Not Her

by Noah Fitz

  “What?”

  “He’ll give his testimony under one condition.”

  Gabriela crossed her arms.

  Tine quietly closed the door behind her. “He wants to talk to Chief Inspector Wulf in private.”

  “Pffff,” Gabriela said.

  Marc’s face brightened. He stretched out his back, walked to his boss’s meticulously tidy desk, grabbed the carafe with his right hand, and raised it to his mouth like a measure of beer. Although he was not thirsty, Marc allowed himself a large gulp of the lemon water before he banged the vessel back down on the tabletop. Still grinning, he grabbed the lemon slice floating on the surface and threw it in his mouth.

  “Come on, Pride, we’ve got work to do. We can continue our conversation later.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw his boss fuming. “You have my phone number, of course.” He tapped his temple with two fingers and marched to the door. “Do you want to take root here, Pride? Never mind, this argument had nothing to do with your brilliant work. It was more of a personal thing.”

  Tine nodded obediently and stepped into the hallway again.

  “There will be consequences, Inspector,” Gabriela called after him. “If you continue to risk the lives of your colleagues so recklessly. You’re going it alone will cost you dearly.”

  Without another word, Marc exited the office, leaving the door wide open, even though he knew Gabriela hated it.

  “You came right on cue, Pride!” he said, marching cheerfully to the elevators. “You’ve earned yourself a gold star. Fortune seems to be all around me today, and I think the tide will turn. Tonight at the latest.” He pressed the call button and gave Tine a resigned smile. “I’m not an asshole from the bottom up. Come on, we have to hurry.” With that he got into the elevator and held the door open with his hand as it was about to close.

  “Thanks,” Tine said. “Your honesty doesn’t really flatter me, but I like to know where I stand with a person. I’d rather work with an honest ruffian than with a notorious liar who constantly sucks up to me.” Tine pressed the button. With a slight jerk the elevator started moving.

  Marc stroked his chin and considered her. “To which category do you belong?” he wondered.

  “There are also thinkers and doers,” Tine said. “I’m a thinking doer.”

  “A pinch of healthy self-confidence makes a woman sexy. A thinking-doer sexy, that is.”

  Tine shrugged. Today she wore her hair braided on both sides, which made her look even more girlish.

  “What do you say we go for a drink tonight?” Marc said. “You and me?”

  “I’d rather not,” Tine said.

  “And I was afraid you’d say yes. But why don’t you stop by my mother’s?”

  “As a lightning rod, I suppose? Did you have a fight with her?”

  “And another hit! I’m not afraid of anyone. The only exception is my mother.”

  “Okay,” Tine said, “I’ll come along. But I think you clash with your mother because you’re cut from the same cloth.”

  “You can love people even if you don’t always agree with them,” Marc said. “It’s best if we ride together. And you can introduce yourself as my new student. That will calm her down.”

  “Whatever.”

  Marc clenched his right hand and stretched it out to Tine, who did the same. The short touch of her knuckles made him smile.

  “My son and I make our secret pacts with this.”

  ***

  The elevator stopped. “I think we’re here,” Tine said. Furtively she rubbed her fist. Marc really wasn’t an asshole. Rather he was someone with sharp corners and edges that would leave thick bruises if you weren’t careful. Just like her father.

  “What’s wrong?” Marc said. “You suddenly look very sad. Have I done something again? Did I hurt you?”

  Tine felt caught and hid her hands behind her back like a little girl. At the same moment she was annoyed by her childish behavior. “You reminded me of my father.”

  “On the outside? Well, thanks a lot.”

  Tine didn’t want to get lost in wistful memories, so she just kept walking. “You do look like him. Come on. Mr. Stamm seemed very nervous to me.”

  She hurried ahead, and he stayed close behind her. I hope he doesn’t stare at my backside. She tried hard not to wiggle her hips.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not interested in your ass. Relax. If you keep stiffening like that, you’ll need hip surgery.”

  Tine stopped abruptly. “Room four,” she said, and let Marc walk past her.

  “By the way,” he said, “that was not a sexual advance. I like women, not little girls, no matter how tight their butts are. Now come on, and please don’t be mad at me. I only deduced your thoughts from your posture and was obviously close to the truth. Also, the limp in your left leg. Just lift your left shoulder slightly. That’ll cover it up. Do you know that limp is psychosomatic? You had a bad fall as a child, right? Your parents were not allowed to know about it. The pain must have been unbearable, yet you managed to keep it secret.”

  “Sometimes you give me the creeps,” Tine said.

  “Do you like horses?” he asked.

  She gasped, and Marc snapped his fingers.

  “Gotcha. You snuck away to ride a horse without permission. The word horse is the link to your memory. That’s the trigger. But only if I consciously trigger your memory of the injury.”

  He kept walking, leaving Tine alone by door number four.

  “Where are you going?” she asked. “Stamm’s in here.”

  “Yeah, but before we go in, we should organize some files. Come on, we’ll borrow some from Mrs. Birkwarth.”

  “But they only do the bookkeeping,” Tine said.

  “The folders only have to be filled with papers. What’s in them is secondary. Now come on.”

  She caught up with him and furtively studied his face while they walked. “How did you figure out the horse?”

  “Simple,” Marc said. “In Enno’s room you held the book with the horses too long. You stroked the mane of one of the animals. Probably didn’t even know you were doing it.”

  She shook her head in amazement.

  “I sometimes notice too many things,” Marc admitted. “Mostly it pays off.”

  “Do you know how old I am?” she asked.

  “Way too young for me.”

  “That wasn’t my question,” she said.

  “Come on, Pride, you’d better concentrate on the upcoming interview. Think up some good questions. Help me get this man out of his shell.”

  Chapter 31

  Marktheide | October Street

  Immanuel put his thumb in his mouth. His streak of bad luck continued. Bitterly, he stared into the mirror and looked at his tense face. He bit his fingertip. That was his way of trying to contain the pain a little.

  Every time he thought he had turned a corner and recognized a tiny spark in the black firmament, fate struck again with all its might. Fortuna was a cunning whore who stopped at nothing. And as if to give yet another sign of her omnipotence, Immanuel had hammered his thumb instead of the head of the rusty nail. He had been thinking of Eleonora and her son when it happened. But if he were honest, it was not Eleonora’s face that had appeared in his head. It was her daughter’s. Pia.

  She had been a child then, but like many girls today, even at her tender age she had already developed a perfect feminine figure. Immanuel had only made subtle hints and once had given her a bar of chocolate.

  Pia had not only been anatomically advanced. She had also been clever. A child with ambition, someone who aspired to higher things, who not only dreamed but also lived her set goals. These had been her words.

  One day she had been sitting right there, on that chair, on which a heavy roll of wire now lay. Even back then, Immanuel had been allowed to visit the workshop at any time, because Mr. Lind, the previous janitor, had always been drunk.

  On that
day Pia had fallen. One of the wheels of her roller skates—not inline skates, but real roller skates—had jammed. The ball bearing had cracked. Immanuel had watched Pia dancing in the courtyard, like a ballerina, perfecting her pirouettes. She could turn on her own axis for a whole minute.

  On that day, exactly what Immanuel had dreamt of happened: she fell, and he was there immediately. Pia had not cried. She just rubbed her scraped knee and stood.

  Immanuel helped her up. “I think I can fix this,” he said, kneeling before her. “Your knee looks bad. Come to the workshop. I’ve got a bandage for your roller skate and a screwdriver for your knee.”

  Pia had only smiled at his joke. “Can you really fix my skate?”

  “Of course,” he replied. A thick lump stuck in his throat. “You can’t walk like that.” Like a bodyguard, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to his refuge. After he took off her skate, he got down on his knees before Pia. She sat on the chair, her cheeks glowing. Immanuel trembled with excitement.

  A half-empty bottle of vodka lay on the workbench.

  Immanuel grabbed it and opened the lid. “This is going to hurt a little.” He poured some of the liquid over her grazed skin. Pia sucked in air.

  She wore a tight skirt and a sleeveless white shirt that day. And she smelled nice. Not of a sweet perfume or body lotion, but of innocence and sin.

  “Here.” He gave her a handkerchief. “You have to clean the wound. I’ll take care of your broken skate now. Does it hurt?”

  Pia remained silent.

  “Here, take a sip.” Immanuel offered her the bottle.

  Pia sipped on it and twisted her mouth. “It burns.”

  He laughed and closed the bottle again.

  After he exchanged the ball bearing for one he removed from a small motor, he dropped to his knees in front of her again.

  “This bandage should be big enough,” he said and carefully taped it over the wound.

  Immanuel spun the wheel of the skate several times. It turned silently again.

  Pia stretched out her leg and wiggled her toes. While Immanuel helped her into the skate, he stole a glance under her skirt. How his trembling hand had crawled between her legs he could not explain to this day.

  With a sharp scream, Pia jumped up and slapped Immanuel so violently that it left deep scratches on his cheek.

  “Stay away from me!” she said. She raised the vodka bottle threateningly above her head and pushed herself backwards out of the workshop.

  A crash behind one of the shelves instinctively made Immanuel duck.

  “Leave her alone!” someone yelled.

  The next moment the door slammed shut and Pia was gone.

  Immanuel had tried to settle the matter the next day, but Pia refused to even listen to him. In the following weeks she constantly avoided him. Later, she threatened to report him for sexual assault. She hinted that she had already talked to her brother about it.

  Loud knocking tore Immanuel from his memory. The door trembled under violent blows.

  “Police! Open up, or we’ll break down the door.”

  Immanuel bit even harder on his thumb. The pain exploded and drove tears into his eyes. He jumped so hastily from his chair that it tipped over backwards.

  “Open the door!” the deep voice roared again.

  Immanuel pulled his thumb out of his mouth and reached for the heavy hammer.

  Chapter 32

  Berlin | Police Headquarters

  Olaf scratched his forearms; the itching had become unbearable, that’s how nervous he was. I’m going to see this through, he thought, rocking back and forth.

  He sat on a plastic chair in a room with yellow walls and a scratched linoleum floor. Behind the empty table—actually it was just a thick, lightly glazed piece of chipboard atop four gray metal bars—there was a large window. Through slightly befogged eyes, Olaf stared out the gray square. Outside, a bare treetop moved from left to right. The window was ajar. The curtains, the color of eggshells, billowed like the sails of a ship. With its yellow ceiling and indirect lighting, the room resembled a prison cell. Nevertheless, Olaf felt safe here. He felt inexplicably at home.

  For him, normal life had been over for a long time. Why torture himself even longer? Since he had hurt the policeman, all the reasons he invented to run from the law seemed pointless. Sometimes, when he was drunk or on drugs, he toyed with the idea of taking his own life. Once he had even been close to jumping off a bridge onto the tracks, just before the train thundered past. But he was a coward and had been one all his life.

  Olaf suffered from an attention deficit disorder. One of the pediatricians had said as much. On his thirteenth birthday, the diagnosis had been confirmed by a renowned psychologist: his father. He had flogged Olaf with a leather belt. “I’ll beat the stupidity out of you, yet.” That had been his father’s motto.

  Since childhood Olaf had longed for the love and concern of his parents, who had found their salvation and the meaning of life in drunken orgies. Olaf had only been a disturbing by-product.

  The door opened.

  Olaf didn’t know whether to stand up or sit down. He sat with his back to the wall, in the truest sense.

  “You can remain seated,” said the inspector, thus relieving him of the decision, for which Olaf was very grateful.

  “Inspector Stolz and I—my name is Chief Inspector Wulf—we’re going to ask you some questions. That’s why you’re here, I assume.” The inspector’s face had two ugly red wounds. The deep cut on his cheek had been sealed together with shiny staples. The policeman did not address his injuries. Without another word, he placed several thick folders on the empty table. His colleague held some files as well.

  What’s going on here? Olaf thought. He tugged at the collar of his red sweater, which scratched his back and had a big hole near his stomach.

  The folders were piled up into two skewed stacks and promptly slid to the side. The young woman turned them into three smaller towers.

  The tall, dark-haired official, Wulf, took off his leather coat and hung it on a hook next to the door. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater. Olaf did not overlook how muscular he was; despite his age the policeman still seemed very fit and vital. The stubble on his angular lower jaw shimmered with silver.

  “May I?” Politely, Wulf pulled the yellow duffle coat off the young lady and hung it up next to his coat. She was much younger than her colleague. Wulf went to the table and waited until his companion had taken a seat. He himself grabbed a chair that stood next to Olaf and sat down opposite him.

  “We all want to stay within the truth.” Wulf’s voice had a pleasant timbre, like that of a psychologist. “Every lie, no matter what kind, is destructive.” He unfastened the elastic band from his hair, which had been combed backwards. He looked even more threatening than before.

  “I agree,” Olaf said. He kneaded his hands and started scratching his wrists and forearms again. In some places the dry skin had cracked open and was bleeding slightly.

  “How can we help you? What has brought you to us? A guilty conscience because you attacked a police officer on duty?” Wulf rolled the rubber band over his hand and up to his wrist. “Or is there something more on your mind?” He pulled the rubber band and let it snap against his skin. “We’re all ears,” he said, smiling coolly. The staples on his cheek glittered.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Olaf said. “I panicked.”

  “Does that happen to you often?” Wulf asked.

  Olaf looked around. He didn’t really want to remember much of his life. If he had shot himself with some stuff, he sometimes couldn’t distinguish reality from sick fantasy.

  “Your fingers are nimble,” Wulf said. “You cracked that lock very professionally, just like the handcuffs.”

  Olaf looked at the young blonde woman, Stolz, who had pulled her braids back to form a short ponytail. One of the hair clips flashed because a lonely ray of sunlight had found it
s way into the room before immediately disappearing again.

  “I used to work for a locksmith,” Olaf said. “Since then I always carry a paperclip with me.”

  Marc raised his eyebrow skeptically. “No lies,” he said.

  Olaf lowered his eyes. “I never had a job.”

  “If that’s why you’re here, then you’re in the wrong place. You have to go to the employment agency. We do not arrange jobs. We’re investigating.”

  “I just want you to help me keep the last shred of my self-respect,” Olaf said.

  “I’m not interested in fathoming the depths of sick souls,” Wulf said. “I’m not a psychiatrist. But my colleague could be the proverbial last straw you should cling to. We’ve created some files on you, Mr. Stamm. Ms. Stolz here has compiled them for this interview. The files won’t be very helpful in your job search, believe me. Not unless you tell us everything and we make some of these folders disappear. Then your resumé would look a little better.”

  Olaf lowered his head and inspected the reports on the table. So many pages, he thought. With a sigh, he put his hands under his thighs.

  Wulf smiled. “Quite a lot has accumulated, hasn’t it? How old are you, Mr. Stamm? In your early thirties? I don’t have it all in my head.”

  “Twenty-nine,” Olaf said. “And I’ve been through so much. Drunk driving… Driving without a license… Hit-and-run…” He stopped when he saw Wulf’s face. Why is he looking at me so surprised? Olaf wondered, barely suppressing the urge to scratch himself again. “I didn’t mean to do it,” he said. “I didn’t want that.”

  The inspector looked up from the files. “How long ago was that?”

  “Three years,” Olaf said.

  “Hmm.”

  “Afterwards I got depressed and was haunted by nightmares. It was an accident. It wasn’t my fault.” Olaf’s voice shook. His upper body teetered more, back and forth, back and forth, faster and faster.

  “And now the time has come for you to make a stand,” Wulf said, “to look fate in the eye and draw a line?”