10 Like a new case

That evening I sat in my office writing a letter to Vera Soboda, saying that there would be no more money laundering at Weller & Welker; that the bank had been a madhouse in which the patients locked up the doctors and the nurses and were passing themselves off as doctors and nurses; that Samarin, their leader, was dead; and that the institution was once again being run by its doctor, Welker. I liked Nägelsbach’s metaphor.

I found a letter from Welker in the mail. He thanked me with a check for twelve thousand marks. He also invited me to a party the Saturday after next to celebrate his move back to the Gustav Kirchhoff Strasse-it would be a pleasant opportunity for us all to meet again.

I wondered whether I should draw up a detailed invoice for him, as I had promised when I took on the case. I usually also submit a written report to my clients once a case is closed. But was the case closed? My client wasn’t expecting anything more from me. He had thanked me, paid me, and the convivial get-together to which he was inviting me would also serve as a farewell party. As far as he was concerned, the case was closed. But was it, as far as I was concerned?

Who had frightened Schuler to death? Samarin had neither admitted it nor denied it. I couldn’t believe that he got rid of Schuler just because of the money; otherwise, he wouldn’t have mentioned that Schuler taught him to read and write. If Samarin had killed him, or had him killed, there was more behind it than the attaché case with the money. But what? And by what means had Schuler been frightened to death?

Or was I on the wrong track? Could it be that I didn’t want to accept that I was the reason for Schuler’s death? Was I looking for a plot when it was nothing more than Schuler’s infirmity and disorientation, and my slowness to react? A weak constitution, a bad day, a perplexing amount of money-wasn’t that enough to put Schuler into the state he was in when I met him?

I got up and walked over to the window. His Isetta had been parked over there, he had given me the attaché case over there, and then had driven in a long, crooked line across the street and onto the grassy island between the traffic light and the tree. He had died at that tree. The light turned red, yellow, green, and then yellow and red again. I couldn’t take my eyes away: the funeral lights of the teacher Adolf Schuler, retired.

Regardless of whether Samarin had frightened him to death or if his advanced years had gotten him into such a state, I could have saved him but didn’t. I owed him. I couldn’t do anything about his death now. All I could do was to throw light on it. It was like a new case.

Red, yellow, green, yellow, red. I owed it not only to Schuler to clear up his death but also to myself to solve my last case. Which in fact it was: my last case. I hadn’t had one in months when this one came along thanks to a chance encounter on the Hirschhorner Höhe. Perhaps I might be sent out again to investigate people filing false claims for sick leave. But I wouldn’t want to do such a job anymore.

It’s a shame one can’t choose one’s last case. A high point, a finale, one that rounds off with a flourish everything one has achieved. Instead, the last case is as accidental as all the others. That’s how it goes: you do this, you do that, and before you know it, that was your life.

11 A thousand and one reasons

I ran into Philipp in the corridor. “I’d be happy if I didn’t have to go back in there,” he said, nodding toward Nägelsbach’s room.

“Did you get the forensics report?”

“The forensics report?” Then he remembered what I wanted and that the report was lying on his desk. “Come with me.”

Both chairs in front of his desk were heaped high with files and mail, so I sat down on his examination table, as if he were going to come over and tap my knee with a little hammer to check my reflexes. He leafed through the report. “Schuler: chest and stomach crushed, vital organs damaged, neck broken. It was a bad accident.”

“I was with him just minutes before it happened. Something was wrong with him. It was as if someone had frightened the living daylights out of him.”

“Perhaps he was sick. Perhaps he’d taken too many sleeping pills. Perhaps his medications interacted. Perhaps he had an adverse reaction to a new sedative or blood-pressure medication. By God, Gerhard, there are a thousand and one reasons why someone might be in a bad state and have an accident.”

But I just couldn’t believe that Schuler could have taken the wrong blood-pressure medication or too many sleeping pills. He was no fool. The piles of books and folders seemed chaotic but were in meticulous order, and surely his medications would have been, too.

“There’s also the matter of-” Philipp began insistently.

“What if I track down the medications he was taking?” I cut in. “If I locate his doctor, could you give him a call?”

“What could his doctor tell us?”

“I have no idea. Maybe he did prescribe a new medication that backfired. Or maybe Schuler got some pills on his own, and the doctor could confirm that whatever he’d taken interfered with the medication he’d been prescribed. His doctor could even tell us whether he had a strawberry allergy and that someone might have made him eat a strawberry, or that he had asthma and might have had a fatal shock during an attack when he realized that someone had taken away his inhaler. If I know what might have frightened him, I’d have a better chance of finding out who it was.”

“If you come up with something, I’ll see to the rest,” Philipp said, trying his best to appear interested. But something else was preoccupying him. “You’ve got to stop Nägelsbach! You’ve got to stop him before it’s too late. I haven’t told you this, because I don’t believe in counting my chickens before they’re hatched, but I’ve been put forward for the directorship of the surgical department of an absolutely first-rate private clinic. Right now I need disciplinary proceedings like I need a bullet in the head.”

“I thought your retirement was in the works.”

“I’ll be retiring soon enough. But private clinics are more flexible when it comes to retirement age. Tending flowers on my balcony from morning to night and moving my boat around isn’t my cup of tea. And the nurses at the new clinic… Imagine, a chance to start all over again from scratch! And then the thought of working somewhere where Füruzan can’t keep an eye on me and frighten off all the other nurses! I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason I feel like an old circus horse is because Füruzan’s never more than half a step away.”

“I’ve already had a word with Nägelsbach,” I said.

“His soul, his soul… My soul will go to the dogs if I no longer have my hospital!”

He looked at me in utter desperation. What did women find so attractive in Philipp? Was it that when he was in a certain mood, he was in every way totally in it?

“Even if you don’t like the idea of facing Nägelsbach,” I said, “if you want something from him, you’ve got to talk to him yourself.”

“I’m no good at that sort of thing.”

“Give it a try. He’s not stiff-necked-he’s just extremely conscientious. But he’ll take whatever you say very seriously.”

“I’ll make a scene, even if I’d rather not,” Philipp said sadly. “The nurses like it when I start bellowing at them, but Nägelsbach won’t.” He glanced at the clock and got up. “I’ve got to move on. What do you think-will Nägelsbach play along?”

“He’ll either go straight to the police when he’s discharged or he won’t go at all. But before he goes he’ll tell us. You’ll have to wait till he’s discharged.”

Philipp laughed and shook his head as if I ought to know better. “Do you expect me to wait that long?”