The policemen sat in the briefing room without their jackets, their collars loosened. The sole exception was Mock’s deputy, Max Forstner, who — although sweating in his rather too tight suit and stiff collar — did not allow himself even the appearance of informality. He was not much liked. The reason for this antipathy lay in the conceit and malice which he dealt out to his subordinates in small yet virulent doses. Here he would criticize someone’s cut of hat as being unfashionable, there pick on someone’s badly shaven stubble or stained tie, or dispute yet other trivialities, which — according to him — spoke ill of a policeman’s image. But this morning the heat deprived him of any arguments in all eventual dispute regarding his subordinates’ wardrobe.
The door opened and Mock came in, alongside him a slim, auburn-haired man of about thirty. The new policeman looked like a man who could not get enough sleep. He was stifling his yawns, but his eyes betrayed him with their tears. Forstner grimaced at the sight of the pale beige suit.
Mock, as usual, started by lighting a cigarette, an action repeated after their superior by almost all the men.
“Good morning, gentlemen. This is our new colleague, Criminal Assistant Herbert Anwaldt, who until recently was working with the Berlin Police. Assistant Anwaldt, as of today, is employed as Official in Charge of Special Affairs in our Criminal Department and is heading an investigation. He is responsible solely to me for its progress and results. Please execute his requests scrupulously. For the length of this investigation, Criminal Assistant Anwaldt is, in keeping with my decision, as good as your superior. This does not, of course, include Forstner.” Mock extinguished his cigarette and remained silent for a moment; his men knew that the most important item of the briefing was about to follow. “Gentlemen, if Assistant Anwaldt’s instructions momentarily deter you from your existing cases, leave those aside. Our new colleague’s case is, at the moment, of prime importance. That’s all, please return to your duties.”
Anwaldt looked around Mock’s office with curiosity. Try as he might, he could not find anything in this room that might express any individuality, that might bear any mark of the person occupying it. Everything had its place and was clean to the point of sterility. The Director suddenly unsettled the balance of all this paraphernalia — he removed his jacket and threw it across the back of his chair. Between the blue braces with their singular pattern (naked female bodies entwined in an embrace) proudly protruded a rather prominent belly. Anwaldt, pleased to finally discern a man of flesh and blood, smiled. Mock did not notice; he had just asked for two cups of strong tea over the phone.
“Apparently, it’s excellent for quenching thirst when it’s so hot. We’ll see …”
He passed Anwaldt a box of cigars. Unhurriedly and methodically, he cut the tip of one with a small pair of tweezers. Mock’s assistant, Dietmar Krank, laid a jug and some cups on the desk.
“Where would you like to start, Anwaldt?”
“Criminal Director, I have a suggestion …”
“Forget the formal address. We’re not as ceremonious as the Baron.”
“Of course, as you wish. I spent last night reading the case files. I’d like to know what you think of the following reasoning: somebody made a scapegoat of Friedlander, ergo somebody wants to hide the real perpetrator. Perhaps it’s precisely that somebody who is the murderer. I have to find the person or persons who framed Friedlander, meaning — in other words — those who planted him for you to devour. So I’ll start with Baron von Kopperlingk because he pointed you to Friedlander.” Anwaldt smiled surreptitiously. “But, by the way, how could you have believed that a sixty-year-old — within half an hour — managed to kill a railway man, then have intercourse twice, which — one may surmise — the victims did not make easy. Then kill both women, write some squiggles on the wall, thereafter jump out of the window and dissolve into the mist. Show me a twenty-year-old who could perform such a feat.”
“My dear man,” Mock laughed. He liked Anwaldt’s naive enthusiasm. “Exceptional, superhuman powers can occur quite often in epileptics, after a fit, too. All such behaviour is the result of mysterious hormones, which Friedlander’s physician, Doctor Weinsberg, elaborated to me in detail. I’ve no reason not to trust him.”
“Exactly so. You trust him. But I do not trust anyone. I have to see that doctor. Perhaps somebody told him to tell you about the extraordinary gifts of epileptics, dervishes’ trances and other such …” Anwaldt could not find the word, “other such nonsense.”
Mock slowly drank his tea.
“You’re very categorical, young man.”
Anwaldt drank half a cup in one go. He wanted, at all costs, to show the Director how confident he felt in matters such as these. And it was precisely self-confidence that he lacked. He was behaving, right now, like a little boy who has wet his bed in the night and, on waking in the morning, does not know what to do with himself. (I was chosen. I am the chosen one. I will earn masses of money.) He finished what remained of his tea.
“I’d like a transcript of Friedlander’s interrogation, please,” he tried to give his voice a hard edge.
“What do you need a transcript for?” Mock’s tone was no longer playful. “You’ve been working in the police for years and you know that sometimes the person being interrogated needs to be appropriately pressurized. The transcript has been touched up. It’s better that I tell you what happened. I’m the one who questioned him after all.” He looked out of the window and started to invent fluently. “I asked about an alibi. He didn’t have one. I had to strike him. (The man from the Gestapo, Konrad, forced him to talk in short order, no doubt. He has his methods.) When I asked about the strange writing with which he filled thick notebooks, he laughed that it was a message to his brothers who were going to avenge him. (I have heard that Konrad slashes through tendons with a razor.) I had to be far more persuasive. I told them to fetch his daughter. That did the trick. He calmed down immediately and confessed he was guilty. That’s all. (Poor girl … What to do? I had no choice but to hand her over to Piontek … He got her addicted to morphine and packed her into bed with various high-ranking types.)”
“And you believed a madman?” Anwaldt’s eyes opened wide in astonishment. “Whom you subjected to blackmail like that?”
Mock was sincerely amused. He assumed Muhlhaus’ attitude in face of Anwaldt — a kind-hearted grandfather stroking the head of a fantasizing grandson.