The Oath

by Klaus-Peter Wolf

  He pulled on the blue rubber gloves.

  *

  Without thinking much about it, Ann Kathrin decided to eat at The Galley. Weller had overheard the phone conversation. The new chief was apparently inviting them to dinner.

  Weller knew the entire restaurant menu almost by heart. He thought about ordering his favourite, dyke lamb, or perhaps the beef roulades, which reminded him of the best days of his childhood, when he stayed with his grandma. That was when he escaped from his strict father, and the kind old lady would cook for him.

  But then the conversation took an odd turn. Weller thought he could detect that he wasn’t invited to come along, and he found that odd.

  Ann Kathrin said goodbye to Büscher and put down the phone. Then she told Weller, ‘I’m going out to dinner with Büscher.’

  ‘Just you? Not both of us?’ Weller asked.

  ‘No. He expressly said that he wanted to go out to dinner with me.’

  ‘If someone invites me to dinner, I naturally assume that you’re coming along,’ Weller said, a bit peeved.

  Ann Kathrin shrugged. ‘Come on, don’t make this hard for me. He’s our new boss.’

  Weller raised his hands. ‘OK, OK. I have something planned for this evening anyway.’

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘You do?’

  He sighed as if he’d told her about it long ago, and as usual, she had forgotten. Resignedly he said: ‘Boys’ night out. Holger Bloem, Peter Grendel, Jörg Tapper, a few others.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re doing a pub crawl. The Mittelhaus. The Cage. And to finish off maybe we’ll drop in at Wolberg’s.’

  None of that was true, but Weller thought it was an excellent idea. All he had to do was call the boys.

  *

  Svenja Moers was sitting on the bed, bathed in sweat. The bastard had installed under-floor heating in this room, and the floor was already so hot that there were only a few spots where she could touch it.

  She had drawn her legs up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her knees. She made herself as small as possible. She was breathing shallowly.

  Worse than the heat was the stench. Everything smelled like cabbage and bacon.

  The door opened again with a hum. The spotlights switched on once more for his grand entrance. But this time he clearly wasn’t enjoying it.

  His getup resembled that of a surgeon in the operating theatre. He was wearing a blue lab apron, long rubber elbow-length gloves and boots.

  He carried a bucket and a mop.

  ‘Oh, here comes the cleaning brigade,’ she mocked him. ‘It’s about time. This pigsty stinks.’

  ‘Shut up,’ he snapped. ‘Just shut up. You’re making it worse.’

  Then he began to mop the floor.

  *

  Maybe Ann Kathrin had suggested The Galley so she could see her friend Melanie Weiss and so that when Melanie greeted Ann Kathrin with a hug at the door, Büscher would feel excluded. At the same time he couldn’t exactly greet the owner with the same familiarity. It would be inappropriate, since they had never met.

  Melanie picked up on his discomfort and held out her hand. ‘So you’re the new guy?’ she asked. Guests sitting nearby grinned and waved to him, and Büscher worried that he might blush. The phrase ‘the new guy’ could mean many things. The new chief or the new lover. It was too ambiguous for him.

  He wrestled with his embarrassment and then said loudly enough for everyone in the restaurant to hear: ‘My name is Martin Büscher, and I’m first detective inspector, head of Central Criminal Investigation.’ That sounded a little too pretentious. He felt awkward, as if he might trip over his own feet.

  The Galley smelled good. Fried ocean fish, coriander, lamb, and hovering above it all the scent of vanilla. The vying aromas were a bit bewildering.

  Melanie Weiss had reserved a table for them. It was Ann Kathrin’s favourite place to sit, though normally without Büscher. Steps led up to a sort of stage where there was a performance area as well as several tables. The table was next to a mural that gave guests the feeling of sitting outside by the sea.

  Ann Kathrin greeted her neighbour, Peter Grendel, with a grin. He and his wife Rita and their daughter were seated nearby. They were looking forward to their steaks.

  Some boys’ night out, Ann Kathrin thought, wondering why Weller had made up such a silly story.

  Büscher was debating whether to select a good wine or maybe a bottle of German champagne. He wondered whether a glass of champagne would be too much. He didn’t want people to think he was a playboy. But Melanie Weiss brought them two welcome drinks on the house and instantly made a mark on their bill . She called the cocktails ‘East Frisian blood’. It seemed to be Prosecco with blueberries. Buscher had never felt comfortable with the deep mysteries of mixing cocktails. That was something his ex-wife knew more about, but he didn’t want to think of her at the moment.

  He leafed through the menu without deciding on anything and wondered how he was going to start the conversation.

  When Ann Kathrin finally ordered for herself, he simply nodded and said with a big smile: ‘Excellent idea. I’ll have the same.’

  He raised his glass to Ann Kathrin and said, ‘To the German language.’

  And she gladly drank that toast with him.

  He had planned so much in advance. He had a definite plan, and he wanted to win her over to it. But now everything was going haywire. It was part of his strategy to initiate the conversation, but he’d hesitated too long, because now she asked, ‘So, why this secret meeting? Is this dinner work-related? It’s not a date, is it?’

  ‘Man, you people in East Frisia sure get right to the point,’ he said under his breath. Then out loud he explained, ‘I feel strange about being your boss. It’s not easy, you must see that. I mean, my God—’ He tried for an all-encompassing gesture but failed. ‘You’re a legend. Your reputation precedes you.’

  Ann Kathrin dismissed the idea as if he’d fired off some flattery that she didn’t want to acknowledge. So he tried once again. ‘No, no, I’m serious. Basically it would make more sense for you to be in charge of the station, not me.’

  Ann Kathrin shook her head, picked up her glass by the stem, and turned it slowly so that the berries in the cocktail spun to the top.

  ‘No,’ she said, staring at her drink, ‘the best thing would be if Ubbo Heide were chief. There’s no one better than him.’

  ‘OK. Sure. But he’s still recovering from that sad accident.’

  She interrupted him. ‘It was no accident. It was a knife attack.’

  ‘At any rate, he’s stuck in a wheelchair and retired. Believe me, Ms. Klaasen, if I could change things I would. I didn’t apply for this position, but all of us have to try to deal with the situation. And if the two of us work well together, then it will be to everyone’s benefit. I invited you here to express my personal admiration and tell you how much I respect you. As a colleague and as a woman.’

  Oh no. Had he gone too far?

  She smiled and raised her glass again. He was relieved to hear what she now said. ‘I don’t want your job. And I’ll try not to make your work more difficult than it already is. As far as I’m concerned, I think we might as well be on a first-name basis, like genuine colleagues.’

  Büscher welcomed the offer but it nettled him at the same time. As her boss, shouldn’t he have been the one to extend the offer?

  ‘I’ve already noticed that clocks run differently here from in the rest of the country. I’m from the coast too, but even though Bremerhaven is only a hundred and fifty kilometres away, I feel like I’m on a different planet.’

  She agreed. ‘Here we have our own way of life,’ she said with a smile and drained her glass. She leaned her head back to make all the berries roll into her mouth. Then she turned to Melanie Weiss and held up her thumb. Not very ladylike.

  ‘Another round?’ Melanie asked, and Ann Kathrin nodded.

  Büscher made short work of the starters from the kitchen, dried beans on roast
ed blood sausage with grilled onions, served on a curved spoon. He ate as if he had to get rid of the food as fast as possible, while Ann Kathrin talked to Melanie about what else Frank was magically cooking up in the kitchen. Whatever it was, Melanie called the appetiser ‘amuse-gueule’, and Büscher pretended he knew how to spell it.

  Ann Kathrin said, ‘Yes, it’s a real culinary delight.’

  Why am I so damned nervous? Büscher asked himself. I’m behaving like I’m on my first date. What’s she going to think of me?

  He had actually planned to win her over by telling her a little about himself. But before he could begin, she said, ‘For me and for many of my colleagues, Ubbo Heide was not merely our chief, but also a father figure. And he still is. Something like that doesn’t just evaporate. He’s seen us in crisis situations and led us through tough cases. He has supported us through our defeats, and he has celebrated our successes. He means a lot to all of us, but especially to me. My father served in the criminal police.’

  ‘I know,’ said Büscher, ‘I know.’

  ‘Without my father I might never have chosen this career path. To honour him I’ve tried to be the best I can be.’

  ‘And you have been the best,’ said Büscher.

  But she shook her head. ‘It may look that way on the outside, because I had good luck with a couple of cases and was in the right place at the right time. But from my own point of view it looks quite different. I often feel like a failure. I would rather run away screaming than be the chief of the East Frisian Criminal Police. Just recently my husband and I discussed whether we should open a fish shop instead of chasing criminals.’

  Büscher admitted frankly, ‘I would never be able to take on that role. I mean I couldn’t be a father figure for the whole team. At most I could try.’

  She didn’t let him finish. ‘Yeah, you’ve got some pretty big shoes to fill.’

  Silently she ate her North Sea crab soup with deep-fried rocket. Even before the main course arrived, Ann Kathrin tried to get back to the case. ‘The perpetrator must have had access to Ubbo’s car. Ubbo kept a spare key at the Reichshof restaurant, which is practically across the street.’

  ‘Right. I know where the Reichshof is.’

  ‘He lost it. Or rather, that’s where he saw it last.’ She rummaged through her purse. ‘We’ve got a list of all the guests he remembers. I’ll bet if we pay him a visit, he’ll be able to remember even more, and then we’d have a complete picture.’

  Ann Kathrin noticed that Büscher seemed to take hardly any interest in these details. She leaned forward, and it looked as though she was going to whisper something very important to him. ‘If you really want to score points with the team,’ she said, ‘the best thing to do is to show them that you’re a talented investigator.’

  Her words almost shocked him. ‘I didn’t really want to get involved in the operational—’

  ‘They’re used to having a boss with an exceptional understanding of criminal cases. Somebody with good instincts. They can all think logically.’

  Büscher was glad when the East Frisian snirtjebraa arrived. He poked at the red cabbage with apples and the green beans with bacon as Ann Kathrin ate her food with zest.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘You and Ubbo Heide, you are the type of Kripo detectives who can quickly catch a scent. You’re like bloodhounds. I’ve never been that way. I mean, we need people like that, but I’m not one of them.’

  ‘That’s probably why you were made our chief,’ Ann Kathrin said with a grin. ‘How do you like the snirtjebraa?’ she asked, shoving a forkful of new potatoes and gravy into her mouth. He tried to channel a connoisseur but failed.

  He was not at all the new chief she’d imagined. But he was growing on her. There was something about him she liked a lot. He was honest. And he wasn’t conceited about his position. He tried to be a team player, something she found very hard to do.

  *

  I have to get back into the zone, he thought. This bitch is taking me out of it. She’s got some nerve. She has no right to do that.

  He was so furious at Svenja Moers. What the hell was she thinking?

  In the shower he turned the water to steaming hot and then back to ice cold. He liked it when his skin turned red and started to prickle and burn. It made him feel alert, almost as if he was back in the zone.

  Naturally it wasn’t the best zone, where he had a firm grip on everything and the whole world felt like a huge theatre under his direction. All the others were either onlookers or had to dance to his tune.

  The cold water wasn’t cold enough for him. The sultry air was even heating up the water pipes.

  Everything was blurring together in the world. He could no longer distinguish men from women; good from evil; hot from cold; organic food from processed industrial shit. It was all the same.

  He felt that he had the power to put things back in their proper order. Black would be black again, and white would be white. Hot would be hot and cold cold. Women would be women and men would again be men. Crooks would be crooks, the sick would be sick. And the healthy would all be healthy.

  He stepped out of the shower and without towelling off walked through the house. Here everything was in its place.

  He hated disorder.

  He paused by the bookcase. Books were always a problem. Should he put them in alphabetical order? Sort them according to size? Or by colour?

  There were probably lots of other ways to arrange them. Once he’d arranged them by publisher, but that looked stupid.

  Then by author. Even that didn’t please him. A fat book next to a skinny one, a hardback next to a paperback; no, that didn’t work either.

  Now he had a paperback section and a separate one for hardbacks. The numbers on the backs of the books drove him crazy. The ISBNs were a hypocritical ordering system, nothing but sheer chaos. A bookcase couldn’t be arranged that way. It made no sense.

  Twice he’d pulled out all the books and tossed them on the floor in a fit of rage. If there was no way to sort them logically, why not just leave them in a pile on the floor like rubbish?

  He’d even thought about consigning them to the flames. Yes, damn it! Anything that couldn’t be properly arranged or lined up should be burned.

  But he loved some of these books. They reminded him of his childhood. His mother had read him stories from these volumes. Like Krabat and the Sorcerer’s Mill. But the book didn’t fit in anywhere. Why weren’t there more books in that format and size?

  He had bought a few sets of collected works, simply because the books, arranged in their boxes, looked so beautiful. He had Ernest Hemingway next to Jörg Fauser and Friedrich Dürrenmatt.

  Why, he wondered, did everything have to be so complicated? Why was there no EU edict to make all books the same size? Instead they were working on creating a straight banana and a standardised cucumber.

  He went over to the monitors. He liked how the drops of water on his skin felt as they slowly evaporated. Only pampered mummy’s boys who rushed off to work in their air-conditioned offices dried off with their microfibre towels softened in the dryer.

  He’d read about Tibetan monks who sat down outside and meditated in their wet clothes, even in wintertime, allowing their body heat to dry them. That’s the kind of man he wanted to be! Self-reliant, independent and strong. Beholden to no one, especially not to this insane society.

  Considering how Svenja Moers was huddled up on the bed, she was probably on the verge of surrendering. Maybe she’d act up once or twice more, but then in the end she would accept her fate. She would pose for a suitable photo and do everything else he demanded of her. He was sure of that.

  He pondered giving her a chance. Maybe she could clean not only her own cell, but also the anteroom. And then if she behaved herself, other rooms in the house too.

  He wanted to crush her pride. Anyone who didn’t want to live in filth had to learn to clean up. And as he knew only too well, that began with the small things. Most toilets w
ere just as filthy as the souls of their owners.

  Suddenly, Svenja Moers began to be move about as if she had noticed that he was watching her. She threw her hands in the air and roared as if talking to God.

  ‘I’m thirsty, damn it, thirsty! Do you want to see me die of thirst, you maniac? What’s this fucking washbasin for if there’s no water coming out of the tap?’

  He liked her like this. Pretty soon her prayers would turn more desperate. Very soon now. She would stop complaining and start pleading. Stop demanding and start negotiating.

  *

  Weller was already in the bedroom when Ann Kathrin came home. He was next to the little bedside light with a glass of red wine and his crime novel. But when he heard her he quickly turned off the light and lay down as if he had been asleep for ages.

  He had hoped that she would come in and then have to apologise because she seemed to have woken him. But she just didn’t come. She was pottering about endlessly in the living room and in the kitchen.

  He could hear every single one of her steps. Then the clatter of a keyboard. Was she really checking her emails now?

  He lay there waiting for what felt like a half an hour. Now he was upset that he hadn’t just kept on reading. He had been in the middle of such an exciting part. He’d just snapped the book shut in the middle of a dialogue.

  Hopefully, he thought, she’s not so considerate as to lie down in the living room so as not to wake me. She should at least give me the pleasure of that little performance.

  Then finally she came and, although she didn’t turn on the light, each of her movements was loud enough that he had the chance, after all, to act as if she’d woken him.

  He stretched and yawned, ‘Oh! You?’

  ‘No,’ she giggled, ‘how did you get that idea? It’s not me, it’s Marilyn Monroe.’

  She smelled of the restaurant and as she moved closer to give him a kiss, he could smell alcohol on her breath, even though he’d just been drinking red wine himself.

  ‘Well, that work meeting took a while,’ he said.

  She didn’t react. Instead, she simply undressed and got into bed next to Weller. She sighed and said, ‘Martin is completely different from what you’d think at first glance.’