Your Perfect Year(83)
On the right-hand side of the hall was a huge stage that could have comfortably accommodated a ten-piece rock band. There were several microphone stands surrounding a drum kit in the middle, which was bathed in color by rotating spotlights. Directly above this, a large screen hung from the ceiling, with the cover of Fitzek’s latest thriller projected onto it. Drum kit? Screen? What were they about to see?
Clearly quite a lot, judging from the crowd of euphoric faces in the audience. Hundreds (hundreds!) of audience members thronged the stands (stands! Not rows of chairs, but real stands!) and the atmosphere was charged like a World Cup final featuring Germany versus Brazil; only the vuvuzelas and flags were missing. There wasn’t a single seventysomething with a handkerchief in sight, but there were pretty girls selling ice cream and soft drinks. And there was popcorn. It crunched under Jonathan’s feet as he and Bode squeezed through the throng to take their places.
They were sitting close to the front with a good view of the stage—the anonymous donor had chosen excellent seats. Jonathan glanced at his watch; the spectacle would begin in a quarter of an hour.
And begin it did. At precisely half past seven, the lights went out, music blared at an earsplitting volume, and on the screen appeared a larger-than-life image of Sebastian Fitzek, closely followed by a fast-paced trailer for his new book. The audience yelled, and there was thunderous applause, increasing in waves and breaking out into wild stamping as the author himself finally took to the stage. “Good evening and welcome, Hamburg! My name is Sebastian Fitzek!” he cried into his headset.
Ecstatic screeching, people leaping up from their seats in a rapture of delight—Germany scores, one-nil! What an entrance. If Jonathan had not been there and seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed it possible. Heavens!
“Huh.” At first Markus Bode said nothing more, as they sat together in a corner of a wine bar after the reading, to discuss their opinions of the evening over a good glass of wine.
“Well,” Jonathan agreed. They looked at each other in silence, both rather shaken. Sebastian Fitzek had spent the last two hours delivering an absolute fireworks display of light entertainment.
He had conducted the evening magnificently, reading some gripping passages from his thriller and explaining the background of the story with the help of a slick PowerPoint presentation. He had interviewed himself, invited members of the audience onto the stage, and cracked one joke after another. Then a band had played the “soundtrack to the book,” Fitzek taking his place at the drum kit, driving the spectators wild at regular intervals. There were no panties flying through the air, but Jonathan wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been.
Following the reading, the author had made his way to a table in the foyer, and hordes of people had flocked to it to have their books signed, get an autograph, or have photos taken with him. It was highly probable that Fitzek would still be sitting there the following morning dealing with the onslaught. The whole thing had the air of a crazy pilgrimage.
“Huh,” Markus Bode said again, interrupting Jonathan’s thoughts. “Now do you see what I mean when I say we need an author like that on our list? For each author of the caliber of Fitzek, we could support ten literary-prize winners.”
“I’d say twenty,” Jonathan replied, nodding. “Yes, I totally get what you mean.” Not only that, but he had to admit to himself something he would never reveal to Markus Bode: he had really enjoyed it. The whole evening had rushed by like a speeded-up movie.
There was no comparison with the readings he usually attended. He’d always found them rather oppressive: every minute the author spent reading self-importantly from their work had stretched out like a well-chewed, stale piece of chewing gum. “Well,” he asked diffidently, “have we been sent any manuscripts in any of the popular genres?”
“Not yet. We don’t tend to get them, since as you said yourself, Grief & Son doesn’t deal with that kind of book. We’ll need to scout around.” He looked hopefully at Jonathan. “Shall I do it? I could call a few agents and ask them to send us some suitable submissions.”
“Let me think about it,” Jonathan said in an attempt to rein in his enthusiasm. “I can’t decide so quickly.” He wanted to talk to his father. And for that he had to catch him in one of his more lucid moments. He hoped that Wolfgang Grief still had enough mental capacity for such a conversation, at least for a few minutes. Otherwise, Jonathan would have to make the decision himself, and that . . .
The next morning he’d go straight to the Sonnenhof home and pay his father a visit.
42
Hannah
Monday, January 15, 8:05 a.m.
Sometimes things that seem so horrific that we can’t face them are nevertheless true.
The sentence ran through Hannah’s head again and again. That dreadful sentence Lisa had said to her only a few weeks ago. And she was right: It was horrific. And it was true. Simon had killed himself. He really had done it.
Hannah hadn’t actually seen his body, which had been discovered by an elderly couple out walking by the Mühlenteich lake the previous evening, but the police were 99 percent certain that the dead man was Simon.
The officers didn’t consider it necessary for Hannah to identify him (indeed, they had strongly advised her not to see him). The final confirmation would come with the forensic pathologist’s examination ordered by the public prosecutor, since the cause of death was still not clear.