The Ice Queen: A Novel

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Book: The Ice Queen: A Novel by Nele Neuhaus Read Free Book Online
Authors: Nele Neuhaus
Tags: Fiction, General, Thrillers, Crime
coaches he used to play on the team with. “Heiko is really hot for Tina. You’d better keep an eye on them.”
    “Right, thanks. I will,” he replied absently. How was he going to answer the text message? Ignore it? Shut off his phone and get drunk with his old pals? He sat on the bench as if paralyzed, holding the glass with the May wine, which was now lukewarm. He just couldn’t think straight.
    “I just mean … between friends, you know,” Wiethölter muttered, then chugged the last of his beer and belched.
    “You’re right.” Nowak stood up. “I’m going to go look for her.”
    “Yeah, do that, man.…”
    Tina would never start anything with Heiko Schmidt or any other guy, and if she did, he didn’t give a shit, but he took the opportunity to get out of there. He made his way through the crowd of sweaty bodies, nodding to people here and there, and hoped he didn’t run into his wife or any of her girlfriends. When had he realized that he didn’t love Tina anymore? He couldn’t figure out what had changed. It had to be something he’d done, because Tina was the same as always. She was content with the life they shared, but it had suddenly gotten too confining for him. He slipped unnoticed out of the tent and took the shortcut through the club bar. Too late he realized his mistake. His father was sitting with his friends at the bar, as he did almost every evening.
    “Hey, Marcus!” Manfred Nowak wiped the beer foam off his mustache with the back of his hand. “Come on over here!”
    Marcus Nowak felt his stomach turn over, but he obeyed. He could see that his father was already sloshed, so he steeled himself. A glance at the clock on the wall told him that it was 11:30.
    “A weizen beer for my son!” his father bellowed. Then he turned to the other older men, who were still clad in track outfits and running shoes, even though they’d had their modest success in sports decades ago.
    “My son is a real big shot now. He’s rebuilding the Old Town of Frankfurt, house by house! I bet you’re all surprised, right?”
    Manfred Nowak slapped Marcus on the back, but his eyes held neither recognition nor pride, only scorn. He kept on mocking him, and Marcus didn’t say a word, which merely egged his father on. The men were smirking. They knew all about the bankruptcy of Nowak’s construction company, and Marcus’s refusal to take over the firm, because in a little town like Fischbach, nothing was ever secret, especially not such a grandiose failure. The bartender set the weizen beer on the bar, but Marcus didn’t touch it.
    “Cheers!” yelled his father, raising his glass. Everybody drank but Marcus.
    “What’s the matter? You’re not too stuck-up to drink with us, are you?”
    Marcus Nowak saw the drunken anger in his father’s eyes.
    “I don’t feel like listening to any more of your stupid pronouncements,” he said. “Talk to your friends, if you want. Maybe one of them will believe you.”
    His father tried to release his pent-up fury by slapping his youngest son’s face, as he’d done so often in the past. But the alcohol slowed down his reflexes, and Marcus easily avoided the blow. He looked on without sympathy as his father lost his balance and crashed to the floor, along with the bar stool. Then he escaped before his old man could get back on his feet. At the door of the clubhouse, he caught his breath and hurried across the parking lot. He got into the car and peeled out of the lot. Not two hundred yards farther on, the police stopped him.
    “So,” said the first officer, shining his flashlight in Marcus’s face, “finished celebrating May Day at the dance?”
    The cop sounded nasty. Marcus recognized his voice. Siggi Nitschke had played on the first-string team in the Ruppertshain club when Marcus had been the top goal scorer for years in the circuit league.
    “Hello, Siggi,” he said.
    “Well, lookee here. It’s Nowak. The big entrepreneur. Driver’s license and

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