Not Dead Enough

canopy of trees, some beneath a large green awning, but most out in the open. ‘I’d prefer outside – for looking around.’

‘Yes. Of course. We get a drink first – you like something?’

‘I’d better have a German beer,’ he said with a grin. ‘And a coffee.’

‘Weissbier or Helles? Or would you like a Radler – a shandy – or maybe a Russn?’

‘I’d like a large, cold beer.’

‘A Mass?’

‘Mass?’

Kullen pointed at two men at a table drinking from glasses the size of chimney stacks.

‘Something a little smaller?’

‘A half-Mass?’

‘Perfect. What are you going to have? I’ll get them.’

‘No, when you coming Germany, I buy!’ Kullen said adamantly.

The whole thing was attractively done, Grace thought. Elegant lamp posts lined the waterfront; the outbuildings housing the bar and the food area were in dark green and white, and recently painted; there was a funky bronze of a naked, bald man, with his arms folded and a tiny penis, on a marble plinth; orderly stacks of plastic crates and green rubbish bins for empties and rubbish, and beer glasses, and polite signs in German and in English.

A cashier sat under a wooden awning, dealing with a long queue. Waiters and waitresses in red trousers and yellow shirts cleared away debris from tables as people left. Leaving the German police officer to queue at the bar, Grace stepped away a short distance, carefully studying the map, trying to pinpoint from it at which of the hundred or so eight-seater trestle tables Sandy might have sat.

There must be several hundred people seated at the tables, he estimated, a good five hundred, maybe more, and almost without exception they each had a tall beer glass in front of them. He could smell the beer in the air, along with wafts of cigarette and cigar smoke, and the enticing aromas of French fries and grilling meat.

Sandy drank the occasional cold beer in summer, and often, when she did, she would joke that it was because of her German heritage. Now he was starting to understand that. He was also starting to feel very strange. Was it tiredness, or thirst, or just the enormity of being here? he wondered. He had the ridiculous feeling that he was trespassing on Sandy’s patch, that he wasn’t really wanted here.

And suddenly he found himself staring into a stern, headmasterly face that seemed to be agreeing with him, admonishing him. It was a grey, stone head-and-shoulders sculpture of a bearded man that reminded him of those statues of ancient philosophers you often saw in junk shops and car-boot sales. He was still in the early stages of his studies, but this man definitely looked like one of them.

Then he noticed the name, paulaner, embossed importantly on the cornerstone, just as Kullen came up to him, carrying two beers and two coffees on a tray. ‘OK, you have decided where you want to sit?’

‘This guy, Paulaner, was he a German philosopher?’

Kullen grinned at him. ‘Philosopher? I don’t think. Paulaner is the name of the biggest brewing house in Munich.’

‘Ah,’ Grace said, feeling decidedly dim-witted. ‘Right.’

Kullen was pointing to a table at the water’s edge, where some spaces were being freed up by a group of youngsters who were standing and hauling on backpacks. ‘Would you like to sit there?’

‘Perfect.’

As they walked over to it, Grace scanned the faces at table after table after table. Packed with men and women of all ages, from teens to the elderly, all in casual dress, mostly T-shirts, baggy shirts or bare-chested, shorts or jeans, and just about everyone in sunglasses, baseball caps, floppy hats and straw hats. They were drinking from Mass or half-Mass glasses of beer, eating plates of sausages and fries, or spare ribs, or tennis-ball-sized lumps of cheese, or something that looked like meatloaf with sauerkraut.

Was this where Sandy had been earlier in the week? Was this where she came regularly, walking past the naked bronze on the plinth and the bearded head in the fountain who was advertising Paulaner, to sit and drink beer and stare at the lake?

And with whom?

A new man? New friends?

And, if she was alive, what went on in her mind? What did she think about the past, about him, their life together, all their dreams and promises and times shared?

He took out Dick Pope’s map and looked again at the fuzzy circle, orienting himself.

‘Bottoms up!’