John got his long legs into the jeep. 'How long are you going to stay here?'
'Until Wednesday. I want to help Mother a bit in the garden. She has trouble with her back.' She bent down to kiss him. 'You know something? Mrs John Ashburner doesn't sound so bad.'
ROdel tore the sleeve away from the armhole. The ugly ripping sound went right through Ben. He looked at himself in the mirror, clad in a construction vaguely reminiscent of a jacket, with horsehair sticking out all over it. Tacking thread distorted the clear lines of the classic Prince of Wales check.
From the veranda workshop, he could see through the living room and into the bedroom. Heidi, naked to the waist, was sitting at her dressing table, brushing her hair. Her breasts rose and fell with every stroke of the brush. She must have failed to notice that the door was ajar.
The tailor ripped out the right sleeve too. Ben seemed to feel actual physical pain. 'Do you have to?' he protested faintly. The pale, pink-tipped girlish breasts were swaying in rhythm.
ROdel continued his work of destruction, unmoved. Another two fittings and you'll have a suit like something out of Baron Eelking's gentlemen's magazine, Herr Dietrich.' He had taken to calling Ben Herr Dietrich now that he was one of his esteemed customers.
Heidi rose to her feet. She had wrapped a towel around her hips, and it fell to the floor as she stood up. She went over to the chest of drawers. Her buttocks rubbed against each other.
'We'll leave the button at waist height. You don't want to take those dreadful Americans as your model.' Heidi opened a drawer and took out a white sports shirt. She reached her arms up in the air and pulled it over her head.
'What do you have against the Yanks, Herr Rodel?'
'What do I have against the Yanks?' Heidi's breasts disappeared under the sleeveless shirt that barely reached her navel. 'I have something against half savages who want to destroy our culture, that's what. Only you can't say that out loud these days or someone gets straight up and calls you a Nazi.'
Ben didn't know why, but she looked more naked in the short sports shirt than without it. He tried to concentrate on the suit. 'When will it be ready?'
'We'll have another fitting next week. Let's say in two weeks' time.'
Spellbound, Ben stared at Heidi's dark bush, with a glow of pink between the curly hairs. A singing sensation rose in his groin.
'Do you have shoes, gentlemen's socks, a good shirt and a tie?' asked the tailor. 'Without the proper accessories you can forget about the suit.'
Heidi turned her back to the door and bent to tie her gym shoes. Ben's eyes remained glued to the mysterious shadow between her thighs until she put on her black gym shorts.
'I'm getting my suede shoes from the Dutchman, and I have the rest already.'
Heidi came into the workshop, a ball under her arm. She patted it to the floor with the flat of her hand and neatly caught it on the bounce. 'I'm going to play handball. Coming?'
'No time.'
She gave Ben a sly look. 'What a pity. I like to have spectators.' And he realized that she had known that he was watching her.
Herr Muhlberger, in a state of great agitation, propped his bicycle against the fence and stormed into the Zehlendorf CID office. 'He's back!' Sergeant Franke was busy bashing his poor typewriter. Police headquarters had demanded for a full account of all office materials used over the last few months. 'Who's back?' he asked without much interest, and typed:
APRIL: 500 sheets typing paper scattered around the area by pressure blast of a bomb. 64 sheets retrieved, of which 14 intact, 26 slightly soiled, 11 badly damaged, 13 charred. The search for the missing 436 sheets continues.
Mar: box of 100 sheets of carbon paper stolen by looting mujiks. Considering their state of civilization, probably to wipe their arses.
JUNE: 1000 paperclips exchanged for 2 typewriter ribbons.
JULY: 1 typewriter ribbon exchanged for 3 pencils.
'The murderer. The one with a dimple in his chin.' Miihlberger cried. Franke went on typing:
AUGUST: 3 pencils given to the neighbours' children for school. 'Where?' Franke asked when he had finished his task:
SEPTEMBER: 2 sheets typing paper and I envelope wasted on this Goddam list.
'He's prowling round the building. It's clear as day, sergeant. The murderer is drawn back to the scene of the crime.'
'Herr Miihlberger. well, here we are together again sooner than I expected.' said inspector Dietrich, who had been listening in from the next room. 'The car, Franke.'
'In the workshop, sir. The ignition's done for.'
'Oh, all right. You get more out of life riding a bicycle. You hold the fort here, Franke. Come with me, Herr Miihlberger.'
Twelve minutes later they had reached their destination. 'There, that's him in the entrance,' whispered Miihlberger, although it was impossible for the man to overhear him at this distance.
'Hold my bike.' Klaus Dietrich left the road and crossed the sandy strip to Number 198. The man was sitting on the front step outside the door. 'Inspector Dietrich, CID. What's your name?'
The man stood up. 'Giese. Franz Giese. I was meeting Lene, I'm a bit early. So I'm just waiting for her.'
'For Marlene Kaschke?'
'We've waited years, Lene and me, and now we've found each other again at last, it was the day before yesterday, and we swore nothing would part us again.'
'You were here the day before yesterday?'
At four in the afternoon. She made some nice titbits for us to eat, and we drank sparkling wine. We made love till late.'
'You stayed all evening, Herr Giese? Till when?'
'Till the last U-Bahn left.' Mdhlberger pushed the bicycles closer. Dietrich waved him away. Giese sat down on the step again. 'She's a good woman. She's been through a lot, even if she doesn't talk about it.' He paused for a while, as if there was no more to be said. Then he looked up at Dietrich, with torment, despair and hopelessness in his face. 'Who did it, inspector?'
Klaus Dietrich had seen soldiers' bodies torn to pieces and hanging in Russian birch trees; he had heard the screams of tank crews burning to death in their vehicles, and the whimpering of dying women and children in blazing cottages. But it wasn't wartime any more, where even the worst horrors became routine, and this grown man's quiet, grief-stricken voice moved him more deeply than anything he had seen. He laid his hand gently on Giese's head, he didn't know why. 'We'll find him, I promise you, Herr Giese. You can help us. Come and see me at the police station. This is the address. Good day. Herr Giese.'
Muhlberger had moved the two bicycles within earshot, and didn't let a word escape him. The inspector went to take his own bicycle back, but Muhlberger clutched it. 'Put that murderer behind bars!' he urged shrilly. 'You want to lock him up, you do!' Dietrich angrily liberated his bike from the man's grip and rode off.
Sergeant Franke struck his hands together in dismay. 'You let him go?'
'I asked him to come and see us in the next few days.'
And you seriously believe he'll accept your invitation?'
'He'll come. He's not the murderer.'
'Muhlberger saw him in the stairwell at almost exactly the time of the crime, inspector. There can't be that many men with dimples in their chins.'
'He saw Franz Giese coming downstairs, that's true. Giese himself doesn't deny being with Marlene Kaschke from four in the afternoon until just before curfew. Two lovers, Franke, who had found each other again. Tenderness in the air, and the hope of a wonderful future together. And the murderer arrived only a few minutes later.'
Who, sir? Who was he?'
'I don't know. But I have a kind of feeling that we know him.'
Hendrijk Claasen lived four houses away from Ben's grandparents. He was cleaning his Triumph in the front garden.