3

Like getting a medal

It was only a few steps away. The restaurant is opposite Gate 1, in the shadow of the main administrative building, a twentyfloor banality that doesn’t even dominate the skyline.

The directors’ elevator only has push-buttons for floors fifteen to twenty. The general director’s office is on the twentieth floor, and my ears popped on the way up. In the outer office Korten entrusted me to Frau Schlemihl, who announced my arrival to Firner. A handshake, my hand clasped in both of his, an ‘old friend’ instead of ‘my dear Self ’ – then he was gone. Frau Schlemihl, Korten’s secretary since the fifties, has paid for his success with an unlived life, has faded elegantly, eats cakes, wears a pair of unused spectacles round her neck on a thin gold chain. She was busy. I stood at the window and looked out over the jumble of towers, sheds and pipes to the trading port and to a hazy Mannheim. I like industrial landscapes and would be hard pressed to choose between the romance of industry and the forest idyll.

Frau Schlemihl interrupted my idle musings. ‘Doctor Self, may I introduce you to our Frau Buchendorff? She runs Director Firner’s office.’

I turned around. There stood a tall, slim woman of about thirty. She wore her dark-blonde hair up, which lent her youthful face with its rounded cheeks and full lips an air of experienced competence. Her silk blouse was missing the top button, and the one below was open. Frau Schlemihl looked on disapprovingly.

‘Hello, Doctor.’ Frau Buchendorff reached out her hand and looked at me squarely with her green eyes.

I liked her gaze. Women only become beautiful when they look me in the eye. There’s promise in such looks, even if it’s a promise not kept, nor even proffered.

‘May I take you through to Director Firner?’ She preceded me through the door, with a pretty swing to her hips and bottom. Delightful that tight skirts are back in fashion.

Firner’s office was on the nineteenth floor. At the elevator I said to her, ‘Let’s take the stairs.’

‘You don’t look like my idea of a private detective.’

I’d heard this often enough. In the meantime I know how people imagine private detectives. Not only younger. ‘You should see me in my trench coat.’

‘I meant it in a positive way. The guy in the trench coat would have his work cut out for him with the dossier Firner’s going to give you.’

Firner, she’d said. Was she involved with him?

‘You know what it’s all about, then?’

‘I’m one of the suspects even. In the last quarter the computer paid five hundred marks too much into my account each month. And via my terminal I do have access to the system.’

‘Have you had to pay the money back?’

‘I’m not the only one. Fifty-seven colleagues are affected and the firm is considering whether to ask for it back.’

In her office she pressed the intercom. ‘Director, Herr Self is here.’

Firner had put on weight. The tie was now from Yves Saint-Laurent. His walk and movements were still nimble, and his handshake hadn’t grown any firmer. On his desk lay a bulging folder.

‘Greetings, Herr Self. It’s good that you’re taking this on. We thought it best to prepare a dossier with the details. By now we’re certain we’re dealing with targeted acts of sabotage. We have managed to limit the material damage thus far. But we have to reckon with new surprises at any time and can’t rely on any information.’

I looked at him enquiringly.

‘Let’s start with the rhesus monkeys. Our long-distance correspondence, unless it’s urgent, is saved in the word-processing system and the fax is sent out when the cheaper night rate applies. That’s how we deal with our Indian orders, for example, and every half-year our research department requires around one hundred rhesus monkeys with an export licence from the Indian Ministry for Trade. Two weeks ago, instead of a hundred, an order went out for a hundred thousand monkeys. Luckily the Indians thought this odd and double-checked with us.’

I imagined 100,000 rhesus monkeys at large in the plant, and grinned.

Firner gave a pained smile. ‘Yes, well, the whole thing does have its comic aspects. The mix-up with the tennis court bookings caused a lot of amusement too. Now we have to check every fax one last time before it’s sent out.’

‘How do you know it wasn’t just a typo?’

‘The secretary who wrote the message gave a printout of it as usual to the responsible party to have it proofed and initialled. The printout contains the correct number. So the fax was tampered with while it was in the queue on the hard-drive waiting to be sent. We’ve also examined the other cases in the dossier and can discount errors of programming or data gathering.’

‘Good, I can read about that in the file. Tell me something about the circle of suspects.’

‘We approached that in a conventional way. Among the employees who have right of access or access possibilities we eliminated those who’ve proven their worth here for more than five years. As the first incident occurred seven months ago, we can also discount all those who were only employed after that time. In some cases we could reconstruct what happened the day the system was meddled with; for example, the day of the fax message. Those absent that day are scored off. Then we examined virtually all input on a selection of terminals over a specific period of time and dug up nothing. And finally,’ he smiled smarmily, ‘we can rule out the directors.’

‘How many does that leave?’ I asked.

‘A good hundred.’

‘Then I’ve got years of work. And what about outsider hackers? You read about stuff like that.’

‘We were able to eliminate that with the help of the telecom office. You speak of years – we can see it’s not an easy case. And yet time is pressing. The whole thing isn’t just a nuisance: with all the business and production secrets we have in the computer, it’s dangerous. It’s as though, in the midst of battle—’ Firner is a reserve officer.

‘Forget the battles,’ I interrupted. ‘When would you like the first report?’

‘I’d like you to keep me constantly up to date. You can avail yourself of the men from security, from the computer centre and the personnel department, call on their time as you like. I needn’t tell you that we ask for utmost discretion. Frau Buchendorff, is Herr Self ’s ID ready?’ he asked over the intercom.

She entered the room and handed Firner a piece of plastic the size of a credit card.

Firner came round the desk. ‘We took a colour photo of you as you entered the administration building and scanned it in straight away,’ he said proudly. ‘With this ID you can come and go in the complex as you please.’

He attached the card with its plastic clip to my lapel.

It was just like getting a medal. I almost felt obliged to click my heels.