"Do you like the rain?"
"What do you think about apricot jam?"
"Do you sing secretly in the bathroom?"
Three questions. Three questions that the former great and renowned police inspector Bernhard Wagner – known as Benny – kept repeating constantly in recent weeks, without getting tired and without giving up for a moment. It was well known to everyone who had come into contact with him, even briefly, for his stubbornness and tenacity, not only while he was active but also in the early years of his retirement. Three questions completely out of place and time, not only regarding their connection but also the recipients, that is, the people who made up the small world of the Tegel correctional facility. Inmates – murderers, rapists, and thieves in the overwhelming majority – as well as guards, cooks, and cleaners, all heard Benny constantly reciting these three questions like a monotonous little poem. Benny appeared ill, and quite seriously so, in those moments.
Thick drops of sweat started from his wrinkled forehead, dampening his temples and then flowing freely down his neck, while at the same time, the armpits of his blue jumpsuit became embarrassingly stained. And as if that wasn't enough, his eyes – bloodshot from broken blood vessels caused by both insomnia and dangerously high blood pressure – were just about to pop out of their sockets from the tension and anxiety. Benny was not worried about what one might expect; quite the opposite. He was not at all interested in the dangers lurking for former police officers in this environment. And in his case, it was double trouble. Double the reasons why the unwritten laws of the prisons would condemn him without hesitation and without any mitigation to the ultimate punishment.