Anyway, a quarter of an hour passed, or thereabouts, and then the man came out again and hurried into the park. That was more or less all, but it took more than half an hour to extract it.”
“The bundle?” asked Kropke. “Was he still carrying the bundle when he came out again?”
“Moen doesn’t remember that. He was uncertain about practically every detail, and to start with, he wasn’t even sure of the day; but when we were able to link it up with what had been said on the news, we eventually concluded that it must have been that Wednesday night. The question is: Was it the murderer he saw? I have to say that I’m very doubtful.”
“Even if it was the Axman,” said Van Veeteren, “what he had to say might not be all that helpful. Inspector Moerk?”
“Well,” said Beate Moerk, sucking at her pencil. “I don’t know. I spoke to him this morning. I had the impression that he was a bit absentminded, but when we came to the point, he seemed to be clearer. Isn’t that the way it usually is? They’re generally more sure of the details than they are of the whole picture, as it were. My father’s in the early stages of dementia, so I have some idea about how it works.”
“OK,” said Kropke. “What did he have to say?”
“The same as he told the chief inspector to start with,” said
Beate Moerk. “Same times, same bundle-it’s just the descrip tion that was different.”
“What did he tell you, then?” asked Mooser.
“That it was quite a short, sturdy person-powerful, rather.
He sticks to the bit about the tracksuit, but he says he didn’t see the man’s hair because he had a hat pulled down over his eyes.”
“Did you remind him about what he’d said earlier?” asked
Kropke.
“Yes, but he couldn’t really remember what he’d said. It was in the middle of the night, and he was tired. I suspect the chief inspector is right: We’re not going to get much useful informa tion out of this gentleman.”
“Which doesn’t prevent us from keeping a weather eye open for joggers, whether or not they’re carrying a bundle,” said Van Veeteren. “It’s as long as it is short. Incidentally,
Meuritz hasn’t yet established the time of death. We shall see if he died during the eleven o’clock news or not. In Simmel’s case, he could pinpoint the time to the exact minute; don’t for get that!”
He broke the toothpick in two and gazed meaningfully at
Bausen’s pack of cigarettes.
“Well, that’s it,” said Bausen. “Any ideas? You can say what ever you like. We’ll go through the strategy after lunch, but right now, anything goes. Well, what do you think?”
Bang belched. Kropke glowered at him, leaving no doubt as to what would happen to him once Bausen was no longer in charge, assuming that Kropke would be the one who took over, that is. Van Veeteren leaned back in his chair until it creaked. Munster sighed.
“At least one thing’s obvious,” said Beate Moerk eventually.
“Regarding the motive, that is. Maurice Ruhme is the Axman’s third victim, and he’s the third one who moved to Kaalbringen this year. Don’t try to tell me this isn’t significant.”
19
It had started quite promisingly, in fact, but after ten minutes it was the same old story. The DCI’s 5–1 lead was transformed via 6–6 and 7-10 to the usual and satisfying score of 9-15. In subse quent sets, Munster’s greater mobility and better precision reaped their reward. His short, angled strokes interspersed with long, high lobs were triumphant as always. It was the same old story, and perhaps Van Veeteren was not in peak con dition after the last few days’ cigarettes and wine. In any case, after 6-15, 8-15 and 5-15, he’d had enough; and they handed possession of the court over to two young men who had spent the last few minutes watching them with a degree of scorn.
“The light is poor in this hall,” muttered Van Veeteren, and they ambled back to the changing rooms.
“Very,” said Munster.
“Not much of a floor either. Easy to slip.”
“Exactly,” said Munster.
“Hard to play with borrowed rackets as well.”
“Hopeless.”
“But we’ll have another joust the day after tomorrow even so,” Van Veeteren decided. “We need to keep in training if we’re to solve this case.”
“You could be right,” said Munster.
The dining room at The See Warf was practically empty when they sat down at a window table. Only Cruickshank and
Muller were adorning a table not far away, accompanied by a man and a woman from TV6. Van Veeteren had spoken to all four of them at the press conference a few hours previously, and none of them showed any sign of wanting to disturb their dinner.
“Nobody seems to be venturing outdoors anymore in this town,” said Van Veeteren, looking around him. “People are a bit illogical. This last time, he actually struck in somebody’s home-Ruhme’s, that is.”
Munster agreed.
“I’ve started to believe it’s a pretty weird business, this thing we’re mixed up in,” said Van Veeteren, helping himself to salad. “They do excellent fish here, by the way, especially the turbot, if you are inclined that way.”
“How do you mean, weird?” asked Munster politely.
“God knows,” said Van Veeteren, chewing away. “Just a feeling-but I generally have my hunches.”
Munster leaned closer to the windowpane in order to see through the reflections. The sea looked dark and choppy out there. The weather had changed during the morning; banks of cloud came scuttling in from the northwest in rapid succession and one shower had followed hard on the heels of another all day. The boats in the marina were tossing about in the high waves, and Munster suddenly felt tuned to the raging of the elements, Nature’s own protest at the deeds and sayings of mankind-murderers roaming around unrestrained and all that crap.
Or was it his relationship with Synn? He still hadn’t been in touch with her and was starting to be annoyed by the DCI’s smug musings. Still, he had a fair amount of experience, and this is how things usually went-and he hoped that everything would be back to normal when he could get through to her. It seemed selfish, to say the least, sitting here and fretting about his private life while people were expecting him to do all he could to set traps for the Executioner, or the Mad Axman, or whatever name happened to be in vogue at the moment.
“I can’t work out what his motive is,” said Van Veeteren.
“He must have a hell of a good reason for going out there and cutting three people’s heads off.”
“You don’t believe it’s a madman, then?”
“Not for a minute,” said Van Veeteren. “On the contrary, I think we’re looking at some very carefully planned acts. His intention has been to kill these three men-Eggers, Simmel and Ruhme-and that’s what he’s done. We won’t nail him unless we can find the motive, Munster. The motive!”
“And there aren’t any more names on his list?”
Van Veeteren took a sip of beer and gazed out to sea.
“God knows,” he said again. “We must sit down and take a good look at this, Munster. There are several different pos sibilities, and I want us to make up our minds what our priori ties are going to be.”
“What possibilities?” asked Munster, as was no doubt the intention.
“Well,” said Van Veeteren, “off the top of my head I can only think of two. The first is, of course, that there is a clear and distinct link between the victims, that he’s had an all important reason for murdering these three particular individ uals. As yet, we don’t know what that link is, but it could very well be that as soon as we do, everything will fall into place.
We’ll have him in a little box.”
Munster nodded.
