Page 22 of Anatomy of a Killer
‘Are you saying he then backs down because he thinks sexual abuse is a step too far? But murder isn’t?’
I shake my head. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Let’s just have a chat with Rainer Meller. Maybe we’ll be wiser after that.’
‘In three hundred metres you will have reached your destination,’ the satnav announces, at which Eva slows down and searches for a parking space. I examine her profile. She looks like her mother, a slimmer, almost bony Elke Harbert, without pink blouse and pearl necklace, but with a paler complexion, hair dyed dark, and chewed fingernails. I wonder what it must be like to take after someone you despise. When every morning you see that person in your own reflection. And I think this is the case. If Eva wasn’t pregnant and so didn’t leave home for fear of her parents’ reaction, it must have been Elke who drove her away. Elke and her obsession with cleanliness, her high demands, her plumped-up sofa cushions, her entire being which is nothing but a façade. I recall Eva once being grounded when we were in the sixth class because Elke thought she hadn’t revised enough for an English test. Grounded for a whole week because she got a C. I rarely came home with better marks than this at the time, and my father would merely shrug.
‘All school does is teach you to learn things by heart,’ he said. ‘What really counts is that you learn to think independently, to feel, to question things. Only then can you understand the world.’
I miss him so much.
‘Can I ask you something, Eva?’
‘Sure.’
‘Why did you come back? Now, after so much time, to your. . .’ I break off, out of politeness.
‘. . . parents, who you basically can’t stand?’ Eva finishes my sentence, laughs, then at once turns serious again. ‘Apart from the fact that I’d read about your father’s arrest in the paper, it would’ve been the first Christmas I’d have spent alone, after splitting up with Nico. The idea of it sort of gave me the creeps. It’s. . . you know, I haven’t been feeling great these past few weeks. I have bad dreams, I’m permanently tense and nervous, I just can’t relax anymore. I keep wondering whether it was right to have run off like that. Whether the path that seemed easier at the time turned out to be the harder one in the end.’ She turns to me and looks sad. ‘As for my parents, well, parents always try to do their best, but the best isn’t always good.’
I nod; I feel sorry for Eva.
‘How about you come along this time and we talk to Michelle’s ex-husband together? It’ll be like the old days. You and me. . .’
‘The best team,’ she says, finishing my sentence and smiling. ‘Why not?’
Apart from the colour– a dirty green– Rainer Meller’s block is scarcely different from the building in Hellersdorf where he used to live with Michelle. An ugly box offering no more than functional living space. Here there’s no playground, but a larger car park with tyre tracks snaking through the slush. For a public holiday it looks shockingly empty. This confirms my theory that people might live here, but they’re never really at home. After ringing several times without any luck, we’re about to turn back when a window opens on the third floor.
‘What?’ a man bleats down at us. It must be Rainer Meller, who even at a distance seems quite a bit older than Michelle. Either heisolder, or he looks worn out from the worry of the past few years.
‘Hello,’ I reply, waving. ‘Herr Meller? We’ve come from your ex-wife and we urgently need to talk to you. About’– I lower my voice because I think it’s inappropriate to shout her name out here– ‘Larissa.’ For a second or two his expression freezes, then he slams the window. Defeated, I look at Eva, who raises her eyebrows and turns around when we hear a buzz: Rainer Meller has opened the door.
‘Are you from the youth welfare office?’ he asks as soon as we’ve got to the third floor.
‘No,’ I say, surprised.
‘Police? Press?’ Clamped between his fingers is a cigarette he must have just lit.
I shake my head and am about to explain, but Eva gets there first: ‘We’re private investigators and we’ve got a few questions.’ I don’t know what to make of this lie at first, especially as it seems so ridiculous and blatant. But then I see the enthusiasm in Meller’s eyes and suspect that Eva has hit the right nerve to stir his readiness to talk.
‘I knew it! Come in, come in,’ he says excitedly, stepping aside for us.
Apart from the fact that the flat is very smoky, it’s almost excessively tidy. The shoes form a guard of honour in the hallway, the coats hang from hooks at absurdly regular intervals and the lino, although it squeaks with every step, is shiny and neutralises the stale smoke with a strong smell of beeswax. Meller has a grey crew cut and an olive-green shirt with a stiff collar, which makes him look more like an army general reject than a construction worker. As we go down the hallway, we pass an open door giving on to a children’s room. Michelle and Rainer Meller’s two sons are sitting at a computer with their backs to us; I hear shooting and swearing. Their father shuts the door and shows us into the sitting room.
I’m dumbstruck. The furniture– sofa, coffee table and sideboard with a television on it– has all been pushed into a tiny corner, while the rest of the room is set out like a private detective’s office from a cheap TV series. A computer monitor sits on a huge desk, beside it an opened bottle of schnapps. Stuck to the wall behind are countless newspaper articles and printouts of photos, some already slightly faded, as well as a spider’s web of connections made from woollen threads, which at first glance look unfathomable.
‘Shit,’ Eva mutters quietly.
I nod.
The photos are blurry, but they all seem to be of the same man from a distance in a variety of situations: getting out of a car, entering a house, mowing the lawn, pushing an old lady’s wheelchair, standing by a grave with his head bowed.
Meller doesn’t bother with any preamble. ‘Marcus Steinhausen, born 16 August 1971 in Beelitz.’ He smiles, revealing teeth yellowed from nicotine. ‘I knew one day someone would come help me convict him. I’ve tons of material about this wanker,’ he says, making an extravagant gesture at the wall. ‘And I also realised you wouldn’t come until most of the donkey work was done. That’s just what you cops are like, isn’t it? You keep your arses stuck to your office chairs for as long as you can, but the moment things start moving, you can’t wait to get in on the act. Just like the fucking papers. How often have I called up editors to tell them my latest discoveries? Either I’m told they’ll only work with reliable information from the police, or they keep me hanging on until the line eventually goes dead.’ He takes a nervous drag on his cigarette, then emits the smoke with a hoarse laugh. ‘Reliable information!All they care about is interviewing Saskia’s dad! These days that bloke can turn on the waterworks at will!’ Meller shakes his head in resignation, then his face at once brightens. ‘But I knew it!’
Eva and I exchange uncertain glances. We’re still flabbergasted by the set-up of this ludicrous detective agency and Meller’s chutzpa. Eva’s the first to snap out of it.
‘What did you know?’ she asks Meller, who’s looking at us expectantly.
‘Well, that poor bloke you’ve been dragging though the media these last few weeks is nothing but a fall guy, because you had to come up with someone to keep the public happy! But it wasn’t him. No, it wasn’t him and I knew that at once. One of those university eggheads! I’ve worked for blokes like that plenty of times. They can’t even tie their own fucking shoelaces without looking at a book to see how it’s done! And he’s supposed to be a killer? Bollocks!’ Now Meller shakes his head so vigorously that his whole body starts moving and the ash from his cigarette crumbles to the floor. He leaves the room as if slightly drunk, only to return immediately with a dustpan and brush.
Eva looks away when he bends down to clear up the ash, as if it’s something very intimate she doesn’t want to intrude on. ‘But, as I’m sure you also discovered, thereareleads that point to this man.’
