JF03 - Eternal (19 page)

‘Having money doesn’t guarantee you happiness,’ said Grueber.

‘That’s funny.’ Maria gave a small, bitter laugh. ‘Not having it guarantees
un
happiness …’ She found herself thinking again of Olga X, and Nadja, and the dreams they must have had of a new life in the West. For Olga, Grueber’s apartment would probably have been the embodiment of her dream; a little piece of which, in her naivety, she would have thought achievable through hard work in a German hotel or restaurant. Maria always imagined Olga’s background in the same way: a stereotype of a small village on a vast steppe, with hefty babushkas in black headscarves carrying huge, heavily laden baskets. And always she imagined a fresh-faced, smiling Olga gazing expectantly westwards. Maria knew that it was more likely that Olga had come
from some grey, depressed post-communist metropolis, but still she couldn’t shake the cliché from her head.

‘You’re a good man, Frank,’ said Maria, smiling. ‘Do you know that? You’re kind, you’re gentle. A decent person. I don’t know why you bother with me with all of my hang-ups. Life would be so much simpler for you if you weren’t involved with me.’

‘Would it?’ said Grueber. ‘It’s my choice. And I’m happy with it.’

Maria looked at Grueber. She had known him for a year now. They had been involved for six months, yet they still had not had sex. She looked at his large blue eyes, his boyish face and the thick mop of black hair. She did want him. She put down her glass and leaned forward, cupping her hand behind his head and pulling him towards her. They kissed and she pushed her tongue into his mouth. He slipped his arm around her and she could feel the heat of his body on hers.

‘Let’s go to the bedroom,’ she said, standing up and leading him by the hand.

Maria undressed so quickly that she lost a button on her blouse. She didn’t want the moment to pass; she didn’t want this window of normality suddenly to slam shut. She lay on the bed and pulled him onto her. She hungered for him so much. Then she felt Grueber on top of her, pressing against her. She felt his body on hers and suddenly felt stifled, choking. A wave of nausea came over her and she wanted to scream at him to get off her, to stop touching her. She looked up at the gentle, boyishly handsome face of Frank Grueber and felt a deep, violent revulsion. Grueber saw that something was wrong and eased back. But Maria closed her eyes
and pulled him towards her. Through her closed lids she imagined that another face looked down at her and the revulsion was gone.

Maria kept her eyes closed and, as Frank Grueber penetrated her, she kept her disgust at bay by bringing another face to mind: an angular and cruel face. A face that looked at her with loveless, cold, green eyes.

Susanne had not said anything directly, but Fabel could tell that she was not happy that he had not responded more enthusiastically to any of the apartments she had circled in red highlighter pen. He knew that it was partly because instead of seeing each advertised property as an opportunity to gain, to advance their relationship, he saw it in terms of loss. Loss of his independence. Loss of his own space. He had been so convinced that it was what he had wanted, but now that it had moved closer to happening Fabel felt a vague ache of uncertainty.

The other reason why he had failed to be more decisive about the apartments was that all his mental resources were devoted to trying to pry an opening into the Hamburg Hairdresser case; choosing a new apartment was simply falling off his radar.

Fabel’s uncertainty had deepened after spending the afternoon with his daughter Gabi. They had met in the city centre and Fabel had felt a suppressed panic as he watched his sixteen-year-old daughter
approach. Gabi was growing up too fast and Fabel felt as if he had lost control of time; that there had been so much of his daughter’s life that he had missed out on.

They had spent their afternoon together shopping for fashions on Neuer Wall; something that only a year before would have been anathema to the tomboy Gabi. It also pained Fabel a little to see how much Gabi was beginning to look like her mother, Fabel’s ex-wife Renate. Lately she had taken to wearing her hair longer and the ghost of Renate’s red hair burned in its auburn. As he had watched her make her purchases, Fabel had found himself observing Gabi’s gestures, her mannerisms. Just as her hair held the ghost of Renate, Gabi’s movements carried echoes of Fabel’s mother and her smile and easy manner echoes of his brother. It made Fabel think of what Severts had said about how we are all much closer to our histories than we think.

After shopping, Fabel and Gabi had a coffee in the Alsterarkaden. The Rathausmarkt and all along the Alster was thronging with tourists. The Hamburg tourist office had recently announced that it had been the most successful year ever for tourism in the city, and Fabel and Gabi experienced the truth of the statement by having to wait ten minutes for a table. It took the waiter some time to clear the debris left by a family of Americans, then Fabel and Gabi were seated looking out at the Alsterfleet and the Rathausmarkt beyond. Fabel confided in Gabi about his dilemma.

‘If you don’t feel comfortable about moving in together, then you shouldn’t,’ she said.

‘But I suggested it. I pushed for it to start with.’

‘You’re clearly having doubts,
Dad
,’ Gabi habitually used the English word. ‘It’s too big a step to make unless you are absolutely sure. Maybe Susanne is not the one for you after all.’

Suddenly, Fabel felt awkward about discussing his love life with his daughter. He had, after all, once thought that Gabi’s mother was the ‘one for him’. ‘I thought you liked Susanne,’ he said.

‘I do. I really do. She’s perfect.’ Gabi paused and looked out over the Alsterfleet. ‘That’s the thing, Dad … she is perfect. She is beautiful, intelligent, she’s easy to get on with … she’s got a super-cool job … Like I said, perfect.’

‘Why do I get the feeling you’re saying that as if it were a bad thing?’

‘I’m not – it’s just that sometimes Susanne can be
too
perfect.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Fabel lied.

‘I dunno … she’s really easygoing, but just sometimes she seems more buttoned up than …’ Gabi let the sentence die.

‘… Than me?’ Fabel smiled.

‘Well, yes. It’s like she’s keeping something bottled up all the time. Maybe she’s totally different with you, but I get the feeling that we only get to see the Susanne that Susanne chooses to show us – the
perfect
Susanne.’ Gabi gave a frustrated shrug. ‘Oh, you know what I mean … anyway, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her. The problem is with you. Whether you’re ready or not to make this kind of commitment.’

Fabel grinned at his daughter. She was only sixteen, yet she sometimes seemed infinitely wiser than Fabel. And, as they sat there among the tourists and the shoppers, watching the swans glide across
the surface of the Alsterfleet, Fabel thought about just how right Gabi had been about Susanne.

Whatever the final decision, Fabel knew that Susanne was becoming irritated by his lack of focus. He decided to book a table at an expensive restaurant in Neumühlen. It was only a matter of minutes from Susanne’s Övelgönne apartment, so they met there first before taking a cab to the restaurant. The restaurant had huge picture windows that looked out across the Elbe to a forest of cranes on the far side. The vast hulks of illuminated container freighters slid silently by. It was an industrial landscape, yet one with a strange and hypnotic beauty and Fabel noticed how many of the diners seemed mesmerised by it. Susanne and Fabel arrived at eight-thirty when the soft warm evening light was pressing against the vast sheets of the windows and for the first time in days Fabel felt relaxed. His mood lightened even more when he and Susanne were guided to a table over by the window.

Tonight, thought Fabel, I am not going to screw things up by talking shop. He smiled at Susanne and admired the perfect sculpting of her head and neck. She was a beautiful, intelligent, generous woman. She was perfect. Just as Gabi had said. They ordered their meals and sat chatting until the first course arrived. Fabel suddenly became aware of someone standing beside them and looked up, expecting to see the waiter. The man by their table was tall and expensively dressed. As soon as Fabel saw him he realised that he knew the well-groomed man from somewhere, but he could not place him.

‘
Jannick
?’ The tall man used the diminutive form of Fabel’s first name. It was what his parents and his brother used to call him; what he’d been known as at school; but the only person in Hamburg who ever called Fabel
Jannick
was Fabel’s fellow Frisian, Dirk Stellamanns. ‘Jannick Fabel … is that you?’ The man turned to Susanne and made a half bow. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you … but I am an old school friend of your husband’s.’

Susanne laughed but did not correct the stranger. ‘That’s quite all right …’ She turned to Fabel and grinned mischievously. ‘Won’t you introduce us …
Jannick
?’

‘Of course.’ Fabel stood up and shook the man’s hand. At that point, everything fell into place and he returned Susanne’s grin superciliously. ‘Susanne, allow me to introduce Roland Bartz. Roland was one of my best friends at school.’

Susanne shook hands with Bartz, who again apologised for the interruption.

‘Listen, Jan,’ said Bartz. ‘I don’t want to disturb you, but we really should catch up. I’m here with my wife …’

‘Why don’t you join us?’ suggested Susanne.

‘No, really, we don’t want to impose.’

‘Not at all,’ said Fabel and beckoned for a waiter. ‘It’ll be good to catch up …’

Bartz returned briefly to his table and came back with an attractive woman who was clearly much younger than him. Fabel had heard – through his mother, probably – that Bartz had divorced his first wife a couple of years previously. The new Frau Bartz, who introduced herself as Helena, shook hands with Susanne and Fabel and sat down at their table.

Fabel and Bartz quickly became deeply engrossed in a conversation about what had happened to their respective school friends. Names that Fabel had forgotten were resurrected and he often struggled to put a face to a name. When he could, it was normally the face of a teenager whom he could not imagine now in middle age. Even Bartz looked wrong to Fabel. He had been an awkward, gangly youth who had been the first in their class to smoke, which had not helped the acne that had mottled his pale skin. Now he was an elegant middle-aged man with flecks of grey throughout his hair, and skin that was no longer pale and blemished but had been tanned by a sun that did not shine on Hamburg. He had clearly done well for himself and the topic turned to what the two men had done since they’d last met. Bartz was taken aback by the news that Fabel was a murder detective.

‘God, Jannick … no offence, but that is so weird. I would never have put you in that profession. I thought you went on to study history …’

‘I did,’ said Fabel. ‘I kind of got sidetracked.’

‘My goodness … a policeman. And a Principal Chief Commissar, at that. Who would have guessed?’

‘Who indeed,’ said Fabel. He was beginning to become annoyed with Bartz’s difficulty in seeing him as a policeman. Bartz seemed to pick up on it.

‘Sorry … I don’t mean to offend. It’s just that you were always so clear that you wanted to be a historian. I mean, it’s great what you do … God knows I couldn’t do it.’

‘Sometimes I don’t think I can, either. It’s a job that gets to you after a while. What about you?’

‘Me? Oh, I’ve been in the computer software business for years. My own company. We specialise in software for research and academic purposes. We employ over four hundred people and export all over the world. There’s hardly a university in the western hemisphere that doesn’t have one of our systems in one department or another.’

The two couples then fell into general chat. Helena, Bartz’s wife, was a friendly and cheerful woman, but was a less than engaging conversational partner. It was clear to Fabel that Bartz had not married her for her intellect. Fabel found that he enjoyed talking with his old school friend and grew to like again the man whom he had befriended as a boy. Susanne, as usual, won the couple over with her easygoing nature. Now and again, however, Fabel caught Bartz looking at him in a strange way. Almost as if he were appraising him.

They ate and talked until the restaurant emptied of its other guests. Bartz insisted on picking up the bill and ordered a taxi to take him and his wife back to Blankenese, where they had ‘a nice place’, as Bartz put it.

The night air was still warm and pleasant when Fabel and Susanne accompanied Roland and Helena Bartz out to their taxi. The sky was clear and the stars sparkled above the twinkling lights of dockyards on the far shore of the Elbe.

‘Can we drop you anywhere?’ asked Bartz.

‘No, thanks, we’re fine. It was great seeing you again, Roland. We must make an effort to keep in touch.’

The two women kissed and said goodbye and Helena Bartz climbed into the back of the taxi. But Roland lingered a moment.

‘Listen, Jan. I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you didn’t sound very contented when you were talking about your work.’ Bartz handed Fabel a business card. ‘As it happens, I am looking for an overseas sales director. Someone to deal with the Yanks and the Brits. I know that you speak English like a native and you were always the brightest guy in school.’

Fabel was taken aback. ‘Gosh … thanks, Roland. But I don’t know the first thing about computers …’

‘That’s not what’s important. I’ve got four hundred people working for me who know about computers. I need someone who knows about people. God knows, in your line of work you have to know what makes people tick. And what you don’t know about computers I know that you can learn within a couple of months. Like I said, you were always the brightest guy in school.’

‘Roland, I just don’t know …’

‘Listen, Jan, what you could earn with me would make your police pay look like peanuts. And the hours would be a hell of a lot better. And much less stress. Susanne said tonight that you’re looking for a new place together. Trust me, this job would make the world of difference to what you could afford. I always liked you, Jannick. I know we’re different people now. Grown up. But I don’t know if we really change that much inside. All I’m asking is that you think about it.’