“All that just to sell your story? You thought—”
“I didn't just think. I'd have pulled it off if you hadn't gotten in the way. Then the reporter would have been on the scene before the police, would have found the little map, and would have started giving the matter some thought. Then it would have been easy enough for me to point the reporter in the right direction. But things have gotten moving anyway and become public.”
“Did Lemke give you the gun?”
“Helmut give me something?” He laughed. “Helmut is a taker. And for years I was a giver. I was proud to be part of things, to let him order me about. The girls had to make coffee and cook spaghetti, and I had to see to electrical cables, equipment, and cars. That's why Helmut wanted me around when he was in Spain and got all that new-age stuff going with groups and seminars and nude bathing and hot springs. When that didn't pan out and he came back here, things still went on the way they always had. I was to be part of things— in other words, see to all the technical stuff—but I had learned my lesson.”
The lesson Peschkalek had learned was that nothing is free, that as you make your bed, so shall you lie in it—and nobody will come tuck you in. The whole thing had been Lemke's idea.
“You have to have something to offer people, was his motto. Soccer games, celebrity weddings, accidents, and crime are what excite people, and postmodern terrorism is just as much a media event and has to be organized and marketed like everything else.” Lemke needed Peschkalek in order to fill the gap in the market. This time not only because it was more convenient not to have to worry about the technical side of things, but because Lemke wasn't capable of pulling off the whole thing on his own. He needed a cameraman. “But though he needed me, he didn't want to go fifty-fifty. I was to get only a third. I talked to him about it, but he wouldn't budge. He is…somehow, you can't talk with him. So I thought to myself: Just you wait, my time will come.”
And Peschkalek's time did come. Initially, the horror was great. “The morning after the attack—you can't imagine. There we were, huddled around the radio. There was the news at the top of each hour, and every time we'd think: That's it, here comes the report! But each time, nothing. Even though we had two casualties to offer, and that's not to be sniffed at.” On the following days there wasn't anything in the news either, and added to that disappointment came the uncertainty of what might have happened to Bertram and Leo, what Bertram might have said after his arrest, and if Leo had been arrested, too, or where she had gone into hiding. But Bertram wasn't actually in a position to reveal anything important because he didn't know anything of importance about Helmut and Ingo, and Helmut was certain that Leo would not want to reveal anything. So they set to work, writing to TV stations and newspapers. When that didn't pan out, Helmut wanted to drop the whole thing. “He still hired you to search for Leo and said he was doing it so we could put more pressure on the media without needing to worry that she might mess things up for us one day. He used my money for that. But I think he only did it because he wanted her back—because the way I see it, his mind was already on other projects.”
Then Peschkalek had jumped in, shadowing me, had almost managed to trace her, and had set Rawitz and Bleck-meier on me. When shooting at Rolf didn't bring the whole thing out in the media the way he wanted, Peschkalek had first reported me to the police, then Helmut and Leo. “Helmut had stayed in constant contact with me. It never even occurred to him that he might pull the short straw one day.”
Peschkalek had picked up momentum as he talked and looked at me hopefully. “All's not lost, Gerhard. When the trial comes, Helmut will put the record straight on Käfertal and Viernheim—that will be a real bombshell, and all the TV stations and papers that turned their backs on my story will have a feeding frenzy. With the map that you have, the story will get even better and more lucrative. There's at least half a million in it for each of us.” He rummaged through his pants pocket. “Do you have a cigarette?”
I lit one for myself, threw him the yellow pack and the lighter, and leaned on the bookshelf. “Forget it. It isn't going to work. But you could give me the material.”
“What would you do with it?”
“Don't worry, I won't turn it into cash. Perhaps I can use it to get Leo out.”
“What, are you nuts? I've been working on Viernheim for over half a year! You want me to just chuck everything out the window?”
“Look, Ingo, it's over. The police know that Wendt was shot with Lemke's gun. When they confront Lemke with that, he'll know that you took it and shot Wendt with it. He won't want to pay for a murder he didn't commit. What other options does he have but to hand you over to the police? He has no choice. Give it 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 to the Collini Center and then past the National Theater and across Werderplatz Square. At six in the morning the streets are empty, and only on the Goethestrasse or the Augusta-Anlage will you find some light traffic. It had not cooled off in the night, and the warm morning augured a hot day. A black cat crossed my path on the Rathenaustrasse. I could use some good luck.
I wrote my report for old Herr Wendt to the extent that I could. Then I faced the last chapter.
I put a call through to the Ministry of Defense and was passed from one department to another until I finally got hold of the official in charge of overseeing the poison-gas depots of the two world wars. He didn't want to say anything and couldn't say anything, but his department, naturally, was interested in anything that would help avert any potential danger and damage. Viernheim? A map from the archives of the Wehrmacht and later the Ministry of Defense? A reward for handing over the map? He would be glad to look into the matter. I wouldn't give him my number, but he gave me his—his private line, his departmental number, and his number at home.
Nägelsbach, too, didn't want to say anything, or couldn't say anything. “You'd like to know how Frau Salger is doing? The preliminary proceedings are under way, and we have been issued strict instructions not to pass on any information to third parties. My inclination to make an exception in your case is minimal, to say the least.” His tone was as sharp as his words. But Nägelsbach was prepared to arrange a meeting with Dr. Franz from the Federal High Court.
So I sat facing them once again in the Heidelberg District Attorney's Office: elegant Dr. Franz, the unavoidable Rawitz, and Bleckmeier with his gloomy glumness—so to speak. Nägelsbach had joined us but did not pull his chair up to the table, as if he were planning a quick getaway, or planning to stop one of us from doing so.
“You wanted to talk to me?” Dr. Franz asked.
“I have a few facts to put on the table, and an offer to make.”
“Oh God!” Rawitz snapped. “Now he wants us to strike a deal with him!”
“I'll begin with the facts, if you don't mind.”
Franz nodded, and I told them of Lemke's postmodern terrorism, of Wendt's and Peschkalek's first meeting years ago, and of their final meeting beneath the autobahn bridge near Wieblingen. I told them of my visit to Peschkalek's place, of Peschkalek's material, and about the map. All in all, I stuck to the truth. Except that I gave them to understand that I had saved the binder and the cassette from the flames.
“Are you saying that Wendt's murderer is lying in the hospital, waiting, so to speak, to be arrested?”
“So to speak. But I didn't say that he murdered Wendt. I find his version of the story entirely credible.”
“Ha!” Rawitz barked.
“And what is the offer that you mentioned?” Franz asked. He was sporting his affable smile again.
I smiled back, letting the tension mount as I let them stew a little. “I shall hold on to Peschkalek's material. I'll keep it under lock and key and will guarantee that it will reach neither the media nor the defense lawyers. You can tell Pesch-kalek and Lemke that it was lost in the fire.”
“I wonder what Dr. Self might want in return,” Rawitz said with a smirk.
“There's something else. I'm prepared to give you the map.”
“Like we're interested in geography!” Rawitz scoffed.
“Not so fast, Herr Rawitz. If it's worth something, it's worth something,” Franz said.
I gave Franz the phone numbers of my contact at the Ministry of Defense, and he sent Bleckmeier to make the calls.
“And what would you like in return?”
“I would like you to release Leonore Salger and drop all charges against her.”
“There we go!” Rawitz said, laughing.
“So that's what you want,” Franz said, nodding. “And what does your client say to this?”
“One of the last things that Herr Wendt's son did was to take care of Leonore Salger. He hid her in the State Psychiatric Hospital and then found her a position in Amorbach. My client feels deeply for what his son was, and for what his son did.”
Rawitz had started laughing again. Franz looked at him, irritated. “Will you furnish us with copies of Peschkalek's material?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don't want you to familiarize yourself with the material and orchestrate something that will defuse it.”
“But surely we can at least take a look at it.”
“That would entail the same risk.”
“Are you expecting us to buy a pig in a poke?”
“You can get access to the material that Peschkalek sent out to the media. It's out there for the asking. And I did bring a few samples.” I laid on the table the copies of the photographs I had pocketed during my first visit to Peschkalek's place.
“Can we trust him?” Franz asked, turning to Nägelsbach. “Can we be certain that he will hold on to this material, come what may?”
“That he'll hold on to it?” Rawitz mumbled, but he gurgled as if he were suppressing a chuckle. “Who can even guarantee that he has the stuff? For all we know, it went up in flames and he's only bluffing. Peschkalek and Lemke might even have other copies.”
Nägelsbach looked at me, and then at Franz. “I would trust him. As for there being other copies, we'll see whether that's the case from Peschkalek's and Lemke's reactions when they're told about the fire.”
Franz sent Nägelsbach off to arrange for Peschkalek's arrest. Bleckmeier returned, and Franz asked me to wait outside. When Nägelsbach came back, he and I stood awkwardly facing each other in the corridor.
“Thank you,” I said.
“There's no need to thank me.” He went back into the office.
I could hear them talking. Rawitz laughed from time to time. After about twenty minutes, Franz came out of the room. “We'll be in touch. And thank you for your cooperation.” He dismissed me with a handshake.
I drove over to my office, finished my report, and wrote out an invoice. I leaned Leo's picture against the stone lion, sat, gazed, and smoked. At home I found Turbo sulking. I sat down on the balcony in the heat and he came over, turned away from me, and groomed himself.
Shortly before eight, the phone rang. Nägelsbach informed me that I could pick Leo up from the Fauler Pelz prison the following morning and told me to bring the map. He spoke in an official tone, and I imagined he would say good-bye right away and hang up. But he hesitated, I waited, and an uncomfortable silence ensued. He cleared his throat. “Expect difficulties with Frau Salger—I just wanted to let you know. Good-bye.”
32
Too late
I had been too proud to ask Nägelsbach to explain what he meant. But I'd seen Leo on TV, and could imagine her being utterly exhausted, confused, perhaps even bitter and aggressive.
The following morning I tidied up my apartment, put a California champagne on ice that I had won a few years earlier as third prize in a seniors' surfing competition, and took a hot and cold shower. Then I spent a good twenty minutes in front of my closet until I finally decided on a brass-colored suit, a light blue shirt, and the tie with the small clouds. “Aren't you acting a little like a love-struck schoolboy?” an inner voice jeered as I drove to Heidelberg. I announced myself at the prison gate and handed
the map over to a taciturn Bleckmeier. I had a good many reasons to feel queasy, and I did.
Leo was wearing the checked shirt she had been wearing on television after her arrest. But she had washed it and had slept away her bleary-eyed tiredness, and her brown curls again fell fully and softly over her shoulders. She saw me, waved, laughed, and stretched out her arms. It was a great weight off my mind. Where were the difficulties?
“Is that all you have with you?” I asked her. She was carrying a plastic bag.
“Yes, my things got lost along the way—the last ones when they arrested me. Your friend the chief inspector brought me a few things, even some eau de cologne, look!” She went over to the table and spread out her belongings. She started pushing the few items back and forth, as if she were trying to establish a certain order not yet discovered. The eau de cologne had to go in the middle and the other toiletries in an orbit around it, but there was no place for the handkerchief, the notepad, or the pen.
The correctional officer sitting behind a glass panel operating the gate buttons looked over at us. “What's going on?” he asked.
“Just a minute.” She tried one last time. “No, it just won't work.” She opened up the plastic bag and swept everything back into it. “Gerhard, I'd love to go for a drive somewhere and walk a bit, can we? The Heiligenberg Hill has been peeking into my cell the whole time.”
We drove to the Mönchhofplatz, climbed up the Mönch-berg, and followed the wide coils of the path to Michaels Basilica. It was almost like when we had climbed up to the ruins of Castle Wegelnburg: Leo often ran ahead of me, her hair flying. We barely spoke. She was skipping and jumping around. I watched her, and at times the memory of the trip we had taken together was as painful as if it had been a memory of distant years and long-lost youth. We sat at a table in the garden of the Waldschenke beneath tall old trees. It was only ten thirty in the morning, and we were the only customers.