Part 2

“I felt very unhappy with the identity of being German, with the past and the unanswered questions – how the Holocaust could have happened – organised crime to such a dimension and unbelievable horror. I was very tortured by it and felt enormous grief about it. It was great for me to have found this music; to sing it to the world.”

 Ute Lemper, interview 2013

From his office, every night around this time, he could hear the busker sing the chorus to Don't Look Back In Anger. The guitar accompaniment was muted by the flow of the traffic, and the whining, out-of-tune voice seemed to rise above the noise from night-clubs, the cleaner banging bins in the studio next door and the music he would play in an attempt to drown it all out.

Not sure that he ought to be out so late, he pulls on his coat and checks the pockets for keys and a bus ticket. He ponders clearing his desk, but does not even bother to switch of his computer.

It was this careless that lost him last time... there was a bigger job... he had not always watched out for the main chance... maybe there was something in his mind, a guilt for some action that he did not recognise. 

'You can be terribly self-destructive,' she had said. 'Until you can work that out, don't ask for redemption.'

He turns. The ghost hasn't even bothered to disappear. It hands them, suspended in mid-air, a tedious stereotype of bed-sheet and holes for eyes. The blood, of course, drips to the floor into an invisible puddle.