‘I’d like to have you with me. But I’d rather know you’re here, ready to start. Do you have a flashlight I can use?’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
I clambered up the ladder. I was shivering. The knitted jumper, some American label, I was wearing beneath the old leather jacket to match my new jeans didn’t warm me. I peered over the quay wall.
In front of me, parallel to the banks of the Rhine, was a narrow road, behind it tracks with railway carriages. The buildings were in the brick style I was familiar with from the Security building and the Schmalzes’ flat. The old plant was in front of me. Somewhere here was Schmalz’s hangar.
I turned to the right where the old brick buildings were lower. I tried to walk with both caution and the necessary authority. I stuck to the shadows of the railway carriages.
They came without the Alsatian making a sound. One of them shone a torch in my face, the other asked me for my badge. I fetched the special pass from my wallet. ‘Herr Self? What part of your special job brings you here?’
‘I wouldn’t require a special pass if I had to tell you that.’
But that neither calmed them nor intimidated them. They were two young lads, the sort you find these days in the riot police. In the old days you found them in the Waffen SS. That’s certainly an impermissible comparison because these days we’re dealing with a free democratic order, yet the mixture of zeal, earnestness, uncertainness, and servility in the faces is the same. They were wearing a kind of paramilitary uniform with the benzene ring on their collar patch.
‘Hey, guys,’ I said, ‘let me finish my job, and you do yours. What are your names? I want to tell Danckelmann tomorrow that you can be relied on. Continue the good work!’
I don’t remember their names; they were along the lines of Energy and Stamina. I didn’t manage to get them clicking their heels. But one of them returned my pass and the other switched off his torch. The Alsatian had spent the whole time off to one side, indifferent.
When I couldn’t see them any more and their steps had died away I went on. The low-slung buildings I’d seen seemed ramshackle. Some of the windows were smashed, some doors hung crooked from their hinges, here and there a roof was missing. The area was obviously earmarked for demolition. But one building had been rescued from decay. It, too, was a onefloor brick building, with Romanesque windows and barrel vaulting made of corrugated iron. If Schmalz’s workshop was anywhere round here, then it had to be in this building.
My flashlight found the small service door in the large sliding gate. Both were locked, and the big one could only be opened from the inside. At first I didn’t want to try the bank-card trick, but then I thought that on the evening in question, three weeks ago today, Schmalz might no longer have had the strength or the wit to think of details like padlocks. And indeed, using my special pass, I entered the hangar. Next second, I had to close the door. Energy and Stamina were coming round the corner.
I leaned against the cold iron door and took a deep breath. Now I was really sober. And still I knew it was a good idea to have come looking in the RCW grounds. The fact that on the day Mischkey had had his accident Schmalz had hurt his hand, had had a brain haemorrhage, and forgotten to play chess wasn’t much in itself. And the fact that he tinkered with delivery vans and the girl at the station had seen a strange delivery van was hardly a hot lead. But I wanted to know.
Not much light shone through the windows. I could make out the outlines of three panel trucks. I turned on the flashlight and recognized an old Opel, an old Mercedes, and a Citroën. You certainly don’t see many of those driving about round here. At the back of the hangar was a large workbench. I groped my way over. Amongst the tools were a set of keys, a cap, and a pack of cigarettes. I pocketed the keys.
Only the Citroën was roadworthy. On the Opel the windshield was missing, the Mercedes was up on blocks. I sat down in the Citroën and tried out the keys. One fitted and as I turned it the lights went on. There was old blood on the steering wheel and the cloth on the passenger’s seat was bloodstained, too. I took it. As I was about to turn off the ignition, I touched a switch on the dashboard. Behind me I could hear the humming of an electric motor, and in the side-mirror I could see the loading doors open. I got out and went to the back.
20 Not just a silly womanizer
This time I didn’t get such a fright. But the effect was still impressive. Now I knew what had happened on the bridge. Both inside surfaces of the rear doors of the delivery van, and the rear opening itself, had been covered with reflective foil. A deadly triptych. The foil was spread smooth, without creases or warps, and I could see myself in it like on Saturday in the mirror that hung in my stairwell. When Mischkey had driven onto the bridge, the delivery van had been parked there with its back doors open. Mischkey, confronted suddenly with the apparent headlights on his side of the road, had swerved to the left and then lost control of his vehicle. Now I recalled the cross on the right headlight on Mischkey’s car. It wasn’t Mischkey who’d stuck it on, it was old Schmalz, who’d thus been able to know, in the darkness, that he had to open the doors because his victim was coming.
I heard thumps on the door of the hangar. ‘Open up, security!’ Energy and Stamina must have noticed the beam from my flashlight. Apparently the hangar had been so much Schmalz’s sole preserve that not even security had a key. I was glad that my two young colleagues didn’t know the bank-card trick. Nonetheless I was sitting in a trap.
I took note of the number on the licence plate and saw that the plates themselves were tied on in a makeshift fashion with wire. I started the engine. Outside the door was being pounded with ever-increasing energy and stamina. I parked the vehicle just a metre from the door, its mirrored rear opened. Then I grabbed a long, heavy spanner from the table. One of my pursuers hurled himself against the door.
I pressed myself against the wall. Now what I needed was a lot of luck. When I estimated the next assault on the door would come, I pushed down the handle.
The door burst open, and the first security guard fell through it, landing on the ground. The second one stormed in after him with raised pistol and raked to a halt in fright in front of his own mirror image. The Alsatian had been trained to attack whoever was threatening his master with a raised weapon and leapt through the tearing foil. I could hear him howling in pain in the cargo area. The first security man lay dazed on the ground, the second hadn’t cottoned on yet. I took advantage of the confusion, zipped out of the gate, and raced in the direction of the boat. I’d made it over the tracks and cleared maybe twenty metres down the road, when I heard Energy and Stamina in renewed pursuit: ‘Stop or I’ll shoot.’ Their heavy boots beat out a fast rhythm on the cobblestones, the panting of the dog was getting closer and closer, and I had no desire to grow acquainted with the application of the regulations on usage of firearms on the plant’s premises. The Rhine looked cold. But I had no choice, and jumped.
The dive from a headlong run had enough momentum to let me bob to the surface a good distance away. I turned my head and saw Energy and Stamina standing on the quay wall with the Alsatian, directing their flashlight at the water. My clothes were heavy, and the current of the Rhine is strong, and I could only make headway with difficulty.
‘Gerd, Gerd!’ Philipp let his boat drift downstream in the shadow of the quayside and called to me in a whisper.