The Murder Farm Read Online Free PDF Page A

mechanic, age 21
    It was on the Tuesday, yes, that’s right, Tuesday March 22, 195 . . .
    Old Danner, he’d phoned us at the shop a week before, said it was very urgent.
    But it wasn’t the sort of weather when you’d want to spend forty-five minutes cycling out there. It kept on snowing, raining, too, now and then. Filthy weather, it was. And we had plenty of work on hand in the firm.
    I’ll tell you straight, I don’t like going out to those people at Tannöd.
    Why not? Well, they’re kind of funny. Loners. And tightfisted, too. So mean they’d begrudge you every bit of bread, every sip of water.
    I’d had to go out there to repair the engine of the machine that slices roots for animal feed once already, that was last summer, and they didn’t even offer me a snack when I took my break. Even though I’d been working away on that engine forover five hours, screwing and unscrewing parts. Not so much as a glass of water or a cup of milk, never mind a beer.
    But then again, to be honest, I couldn’t have swallowed a drop they gave me. The whole place was so grubby, really mucky. I can’t stand that kind of thing.
    When I washed my hands at the faucet in the kitchen I took a closer look around the room. I mean, how can anyone live like that? I couldn’t, not me.
    Old Frau Danner in her mended, dirty apron. Her little grandson, always with a snotty nose.
    You’d think she might have wiped the child’s nose for him. The little boy was crawling around on the kitchen floor, picking something up now and then and putting it straight into his mouth. Old Frau Danner saw him do it and never said a thing. When the little boy started crying, the old woman put him on her lap and gave him his pacifier. She’d licked the dummy first and dipped it into the sugar bowl standing on the table. Licked it and then dipped it into the sugar. Can you imagine that? It was all sticky, the bowl was crusty with spit and sugar.
    I mean, I can’t understand it. I really couldn’t have swallowed a morsel, but they might have offered me something all the same, if you ask me it’s the thing to do. Only right and proper, wouldn’t you say?
    Well, so when I was told to go and repair the engine, I wasn’t all that keen on cycling out there again. In such weather, at that.
    Then old Danner made another phone call, complained to the boss, so there was no avoiding it, I had to go. I set out to cycle there around eight a.m. on the Tuesday, after I’d picked my tools up from the firm.
    When did I get there? Oh, around nine, I guess that was it. Yes, just before nine, around about then. I was sweating by the time I reached their farm. I went right ahead through the garden gate and up to the front door, but the door was locked. First it’s so urgent, they’re in a tearing hurry, I said to myself, and then there’s no one home. Oh well, maybe they’re around behind the house.
    So I pushed my bike around the farmyard. On the way I passed the two windows of the sheds on the back of the house. And I looked in through one of the windows. Couldn’t make out anything, though. I mean, one of them could have been in the cowshed with the cattle. But no one was. I looked through the kitchen window as well. Still didn’t see anyone.
    Then I didn’t really know what to do. So I leaned my bike up against a fruit tree and waited.
    How long did I wait? Oh, it must have been about ten minutes, I’d say. I lit a cigarette and smoked it. That takes around ten minutes.
    Someone ought to come along soon, I thought to myself. And after a while I did see someone. Don’t know if it was a man or a woman. Some way off, standing in the fields out there.
    At first I thought, ah, there comes old Danner now.
    I called and I whistled. But whoever it was in the fields didn’t hear. The figure didn’t come any closer, disappeared as suddenly as it had come.
    I waited a while longer. I was feeling really stupid. Didn’t want to cycle home without repairing the engine,