“Were the Americans planning to leave back then?”
“They were, by all accounts. And so we started buying. Prices rose in Neuschloss, and one Realtor tried to be particularly clever and put down half a million for the old forester's lodge on the road to Hemsbach.” He laughed, slapping his thighs. “Half a million!”
“And with that map, you knew what was worth buying and what to avoid?”
“No. You couldn't get at the actual terrain. The Americans were there, and they still are. But ifthey had left, and ifthey had not cleaned up the place while they were still there, and if the city were to be built, then the map would have been a gold mine. If, if, if-that map was never a jackpot.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I bought it.”
I looked at him, puzzled.
“Needless to say, not at my local bookstore. A young man found it in his father's papers and was clever enough to realize its value for the real-estate market. I had to fork out a good chunk of cash for it.”
I showed him young Lemke in a photograph from Leo's album. He looked at it: “Yes, he was the one who sold it to me.”
I didn't for a moment believe that Lemke had found the map among his father's papers. Leo had told me about Lemke's internship at her father's office in the Ministry of Defense. Lemke had to have come across the map there and stolen it. Then he had sold it to old Herr Wendt and tried to get it back from young Rolf Wendt-presumably to cut the same deal with the next Realtor, for the funds of the Communist League, or for his own pocket.
“Herr Wendt, did you tell your son how you got the map?”
“I suppose so.”
“That is what helped your son, not the beating you gave him. Lemke, who sold you the map, was trying to get your son to take it away from you again. He wouldn't have told him that he had sold you the map. He wouldn't even have spoken of money, but of high political aims. He was your son's political idol, and your son believed in him, until he realized that Lemke had duped him and used him.”
“Did he…”
“No, he didn't kill your son.”
He took the two halves of the broken pencil and tried to put them back together again.
“Can I have the map?” I asked.
“Will it help with your investigation?”
“I think it will.”
He eyed me silently. Our conversation had exhausted him. Without asking me, he picked up my phone, called his chauffeur, and told him to pull up outside. He got up, steadied himself on the desk, found his balance, walked to the window, and waited for the car. “You'll hear from me,” he said over his shoulder as he walked out the door.
28 Marked red
I didn't have to wait long for Wendt's reply. I got off the phone with Brigitte and immediately received a call from Frau Büchler. She had just sent a messenger to my office, and Herr Wendt hoped I would know to use what was in the package prudently-he didn't want it back. After the close of the investigation he expected a detailed written report. “You are to send the report to me, and the invoice, too,” Frau Büchler said. “I wish you much success, Herr Self.”
I waited for the messenger and looked out the window. There are seldom pedestrians out and about on the Augusta-Anlage. There are a couple of schools in the area, but the children use the side streets. There are also several offices, big and small, but the people who work there use their cars. I watched the traffic cop writing out tickets. Then my vista remained empty for a while, until two dark men in light suits came into view, stopped, talked vehemently at each other, and continued on their way, one of them angrily in front, the other anxiously following. A young woman pushed a stroller through the picture. A small boy ran by carrying a schoolbag. I lit a cigarette.
The messenger arrived on a motorbike. He didn't switch the engine off while he handed me a large yellow envelope on the steps leading up to my door, and he had me sign a receipt. Before he thundered off, he tapped his index finger on his helmet.
I had to clear my desk in order to lay out the map. It looked utterly insignificant. Little green numbers, ones and twos, denoted evergreen and deciduous woodland. To the west of the small pond called Baumholzgraben were a few brown altitude lines, and the whole area was cut into rectangles by cleared areas in gray, numbered between ten and forty. At eleven points, matchstick-thin areas about two centimeters long were marked red next to the cleared areas. Some were marked with a particularly wide hatching, and some with an additional question mark. Was that where poison gas from World War I was buried, or thought to be buried? The map bore no caption, and no heading either, just a multidigit number, an indication of the scale, a stamp with eagle and swastika, and an initial that was illegible.
I folded the map up again. I don't have a safe, but nobody has ever broken into my file cabinet. I laid the map on the middle shelf, under my blank-cartridge pistol. I wondered if there were any copies. I supposed that Lemke must have made a copy before he sold it to Herr Wendt, which he then could have used in preparation for the attack. Maybe the map had even given him the idea. Otherwise copies were not of much use, not then and not now. No Realtor would have paid for a copy, and no newspaper would have been interested.
I gazed at the shadow play that the sun and the gold lettering on my glass door conjured up on the floor: long, airy letters stretching upward and away from one another. I didn't have anything to do till evening. But I wasn't particularly interested in doing anything. I wanted to finish this case and put the whole thing behind me.
At the Kleiner Rosengarten I had a veal schnitzel in lemon sauce. I saw a matinee of a movie in which at first she loved him but he didn't love her, and then he loved her but she didn't love him, and then nobody loved anybody, until finally, after a chance meeting years later, he loved her and she loved him. I sweated, swam, and napped at the Herschelbad. I woke up to Peschkalek and Brigitte bringing me a birthday cake, whose candles I was supposed to blow out but couldn't. The two of them stood next to me, talked at me, and kept slapping my shoulders, their hands meeting. I felt they were holding onto each other and tried to turn around, but couldn't. They were holding me in a vise.
I disentangled myself from the sheet and looked at the clock. It was high time.
29 Another matter altogether
I remembered which key it was. The lock clicked open right away.
I looked around. An hour and a half had to be enough. I had asked Brigitte to invite Peschkalek again, which she readily did, but I wouldn't be able to put her off any longer than that.
I called her. “I'm sorry, but-”
“You'll be late?”
“Yes.”
“Don't worry. Manu isn't home yet. When do you think you can make it?”
The grandfather clock struck. “It's eight now. Nine thirty-that shouldn't be a problem. Bon appétit-and don't forget to leave something for me.”
“Will do.”
It stayed light a little longer than last time. I could still see well. This time I looked not only at the desk, but also searched every compartment and drawer for the gun. I also looked behind every binder. I searched through the bedroom, groping my way through the closet from sweaters to shirts and underwear to socks, and I patted down every jacket and pair of pants. I couldn't find his shoes. There was no shoe closet, no shoe shelf, nor were they lying around anywhere on the floor. A man without shoes-that couldn't be. When I tackled the bed and lifted the mattress, I found a drawer built in under the bed and packed with shoes, organized by color and polished to a spotless sheen. Pulling the drawer out all the way to look behind it proved difficult in the narrow room. But I managed that, too, crawling under the bed on my stomach and groping about in the area between the back of the drawer and the wall. Nothing.