Tretjak by Max Landorff Read Free Book Online Page A

out as little bits so he could get rid of them. He had come up with this theory to calm himself down, so he could live with it. He had not told it to anyone. Amongst policemen there was a silent agreement: one kept quiet about one’s own sensitivities, if they existed. He had not even mentioned them to Rainer Gritz, his long-time assistant. Not because he was ashamed of them. Gritz, the long, dangly Gritz, was the best policeman he knew, the most methodical and persistent. There was no one else he trusted more. But Maler was convinced that if he told Gritz about his day-mares, Gritz would have dug up everything and anything there was to know about such phenomena. Gritz would have drowned him with that knowledge. And that was precisely what Maler didn’t want. He didn’t want information. He wanted to forget the images. As soon as possible and whenever possible.
    But then, after his heart problems several years ago, Inspector Maler had found himself sitting opposite an elderly lady, the head psychologist of the clinic on Lake Lusterbach where he was convalescing. She was well over 80, but nobody would have dreamt of talking about a possible retirement age since she owned the clinic.
    Dreams were her speciality. Her first question for Maler was always, ‘what did you dream about last night?’ And it was her that he first told about the day-mares. The woman had white hair and a pleasant, calm voice. And it was in the same calm and pleasant way that she reacted to his account. She told him about her own dreams that she had at night and about the fact that for decades she had experienced fantasies of murder. ‘And I tell you, Inspector: I was feeling great while dreaming. It was only in the mornings that I was sometimes shocked by my own feelings.’ They talked extensively about the nature of evil and how nobody was safe from it. Maler remembered from these conversations that he had to recognise these visionary attacks as a kind of thermometer. The more these images flashed up in front of his eyes the more urgently his soul was signalling to him that he was expecting too much of himself.
    This time only three hours passed between his leaving the Forensic Science building and the start of the day-mares. The first one came to Maler when he was stopping at a red light: the driver of the taxi waiting next to him was suddenly headless. The second image flashed up at the newsagent and was even shorter than usual – the whole stand was doused in blood.
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    Maler took a walk. He left police headquarters, located right behind the cathedral, went to the Odeonsplatz and through the Hofgarten, strolling in the direction of St-Anna-Platz, his usual route if he needed a bit of peace and quiet. He hoped that this Tretjak fellow was not leaving his flat just at this very minute and that he wouldn’t bump into him. That morning Tretjak had called him. He had apologised for not telling Maler the truth the other day: he had known this Kerkhoff, in fact he had known him very well.
    Maler still had the Swabian voice of the pathologist in his ear. She had said that Kerkhoff’s eyes had been removed post-mortem. The victim had not been tortured. One had to assume that the perpetrator was sending out a sort of message.
Fourth Day
    14 May
    Munich, St-Anna-Platz, 2pm
    She came by bicycle. Tretjak had expected her to ascend the escalators from the underground. So he was surprised to hear her voice behind him.
    â€˜Somehow it doesn’t look very tiring,’ she said, ‘your job I mean of course, Mr Tretjak.’
    It was early afternoon, the sun was shining, and Tretjak was sitting at a table outside the café on St-Anna-Platz with an espresso in front of him. Fiona Neustadt pushed her bicycle next to the table, raised it on its stand and sat down opposite him. The clock of the big church struck two. And then the little one followed suit: two o’clock. The tax inspector was dead on time. She was