bank clerk. He guided his fiancee to the window, sat down in an armchair facing me, leaned forward, and beamed. I asked Anastas and Carla Reedermann to leave the room.
“On the night of the twenty-second of April, you put up a tent on the factory grounds of Bollig Chemicals?”
“All right. By the lake. Tell me what it was like.”
Alf told me that his parents had discovered that lake a long time ago, opined that it was surely all right to spend a night together in a tent without a marriage certificate, and went on to explain how many cans of provisions they had been able to fit into his Rabbit. I interrupted him.
“Mr. Duli, what woke you up in the middle of the night?”
“The explosion, of course …”
“Any gunshots?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Before or after the explosion?”
“Ah … More or less at the same time … No, right after. Bollig came running
“I’m asking you if you heard any gunshots, and when you heard them. I’m not asking you for your conjectures.”
“Well, I’m really not totally sure, but it stands to reason …”
I turned to the little blonde.
“What about you?”
“I can’t remember anything except for that explosion.”
“But Anita-”
“Please! So, Ms. Anita, you heard no gunshots?”
“No. I didn’t hear any.”
“What did you do after you heard the explosion?”
Duli made a fist. “I grabbed my knife, and then I-”
“I’m talking to your friend.”
His Boy Scout smile froze. He leaned back, clenched his jaw, and looked offended.
“Yes, Alf rushed out, and I followed, and we could just still see those four running away.”
“Those four? Not five?”
“Oh yes, a little while later one more ran across the field.”
I lit a cigarette.
“Could it be that one of the four had turned around, and that you just saw him twice?”
“If so, he must have been running damn fast.”
“All right. And then?”
“We waited there, by the tent, for about fifteen minutes. Then the police came.”
Duli couldn’t stand it any longer. He demanded center stage.
“I wanted to go after them right away, see what they were up to. I knew they were up to no good. But Anita, you know how women are, she got scared, and so-”
“Yes, all right.” I turned back to the girl. “Did they take statements from you?”
“They took our names and addresses, and the next day we had to go to the station. Two weeks from now we have to appear in court as witnesses. That’s all.”
“Did you know the Bollig family?”
“No.”
“That’s all. Many thanks.”
I got up and shook hands with them. Alf Duli demonstrated one more time what a guy he was by almost crushing my hand. I called for Anastas, and he escorted the couple to the door. Carla Reedermann came in and sat down on the edge of the desk. In her tight skirt, she did that really well. Her long legs swung gently. I watched her and pondered what kind of a test this might be.
“Did you find out anything?”
“Why do you ask? I’m sure you kept your ears glued to the door. Didn’t you?” She stopped swinging her legs, shrugged. “We did.”
I leafed through papers on the desk. Then Anastas came back and set a bottle of beer on the desk.
“You don’t have anything on Bollig’s private life?”
“Just the usual. Born, married to, and so forth. Why?”
“The most revealing thing about a murder is its motive. And the most revealing thing about a motive is the victim. It’s as simple as that.”
I finished my beer and took my leave, reassuring them that they would be hearing from me.
7
I parked by the fence and walked over to number five. A wet wind swept down the street and struck my neck like a spray of cold water. Number five was a building from the fifties with a fluted glass door. I rang the bell and waited. Heinzel, Lechmann, and Schmidi. Heinzel and Lechmann and their two buddies were now behind bars, tending their relationship with their attorney Anastas. That left Schmidi, if he was home. The buzzer sounded, and I pushed the door open. Schmidi stood in a doorway, in T-shirt and underpants. He was overweight but not obese; still, his thighs certainly did not indicate a macrobiotic diet.
I wished him a good evening, and he responded but did not budge from the door.
“What’s up?”
“Kayankaya. I work for Dr. Anastas.”
He scratched his hairy belly and scrutinized me.
“The lawyer?”
“Right. Can you spare a moment for a couple of questions?”
“… Awlright.”
He took me to the kitchen, through a short hallway plastered with posters and newspaper clippings. A tattered Japanese paper lampshade lit the room. You could smell the garbage. I sat down at a table that looked homemade and watched Schmidt pick up some empty coffee cups. Then he leaned against the sink and stuck both his thumbs into the elastic of his underpants.
“Go ahead.”
“Were you and Lechmann and Heinzel close?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“All kinds of things. For instance-have you given any thought to the Bollig case?”
He rubbed his unshaven chin.
“Well, what do you think? We’ve been sharing this place for two years.”
“And why do you think those four were arrested so quickly?”
“Didn’t surprise me. Computers and networks and all that shit. Of course it wouldn’t take them long.”
“Were you there when they planned the operation?”
“Oh no, boss. I didn’t know anything about it, and all I know now is what I’ve read in the papers.” He sneered.
“You’re not a cop, are you?”
“Do I look like one?”
“Well, you guys were raised in a dictatorship …”
He grinned. He liked his joke. I lit a cigarette and waited. “Has it occurred to you that the fifth man could have been an informer who ratted on his buddies?”
He leaned forward, made a serious face, and said, “You speak in riddles, chief. I don’t know what you mean by the fifth man.”
