Murder at the Schiller Grammar School E-Book

Irvin Schuller

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 380

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

In a German town the headmaster of a grammar school is found murdered. Suspicion falls on the teacher Alexander Strasser, who has been in conflict with the headmaster for some time. Strasser was still at school late on the evening of the murder. He cannot provide an alibi because he was involved in a theft at the headmaster's office that evening, which he wants to cover up. Did he also kill the headmaster, perhaps in a fit of panic? He claims to be innocent, but to avoid arrest he flees to Spain. His friend Winfried is convinced of his innocence and gets him false papers. However, when Winfried reads his friend's diary and learns that he suffers from traumatic childhood violence, he begins to have doubts. The suspicion arises that Alex is haunted by fantasies of violence and dominated by a hatred of authoritarian father figures. Do early childhood memories of violence have such a grip on him that he murdered his director? The diaries make this seem increasingly likely. A love affair with a woman who is obviously taking advantage of him, and who may be the mastermind behind the murder, adds further complications to the course of events. Dramatic encounters with the police, an exchange of gunfire and another violent death force the teacher to continue his seemingly hopeless escape. A thrilling crime novel that also takes a critical look behind the scenes of German schools and teachers' rooms. The author himself taught at a grammar school. His caustic criticism of the school system with its often inadequate conditions is therefore no coincidence. The theme of friendship runs through the novel as a positive counter-moment, which will fascinate readers of all ages, regardless of whether they may remember their own school days or not.

Leseprobe

Translated from the German

“Mord am Schiller-Gymnasium”

For my friend Friedemann,

who was taken from life all too soon

in a tragic traffic accident,

and whose own experiences

inspired me in part to write this novel.

This novel narrates dramatic events and actions, some of which take place at a grammar school in the town of Lundenburg in the south of Germany. The name ‘Schiller Grammar School’ does not refer to any existing school. Places as well as persons, actions and facts described in the novel are fictitious. In some places there may be circumstances similar to those in the novel. However, any similarities with real persons or events would be unintentional and purely coincidental.

Contents:

Working Late

Alert

A Visit from the Police

An Interview

So Many Questions

A Staff Meeting

Monika’s Statement

Press Conference

The Beer Garden

A Call for Help

A Crisis

Travel Plans

The Commissioner Takes Stock

Panic

The Diaries

A Search Warrant

Conversation among Teachers

Insights

Another Visit

Increasing Suspicions

Evidence and Assumptions

The Father

Plotting Revenge

An Abyss

Accomplices

The Last Resort

A Love Letter

An Innocent Lady

A Pleasant Encounter

Susanne Is Shocked

An Alibi

Frightening Revelations

The Samaritan Woman

A Farewell

Shadowing

The Reunion

Difficult Decisions

In the Mountains

Speaking Frankly

Bad News

A Sad Winner

An Unexpected Turn

Between Fear and Hope

1 Working Late

A sultry midsummer evening descended like a great shroud over the city centre of Lundenburg. Despite the onset of dusk, it still felt like a sauna. Around the school all the tables in the street bars and coffee shops were full. It was the end of the day and people were looking for ways to cool down with drinks and ice-cream.

Despite the heat, there was loud laughter and a babble of voices everywhere, especially from schoolchildren and students who were looking forward to the upcoming summer vacation. The city traffic slowly and steadily pushed past the school. Again and again the line of cars stopped at the zebra crossing in front of the building. One might have thought that today, with this record heat, all of Lundenburg wanted to go downtown.

The huge school with its small bell tower, which gave it a touch of ecclesiastical dignity, lay quite deserted in the middle of the bustling city centre. The janitor of the Schiller Grammar School, Mr Maier, stood casually in front of the building in sloppy work clothes, smoking a cigarette, his eyes gliding over the facade. On the first floor you could still see light through two windows.

The boss is working overtime again, he thought, and just before nine in the evening! “Well if he enjoys it, why not,” he murmured and went on. He took a leisurely stroll around the schoolhouse. Next to him on a leash, his pit bull terrier, which he had acquired some months previously in order to feel more secure during night inspections of the premises. He had recently been threatened by three shady characters whom he had surprised conducting a drug deal in the car park. The whole area was considered unsafe in the evening. The train station was only a five-minute walk away and drug dealers and petty criminals loitered after dark. But the area was also under surveillance by the police, who regularly patrolled from around ten o’clock in the evening. Mr Maier checked the main entrance door. It was locked. He went on satisfied. He then lit another cigarette and strolled comfortably across the extensive grounds with its sports facilities and large play areas. It was turning dark.

Headmaster Lochberger was sitting at his desk on the first floor. He stared at his notebook, now and then typing on the keyboard, and looking at his Excel charts. His slim and sportsmanlike figure straightened up occasionally when he went to his office cupboard to take out a folder. With his grey suit, light blue tie and well-groomed grey hair, the sixty-year-old might have been mistaken for an insurance salesman.

His office consisted of two rooms A large anteroom with two workstations for the secretaries and his actual office, with a seating area for meetings and his personal workplace with a desk and cupboards. A connecting door led directly to the copy room, which was also used by the teachers to prepare lessons. However, this door could only be opened from the headmaster’s office . The boss did not like to be disturbed.

There was no one else in the brightly lit office but from the copying room one still heard the humming and rumbling of the machine. Lochberger noticed this, but paid no further attention. Teachers often stayed there until late at night producing teaching material.

He looked at the wall clock. It was already five to nine. He had promised his wife earlier that he would be home around half past nine. He would have to call her again and tell her he might be a little late. Next week there was a teacher’s conference and he had a lot of documents to prepare. An urgent need forced him to pause briefly. He got up, left the office, and walked down the long corridor to where the teacher’s toilets were, about a hundred meters away down on a lower floor.

As he hurried back after a few minutes, the door of the copy room was just opening and Mr Strasser, one of the Spanish teachers, came out with a stack of copies. Behind him came Mr Baum, a friend of Strasser’s and a teacher of German. Both were accompanied by Mr Pobler, the longest-serving colleague and also a philologist. The headmaster was a little annoyed to see them at that time because they were not people he enjoyed meeting, especially as they repeatedly had expressed a clear opposition to him, instead of sharing his informed and well-considered opinions.

“Well, what’s going on here this evening. What are you still doing in the house,” he asked the men in a somewhat gruff tone.

“I still had to make a few copies for the project next week,” replied Strasser. Baum followed up. “We work hard and are not afraid of a night shift, Mr Lochberger. And why are you on duty so late?”

“Well, our headmaster works day and night. That is an old Prussian virtue, dear colleagues,” Pobler said cheerfully and ironically.

Lochberger stopped and looked at the group sceptically.

“Next week is our conference, there is still a lot to do. But you could have done your tasks earlier. At this time nobody should be in the building, we decided that at the last general conference. If you don’t remember then read the minutes from time to time. I wish you a pleasant evening!” said the headmaster angrily and disappeared into his rooms

“The same to you,” Pobler called after him. “And don’t work so hard, it’s not good for you!”

Pobler laughed out loud. “Our Lochi doesn’t get enough of his Excel spreadsheets. At some point he’ll get a heart attack because of overwork. What about you, are you going for a beer?”, he asked Strasser.

“I can’t, unfortunately. I’m going on a date right now.”

“Oh, the man is now plunging into the nightlife,” Pobler teased. “You could introduce her to us. We also want to see a beautiful woman once in a while. What do you think, Franz?”

“Yes, definitely, it is your duty as a good colleague not to keep your conquests a secret.”

“Okay next time, I promise, but unfortunately it won’t work tonight, please understand. I have to go. See you tomorrow!”

Strasser ran down the stairs. His colleagues followed him at a leisurely pace, their conversation echoing through the stairwell for a while.

Lochberger had stepped to the window in his office and was peering out into the school forecourt. In front of the building four students were playing football. Maier, the janitor, stood smoking next to the dishevelled figure of a drunk man who spoke loudly to him with a wine bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

My goodness, Lochberger thought. Rabble and incompetent people everywhere. Strasser, Baum and Pobler, who should have been dismissed long ago had it been up to him, along with that lazy janitor. But unfortunately he was the head of a state school and not the boss of a private company. And these state officials and employees, it was practically impossible to dismiss them. At best they could be scared away, which sometimes was successfully achieved, so that the teachers in question voluntarily applied for another school and then eventually left. He had succeeded in this a few times but unfortunately these three men, who formed a permanent nest of resistance against him, had stayed on. Fortunately Pobler and Strasser’s terms had now expired. They would soon both retire and so the problem had largely resolved itself.

But what are these disagreeable people doing here in the building at this time, he wondered suspiciously. They have all day to make their copies! He hurried back to his desk to continue working. His screen asked for the password and he entered it but only a blue screen appeared saying, ‘A virus was found, the system is restarting and checking for viruses’.

Strange, he thought. Where could a virus have come from. After all, they had the best virus scanners on the market at his school! Lochberger was alarmed. He was pressed for time and wanted to finish some presentation slides that night.

He waited impatiently to continue working. The computer had now restarted but instead of the usual start screen there was another warning message from the virus scanner.

‘Virus found on drive E:’, the program reported and immediately issued the name of the malware: ‘Tequila’.

“For God’s sake,” Lochberger muttered to himself. That was the last thing he needed now, he hadn’t had an incident like this in years.

Lochberger was a mathematician and computer scientist so the whole thing didn’t seem to be an insoluble problem. The scanner had identified the virus and would now destroy or block it and he could continue to work.

When he displayed the contents of his SD card with the file explorer, however, he got a real fright. All the data was unrecognizable. There was only a mishmash of confused characters, everything was practically illegible. He opened a file as a test and the same picture also appeared there. The contents were illegible. All he could see was a wild jumble of characters of all kinds.

The malware had obviously changed all of his files.

Now the headmaster realized that he wouldn’t be able to get anything done that night. This sudden incident was completely puzzling. But the school had provided for such cases. There was a maintenance contract with a private service provider for data processing. Mr Alumno would have to do a night shift to restore his data. He was about to pick up the phone when it started ringing. It was his wife calling to ask him when he was going to come home.

“I’m leaving straight away, Monika, but it will take a few more minutes. There is a little problem that I still have to solve, but I’ll be right there.”

Then he called the number of the specialist and the answer came from Mr Becker, an Alumno employee.

“Good evening, Lochberger here, I know it’s after nine o’clock. I’m sorry to have to disturb you at this hour but it’s an emergency. Can I speak to Mr Alumno?”

The speaker on the other end of the line explained that his boss was not there at the moment but he himself could probably help. He asked about the nature of the problem.

Lochberger briefly described the situation and that he could not continue his work because of a sudden virus alarm. He was puzzled because everything had been perfectly normal before his toilet break. Becker assured him that the problem could be solved. Mr Alumno would later analyse the situation remotely. The virus search would then be carried out thoroughly with several scanners, which would guarantee that nothing would remain. However, there was one drawback. The steps taken since the last automatic backup at eight o’clock may have been lost.

“I can manage without the work of the last hour if necessary, but it would be nice if everything else could be restored,” Lochberger said.

Mr Becker’s voice sounded confident, saying that the matter would be dealt with quickly and if necessary Alumno would work until tomorrow morning. He himself would only be in the office until Alumno returned but he expected him to be back at any moment.

“You are my saviour, Mr Becker,” said the headmaster. “I have some urgent things to do. Next week we have the teachers’ conference and I absolutely have to finish some documents.”

Mr Becker said the whole thing wouldn’t be a problem and the headmaster should now think about the end of the day instead of worrying.

“I know. My wife is waiting, she called me earlier. So I will be back at school tomorrow around eight if you have any information for me. Thank you for your help. I hope you succeed in finding a solution.”

Mr Becker said goodbye with the assurance that everything would be fine the next day. Lochberger switched off his phone and took a deep breath. Thank goodness there was this maintenance contract with Alumno Data Technology. He had already needed it a couple of times for difficult cases and although he was very familiar with computers and was also an experienced programmer there were always situations where he could not do without some external support.

This incident was mysterious and unique. He had never lost data on an SD card before. He always bought high quality cards and exchanged them regularly for safety’s sake. He now checked the data on his hard disk with the scanner and could not find anything conspicuous. So the virus had only attacked his data card? This contradicted all his experiences. He thought hard. How could a virus possibly access his SD-card? On his school system? Hardly. Everything was protected by state-of-the-art security. So, on another computer? But he hadn’t used his card on another computer! Everything was just fine before he went to the toilet. Wait a minute! Strasser, Baum and Pobler were just here making photocopies next door. Did they have anything to do with it? A suspicion arose in him and he got up and went to the connecting door to the copy room. He pushed against it, and lo and behold, the door opened. So someone had tampered with the lock and the connection between the copy room and the headmaster’s office had been open all the time.

It now seemed clear to him that the virus attack on his data card was no accident. Obviously, these teachers had caused this. Probably to annoy him. So out of sheer badness or simply a prank because hardly anyone could get any other benefit from it. The card contained his business letters and documents, diagrams and evaluations, as well as the source code of his latest software modules.

So the destruction of his data was a mere act of harassment and an attack on his professional success, on his triumph at the next general teachers’ conference, an attack on his beloved school reform project ‘Schiller FIX – fantastic – innovative – excellent’.

Only someone who hated him and wanted to harm him could do something like that and the only people who could be considered as the authors of this deed were Strasser, Baum and of course Pobler, with all of whom he had had angry confrontations several times over the past few years for various reasons. He raged and snorted angrily, then finally shouted, “These stupid idiots. But wait, I’ll get them.” Lochberger sat down at his secretary’s desk, booted up the computer and wrote an email to his deputy, Manfred Degen.

Hello Manfred, short information about EDP. I became the victim of an attack tonight, my notebook was contaminated by viruses. I was briefly out of my office around nine o’clock and when I came back five minutes later Strasser, Baum and Pobler had just come out of the copy room. Allegedly they had made some photocopies.

Back at my desk I wanted to continue my work but my computer reported a virus and my data was all gone, my SD card is a mess. I suspect that these colleagues have infected my notebook. Apparently they had tampered with the lock and my office was accessible from the outside all the time, so they could enter when I briefly went to the bathroom.

I have already called Alumno. They will take care of my computer by remote maintenance tonight and eliminate the viruses. If you see the colleagues mentioned, give them a good talking to! See you tomorrow, Reinhard.

At 9:25 pm Lochberger packed his briefcase to finally drive home. His wife would be waiting for him. When he had all his things packed, he left the notebook switched on on the desk, including the data card, so allowing the technician to have access. After turning off the light, he left the office and closed the door behind him.

The stairwell was still illuminated. He was surprised that the janitor had not yet shown up as normally the building was empty from 9 pm and the light should have been switched off. You have to have a serious word with the man again, he thought angrily. He must be dismissed, he doesn’t follow instructions and is constantly missing and he also seems to be drinking. In a bad mood he walked down the stairs. The evening had gone differently than planned. All that remained was to hope that everything would work again the next day.

He unlocked the back door and carefully opened it. His silver-grey Audi was parked outside. Nobody else was in the car park, which was dimly lit by the street lamps. It was good to be careful around here at night. Drug dealers and their customers were often hanging around. He flicked the switch and the light in the stairwell went out. He was about to go out of the door when he heard a sound behind him. Just then he felt a hard blow to the head and everything went black and silent.

2 Alert

Alex arrived at his temporary home around eleven o’clock that night. He had been living with Ulla for a few days after he had closed his own flat in Lundenburg because of his imminent move to Bavaria. After all, he would be a pensioner from next month and wanted to spend his retirement in the old farmhouse he had bought in Dor-flingen. Ulla had been sceptical at first and had described the idea of living in a village in the country as “stupid”. However, after seeing the house with her own eyes, she soon gave up her resistance and said that she could now imagine moving to it the following year when she retired.

His partner was asleep when he went to bed. He was very excited and happy about the successful action against Lochberger. And of course glad about the money. That night he slept restlessly and woke up at around half past five, quite exhausted. He tried to get back to sleep but knew that Ulla would get up around 6 am to get ready for work, which kept him awake. Just before six the alarm clock rang and his partner got up and shuffled into the bathroom. He pretended to be asleep because the last thing he needed now was a conversation about his late arrival. He managed to fall asleep again when the phone suddenly rang in the hallway. He heard Ulla pick it up and answer.

“Yes, please wait, I’ll get him,” he heard her say. Who could want to speak to him so early in the morning? Ulla was already in the bedroom and said only very briefly, “Phone for you.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know, a woman. She didn’t give her name.”

Alexander went to the phone and picked up the receiver. “Strasser,” he said.

The voice of Monika Lochberger was heard on the other end of the line. He was startled. Thinking quickly he spoke aloud the name of one of his female colleagues.

“Oh good morning, Ms Zander. What is so important that you call me at six in the morning?”

Monika immediately recognized his little trick with which he wanted to hide her identity from his partner. She spoke softly, almost in a whisper.

“I have to speak to you very urgently, before school starts. Don’t ask questions now, you can tell your friend that you have to do morning supervision because a colleague is ill.”

“Oh,” he said, “good of you to remind me, I would have forgotten that. The early supervision. Yes, the plan was changed yesterday afternoon. I did not see that, thanks for letting me know.”

“You are doing very well,” said Monika. “Please come to the swimming pool at exactly seven o’clock. I will be in the parking lot behind the building. It’s a blue VW Golf. Then we can talk.”

“Okay, all right, Ms Zander, thanks for the info. I’ll have to get ready quickly. I wouldn’t have had any lessons until the second period. See you later. Bye Ms Zander.”

Alex hung up and went to the bedroom to get dressed. His girlfriend followed him and stood at the open door with her right hand on her hip.

“Why did that woman call you at six in the morning?”

“You heard it, there was a change in the substitution plan and I have early supervision and have to be at school by seven. I’m glad she called me, otherwise I would have got into trouble with the boss again.”

“Was this Ms Zander also at your booze up yesterday?”

“No, she wasn’t. I was having a drink with three English teachers who are visiting our school. Don’t be so suspicious, that’s terrible.”

“If you always told the truth, I wouldn’t have to be suspicious. But I don’t have time for long discussions, I have to go to the office. Will I see you tonight?”

“Of course. I’ll be there after six o’clock. We could actually go to the beer garden. It is forecast to be warm and dry.”

“We’ll see. We can decide that tonight.”

Ulla left the apartment at six forty-five and headed for work. Five minutes later, Alex closed the apartment door behind him and drove the three kilometres to the indoor pool. Behind the baths he saw the blue Golf with the final digits 33 on the license plate. The parking lot was quite empty at this time and there was little chance that anyone would recognize him. He parked next to Monika’s vehicle and got out. At the same time she opened the passenger door and he sat next to her, leaned over and hugged and kissed her passionately.

“Monika, you scared the hell out of me this morning. Now I’m curious to see what news you have. Has your husband noticed anything about the theft?”

She fixed him firmly in her stare and tried to register every expression on his face.

“I would now first like to hear from you what exactly happened last night.”

Alexander looked at her in astonishment.

“Well, I can tell you that quickly. I was in the copy room from 8 pm and had prepared the connecting door to your husband’s office so that it wasn’t really closed. I was then able to go from the copy room to your husband’s office unnoticed. Then I waited for him to leave his office. I hoped he would go to the bathroom. That was finally the case around nine o’clock. I took my prepared SD card, quickly went to his notebook, exchanged the data cards and disappeared back into the copy room. It didn’t take thirty seconds.”

“Splendid, you did a great job,” said Monika, smiling at him tenderly and giving him a passionate kiss.

Alex continued. “Then suddenly my colleague Baum came into the copy room. I was a little scared. But he didn’t notice anything, he wanted to make some copies. We then came out of the room together, and our colleague Pobler was standing in front of it. At that moment your husband came back from the bathroom. There was a brief exchange of words and then he was back at his door and disappeared into his office. The two colleagues wanted to invite me for a beer but I refused, mentioning that I had a date. I quickly left the school building, the two colleagues were following slowly. I got into my car, drove three hundred metres to the Matterstrasse intersection and parked the car. Then I called you and waited for Daniel, but he was late. It was after ten o’clock when he got to me.”

Monika listened carefully and watched him closely.

“Well, everything went really well. But something else, you haven’t read a newspaper or heard the news this morning?”

“No, I usually read the paper at breakfast, and that was cancelled today because I had a conspiratorial meeting with Ms Zander.” He grinned. “Did your husband have any suspicions about me?”

Monika looked at him with a relaxed expression. “My husband didn’t say anything and he won’t say anything either.”

Alex grimaced. “What do you mean by that?”

“My husband is dead,” said Monika, staring at Alex sharply.

Alexander didn’t seem to understand.

“What do you mean, dead?”

Monika smiled coldly now and couldn’t hide a certain satisfaction.

“He’s dead and you don’t seem to know about it. Then I’m glad I didn’t fall in love with a murderer.”

Alex seemed completely unimpressed on the outside, but enjoyed Monika’s admission of love very much and kissed her.

“Please don’t tell me ghost stories early in the morning. I still don’t know what you mean?”

“My husband was murdered last night.”

Now incredulous astonishment was expressing itself on his face.

“What, that’s not possible!”

“It’s true. But maybe it’s better that way.”

She paused, put her right hand on his left and looked at him tenderly.

“That’s terrible, of course. How did it happen?”

“I don’t know, but when my husband didn’t come home, I got restless and at about eleven I went to the school to get him. Then I found him lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Someone had beaten him to death.”

“That’s horrible. I don’t know what to say. Who could have done such a thing?”

“I don’t know, I’m completely at a loss. But I’m glad that you have nothing to do with it.”

“But I ask you, do you seriously think I could have done that?”

“No, of course not. I know that you are a kind and sweet guy.” There was a pause, they hugged each other.

“My condolences,” said Alex after a while.

“Thank you,” Monika continued in a different tone from which a trace of fear could be heard.

“But there is a problem now. You seem to be one of the last to have been inside the school with my husband until late at night. In principle, you are under suspicion. You will be questioned by the police. You must have an alibi.”

She looked worried and distant at the same time.

“Of course, we cannot say that you spent the evening with Daniel, because that would raise questions, and he is known to be one of Messerschmidt’s employees, so there must be no connection. Can you get an alibi somewhere, Alex?”

He thought for a moment.

“Maybe Ulla. However, we are currently experiencing certain tensions and she distrusts me and fears that I am cheating on her.”

“Try to talk to her and make peace. A watertight alibi is vital for your survival. Otherwise there could be in serious trouble. The police won’t hesitate if there is a suspicion of murder,” said Monika.

Alex looked at her in dismay, and at that moment he realized that he had a real problem and had to solve it alone.

“How can I best reach you if necessary?”

“Definitely not over the phone. My connections and conversations may be monitored because the police will suspect me. After all, I inherit everything. You can send me a letter, if absolutely necessary, but no emails, OK?”

“OK. I hope everything works out.”

“I hope so, too. The police department will interrogate me soon. After all, I will benefit from the death of my husband.” She leaned over to Alex, pulled his head towards her and kissed him long and passionately.

“Give it time and then nothing stands in the way of our future.”

They tenderly said goodbye to repeated vows of love and then parted. Alex was stunned as he watched her drive out of the parking lot.

3 A Visit from the Police

I was just getting out of the shower when the doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting anyone. It was just before 8 am. Maybe it was one of the neighbours? I came out of the bathroom and went to the house intercom.

“Hello, who is it?” A deep male voice answered.

“Police sergeant Schmidt. Are you Mr Alumno?”

I winced and said, “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Could we speak to you for a moment?”

I couldn’t suppress the distinct anger in my voice. “I just got out of the shower and I’m in a bathrobe. It really is a very inappropriate moment. What is it all about? Couldn’t you have phoned me first?”

“We called you earlier but you didn’t answer,” said the policeman.

I had indeed always activated the answering machine overnight and this morning I forgot to switch to normal mode.

“We have a few questions for you. It’s pretty urgent, but if you can’t manage at the moment, you are welcome to come to police headquarters later.”

I thought for a moment. In the late morning I wanted to keep the appointment at the Schiller Grammar School, but I could probably arrange it beforehand.

“Well, I could come in about an hour. Who should I contact and where exactly?”

“You know our headquarters at 22 Friedrich Engel Street?”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

“Good, then report to Commissioner Sauer there, room 212.”

“Okay,” I said. “But tell me, is it maybe about the red light that I ran recently?”

“No,” said the voice on the other end. “It is a crime and you will only be interviewed.”

“And in what matter?”

“I can’t explain that to you right now. I ask for your understanding.”

“Well, see you later.”

I hung up and went back to the bathroom. Police visit at eight in the morning! You can’t even take a shower in peace, I thought. What do they want from me? A testimony? A crime? I haven’t seen anything, I haven’t heard anything! Give me a break! On top of that, it was embarrassing that the police were standing in front of the house. Probably the other residents saw them. And then there would be gossiping and grinning again.

I opened the bathroom window and in fact there was a patrol car down there. The policeman in uniform was just getting into the vehicle. Such a stupid story. That will give them something to talk about. My good reputation is extremely important to me. I’m a freelancer, my reputation is the basis for my livelihood and I might be ruined if even a slight suspicion were to fall on me as a result of such a silly incident.

A crime? Probably a misunderstanding or a mix-up. Annoyed, I finished washing and got dressed because I wanted to get the police visit over with as quickly as possible and then visit Mr Lochberger at his school.

Yesterday evening, after Lochberger’s telephone conversation with Becker, I had carried out remote maintenance on his computers and had actually found a virus on his SD card. An old virus that had appeared twenty years ago and destroyed files of all kinds. How this had happened was beyond me. Actually, the infection was only possible by using the data card in another infected computer. In fact, only the data on the SD data card of the headmaster was affected. Neither on his hard disk nor in other areas of the entire school network were any pests found. This indicated that my hypothesis was correct. Lochberger had probably put his card into another computer at home or elsewhere and caught the virus there. I was able to restore most of his data and play it back on the data card. So the headmaster’s notebook was okay again.

I got dressed, made myself a coffee, and tried to get rid of my bad mood. Police visit before breakfast! One was spared nothing!

I have nothing against the police, especially not against the German police. They work correctly and you know that there are laws in this country that protect you from arbitrary actions. As a former immigrant, I particularly appreciate that. In Argentina, where I was born, there had been terrible conditions under the military dictatorship a few decades ago, similar to what happened in the Third Reich in Germany. At that time policemen came to the front door at four in the morning and picked people up for an interrogation, a ‘testimony’, and often these people never came back. They disappeared without a trace and were often murdered.

Thankfully, my mother left Argentina with me before the military dictatorship came to power. We arrived in Berlin in 1955, when I was just three years old. I never got to know my father, my mother was a single parent.

When my mother met Helmut, a Berlin entrepreneur who wanted to marry her, in Buenos Aires in 1955, she accepted the offer and moved to Berlin. However, things did not work out.

The man was still married at the time, going through a divorce, but the matter dragged on and his wife tried to prevent it. For two years we lived with Helmut in his spacious villa and my mother was waiting for the divorce decree, which was repeatedly delayed. I didn’t care at the time. I couldn’t really understand it anyway. For me the new circumstances were pleasant and exciting. We had a large garden and there was a dog I loved to play with and the maid Carina spoiled me a lot. Helmut was obviously quite wealthy and in his Mercedes we would often drive to Lake Wannsee on weekends or go hiking in the area.

It was a great time and I learned German very quickly. Until I was three years old I had only heard and spoken Spanish. When we moved in with Helmut, he made the condition that only German was to be spoken at home.

“The boy has to learn German, otherwise he won’t get very far here. You can still teach him Spanish later on,” Helmut had said to my mother. That was indeed very far-sighted of him and a wise decision, although it quickly made me forget the few bits and pieces of my mother tongue, and my mother stuck to his guideline to only speak German to me. Unfortunately, she didn’t think about teaching me Spanish later on. It wasn’t until my studies that I started to deal with this language myself. My mother only mastered a few bits of German when she moved to Berlin and had to learn it with great difficulty, practically learning it with me at the same time.

The whole thing was actually a running joke in our family history. My mother’s mother was a German Jew and emigrated to Argentina in 1931 with her Spanish friend and later husband Joaquin, for fear of the Nazis, which she recognized very early on as a danger. My grandmother had to learn Spanish at the time, and when her daughter, my mother, was born in 1932, the only language spoken at home was Spanish, because my grandfather was a Spaniard and they lived in Argentina.

As a result, my mother grew up without any knowledge of German and the few words that she might have heard from her mother as a baby were quickly forgotten. In two successive generations, a child in our family has not learned the mother’s language, which is a strange thing.

After more than fifty years in Germany, my mother couldn’t speak German correctly. The only thing I could accuse her of was her lack of seriousness. She never really dealt with German grammar. She constantly made mistakes that would have been accepted from a beginner but which I found embarrassing for someone who had lived in the country for so long. But she was always a loving and good mother and I owe her a lot. So what do a few grammar mistakes mean. In Berlin, where people spoke a dialect, hardly anybody noticed it anyway.

Unfortunately, the wedding never happened, because Helmut was killed in a tragic traffic accident in 1958. It was a great shock and a hard blow for both of us. So my mother kept her maiden name Alumno, and that is the reason why today I still have this Spanish name although I’m a German citizen.

As a freelancer in Germany, I have often found that my name built up certain barriers. I would have had easier access to customers as ‘Emil Schulze’ or ‘Hans Schmidt’. When people hear ‘Winfried Alumno’ many people pause and then ask me where I’m from. My name triggers a certain suspicion and only when I cross this first threshold do people realize that I am an ordinary German citizen. Indeed my mother officially changed our nationalities in 1970.

My grandmother, who emigrated in 1931, was called Katharina Feigenbaum. I would have preferred the name Feigenbaum and it would have opened some doors more easily to me in my life in Germany than the somewhat exotic name Alumno. But I have come to terms with it and at my age I no longer have any ambitions to change much in my life.

My small company for computer networks has been going very well for years. I have no reason to complain. I am fine here and I often watch TV reports about Argentina with regret and a certain pain. It’s awful to see how this once rich country has been run down. So many people there are living in poverty and misery.

I cannot be grateful enough to my dear mother, who unfortunately died last year, for bringing us to Germany back then.

A glance at my watch interrupted my train of thought. It was time for me to prepare for the visit to the police headquarters. I slowly finished my coffee and got ready to go out.

4 An Interview

“Please do not put through any phone calls for the next sixty minutes,” Commissioner Sauer said to his secretary, who had just left his office. Opposite him sat Mr Degen, the deputy headmaster of the Schiller Grammar School in Lundenburg, a man in his mid-fifties, with a friendly face, broad-shouldered and strongly built.

“Nice that you could come so quickly,” Sauer began the conversation. “It’s really incredible what happened there.”

“Yes, we are all stunned, it’s terrible,” Degen replied.

“Do you have any initial suspicions? Was there any colleague who had special conflicts with the headmaster?” asked the inspector, frowning.

“No, we can’t figure it out at all. There was always a little friction among some colleagues but nothing out of the ordinary. In professional life there are always conflicts. It won’t be much different here with you, I suppose.”

“Yes, of course, although it seldom happens that people kill each other because of it.”

The commissioner grinned a little maliciously about his own joke.

“No, I cannot imagine that one of my colleagues could have done such a thing,” said Degen, defending the honour of his profession.

“Oh, you know, you can imagine a lot when you’ve been a policeman for thirty years. You don’t necessarily have to carry out a murder personally. There are enough people who do quite a lot for money.”

“Are you thinking of a contract killing? That sounds a bit too fantastic to me.”

“Well, at the moment I can only quote Socrates: I know that I know nothing”, he said with a grin and then continued. “We have to go according to plan if we want to get anywhere, and I need your help to do that.”

“I would like to assure you of that, Mr Sauer.”

“So let’s start with last night. How long were you at work yesterday?”

“I left around five o’clock.”

“And where were you at the time of the crime, between half past nine and half past ten?”

“Well, you will get to the point in a moment...”

“Every teacher is asked these questions, and I can make no exception for you.”

“Quite clear, Mr Sauer, I was home from eight o’clock, with my wife, and we had friends visiting us.”

The commissioner noted down each answer.

“Can you tell me the names of your visitors? We have to check all the details of our interrogations, it’s just routine.”

“Yes, I understand. Mr and Mrs Kiesberger came to visit us. They live in Lundenburg, Herzog Street.”

“Thank you, I have noted that down. Your boss was at school very late at night? Did that happen often?”

“Yes, indeed, but not quite as late as yesterday. He usually left between 7 pm and 8 pm.”

“Were there other colleagues in the school last night, and if so, until when?”

“I can’t really answer the question exactly, we never know who is in the building and who isn’t. Colleagues come and go when it suits them, I mean outside of class times.”

“So you don’t know whether Mr Lochberger was alone in the school building last night, shall we say from eight o’clock?”

“I only know that apparently three colleagues were in the copy room right next to the headmaster’s office until around nine. They must have been making photocopies.”

“I see, and how do you know that?”

“Mr Lochberger wrote me an email at about a quarter past nine in the evening, in which he claimed that he had been the victim of an attack and that his notebook was infected by viruses.”

The superintendent frowned and looked questioningly at Degen.

“Wait a minute, let me explain. The boss went briefly to the bathroom around nine o’clock. When he came back, the teachers Strasser, Baum and Pobler had just come out of the copy room and were obviously about to leave. Everyone said goodbye to the boss. When Mr Lochberger then wanted to continue working, his computer sounded an alarm because of a virus attack. The data on his SD card had been destroyed. He believes that the three teachers had infected his notebook during his absence.”

The inspector had listened intently and looked sceptical.

“It’s an interesting story but it sounds a bit odd. Do you think it’s even possible?”

Degen shook his head, obviously undecided.

“The whole thing sounds like a stupid childish prank but it would be possible. However, I don’t see how this incident could be connected to the murder.”

“I can’t see that at the moment, either. What can you tell me about these three colleagues? Did they have any conflicts with your boss? Just tell me what you can think of.”

“Well, there was a bit of trouble from time to time with them, that’s true, but I really wouldn’t classify them as potential murderers.”

“You shouldn’t do that at all, dear Mr Degen, you shouldn’t rate anything but help us to put this puzzle together. How have these colleagues been in their dealings with their boss, in your opinion?”

“Well, there were certain initial problems with Strasser. He started school relatively late, almost exactly fifteen years ago. Late means that he was already fifty years old and actually had no school experience.”

“How did that come about?” asked Sauer.

“After his state examination, I think that was at the beginning of the eighties, Mr Strasser did not get a teaching position and then started working elsewhere, in adult education.”

“And why was he suddenly accepted into the school service after that?” the detective asked.

“After the turn of the millennium, there was a significant shortage of Spanish teachers. Spanish had suddenly become fashionable among students and there was a demand that had not been foreseen. Strasser had studied Spanish, so he was hired out of this acute shortage of teachers.”

“And then, did he integrate well into the school?”

“Yes, at first things didn’t always go smoothly but those were actually minor things, of no great importance. Mr Strasser was rather reserved, but he got along well with the students.”

“And what about Baum and Pobler?”

“Well, Baum was a bit stubborn and had a couple of fights with the boss, but I can’t tell you more about it. And Pobler, as the longestserving colleague, has taken some liberties, including some insubordination, but it was all just talk. I can’t imagine that there is still potential for aggression for any acts of violence.”