men and women in white coats. It was evidently part of the routine to be photographed in this way. The background was the same in most of the pictures, and everybody — the vast majority in any case — were sitting with their heads at the same angle and their mouths fixed in a broad smile. Apparently the same photographer: he wondered what awful joke he must have told them to make them all roar with laughter the way they seemed to be doing.
‘Not bad,’ he said for the third time. ‘So here we have the murderer complete with photograph and personal details down to shoe size. It’s just a pity we don’t know which of them it is. Which one of the hundred-and-twenty- six…’
‘If we’re still sticking to Rooth’s hypothesis,’ said Moreno, ‘we can eliminate forty of them.’
‘Really?’ said Reinhart. ‘Why?’
‘Because they are women. But I don’t know how we should proceed with this — it seems a bit much to interrogate the whole lot of them, rather than thinning them down a little. Even if they look friendly enough in the photos, they might well be rather more difficult to deal with in reality. Especially when they catch on to what we suspect them of… Not to mention esprit de corps and goodness knows what else.’
Reinhart nodded.
‘Let’s start with those most closely connected,’ he said. ‘Only them for the time being. What was it you said? Six attached to the clinic and a few more who keep dropping in. We ought to be able to deal with them before Jung’s witness turns up again. Who should we send to deal with this?’
‘Not Rooth,’ said Jung.
‘Okay, not Rooth,’ said Reinhart. ‘But I can see two reliable police officers before my very eyes just now. Get on with it — good hunting.’
He closed the file and handed it back. As Jung left the room first, he was able to put a question to Inspector Moreno.
‘Have you been sleeping well lately?’
‘Better and better,’ said Moreno, and she actually smiled. ‘What about you?’
‘I get my deserts,’ said Reinhart, cryptically.
26
Tuesday’s post comprised a few bills and a couple of letters.
One was from the Spaarkasse, informing him that his loan had been granted. The sum of 220,000 had already been credited to his account.
The other letter was from his opponent.
A different kind of envelope this time. Simpler, cheaper. The letter paper itself was a folded page, apparently torn out of a spiral pad. Before he began reading he wondered if this in itself was a sign of something, if it had some sort of significance, this reduction in quality.
He failed to find a satisfactory answer; and the instructions were just as simple and clear as before.
Your last chance. My patience is soon at an end. The same procedure as last time.
Place: the rubbish bin behind the grill bar at the junction of Armastenstraat and Bremers Steeg.
Time: the early hours of Friday, 03.00.
Stand by your telephone in your home at 04.00. Don’t try transferring calls to your mobile — I have taken measures to protect myself from that. If I don’t have my money by Friday morning, you are a goner.
A friend
This business concerning his mobile phone had already occurred to him. He’d rung and investigated the possibility of doing that, but it gradually became clear to him that the caller could always establish whether the call had been diverted from one number to another. Otherwise, of course, he would have been very tempted to hide himself some twenty metres into Bremers Steeg, which he knew was a dark, narrow alley… To stand there and wait for his opponent, with the pipe hidden inside his overcoat. Very tempted.
Another thing that struck him when he read the instructions again was the sheer damned self-confidence of the blackmailer. How could he be certain, for instance, that his victim wouldn’t use an assistant, just as he had done out at Dikken? How could he be so sure of that? It was even possible that he could arrange for the assistance of a good friend without needing to reveal what it was all about. He could get somebody else to answer the telephone, for instance. Or did his opponent know his voice so well that he would recognize such a move immediately? Was he so well acquainted with him?
Or had he refined his tactics this time? Polished them in some way? It looked like it. Perhaps the telephone call would involve further instructions to guarantee that the money could be collected behind the grill bar in peace and quiet.
But how, in that case? What instructions might they be, for Christ’s sake? Would he be armed?
That last point cropped up without his having thought about it, but it soon became clear that it was the most significant of them all. Would his opponent have a weapon, and — in the worst-case scenario — would he be prepared to use it in order to collect his money?
A pistol in his jacket pocket in a dark corner in Bremers Steeg?
He put the letter back into its envelope and checked the clock.
Eleven thirty-five. Less than sixteen hours left.
Time was short. Very short, and this was the last round now. No further delays were conceivable.
Time to run away? he thought.
27
Moreno and Jung spoke to a dozen doctors on the Thursday morning. Including three women — if for no other reason than to avoid raising suspicions.
Suspicions that the police had suspicions about their male colleagues. Or one of them, at least.
Instead, the ostensible starting point of the conversations was that they needed information about the murdered nurse, Vera Miller. General impressions of her. Her relations with patients and colleagues — everything that might, in some way or other, contribute to a more complete all-round picture of her. Especially with regard to her work.
As far as Moreno and Jung could judge, all the doctors told them without reservation all they knew about Nurse Miller. Some had quite a lot to say, others naturally enough rather less, due to the fact that they hadn’t had so much to do with her. But impressions and judgements were remarkably unanimous: Vera Miller had been an outstanding nurse. Knowledgeable, positive, willing to work hard — and with that little bit extra feeling for patients that was so very important: if only everybody who worked in health care had that little bit extra!
De mortuis… Moreno thought; but it was only an automatic thought that seemed hardly appropriate in this case. Nurse Miller had been well liked and much appreciated, it was as simple as that. Nobody had any idea as to who might have wanted to kill her in the way that she was killed — nor in any other way, come to that. Not the slightest idea.
Nor did Moreno and Jung after they had finished their questioning, and sat down for lunch in the restaurant in Block A. Not the slightest idea.
They had finished their unusually substantial pasta meal by a few minutes past one, and decided that they might as well wait for Edita Fischer up in Ward 46. She was due to come on duty at two o’clock — after two-and- a-half days’ leave. Time off she had spent with her boyfriend at some unknown location. His name was Arnold, but that was all they knew about him. When Jung had finally succeeded in contacting froken Fischer that morning, after no end of trials and tribulations, she had declined to disclose where they had been, and what they had been doing.
Not that he was especially interested, but even so…
‘Presumably they were robbing a bank,’ he explained to Moreno, ‘but so what? The important thing is that we
