workplace, turned his high stool toward us, and said to his wife: ‘Tell him.’

‘With what you’ve just told us, maybe the police will get a search warrant for the old hangar. Maybe they’ll find the Citroën still there. But there’ll be nothing remarkable or suspicious about it. No reflective foil, no deadly triptych. That was pretty, by the way, how you described that. Right, and then the police can interrogate a few of the security people and the widow Schmalz and whoever else you named, but what is it going to achieve?’

‘That’s it, and of course I could prime Herzog in particular about the case, and he can try to use his contacts with security, only it won’t change a thing. But you know all that yourself, Herr Self.’

‘Yes, that’s where my thinking has brought me too. Nonetheless I thought you might have an idea of something the police could do, that . . . oh, I don’t know what I thought. I haven’t been able to resign myself to the case ending like this.’

‘Do you have any idea of a motive?’ Frau Nägelsbach turned to her husband. ‘Couldn’t we get further that way?’

‘I can only imagine from what I know thus far that something went wrong. Just like that story you read to me recently. The RCW is having trouble with Mischkey, and it’s getting more and more bothersome, and then someone in control says, “That’s enough,” and his subordinate gets a fright and in his turn passes the baton: “See to it Mischkey is quietened down, exert yourself,” and the person this is said to wants to show his dedication and prods and encourages his own subordinate to think of something, and it can be unusual, and at the end of this long chain someone believes he’s supposed to knock off Mischkey.’

‘But old Schmalz was a pensioner and not even part of the chain any more,’ his wife offered.

‘Hard to say. How many policemen do I know who still feel like policemen after retirement?’

‘Dear God,’ she interrupted him, ‘you’re not going to—’

‘No, I won’t. Perhaps Schmalz senior was one of those who still thought of himself as being in service. What I mean is there needn’t be a motive for murder in the classical sense here. The murderer is simply the instrument without a motive, and whoever had the motive wasn’t necessarily thinking about murder. That’s the effect, and indeed the purpose, of commanding hierarchies. We know that in the police, too, and in the army.’

‘Do you think more could be done if old Schmalz were still alive?’

‘Well, to begin with, Herr Self wouldn’t have got as far. He wouldn’t have found out at all about Schmalz’s injury, wouldn’t have looked in the hangar, and certainly wouldn’t have found the murder vehicle. All traces would have been removed long before. But, all right, let’s imagine we’d come by this knowledge in a different way. No, I don’t think we’d have got anything out of old Schmalz. He must have been a tough old nut.’

‘I can’t just accept this, Rudolf. Listening to you, the only person you can get in this chain of command is the last link. And the others are all supposedly innocent?’

‘Whether they’re innocent is one question and whether you can get them is another. Look, Reni, I don’t know of course whether something really went wrong, or whether it’s not the case that the chain was so well-oiled that everyone knew what was meant without it being spoken out loud. But if it was oiled like that, it certainly can’t be proved.’

‘Should Herr Self be advised to talk to one of the big cheeses at the RCW? To get a sense of how that person conducts himself?’

‘So far as prosecution goes, that won’t help either. But you’re right, it’s the only remaining thing he can do.’

It was good to watch the pair of them, in this question-and-answer game, making sense of what I was too groggy to work out for myself. So what was left for me was a talk with Korten.

Frau Nägelsbach made some verbena tea and we talked about art. Nägelsbach told me what appealed to him in his reproduction of
Praying Hands
. He found the usual sculpture reproductions no less sickly sweet than I. And that very fact made him want to achieve the sublime sobriety of Dürer’s original through the rigorous simplicity of the matches.

As I left he promised to check up on the licence plate of Schmalz’s Citroën.

The note for Brigitte was still hanging on the door. When I was lying in bed she called. ‘Are you feeling better? Sorry I couldn’t come round to see you again. I just didn’t manage it. How’s your weekend looking? Do you think you’ll feel up to coming to dinner tomorrow?’ Something wasn’t right. Her cheerfulness sounded forced.

22

Tea in the loggia

On Saturday morning I found one message from Nägelsbach on the answering machine and one from Korten. The number on the licence plate on old Schmalz’s Citroën had been allotted to a Heidelberg postal worker for his VW Beetle five years ago. Presumably the licence plate I saw originated from this scrapped predecessor. Korten asked whether I wouldn’t like to visit them in Ludolf-Krehl-Strasse. I should call him back.

‘My dear Self, good to hear you. This afternoon, tea in the loggia? You whipped up quite a storm for us, I hear. And you sound as though you have a cold. It doesn’t surprise me, ha ha. Your level of fitness, I’m full of respect.’

At four o’clock I was in Ludolf-Krehl-Strasse. For Inge, if it was still Inge, I had brought an autumn bouquet. I marvelled at the entrance gate, the video camera, and the intercom system. It consisted of a telephone receiver on a long cable that the chauffeur could pick up and pass on to the good ladies and gentlemen in the rear. Just as I wanted to sit back in my car with the receiver I heard Korten with the tortured patience you use for a naughty child. ‘Don’t be silly, Self! The cable car is on its way for you.’

On the ride up I had a view from Neuenheim over the Rhine plain to the Palatinate Forest. It was a clear day and I could make out the chimneys of the RCW. Their white smoke merged innocently with the blue sky.

Korten, in cords, checked shirt, and a casual cardigan, greeted me heartily. Two dachshunds were leaping around him. ‘I’ve had a table set in the loggia, it won’t be too cold for you, will it? You can always have one of my cardigans, Helga knits me one after the other.’

We stood enjoying the view. ‘Is that your church down there?’

‘The Johanneskirche? No, we belong to the Friedenskirche parish in Handschuhsheim. I’ve become an Elder. Nice job.’

Helga came with a coffee pot and I unloaded my flowers. I’d only known Inge fleetingly and didn’t know whether she’d died, divorced, or simply left. Helga, new wife or new lover, resembled her. The same cheerfulness, the same false modesty, the same delight over my bouquet. She stayed to have a first slice of apple cake with us. Then: ‘You men certainly want to talk among yourselves.’ As was right and proper we contradicted her. And as was right and proper she went anyway.

‘May I have another slice of apple cake? It’s delicious.’

Korten leant back in his armchair. ‘I am sure you had good reason for frightening security on Thursday evening. If you don’t mind I’d like to know what it was. I was the one who recently introduced you to the Works, if you like, and I’m the one to get all the puzzled looks when your escapades became known.’

‘How well did you know Schmalz senior? A personal message from you was read out at his funeral.’

‘You weren’t looking for the answer to that question in the shed. But fine, I knew him better and liked him better than all the other men in security. Back in the dark years we grew close to some of the simple employees in a way that is no longer possible today.’

‘He killed Mischkey. And in the hangar I found proof, the thing that killed him.’

‘Old Schmalz? He wouldn’t hurt a fly. What are you talking yourself into, my dear Self.’

Without mentioning Judith or going into detail, I reported what had happened. ‘And if you ask me what any of this has to do with me then I’ll remind you of our last talk. I ask you to go gently on Mischkey and shortly afterwards he’s dead.’

‘And where do you see a reason, a motive, for such action on the part of old Schmalz?’

‘We can come back to that in a minute. First I’d like to know if you have any questions about the order of events.’

Korten got up and prowled back and forth heavily. ‘Why didn’t you call me first thing yesterday morning? Then we might still have discovered something more about what went on in Schmalz’s hangar. Now it’s too late. It was planned for weeks – yesterday the building complex, along with the old hangar, was demolished. That was also the reason I spoke to old Schmalz myself four weeks ago. We had a little schnapps and I tried to break the news to him that we, unfortunately, couldn’t keep the old hangar, nor his apartment.’

‘You were round at Schmalz senior’s?’

‘No, I asked him to come and see me. Naturally I don’t usually deliver such messages. But he’s always reminded me of the old days. And you know how sentimental I am deep down.’

‘And what happened to the delivery van?’

‘No idea. The son will have taken care of it. But once again, where do you see a motive?’

‘I actually thought you’d be able to tell me.’

‘What makes you say that?’ Korten’s steps slowed. He stood still, turned, and scrutinized me.

‘That Schmalz senior personally had no reason to kill Mischkey is clear. But the plant did have some trouble with him, put him under pressure, even had him beaten up; and he did show resistance. And he could have blown your deal with Grimm. You’re not going to tell me you knew nothing about all this?’

No, Korten wasn’t. He had been aware of the trouble and also of the deal with Grimm. But that was surely not the stuff of murder. ‘Unless . . .’ he removed his glasses, ‘unless old Schmalz misinterpreted something. You know, he was the sort of man who still imagined himself in service, and if his son or another security man told him about the trouble with Mischkey, he might have seen himself as obliged to act as saviour of the Works.’

‘What could Schmalz senior have misunderstood with such serious repercussions?’

‘I don’t know what his son or anyone else might have told him. Or if anyone just plain incited him? I’ll get to the bottom of it. It’s unbearable to think that my good old Schmalz ended up being exploited like this. And what a tragic end. His great love for the Works and a silly little misunderstanding led him to take a life senselessly and unnecessarily, and also to sacrifice his own.’

‘What’s the matter with you? Giving life, taking life, tragedy, exploitation – I’m thinking: “It’s not reprehensible to use people, it’s just tactless to let them notice” ’

‘You’re right, let’s get back to the matter at hand. Should we bring in the police?’

That was it? An over-eager veteran of security had killed Mischkey, and Korten didn’t even turn a hair. Could the prospect of having the police in the Works frighten him? I tried it out.

Korten weighed up the pros and cons. ‘It’s not only the fact that it’s always unpleasant to have the police in the Works. I feel sorry for the Schmalz family. To lose a husband and father and then to discover he had made a lethal mistake – can we take on the responsibility for that? There’s nothing left to atone, he paid with his life. But I’m thinking about reparation. Do you know whether Mischkey had parents he looked after, or other obligations, or whether he has a decent gravestone? Did he leave anyone behind we could do something for? Would you be willing to take care of it?’

I assumed that Judith wouldn’t particularly care to have anything of the sort done for her.

‘I’ve investigated plenty in Mischkey’s case. If you’re serious, Frau Schlemihl can find out what you need to know with a couple of phone calls.’

‘You’re always so sensitive. You did wonderful work on Mischkey’s case. I’m also grateful that you kept going with the second part of the investigation. I need to be aware of such things. May I extend my original contract belatedly and ask you to send a bill?’

He was welcome to the bill.

‘Ah, and another thing,’ said Korten, ‘while we’re talking business. You forgot to enclose your special pass with your report last time. Please do pop it in the envelope with the bill this time.’

I took the pass out of my wallet. ‘You can have it right now. And I’ll be on my way.’

Helga came onto the loggia as though she’d been eavesdropping behind the door, and had picked up the signal for saying goodbye. ‘The flowers are truly delightful, would you like to see where I’ve put them, Herr Self?’

‘Ah, children, drop the formalities. Self is my oldest friend.’ Korten put an arm round both our shoulders.

I wanted out. Instead, I followed the two of them into the sitting room, admired my bouquet on the grand piano, listened to the popping of the champagne cork, and clinked glasses with Helga, over the dropping of formalities.

‘Why haven’t we seen you here more often?’ she asked in all innocence.

‘Yes, we must change that,’ said Korten, before I could respond at all. ‘What are your plans for New Year’s Eve?’

I thought about Brigitte. ‘I’m not sure yet.’

‘That’s wonderful, my dear Self. Then we’ll be in touch with each other again soon.’