Nobody had fingered anybody else as a possible candidate (although it was not clear if this was a result of the legendary so-called esprit de corps). Not so much as a guess, so Reinhart had no need to worry about taking into consideration the ethical aspect of it all. Something for which he was grateful.
None of the six police officers had conceived any direct suspicions in the course of their conversations — at least, not in connection with what they were trying to discover. If Chief Inspector Reinhart wanted to check the judgement of his colleagues in this respect, all he needed to do was to listen to the tapes. On the assumption that he restricted himself to just one run-through of each interview, that would take him in round figures a total of fifty- two hours.
Not counting pauses while cassettes were changed, visits to the toilet and sleep. In the aftermath of the sandwich layer cakes, he thought he might well be able to cut back on breaks for refreshments.
‘It’s not a lot,’ said Rooth. ‘To coin a phrase. The results, I mean.’
‘Never in the history of human endeavour have so few had so many to thank for so little,’ said Reinhart. ‘Hell’s bells. How many have we left?’
‘Twenty-eight,’ said Jung, checking with a document. ‘Five on secondment somewhere else, six on holiday, nine on days off and not in town… Seven on sick leave and one about to give birth in half an hour’s time.’
‘Shouldn’t she be added to the list of those on sick leave?’ wondered Rooth.
‘She’s certainly not on holiday, that’s for sure,’ said Moreno.
There was also another arithmetical sum to be solved, involving rather fewer unknowns. The so-called Edita Fischer trail. Moreno and Jung, who had shared responsibility for the Rumford Hospital investigation, had worked out exactly which day it was that Vera Miller had gone there with the pulmonary emphysema patient. And precisely how many male doctors had been on duty that day, and on which wards. Unfortunately Vera Miller had taken the opportunity of having lunch in the large staff canteen, where she could theoretically have met anybody at all — but the sum of all their efforts had been a comparatively small number of doctors.
Thirty-two, to be precise. Jung was in favour of eliminating all those who had passed their fifty-fifth birthday, but Moreno refused to go along with such a prejudiced suggestion. Grey temples were not to be underestimated. Especially if they were on doctors. In any case they had met twenty-five of this ‘high potency’ group (Jung’s term), none of whom had behaved in a remotely suspicious manner nor had anything of interest to say.
That left seven. One on holiday. Four on days off, not in town. Two off sick.
‘It must be one of them,’ said Jung. ‘One of those seven. It sounds like a film — shall we lay bets?’
‘You’ll have to find somebody else to bet against,’ said Moreno. ‘I agree with you.’
When the others had gone home, Reinhart shared the last bottle of wine with Moreno. Rooth was also present, but had fallen asleep in a corner.
‘This is a right bugger,’ said Reinhart. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve said it during this investigation… Sorry, these investigations!.. But we’re getting nowhere. I feel as if I were working for some bloody statistics institute. If we’d thought of asking them about their political views and drinking habits as well, we could no doubt have sold the material to The Gazette ’s Sunday supplement. Or some public opinion firm or other.’
‘Hmm,’ said Moreno. ‘ The Chief Inspector used to say that one had to learn how to wait as well. To have patience. Perhaps we ought to think along those lines.’
‘He used to say something else as well.’
‘Really?’ said Moreno. ‘What?’
‘That you need to solve a case as quickly as possible. Preferably on the very first day, so that you don’t have to lie awake thinking about it all night. For Christ’s sake, it’s five weeks now since we discovered the body of his son. I don’t like admitting it, but the last time I met Van Veeteren I felt ashamed. Yes, ashamed! He explained to me that the whole thing was based on a blackmailing scam
… There’s no doubt that he’s right, but still we’re not getting anywhere. It’s a right bug- No, I’ll just have to learn to live with it.’
‘Do you think she was the blackmailer?’ asked Moreno. ‘Vera Miller, that is.’
Reinhart shook his head.
‘No, for some reason or other I don’t think so. Despite the fact that the story about her being linked to a doctor rings true. Why should a woman about whom nobody has a bad word to say stoop to something like that?’
‘Blackmail involves a weakness of character,’ said Moreno.
‘Exactly,’ said Reinhart. ‘Both axe murderers and wife beaters have a higher status in prison. Blackmail is one of the most… immoral crimes there is. Not the worst, but the lowest. Cheap, if that word still exists in this context.’
‘Yes,’ said Moreno, ‘I think you’re right. So we can exclude Vera Miller. And we can also exclude Erich Van Veeteren. Do you know what we have left?’
Reinhart poured out the last drops of wine.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve thought about that as well. We’re left with a blackmailer. And his victim. The victim is the murderer. The question is: has the blackmailer been paid yet?’
Moreno sat quietly for a while, swirling her glass.
‘I don’t understand how Vera Miller became involved in this,’ she said. ‘But if we establish that she’s linked with Erich, well we have
… I suppose we have somebody who has murdered twice in order to avoid paying. If the blackmailer isn’t as daft as the proverbial brush, he will have raised the price a bit and… Well, I’d suppose he was living a bit dangerously.’
‘I’d have thought so,’ agreed Reinhart.
He emptied his glass and lit his pipe for the tenth time in the last hour.
‘That’s what’s so bloody annoying,’ he said. ‘That we don’t know what’s behind it all. The motive for the blackmail. We have a series of events, but we don’t have the first link in the chain…’
‘Nor the last,’ said Moreno. ‘We presumably haven’t seen the last round between the blackmailer and his victim yet, don’t forget that.’
Reinhart looked at her with his head resting heavily on his hands.
‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘And a bit drunk. That’s the only reason why I haven’t said that I’m quite impressed. By your reasoning, that is. A bit, anyway.’
‘ In vino veritas,’ said Moreno. ‘But we could be quite wrong as well. It doesn’t have to be blackmail, and there doesn’t have to be a doctor involved… And perhaps there’s no connection at all between Vera Miller and Erich Van Veeteren.’
‘Oh, don’t start that,’ groaned Reinhart. ‘I thought we were just getting somewhere.’
Moreno smiled.
‘It’s midnight,’ she said.
Reinhart sat up on his chair.
‘Ring for a taxi,’ he said. ‘I’ll wake Rooth up.’
When he got home both Winnifred and Joanna were sound asleep in the double bed. He stood in the doorway for a while, looking at them and wondering what he had done to deserve them.
And what the payment would be…
He thought about The Chief Inspector ’s son. About Seika. About Vera Miller. About what would happen to Joanna in fifteen to twenty years’ time when young men began to take an interest in her… All kinds of men.
He noticed that the hairs on his lower arms were standing on end when he tried to imagine that, and he carefully closed the door. Took a dark beer out of the refrigerator instead, and flopped down on the sofa to think things over.
To think about what, if anything, there was he could be absolutely sure about regarding the Van Veeteren and Miller cases.
And what he could be fairly sure about.
And what he thought.
Before he had got very far, he fell asleep. Joanna found him on the sofa at six o’clock the following morning.
