Tretjak (22 page)

‘No stress. I see,' said the professor. ‘Of course. I had forgotten, Inspector. You are not one for feelings. You like to play the tough guy, I know. And like you, I prefer clear colours, black is black and white is white. And that's exactly why I want you to think again: is there something? There has to be something.'

Maler didn't mention Laura Müller. But he asked the professor what the heart meant for him. Was it something mystical, or just an organ, which powered everything?

‘The heart,' the professor said, ‘holds no mystical meaning for me. None. It isn't complicated, the heart is something totally simple. The heart is a muscle, full stop, nothing more and nothing less. I know what I'm talking about. I have operated on thousands of hearts. A muscle, nothing more. There is no deeper meaning that one should read into it. '

August Maler liked the professor. Every day for two weeks back then, seven years ago, he had stood by his bed in the ICU, and Maler had recognised him, and known that this was the doctor, this was the professor. The transplantation had been a success, the new heart was inside his body and it was beating. The body was not causing any problems. But Maler had slipped into a post-operative state of paranoia, in which he lived a seemingly never-ending nightmare. Part dream, part reality. He was lying in his hospital bed, hooked up to all sorts of tubes, and his imagination turned everything into a completely different story: He dreamed, day-dreamed in fact, that he was caught in a cage at an airport. He was cold, and his wife and his family passed the box and did not hear his cries for help. He felt betrayed and tried to escape the cage – which led in reality to his flailing wildly about in the ICU, talking gibberish, and therefore being tied to the bed, restrained as they put it. Maler could not remember any details of his nightmares, but he could remember the deep sense of fear and loneliness he had experienced, the feeling that he was surrounded by gruesome torturers.

 

The only reality in these weeks had not been his family, who could only helplessly watch his delusional state. It had been the professor, with whom he could talk and who had been able to explain what was happening: patients in intensive care often slipped into such worlds of fantasy, it was nothing unusual, it was like being high on LSD, caused by the illness and a potent drug cocktail. We doctors, the professor said, call this the transit. It is similar to entering a room of madness. Some stay in it longer, some more briefly, but all come out of it again. ‘Can you hear what I'm saying, Maler?' the professor had called out to him every day. ‘You are going to come out of this, for sure. You have to believe me.'

August Maler had been caught in this limbo for a long time, in these worlds between reality and madness. What was real, what was imagined? That had been the central question of his life for many weeks. Only very slowly did he come to recognise the boundaries between these worlds, and to be able to decide what belonged in this and what in that world. The thought that he could not get rid of, and which he had been aware of ever since, was: this other world did exist, and it could switch itself on whenever it wanted to. Sometimes Maler thought that it wasn't so bad having this other, expanded dimension. Then again, he cursed this weak and frightening feeling that the ground could start to shift under his feet at any time.

Once, Maler had told the professor about his ‘day-mares', the horrible images which recurred from time to time, such as the petrol station attendant who suddenly had blood pouring out of his mouth, and how he, August Maler, had to close his eyes several times and open them again before the horror disappeared from the face of the attendant. No reason to worry, the professor had said, those are just the final stages of the horror trips he had suffered in the ICU, chemical leftovers which clouded his consciousness. No reason to worry, it will pass. Here the professor was mistaken. It was now seven years since his heart operation, but the images continued, and sometimes they occurred more often, sometimes less. The other night Maler had happened upon some TV science programme when he was zapping through the channels. A brain expert had been explaining that, unfortunately for many patients, the brain could remember pain, even though whatever had caused it was no longer present. The brain recreated the pain without any physiological reason. My brain, Maler thought, remembers the madness.

He had now been back in the Grosshadern hospital for three days. He had always been treated in this hospital, right from the very first examinations, because the professor was the head of its cardiovascular surgical unit. And for three days now, the images of the other world had returned with a vengeance. Maler wondered whether his brain had this particular place engraved on it, this colossus of a hospital with the ICU, where everything had begun, and therefore felt compelled to produce an extra dose of madness whenever he was in a hospital room here. This time, however, the madness had a new dimension. The images still changed the faces of the people around him, in this case the male nurses, but this time there was no blood, no catastrophes. Nurse Marco, a friendly guy, entered the room to check his temperature and blood pressure, but then suddenly it wasn't Marco looking at him, but Gabriel Tretjak, with a strange expression on his face as if he was saying: ‘See, Inspector, wherever you go, I can be there too.' With the doctors in charge of the ward, the same thing happened. Gabriel Tretjak forced himself into view. What was going on? What was his mind trying to communicate with this? That Tretjak was the man who was causing his nightmares?

August Maler would have figured that out without these images. Last night he had lain awake for a long time, and a long time in a hospital means an eternity. At half past five, dinner was served. And then what? Maler had the room to himself, since heart transplant patients always had a room to themselves. At one point he had fallen asleep and had dreamt of Laura Müller, the beautiful girl, and that he had sex with her. He was sleeping with the woman whose heart was beating inside him. When he woke with a jolt, he still remembered the dream. He found it so revolting that he went to the bathroom and threw up. He brushed his teeth and then looked into the mirror. Nice to know, he thought, whose heart I now have inside me. Thank you very much, Mr Tretjak.

Maler did not tell the professor about the delusional images or about his last dream either. He asked to be given something to help him sleep, ‘but I don't want to dream.' The nurses refused to give him a sleeping pill, saying ‘you are taking so many drugs already.'

The professor, however, said: ‘OK, I'll have them give you something. Take two of these pills and an earthquake in your room will not wake you.'

‘That sounds great,' Maler said. And because he wanted the professor to stay a little, he asked which patients he was planning to perform transplants on next. He always asked that question, it was almost a ritual now. Maler asked about the work of the professor, and then the professor asked about the work of the inspector.

‘A little girl, seriously ill, a new heart is her only chance. Three years old,' the professor said. There was a problem, though: there were practically no hearts for three-year-olds. ‘We have to go by an alternative route.'

‘An alternative route?', Maler asked.

‘We have to make a bigger heart smaller. I will scrape off enough so it fits.'

Maler shuddered: ‘My God, the poor child.'

‘No, no, don't worry, it will work. I'm sure of that.' And then the professor returned the question: ‘And what are you working on at the moment? You were talking about a serial killer the other day...'

‘Maybe you read about it in the papers. The guy who scooped out his victims' eyes. That's the kind of thing I have to deal with.'

‘I hardly read the papers,' the professor said, ‘and definitely not that kind of story.'

Maler briefly sketched the facts of the case. Several murders, no apparent connection. In the centre a dubious businessman, whose business it was to fix people's lives.

‘He is from Munich. His name is Gabriel Tretjak. Do you know him?'

‘No, never heard of him.'

‘Well, in any case,' Maler continued, ‘it finally emerged that the murderer was Tretjak's father. A family tragedy, a Shakespearean drama. The murderer killed himself and explained it all in a letter.'

‘Congratulations,' the professor said, ‘then the case is closed, isn't it? Then it's not really true what you just said, that you have to catch a serial killer.'

‘Yes, the case appears to be solved.' Maler hesitated. ‘But something is still bothering me about it.'

‘But it shouldn't. I like my job, because it deals with clear questions: does the heart function healthily, or doesn't it? Yes or no? Everything in between, I can't stand. This should be your rule as well. One goes crazy if one lets go of clear questions. Believe me.'

The professor looked at his wristwatch, a simple Swatch, and said good-bye. ‘I'll come back tomorrow.'

 

August Maler remained in his hospital room. He thought: why did I tell the professor that I have some doubts about whether the case is really solved? The investigations were complete and the case had been closed, by Maler himself as a matter of fact. Signed and sealed. He had never been somebody who considered it part of his job to ponder too long. So why this now? The clear questions the professor had been speaking about were: is Paul Tretjak the murderer? Yes or no? The evidence gave a clear answer. Was the case solved or not? Yes or no?

It took a while for Maler to sit up in bed. And to say in a loud, inappropriately loud, voice: ‘No. No, I don't believe it is.'

There was a knock on the door. Dinner was served on a tray, two rolls, two pieces of sausage, two slices of cheese, butter. And tea, herbal tea. He decided to wait a bit before he ate dinner.

Maler remembered his meeting with Paul Tretjak. Lago Maggiore, wonderful sunshine, a café directly on the lakefront. At first a seemingly nice man, who told him about the drama with his son and presented himself as somebody who wanted to make amends, to repair the relationship. Paul Tretjak explained to Maler why he thought his son Gabriel was well-suited to the task of getting Charlotte Poland's son on the right path. ‘Inspector', the older Tretjak had said, ‘my son would understand this Lars, and he is brutal enough to tell him what really needs to be done now.'

Maler had driven to Italy, a journey of four and a half hours, to find out what had happened ten years ago, why Paul Tretjak had asked that this question be passed on to his son Gabriel Tretjak by Charlotte Poland. He should have noticed the change immediately, because when he asked Paul Tretjak that question, there was suddenly nothing left of the softness and friendliness he had earlier sensed in the father. Paul Tretjak began talking about his other son, Gabriel's half-brother, who was a few years older. Luca was his name, said Tretjak, his mother had been Italian and had passed away long before. And ten years ago, on 11 May, the two brothers had got together. As far as Tretjak Senior knew, the meeting had taken place in the Blauen Mondschein in Bolzano, the hotel he had run once upon a time.

‘That's what happened ten years ago, Inspector,' Paul Tretjak said.

‘And?' Maler asked. ‘And then?'

‘I don't know,' Tretjak said. ‘Gabriel denies that this meeting ever took place. He says that he hasn't seen Luca for over 30 years.'

‘And what does Luca say?'

‘Nothing at all, Inspector. Luca disappeared that day. Nobody has seen him since.'

‘Did you call the police?'

‘They looked into it, but then stopped. People disappear. It isn't against the law, they said. Inspector, I am convinced my son is dead.'

‘May I ask what Luca wanted from Gabriel? Do you know?'

‘It had to do with me,' Paul Tretjak said, ‘he wanted to mediate. He wanted to bring the family back together.'

‘I understand less and less, Mr Tretjak,' Maler said. ‘You suspect your son of having killed your other son. But on the other hand, you want Gabriel to save your friend's son. How does that fit together?'

The old Tretjak didn't really have a sensible answer to that question. But just before Maler's departure for Munich, he had made another cryptic remark. If Maler wanted to clear up the issue about his other son, he would have to go to South Tyrol. To Jenesien, a small mountain village above Bolzano. ‘Ask for the man who lives with the eagles. That is an interesting lead for you, Inspector,' Tretjak had said. Maler just let him stand there and, annoyed by it all, had started driving back to Munich.

Lying in his hospital room, he bit into his sausage roll. Maybe it was logical after all: a mad old man, who commits mad murders – out of revenge on his son? He briefly investigated the matter of Gabriel Tretjak's half-brother. But without any results – or rather, with the following result: Luca Tretjak? There was no person by that name. There was no information, nothing, nowhere. Maler finished the sausage roll and allowed himself to think for one moment: a man commits a murder and then expunges the identity of his victim. If there is no body, there is no murder. A perfect murder. Committed by the Fixer. At least the theory would appeal to Gabriel Tretjak, Maler thought.

He didn't touch the tea. He knew it tasted ghastly. It was a little before six o'clock. Maler decided to grant himself a coffee in the sad cafeteria of the clinic.

 

At one minute past six o'clock, Fiona Neustadt closed the door of the room on the cancer ward. ‘Drink a schnapps, toasting me as usual,' he had said on parting. ‘I can't join you, I can't manage it anymore.'

She hadn't expected that, although she of course knew how ill he was. He had continuously talked about this being the last time. And about what he still wanted to tell her. What advice he still had for the coming weeks. What she should definitely pay attention to. And he had become a bit sentimental. He was proud of her, he had said, he had always believed in her, in contrast to many other people, and today he knew that he had been right to place his trust in her. ‘Bye-bye, my girl.'