In Free Fall (23 page)

Rita and Medical Director Schlüter found themselves in a section of the utility passage, surrounded by buckets, cleaning carts, and discarded wheelchairs. Unusually for Rita, she hardly got a word in. Schlüter did not raise his voice, and his lecture lasted less than five minutes.

The police had been plaguing him for two weeks—him, who had taken the Hippocratic oath not just as a matter of form but to his very heart—with the most absurd accusations. He was not sure if a thick-skulled civil servant such as Rita was able to appreciate what it was like to continue carrying out his very complicated duties under these circumstances. Some patients were refusing to take medication because
they were afraid that they would be poisoned by doctors testing unauthorized pills on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry. Even less could Rita imagine that the gruesome death of his anesthetist affected him, Schlüter, most of all. He would not put up with it any longer. If Rita and her friends didn’t immediately stop treating him like a murderer in public, they would find themselves charged with libel and facing a massive police scandal. He did not think it necessary to list the influential persons he played golf with on a regular basis.

At the end of this speech, face impassive, he presented an alibi for the night of Dabbelink’s death. A short break with friends at the Montreux Palace Hotel on Lake Geneva. The dates tripped off his tongue with such confidence that Rita immediately decided to delegate the task of checking them to Sergeant Sandström. Schlüter wished her good day, waved his attendants over, allowed a nurse to open the door for him, and marched down the corridor toward the room of the patient he was scheduled to visit.

Too proud to run after him, Rita had stayed put, ground her teeth, cursed her job, and realized too late that the glass door could be opened only from the other side. She had far too little evidence to name Schlüter as a suspect. He was not even a witness whom an investigating judge could summon to give a statement.

Rita Skura had spent the rest of the morning on the hospital ward, annoying nurses, patients, and junior doctors with questions, all without obtaining a single useful piece of information. All of them had genuinely liked Dabbelink, who had been a competent senior registrar and a pleasant colleague. Sadly, no one knew him well. Unmarried, childless. Willing to be on call during weekends. All were shocked by his terrible death. Rita finally lost her cool in front of an innocent-looking trainee nurse. She sawed through the air with her large hands until the girl burst into tears. Then she had to take the girl in her arms and comfort her because an irate detective had been beastly to her.

Rita watches a patient have a sneaky cigarette on a balcony. The staff of this damned hospital, she thinks, is behaving like a family of
rabbits gone to ground after a bird of prey has snatched one of their number. In truth, she cannot find fault with their behavior. Murders and other terrible things are happening outside, but inside the hospital nobody has enough time to spare from the business of saving lives to even glance up from their conveyer belts.

She snaps her mobile phone open and rings Schnurpfeil, whose obedient voice gives her peace of mind even in the most awful situations. Of course he will come to pick her up, in half an hour, yes, and with great pleasure. In the meantime, he adds shyly, she should order a turkey sandwich in the hospital canteen, so that she doesn’t forget to have lunch again.

Rita gets into the elevator, and as it descends she stares at her neon-gray face in the mirror. If the Freiburg police force fails to deliver any results of note over the weekend, the press will give the bristle-haired home secretary hell, and he will give the mustachioed police chief a roasting, and so on. Rita is, as she knows, at the bottom of the food chain.

WHEN THE DOORS OF THE ELEVATOR OPEN
, she is greeted with a sight not calculated to raise her spirits. There is not much happening in the wide expanse of the reception area. Visitors cross the room with hurried steps and there is a splashing noise from a nihilistic indoor fountain complete with a few goldfish. The usual potted palms add to the impression of freshly scrubbed futility. To the left of the entrance is the canteen with its red, yellow, and blue chairs.

First Detective Chief Superintendent Schilf is sitting in the middle of this garish splendor, exactly at the spot where two waves of the pattern in the tiles meet. He is hunched over on a particularly yellow chair, tapping away on the display of a small gadget that he is holding close to his face. Like an old man who has stumbled into the play area in a shopping center. His gaze follows a patient carrying a plate with three slices of cake on it. He looks as if he is looking out for someone he knows.

Rita watches from a distance until her desire to spray him with disinfectant and watch him die like a large bug on the floor has grown into an alarmingly vivid fantasy. Schilf barely seems to notice her when she walks up to him.

“What the devil are you doing here?”

“Playing chess,” the detective replies without raising his head. “One of mankind’s most elegant attempts to forget itself.”

“Is it working?”

“Neither the game nor the forgetting.”

He sighs. Until now, Rita Skura had quite understandably thought that he was here to get in her way, to snoop over her shoulder, and, worse still, to help her. When he sighs for a second time and looks around anxiously at the dull thud of a pair of crutches, she is no longer sure. Schilf seems to have come on personal business.

“Are you looking for someone?”

He shakes his head as if he has been caught out, straightens himself, and tries to look serious.

“Oh no,” he says. “I’m probably afraid I’ll discover a second Schilf here, shuffling around the corner in a shabby dressing gown.”

“If I ever have to stay in a hospital,” Rita Skura says, “I’ll only wear evening dress.”

“That’s what everyone thinks, Rita, my child. But when it actually happens, they always turn into a down-at-heel shadow of themselves.”

“How do you know?”

“One of the most important qualities of a good detective is omniscience.”

Rita snorts with irritation and goes up to the counter, where she orders dead bird on bread. The waiter does not laugh; and it was not intended as a joke.

“How’s it going?” Schilf asks when she sits down at his table.

“Wretchedly.” The sandwich falls apart at first bite. “Doctors will sell their grandmothers before they betray one of their own. It’s not impossible that this piece of wisdom comes from you.” Rita licks mayonnaise
from her wrist. “And by the way, we have an agreement. A clear division of labor. At the risk of repeating myself: What the devil are you doing here?”

“What would you do if you knew you were going to die soon?”

The sandwich stops in midair.

“What are you on about, Schilf?”

“I’m trying to have a conversation with you. We don’t always have to talk about work.”

Rita is ready with an acerbic reply, but she thinks better of it, and pauses to consider.

“I’d find a new home for my cat,” she says. “And travel around to visit all the people I love.”

“Would that be a long journey?”

“Fairly short.”

Schilf nods. Two visitors have met at the hospital entrance and started a conversation. You can’t give up hope, one of them says. Yes, hope, the other one says, that’s the last thing to die. Both laugh, but stop immediately. They are standing in the path of the sensor for the automatic doors, which open and close busily.

“It would have to be a ground-floor apartment,” Rita says, “with a garden. For the cat, I mean.”

She pinches scraps of turkey from the plate, shoves them into her mouth, and swallows without chewing. More than anything, she would like to go home right now, draw the curtains, and stop up her ears with cotton wool to block out the twittering of birds. She would lie in bed, stroke the cat, and ask herself why she hadn’t listened to her parents.

“This hospital is not good for us,” Schilf says to her lowered head. “Let’s talk about work again instead.”

“Great,” Rita says. “And how’s it going with you?”

When Schilf reaches for her plate, she picks up the remaining piece of bread and bites into it defiantly.

“The usual,” Schilf says. “As far as that goes, I’m quite the old hand. A real Stalin of investigative methods.”

Rita looks at him, bewildered.

“By the way, I’ve found your cyclist’s murderer,” the detective says.

Rita nearly spits the piece of bread across the table. She looks at the remains of her pathetic lunch and waits for rage to fill her. It does not come. She just feels tired, with an air of finality.

“I warned you,” she says lamely. “You mustn’t cross me.”

“But you’re empty-handed.”

“But they’re
my
hands!”

As proof she shows the detective the palms of her hands, which despite her size are most elegant.

Schilf stands up, puts away his chess computer, and takes out an old-fashioned fountain pen. The nib tears the paper napkin as he scribbles down a telephone number.

“I still have to check on one detail. Call me if you want to know the outcome. In the meantime, I’m going for a walk in the woods.”

Just as Schilf is leaving the table, Schnurpfeil appears at the entrance and looks around. Conversation ceases at neighboring tables with the appearance of the policeman in the perfectly fitting uniform. Schilf goes straight up to him. He pushes the senior policeman, who is gazing imploringly at Rita, back onto the street.

Exit Schilf
, the detective chief superintendent and Rita think at the same time.

CHAPTER 6, IN SEVEN PARTS

The detective superintendent crouches in the ferns. A witness who does not matter appears for the second time. Many a man travels to Geneva.

[1]

THE THINNING HAIR ON SCHILF’S TEMPLES
is lifted by the cool stream of air coming from between the front seats of the car. He does not find it unpleasant to feel a little cold, even though the air seems to be wafting from Schnurpfeil’s rigidly hostile back. The senior policeman has turned the air-conditioning up high and turned the police radio up loud. Hissing and mumbled speech drowns the conversation that they are not having. Schnurpfeil is looking the detective in the eye through the rearview mirror, and Schilf is directing him through the city with minimal movements of his fingers, a photo from a newspaper balanced on his knees. It shows part of a road and two trees directly opposite each other.

As they pass the last houses, the light and shadow of the Günterstal woods playing on the dashboard, Schnurpfeil breaks his frosty silence.

“You could have just said straight off that you wanted to go to the scene of the crime.”

“Oh dear,” Schilf cries. “You’ve seen through me. So you know where it happened?”

“Everyone knows. And I was one of the crime scene officers.”

“That’s a piece of luck.”

The detective tears up the photo, opens the window, and lets the
scraps whirl out. Contentedly he breathes in the warm air rushing through the window. It smells of rosemary, thyme, and oregano. After two deep breaths, Schilf sees himself standing in front of a pretty stone cottage, pruning roses. The walls of the house glow in the evening light as fleet-footed geckos disappear into the gaps between the old stones. When this fictional detective pushes the brim of his straw hat back, an ugly surgical scar running straight across his forehead is exposed. Just as he is about to pour himself a glass of wine from a clay jug, the window closes. Schnurpfeil’s finger is pressing a button. The South of France vanishes.

“When the air-conditioning is on, the windows stay shut,” Schnurpfeil says. “Besides, I know that you’re not in charge of this crime scene. Detective Skura is.”

Schilf leans forward and pats him on the shoulder.

“You Freiburg people love your crimes. It’s as if you’ve committed them yourselves.”

For a while he looks at Schnurpfeil’s thick head of hair. Beneath this primeval forest, a brain is struggling with the thought that First Detective Chief Superintendent Schilf would need to use no more than a few calories to end the career of a young police officer. Schilf is glad that Schnurpfeil is loyal to Rita in spite of this. He would be happy to explain that, although petty territorial fights have their pleasures, he is not at all in the business of taking anything away from the sparring Rita Skura. On the contrary, since this morning—or, more precisely, since the smiling physics professor in the square photograph entered his life—he has felt a new and quite irresistible drive to make everything all right for everyone.

Schnurpfeil, he wants to shout, can you imagine that a case I didn’t even want to board the train for early this morning is really beginning to captivate me? I feel as if I’ve been given one last chance. As if I have the opportunity to repair a great breakage by putting the life of a physics professor in order. Schnurpfeil, there’s suddenly someone I have to rescue! A man whose theories sound as if he is sitting in the
middle of my head and formulating my thoughts better than I ever could myself. But Schnurpfeil, Schilf wants to continue, can it be that I have to bring misfortune upon this man in order to help him, to prevent someone else from doing it, someone who might not treat the subtle dissonances of this case with the necessary caution? What do you think, Schnurpfeil? Goddamn it, it’s a classic dilemma!

And Schnurpfeil would shake his head and reply: You’re sick, go see the doctor and leave those in good health to continue their work in peace. Or he would say nothing at all because he would have understood nothing; because for him, there would be nothing to understand, and nothing to say.

“Don’t worry,” Schilf says instead of all this. “I’m still working on the child kidnapping.”

The muscles in Schnurpfeil’s neck twitch. At the Schauinsland cable-car station in the valley, Schnurpfeil switches on his hazard lights as requested. The car climbs up into the forest with its nose held high. The sun flashes through the trees like a strobe light. The detective wonders whether to call his girlfriend that evening and discuss his classic dilemma. For one dizzying second, he thinks that he does not know Julia’s telephone number, until he realizes that her number is also his own, because she lives with him. Right now she is sitting with a cup of tea at the breakfast bar, where she looks perfectly comfortable, unlike him. She is reading old case files or one of his books. The final few minutes of the journey pass easily.