I looked around but nobody was following me, neither my counterfeit son nor a blue Mercedes. The woman who opened the door at Schuler’s house was his niece. She had been crying and again burst into tears the moment she began to speak. “He smelled and grouched and nagged. But he was such a good person, such a good person. Everyone knew it, and his students liked him and came to see him, and he helped them every way he could.”

She herself had been a student of his, as had her husband. They met when both happened to drop by one day to see Schuler.

We sat in the kitchen, which she had tidied up a little. She had made some tea and offered me a cup. “There’s no sugar. When it came to sugar, I managed to talk some sense into him. As for alcohol, he wouldn’t listen.” The thought of this brought more tears to her eyes. “He wasn’t long for this world, but that doesn’t make it any better. Do you know what I mean? It doesn’t make it any better.”

“What do the police say?”

“The police?”

I told her that her uncle’s accident had happened right outside my door. “I came to Schwetzingen right away to inform you, but the police were already here.”

“Yes, the precinct in Mannheim called our local station, and they came by. It was a coincidence that I happened to be here. I don’t come every day. He wants… I mean, he wanted…” Again she began to cry.

“Did the police say anything, or ask you anything?”

“No.”

“Your uncle was in a terrible state when he came to see me right before his accident. It was as if he’d suffered a shock, as if something had really frightened him.”

“Why did you let him drive?” She looked at me reproachfully through her tears.

“It all happened much too fast. Your uncle… He was here one minute, gone the next.”

“But surely you could have held him back, I mean you could have…” She pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “I’m sorry. I know how difficult he could be once he’d gotten something into his head. And here I am, practically accusing you. I didn’t mean to.” She looked at me sadly, but I reproached myself with everything she wasn’t reproaching me with. She was right: Why hadn’t I held him back? Why didn’t I at least try? This time it wasn’t only my emotions that had been too slow.

“I…” But I didn’t know what to say. I looked at her as she sat bent forward, her hands weakly clasping the handker-chief, her face warm, innocent. She hadn’t asked me who I was, but had simply taken me for a friend of her uncle’s, a companion in grief. I felt as if I’d not only let Schuler down, but her as well, and I sought absolution in her face. But I could find none. Without confession there is no absolution.

When Brigitte and I arrived at the retirement party the Nägelsbachs were throwing at their place in the Pfaffengrund settlement, Nägelsbach was already tipsy and morosely cheerful.

“Well, Herr Self? At first my colleagues didn’t want to hand your friend over to Forensics, but I had a word with them and they finally sent him over. Speaking of which, from now on you’ll have to make do on your own. I won’t be able to help you anymore.”

His wife took Brigitte and me aside. “His boss asked me what kind of present he might like,” she said. “I’m afraid he’s thinking of turning up here uninvited. If he does come, can you intercept him? I don’t want him suddenly coming face-to-face with my husband.”

She was wearing a long black gown-I couldn’t tell if it was for mourning at the end of her husband’s career, or because it was beautiful and suited her, or if she wanted to portray somebody: Virginia Woolf, Juliette Gréco, or Charlotte Corday on her way to the scaffold. She does things like that.

The guests were crowded into the dining area and living room, which were connected by an open sliding door. I greeted this and that police officer I recognized from the Heidelberg headquarters. Brigitte whispered to me: “Forensics? Did he just mention forensics? Do you have anything to do with forensics?”

Frau Nägelsbach brought us two glasses of apricot punch.

The doorbell kept ringing, and guests kept arriving. The hall door stood open and I heard a voice I recognized. “No, I’m not a guest. I’m with Herr Self and need to speak to him.” It was Karl-Heinz Ulbrich, wearing a beige anorak over a white nylon shirt and a flowery tie. He came straight over to me, took me by the arm, and steered me through the hall into the empty kitchen.

“It’s the Russians,” he whispered, as if they were standing right next to him and might overhear.

“Who?”

“The men in the bank and the blue Mercedes. Russians, or Chechens, or Georgians, or Azerbaijanis.” He looked at me meaningfully and expectantly.

“And?”

“You really don’t know?” he asked, shaking his head. “They’re not to be trifled with. The Russian Mafia’s nothing like what you’ve got here in the West-nothing like the Italians or Turks. The Russians are brutal.”

“You’re saying this as if you were proud.”

“You must take precautions. When they want something, they get it. Whatever’s in that attaché case, it’s not worth crossing them.”

Was he puffing himself up? Or was he one of them, whoever they might be? Were they the rough guys, while he was sent to soften me up, all in an attempt to get back the attaché case?

“What’s in the attaché case?” I asked him.

He stared at me despondently. “How are we to work together if you don’t trust me? Not to mention, how do you expect to get through this if we don’t work together?”

Brigitte came into the kitchen. “His boss has arrived, and Frau Nägelsbach…”

But it was already too late. We heard Nägelsbach greeting his boss with exaggerated civility. Would he like a glass of punch? Or perhaps two or three? Some situations are bearable only with alcohol. Some people, too.

Brigitte and I went into the living room, though Ulbrich still kept after me. As a good-bye present Nägelsbach’s boss had brought him a photograph of the Heidelberg police head quarters, as if it were the Grand Hotel, and he was doing his best to be pleasant, unaware of the emotions he was triggering. I started chatting with him about the police in different parts of the country and the secret services, and judging by the things he said, he knew a thing or two. I asked him about the Russian Mafia but he shrugged his shoulders. “Do you know what someone from RTL Television said to me the other day? All the private stations are scouring material for T V, but one thing you can’t offer the public is the Russian Mafia. Not because it doesn’t exist. The thing is, it has no class, no style, no tradition, no religion-none of the things one likes about the Italians. All the Russian Mafia has is brutality.” He shook his head in disappointment. “In this case, too, Communism has steamrolled over culture.”

By the time Brigitte and I headed back home, Ulbrich had disappeared. I hoped it was the headlights of his Fiesta that I saw in my rearview mirror. If not, they now knew about Brigitte.