Self's Punishment Read online

  ‘Forget the battles,’ I interrupted. ‘When would you like the first report?’

  ‘I’d like you to keep me constantly up to date. You can avail yourself of the men from security, from the computer centre and the personnel department, call on their time as you like. I needn’t tell you that we ask for utmost discretion. Frau Buchendorff, is Herr Self ’s ID ready?’ he asked over the intercom.

  She entered the room and handed Firner a piece of plastic the size of a credit card.

  Firner came round the desk. ‘We took a colour photo of you as you entered the administration building and scanned it in straight away,’ he said proudly. ‘With this ID you can come and go in the complex as you please.’

  He attached the card with its plastic clip to my lapel.

  It was just like getting a medal. I almost felt obliged to click my heels.

  4 Turbo catches a mouse

  I spent the evening hunched over the dossier. A tough nut to crack. I tried to recognize a structure in the cases, a pattern to the incursions into the system. The culprit, or culprits, had managed to worm their way into payroll. For months they’d transferred 500 marks too much to the executive assistants, among them Frau Buchendorff, had doubled the vacation benefits of the low-wage groups, and deleted all salary account numbers beginning with a 13. They had meddled with intra-company communication, channelled confidential messages at the directors’ level to the press department, and suppressed the automatic reminders of employees’ anniversaries of service that were distributed to department heads at the beginning of the month. The programme for tennis court allocation and reservation confirmed all requests for the Friday most in demand so that one Friday in May, 108 players assembled on the sixteen courts. On top of that there was the rhesus monkey story. I could understand Firner’s pained smile. The damages, around five million, could be handled by an enterprise as large as the RCW. But whoever had done it was able to saunter through the company’s management and business information system at will.

  It was getting dark. I turned on the light, switched it off and on a couple of times, but, although it was binary, no deeper revelation about electronic data processing came to me. I pondered whether any of my friends understood computers, and noticed how old I was. There was an ornithologist, a surgeon, a chess grandmaster, the odd legal eagle or two, all gentlemen of advanced years to whom the computer was, as for me, a terra incognita. I reflected on what sort of person it is who can work with, and likes, computers, and about the perpetrator of my case – that it was a single perpetrator was becoming pretty clear.

  Belated schoolboy’s tricks? A gambler, a puzzle-lover, a joker, pulling the leg of the RCW in grand style? Or a blackmailer, a cool-headed type, effortlessly showing that he was capable of bigger coups? Or a political statement? The public would react negatively if this measure of chaos came to light with a business that handled highly toxic material. But no. The political activist would have thought out different incidents. And the blackmailer could long since have struck.

  I shut the window. The wind had changed.

  I wanted to talk to Danckelmann, the head of Works security first thing in the morning. Then on to the files of the hundred suspects in the personnel office. Although I was hardly hopeful that the trickster I had in mind would be recognizable from his personnel files. The thought of having to examine one hundred suspects by the book filled me with utter horror. I hoped that word of my hiring would get around and provoke some incidents through which the circle of suspects could be narrowed.

  It wasn’t a great case. It only struck me now that Korten hadn’t even asked whether I wanted to take it on. And that I hadn’t told him I’d think it over first.

  The cat was scratching at the balcony door. I opened up and Turbo laid a mouse at my feet. I thanked him, and went to bed.

  5 With Aristotle, Schwarz, Mendeleyev, and Kekulé

  With my special ID I easily found a parking place for my old Opel at the Works. A young security guard took me to his boss.

  It was written all over Danckelmann’s face that he was unhappy about not being a real policeman, let alone a proper secret serviceman. It’s the same with all Works security people. Before I could even start asking my questions he told me that the reason he’d left the army was because it was too wishywashy for him.

  ‘I was impressed by your report,’ I said. ‘You imply there could be hassle from communists and ecologists?’

  ‘It’s hard to get your hands on the guys. But if you put two and two together, you know which way the wind is blowing. I have to tell you that I don’t quite understand why they brought you in from outside. We’d have managed to sort it out ourselves.’

  His assistant entered the room. Thomas, when he was introduced to me, seemed competent, intelligent, and efficient. I understood why Danckelmann could hold sway as head of security. ‘Have you anything to add to the report, Herr Thomas?’

  ‘You should know that we’re not simply going to leave the field open for you. No one is better suited than us to catch the perpetrator.’

  ‘And how do you intend to do that?’

  ‘I don’t have the least intention of telling you that, Herr Self.’

  ‘Yes, you do. Don’t force me to point out the details of my assignment and the powers conferred on me.’ You have to get formal with people like that.

  Thomas would have remained resolute. But Danckelmann interrupted. ‘It’s okay, Heinz. Firner called this morning and told us to offer unconditional cooperation.’

  Thomas made an effort. ‘We’ve been thinking about setting a trap with the help of the computer centre. We’ll inform all system users about the provision of a new, strictly confidential and, this is the decisive point, absolutely secure data file. This file for saving specially classified data is empty, however, it doesn’t exist, to be precise, because no data will be entered. I’d be surprised if the announcement of this absolute security doesn’t challenge the perpetrator to prove his ability by infiltrating the data file. As soon as it’s entered, the central computer will show the coordinates of the user and our case is over.’

  That sounded easy. ‘So why are you doing it only now?’

  ‘The whole story didn’t interest a soul until one or two weeks ago. And besides,’ his brow furrowed, ‘we here at security aren’t the first to be informed. You know, security is still regarded as a collection of retired, or even worse, fired policemen who might be capable of setting an Alsatian on someone climbing over the fence, but who have nothing in their heads. Yet these days we’re pros in all questions of company security, from the protection of objects to the protection of people, and data. We’re currently setting up a course at the technical college in Mannheim which will offer certification in security studies. In this, as ever, the Americans are-’

  ‘Ahead,’ I finished. ‘When will the trap be ready?’

  ‘This is Thursday. The head of the computer centre wants to see to it himself over the weekend, and on Monday morning the users are to be informed.’

  The prospect of wrapping the case up on Monday was enticing, even if the success wouldn’t be mine. But in a world of certified security guards guys like me don’t have much of a place anyway.

  I didn’t want to give up immediately, however, and asked, ‘In the dossier I found a list with around a hundred suspects. Does security have any further information on one or another of them, something that’s not in the report?’

  ‘It’s good that you mention that, Herr Self,’ said Danckelmann. He heaved himself up from his office chair and as he came over to me I noticed he walked with a limp. He followed my gaze. ‘Vorkuta. In nineteen forty-five, age eighteen, I was taken to a Russian prisoner-of-war camp. Came back in fiftythree. Without old Adenauer I’d still be there. But to return to your question. We are in fact privy to some information about the suspects that we didn’t want to include in the report. There are a couple of political cases that the Secret Service keeps us up to date on. And a few with problem
s in their private life – wives, debt, and so on.’

  He rolled off eleven names. As we worked through them I quickly gathered that the so-called political ones concerned only the usual trifles: signed the wrong leaflet as a student, stood as candidate for the wrong group, marched at the wrong demonstration. I found it interesting that Frau Buchendorff was among them. Along with other women she had handcuffed herself to the railings in front of the house of the Minister for Family Affairs.

  ‘Why were they doing it?’ I asked Danckelmann.

  ‘That’s something the Secret Service didn’t tell us. After divorcing her husband, who apparently coerced her into such things, she stopped attracting attention. But I always say, whoever was political once can’t shake it off from one day to the next.’

  The most interesting person was on the list of ‘Losers’, as Danckelmann called them. A chemist, Frank Schneider, mid-forties, divorced several times. A passionate gambler. He’d grown conspicuous when he started going to the wages office too often to ask for advances.

  ‘How did you latch on to him?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s standard procedure. As soon as someone asks for an advance a third time, we take a look at him.’

  ‘And what does that mean exactly?’

  ‘It can, as in this case, involve going so far as shadowing a person. If you want to know, you can talk to Herr Schmalz, who did it at the time.’

  I had a message sent to Schmalz that I’d expect him for lunch at twelve noon at the restaurant. I was about to add that I’d be waiting for him by the maple at the entrance, but Danckelmann brushed me aside. ‘Leave it. Schmalz is one of our best. He’ll find you all right.’

  ‘Here’s to teamwork,’ said Thomas. ‘You won’t hold it against me that I’m a bit sensitive when our responsibility for security is removed. And you are from the outside. But I have enjoyed our pleasant chat, and’ – he laughed disarmingly – ‘our information on you is excellent.’

  On leaving the redbrick building where security was housed, I lost all sense of direction. Maybe I used the wrong stairs. I was standing in a yard along the lengths of which the company security vehicles were parked, painted blue with the company logo on the doors, the silver benzene ring and in it the letters RCW. The entrance at the gable end was fashioned as a portal with two sandstone pillars and four sandstone medallions from which, blackened and mournful, Aristotle, Schwarz, Mendeleyev, and Kekulé regarded me. Apparently I was standing in front of the former chief administration building. I left the yard, and came to another, its façades completely covered with Virginia creeper. It was oddly quiet; my footsteps resounded exaggeratedly on the cobblestones. The buildings appeared to be disused. When something struck my back I whirled around in fright. In front of me a garishly bright ball gave a few more bounces and a young boy came racing after it. I retrieved the ball and approached the boy. Now I could make out the windows with net curtains in the corner of the yard, behind a rosebush, next to the open door. The boy took the ball from my hands, said ‘thank you’, and ran into the house. On the nameplate by the door I recognized the name Schmalz. An elderly woman was looking at me suspiciously, and shut the door. Again it was absolutely quiet.

  6 A veal ragout on a bed of mixed greens

  When I entered the restaurant, a small, thin, pale, black-haired man addressed me. ‘Herr Self?’ he lisped. ‘Schmalz here.’

  My offer of an aperitif was declined. ‘No thank you, I don’t drink alcohol.’

  ‘And what about a fruit juice?’ I didn’t want to forgo my Aviateur.

  ‘I have to be back at work at one. Happy if we could directly… Little to report anyway.’

  The answer was elliptical, but without sibilants. Had he learned to eradicate all ‘s’ and ‘z’ words from his working vocabulary?

  The lady at the reception area rang the bell for service, and the girl I’d seen serving at the directors’ bar took us up to the large dining hall on the first floor to a window table.

  ‘You know how I love to begin a meal?’

  ‘I’ll see to it straight away,’ she smiled.

  To the headwaiter Schmalz gave an order for ‘A veal ragout on a bed of mixed greens, if you would.’ I was in the mood for sweet and sour pork Szechuan. Schmalz eyed me enviously. We both passed on the soup, for different reasons.

  Over my Aviateur I asked about the results of the investigation of Schneider. Schmalz reported extremely precisely, avoiding all sibilants. A lamentable man, that Schneider. After a row over his demand for an advance, Schmalz had tailed him for several days. Schneider gambled not only in Bad Dürkheim but also in private backrooms and was accordingly entangled. When his creditors had him beaten up, Schmalz intervened and brought Schneider home, not seriously injured, but quite distraught. The time had come for a chat between Schneider and his superior. An arrangement was entered into: Schneider, indispensable as a pharmaceutical researcher, was removed from work for three months and sent to a clinic, and the relevant circles were informed that they were not to allow Schneider to gamble any more. The security unit of the RCW used its influence around Mannheim and Ludwigshafen.

  ‘A good three-year gap while the guy lay low. But in my opinion he remained a ticking bomb, even ticking today.’

  The food was excellent. Schmalz ate his at a rush. He didn’t leave a single grain of rice on his plate – the obsessive behavior of the food neurotic. I asked what, in his opinion, should be done with whoever was behind the computer shambles.

  ‘Above all, interrogate him thoroughly. And then make him get in line. He can’t be a threat to the plant any more. Bright guy. He could…’

  He flailed around for a non-sibilant synonym for certainly or surely. I offered him a Sweet Afton.

  ‘Prefer my own,’ he said, and took a brown plastic box from his pocket containing homemade filter cigarettes. ‘Made by my wife, no more than eight a day.’

  If there’s one thing I hate, it’s homemade cigarettes. They are way up there with crocheted modesty covers for toilet paper. The mention of his wife reminded me of the janitor’s apartment with the nameplate ‘Schmalz’.

  ‘You have a young son?’

  He looked at me guardedly and deflected the question with a ‘Meaning what?’

  I told him about how I’d lost my way in the old factory, of the enchanted atmosphere of the overgrown yard and the encounter with the little boy with the brightly coloured ball. Schmalz relaxed and confirmed that his father lived in the janitor’s flat.

  ‘Member of our unit, too. The general and he knew one another well from the war. Now he… keeping an eye on the old plant… In the morning we take the boy to him, my wife being an employee here in the company, too.’

  I learned that lots of the security people had lived in the compound and Schmalz had more or less grown up there. He’d been through the rebuilding of the Works after the war and knew its every corner. I found the idea of a life spent between refineries, reactors, distilleries, turbines, silos, and tankers, for all its industrial romance, oppressive.

  ‘Didn’t you ever want to look for a job beyond the RCW?’

  ‘Couldn’t do that to my father. His motto: we belong here. Did the general throw in the towel? No, nor do we.’ He looked at his watch and leapt up. ‘Too bad, can’t linger. Am on personal security’ – words he spoke almost error free – ‘duty at one o’clock. Kind of you to invite…’

  My afternoon in the personnel office was unproductive. At four o’clock I conceded I could quit studying the personnel files once and for all. I stopped by to see Frau Buchendorff, whose first name I now knew to be Judith, also that she was thirty-three, had a degree in German and English, and hadn’t found a job as a teacher. She’d been at the RCW for four years, first in the archives, then in the PR department where she’d come to Firner’s attention. She lived in Rathenaustrasse.

  ‘Please don’t get up,’ I said. She stopped feeling for her shoes with her feet under the table, and offered me a coffee. ‘I’d love one.
Then we can drink to being neighbours. I’ve read your personnel file and know almost everything about you, apart from how many silk blouses you own.’ She was wearing another one, this time buttoned up to the top.

  ‘If you’re coming to the reception on Saturday, you’ll see the third one. Have you received your invitation already?’ She slid a cup over to me and lit a cigarette.

  ‘What reception?’ I peered at her legs.

  ‘We’ve had a delegation from China here since Monday, and as a finale we want to show them that not only our plants, but also our buffets are better than the French. Firner thought it would be a chance for you to get to know a couple of people of interest to your case, informally.’

  ‘Shall I also have the chance to get to know you informally?’

  She laughed. ‘I’m there for the Chinese. But there is one Chinese woman, I haven’t figured out what she’s in charge of. Perhaps she’s a security expert, who wouldn’t be introduced as such, so a kind of colleague of yours. A pretty woman.’

  ‘You’re trying to fob me off, Frau Buchendorff! I shall have to lodge a complaint with Firner.’ Scarcely had the words left my lips than I regretted them. An old man’s hackneyed charm.

  7 A little glitch

  The next day the air lay thick over Mannheim and Ludwigshafen. It was so muggy that, even without moving, my clothes stuck to my body. Driving was staccato and hectic, I could have used three feet to work the clutch, the brake, and the gas pedal. Everything was clogged on the Konrad Adenauer Bridge. There’d been a collision, and immediately after it another one. I was stuck in a traffic jam for twenty minutes. I watched the oncoming traffic and the trains, and smoked to avoid suffocating.

  The appointment with Schneider was at half past nine. The doorman at Gate 1 told me the way. ‘It’s not even five minutes. Go straight on, and when you come to the Rhine it’s another hundred metres to your left. The laboratories are in the light-coloured building with the large windows.’