The euphoria of the day before, when he’d achieved an excellent eleventh-place finish in the “Round the Henninger Tower” bicycle race, had long since dissipated. The grayness of everyday life had reclaimed him, and it coincided with a new homicide investigation. He had been hoping this lull in activity would last a little longer so that he could knock off work on time. His colleagues had thrown themselves into the case with zeal, as if they were glad finally to put in some overtime hours and work straight through the weekends. Fachinger and Ostermann had no family, while the boss had a wife who took care of everything. Hasse’s wife was happy when her husband was out of the house, and Kirchhoff seemed to be past the first phase of ardent infatuation with her new guy and once again keen to make a name for herself. None of them had the slightest inkling of what sort of problems hounded him. Whenever he left the office on time in the evening, he had to put up with people looking askance at him.
