Tretjak (8 page)

 

Brenner Pass Highway, 3am

If there is one argument amongst the people from Munich which will never be resolved conclusively it is the debate over the quickest route when driving to South Tyrol: it is either via the motorway which leads to Salzburg taking the exit to Kufstein, or one takes the motorway in the direction of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the village of Scharnitz. Inspector Maler belonged to the Garmisch-Partenkirchen faction. In his opinion one reached the Brenner Pass Highway and, over the pass, South Tyrol much faster this way, especially in high travel season.

Although it was not the peak travel season and he was driving during the night, Maler had chosen his usual route. It was just after three in the morning and the highway was eerily empty. Above the beam of his headlights Maler gazed into a remarkably clear starry sky. He had made good headway, the Zirler Berg and the Brenner Pass both lay behind him. He was already on the Italian motorway, clearly identifiable by the green signs ahead, and had just passed the exit to Brixen when his telephone rang.

It could only be his office in Munich. Or his colleagues from South Tyrol. One thing was certain: they were going to provide him with new information about the strange body they had discovered. Maler got the phone out of his jacket pocket and held it with his right hand to his ear. He hated car kits.

‘Hello?'

‘Inspector Maler?' A female voice.

‘Yes.'

‘We met at Gabriel Tretjak's flat,' the woman said. ‘I am the tax inspector. Neustadt is my name.'

Maler took his foot off the accelerator to lower the sound level in the car. The speedometer fell to 120. On the left-hand side the illuminated silhouette of a castle appeared against the backdrop of dark slopes.

‘Yes, Ms Neustadt, I remember.'

‘I want to meet you, Inspector, and tell you something,' the woman said on the phone.

Maler looked at the clock in his dashboard. ‘And that is so important that you are calling me at this hour?'

‘I think so. Can we meet?'

A green sign scurried by.
Bolzano/Bozen 45 kilometres
.

‘Now?' asked Maler. ‘I fear that will be impossible. You will have to put up with the telephone for now.'

‘No, I don't want to do that.'

‘I am away on official business, you know,' he said. ‘I don't know when I'll be back.'

There was a pause. Maler believed that he could hear the tax inspector breathing despite the engine noise. ‘Maybe you could call me when you get back,' she finally said and then hung up.

Maler briefly contemplated calling her back to get her to reveal her information straight away, but then decided against it. As an investigating policeman one got these kind of calls quite often, and in the end they were often worthless, revealing more about the psyche of the caller than contributing to the solution of the case.

He wanted to concentrate on driving now. He was soon going to leave the motorway. Next to him, on the passenger seat, was the new edition of
Psychology Journal
. He had bought it at the central station before he left. The lead story was entitled:
Can the soul be reprogrammed, Professor Kufner?

A word was nagging Maler, it had taken hold of his thoughts during the drive. The inspector from Bozen had not used that particular word when he had informed him late last night about the murder of Norbert Kufner, Professor of Psychology, in the hotel Zum blauen Mondschein. The reason the policeman from Italy had contacted his colleague in Munich had all to do with the distinctiveness of the body, was all down to the eyes of the dead man. Police forces all over Europe had been looking out for this particular feature since the day before yesterday. And it was that feature which had conjured up these words in Maler's brain. And now they were stuck there: ice cream scoop.

 

Kochel am See, 5pm

What a beautiful picture, down there on the terrace. The beautiful mother, the pretty son. She was drinking an espresso and a glass of dark sherry, he a coke, a real one, as he said, nothing light, nada zero. They chatted and laughed, and seemed very relaxed.

He was talking about what he wanted to be when he grew up. He wanted to do something useful, maybe a development worker, he said. Maybe go to Africa. Somewhere where he could help people. He was enjoying the sound of his own voice, as he often did. He didn't want to be like the others, he wanted to do something which really made a difference. He wanted to make the world a better place. He knew, he said, that he was a very special human being, a very sensitive human being.

The way he talked, sitting on the terrace, was the same way many other young people talked as well. And on that day his mother was not in the mood to contradict him. She simply did not want to think about the advice she had received from his therapists: ‘You should make sure that each conversation with your son is structured, has a beginning and an end. And most importantly, make sure that in the end it is clear how the next conversation will continue on from the one just completed. You have to construct with your son a conversational net, which holds him up.' The last therapist who had said this to her had been short and fat, with a strikingly oily complexion. At least for this one moment, the guy could take a hike as far as she was concerned. She was happy about the friendly atmosphere. She was happy that Lars was not getting on her nerves. The sherry was helping a bit as well, she liked its first, subtle effect. It made one a little more forgiving towards the rest of the world. And in a way, her son belonged to that rest of the world as well.

They remembered joint holidays, the long drives to their destinations. She had always packed a suitcase full of surprises for him, full of small presents. For the holiday, for the drive. ‘My favourite holiday,' said Lars, ‘was Corsica.' And the long ferry ride. ‘Yes,' she said, ‘that was nice.' That was how the conversation bobbed along. ‘Remember?' ‘Yes.' The yellow plastic penguin, which disappeared out to sea. The table tennis competition at the beach in Ravenna, which Lars won. He was nine years old then. Gosh, how time flies.

At one point Lars said: ‘You are the best mama in the world.' He got up when he said that and gave her a hug. ‘Mama, all will be alright. I promise.' Then he went to his room.

She had rented two apartments for herself and Lars in the holiday village in Kochel am See, 50 kilometres from Munich. It seemed exactly the right distance. It was easy and quick to get to Munich from Kochel, and it was quick and easy to get from Kochel to Munich. Wherever and whenever this Gabriel Tretjak wanted to have the first meeting with her son.

‘I'm going to pick you up in two hours for dinner,' she called after him.

‘OK, Mama.'

 

*

 

When Charlotte Poland knocked on the door of her son's apartment two hours later, nobody opened it. She knocked more forcefully. No reaction. She called his mobile phone. She only got the reply: ‘There is nobody here to take your call at the moment.' She got a second key for his room from the receptionist. The big hold-all she had packed for him was there. The small shoulder bag was missing. She went down to reception again to ask if anybody had seen her son. Yes, she was told, her son had ordered a taxi an hour ago and had left with it. She asked whether one could enquire with the dispatcher where the taxi had taken her son. Of course, the receptionist would make that call.

She went back to her room. When she opened her handbag she already had her suspicions. Her purse was gone, together with all the money inside it, the credit cards and her papers. Lars must have stolen them when she had left the terrace to go to the ladies cloakroom. Lars knew that she would not use the purse to pay as she was going to sign for it and charge it to the room. She called her bank's service number and cancelled all her credit cards. Lars had had an hour. The previous times Lars had managed to withdraw about two thousand euros with her cards. The little fat therapist had advised her to report the next incident to the police. She was supposed to inform on her own son.

Charlotte Poland sat down on the bed in her hotel room. She was looking at herself in the mirror mounted on the door of the wardrobe. She had got a little colour. It suited her, she thought. She also liked her white dress. She was one of those women who liked to look at themselves. Her publisher had once told her that she was too beautiful to be an author. Nobody would believe that a woman with the body of a model and such huge eyes also possessed a brain. The author photographs on her books were intentionally discreet. Her face was in profile, black and white.

I am rich and beautiful, she thought. And? She undressed and lay down on the bed. It had become a habit, that was how she could best calm down, being naked and closing her eyes. She had even taken off the big Cartier panther ring from her finger. She had given it as a present to herself, the first time one of her books had hit the bestseller list.

Her novels always had the same theme: a misleadingly idyllic life with hidden depth, a magic box with a false bottom concealing a second compartment beneath the visible one. She knew all too well why she loved these stories. She loved to write about hidden depths, because hidden depths were the story of her life. A friend had once told her that she loved deception, that she only felt real in deception. She couldn't have put it better herself, this was the book jacket copy of her life.

It was quiet in the hotel room. She thought she could hear the quiet buzzing of the mini bar. The lonesome chirping of a bird entered through the open balcony door. The metaphor of the secret compartment, of another floor underneath the visible one pleased her because it implied that there was a firm grounding somewhere underneath her feet, even if it were not immediately visible. This was her make-believe; a life which looked good, which was presentable. The floor beneath – which only worked if it had a solid grounding. The appeal of this deceit lay in its contrast to respectability, to conventionality. Damn it, she wanted to scream, I need the beauty of the make-believe!

Her brain now conjured pictures of her son. Lars in the hospital, just after his birth. A quiet baby, so quiet in fact that the doctors were worried there was something wrong with him. Lars in kindergarten, the prettiest child of them all, blond, sweet, radiant. Nobody could help but fall in love with her little one. Lars on the shoulders of his father. How they had played football together in the garden of their new home. Lars with Konrad, his best friend, laughing, in front of the computer in his room. The image had always been perfect with Lars. Even now, only two hours ago, down on the terrace. Of course she should have smelled a rat, when he suddenly embraced her, and all his talk of ‘Mama, Mama'. It had never been a good sign recently when he became so overly sentimental. As if this sugary sweetness was a precursor of the next bout of aggressiveness.

Lars was ten years old when his teacher first called her in for a talk. Fellow pupils were complaining that he was stealing from them, beating them up. Shortly afterwards the police showed up. He had stolen two computer games at a department store and had been caught shoplifting. Lars was eleven when he was kicked out of his school and they found him a place in a private school the same year. He was twelve when Konrad's mother called and said that they couldn't see each other any more. Certain things had happened, but she didn't want to talk about them. ‘I think this would be better for both of us,' she said. ‘Mrs Poland, I don't know how to put it other than to say that I am afraid of your son.'

The first therapist foisted on them by a juvy judge asked her whether she knew that her son liked inflicting cruelty on animals. The most recent doctor who had talked to her about her son had asked her whether she knew that he took drugs – that was about six weeks ago. He used everything he could lay his hands on. Hash, crack, heroin. Lars had turned fourteen four days before. In the beginning she had not believed what people were telling her about her son, but they had all been right.

It had not been easy to persuade the head of the correctional facility to let her take Lars on this trip to Kochel. He had been sent there by a judge two months ago. She had told him that she believed the journey was important for him. And: ‘I'll return him to your care, I promise.'

‘Mama, all will be well,' Lars had said on the terrace, ‘I promise'. She now knew all too well what Konrad's mother had meant when she had said that she was afraid of him.

 

*

 

The hotel telephone next to the bed rang. Someone from reception was on the line. They had managed to talk to the taxi driver who had picked up her son. It had not been a long ride. They had stopped a couple of times at ATMs and then gone to the station. He had got out there. And something else: he had managed to persuade the driver to charge the fare to the room. 16 Euro 40. Was that OK?

‘Of course,' Charlotte Poland said, ‘of course.'

Lars, her son, 14 years old. White, smooth face. Blond, messy hair. One piercing in the lip. A small tattoo at the back of his neck, a blue dragon. Her son, who everybody liked at first sight. The diagnosis of the doctors was of course not visible. Lars, her son, the pathological liar.

It was a personality disorder. He was not capable of imagining what would happen tomorrow. To experience, to feel that life was more than just this single moment in time. And for Lars, the currency of the moment was lies. Mama, all will be well. Such sentences hit their target. Even when the taxi was already waiting outside. ‘The word “later”, the therapist had said, ‘means nothing to your son.' But a moral code without a time dimension can't function. In his therapy one had to try to build time bridges for him. This was the only way out of his amoral state.

For Lars there was no secret compartment. There were no hidden dark sides. With him there was only a dark side, she thought. Nothing else. She sat up and swung her legs off the bed. She looked at her naked body in the mirror. Sometimes her left breast was slightly bigger than her right one. Like it was today. My child is a monster, she thought. She did not even notice that she was talking aloud. That she was talking to the man whose idea it had been to come here. ‘Paul,' she said, ‘my son is a monster. One has to face the truth. Could it not be, Paul, that not only you have a son who is a monster, but I do too?'