“A hundred and eleven and a half,” said Kropke.
“Just checking to make sure you were awake,” said Bausen.
“Van Veeteren?”
Van Veeteren stopped rolling a coin over his knuckles.
“Well,” he said. “I think it’s as important as it damn well can be for us to get Ruhme’s time in Aarlach mapped out as accu rately as possible. I’ve spoken to Melnik, the chief of police there, and he’s promised to put two men onto it-probably has already, in fact. He’ll send us a report as soon as he’s done, in any case-in a few days, I hope. A week, perhaps.”
“And then what?” asked Kropke.
“We’ll have to see,” said Van Veeteren. “If nothing else, we can pick out all the names and run them against all the material we have on Eggers and Simmel. That could be a job for you,
Kropke, and your computer?”
Kropke frowned for a moment, but then his face lit up.
“All right,” he said. “Not a bad idea, I suppose.”
“OK,” said Bausen. “The neighbors, Mooser? How has that gone?”
Mooser leafed slightly nervously through his papers.
“We’ve been in touch with all of them but two-twenty-six in all. Nobody’s seen a damn thing-between ten last Wednes day night and two the next morning, that is. Those were the times we said, weren’t they?”
“That’s correct,” said Bausen. “Meuritz guesses it was some time around about then. He was reluctant to be more precise than that on this occasion-not possible, I assume. I can’t help feeling he’s had a damn great stroke of luck, our dear friend the Axman. In Simmel’s case he followed him all the way through town, more or less, but with Ruhme he just strolls across the street and into the apartment block. Rings the doorbell and cuts his head off. And nobody sees him. No witnesses.”
“Apart from Moen,” said Beate Moerk.
“Ah, yes,” said Bausen with a sigh. “Moen and Peer hovens… one of them aged ninety-five years and the other’d made a night of it and was less than sober.”
“Ah, well,” said Van Veeteren. “No doubt we’ll nail him before long. I think I sniff the traces of a scent-”
“What do we do first?” asked Beate Moerk.
Bausen leafed through his notebook.
“You and… Munster, perhaps?”
Munster nodded.
“You take the hospital. Colleagues, and anybody else who strikes you. See what you can get out of them. You have a blank check.”
“Good,” said Beate Moerk.
“Kropke and Mooser… I think we need to extend the neighborhood a bit. Knock on a few doors around Leisner Park as well. Kropke can draw up a plan. Take Bang with you-he needs a bit of exercise-but for God’s sake, write down your questions in advance. And Kropke keeps pressing ahead with Simmel and Spain as well, of course. Nothing’s turned up there yet, I don’t suppose?”
Kropke shook his head.
“A lot of crap, but nothing significant.”
“DCI Van Veeteren and I ought to take a closer look at the ax,” said Bausen. “The guys in forensics are a bit vague, but their best guess is that it’s a specialist tool used in the butchery trade, made around ten or twelve years ago. We’ve got the names of four possible manufacturers-and ten or so possible retail outlets. It doesn’t sound very promising, of course, but
I suppose we’d better waste a day on it, even so. And then we have Simmel’s son and daughter coming here tomorrow.
Mustn’t forget them, even if I wouldn’t put a lot of money on them either, but still, you never know. Any questions?”
“Who’s going to do the friends and acquaintances?” asked
Munster. “Ruhme’s, that is.”
“You two,” said Bausen. “But the hospital first. You have the list, don’t you?”
“Shouldn’t we send somebody to Aarlach?” asked Beate
Moerk. “That must be the place where we’re most likely to draw out a lead, surely?”
“DCI Melnik wouldn’t appreciate any outside interference,
I can assure you of that,” said Van Veeteren. “But he can estab lish the age of a lump of dog shit if he’s feeling inspired.”
“Really,” said Beate Moerk. “One of those, is he?”
“I have some appointments with a few of Simmel’s lady friends as well,” said Van Veeteren. “I’m looking forward to that very much.”
Phew! thought Beate Moerk as she left the police station. What a miserable bunch.
“How far is it to the hospital?” asked Munster.
“A long way,” said Moerk. “We’ll take your car.”
24
He looked around. Then sat down at one of the empty tables on the glazed-in terrace, ordered a glass of stout and spread out de Journaal in front of him. He breathed a sigh of cautious satisfaction. It was some time since he’d last been to The Fisherman’s Friend.
He took several long drafts of beer, then started to read what they’d written about the case. Not without a degree of satisfaction. This was the fifth day after the latest murder, and the coverage was still more than two pages. There was very little new information; the theories were becoming increas ingly absurd, as far as he could judge… the silence on the part of the police was bound to irritate the journalists, no doubt, and it looked as if several of them were losing faith.
No wonder, he thought, and gazed down at the harbor. No wonder. A solitary trawler was making its way out toward the open sea from down below. The sea and the sky were an identi cal shade of gray; the sun appeared unwilling to show itself today. It looked disconsolate.
Disconsolate? For a brief moment he wondered why that particular word had occurred to him.
He had killed three people and the police didn’t have a single lead, as far as he could tell. It would have been interest ing to see to see what they wrote in the other papers as well, but they’d been sold out. For obvious reasons, to be sure. He took another draft of beer and allowed the brewer’s wort to force tears into the corners of his eyes. No, if he understood the situation rightly, he was as safe as ever.
Beyond reach and beyond punishment.
It felt somewhat remarkable, no doubt about that, al though on the other hand, it was more or less what he’d reck oned on… wasn’t it? Had he reckoned on anything at all, in fact? Was there an afterward? Had he thought about this period? The long drawn-out epilogue, or whatever it was?
He watched the gulls circling around the top of the cliff.
They sometimes came so close that their wing tips brushed against the window… and he suddenly recalled how he’d been sitting up here one day when one of them had flown straight into the windowpane. At full speed, without checking.
It had presumably had a clear view ahead, and death against the cold glass must have come as a complete shock to the poor bird. No notice, no premonitions… just like the blow from the ax, it seemed to him, and he sat for quite a while thinking about that bird and the smear of blood and innards it had left clinging to the pane, which he was able to conjure up in his mind’s eye, for some reason. And then he thought about the woman for whose sake all this was taking place… about her, whose death had not come as a shock at all-it was more a case of a fruit becoming ripe-and he wondered if it really was all over now, everything. If everything had been restored to its rightful place, justice achieved, and if there was any possibility of her being able to give him a sign. And if so, where that could happen…
