and invigorating.
Munster bit his lip. Van Veeteren was swaying back and forth, looking for once at a loss. Unless it’s just a pose, thought
Munster. Wouldn’t surprise me.
It was Mooser who broke the spell.
“Do you think-?” he said.
“We don’t think anything,” interrupted Van Veeteren.
“What the hell do you mean?”
“But-?”
“Shut up!” said Van Veeteren. “This is no time to be playing guessing games. Do you know what track she used to follow?”
“Well,” said Mooser, “Track and track-back and forth along the beach, perhaps. Or maybe she would take the path through the woods on the way back.”
“Hmm,” said Van Veeteren. “Did she always go jogging on her own?”
“No,” said Mooser. “I think she and Gertrude Dunckel used to run together sometimes.”
“Who’s she?” asked Munster.
“A friend of hers. Works at the library-”
“Did she have a boyfriend?” asked Van Veeteren.
Mooser thought.
“She used to… but not at the moment. She was with a guy for a few years, then he left her, I think. And then there was
Janos Havel, but I think that’s all over as well.”
“Yes, it’s all over,” said Munster. “Do we have to go through her whole life story before we do something?”
Mooser cleared his throat.
“The beach out and the woods back?”
“Just the woods,” said Van Veeteren. “They’d have already found her if she was on the beach-he doesn’t usually bother too much about hiding them.”
“Oh, Christ,” said Munster.
“I assume the car was her starting and finishing point,” said
Van Veeteren, ignoring Munster. “Do you know if there’s more than one path? Through the woods, I mean?”
“I don’t think so,” said Mooser. “It’s only a narrow stretch of trees, in fact. There’s a path that most people use-quite hilly. Shall we try that?”
“Let’s get going, then!” said Van Veeteren. “We haven’t got all day.”
“Don’t drive so damn fast,” said Bausen. “We must be clear about what we’re going to do when we get there.”
Kropke slowed down.
“Have you got your weapon with you?” he asked.
“Of course,” said Bausen. “I had the feeling something funny was going on. I take it you have yours as well?”
Kropke slapped under his arm.
“Thank God, it isn’t dangling against your thigh, at least,” muttered Bausen. “Stop! This is where we turn off.”
Kropke braked and turned onto the narrow ribbon of asphalt running over the heath. A flock of big black rooks busy with the dead body of some small animal or other took off from the road and landed again the moment they’d passed.
Cawing loudly, and self-assured.
Bausen turned to gaze over the desolate wilderness. In the far distance he could make out the skeletons of a row of low buildings, more or less dilapidated-a few walls, roofs destroyed by the rain; once upon a time, half a century or more ago, they had served a purpose. When peat was still being cut from these marshy wastes, he recalled. Odd that the drying sheds were still standing; he recalled how they had ful filled a different function when he was a kid-love nests for the young people of the district with no homes to go to. It had been quite an undertaking to get out here, of course, but once that detail had been fixed, these isolated buildings provided excellent opportunities for all kinds of intimacies-almost like the urga s of the Mongols, it struck him. Holy sites dedicated to love. He had no difficulty in remembering two, no, three occasions when it really did happen…
“That’s it just ahead of us, isn’t it?” said Kropke.
Bausen turned to look ahead and agreed. There it was.
Eugen Podworsky’s house, scantily protected by a rectangle of spruce firs. He was familiar with its history. Built toward the end of the previous century, it had served for a few decades as the home of the more senior peat- cutter families, before the bottom fell out of the industry and it became uneconomical early in the twentieth century; and eventually, like so much else in Kaalbringen and vicinity, it fell into the hands of Ernst
Simmel. And eventually into the none-too-tender care of
Eugen Podworsky.
“It looks like hell,” said Kropke as he parked in the shelter of a comparatively bushy double spruce.
“I know,” said Bausen. “Can you see the truck anywhere?”
Kropke shook his head.
“No point in trying to creep up on him,” said Bausen. “If he’s at home, he’ll have been watching us for the last five minutes-plenty of time to load his shotgun and take position in the kitchen window.”
“Ugh,” said Kropke. “No wonder Simmel didn’t succeed in evicting him.”
“Hmm,” said Bausen. “I don’t understand why he even bothered to try. Who do you think would want to buy a place like this?”
Kropke considered that one.
“No idea,” he said. “Some naive newcomer, perhaps. What shall we do, then?”
“We’d better get inside and check the place out,” said
Bausen. “Now that we’re here. I’ll go first. Keep some way behind me, and have your pistol at the ready in case anything happens. You never know-”
“OK,” said Kropke.
“But I don’t think he’s in.”
Bausen got out of the car and followed the row of straggly fir trees, passing through the gateway, where a rusty, peeling mailbox bore witness to the fact that the post office still made the effort to drive the extra miles over the heath-presumably because Podworsky had threatened to kill the manager if he withdrew the service, Bausen thought. He took the newspaper out of the mailbox.
“Today’s,” he confirmed. “You can put your revolver back in your armpit. He’s not at home.”
They walked along the path to the veranda. On either side of the door was a worn-out leather armchair and a hammock.
Evidently Eugen Podworsky was in the habit of making the most of warm summer and fall evenings. About ten crates of empty bottles were stacked up against the wall; piles of news papers were all over the place, and on a rickety metal table were a transistor radio, a large can full of sand with cigarette butts sticking out of it, and a badly washed beer glass. A yel lowish gray cat rubbed itself against the table leg; another one, slightly darker, lay outstretched in front of the door.
“Well,” said Kropke, “now what?”
“God only knows,” said Bausen. “Who interrogated Pod worsky after the Simmel murder? I take it we’ve interviewed him?”
Kropke scratched his unoccupied armpit.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “Moerk… yes, it was Moerk, I’m sure of it.”
Bausen lit a cigarette. He walked up the veranda steps and over to the door. The cat hissed and shifted a couple of feet to one side.
