Tretjak (18 page)

Then came the excited call from the tax inspector. Had Tretjak organised that as well? And the messages. First the strange mobile phone found near the racehorse. Then the flowers with the hint pointing to bloody linen. Now the photograph showing the blood-soaked flat. And again the great unknown, which was behind it all. What kind of game did this Tretjak play? He created a distance between himself and each crime, all right, that much Maler understood. But what were the other rules of the game? And how was the game going to continue?

After the horrible act that had been committed in Tretjak's flat, the images had returned to Maler's head. When he had bought a buttered pretzel from the bakery early that morning, the old sales assistant had suddenly had blood spewing out of her eyes. He had looked away and then turned back, but the blood was still running down her face. It was only as he left, and turned around at the door one last time, that the assistant had stood there unharmed. Maler had driven to Police Headquarters and had decided to go back to see his psychologist as soon as possible.

‘Inspector,' Gabriel Tretjak said, ‘what happened in my flat? Please tell me, at once.'

‘But you know what happened, Mr Tretjak,' the inspector answered.

Tretjak remained silent. For a very long moment. He just looked at Maler. Finally he shook his head, a contemptuous, almost furious shaking of his head.

‘We'll get back to your flat and what happened there, that much I guarantee you. But first I want to play something to you.' Maler took a small, black recording device from the side pocket of his beige jacket and pressed the play button. It was a short excerpt from the witness statement of the old maid from the hotel in Bolzano, which his colleague had sent him. ‘Gabriel was such a lovely boy,' a female voice with a strong South Tyrolean accent said. ‘Gabriel had to suffer a lot. His mother was in such a lot of pain that she often screamed. Then Gabriel sat in a corner of his room, on the floor. He cowered there for hours and was silent. Nobody could do anything.' Then one could hear the old lady sigh. ‘It was not a nice childhood, definitely not, poor Gabriel, it was an awful life.' Maler pressed the stop button.

Tretjak's face showed no emotion. ‘And?' he asked. ‘What was that all about? What do you want to hear from me?'

‘The maid found the body of Professor Kufner,' Maler said. ‘And one day later she receives a letter from an unknown sender who asks her to tell her story about a certain Gabriel Tretjak. Do you have any idea who might have sent this letter?'

‘No, none at all.'

‘Do you have any idea why this letter was sent? What could be behind it?'

‘I haven't got a clue.'

Maler poured himself a cup of coffee from the thermos. ‘Maybe I can help you a little in the search for a motive. Could it be that somebody wants to draw attention to your unhappy childhood? Because this somebody wants to imply that you were a victim then, and now you are the perpetrator. This Tretjak fellow has experienced something horrible and there is an open score to be settled somewhere. Could that be the message of the letter? Or is this interpretation totally off, in your opinion?'

‘Inspector,' Tretjak answered, ‘I want to tell you a few basic facts about my life. As you just heard yourself, I wasn't particularly lucky with my childhood. Consequently, I have taken the appropriate steps. I have expunged the first years of my life, including the family members involved. I have decided that my life starts with me, in fact with me as a young person. I have decided not to carry this shit around with me for the rest of my life.'

‘And that has worked for you?' asked Maler.

‘Yes, that has worked perfectly well. And in a sense I have turned it into my business model. I don't believe that one has to be a helpless victim of one's fate. I am convinced that one can do something about it. One can always give one's life a new direction, one only has to give this change certain rules, which need to be followed strictly.' Tretjak reached for the thermos. ‘May I?' Maler briefly nodded. Tretjak continued: ‘And now back to your question as to whether I have any explanation for why this letter was sent to poor Maria. No, I have no explanation. And I also don't think about it, not for a single moment. I don't deal with my past, I never do. That's my principle.'

‘Your principle, I see.' Maler got up and walked around the desk until he stood directly behind Tretjak's back. ‘You don't deal with the past. That's indeed interesting.' Maler paused and leant on the backrest of Tretjak's chair, almost touching his back. ‘What kind of a man are you?' Maler's voice became loud. ‘Three people have been murdered in the most gruesome fashion in less than a week. Three people who you knew well. And you are sitting here and telling me something about new rules, which you draw up to shape the world the way you want to. Please, that is ridiculous!'

‘Three people?' Tretjak asked and his voice cut as sharp as a knife as well: ‘Inspector, tell me what happened yesterday!'

‘I will do just that.' Maler leant forward, closer to Tretjak's right ear. ‘The daughter of your cleaning lady received a call from you, asking her whether she could step in for her mother and clean the flat.'

‘Nonsense,' Tretjak said. ‘I didn't call her.'

‘A telephone service called the daughter in your name, she said. In any case, she went to your flat, as you had deposited a key to the flat in the restaurant at the corner.'

‘I didn't deposit anything,' Tretjak said.

‘The daughter of your cleaning lady unlocked your flat and started cleaning. The perpetrator had invented a special kind of game. She first cleaned the kitchen, where there was blood everywhere. She was frightened, the woman said, no, she didn't say it, she screamed it, shaking all over, crying when I talked to her. She thought perhaps some kind of animal had been slaughtered.' Maler became very soft. ‘But, Mr Tretjak, the woman was wrong, it wasn't an animal. It was her mother. She found the naked body in the bathtub, your bathtub, covered with countless stab wounds. And without eyes, Mr Tretjak. Who thinks up something like that?'

Tretjak got up abruptly. ‘My God, Mrs Lanner, the good Mrs Lanner... yes, indeed, who thinks up something like that?'

‘Where were you yesterday between 2 and 5pm?' asked Maler.

‘I was at the Isar River the whole of yesterday afternoon. With a woman.'

‘Does this woman have a name and can she attest to this fact?'

‘Yes,' Tretjak answered, ‘but I have to ask her first, before I can give you her name.' Tretjak sat down again. ‘What motive should I have, if you please, Inspector, to kill my cleaning lady, and in this fashion?'

‘What motive did you have,' Maler asked, ‘to send old Mrs Lanner to Argentina, all expenses paid?'

‘I didn't send her to Argentina. That's complete rubbish. I have already told Mrs Lanner's daughter that.'

‘But she didn't believe you. Your method of answering my questions, Mr Tretjak, is getting monotonous: I don't know, it wasn't like that, I have nothing to do with that.'

‘I can't say anything else,' Tretjak said.

‘Why didn't you tell me about this trip of your cleaning lady which you supposedly paid for? If all this seemed so absurd to you, why on earth didn't you tell us about it?'

‘I don't know why I should have told you about it.'

‘Really? Two people were murdered, in mysterious circumstances – and then something else, something inexplicable happens and you don't think that you should tell the police all about that?'

‘That was probably a mistake, I must admit.'

‘I would put it differently, Mr Tretjak. Mrs Lanner might still be alive if you had changed your strange information policy.'

There was a moment of silence. Maler looked at Tretjak but couldn't make out any emotion, any shock.

Tretjak said: ‘There is a crazy game being played out here, Inspector. But I'm not the one playing this game. I have nothing to do with it. At least not directly.'

‘Of course,' Maler said, ‘this is the impression you have wanted to give ever since the first day, when I stood at your door. But you can forget about it. You are not standing on the sidelines, you are right in the middle of it, you are deep in it, you can't get any deeper.'

‘Give me one reason,' said Tretjak, ‘why this game should be my game.'

‘We are talking about three murders, three human beings. I think the word game is rather inappropriate in these circumstances.'

‘Call it what you will,' Tretjak said, ‘but can you tell me whether you can make any sense of it all?'

‘Let's assume that you have an enemy out there who wants to destroy you. Who could that be? Who hates you that much?'

‘I have no idea,' said Tretjak.

‘Mr Tretjak, I have only an inkling of your particular business. But one thing seems clear to me: you break into other people's lives. That means trouble, that creates enemies. You are a professional creator of enemies, so to speak. And you want to tell me that you have no idea who wants to do you harm?'

‘No, I truly have no idea.'

‘I expect a list of names from you,' Maler said, ‘lots of names, of people who have become the victims of your business in different ways.'

‘Forget it. That kind of list will not be drawn up.'

Maler had sat down on his side of the desk again and was pouring himself another cup of coffee. Surprisingly, it was still hot. Maler had lost all sense of time. How long had Tretjak's interrogation taken? It seemed like hours. ‘Three murders. An old woman, who cleans for you, is butchered. And all this leaves you cold.'

Tretjak remained silent.

‘What kind of man are you, Mr Tretjak?'

Tretjak responded notably coolly. ‘I am a man who is rather well informed. Inspector Maler, does the name Laura Müller mean anything to you?'

‘No,' Maler said.

‘A girl, 22 years old, must have been pretty. A tragic story. It was an accident with her bicycle. A drunk driver didn't see her when he turned around a corner. She died of head wounds.'

‘What's all this?' Maler asked. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘I am talking about the woman whose heart you received,' said Tretjak. ‘I am talking about the woman whose death was necessary for your survival. What does it feel like, Inspector, to hear somebody else's heart beat inside you?'

Maler felt like he had been struck by lightning. He felt the way he had felt when the doctor stood in front of him, back then when he had come into the room and said: ‘We have a heart.' And explained to him that he would not be told who the heart had belonged to, that was the rule in heart transplantation cases. No information about the donor. It had been another six hours until they had prepped him for the operation and rolled him into the operating theatre on his hospital bed, the bed he had lain in for 14 weeks, each day a bit more miserable. In the last 10 days he hadn't even managed the short walk to the toilet. He needed oxygen around the clock, his heart was too weak for anything. An acute inflammation of the heart muscle, that's what the diagnosis had been, with the illness taking a particularly dramatic course. The doctor had given him only days. And then he stood in the doorway with the message: ‘We have a heart.'

‘What are you talking about?' Maler repeated almost in a trance. ‘Nobody is allowed to know whose heart he receives.'

‘It's my business to know what people are not allowed to know.'

Maler got up and walked around the room. Once around Tretjak, and then one more time. Then he sat down again. ‘My heart is not the topic of this conversation, Mr Tretjak. We will not continue to talk about it. Our topic is three murders. And your role in them, to put it precisely.'

‘You asked me what kind of man I am, Inspector. That's why I permitted myself to mention your heart transplantation. You would not be alive today if you hadn't corrected your fate. I thought somebody with your experience would appreciate my life's philosophy. I firmly believe that one can successfully change the path of somebody's life. I firmly believe that I can correct the path of my own life, whenever that is necessary. That's the kind of man I am.'

Maler stood up again. ‘What really happened on 11 May ten years ago, Mr Tretjak?'

‘I don't know what you mean,' said Tretjak.

‘You've heard this question before, haven't you?'

‘I know the question, but I don't know what to do with it.'

‘You were sitting in the Osteria restaurant last night with a woman. When we arrived, she had gone. Why?'

‘You'll have to ask the woman. She went to the toilet and didn't come back. Why that was I couldn't find out because you then arrested me.'

‘Mrs Poland said that the conversation with you had become uncomfortable. That's why she left.'

‘That's what she said?' Tretjak asked.

‘Why did you meet Charlotte Poland?' Maler asked.

‘It concerned her son, who is causing her a few problems. She was convinced that I could help her.'

‘She has told me about her son. But Mrs Poland is a friend of your father. She said that that was her real reason for meeting you. She also said that you and your father are bitter enemies.'

‘My father is not my enemy. I have expunged him from my life. There's a difference,' said Tretjak.

‘Why then did you meet with Mrs Poland, who is a friend of your father?'

Tretjak was silent for a moment. ‘Let me put it this way, Inspector: I am upset by what is happening out there. I don't understand it. I am trying to get closer to a solution and I am pursuing several leads.'

‘You believe that your father has something to do with it?'

‘I don't know,' said Tretjak.

‘What is the question regarding 11 May ten years ago all about? What happened on that day?' Maler asked.