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bicycle and usually adorned with pennants in the colours of the Italian flag, that were familiar to us all as part of our childhood Sundays, going around ringing their bells – or at least that’s how we remember it today. No idea if I ever ate ice cream from a cart like that as a boy, or even saw one, but now, when one of them came down the street or stopped outside the swimming pool, for a moment I was eight years old again. And because I wasn’t the only one to feel like that, and because almost everyone who remembered or thought they remembered the carts was now able to afford the super-size seven-scoops cornet without making too much of a hole in his pocket-money budget, Slibulsky’s business was a great success. Children bought his ices too, but he really made a killing from people who’d pay ten marks to bring back the summers of the past. He had nine employees who worked for him seven days a week on commission, while he sat in an office with cable TV, counted the money and watched Formula One racing. A few repairs now and then, the occasional employee who made off with the day’s takings, twice reported to the police for food poisoning – the rest of the time raking in a thousand marks, two thousand marks, Schumacher in pole position. By now he had earned enough for him and his girlfriend Gina to start looking for a house of their own with a warehouse and workshop, and then he’d be able to run the business more or less from the bedroom.
    The fact that Slibulsky was helping me tonight, risking everything he’d built up in the last three years, and I don’t mean just financially, was … well, it was very impressive.
    ‘Not that way!’ He waved a hand. ‘There’s a disco there, a hundred metres further on they do regular breathalyser checks at night.’
    We were on our way to the Taunus to bury the bodies somewhere in the forest. The mere thought of coming up against a police road block and being asked for our papers brought me out in a sweat. Even if the Frankfurt police had awarded me their big Friendship Prize, even if the name ‘Kayankaya’ had been proverbial as the shorthand for an honest man who could always be believed, I’d have had all kinds of difficulties in explaining where the car came from, the contents of its boot, and the two spades from Slibulsky’s garage on the back seat.
    ‘Turn right up ahead there,’ Slibulsky told me. ‘And don’t crawl along like that.’
    ‘I’m driving at fifty. That’s the speed limit.’
    ‘Nobody sticks to the speed limit in a car that can do two hundred, not at two in the morning.’
    I didn’t reply to that, but I went on at the same speed. I’d rather end up in jail through stupidity than arrogance.
    ‘And you could shake off any flashing blue light in this car.’
    ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Slibulsky!’
    ‘Well, what is it?’
    Yes, I was impressed by the way he was helping me, and the fact that he was doing it at all. But for him I’d never have got through the night intact, let alone been able to fix things so that Romario had half a chance of getting off safe and sound – but I wished I was on my own just now.Over the years Slibulsky had become kind of like family to me. Sometimes a big brother who could give me advice and make me see reason, who backed me up or shielded me, depending on circumstances, and I had no secrets from him. But now and then he was a little brother driving me crazy with his quarrelsome obstinacy, getting in my way, and I wouldn’t even want to give him the time of day for fear it might offer him a chance to poke his nose into my business.
    ‘Let’s bury these characters, clear up the bar and take Romario to the airport, OK? If we’re in luck we may even get a bit of sleep afterwards. We can discuss everything else in the morning, right? Like how to drive a car.’
    Slibulsky looked askance at me, and I could sense the retorts passing through his head. But then he just growled something to himself, put