Tretjak Read online

  The human brain is a decision-making machine. It continuously processes a huge amount of data, literally every second, to make decisions in a flash and for one purpose only: to secure survival.

  ‘A call? For me? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, no doubt about it. The caller said he had an important message for Gabriel Tretjak. He didn’t leave a name.’ He looked at the piece of paper in his hand. ‘“Winner in the fourth race, horse number six, Nu Pagadi.” That’s the message.’

  Even when crossing the street the human brain performs a massive achievement. It estimates the distance to the other side and calculates the time needed to cross, including stepping down and mounting the curb. It estimates the distance and the speed of the approaching car and calculates the time needed until it reaches the brain’s position, also considering the condition of the ground in the calculation and the two cyclists approaching from the right and then decides: to walk or not to walk? If only one of these calculations is incorrect it would mean the end and this particular human being’s brain would be splattered as grey matter all over the asphalt.

  In the New Oriental in Sri Lanka, Gabriel Tretjak decided, in this very moment, that this call did not signify any danger, that it must have been a mistake. Nobody knew where Tretjak was at this point in time. And he had never in his life attended a race.

  ‘Thank you,’ Tretjak said, waiting until the receptionist had left before taking up his pen again and leaning forwards to break the silence between himself and Schwarz.

  ‘Now listen carefully, Mr Schwarz,’ he began, ‘I know that you are planning to fly to Mumbai the day after tomorrow. There you want to close a cooperation deal between your company and a chip manufacturer.’ He paused for a second. ‘I also know that this deal involves a conspiracy in your own executive board. The cooperative deal will not happen and the supervisory board has already made up its mind that the failure will cost you your job as chief executive.’

  Across the table from Tretjak Schwarz looked at a complete loss. Three hours ago his life had been orderly, easily comprehensible, well-lit to the smallest corner – a good life on the horizon without any major problems. On 11 May he had taken a little boat ride, with a guide of course, upstream in a canoe all the way into the interior of the country. He had walked on a small island full of mango trees and had seen alligators on the riverbank. He had sent a text message to his daughter in London from the canoe. She had given him the stay at the New Oriental as his birthday present. She had stayed there on her way to a trip to Sri Lanka, and when she had heard that her father was going to India on business, she had decreed that this was the perfect opportunity for a mini-break. ‘Something else, Dad, not the usual fully-air-conditioned anonymous hotels. Something new, something just for you for a change.’ That evening he had returned to the hotel in high spirits.

  And now he was sitting across the table from a stranger who had just announced to him that his wife wanted to leave him – in fact, had already left him – and that he was about to lose his job. The company he worked for as the CEO manufactured cooling units. The deal with Union Carry concerned electronic conveyor chips, which would make the cooling units compatible worldwide. At least that was what his experts had told him and had backed up with a very impressive presentation. In the past there had been a board member who dealt with international cooperation deals like this one. In the course of some cost-saving and streamlining of operations, which had been extended to the executive level to make a point, that responsibility was now assigned to the CEO, who in turn had to rely on his experts. What did this Tretjak know about cooling units?

  ‘In my bag I have some files which will prove to you what I say is true,’ Tretjak explained. ‘Emails, minutes of meetings and telephone conversations, proof of secret conferences. I will leave them here for you to study carefully at your leisure later. Not an easy read. I am now going to propose a clear deal to you, Mr Schwarz.’

  Tretjak folded back the tablecloth, put the piece of paper on the hard surface of the wood and drew a line on it, from top to bottom, exactly in the middle. ‘On the left side of the paper, we will write down what you have to do,’ he said. ‘On the right side we will write what I have to do. Let’s start with your tasks.’

  Tretjak now spoke quite urgently, taking short pauses between sentences and never letting his opponent out of his sight. When he had finished explaining a part, he jotted down a few notes on the paper.

  ‘Your wife is from Heidelberg, and that is where she wants to return to. You are going to open a little bookshop for her there, with an esoteric focus. This shop is probably never going to be economically viable, but you are going to support your wife and make sure she has a modest income. That and a small flat in the centre of town, two rooms and a balcony, that is all she wants. You will also talk to your daughter and tell her that her parents are splitting up, but that everything is OK, and that there was no bad blood. Her lawyers are going to draft the divorce papers and you are going to write your wife a letter. In it you will assure her that you are not angry, not even because of the method she chose to make her decision known to you. You will write to her that she has a friend for life in you. You will sell the two horses in Potsdam, but find them a good home where your wife can visit them; you know how attached she is to the animals. You will talk to Melanie’s parents and you will speak to your own parents. You will start now with the preparations for a family Christmas. Maybe in the beautiful country house at the Schaalsee your wife loves so much. Everybody will come and celebrate Christmas there together and everybody will get along. Call me if you think there are any problems with any of those tasks which I haven’t anticipated.’

  The left side of the paper was now full of notes, carefully written on straight lines with little dashes at the beginning. Tretjak again leant down and took out of his briefcase a dark, brown file held together by a leather string and placed it on the table. ‘Those are the papers I spoke about to you,’ he said and again picked up his pen.

  ‘My part of the agreement: I will save your job. I will make sure that your two opponents on the board will leave the company. That the advisory board reunites behind you. All this, of course, will work only if you do exactly as I tell you.’

  He wrote on the right side of the paper: eliminate enemies. And below that, new dash: turn Board of Directors. And then he added a third dash below: double annual bonus.

  ‘You should have a little more money in your account at the end. Not least because you will have to pay me.’

  Tretjak was sitting in the back of the Peugeot, on his way back to Colombo. In the dark the trip was even more nerve-wracking, but the diminutive, silent driver gave the impression that he knew what he was doing. It was just before midnight, and he calculated the time difference with Europe: there it was only afternoon. He picked up his phone and dialled the number of a hotel on the Parhijuese Atlantic Coast near Sintra. It was called Palacia de Seteais and was a little castle which had been turned into a hotel, beautifully placed on a hill in the middle of ancient trees with a view of the sea. Melanie Schwarz was not in her room, so he left her a message: Made good progress on the way towards your bookshop. T.

  Later on, in the plane, LH2017, first class, first row, he thought back to this Peter Schwarz fellow, who by now must have read the papers. He kind of liked the guy, even if one of his working principles was not to think in these categories. ‘You once were an excellent squash player, Mr Schwarz,’ he had said at the end of their conversation. ‘You know, in other words, that you have to capture the centre of the court, and should not let go of it again.’

  There was only one sensible way to manipulate a person in the future: go back to the past. Tretjak had learned this from a CIA psychologist. ‘If you fly to Mumbai tomorrow you are definitely leaving the centre of the court, in fact you would be moving to the furthest-most corner,’ he had told Schwarz. ‘You shouldn’t do that, if everything is supposed to go according to our plan. You have to return to your headqu
arters tomorrow...’

  Tretjak turned down the meal, only drinking a glass of water, placed the back of his seat in a horizontal position and fell asleep with the reassuring feeling that things were developing just the way he had planned them.

  When he unlocked his flat’s door in Munich, the next morning (local time), he noticed a small change. The pile of read newspapers on the floor in the hallway was still there. That meant that his cleaning lady, the reliable and faithful Frau Lanner, had not shown up. But there could be a thousand different reasons for that. Tretjak did not pay any attention to this small change in his daily routine.

  A8 Motorway, Berlin–Munich, 6pm

  Max Krug had been on the road for almost eight hours. He had driven exactly 611 kilometres in his black horse-box – Krug had bought himself the most modern one of all – a twin-cabin with electronically secured doors and inside walls which could be moved remotely at the touch of a button. To the left of the steering wheel there was a small monitor, on which he could observe what was going on inside the transporter. He had installed the highly sensitive webcam himself. It was a brand of high security transporter and that was precisely what Krug wanted; after all he was ferrying around a golden treasure. The best racing horse in the whole of Europe, just four-years-old. What a future lay ahead of this horse. Nu Pagadi was its name, a Russian saying roughly translated as ‘Just you wait.’ Krug had come up with the name himself.

  Many moons ago, as a soldier of the East German Volksarmee he had studied at the Military Academy in Leningrad. Even back then, he had loved to hear these words, a phrase uttered in a slightly mocking way: ‘Nu pagadi.’

  The horse had already won almost half a million euros for Krug. He was too superstitious to think about what money was still to come. Anything could happen to a horse. And that’s why he had insured it well, just in case, and invested over 100,000 euros in this transporter.

  Nu Pagadi always travelled alone; the left-hand box remained empty on the trips. The camera was focused only on the right-hand box. This is why Krug did not see the thick grey blanket which had been lying on the floor of the left box since the last service station stop and which was covering up something big, which wasn’t moving.

  About 20 kilometres down the road, Krug noticed for the first time that Nu Pagadi was getting nervous, unsettled. He snorted, scraped the floor with his hoofs and danced around. Krug was getting nervous as well, as Nu Pagadi was normally calm on these trips. Was the drive just too long this time? Or what was the matter?

  Krug was well aware of the stories about the little quirks of great racehorses while travelling. The French super stallion Ourasi would only into the horsebox if a little white goat entered the wagon before him. Others calmed down only when a certain other horse accompanied them; their best friend, so to speak. Was Nu Pagadi now also starting to display such airs and graces? Krug saw on the monitor that his horse was getting more fidgety by the minute. It become clear that he had to stop. There was a sign for the next rest area in 5 kilometres. Maybe Nu Pagadi was just hungry. Krug was well prepared for that eventuality. He had brought all his favourites: carrots, bananas and his sweet milk pudding.

  The exact location of the small restaurant where Max Krug turned off the motorway was 22.6 kilometres north of Munich city centre. He was going to consult a psychologist there, a trauma specialist, who was going to chase away the images of those few moments at the rest area which had been haunting him ever since and robbed him of all his sleep.

  After stopping, Krug got out, walked around to the back, entered the security code and the back door of the horsebox opened. He immediately saw the blanket, which did not belong there, which he had not put there. He was the only one who had access to the box. Krug lifted up the blanket and saw the man, brown suit, white shirt, no coat. The man was lying on his stomach; he did not move. A slim, bald man. ‘I don’t know the man,’ Krug immediately thought, ‘this is a stranger.’ Maybe one always thinks that when faced with a dead man. Dead men always look like strangers.

  Krug tried to feel a pulse. But there was no pulse, and then Krug made the mistake of turning over the body. There was only a tiny bit of blood, an insignificant amount. But something awful had happened to the face. Something horrible. Again and again Krug would repeat this scene to his therapist. Again and again he would have to relive this moment. That was the only way, according to the therapist, that these images would ever leave his brain.

  Everything else, everything that had happened at this rest area that night, was pretty much a blank in Krug’s mind. Obviously the police had arrived at one point. At another point a second horsebox had arrived, into which he had led Nu Pagadi. He must have left a sorry impression all around, he thought later, as he had explained to everybody how precious this horse was. And in the face of a dead body... Oh, yes, he could also remember the name of the police inspector who had taken his statement. He could not really recall what he looked like except for a noticeable scar on his cheek, but the name had stuck: Inspector Maler, August Maler; Maler had been the name of a famous racehorse, who had won the German Derby many moons ago. Krug told his therapist that he really hoped he had not blubbered that bit of trivia at the time as well.

  Nu Pagadi did not show any signs of post-traumatic stress. Krug had him checked, because you just never know. But everything was in order, physically as well as psychologically. Only two days after the horrible experience Nu Pagadi won his next race at Munich-Daglfing, convincing as usual. It was the fourth race of the evening. Krug’s therapist would later repeat the well-known saying that a seriously insensitive person was as unfeeling as a horse.

  Second Day

  12 May

  St-Anna-Platz, Munich, 2pm

  August Maler was wearing grey corduroy trousers, a beige shirt and his light, beige canvas jacket. Beige and grey, those were his colours, and no matter what clothes he bought they always ended up being grey or beige. His wife had bought him a red shirt for a change, but he did not wear it very often.

  St-Anna-Platz No. 9, that was the address of Gabriel Tretjak. On this warm afternoon August Maler afforded himself the luxury of sitting down for a few minutes on a green park bench just outside one of the churches, the big one, and opposite the other, the little one. August Maler had no special relationship with churches, but St-Anna-Platz was his favourite square in Munich. The two churches, the mighty chestnut trees, on the right the button shop, next to it the bakery run by the fat Turkish lady and her even fatter son. The school, the café, the gallery and the butcher. Maler often passed by the butcher and bought himself two sausage rolls. Not today though. This morning a cursory glance at the scales left him a little disillusioned.

  On the corner of St-Anna-Platz there was a restaurant, which once upon a time had been a rotisserie, then had been taken over by Italians and then became a café. Now it was an Italian restaurant again. But the real significance of the place lay in the fact that it had been the backdrop to a cult TV show called ‘Münchner Geschichten’, but that was a long time ago. August Maler had loved that show, and still did today: he owned all the episodes on DVD. A group of young people, specialists in the lightness of being, big dreams, no rules – that was roughly the plotline. Thinking about the dialogue from the TV show made August Maler smile: Charley, the main character, gets into a taxi. The driver asks: ‘Where to?’ ‘Anywhere,’ Charley answers. ‘Anywhere,’ the driver retorts, ‘that’s tricky.’

  Sitting on his bench August Maler thought again: one should live here, on the St-Anna-Platz, that would be a dream; but the Lehel district was one of the most expensive ones in expensive Munich. How would a policeman ever be able to afford that? But he also thought something else, and he surprised himself by that thought: if that guy with his horse had decided to pull in and stop 40 kilometres away, his colleagues from Ingolstadt would have had to deal with the gruesome murder. With the body in a horsebox. And a mobile phone. And he could stay seated on the bench, now lit by a beam of sunlight, which had co
me up behind the little church’s dome. Inspector August Maler, 51 years of age: had somebody grown a bit tired prematurely?

  *

  A few minutes later August Maler rang the doorbell. The response came quickly over the intercom: ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘My name is Maler, I am from the police. May I have a word?’

  Maler had become used to introducing himself as an ordinary policeman. The acronym CID always sounded so dramatic.

  Tretjak was standing in the doorway when Maler came up the stairs to the second floor. A good-looking fellow, dark, an almost southern European type. He was wearing jeans and a white shirt. And he was grinning. ‘What a day. Inland Revenue is already here. And now the police...’

  The inspector was led into a big room, a kind of kitchen-living room. He saw a stove, a big fridge, a bar and in front of that a black table on which lay a few files, one of them open. A young woman was sitting at the table, whom Tretjak introduced as a tax inspector from the Inland Revenue, Division Munich II: ‘Ms Neustadt is doing a complete investigation of my tax affairs. We are right in the middle of it, so to speak.’

  ‘Maler,’ he introduced himself, offering his hand to Ms Neustadt. Then he turned to Tretjak: ‘you must be tired. You had an exhausting flight, only landing this morning. How long is the trip from Colombo exactly?’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Tretjak asked.

  ‘That’s why I am here,’ Maler answered, ‘but I must speak to you in private.’

  ‘Understood,’ Ms Neustadt got up and gathered her things. ‘Then let’s draw a line here and continue where we left off the day after tomorrow as discussed. I’ll give you my card.’ She laughed and also gave her card to the inspector. ‘Who knows, maybe one day you’ll need the Inland Revenue.’

  After she had left, Tretjak put a bottle of mineral water and one glass on the table. ‘Well...?’