Borkmann's point

26

“But if…” said Beate Moerk, scraping a blob of candle wax off the tablecloth. “If Ruhme opened the door because he rec ognized the murderer, that ought to mean that we have his name somewhere on our lists.”

“Good friend or colleague, yes,” said Munster. “Do you have anybody in mind?”

“I’ll go get my papers. Have you finished eating?”

“Couldn’t eat another crumb,” said Munster. “Really deli cious… a scandal that you live on your own.”

“In view of the fact that I can make toasted sandwiches, you mean?”

Munster blushed.

“No… no, in general, of course. A scandal that the men… that nobody has got you.”

“Rubbish,” said Beate Moerk, heading for her study.

What a brilliant conversationalist I am, thought Munster.

“If we say that it’s a man, that means precisely ten possibilities, in fact.”

“Not more?” said Munster. “How many are left if we assume that he lives here in Kaalbringen?”

Beate Moerk counted them up.

“Six,” she said. “Six male friends or colleagues. A bit thin, I’d say.”

“They’d only recently moved here,” said Munster. “They can’t have all that big a circle of friends yet. Who are the six?”

“Three colleagues they occasionally saw socially… and three couples, it seems.”

“Names,” said Munster.

“Genner, Sopinski and Kreutz-they’re the doctors. The friends are Erich Meisse, also a doctor, incidentally, and… hang on a minute. Kesserling and Teuvers. Yes, that’s the lot. What do you think? Meisse is a colleague of Linckx’s, I think.”

“I’ve met them all, apart from Teuvers and Meisse. I wouldn’t have thought it was any of them, but that’s no guar antee of anything, of course. Even so, shall we say it must be… Teuvers?”

“All right,” said Beate Moerk. “That’s that solved, then.

There’s just one little snag, though-”

“What’s that?”

“He’s been away for three weeks. Somewhere in South

America, if I’m not much mistaken.”

“Oh, shit,” said Munster.

“Shall we say it was somebody he didn’t know, then?”

“That might be just as well. Not any of these, at least. It could have been a celebrity as well. Somebody everybody rec ognizes, I mean. The finance minister or Meryl Streep or somebody…”

“Would you open your door for Meryl Streep?” asked Beate

Moerk.

“I think so,” said Munster.

Beate Moerk sighed.

“We’re not getting anywhere. Would you like some coffee?”

“Yes, please,” said Munster. “If you make it, I’ll wash the dishes.”

“Excellent,” said Beate Moerk. “I hope you didn’t think I’d turn the offer down.”

“Not for a second,” said Munster.

“Are you used to this sort of thing?”

“Depends what you mean by used to,” said Munster.

“How many murderers do you generally track down per year?”

Munster thought for a moment.

“Ten to fifteen perhaps… although we hardly need to track down most of them. They turn up of their own accord, more or less. Come and give themselves up, or it’s just a matter of going around and collaring them-a bit like picking apples, really. Most cases are sorted out within a few weeks, it’s fair to say.”

“Cases like this one, though? How often do they crop up?”

Munster hesitated.

“Not so often. One or two a year, perhaps.”

“But you solve them all?”

“More or less. Van Veeteren doesn’t like unsolved cases.

He’s usually impossible to live with if it drags on too long. As far as I know, there’s only one case that he’s had to shelve the G-file. Must be five or six years ago now. I think it’s still nagging him.”

Beate Moerk nodded.

“So you think he’ll be the one who cracks this one as well?”

Munster shrugged.

“Highly likely. The main thing is that we get him, I suppose.

There’ll be enough glory to go around for all of us. Don’t you think?”

Beate Moerk blushed. She turned her head away and ran her hand through her hair, but Munster had noted her reaction.

Aha, he thought. An ambitious young inspector. Maybe fancies herself as a private detective?

“Have you any theories of your own?” he asked.

“Of my own? No, of course not. I think about it a lot, natu rally, but I don’t seem to get anywhere.”

“That’s how it usually looks,” said Munster.

“Meaning what?”

“That you think you’re just marking time and getting nowhere; then suddenly, off you go-some little detail starts to grow and becomes significant, and then it goes very quickly.”

“Hmm,” said Beate Moerk. She stirred her coffee and scraped at another blob of candle wax with her nail.

“Do you mind if I make a confession?” she said after a pause.

“Go ahead,” said Munster.

“I think… think it’s exciting, being in the middle of it all. I mean-”

“I know,” said Munster.

“I realize my first thought ought to be that it’s terrible and awful, and I should be out there hunting down this mad Axman because he’s a horrific criminal, and because honest people need to be able to sleep at night. And I do think that, of course, but… but I have to admit that I quite enjoy it as well.

That’s pretty perverse, don’t you think?”

Munster smiled.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“You think the same!” exclaimed Beate Moerk, and sud denly, for one giddy fraction of a second, something happened inside Munster’s head-the unfeigned look on her face as she said it, the fresh, slightly childlike expression in her face genuine, pure; he didn’t really know why, but it gave him a jolt, in any case, and reminded him of something that… that belonged to another chapter of his life. Something he’d already read. Enjoyed and given in to. Of course, he ought to have been expecting it and, needless to say, he was. There had been something about that walk through the town, the beer at The Blue Ship, their conversation in between the interviews-playful and almost wanton-something that was so banal and so obvious that he quite simply didn’t dare put it into words.

“Well,” he said. “I have thought… in the beginning, that is. You get your fingers burned.”

It wasn’t that she was trying to lead him on. On the con trary, really. Presumably, he tried to convince himself, it was the knowledge that he was married, the knowledge that Synn existed that had caused her to let herself go a bit, allowed him to come close to her-because she knew she was safe.

Safe? What about him, though?

“A penny for your thoughts.”

He realized that she was looking at him again, and that his mind must have wandered off for a few seconds.

“I… don’t know really,” he said. “The Axman, I suppose.”

“What does your wife think about your job?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Answer first.”

“What Synn thinks about my job?”

“Yes. That you have to be away from home. Now, for instance.”

“Not much.”

“Did you quarrel before you left for here?”

He hesitated.

“Yes, we quarreled.”

Beate Moerk sighed.

“I knew it,” she said. “I’m asking because I want to know if it’s really possible to be a police officer and be married as well.”

“Possible?”

“Tolerable, then.”

“That’s an old chestnut,” said Munster.

“I know,” said Beate Moerk. “Can you give me a good answer, though, as you’ve been in the job for some time?”

Munster thought it over.

“Yes,” he said. “It must be possible.”

“As easy as that, is it?”

“It’s as easy as that.”

“Good,” said Beate Moerk. “You’ve taken a weight off my chest.”

Munster coughed and wished he could think of something sensible to say. Beate Moerk was watching him.

“Maybe we should change the subject?” she said after a while.

“That would probably be safest,” said Munster.

“Shall we look more closely at my private thoughts? About the Axman, that is.”

“Why not?”

“Unless you think it’s too late, of course.”

“Too late?” said Munster.

The only thing that’s preventing her from seducing me is herself, he thought. I hope she’s strong enough… I wouldn’t want to look myself in the eye tomorrow morning.

“Would you like any more wine?”

“Good God, no,” said Munster. “Black coffee.”