Self's Punishment Read online

  From the phone booth next to the restroom I gave Tietzke a call. The RCC, it transpired, was the Regional Computer Centre in Heidelberg. ‘To a certain degree even trans-regional,’ said Tietzke, ‘as Baden-Württemberg and the Rhineland-Palatinate are hooked up to it. What do you have in mind, Herr Self?’

  ‘Do you ever let up, Herr Tietzke?’ I retorted, and promised him the rights to my memoirs.

  15 Bam bam, ba bam bam

  I drove straight to Heidelberg. In front of the law school I found a parking space. I walked the few steps to Ebert-Platz, the former Wrede-Platz, and found the Regional Computer Centre in the old building with the two entrance pillars where the Deutsche Bank used to be. The doorman sat in the former banking hall.

  ‘Selk from Springer Publishing,’ I introduced myself. ‘I’d like to talk to one of the gentlemen from emission supervision, the publishing house called ahead.’

  He picked up the telephone. ‘Herr Mischkey, there’s someone here from Springer Publishing, he says he wants to talk to you and has an appointment. Should I send him up?’

  I interjected. ‘Can I talk to Herr Mischkey myself?’ And as the doorman was sitting at a table not screened by glass and since I was already reaching for it, he handed the receiver to me, nonplussed.

  ‘Hello, Herr Mischkey, Selk from Springer Publishing here, you know? We’d like to include a report on the direct emission model in our computer journal, and after talking with the industry I’d like to hear the other side. Will you see me?’

  He didn’t have much time but invited me up. His room was on the second floor, the door was open, the view opened onto the square. Mischkey was sitting with his back to the door at a computer that had his full concentration and on which he was typing with two fingers at great speed. He called over his shoulder, ‘Come on in, I’ll be finished in a second.’

  I looked around. The table and chairs were awash with computer printouts and magazines from Computer Weekly to the American edition of Penthouse. On the wall was a blackboard with ‘Happy Birthday, Peter’ scrawled on it in smudged chalk. Next to that Einstein was sticking his tongue out at me. On the other wall were film posters and a still that I couldn’t assign to a particular film. ‘Madonna,’ he said without looking up.

  ‘Madonna?’

  Now he did look up. A distinctive, bony face with deep furrows in the brow, a small moustache, an obstinate chin, all topped with a wild mop of greying hair. His eyes twinkled at me in delight through a pair of intentionally ugly spectacles. Were the national health glasses of the fifties back in fashion? He was wearing jeans and a dark-blue sweater, no shirt. ‘I’ll call her up on screen for you from my film file.’ He beckoned me over, typed in a couple of commands, and the screen filled in a flash. ‘You know how it is when you’re fishing for a tune that you can’t quite remember? Problem of all music and movie buffs? I’ve solved that with my file, too. Do you want to hear music from your favourite film?’

  ‘Barry Lyndon,’ I said, and in the space of seconds came the squeaky but unmistakable start of the Sarabande by Handel, bam bam, ba bam bam. ‘That’s fantastic,’ I said.

  ‘What brings you here, Herr Selk? As you can see, I’m very busy at the moment and haven’t much time to spare. It’s to do with emissions?’

  ‘Exactly, or rather, with a report on them for our computer journal.’

  A colleague entered the room. ‘Are you messing around with your files again? Do you expect me to deal with the registration data for the church? I must say I find you extremely uncooperative.’

  ‘May I introduce my colleague Grimm? That’s really his name, but with two “m’s” – Jörg, this is Herr Selk from the computer journal. He wants to write about the office culture in RCC. Keep going, you’re being most authentic.’

  ‘Oh, Peter, really…’ Grimm puffed out his cheeks. I placed them both in their mid-thirties, but one came across like a mature 25-year-old and the other like a man in his fifties who’s aged badly. Grimm’s grimness was only accentuated by his safari suit and his long, thinning hair. I kept what was left of my hair trimmed short. I wondered whether my hair situation might still get worse at my age, or whether the balding was over, just as getting pregnant is over for post-menopausal women.

  ‘You could have called up the church report on your computer ages ago, by the way. I’m in the middle of the traffic census. It has to go out today. Yes, Herr Selk, it doesn’t look good for the two of us. Unless you want to buy me lunch? At McDonald’s?’

  We arranged to meet at twelve-thirty.

  I strolled up the main street, impressive evidence of the city council’s will towards destruction in the seventies. It wasn’t drizzling at the moment. Yet the weather couldn’t make up its mind what to offer for the weekend. I decided to ask Mischkey about the meteorograph. In the Darmstadt shopping centre I came across a record shop. Sometimes I like to sample the zeitgeist, buy the representative record or the representative book, go to see Rambo II or watch an election debate between the chancellor and his challenger. There was a special offer on for Madonna. The girl at the till took a look at me and asked if she should gift-wrap it. ‘No. Is that the impression I give?’

  I walked out of the Darmstadt shopping centre and saw Bismarck-Platz ahead of me. I’d have liked to visit the old man on his pedestal. But the traffic didn’t allow it. On the corner I bought a packet of Sweet Afton, and then time was up.

  16 Like an arms race

  It was rush hour at McDonald’s. Mischkey pushed us skilfully to the front. Following his recommendation, I chose a Fish Mac with mayonnaise, a small portion of fries with ketchup, and a coffee.

  Mischkey, tall and lanky, ordered a quarter-pounder with cheese, a large portion of fries, three portions of ketchup, another small hamburger to ‘fill the little gap afterwards’, an apple pie, two milkshakes, and a coffee.

  The full tray cost me almost 25 marks.

  ‘Not expensive, is it? For lunch for two. Thanks for inviting me.’

  First of all we couldn’t find two seats together. I wanted to move a chair to a free space, but the chair was attached to the floor. I was bemused; neither as an attorney, nor as a private detective, had I ever come across the offence of theft of restaurant chairs. Eventually we installed ourselves at a table with two high school students who eyed Mischkey’s assortment enviously.

  ‘Herr Mischkey, the direct emission model file led to the first lawsuit dealing with computers since the national census, the first, also, to reach the Federal Constitutional Court. The computer journal wants a legal report from me since legal journalism is my field. But I’ve realized I need to figure out more of the technical side, and that’s where I’d appreciate some information.’

  ‘Mmm.’ He chomped contentedly on his quarter-pounder.

  ‘What sort of data-sharing is there between yourselves and the industrial firms you supervise the emissions for?’

  Mischkey swallowed. ‘I can tell you a thousand things about that, the transmission technology, the hardware, the software, you name it. What do you want to know?’

  ‘Perhaps as a lawyer I can’t formulate the questions precisely enough. I’d like to know, for example, how a smog alarm is triggered.’

  Mischkey was in the process of unwrapping the hamburger for that little gap afterwards and drenching it in ketchup. ‘That’s actually quite banal. Sensors are attached at the points where the harmful substances escape from the plant, and we receive round-the-clock reports on the fallout. We record the levels and simultaneously they go into our meteorograph. The meteorograph is the result of the weather data we get from the German weather service. If emissions are too high or the weather can’t cope with them, an alarm sounds in the RCC and the smog alarm machinery chugs into motion – as it did most excellently last week.’

  ‘I’ve been told the factories receive the same emissions data as you. How does that work technically? Are they also linked to the sensors, like two lamps on a two-way adaptor?’

  Misch
key laughed. ‘Something like that. Technically it’s a bit different. Since there’s not one, but lots of sensors in the factories, the individual lines are already brought together within any one factory. From that collection point, if you like, the data come to us via fixed cable. And the factory in question draws its data from the collection point like we do.’

  ‘How secure is that? I was thinking the industry might have an interest in falsifying the data.’

  That got Mischkey’s attention and he let his apple pie sink down without taking a bite. ‘For a non-technician you ask some pretty good questions. And I have things I’d like to say about that. But I think that is for after this apple pie.’ He gazed tenderly at the sickly pastry, which was giving off a synthetic cinnamon smell. ‘We shouldn’t stay here, we should finish our lunch in the café in Akademiestrasse instead.’ I groped for a cigarette and couldn’t find my lighter. Mischkey, being a non-smoker, couldn’t help me.

  The way to the café took us through the Horten department store; Mischkey bought the new Penthouse. We lost each other briefly in the crowds but found each other again at the exit.

  In the café Mischkey ordered a piece of Black Forest gateau, a mixed-fruit tart, and a pastry to accompany his pot of coffee. With cream. Obviously he was a good burner of food. Thin people who can shovel so much down make me envious.

  ‘And what about a good response to my good question?’ I asked, picking up the thread.

  ‘Theoretically there are two exposed flanks. First of all you could play around with the sensors, but they’re so well sealed that it wouldn’t go unnoticed. The other possible breach is the connection between the collection point and the factory’s cable. There the politicians agreed to a compromise I consider rotten through and through. For at the end of the day you can’t discount the possibility that, from this connection, emissions data may be falsified or, even worse, the programme of the smog alarm systems tampered with. Naturally we’ve built in security measures that we’re constantly fine-tuning, but you can view this as being like an arms race. Every defence system can be out-tricked by a new attack system and vice versa. A never-ending, and never-endingly expensive, spiral.’

  I had a cigarette in my mouth and was going through all my pockets looking for the lighter. In vain again, naturally. Then Mischkey, from the right breast pocket of his fine nappa leather jacket, took out two disposable lighters packed in plastic and cardboard, one pink, the other black. He tore open the packet.

  ‘Is pink all right, Herr Selk? Compliments of the department store.’ He winked at me, pushed the pink one over the table, and offered me a light from the black one.

  ‘Former public prosecutor deals in stolen lighters.’ I could just picture the headlines, and fiddled a bit with the lighter before pocketing it and thanking Mischkey.

  ‘But what about the opposite direction? Would it be possible for someone to penetrate the factory’s computer from the RCC?’

  ‘If the factory’s cable leads to the computer and not to an isolated data station… But actually you should be able to work that out yourself after all I’ve said.’

  ‘So you really face off like the two superpowers, with offensive and defensive weapons.’

  Mischkey tugged at his earlobe. ‘Be careful with your comparisons, Herr Selk. If we follow your analogy, capitalist industry can only be the Americans. That leaves us employees of the state in the role of the Russians. As a public servant,’ he straightened up, pulled back his shoulders, and made a suitably stately face, ‘I must renounce this impertinent insinuation most strongly.’ He laughed, slouched down, and gobbled his pastry.

  ‘Something else,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I’m amused by the thought that the industry that fought for this damaging compromise has damaged itself. One competitor could naturally take advantage of our network to tamper with the system of another. Isn’t that sweet, the RCC as the turntable of industrial spying?’ He spun his pastry fork on his plate. When it stopped, the prongs were pointing at me.

  I suppressed a sigh. Mischkey’s amusing, playful reflections suggested an explosion in the circle of suspects. ‘An interesting variant. Herr Mischkey, you’ve been a great help. In case I think of anything else may I give you a call? Here’s my card.’ I felt around in my wallet for the business card with my private address and telephone number on which I pose as freelance journalist Gerhard Selk.

  We shared the route back to Ebert-Platz.

  ‘What does your meteorograph say about the coming weekend?’

  ‘It’ll be fine, no smog, not even rain. It looks like a weekend at the pool.’

  We said goodbye. I took the Römer roundabout to Bergheimer Strasse to get petrol. Listening to it running through the hose I couldn’t help thinking of the cables between the RCW and the RCC and now God knows which factories. If my case was one of industrial espionage, I thought on the motorway, then there was something missing. The incidents in the RCW system, so far as I could recall, didn’t add up to a case of espionage. Unless the spy had used them to cover his tracks. In which case, wouldn’t his only reason have been that he feared someone was on his trail? And why should he fear that? Did one of the first incidents perhaps risk undoing him? I needed to take another look at the reports. And I needed to call Firner and get hold of a list of the firms connected to the smog alarm system.

  I reached Mannheim. It was three o’clock, the blinds of Mannheim Insurance had already closed for the evening. Only the windows that showed an illuminated M at night were still on duty. M as in Mischkey, I thought.

  I liked the man. I also liked him as a suspect. Here was the joker, the puzzle-lover, the gambler I’d been looking for from the beginning. He possessed the necessary imagination, the requisite talent, and was sitting in the right place. But it was no more than a hunch. And if I wanted to nail him with that he’d serenely send me packing.

  I’d tail him over the weekend. Right now I had nothing but a feeling and I didn’t see how else I could follow the lead. Maybe he’d make a move that would bring me new ideas. Had it been winter I’d have stocked up at the bookshop for the weekend on computer crime. Shadowing someone is a cold and hard business in winter. But in summer it’s fine. Mischkey was going to the pool.

  17 Shame on you!

  Mischkey currently lived in Heidelberg at number 9, Burgweg, drove a Citroën DS cabriolet with the licence plate HD-CZ 985, was unmarried and childless, earned 55,000 marks as a senior civil servant, and had a personal loan from the Cooperative Savings Bank for 30,000 marks, which he was paying back in an orderly fashion: all this I’d been told on Friday by my colleague Hemmelskopf at the credit bureau. On Saturday at 7 a.m. I was at Burgweg.

  It is a small stretch of street, closed to traffic, and the upper part of it becomes a footpath leading to the castle. The residents of the five or so houses in the lower part are allowed to park their cars there and have a key for the gate that divides Burgweg from Unteren Faulen Pelz. I was glad to see Mischkey’s car. It was a beauty, bottle-green with gleaming chrome and a cream-coloured hood. That’s where the loan money had gone. My own car I parked in the hairpin bend of Neue Schlossstrasse from which steep, straight stairs lead to Burgweg. Mischkey’s car was facing uphill; if he were to drive off I ought to have time enough to be in Unteren Faulen Pelz when he arrived. I positioned myself in such a way that I could watch the entrance without being visible from the house.

  At half past eight a window opened at eye-level in the house I had taken to be the neighbour’s and a naked Mischkey stretched out into the already mild morning air. I just had time to slip behind the advertising column. I peered out. He was yawning, doing some forward bends, and hadn’t seen me.

  At nine o’clock he left the house, walked to the market by Heiliggeist Kirche, ate two salmon rolls there, drank a coffee in the drugstore in the Kettengasse, flirted with the exotic beauty behind the bar, made a phone call, read the Frankfurter Rundschau, had a quick game of power chess, bought some more stuff, went home to drop off the
shopping, and came out again with a big bag and got into his car. Now it was time to go swimming, he was wearing a T-shirt with ‘Grateful Dead’ printed on it, cut-off jeans, Jesus sandals, and had thin, pale legs.

  Mischkey had to turn his car but the gate below was open so I had real trouble getting my Opel behind him in time, one car between us. I could hear the music blasting from his stereo at full volume. ‘He’s a pretender,’ sang Madonna.

  He took the motorway to Mannheim. There he drove at eighty past the ADAC pavilion and the Administrative Court, along Oberen Luisenpark. Suddenly he braked sharply and took a left. When the oncoming traffic allowed me to turn I could no longer see Mischkey’s car. I drove on slowly, and kept an eye out for the green cabriolet. On the corner of Rathenaustrasse I heard loud music die out all of a sudden. I nudged forward. Mischkey was getting out of his car and going into the corner house.

  I don’t know what struck me, or what I noticed first, the address or Frau Buchendorff’s silver car gleaming in front of Christuskirche. I rolled down the right-hand window and leaned over to take a look at the building. Through a cast-iron fence and an overgrown garden I looked up at the first-floor balcony. Frau Buchendorff and Mischkey were kissing.

  Of all people, the two of them had to be involved! I didn’t like it at all. Tailing someone you know is bad enough, but if you’re discovered you can always pretend it’s a coincidental meeting and extract yourself reasonably well. Theoretically that could also be the case for two people, but not here. Would Frau Buchendorff introduce me as private detective Self, or Mischkey as freelance journalist Selk? If things progressed to swimming I’d be staying outside. Too bad, I’d been looking forward to it and had packed my Bermudas especially. They were kissing fervently. Was that something else I didn’t like?

  I assumed they would set off in Mischkey’s car. It was waiting with the top down. I drove a little further into Rathenaustrasse and parked so that the garden gate and Citroën were reflected in my back mirror. Half an hour later they drove past me, and I hid behind my newspaper. Then I followed them through what we call the Suez Canal to Stollenwörth-Weiher, a little lake in the south that boasts two beaches.