The Stronger Sex

by Hans Werner Kettenbach

  “I see. And then, bang bang, we shoot them down?”

  “Well…” He drew down the corners of his mouth, tilted his head slightly and looked sideways at me. “Just an idea of mine. But an outing might do you good. And the weather is really perfect today.”

  The fact that I hadn’t said no yet obviously encouraged him. “And one can eat very well out there, too.” After a brief hesitation he added, “Not to mention the racing. Excellent sport.” Another sideways glance. “If you want to place a bet, I may be able to give you a good tip.”

  “Do you bet on the horses often?”

  “Often?” He grinned. “Let’s say sometimes.”

  “I see.”

  “I go out there quite a bit.”

  “Yes?”

  He said hastily, “For professional reasons. Many of the people I have to deal with like moving in those circles. Or belong to them.”

  I said, “Gamblers by nature.”

  He moved his head back and forth. “Well, maybe you could say so. A little shady sometimes, you understand. That’ll be why Herr Schmickler has gone there. Herr Schmickler and his girlfriend. Or so I suspect.”

  I nodded and tried to think it out. He probably just wanted to make himself seem interesting to me. Spend an afternoon in semi-criminal circles with Leo Manderscheidt! But what better did I really have to do?

  Was I going to take refuge with Frauke? Or withdraw into my apartment to lick my wounds?

  I said, “OK. Yes, I would like to see that couple in the wild. Wait a moment and I’ll get my car. Then I’ll follow you there.”

  He brightened up at once. “Why do that? You can come with me. And if I have to relieve my colleague, he can drop you off at your place on the way back. Or you can take a taxi – you can charge it to Klofft. ‘To research with Herr Manderscheidt.’”

  I looked at him briefly but hard. “Listen, Herr Manderscheidt, you really don’t have to worry about my bill for expenses!”

  “OK, OK! Only trying to be helpful.”

  I got into his car, an ordinary family four-seater that normally wouldn’t be over 100 h.p., but judging by the engine noise, I thought it was considerably more powerful than that. When we turned into one of the racecourse car parks, with a faint growl from the exhaust, several racegoers looked round at us as we approached. Obviously these people all knew each other. And Herr Manderscheidt the detective certainly seemed to set no store by staying inconspicuous.

  At the beginning of the drive he had switched on his phone at the first red light and called a number. After a while a high voice answered over the loudspeaker. “Yes?”

  “On our way,” replied Manderscheidt.

  “OK. When?”

  He had glanced at the time. “Quarter to two.”

  “OK. I’m in the rotisserie now. Looks like we won’t be here much longer, though. If not I’ll be at the car-park entrance at two fifteen.”

  Manderscheidt said, “Roger! Over!” and switched the phone off.

  Had he staged this spectacle just to impress me? Or did he really set up shop with all the equipment of American B movies? No. I couldn’t believe he put on this act for Klofft as well. At least, not without being asked whether he had all his marbles.

  A young man with acne, wearing jeans and a thin windcheater, stood at the entrance to the car park, and started moving when Manderscheidt locked the car. He went ahead toward the restaurant, a flat-roofed modern building plastered white, with a broad terrace. As we caught up with him, he said, under his breath, “They’re sitting out on the terrace to the left. They’ve just ordered dessert.” Then he let us overtake and pass him.

  30

  We went up the three stone steps to the terrace. I saw a tanned man in a seersucker jacket and a woman with short blonde hair. They were sitting with two large ice-cream sundaes at a table in the far corner, right in front of the restaurant window but shielded from the eyes of observers by the curtain inside the glass. Sitting outside, they had a view over the whole terrace.

  But they didn’t seem to mind whether anyone was watching them enjoy the fresh air. The man fished a slice of apricot out of his sundae, took it between his lips and moved his face close to the lady, who unhesitatingly accepted the offer and plucked the slice of fruit from his lips with hers. She took it in her mouth, munched a couple of times suggestively and swallowed, all without removing her lips from his. This feeding frenzy gave way to a kiss at full suction power and lasting for some time.

  “See what I mean?” asked Manderscheidt, sitting down beside me.

  “Yes, I do. Definitely an inappropriate spectacle. You’re right.”

  “Dear me, Dr Zabel… not a prude, are you?” He smiled. “Just look at the woman! You surely wouldn’t push her out of your own bed, would you?”

  I said, “Could you please refrain from talking like that, Herr Manderscheidt?”

  “Oh, sorry, sorry!” He picked up one of the menus that a waiter in a long apron put on our table in passing, and devoted his attention to it. I took the other menu.

  The woman really was beautiful. If she was Katharina Fuchs, and according to Herr Manderscheidt she was, I could understand why Klofft had fallen so heavily for her. She wasn’t massive like Olga, but she had smooth and very feminine curves. Her golden blonde hair was thick and apparently naturally curly, as if it never fell out of shape. It reflected the sunlight in a variety of shades. Her brows were dark and thick over her bright brown eyes.

  I remembered that at our first meeting, when Klofft had got into his stride, he had told me that when he gave the newly qualified engineer her job she had long dark hair, “right down to her bum like that weather girl on TV”. And she had also had dark hair, although shorter, on the photos that Manderscheidt had taken of her and her GP through the peephole in Frau Broogsitter’s door.

  Maybe this was a new hairstyle. Maybe she had adopted it to please the new boyfriend. Maybe he’d said, “With that long hair, in a pullover you look like Juliette Gréco. Do you know who she was? Or Marina Vlady. A dark-haired Vlady. I don’t know if you ever saw any of her films. Very beautiful, they were both very beautiful. Like you. But perhaps you’d be even more beautiful with short hair. And blonde. Not straw-blonde, really golden blonde. Like Simone Signoret in Casque d’or. Only shorter. Hair curling around your face like a golden cap, rather like Jean Seberg. Only not platinum blonde like her, golden blonde.”

  Maybe she had turned the idea down. No, no, she was perfectly happy to look like Juliette Gréco. Or Marina… what was her name? OK, like a dark Marina Vlady. And then she went and got the new hairstyle secretly, as a surprise. Before going to join Herr Schmickler at the Beauté du Lac. Where she was to be suddenly and miraculously cured.

  Maybe Klofft had seen the new hairstyle for the first time when she went to his villa. Sent there by his business manager Pauly, who hadn’t wanted to agree to let her have time off all of a sudden “for private reasons”.

  If so, then Klofft had known as soon as she entered his room that she had got herself up like that for some other man. And he had guessed why she suddenly wanted a week away. She wanted to make a new start, one that also brought her relationship with Herbert Klofft to an end.

  It must have come as a bad shock.

  And it would have been death to him to watch the couple here on the terrace enjoying their suggestive consumption of dessert in the open air. Watch? Well, there was nothing to watch in the strict sense of the word, nothing that anyone would have had to observe in secret, in cover, out of the corner of the eye, in hiding. But they were offering their wares, obtruding on the attention of anyone sitting on this terrace or walking past it.

  As soon as the last spoonful of sundae had gone down, they would push the plates away, I thought, and he would lay her over the edge of the table and… make love to her, what else?

  And if Klofft were sitting here where I sat, he would put a hand to his chest, his face would distort, his mouth open convulsively, he would lean sideways a
nd fall heavily from his chair.

  Herr Manderscheidt decided on a dish described as a Volcanic Kebab, and as I needed longer to choose – I was looking for something less exotic to satisfy my hunger – he was apparently getting nervous. Reluctantly, I let him infect me with his impatience and opted for a Swiss-cheese and sausage salad, which in fact turned out to be good and went some way to satisfying my appetite.

  The couple paid their bill while we were eating. The lad with acne who had been sucking a Coca-Cola through a straw now and then, and had already paid for it, rose to his feet when they had left and followed them after glancing vaguely back at Manderscheidt, who responded with an equally vague nod in his direction.

  “Who’s that boy?” I asked. “Someone from your office?”

  “No, no.” He chewed, swallowed, washed his mouthful down with beer. “Freelancer. A student. I’m not sure just what he’s studying. Evangelical theology, or archaeology, or something like that. Very good at this job, though you might not believe it.” He drank some more beer, laughed and speared a piece of pepper and two pieces of meat on his fork, put them in his mouth and chewed. He grinned as he looked at me. “I’ll bet you he caught the best scenes from that performance just now on his mini-camera.”

  After a moment’s hesitation I said, “Look, Herr Manderscheidt… may I ask you a favour?”

  He lowered his fork, stopped chewing and looked at me, his expression suddenly serious. “Any time, Dr Zabel.” The lines beside the corners of his mouth were shining with grease from the dish he had chosen.

  I said, “Could you refrain from showing Herr Klofft those photos?”

  He gave me a long look, after a while began nodding slowly as if lost in thought, and finally said, “I suppose you realize that would be a breach of my contract?”

  I’d never seen a contract with a detective, but I said briskly, “Never mind that! No one can ask you to… to trample around on your client’s heart and feelings!”

  He said nothing, although he went on looking at me. The little rivulets of grease shone.

  I said, “I mean, Herr Klofft loved that woman. He probably still does. I don’t know for sure, but…”

  He interrupted me. “I’ll think about it.” Then he turned back to his volcano kebab, chewing and swallowing in silence.

  He seemed to be in a hurry, and I discovered why only later. He wasn’t after the lovebirds this time, to check up on them or on his own freelancer watching them. He wanted to put money on a horse running in the third race of the day. He bought a racing paper from a vendor who came out on the terrace with his wares, asked for two betting slips, opened the paper and put it down by his plate after leafing briefly though it. He bent over it as he carried the last forkful of meat and onions to his mouth.

  I was about to ask what he was studying so intently, but when a man’s voice came over the loudspeakers he raised his hand by way of asking me to keep quiet. The voice informed us that the going was firm, mentioned a number and wished onlookers a good and entertaining afternoon.

  Manderscheidt lowered his hand. I asked him about the significance of the announcement.

  He smiled, and said, “Horses are sensitive animals, you see. And they’re individuals. Some like to run on a firm course, some like a course where the going is soft. And if a horse doesn’t like the ground it’s running on, it won’t do as well as it might. Normally, anyway.”

  I asked, “And you take that into account when you give a tip?”

  He nodded, smiling. “In laying a bet, and in my profession too. I always assume that people, like horses, want to feel good. And they’ll do all they can to make sure they do. And they won’t like it if they don’t.” Then he asked, “Want to have a bet yourself?” He waved the betting slips.

  “What does it cost?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Depends on you. Ten euros, twenty?” He grinned. “It’s fun, I assure you.”

  He beckoned to the waiter, and then explained the idea of a place bet to me, all about betting on second and third place, and Heaven knows what else. Meanwhile he told the waiter, “The bill, please. We’re together!” When I protested, he shook his head. “Makes no difference, we’re neither of us paying out of our own pockets.” I said no more.

  Before we filled out the slips and handed them in, he went to the paddock with me, and I was impressed by the huge racehorses walking round in a circle, audibly snorting and breathing hard. You could even smell – though not so distinctly, because now and then a horse farted – the curious, intense, acrid smell that seemed to come from their saddles and bridles, and above all from the powerful bodies, the masses of horseflesh, the strong bones, the muscles moving under their gleaming coats.

  I vaguely remembered a novel that my father had borrowed from an acquaintance, a wine merchant from Eastern Europe. At the age of twelve or thirteen I read it, in secret because my father had said I was too young for it. A scene stuck in my mind, set on the main boulevard of the harbour town of Batum on the Black Sea in Tsarist times, when there had been a workers’ uprising, and one mild evening a squadron of Cossacks had been deployed against the insurgents. While the workers were demonstrating on the boulevard, the Cossacks suddenly charged out of a side street to ride down the demonstrators, mowing them down with their sabres. When the fighting was over, said the novel, the evening air was full of the smell of horses’ harnesses and sweat and the Cossacks’ weapons. And blood too, I assume; a dozen of the workers lay dead.

  Herr Manderscheidt advised me on a place bet and told me the horse to put it on, an animal called Herr von Minkwitz. I would probably win, he said, although not much. He himself was betting on second place.

  On the short way to the Tote I thought it over, and then put fifty euros on Black Desire to win. The horse, a ravenblack giant, had been standing in front of me in the paddock when the trainer threw the jockey up into the saddle, and I had been surprised to see that it was a girl.

  Manderscheidt, busy with his own bet, glanced sideways at me and said, “Got too much money, have you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, enjoy yourself and all the best! That nag has never won anything. And the girl will burn out; she was an apprentice until recently, she only gets a ride today because the regular jockey has let them down, something the matter with him, running a temperature overnight, diarrhoea, what-have-you.”

  When we came into the stands, I saw Katharina Fuchs and Henri Schmickler five rows lower down. There was a young man beside Katharina, and she was turning to him, while Schmickler, leaning forward, was talking to him as well. The young man was looking straight ahead, but turning now and then to Katharina and nodding in silence as if receiving instructions that called for close attention.

  Manderscheidt whistled softly. “I knew it!”

  I looked enquiringly at him.

  He said, “I know that fellow! I just can’t remember where from. Wait a minute…”

  As the horses were brought to the starting gates, prancing, snorting and rearing, he said, “Got it! He works for Klofft! In his business. Some kind of office clerk. I saw him there when I went to see Pauly the manager.”

  I had no time to think about the significance of this information; the starting gates sprang open and the horses raced out, thundering past us and finally going around the first bend. Manderscheidt followed them through a small pair of binoculars that he had taken out of the inside pocket of his jacket.

  I thought I saw my sturdy choice Black Desire leading the field. Manderscheidt muttered through half-closed lips, “She’s using the crop too much, wants to show what she can do.” As the horses disappeared from sight past trees and bushes, he grinned at me. “He’ll probably come to grief on the bend before the final straight. Or stroll in last at walking pace.”

  “You said that young man works for Klofft,” I said. “What does that mean?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, come on, Dr Zabel! Are you trying to take the mickey?” He glanced down at th
e threesome, who still had their heads together, and then looked back at me. “It means that the lovely Käthchen and Herr Schmickler, her investigator, have a mole in Klofft’s firm!”

  I said, “Roger!” Then I smiled. “Do you really think so?” When I saw the expression on his face changing, I added, “Forgive me, Herr Manderscheidt, but don’t you think that’s a little far-fetched? A mole planted in Klofft Valves? Sorry, but the Klofft works are no setting for a James Bond film!”

  He said, “Forgive me, Dr Zabel, but I can see you have no idea of these things. Not a glimmering!” I took a deep breath to answer him back, but he didn’t give me a chance. He said, “Didn’t you ever come across the term industrial espionage in your law books? Would it have occurred to you that Klofft has already thrown out a number of people employed in the business, people who tried to smuggle out production plans to foreign companies?”

  I said, “My dear Herr Manderscheidt—”

  He cut me short again. “And don’t tell me that has nothing to do with his firing of Frau Fuchs. Don’t you think the woman will do all she can to get back at old Klofft? And to that end will make use of any dirt she can dish on him in the works, past or present? You can see she’s well able to wind a lad like that around her little finger and get him to do anything, however underhand.”

  But as a faint thunder of hooves was heard, he turned away from me and raised his binoculars. The field, still almost closed, was racing around the final bend and into the straight. Black Desire was still in the lead, but two or three other horses were coming up beside him, jockeys bringing their whips down on the animals’ sweating flanks. The tempo was increasing, the other horses seemed to be overtaking mine, but then the girl brought her own crop down once, but firmly, and the black colossus stretched his neck and got his nose over the finishing line in first place.

  A roar of voices broke out. Manderscheidt said audibly, “Well, kiss my arse!” He turned to me, and was just saying, “Sorry, but…” and then interrupted himself. I saw why he had fallen silent. The new recruit to the Klofft business was shaking hands with Katharina and Henri Schmickler; they said goodbye, and the young man began going up the steps from the stands to the exits.