Borkmann's point

36

“How’s it going?” asked Hiller.

Van Veeteren regarded the telephone with repugnance.

“Well,” he said.

“Well?” said Hiller. “You’ll soon have been at it for a month.

There are those who think it’s high time the case was solved.”

“They’re welcome to come give us a hand,” said Van Veeteren.

“At least you could send us some kind of report. Some people would like to know what you’re actually doing-”

“Some people are welcome to disappear up their own asses.”

Hiller muttered something incomprehensible.

“Do you need reinforcements?”

“No,” said Van Veeteren. “But Munster would no doubt like to go back home for a few days.”

“Why?”

“Wife and children. Have you heard of such creatures?”

Hiller muttered again.

“Would you like Reinhart to relieve him?”

“Possibly,” said Van Veeteren. “I’ll have a word with Mun ster, but we’ll wait until after Monday.”

“Monday? Why after Monday?”

“Read the newspapers, and you’ll understand.”

“What the hell-?”

“Or watch the box. Monday’s when some new light will be cast on the case, you might say.”

Various strange noises could be heard in the receiver, but

Van Veeteren could not be certain if they were due to a bad line or the chief of police gasping for breath.

“Are you saying that your report is going to come via the mass media? That is the goddamnedest thing,” he eventually managed to articulate, before Van Veeteren interrupted him.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that I have to go out and tail an ugly crook now. I’ll get back to you.”

There was a crackling noise again. Van Veeteren put down the receiver and pulled out the plug.

With three bottles of brown ale in a bucket of cold water on the floor, and a dish of fat olives within easy reach, he slid down into the bath and switched off the light.

He closed his eyes and made his head comfortable against the edge of the tub, then stretched out a hand, fished up the open bottle and took a couple of deep swigs.

I’m not going to get up until I’ve solved this business, he thought, but soon realized that it might be prudent to adjust the demands somewhat. What the hell would the others say on Monday if they found themselves with not only a missing inspector to deal with, but a drowned DCI as well?

Enough of setting silly deadlines and similar nonsense, he decided. Back to basics. The Axman. Concentrate.

There was an old rule that occasionally used to crop up, which he had no doubt inherited from Borkmann, one of the few police officers he’d come across for whom he had nothing but respect and admiration. Probably the only one, now that he came to think of it, which was most likely connected with the time aspect: Borkmann had completed his final years in post as a chief inspector up in Frigge, where Van Veeteren himself was just beginning his career as a probationer. Be that as it may, he still felt confidence and trust in the old guy; of course, he no longer needed to analyze the circumstances in detail. Even a hardened old cop needs the occasional firm foothold or lifeboat to cling to, he used to tell himself. Borkmann’s rule was hardly a rule; in fact, it was more of a comment, a land mark for tricky cases.

In every investigation, he maintained, there comes a point beyond which we don’t really need any more information.

When we reach that point, we already know enough to solve the case by means of nothing more than some decent think ing. A good investigator should try to establish when that point has been reached, or rather, when it has been passed; in his memoirs, Borkmann went so far as to claim that it was pre cisely this ability, or the lack of it, which distinguishes a good detective from a bad one.

A bad one carries on unnecessarily.

Van Veeteren emptied the first of the bottles and took two olives.

What happened when information continued streaming in once that point had been reached?

In the best-case scenario, it made no difference.

In most cases it didn’t cause too much damage.

In the worst-case scenario, it was a big disadvantage. Made smoke screens, splintered resources and caused problems.

Van Veeteren chewed away and sucked the stones clean.

Borkmann was right, certainly. And this case was definitely a worst-case scenario. How much easier it was to catch some body who was content with just one murder than to track down a serial killer, in which case the information-tips, tracks, leads and suspicions-almost inevitably led to the simple and obvious being engulfed by the mass of material.

How much easier it was to cash in on a one-pawn advan tage when there were fewer pieces on the board.

The question was simple: Had the point been passed?

Did he already know enough, sitting here in his hot bath, to pick out the Axman? Was there any point in continuing to search for tracks and leads?

He groped around the bottom of the bucket for the opener.

Already he knew the answer. Or at least, he had made up his mind about it.

Yes.

Yes. The murderer was there. Carefully concealed in the mishmash of interrogations and minutes and discussions. Hid den and tucked away in the even more confused convolutions inside his own brain. The Axman was there. It was just a mat ter of fishing him out.

He found the opener. That was something, at least.

Pro primo, he thought.

Three men have been murdered in Kaalbringen. Heinz

Eggers on June 28. Ernst Simmel on August 31. Maurice Ruhme on September 8. Same weapon, same method. Same killer.

No doubt about that.

Pro secundo.

Despite comprehensive and assiduous work, we haven’t succeeded in finding the slightest link between the three vic tims (apart from the fact that they had moved to Kaalbringen this year) until a report concerning the third victim’s time in

Aarlach comes into the investigators’ hands. Everybody notices immediately that a certain Eugen Podworsky occurs in the background (but only in the background, nota bene) of two of the cases. Inspector Moerk reads the report and is struck by something “bizarre.” She announces that she is going to check out the matter, does so, and Pro tertio.

— is exposed, no, discovered or observed while carrying out this check (whatever it might have been) by the murderer. (He might possibly have seen her purely by chance.) The murderer follows her and strikes (?) when Moerk appropriately enough is in the woods, in the back of beyond…

Something like that, yes. That was it, really. Was there any possibility of different scenarios? Yes, of course. But he didn’t want to think so. This is how it must have happened. He took another drink and started wondering if he ought to get out of the bath and fetch a cigarette.

Smoke in the bath? What decadence!

But why not? Dripping and shivering, he padded into his room. He collected an ashtray, his lighter and Bausen’s old, crumpled pack of HB cigarettes, then flopped back into the warm water, lit up and inhaled deeply.

Pro… what the devil’s the Latin for four? Who the hell cares?

Fourth: What had Moerk discovered? What was it?

What the hell was it that nobody else, not even he, had noticed? Unless it was just Podworsky, that is; and the more he thought about it, the more sure he was that it wasn’t. He had scrutinized the report once again earlier in the evening, and hadn’t found a thing-neither had Bausen nor Munster nor Kropke. It was incomprehensible. Bizarre.

Bizarre?

And where had she gone to?

To check?

Check what?

He slammed his fist down into the water and was surprised for a second by the lack of resistance. Was she so damn stupid that she’d walked straight into the murderer’s web? Straight into his arms, like some half-witted girl in any crime movie you cared to name?

He couldn’t believe that. Surely that wasn’t possible? If there was anybody based in this station whom he had confi dence in, it was Inspector Moerk… well, Bausen as well, of course, he had to admit that. But would Beate Moerk have No, he refused to believe it.

What other possibility was there?

That the murderer had got lucky?

Very possible.

That she’d been on his trail earlier and he’d realized that?

Kept an eye on her?

Possible, also. Munster had spoken about her ambitions as a private detective.

He dropped the cigarette into the bucket. No need to dirty the ashtray, he thought.

But where had she gone?

That was the key. He took a few olives. Between half past six, approximately, and five or ten minutes past seven yesterday evening, Beate Moerk had driven her red Mazda from The See

Warf to the parking lot close to the smokehouse off the Esplanade. Somewhere along the way she had checked up on something bizarre and attracted the attention of the murderer.

Let’s hope to God, thought Van Veeteren, that the red car attracted the attention of somebody else as well… that would be enough.

But all hell would have to be let loose first, he reminded himself.

Then Laurids Reisin came into his head-and Mrs. Reisin in her shabby coat, and Miss Marnier, one of Simmel’s lady friends he’d interviewed one afternoon a hundred years ago; and he realized that he was being subjected to yet another unnecessary information attack. He put the light on and decided to go through the Melnik report one more time. As an antidote, if nothing else.

Then he would have a chat with Munster in the bar.

He needed to find out for sure if Munster really did want to get back to his family and garden.

“It’s not necessary,” said Munster.

“What do you mean, not necessary? And what the hell are you sitting there smiling at?”

Munster turned his head away and coughed into his hand.

“Excuse me,” he said. “But Synn and the kids are coming up here tomorrow. She phoned half an hour ago.”

“Coming up here?” exclaimed Van Veeteren, looking con fused.

“Yes, she’s borrowed a holiday cottage from a friend of hers out at Geelnackt. That’s only about six miles from here. I’m moving out there tomorrow afternoon.”

Van Veeteren thought for a moment.

“Munster,” he said, “I think that’s a fantastic woman you’ve got hold of.”

“I know,” said Munster, looking embarrassed.

They drank each other’s health, and Van Veeteren gestured to the waiter.

“Just a small beer,” he explained. “How many times have

Hakan Nesser

Borkmann's Point you read the Melnik report?”

“Twice,” said Munster.

“Found anything?”

Munster shook his head.

“What do you think about that bomb business?” he asked.

Van Veeteren hesitated briefly.

“Hard to say,” he said. “I don’t really understand what somebody like Heinz Eggers could have to do with Basque sep aratists, or the others, come to that. We’ll hear tomorrow morning if Bausen has found out any more about it, I expect.

What do you think?”

“Nothing,” said Munster. “I hope I don’t have to go to the

Costa del Sol, in any case, now that I’ve got my family up here and so on.”

“You can take my word for that,” said Van Veeteren.

“Where’s Cruickshank, by the way? I thought he was a perma nent resident in the bar.”

“He went up to bed about a quarter of an hour ago,” said

Munster. “I think he was sulking because you canceled that insider interview.”

“Oh, yeah. Poor bastard,” said Van Veeteren. “Still, if he can keep calm until Monday, he’ll have all the more to report.”

He certainly will, thought Munster.

The Sunday before the infernal Monday served up a clear morning with warm winds from the southwest. Without needing to exchange any words on the subject, Van Veeteren and Munster chose to walk to the police station.

It was quite simply one of those mornings, and Munster could feel the sluggishness and reluctance in both his own and

Van Veeteren’s footsteps. The very moment they emerged from Weivers Grand, the Bungeskirke bells started ringing for the first service of the day. Van Veeteren paused for a moment to gaze at its dark portals and muttered something incompre hensible. Munster contemplated the canvas spread out before him. The splendid Hanseatic gables. The mythological bronze sculptures with the gently trickling water. The lopsided square resting peacefully under the tinkling chimes, completely deserted apart from an occasional pigeon strutting around, pecking food from between the cobbles. And a dark-skinned road sweeper standing by the bookshop, whistling Verdi.

Munster plunged his hands into his pockets and gripped his thin briefcase under his arm, and as they crossed over the uneven cobbles, a perception of the absurdity of his surround ings slowly took possession of him. The inherent and indis putable lunacy. Their task and activities seemed preposterous in this sleepy little coastal town on a Sunday morning like this.

How pale a murderer looks in daylight, as somebody once said.

And how impossible it was to grasp that they were on their way yet again, for the nth time, to assemble around the oval table in the bilious-yellow conference room at the police sta tion, to sit down and roll up their shirtsleeves for yet another discussion of who this madman might be.

The man wandering around this idyllic little town chop ping the heads off his fellow men.

The man because of whom a whole community was living in fear and trembling, and whose doings had been on every body’s lips as practically the only topic of conversation for week after week now.

The man, in fact, whose identity it was his own, DCI Van

Veeteren’s, and all the others’ duty to discover and establish so that these goings-on could be banished from this world at last.

And what the hell were people going to say tomorrow?

Yes, preposterous is the only word for it, thought Munster, squinting up at the sun above the copper roof of the police station. Or perhaps bizarre, to use Beate Moerk’s word.

And the most difficult thing to understand, the most impos sible thing to comprehend, was, of course, what could have happened to her.

Could it really be that at this very moment she was lying with her head cut off somewhere in the town or its vicinity? A slowly decomposing corpse just waiting to be discovered. Was that possible to imagine? She, the woman he had so nearly…

He swallowed and kicked at an empty cigarette pack that had evidently avoided the attention of the road sweeper.

And this afternoon he would be reunited with Synn and the children.

He had to ask himself how she could have made the decision to come here without the slightest warning-a sudden impulse, she had explained over the telephone-and just right now?

A quarter to eight last Friday evening.

It must have been more or less exactly the moment when…

During the long time they had been working together, on two or three occasions Van Veeteren had started talking to him about the patterns in life. About hidden connections, orches trated incidents and similar phenomena-determinants, what ever they are; but this one must surely surpass most others.

He shuddered, and held open the door for the oracle.

“We’ve got him,” said Bausen.

“Got who?” said Van Veeteren, with a yawn.

“Podworsky, of course,” said Kropke. “He’s in one of the cells down below. We picked him up half an hour ago, in the harbor.”

“In the harbor?”

“Yes. He’s been out fishing since yesterday morning-or so he says, at least. Hired a boat from Saulinen, it seems, evidently does now and then.”

Van Veeteren flopped down on a chair.

“Have you confronted him?” he asked.

“No,” said Bausen. “He has no idea what it’s all about.”

“Good,” said Van Veeteren. “Let him stew a bit longer,

I’d say.”

“I agree entirely,” said Bausen. “I don’t want us to get ahead of ourselves this time.”

Miss deWitt came in with a coffee tray.

“As Sylvie’s is closed on Sundays,” she explained, revealing two aromatic Rillen cakes.

“Bramble?” asked Bausen.

Miss deWitt nodded and tried to suppress a smile.

“Irmgaard, you’re a star,” said Bausen, and the others mumbled polite agreement.

“What’s new since yesterday?” asked Van Veeteren, wiping his mouth clean.

“I’ve spoken to Melnik,” said Bausen. “He’s busy looking into that barroom brawl, of course, but he doubted if he’d be able to find out very much. It never became a police matter, after all. He’s only dug up one witness, a woman who was pres ent, but she has no idea what started it. Perhaps it was just a drunken brawl, a quarrel over something completely insignifi cant that got out of hand for some reason. In any case, it’s no doubt best if we try to press Podworsky on the matter our selves.”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“And the Spain thing?” asked Munster.

Bausen shrugged and looked doubtful.

“As we said yesterday, it seems to be pure coincidence.

Bleuwe wasn’t one of Ruhme’s inner circle in Aarlach. Neither of them had any known links with Spain, and the bombing seems to have been purely a terrorist outrage. ETA claimed responsibility, and they normally do that only when they were, in fact, behind it.”

“And Grete Simmel had no idea what Bang was talking about,” said Kropke.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean much,” said Bausen.

“Pure chance, then,” said Van Veeteren, contemplating his empty plate. “There seems to be a lot of that around.”

Bausen lit his pipe.

“Anything else before we confront Podworsky?”

Kropke cleared his throat.

“Well, nothing important,” he said. “But I’ve also retraced

Moerk’s steps. I jogged the same route this morning.”

“And?” said Bausen.

“I didn’t find anything either,” said Kropke.

“Really?” said Van Veeteren.

“Podworsky, then,” said Bausen. “How shall we approach this?”

Munster looked around the table-Kropke, Mooser and

Bausen. Van Veeteren and himself. Constable Bang had evi dently overslept, or perhaps the chief of police had granted him the day off-nothing very startling about that, when you think about it.

Van Veeteren spoke up.

“If you’ve nothing against it,” he said, “I’d like to take the first round, along with Munster.”

It’s possible that Kropke looked slightly put out, but Bausen merely nodded and went to fetch the tape recorder.