The Stronger Sex (37 page)

And I remembered the revulsion, the outrage churning around in me when Klofft had told me unmoved, no, not unmoved, had told me apparently proudly about the way he used to sleep around, had embarrassed me horribly with his stories of that hunting party and his praise of Olga and the services she performed to make him feel good.

Would a stranger to whom
I
told the story of my adventure in the storeroom regard me with as much revulsion, would he be similarly outraged? And if so – wouldn't he be justified?

I tormented myself with this question for some time, although there could be no satisfactory answer to it. Then another question occurred to me, a puzzle that had baffled me already as I told Frauke about Manderscheidt's intention of showing his client the facts naked and unadorned.

Why had the detective told me this plan? If he had said that there were new factors casting suspicion on Dr Wehling, the GP who would make out a false sick certificate if his patient was attractive and rewarded him in bed for it, or if he had enumerated instances of gross malpractice on Klofft's part, ferreted out by the young man from his human resources department, the mole in the firm of Klofft Valves, to be handed to my opponent in the hearing – well, I wouldn't have been surprised. It would have been typical of Manderscheidt, that would-be James Bond, who liked to show off the tricks of his trade and his successful achievements.

But his plan to take Klofft with him on the trail of Klofft's former lover and her new boyfriend was nothing to boast about. The blinds on the back windows allowing Klofft a clear view but shielding him from recognition, well, fair enough, that sounded a little like Ian Fleming's 007. However, the idea of this espionage trip wasn't even the product of Manderscheidt's nasty mind. It came from Klofft himself. So why had Manderscheidt told me about it?

My brooding came back to Dr Wehling and his gymnastic exercises in the doorway of Frau Fuchs's apartment, then to the mole at the racecourse, then to the girl who had ridden the horse Black Desire to victory and won me six hundred euros. Maybe I had not set enough store by Manderscheidt's offers to provide me with ammunition for the hearing; maybe I had rejected them too arrogantly.

I was just dropping off to sleep again when a new idea suddenly shook me awake. Had Manderscheidt called me hoping that
I
would keep Klofft from this crazy detective expedition?

Was it possible that he took me seriously when I expressed my reservations about such a plan, the possible consequences that I had already pointed out to him once, over his photos of Frau Fuchs and Dr Wehling? But had he himself shrunk from advising Klofft against the trip, hadn't he dared to oppose it? I could have understood that. If Manderscheidt himself had given his client such good advice, he'd have risked being fired by Klofft on the spot, to be replaced by someone more compliant.

But how was
I
supposed to keep the pig-headed, domineering Klofft from carrying out his plan? Was I expected to tell him about my outing to the racecourse restaurant? Was I supposed to say I didn't think he'd tolerate such a spectacle? Was I to tell him I pictured him with his hand suddenly going to his chest as he fell sideways and heavily to the floor? And died?

I don't know how long I lay awake racking my brains over that and everything else that came into my mind. My own disloyalty, my adultery with Klofft's wife, the betrayal I'd been guilty of, it all came back to torment me. At long last I fell asleep.

38

Four days later, on Thursday, Manderscheidt rang me on my mobile again. I was just finishing the last case I had in court that morning. I saw the number on my display and felt my stomach contract.

I took the call and said, “Herr Manderscheidt? What is it?”

“Is that you, Dr Zabel?”

“Yes, who else? Well?”

He cleared his throat. “Just ringing to tell you that I'm off now to collect Herr Klofft from his home. Then we're going to…” Here he interrupted himself to clear his throat again. “Well, my man has just called to tell me that our couple have left her building and gone off by car. He's following them.” After a brief pause he asked, obviously rather tense, “Will you come?”

I said, “Yes. Where to?”

He seemed relieved when he said, “Leave your mobile switched on. I'll tell you where we're going as soon as I know. At the moment they're driving over the suspension bridge. Evidently they want to be on the right bank.”

“OK. Thanks.”

I ran through the garage to my car as if this were an emergency. It was a fine late summer's day, not too hot, with only a few little white clouds moving over the deep blue sky. I opened the sliding roof and was glad to feel the wind cooling my forehead as I drove along.

As I reached the suspension bridge, my mobile rang again. Manderscheidt said, “They've obviously reached their destination. They're sitting on a bench beside the river. On the embankment of the avenue. Over.”

I was surprised that he didn't describe the place in a little more detail. I was going to call him back, but then I realized that he wouldn't want to let Klofft, his passenger
in the back, know who he had been speaking to and that I was following them.

I drove slowly along the avenue. Suddenly I saw Manderscheidt's family saloon, half concealed by the trees lining the avenue. He had backed the car slantwise into one of the gaps between the trees on the right-hand side, so that a passenger on the back seat would have a reasonably good view out through the side window. I trod on the brake and stopped, so as not to be recognized by the back-seat passenger.

And then, halfway between me and Manderscheidt's car, I saw Katharina Fuchs and Henri Schmickler sitting on one of the benches with a view of the river. He had put his arm around her shoulder, and they seemed to be entirely absorbed in looking at the panoramic scene. The sunshine sparkled on the ripples of the river and a few windows on the opposite bank; several barges and a white excursion steamer were on their way along the waterway.

I reversed a little way and parked in another gap among the trees. I wouldn't have found a place at all at the weekend; even on Saturday morning the parking places were all full, and as long as it was still warm weather, people would be lying on the grassy expanse from the embankment to the water until Sunday evening. Today, Thursday, it was still relatively quiet here.

Herr Schmickler kissed Frau Fuchs, and she made it clear that she was perfectly happy about that. She put her head right back, looking at him lovingly, and he took his mouth from hers and down over her chin, covered her throat with a series of little kisses, and finally seemed to fix his lips firmly on the skin just above her breasts.

I was feeling very hot. I glanced at Manderscheidt's car. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was probably afraid the detective would suddenly jump out, fling the door to the back of the car open and bend over Klofft where he
lay back lifeless on the upholstery with his limbs distorted. Then Manderscheidt would take out his mobile, tap in a number feverishly and stare at the sparkling water as he waited for an answer.

But in fact Manderscheidt didn't get out. Nothing stirred. I let my side window down so that fresh air could come in. A loud honking made me jump. A barge lying low in the water as it moved heavily upstream seemed to have been protesting with its horn against the excursion steamer's overtaking manoeuvre.

When I looked back at the two lovers on the bench, Frau Fuchs and Herr Schmickler had disappeared. No – not disappeared. Looking through the gap between the seat of the bench and the bottom board of its back, I saw items of clothing in vigorous movement. The two of them seemed to be lying stretched out on the bench. Surely they weren't going to…

I heard a woman laughing. Frau Fuchs, of course. Then a male voice joined in her laughter. The man and woman were laughing as whole-heartedly and uninhibitedly as children tussling and tickling each other.

Then I heard the nasal sound of a starter, and next moment the muted sound of the exhaust of Herr Manderscheidt's souped-up engine. The car moved out of its parking slot and drove back along the avenue in the direction from which we had come. Herbert Klofft had probably seen enough.

Or had Manderscheidt broken off his observation? Had his passenger begun struggling for air, had he been making strange sounds? Was his Cerberus taking him to the nearest hospital?

I drove fast back along the avenue until I saw Manderscheidt's car ahead of me. I wasn't reassured, at least to some extent, until I saw the car turn onto the expressway beyond the bridge. They were obviously driving to Klofft's house.

As soon as I was in my office, however, I rang the number of the villa. It was some time before anyone answered, and then it was a rather rough female voice. “Herr Klofft's house!”

“Olga, is that you?” I asked.

She did not reply.

I said, “This is Alexander Zabel. The young man, remember? Herr Klofft's lawyer!”

“Yes, yes!” She spoke as if she'd known that all along.

“OK, Olga… I need to speak to Herr Klofft urgently!” I felt a moment of alarm when I realized that I could give no good reason for my call. I couldn't ask him how he had come to terms with his unfaithful lover's live performance.

She said, “Not disturb Herr Klofft!”

“Really not? Is he in a bad way, then?”

She said nothing for a moment. Then she told me, “Wait!”

There was whispering and rustling on the line, then I heard a man's voice. “Yes, Karl Schaffrath speaking.”

“Oh, thank God, Karl! Sorry, Herr Schaffrath. I only wanted to know how Herr Klofft is doing?”

“Well, not too bad,” he said, and after a little hesitation he asked: “Were you with them?”

“No, I… I was only watching from a distance.”

He murmured something and then said, “Must have been stressful for him.”

“Could you tell anything from looking at him? I mean… was he physically in a bad way?”

“Well… rather red in the face. And sweating. But he has attacks like that anyway. I asked, but he bit my head off. No more I can tell you anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Well, Olga and I got him to his room, and then he threw us both out at once. No company needed. Unwelcome. Go away.”

“Isn't Frau Klofft there?” I asked.

“No.”

As I was about to probe further he said, “She's probably in her studio. In the old factory, you know the place.”

How did he know that I knew her studio?

He said nothing for a moment, and then added, “Or he wouldn't have been able to go on that trip.”

“Why not?”

Karl hesitated before saying, “I assume he wouldn't like her to know that he's still so… so keen on Katharina.”

“Yes. Yes, I understand that.”

He did not reply.

I said, “Give him my regards, would you? If you get to speak to him again.”

“I'll do that.”

39

That afternoon, when Hochkeppel was back from lunch, he came into my office and reminded me that we'd been due to sit down together and discuss all aspects of the Klofft case. He was sorry, he said, that he hadn't managed to do it earlier, but if I had time this evening he'd stay on late at the office, and maybe we could go and have a good meal together and discuss at least the main factors. He was sure, he added, that I would have drawn up a list of the points that seemed to me particularly sensitive, and we could go through it with each other.

I had no such list, nor did I have the least wish to spend the evening eating out with Hochkeppel in one of the haunts he favoured. He'd probably been given a tip about some new place and would spend half the time pointing out the good or bad qualities of its cuisine, also telling me where, among the starred restaurants of this city, its
neighbourhood and places further afield he had eaten a considerably better version of this or that Lucullan delicacy served up to us. Then in the end, heavy with aperitifs and digestifs, with a couple of bottles of claret in between, we would get ourselves taken home by taxi and drop into bed to start snoring a couple of minutes later. I'd probably snore just as loudly as he did.

I said there was no need for him to sacrifice an evening that he'd probably rather spend with his wife, and I could try to finish work a little earlier than usual this afternoon. Then if I went to his office, we could talk about the most important points there and then, and leave at the same time with the rest of the evening free. He protested slightly, probably wanting to try the new place out, first to satisfy his appetite and then because he didn't want to take his wife or his business friends to a restaurant he hadn't tested first. But finally he went along with my suggestion, and it was just as I had feared. He talked at length, and the only useful information he provided was something that he had obviously wanted to keep from me until the last moment: Klofft had already tangled with Dr Pandlitz, the judge of our case, in a previous case in which he had been pestering one of his employees. Then in another, later case he had tried, unsuccessfully, to object to Panda as a judge on the grounds of bias.

Good cards to play! And Hochkeppel outdid himself when, after giving me this unwelcome information, he said, looking worried, “I really am sorry, Alex! But that doesn't change the fact that we have to win this case at all costs. I've already explained why.” When I raised my eyebrows, he said, “I want… I don't want to lose face. And I don't want to discredit you either. As my… my compliant tool. Do you understand?”

I sighed. He said, “Try to dispel any bias Judge Pandlitz may feel, Alex.” And a moment later he added, “I know you can do it!”