In Free Fall(77)

A fat woman with dyed red hair and plucked eyebrows approaches in her apron and puts a cup down on the table.

“It’s normally self-service here,” she says.

“Because it’s your case after all, Rita, my child,” Schilf says. “Excellent work. You’ll be police chief in no time.”

He puts twice the required amount into the serving woman’s outstretched hand and looks away to avoid her death stare. The coffee is surprisingly good. It’s a good day all in all. The detective is doing the right thing and getting what he wants.

“Toady,” Rita says. “Of course it’s my case. And it’s the last one that you’ll be interfering with.”

“Believe me, I’ve only been sent in the name of God. You’ll never have the misfortune of accepting my help again.”

“Glad to hear it.”

The detective thinks he would like to bottle a few of Rita’s snorts to tide him over in bad times.

“Now hand the guy over,” she says.

“How do you know it’s a man?”

“Women don’t decapitate their victims.”

“The New Testament would have it otherwise.”

“Wrong, Schilf. Salome asked for John the Baptist to be beheaded. That was secondary liability at best, or just incitement.”

“You know your Bible,” Schilf says in acknowledgment, “and the basics of German criminal law. What would happen if Salome had blackmailed the murderer into doing the deed, though?”

“This isn’t a seminar on criminal law!” Rita growls.

“Coercion,” Schilf says. “Extenuating circumstances according to the prevailing view?”

“Who … is.… it?”

With every word, Schilf thinks he hears Rita chopping the air with the side of her hand. Rita had been an astonishingly good shot during her training. You could tell from her hand, the detective thinks. He would quite happily stand in front of her while, feet shoulder-width apart, arms outstretched, she aimed a Walther PPK at him. The bullet would bore a hole in his forehead, pierce through the bird’s egg in his frontal lobe, and drill painlessly into his brain. Schilf sees himself falling to his knees and collapsing onto his side, as he has observed other men doing a few times over the course of his career. Set free by Rita’s hand, he would fly out through the hole in his forehead and finally mesh with the network of the universe, where there is no time and space, and would enter the state popularly known as “the past.”

What a lovely dream, the detective thinks.

“The physicist,” he says. “The one with the kidnapped son.”

He lights a cigarillo and enjoys the first puffs in total peace. Not even the sound of breathing comes from the telephone.

“Good,” Rita finally says. Her voice is businesslike, if a little husky. “I thank you.”

“Wait.” Schilf takes the cigarillo out of his mouth and bends forward, as if Rita were sitting on the other side of the table. “He was blackmailed.”

“At least,” Rita says slowly, “the case seems to have nothing to do with the hospital scandal.”

“You don’t know that yet,” the detective superintendent says sharply. “Were you listening to me? I said: Sebastian was blackmailed.”

“The police chief will cry with joy.”

“Rita!” The detective barely notices that the woman in the apron is beside him again. “Have you asked yourself why I’m telling you who it is? So that the case won’t be taken away from you! You’re the one with the most sense in that whole pigsty. Don’t tell me that I’ve been mistaken!”

“All right, Schilf.”

“The man is innocent,” the detective says.

“Surely. The main thing is, there’s no connection to the hospital scandal.”

The conversation is over. The line is dead.

“You’re not allowed to smoke here,” the woman in the apron says.

“Damn,” Schilf says.

“Absolutely no smoking here.”

The detective looks into her doughy face and flashes his police ID at her.

“Another espresso,” he says.

As the fat woman waddles hastily back to the counter, he drops his head into his hands. It’s practically impossible, inconceivable that he has just made a serious mistake. He is holding the cigarillo between his thumb and his index finger, and ash falls past his right temple onto the table. There is the smell of singed hair.





[6]


THERE IT IS AGAIN, THE DOUGHY FACE. Plucked eyebrows and dyed red hair in the shape of a cloud. This time the woman is a kind of librarian who is looking at the detective in an unfriendly manner. Her fleshy fingers are tapping away continuously with great precision on a computer keyboard. The familiar pounding has started behind Schilf’s temples.