Tretjak by Max Landorff Read Free Book Online Page B

wearing a Sixties-style knee-length white dress with black polka-dots and a denim jacket. Her feet were clad in navy blue canvas shoes and her hair was tied back in a ponytail.
    â€˜Summer must have arrived at the Inland Revenue,’ he quipped. She laughed. ‘And it hasn’t for the management consultant? Or I beg your pardon...’ she raised one eyebrow mockingly, ‘for the “personal management and economic consultant”. You can buy me a cup of coffee. Cappuccino, please.’ She carried with her one of those ugly shoulder bags made from durable plastic and took from it one of Tretjak’s ledgers which she had taken with her after the first meeting. She had been a little surprised that he was using such an old-fashioned way of keeping his books. Tretjak’s cashbooks were all black A4 notebooks and followed a simple principle: on the left-hand side all the monies coming in were noted down by hand, on the right were all the expenses, and at the bottom of each page the figures in both columns were added up. These sums were carried over to the next page as the opening balances. Each entry carried the name of the client and key words such as ticket Rome or fee part payment . The receipts for each of the entries were filed in separate folders, which Tretjak, in preparation for the meeting, had lined up on the table in the kitchen.
    The ledger Fiona Neustadt now opened was peppered with yellow post-it notes. Tretjak saw that each had something written on it; most of the sentences ending with a question mark. Fiona Neustadt had angular, almost male handwriting – at least that was his impression.
    â€˜You see,’ she said, ‘a lot of work lies ahead of us. But don’t worry too much: it looks worse than it is. Most of the questions are quite harmless, sometimes I think I know the answers already and just need confirmation.’
    That was how the afternoon they spent together started, with a coffee in the sun. That morning, while driving to his appointment at the airport, Tretjak had caught himself thinking that he was actually looking forward to his meeting with the tax inspector. In contrast to other people he was not worried in the least about the inspection of his books. This much had always been clear: his business was shady, legally shady, morally shady; it thrived on discretion, on action behind the scenes, hidden from view – so he couldn’t afford a less than completely transparent accounting system on top of that. In his job he encountered many enemies, always new ones, always different ones. It was important to identify and to know them. Unnecessary ones should be avoided. With the Inland Revenue it was very simple: you had to pay on time. And that’s what he did. Therefore he could just enjoy the company of this interesting woman. Fiona Neustadt was intelligent and good-looking – and simpatico . He could let her take his mind off the disturbing thoughts which kept preying on his mind. Did Kerkhoff’s murder have anything to do with him? What was going on with his cleaning lady? What, and more importantly who, was behind all this? Why on earth had he given the wrong answer to the inspector? When he called Maler that morning to correct himself, he immediately realised that the guy had already found out about his connection to the brain expert. He seemed alert and suspicious, and would start sifting through Tretjak’s business. And the police were nothing like the Inland Revenue.
    When Tretjak opened the door to his apartment and let Ms Neustadt enter in front of him, he noticed her perfume. The scent of grapefruit, he thought. Or was it lime? Later, when they were sitting at the kitchen table working, he noticed that she was not only wearing a fine old IWC Swiss watch, the classic Ingenieur model, on her left wrist, but also one of those colourful, cheap fabric bands connected with a wish which one wore until it fell off by itself and the wish