lecture and was stabbed by a lunatic in Wollerim's Park. She died in the hospital before I got there. It took the police six months to find her killer. I was one of them by that time.”
If she has the good sense to say nothing, I want to spend the rest of my life with her, he thought out of the blue.
Winnifred Lynch put her hand on his chest. Stroked him gently for a few seconds, then got up and went to the bathroom.
That does it, then, Reinhart acknowledged in surprise.
Later on, when they'd made love again and then recovered, he couldn't resist asking her a question.
“What do you have to say about a murderer who fired two shots into the groin of a victim who's already lying dead?”
She thought for a moment.
“The victim's a man, I take it?”
“Yes.”
“Then I think the murderer is a woman.”
Well, I'll be damned, Reinhart thought.
9
The weekend spent by a stormy sea had had an invigorating effect on Police Chief Hiller, and when he returned to work on Monday morning he promptly ordered full steam ahead on the Malik case.
What that meant in practice was no fewer than six officers of the Criminal Investigation Department, with Van Veeteren in charge, plus whatever foot soldiers were around, all of them expected to work full-time on finding the murderer. Senior officers in addition to Van Veeteren were Reinhart, Munster, Rooth, Heinemann, and Moreno. Jung had succumbed to influenza after his succession of sleepless nights and was expected to be sidelined for several more days yet. DeBries was on vacation.
Van Veeteren had nothing in principle against having so many people working on the case. The only problem was that there wasn't very much for them to do that made sense. Trying to trace the murder weapon via narks and contacts in the so-called underworld was a hopeless, Sisyphean task, as he knew. In order to increase the chances of success to twenty-five percent, it would mean assigning a hundred police officers to that job for a hundred days-plus generous overtime money. That kind of staffing was resorted to only when a prime minister had been murdered. It was widely believed by the senior officers that Ryszard Malik had not been prime minister.
That left the wife. Van Veeteren charged Moreno and Heinemann with keeping an eye on Ilse Malik's gradual return to full consciousness and emergence from the shadows. It was decided that they might as well have somebody at the hospital around the clock, seeing as they had enough officers available for once. You could never tell, and if there was anybody who might be able to come up with something relevant to this business, she was the one.
The only other thing to do was to cast bread upon the waters. That was always a possibility. Call on anybody who had any kind of link with Malik-neighbors, business acquaintances, old and new friends-and ask them questions, in accordance with the proven method used with pigs searching for truffles; i.e., if you continue rooting around in the ground for long enough, sooner or later you'll come across something edible.
Van Veeteren gave this less than stimulating task to Rooth and Reinhart to begin with (together with at least three otherwise unoccupied probationers of somewhat variable ability). Van Veeteren was naturally well aware that there was little point in telling Reinhart what to do, but as Hiller was revelling in his newly awakened zeal and wanted a sheet of paper on his brightly polished desk no later than Tuesday afternoon, that is of course what he would get.
Despite a rather troublesome cold, Van Veeteren himself went to play badminton with Munster. This was not mentioned on the list of duties on the document placed before the chief of police.
By the time Hiller's full steam ahead was throttled back on Friday and the team was reduced, due to an armed robbery resulting in a fatality in the suburb of Borowice, nothing much had been discovered. Under the supervision of Rooth and Reinhart-and later Munster as well-some seventy interviews had taken place, and the only outcome was that the image of Malik as a somewhat wooden but also reliable person used to taking responsibility had been fully established. Eighty kilos of decency with two left brains, as Reinhart preferred to express it.
And precisely in line with Dr. Hubner's forecast, Ilse Malik had begun to float up toward the surface of the real world out at the New Rumford, even if it was a somewhat precarious journey. In any case, on Wednesday morning she had finally accepted as fact the murder of her husband. Her memories of that Friday evening consequently became a little more consistent in outline, and she was also able to tell them relatively coherently what she had been doing during the day of the murder. It is true that she occasionally relapsed into attacks of hysterical sobbing, but what more could one expect? Her son, Jacob, was present by her side more or less all the time, and if what Moreno had suggested was true-that he had cut himself loose from his mother's apron strings somewhat precipitately-he now seemed to be making up for his youthful rebellion. Of course, he had little choice but to make the most of the hand fate had dealt him.
On Thursday morning something new crept into Ilse Malik's memory. To be sure, the son maintained immediately-in conversation with Heinemann and Moreno, who had also taken up residence at the bedside, with at least one of them permanently present-that it was a typical example of his mother's paranoia. He had heard about similar things before and recommended strongly that the officers shouldn't pay too much attention to it.
However, what Ilse Malik claimed was that somebody had clearly had designs on her husband's life in the week before that fatal Friday. To begin with, they had received strange telephone calls, on two different occasions: on Tuesday and Thursday, if she remembered rightly. Someone had phoned without saying a word-she had only heard music through the receiver, despite the strong words she had used, especially the second time. Ilse Malik had no idea what the music was and what it was supposed to mean, but she was pretty sure that it had been the same tune both times.
Whether or not her husband had received similar calls she had no idea. He certainly hadn't said anything about it.
The other evidence of a plot to take Ryszard Malik's life was that a white Mercedes had attempted to kill him by crashing into his Renault as he was on his way home from work. For want of anything else to follow up, this information was also checked; but in view of the relatively slight damage done to Malik's car, both Heinemann and Moreno decided that the suspicions had no foundation in fact. The owner of the Mercedes in question was a sixty- two-year-old professor of limnology from Geneva, and when they contacted the Swiss police they found no reason to suspect that he might have had murderous intentions when he skidded into Malik's rear end.
As for the rest of Mrs. Malik's revelations, they were mainly a distinctly humdrum description of a humdrum life and marriage, and in view of the changed circumstances with regard to staffing, Van Veeteren decided on Friday to cancel the hospital watch. By this time both Heinemann and Moreno were so bored by the job they had been given that they both volunteered to join the bank-robbery team, which was being led by Reinhart, who was also released from the Malik case-for the time being, at least. Jung and Rooth were also transferred to the newly established team, despite strong objections, especially from the latter, to the prospect of having to work over the weekend.
Which left Van Veeteren and Munster.
Also left was the necessity of attempting to achieve something vaguely reminiscent of a result.
“Have you got any ideas?” ventured Munster as they sat over an early Friday evening beer at Adenaar's.
“None at all,” muttered Van Veeteren, glaring at the rain pattering against the windowpane. “I don't normally have any ideas in this accursed month of the year. We'll have to wait and see.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Munster. “Funny, though. Reinhart thinks the killer is a woman.”
“It's very possible,” sighed the chief inspector. “It's always hard to find a woman. Personally, I've been trying
