‘Okay,’ said Reinhart. ‘I understand what you’re saying and you may be right. But now we’re where we are, and it’s a bit bloody annoying if we get told off for treating people decently for once.. I think we know where we stand now, without going on and on about it. Shall we continue?’
Marlene Frey hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
‘Dikken,’ said Reinhart. ‘Why did he have to go there? You must have some idea, surely?’
‘It could’ve been anything at all,’ said Frey. ‘I suppose you’re fishing for something to do with drugs, but I can swear that it had nothing to do with that. Erich gave all that stuff up even before we started living together.’
Reinhart gave her a long, hard look.
‘All right, we’ll accept that,’ he said. ‘Was he going to get something out of it? Money, I mean… Or was he just going to meet a friend out there, for instance? Or do somebody a favour?’
Frey thought for a while.
‘I think it was a job,’ she said. ‘Some sort of job.’
‘Did he say he was going out to Dikken?’
‘No.’
‘Nor what it was about?’
‘No.’
‘Not even a hint?’
‘No.’
‘And you didn’t ask?’
Frey shook her head and sighed.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Erich and I could have seven or eight different jobs in any given week — we hardly ever talked about it.’
‘Did he say when he’d be back?’ asked Moreno.
Frey thought that over again.
‘I’ve been thinking about that, but I’m not sure. I had the impression he’d be back home at around eight or nine in any case, but it’s not definite that he actually said that. Who bloody cares anyway?’
She bit her lip, and Moreno saw that her eyes had filled with tears.
‘Cry,’ she said. ‘It’s possible to cry and talk at the same time, you know.’
Frey immediately heeded this advice. Moreno leaned forward and stroked her arm somewhat awkwardly, while Reinhart squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. Fumbled with his pipe and managed to light it.
‘Names?’ said Moreno when the sobbing became less violent. ‘Did he name any names in connection with what he was going to do last Tuesday evening?’
Frey shook her head.
‘Do you know if he’d been there before? If he went there regularly?’
‘To Dikken?’ She couldn’t help laughing. ‘No, it’s not exactly our kind of place out there, wouldn’t you say?’
Moreno smiled.
‘Had he been worried about anything recently? Had anything special happened that you could possibly link with the accident?’
Frey wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jumper and thought again.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing I can think of.’
‘Had he met any new acquaintances lately?’
‘No. Erich knew an awful lot of people… Of all kinds, you might say.’
‘I understand,’ said Reinhart. ‘This Elmer Kodowsky, for instance, whose car he borrowed?’
‘For instance, yes,’ said Frey.
‘Have either of you had any contact with him lately?’
She shook her head.
‘He’s inside. I don’t know where. He was an old friend of Erich’s, I’ve never met him. I’ve only seen him once or twice.’
‘And you yourself haven’t felt threatened in any way?’ Moreno asked.
‘Me?’ said Frey, looking genuinely surprised. ‘No, definitely not.’
There followed a brief silence. Frey leaned forward, closer to the stove, and rubbed the palms of her hands together in the waves of heat floating upwards.
‘You waited for rather a long time before contacting the police,’ said Reinhart.
‘I know.’
‘Why?’
She shrugged.
‘Perhaps it’s the way it is in cases of this sort. Or what do you think?’
Reinhart said nothing.
‘Had either of you any contact with Erich’s mother?’ asked Moreno.
‘No,’ said Frey. ‘None at all. But I would like to speak to his father — please tell him that if you happen to see him.’
‘Really?’ said Reinhart. ‘What do you want to say to him?’
‘I’ll tell him that when I see him,’ said Frey.
Afterwards they spent some time in Cafe Gambrinus, trying to sum up their impressions.
‘Not much in the way of lines to follow up yet,’ said Reinhart. ‘Or what do you think? Damn and blast.’
‘No, not a lot,’ said Moreno. ‘Although it does seem as if he had a date with his murderer out at Dikken. Even if he didn’t really know what was going to happen. The odd thing is that he sat in the restaurant by himself, waiting. Assuming we can trust what Jung and Rooth say, that is. That could suggest that the person he was waiting for didn’t turn up according to plan.’
‘Possibly,’ said Reinhart ‘But it could have happened much more straightforwardly, we mustn’t forget that.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Moreno, taking a sip of her mulled wine.
‘A no-frills robbery,’ said Reinhart. ‘A junkie with a hammer who thought he could do with a bit of cash. The victim’s pockets were emptied, even his fags and keys were nicked — that ought to tell us something.’
Moreno nodded.
‘Do you think that’s what happened?’ she asked.
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ said Reinhart. ‘Besides, it doesn’t need to have been the same person — the one who killed him and the one who went through his pockets, that is. The character who rang to report finding the body didn’t exactly give the impression of being a blue-eyed innocent, did he?’
‘Hardly,’ said Moreno. ‘But in any case, I’m inclined to think it wasn’t just a case of a mugging that went wrong. I reckon there’s more to it than that — but whether or not I think that because of who the victim was, I don’t know… I suppose it’s a bit warped to think along those lines.’
‘A lot of thinking is warped when you look closely at it,’ said Reinhart. ‘Intuition and prejudice smell pretty much alike in fact. But we can start off with this, no matter what.’
He took out the well-thumbed address book Marlene Frey had lent them — on condition they returned it as soon as they had copied it.
‘This must mean that they really were on the straight and narrow path nowadays,’ said Moreno. ‘Who hands a whole address book over to the police of their own accord if they have something on their conscience?’
Reinhart leafed through the book and looked worried.
‘There’s a hell of a lot of people in here,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I think we’d better talk to her again and get her to narrow it down a bit.’
‘I’ll do that tomorrow,’ Moreno promised. ‘Anyway, I think I ought to be moving on. I don’t think we’re going to lay any golden eggs this evening.’
Reinhart looked at the clock.
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said. ‘But one thing is crystal clear in any case.’
‘What’s that?’ wondered Moreno.
‘We must solve this. If we don’t solve another single bloody case between now and the next century, we must make absolutely certain that we sort out this one. That’s the least we can do for him.’
