In Free Fall(65)

How easy it is to distinguish the two halves from each other, Schilf thinks. Here and there, before and after, life and death. You could do it anywhere, with nothing but a cable.

The air tastes clean, drinkable like water. The birds twittering incessantly. We should do more open-air investigations, the detective thought, the detective thinks.


AFTER A CURSORY GLANCE AT THE MARKS left on the bark by the steel cable, he pushes his way into the scrub. He crosses the ditch, lifting brambles carefully from his shirt, and slides down into the undergrowth with one hand on the ground. The traces left by the forensic team are clear to see: bits of plaster from casts of footprints, earth that has been dug up, and branches that have been sawn off. Schilf parts the ferns with both hands and ducks under the green surface in a moment that seems fleeting. Squatting down, he looks around him. He is surrounded by hairy branches with brownish rolled-up leaves like snail shells.

The descent was hot work. His shirt sticks to his back and he tastes salt on his upper lip. Schilf rolls up his shirtsleeves and waits. He is convinced that this place will have something for him, something the forensic team could not find, because it does not consist of flakes of skin and hair. It is the story of how a boundary was crossed. A story about how thin the membrane is that holds a human life together. Schilf wants to know what it is like for one man to wait for another to die. Ants form a dark pile on top of a caterpillar, which twitches clumsily as its body is carried off in pieces. Apart from that, there is nothing that can help the detective’s understanding.

A whining noise drills into his ears. Here are the mosquitoes to give the witness statement that Schilf still needs in order to be certain of what he thinks. Seven mosquitoes land on his right forearm and sting immediately. The detective jumps up and beats at them. The survivors launch a new attack without hesitation, and reinforcements come from invisible colleagues; they tickle his neck and sting his arms and hands over and over again. Schilf rolls his shirtsleeves down quickly, shakes his trouser legs, and wipes his face. When he has calmed himself, he notices a small man standing some distance away as if rooted in the ferns, watching him perform the dance of St. Vitus. When their eyes meet, the paunchy man starts moving toward him.

“Miserable bloodsuckers, aren’t they?”

The butterfly collector approaches, raising a didactic finger.

“They’re the rats among the hexapods,” he says. “Insects with six feet,” he adds, when Schilf does not respond.

The detective looks at the backs of his hands, where the first bites are swelling. He wonders what would happen if he were to scratch them with the blade of a knife until they were bloody, and then walk into the office of the leading public prosecutor with his arms outstretched proudly, proclaiming, “Look, here’s the decisive piece of evidence!” He begins to laugh quietly. It would surely be the first case in criminal history to be decided on the grounds of an intolerable itch.

“Are you laughing at my equipment?” The butterfly collector is still. “A collecting net. And here is a storage net, which is just like life. It’s easy to enter and difficult to leave.”

The detective is busy spreading spit on his forearms.

“There’s been a lot going on here recently,” the butterfly collector says. “The police are frightening away my customers.” Lots of tiny lines on the man’s face add up to a great worry. He points accusingly at a lantern-shaped cage. “See—empty!”

“What are you looking for?”

“Six-legged specimens.” The little man stretches out his hand. “Franz Drayer. Pensioner and amateur lepidopterist, on the path to immortality. And what are you looking for?”

“A two-legged specimen.”

“Tall, blond, friendly face?”

“You saw him?”

“He was sitting in these ferns a couple of days ago. Almost at the same spot as you.”

“Thank you,” the detective says. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“You can read about me in the relevant journal!”

Schilf nods farewell and leaves a witness who does not matter to infinity.

Puffing and cursing, he reaches the road. He is combing his hair with his fingers, removing small twigs, when a ringing sound disturbs the peace of the forest.

“All right, you bastard. I’m listening.”

“Rita Skura in top form! Delighted. Sadly, my price has risen in the meantime.”

“What do you want, you miserable blackmailer?”

Schilf allows himself an artificial pause and plucks a final burr from his trousers. The police car is parked a few meters away, looking like an uninvited guest amid nature’s anarchic profusion. Schnurpfeil is sitting behind the windshield, pale and stiff as a waxwork, loath to even glance at him. Schilf turns away and looks at his feet. He needs all his concentration and persuasive powers for the next sentences, and not a resentful police officer.