Games of The Hangman

21

Within minutes of his name's flashing up on the Project K computer screen, Lodge's house in the exclusive Bern suburb of Muri had been surrounded by heavily armed police. Only minutes away from both Kirchenfeldstrasse and police headquarters, Muri was a quarter occupied mainly by diplomats, senior bureaucrats, and the ex-wives of successful businessmen. The houses were solidly built and expensive even by Swiss standards and in many cases were discreetly set back from the road in the seclusion of their own grounds.

Lodge's house wasn't just discreet; it was downright reclusive. It occupied a two-acre lot at the end of a leafy cul-de-sac. A thick screen of trees and shrubbery rendered it invisible from either the road or its neighbors on either side, and the grounds at the back of the house not only were similarly screened but led in turn to a private fenced-off wood and through it to the River Aare. Further privacy was ensured by a four-meter-high perimeter wall topped with razor wire — sprayed green for environmental reasons. The wire was electrified. The main gates were the same height as the wall and were made from oak-faced steel plate. There was no doorbell.

The Chief Kripo would have preferred to keep Lodge's place under observation for some days before taking more dramatic action, but practical realities intervened. First, the Hangman was simply too dangerous to leave on the loose any longer than necessary, and second, they had to find out as fast as possible whether they were on the right track. After all, the computer wasn't infallible. Lodge might not be the right man. He might be a totally innocent run-of-the-mill privacy-loving billionaire.

The Chief wished that there were a better way of checking out Lodge, but he couldn’t think of one. Once again he was going to lead the raid, and this time he was sweating under his body armor even before the assault team went into action. His skin felt cold and clammy, and there was an unpleasant taste in his mouth. He had a very bad feeling about what was to happen. He swallowed with difficulty and issued the command. The team started in.

* * * * *

Henssen replaced the receiver slowly and stared into the middle distance. "What a bloody business."

Kersdorf's legs were hurting him. "What happened?" he asked. "Is Lodge our man?"

Henssen shrugged helplessly. "The assault team lost two men going in plus another half dozen wounded. Lost as in dead. The Chief was scratched, but he's okay."

Kersdorf was silent, shocked. Then he spoke. "So Lodge is our man. Did they get him?"

"They don't even know whether he was there when the assault began," said Henssen, spreading his hands in a gesture of frustration, "but he certainly wasn't by the time they secured the house. Their best guess is that he wasn't there at all. They sweat that nobody got through their cordon and that the house was empty."

"So how come the casualties?"

"A variation on a theme. Explosives concealed in the floors and ceilings were triggered by a series of independent but mutually supporting automatic sensors: heat, acoustic, and pressure. The explosives were wrapped in some material that neutralized the sniffers."

"What about Claymores?" said Kersdorf. "We warned them to expect Claymores."

"It seems that our people just weren't good enough," said Henssen, "or at least the Hangman was better. Of course, he's had more practice, God rot him." He paused and massaged his temples. He felt acutely depressed, and light-headed from lack of sleep. He continued. "Oh, they found Claymores as expected and defused them. They followed our briefing in that respect, but then they thought they were safe — and boom."

"He's a creature of habit," said Kersdorf. "There is always a surprise within a surprise: the Chinese doll syndrome."

"Russian doll," corrected Henssen. "Those doll-within-a-doll-within-a-doll sets are Russian. They call them matrushkas; there can be three, four, or five, or six, or even more little surprises inside."

Kersdorf sighed. There was silence in the room before he spoke. "Let's get some sleep." He gestured at the computer. "At least we now know how he operates. It won't be long before we get him."

"But at what cost?" said Henssen.

* * * * *

The Bear was in a private room of the Tiefnau. Ten days of first-class medical care and the special attentions of one particular ward nurse with a gleam in her eye had left him, if not as good as new, at least in excellent secondhand condition. He pushed aside his tray with a satisfied sigh and split the last of the Burgundy between them..

Fitzduane picked up the empty bottle. "Hospital issue?"

"Not exactly," said the Bear, "though I suppose you might call it medically selected."

"Ah," said Fitzduane. He looked at the label. "A 1961 Beaune. Now what does that suggest to you about the lady who bought you this? This is real wine. You don't use ‘61 Beaune to take the paint off your front door."

"Hmm," said the Bear, growing a little pinker. "Do you mind if we don't talk about Frau Maurer?"

Fitzduane grinned and drained his glass.

"What's been happening?" asked the Bear. "Rest and relaxation are going to be the death of me. I'm not allowed near a phone, and the news I'm being fed is so scrappy that if I were a dog, I'd be chasing sheep."

"Don't exaggerate."

"Any progress with Vreni?"

"None. She's alive, she's physically almost recovered, but her mind is the problem. She talks little, sleeps a lot, and any attempt to question her has proved disastrous. It sends her into a fit each time. The doctors have insisted that she be left alone."

"Poor kid," said the Bear. "What about Lodge?"

"Vanished — not that he ever appeared, now I think about it. The house has been taken apart by the army and made safe, which was no small task itself. There were booby traps everywhere. Afterward the forensics people had a field day. There is no doubt that Lodge is the Hangman, but the question is, is Lodge really Lodge?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Questioning of the neighbors hasn't yielded much," explained Fitzduane. "He is a recluse. He comes and goes at irregular intervals. He is absent for long periods. It's consistent with what we expected. We have had some small luck in terms of physical description, though few people have seen him up close. Mostly quick glimpses through a car window."

"I thought all his various cars have tinted windows."

"Sometimes, on a hot day, a window might be wound down," said Fitzduane. "He has also been seen walking on a couple of occasions — both times while it was raining so he was huddled under an umbrella."

"Blond, bearded, medium build, et cetera," said the Bear.

"Quite so," said Fitzduane. "And that tallies with the photo and other personal details filed with the Bern Fremdenpolizei."

"So what's the problem?"

"We've traced some of Lodge's background in the States," said Fitzduane. "We haven't been able to lay our hands on a photograph — his father was a senior CIA man and apparently for security reasons didn't allow either himself or his family to be photographed — but the physical descriptions don't tally. Hair and eyes are a different color. Lodge in his youth had dark brown hair and brown eyes."

"A good wig and contact lenses are all you need to solve that problem."

Fitzduane shook his head. "Not so simple. Normal procedure for an alien coming to live in Switzerland involves the Fremdenpolizei, as you know. In Lodge's case, he was interviewed several times by an experienced sergeant who swears that the man he spoke to — for several hours in all — had naturally blond hair, was not wearing contact lenses, and is the man in the photo in his file, which in turn pretty much tallies with the neighbors' description."

"Fingerprints?"

"None," said Fitzduane. "None on file in the States anyway. The Fremdenpolizei apparently don't taken them if you're a well-behaved affluent foreigner, and the jury is still out on the house in Muri. The forensics people have picked up some unidentified prints, but without a match they're not much use. I wouldn’t bet on the Hangman's prints being among them. He seems to skate near the edge, but in fundamental things he's damn cautious."

"So Lodge is the Hangman," said the Bear, "but maybe Lodge isn't Lodge — and the Lodge that isn't Lodge isn’t to be found."

"Hole in one," said Fitzduane.

The Bear looked out the full-length window. Despite protestations about security, he had insisted on being on the ground floor and on having direct access to the garden. The window was slightly open, and he could smell freshly cut grass. He could hear the mower in the distance. "I hate hospitals. But I'm developing a certain affection for this one. Dental records?" he added.

"Like the marriage feast at Cana, I'm saving the best for last."

"So?" the Bear said impatiently.

"The Nose has been set up to monitor any incident in Bern that might conceivably relate to the activities of the Hangman. A couple of days ago a dentist's surgery was completely destroyed by fire — as was the dentist, who had been bound into his own chair with wire."

"That sounds like the Hangman's sense of humor," said the Bear. "Though I guess there might be a few other candidates among the patients."

"Needless to say, all of the dentist's records were destroyed, and that would have been that except it turns out he kept a backup set in his bank."

"I'm sure his widow will enjoy looking through them. And I presume Mr. Lodge's full frontals are among them?"

"Exactly."

"Matrushka," said the Bear, "if I can quote Henssen's latest obsession."

"Gesundheit," said Fitzduane.

* * * * *

The Chief Kripo was contemplating the computer screen. His face had been gashed unpleasantly, if not severely, during the Muri raid, and the scars itched. The stitches had been taken out several days before, and he had been told he was healing well. He had also been told the scars would be permanent unless he had plastic surgery. He was unenthusiastic about the idea; he thought he'd prefer to remain scarred and dangerous-looking than have some quack peel skin off his bottom and try to stick it on his face. He didn’t like strangers attempting to rearrange his bit — which brought him right back to the Hangman, who had damn nearly succeeded in disassembling him into his component parts.

He tapped the computer keyboard a couple of times with his forefinger. "It works," he said. "You've proved that it does. Why is it that now, when we're so close, it's of no help anymore?"

Henssen shrugged helplessly. "It has to be asked the right questions."

The Chief glared at the VDU. He had a totally irrational desire to climb inside the machine with a screwdriver and wrench and force the dumb beast to cough up some answers. Somewhere inside that electronic monster lay the solution. He was convinced of that. But what to do about it? He had no idea. He was certain he was missing something — something obvious. He walked back and forth across the room, glancing frequently at the computer. After ten minutes of this, to Henssen's great relief, he stopped and sat down.

"Tell me more," he said, "about how this machine thinks."

* * * * *

Fitzduane found walking in the Marzili pleasant but distracting. The Marzili was a long, thin park sandwiched between the River Aare and a well-to-do residential area of Bern, both of which were overlooked by the Bundeshaus bad a plethora of government buildings, including the Interpol building and the headquarters of the Federal Police.

The Marzili's proximity to the center of things meant that even this early in the year, as the day was warm and sunny, a generous sprinkling of nearly naked women was scattered across the lawn. Topless sunbathing was the norm in the Marzili, and hundreds of secretaries and computer operators and other government workers were busy making up for a long, cold winter. Serried ranks of nipples were pointed at the sun like solar cells on an energy farm.

Fitzduane, encased in a bulletproof vest under a light cotton blouson jacket, felt overdressed. He glanced across at the Bear, who was humming. Externally the detective seemed little the worse for wear after his two weeks in the hospital, and his cheeks had the ruddy glow of good living. On second thought Fitzduane decided that more than good food and wine were reflected in the Bear's demeanor. Love and the Bear? Well, good for Frau Maurer. Her first name, he had learned, was Katia.

"Don't you find all this distracting?" he asked. Fitzduane's eyes followed a spectacular redhead as she loped across the grass in front of them and then lay down on a towel, eyes closed, face and body toward the sun, knees drawn up and slightly apart. Tendrils of pubic hair escaping from the monokini confirmed that she was the genuine article. She looked edible.

"On the contrary," said the Bear, "I find it riveting."

Fitzduane smiled. They walked toward the path that ran along the bank of the river. Downstream, minutes away, was the KirchenfeldBridge, and just below that was the spot where Klaus Minder's body had been fished out.

The Bear sat down on a bench. Suddenly he looked tired. He threw a small branch into the water, and his eyes followed it until it bobbed out of sight. He extracted a creased envelope from his pocket and smoothed it on his knee.

"Your guess as to the Hangman's identity," he said. "I found it in my pocket when I was getting dressed in the hospital this morning."

"It seems I was wrong," said Fitzduane dryly. "There doesn't seem to be much doubt that Lodge is our man, and God knows where he is now. Your people have checked every square millimeter of Bern over the last couple of weeks."

"Why did you think it was Balac?"

Fitzduane picked up a handful of pebbles and slowly tossed them one by one into the river. He liked the faint plop each stone made. He wondered how many people had sat on the riverbank over the years and done the same thing. Had a vast bed of pebbles built up in the river as a result? Would the river eventually be choked up by ruminating the river watchers?

"A number of reasons. For starters, just sheer gut feeling that he is a person who is not what he seems. Next, a number of small things. He is the right age. He was an intimate of Erika's. He has the right kind of charming but dominant personality. His artist's training would give him an excellent knowledge of anatomy. His work habits allow him to travel extensively without suspicion, to have unexplained absences, and so on. He's paranoid about security. His studio is near where Klaus Minder's body was found. There are other pointers, but none conclusive, and in any case it all appears a little academic at this stage. We've identified our man, and he isn’t Balac."

"Hmm," mused the Bear. He was no longer looking so tired.

"Anyway, I can't see him doing something as provocative as the chessboard girl."

"We're dealing with a player of games," said the Bear. "The Hangman isn't rational by normal standards. He has his own logic. Tweaking our collective official nose appeals to him. Actually it’s not so uncommon. I once picked up a car thief who had operated freely for years until he stole a police car — and to an unmarked one, but the full painted-up job with radio and flashing lights and all the trimmings. When I asked him why he'd done such a stupid thing, he said he couldn’t resist it."

Fitzduane laughed. "How are you feeling?"

"Good considering this is my first day out of the hospital, but I do get a little wobbly now and then. I'll take a good long rest when this is over."

"I'm not sure you should go to this meeting."

"You couldn’t keep me away if you tried," said the Bear. "Don't forget I've a very personal interest these days. I want the Hangman dead."

"What about civil rights and due process of law?" said Fitzduane, smiling.

"The Bear shook his head. "This isn't a normal case. Normal rules don't apply. This is like stamping out a plague. You destroy the source of the infection."

They walked along the Aare to the Dalmazibrücke. By crossing it and cutting up Schwellenmattstrasse, they could have made it to Project K in ten minutes, but Fitzduane took another look at the Bear and called a Berp car by radio. The Bear didn't argue. He was silent, lost in thought.

* * * * *

The Chief surveyed the assembled Project K team; then his gaze fixed on the Bear.

"You shouldn’t be here, Heini, as you damn well know. If you collapse, don't' expect me to hold one end of the stretcher. You're too damn heavy."

The Bear nodded. "Understood, Chief. You're not a young man anymore."

"Needs his strength for other things," said Charlie von Beck.

"Shut up, the lot of you," said the Chief, "and listen carefully. A short time ago we had our first major breakthrough. We paid a heavy price, but we identified the Hangman's base in Bern, and we now have a fair idea who he is, though I admit there are some problems in that area. On the negative side, a couple of weeks after the Muri find, the investigation is virtually at a standstill. We are at an impasse in terms of the Hangman's identity, and the man himself seems to have vanished despite the fact that we now have a photograph of him — and dental records — to work with. To add insult to injury, the death of that dentist occurred after the Muri raid, so it looks very much as if the Hangman is still in Bern. We know what he looks like, yet this psychopath seems to come and go with impunity — and not just to look at the sights. He is still killing.

"I've called you all together to suggest that we change the way we're approaching this investigation. Since Muri we've been concentrating on trying to find Lodge to the virtual exclusion of all else. We haven't been successful. Now I think we need a more creative approach, and I include in that our use of the computer." He nodded at Henssen.

Henssen stood up and then propped himself against a desktop. He looked as if he needed the support. He cleared his throat and spoke, his voice hoarse. "The Chief thinks that we may have the solution in the computer but that we're not asking the right questions. He may well be right, so let me explain a little more about what we have done — and can do.

"Our identification of Lodge was the result of a mixture of computer activity and human judgment. We tapped into a vast amount of data and then constructed a theoretical profile of the Hangman, and then, using a technique known as forward chaining, we filtered through the data. We were lucky. One of our two prime suspects was our man."

"May I interrupt here?" the Bear broke in. "I thought it was agreed that the initial profile would look for someone who wasn't Swiss. If so, why did the machine cough up Beat von Graffenlaub? His age wasn't right either."

Henssen looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, Heini, I owe you something of an apology. I second-guessed you. The program allows parameters to be graded according to the confidence rating because there wasn't a shred of hard evidence to back it up; it was outweighed by other material. The same applied to the age factor. In neither case were we dealing with hard facts, only with guesses."

"Fair enough," said the Bear, "but I would like to have been told that at the time."

"The system is totally transparent to the user," said Henssen. "Any of the parameters can be looked at whenever you wish. After this I'll show you how it's done."

"Can we get back to the original topic?" said the Chief testily.

"Certainly," said Henssen. "Where was I?"

"Forward chaining," said Kersdorf.

"Ah," said Henssen. "Well, forward chaining is essentially a way of generating conclusions by applying rules, either formal or heuristic, to a given set of facts. If the bank customer pulls a gun and demands money and there is no suggestion that this is a security test, then a reasonable deduction is that he is a bank robber."

"And who said computers couldn’t think?" Charlie von Beck rolled his eyes. He was back in his bow tie and velvet suit.

Henssen ignored the interruption. "The point is, forward chaining is only one way to go about things. You can also use backward chaining. In that situation you could assume someone was a bank robber and then work back to see what facts supported that conclusion. It's an ideal way of checking out a suspect and ties in with the less rational elements of our human makeup, like intuition."

The Bear caught Fitzduane's eye and smiled.

"What it comes down to," the Chief said, "is that we have a much more flexible tool here than we seem to realize, and we're not using it to anywhere near its full potential. For instance, it can function in the abstract. Instead of asking, ‘Who do we have on file who has a knowledge of plastique?’ you can ask it, ‘What kind of person would have a knowledge of plastique, and where might he or she be found?’ The machine will then generate a profile based upon its file of data and its knowledge base." He rose to his feet. "Well, there you have it. Take of the blinkers. Try a little creative anarchy. Hit the problem from first principles. Find the fucking Hangman." After an angry look at everyone, he left the room.

* * * * *

Inspired by Katia, who believed that certain foods were good for certain parts of the anatomy, over the next three days the Bear ate a great deal of fish — a luxury in landlocked Switzerland — and, so to speak, kept himself to himself.

He wasn't so much antisocial as elusive. He went places and did things without saying exactly where or what. He made and received phone calls without comment. A series of packages arrived by courier and were unwrapped and examined only when he was alone. He was moderately talkative but only on any subject except the Hangman, and he was maddeningly cheerful.

On the morning of the fourth day Fitzduane, who had been researching variations of Swiss batzi with a little too much dedication the night before, rose at the unearthly hour the Swiss set aside for breakfast only to yawn to a halt in near-terminal shock at the sight of the Bear standing on his head, arms crossed, in the living room. His eyes were closed.

"Morning," said the Bear without stirring.

"Ugh," said Fitzduane. He turned on his heel and stood under a cold shower for five minutes. Toward the end he thought it might be a good idea to remove his robe and pajamas. When he returned to the living room, the apparition had vanished.

Over breakfast the Bear expounded on the merits of fish as a brain food. "Did you know," he said, "that the brain is essentially a fatty organ and one of its key ingredients, a free fatty acid, comes from fish?"

"Ugh," said Fitzduane, and spread butter and marmalade on his toast.

The Bear chewed enthusiastically on a raw carrot and wrinkled his nose at what Fitzduane was eating. "That's no way to start the day," he said. "I must get Katia to draw you up a diet sheet."

Fitzduane poured some batzi into his orange juice. He drank half the glass. "Ugh," he said.

* * * * *

Later that morning, after a detour to the Der Bund office to pick up a bulky file stuffed with press clippings, notes, and photographs, Fitzduane found himself trailing behind the apparently supercharged Bear as the detective hummed his way through the portals, halls, rooms, corridors, and miscellaneous annexes of the City of Bern art museum. The corridor they were in was in semidarkness. Fitzduane wondered about the wisdom of this policy. Perhaps visitors were supposed to rent flashlights. His mind went back to Kuno Gonschior's exhibition of a series of black rectangles in the Loeb Gallery. It had been the first time he had met Erika. It seemed lightyears ago. [(wtf?)]

The Bear stopped his march and scratched his head. "I think I'm lost."

The pause gave Fitzduane the chance to catch up. He leaned against the wall while the Bear consulted his notebook with the aid of a match. He was thinking that if the Bear continued in this hyperactive, hypercheerful mood, it might be a good idea to slip a downer into his morning orange juice before both of them had heart attacks.

There was a long, furious burst of what sounded like automatic weapons fire, and Fitzduane dived to the ground. The section of the wall against which he'd been leaning a split second before fell into the corridor, and a piercing white light shone through the gap in the wall. Fitzduane half expected the archangel Gabriel to make an appearance. Instead, a dust-covered figure clad in a zippered blue overall and carrying a heavy industrial hammer drill in both hands like a weapon climbed through the aperture, trailing cable behind him. He didn't appear to have wings. Head to one side, the figure surveyed the hole in the wall critically and then nodded his head in satisfaction, entirely oblivious of the 9 mm SIG automatic Fitzduane was aiming at his torso.

"Ha!" said the Bear triumphantly. "I wasn't lost after all." He looked down at Fitzduane. "Don't shoot him. This is Charlie von Beck's cousin Paulus, Paulus von Beck. He's a man of parts: the museum's expert in brush technique, a successful sculptor, and I don't know what else. He's also the reason we're here."

Fitzduane made his weapon safe and reholstered it. He still hadn't gotten his shotgun back, and it irked him. He rose to his feet, brushed dust from his clothes, and shook hands with von Beck. "Demolition or sculpture?" he asked. "Or were you just carried away screwing in a picture hook?"

* * * * *

Paulus left them in his office drinking coffee while he went to clean up before going to the restoration studios to examine the contents of the file the Bear had brought with him. When he returned, Paulus had discarded his sculptor image. The overalls had been replaced by a charcoal gray suit of Italian cut with creases so sharp it seemed clear that the art expert kept a steam press in his closet. His silk was hand-painted.

Paulus was older than his cousin. He had a high-browed, delicately featured face set off by a soft mane of wavy hair, and his eyes were a curious shade of violet. He looked troubled. Fitzduane had the feeling that the Bear might have stumbled across more than he'd bargained for. Paulus's demeanor was not that of a dispassionate expert; somehow he was a player.

"Sergeant Raufman, before I answer the questions you have put to me, I would be grateful if you would answer a few points I would like to raise. They are relevant, I assure you."

"The Bear's tone reflected the art expert's sober demeanor. "As you wish. We police are more accustomed to asking questions rather than answering, but I shall do what I can." There was the slightest emphasis on the word police. It was as good a way as any of warning Paulus to think carefully before he spoke, thought Fitzduane.

"Thank you," said von Beck. The warning had been understood. He took his time before he spoke. He straightened a small bronze bust on his desk while he collected his thoughts. He tidied the papers in front of him into an exact symmetrical pile. He cleared his throat. Fitzduane felt like taking a walk around the block while von Beck dithered.

"My first question: Do your inquiries have to do with the recent wave of killings in this city?"

The Bear nodded. "They do."

Von Beck exhaled slowly. "My second question: You have asked me to comment on a certain artist's work. Do you suspect the artist of being involved — centrally involved — with these killings?"

It was the Bear's turn to hesitate. "Yes," he said finally.

"You don't think that he could be involved only peripherally, an innocent victim, if you will?"

"Anything's possible," said the Bear.

"But you don't think so?"

The Bear gave a deep sigh. "No. I think our friend is involved from his toes to the tip of his paintbrush. I think he's a ruthless homicidal nut with a perverted sense of humor, who should be eliminated as fast as possible before he contaminates any more lives. I think you should stop playing verbal tiddlywinks and tell us everything you know or suspect. I'm running out of patience. This is a murder investigation, not some parlor game."

The color drained from von Beck's face, and he looked as if he were going to be sick. "My third question," he said, "and then I will tell you what you want to know: If I tell you everything, can I trust your utter discretion? No leaks to the press, no appearing in open court, no involvement at all, in fact, other than my giving you a statement?"

"This business about priorities," said the Bear. "We have a mass killer on the loose. If I have to parade you around the streets of Bern with a rope around your neck to checkmate our friend, then that's what I'll do. On the other hand, you're a cousin of a trusted colleague. If I can help you, I will. We're after the shark, not a minnow."

Fitzduane broke in. "To be frank, Herr von Beck, I think you have already decided to tell us all you know, and we respect that. It takes courage. But there is something else to think about apart from public duty. Basic survival. Our murderous friend has a habit of cleaning up after himself. He doesn't like to leave a trail of witnesses. They seem to enjoy brief life spans after they have served their purpose. It just might be a good idea to help stop our friend before he kills you."

Von Beck now looked truly terrified. "I know," he said. "I know. You don't have to say any more." The Bear and Fitzduane waited while Paulus von Beck composed himself.

"Before I give you my professional opinion," said Paulus, "I had better explain the full extent of my relationship with Simon Balac. I am a homosexual. Bern is an intimate city where people of similar interests and persuasions almost inevitably tend to know one another. The artistic community is comparatively small. I got to know Balac — everyone calls him Balac — well. Nearly five years ago we became lovers."

"Your being homosexual or even having an affair with Simon Balac is neither here nor there to the police," said the Bear. "Your sex life is your business."

"I'm afraid that is not all there is to it," said Paulus. "You see, Balac is a strong personality with what one might call varied... exotic tastes. He has a strong sexual drive, and he likes diversions. In his company one finds oneself swept along, eager to please, willing to try things, to do things that normally one would not contemplate. He is a brilliant artist, and the foibles of such men must be tolerated, or at least that is what I used to tell myself. If I am to be truthful, I was swept up in the sheer sexual excitement of it all, the tasting of forbidden fruit.

"Balac enjoys women sexually as well as men. He enjoys group sex in all its variations. He likes children, sexually mature children but still way below the age of consent. He likes to initiate, to corrupt. He makes it incredibly exciting. He uses stimulants — alcohol, various drugs — and above all his own extraordinary energy and charisma."

"The von Graffenlaub twins, Rudi and Vreni?" asked Fitzduane.

"And Erika?" added the Bear.

"Yes, yes," said Paulus.

"Hmm," said the Bear. "You'd better tell us all of it. Does Charlie know any of this?"

Paulus shook his head firmly. "He knows I'm gay, of course, but nothing else. He's a good friend and a kind man. I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t."

"I'm afraid he'll have to know now," said the Bear. "You do understand that, don't you?"

Paulus nodded.

It was midafternoon before they emerged from the museum. While the Bear debated whether to go to satisfy his audibly growling stomach — he had decided he was sick of fish — Fitzduane asked the one question that had been bothering him since von Beck had shown he could walk through walls. "Is it normal in Switzerland to chop up the core structure of the museum in the interest of artistic expression?"

The Bear laughed. "Living art," he said. "Actually there is an explanation. They were knocking down that section of the museum anyway to make way for a new extension, and they thought it might be fun to let artists take part in the process."

"Ah," said Fitzduane.

"No matter how bizarre the event, there is almost always a straightforward explanation. Don't you agree?"

"No," said Fitzduane.

* * * * *

The Chief Kripo had learned to regard the Project K headquarters as a haven. Only there did he have any thinking time; only there was he relatively free of interference from his political masters wanting progress reports; only there could he escape the profusion of foreign antiterrorist agencies that all wanted a piece of the Hangman, doubtless to skin and stuff and hang on their respective bureaucratic walls; only there did any serious progress seem to be made on the case itself, as opposed to the international hunt, which appeared to have become an enterprise in its own right with the objective almost incidental; only there could he avoid his wife and two mistresses, each of whom blamed his now excessively long absences on some relative advance in his affections for one of the others. It was no picnic being Chief of the Criminal Police in Bern these days.

As luck would have it, the Chief was in the main computer room when Henssen finished the computer runs the Bear had requested. He stared at Henssen's screen. Could this be it? Had they got a real answer at last? Could they ship that albatross of an Irishman back to his bogs? Could they think in terms of no Hangman and a nice steady traditional Bernese two corpses a year? Hell, it was going to be champagne time.

The Chief tried to rein in on his hopes. "Are you sure? Absolutely sure?"

"Nothing is sure in this life, Chief," said the Bear, "except death, a strong Swiss franc, and that the rich get richer."

"Convince me, convince us." The Chief included the rest of the Project K team with a sweep of his arm.

* * * * *

Kadar hadn't expected Lodge to be discovered, and he had absolutely no idea how it could have happened. He had been so careful with this personality. He hadn't taken the risks that had characterized his behavior in other guises. How then could it have occurred?

Losing Lodge was worse than the death of a friend. Of course, that was only natural. After all, he was Lodge, wasn't he? There were times he wasn't sure. His Lodge identity represented his one true link with the past, but now he could never use it again. He felt — he searched for a word — orphaned.

Perhaps he was being too negative. His use of a stand-in during the immigration proceedings — a minor actor, now resting permanently under half a meter of concrete in the house in Muri — could give him a way out. The man whose description and photograph they had wasn't Kadar. He could reappear as Lodge and indignantly protest this usurpation of his name. He'd have to do it from another country, or things would get confusing. Still, it could be done. It might work.

No, it was too risky. Well, he'd think about it.

Only two days were left before he was due to leave Bern to commence what he thought of as the ‘active’ phase of the operation. It might be wiser to leave immediately. Then again his plans were made, and he had taken precautions against discovery. It could even work to his advantage.

He checked the temperature probe set into Paul Straub's body. The corpse was defrosting, but too slowly. It would have been handier to have used not water to thaw out Herr Straub, but he wasn't too sure what effect that would have. It was the kind of thing some forensic scientist might pick up. A body destroyed by fire shouldn't really be waterlogged. It shouldn't start off as a block of ice either; it wouldn't burn properly. A scorched outside and entrails cold enough to chill a martini might cause some head scratching.

He turned up the heat. He thought it was rather neat to be using his sauna for the purpose. He could tone up and sweat off some weight while keeping an eye on things. If his experiment with the frozen pig was anything to go by, Straub should be adequately thawed out in about another six to eight hours. That would be just about right. Then he'd be kept in the large Bosch refrigerator, nicely chilled but on call if required. If he wasn't needed, he could be refrozen and kept on hand for a rainy day.

* * * * *

"It's ironic," said the Bear, "but what pointed me in the right direction wasn't the computerized power of the Nose or old-fashioned police work; it was our Irishman's intuition." He looked across at Fitzduane. "You should have more faith, Hugo.

"Hugo suspected the painter Simon Balac was our man. There was some circumstantial evidence, but it was far from conclusive. Then the computer identified Lodge, and the raid confirmed him, and naturally all our efforts were concentrated in that direction. I had plenty of time on my hands in the hospital, and I wasn't distracted by the details of the hunt." He glowered around him. "You people kept me starved of information."

"For your own good, Heini," said Charlie von Beck, "and on doctor's orders."

"What do doctors know?" growled the Bear. "Anyway, sparked by Hugo's candidate, I got to thinking about the nature of the Hangman and how he operates, and that led me to an intriguing hypothesis: Could Lodge and Balac be one and the same man?"

"Proof?" said the Chief. "But why be greedy? At this stage I'll settle for reasons and an hour alone with him in a police cell."

"Patience. Rubber hoses are un-Swiss. We're supposed to be a logical people. Follow my reasoning, and you'll see how it all fits together. First, let's remember the Hangman's habit of always having a way out. If the authorities hit one of his bases, to things can be virtually guaranteed: the place will be extensively booby-trapped, and an elaborate escape route will already have been planned. The Hangman doesn't fling himself through the fourth-floor window as the police come rushing through the front door and hope to work things out on the way down. No, this guy is prepared for the down side in detail. It's the way he operates. He's a compulsive planner, and he likes to think he has every contingency covered."

"He normally has," grumbled the Chief.

"Now, combine this behavior with his habit of operating in a compartmentalized way through a series of apparently autonomous gangs, and you have someone who almost certainly works through two or more meticulously prepared identities. The Hangman is a perfectionist. His won't be just paper identities that will fold under investigation. No, he will have created what appear to be real living people. If one cover gets blown, he migrates to identity number two and continues on. Also, we know he likes to take risks — strictly speaking, unnecessary risks — so it is my hunch that he doesn't go away and hide under a stone when he switches identities. His new persona is right out there, most likely an upstanding member of the community, the last person you'd suspect.

"My next step was to go back to the computer and reevaluate our suspect list in a different way. Up till then we had concentrated on two prime targets, von Graffenlaub and Lodge, and had ignored the rest when we got lucky with Lodge. However, there were, in fact, several hundred other names on the ‘possible’ list.

"We could have slogged through the names in order of probability rating, but the banks would have given up secrecy by the time we had any results. Then it occurred to me that we should tackle things another way. Given that Lodge is part of the puzzle, we should evaluate the suspect list with him as part of the equation. His known activities should be matched with those of each of the other suspects to see who fits the best. Now remember that although few people ever saw Lodge, were still managed to accumulate masses of data on the man. We have travel details, credit card usage, financial data, magazine subscriptions, and so on. That's the kind of stuff that led us to take a look at him in the first place. We had no hard evidence that he was the Hangman. It was merely that his profile hit.

"The results of our exercise under the amended program were intriguing. Simon Balac rocketed to the top of the list, and all sorts of other hot candidates dropped to the bottom. One and one started to make three."

"I take it Heini wasn't programming the computer," said the Chief to Henssen.

"Next we were able to fit a few more pieces of the—"

"Puzzle?" said Charlie von Beck.

The Bear shook his head pityingly. "Of the foundation of guilt." He raised his eyebrows. "One of the interesting things about the computer checks we ran on Balac is not so much what showed up as what didn't show up. Let me give you a few examples. First, Balac travels a great deal. His various showings and exhibitions are a matter of public record, yet his credit card records and travel arrangements don't adequately back that up."

"Maybe he likes to pay cash to avoid taxes," said Kersdorf. "That's not exactly uncommon. Maybe he just hates credit cards."

The Bear shook his head. "He has all the major credit cards, from American Express to Diners Club, from Access to Visa. He used them freely in Bern and to some extent when he travels. Superficially it looks all right, but a statistical analysis of how he spends indicates that his pattern is out of sync with the norm. That's not significant in itself except to suggest that he is hiding something.

"The next factor has to do with his travel arrangements. Even if he is paying cash, his name should show up on the airplane reservation computer. The point is, it doesn't. Balac disappears from Bern and then reappears at some known destination without leaving a trace as to how he got there. That isn't normal. Maybe he has a policy of traveling under an assumed name, but that isn't kosher either because it suggests strongly that he must be using a false passport. You have to remember that security arrangement on the airlines are now fairly thorough, and bookings are regularly cross-checked with passport holders. Balac doesn't show up."

"These are details," said the Chief. "He might be guilty of a passport offense. That doesn't mean he's the Hangman."

"Let me continue. So far we've got someone who, when dovetailed with Lodge, fits our computer profile exactly. Next, analysis shows his spending and travel patterns to be suspicious. Then, comparison of his known travel destinations and criminal incidents in which the Hangman is known or suspected to be involved correlate to a significant extent. That doesn't mean he was in the same city or even in the same country — but he was frequently within communication distance whether by plane, train, ship, or road. Next, we've had two positive identifications from Lenk that he was there when the incident with young Rudi von Graffenlaub and Erika took place. We struck out on that one at first when we just looked for a description, but when we went back with photographs of Balac, our luck improved."

"Photographs?" said Henssen. "Any chance our people could have been seen? He seems to have a highly developed sense of self-preservation."

"Der Bund," said the Bear. "Thank God for a newspaper of record. It may be stuffy, but it's certainly thorough. It has a file on every celebrity in town, and Balac has been here long enough and run enough exhibitions to justify a nice fat folder. We have numerous pictures of him and even more of his paintings. I'll come back to that.

"The next point is interesting. It occurred to us that given the Hangman's habit of making significant structural alterations to the buildings he uses, there might be a lead there. Some of his work may well have been carried out openly, as is the case with his reinforced door, but other work suggested a clandestine operation and a high level of skill. That indicated the possibility that he brings in small teams of experts, keeps them under wraps for the duration of the job, and then, given his penchant for tidying, disposes of them.

"To that end, using the Nose, we burrowed away and uncovered four incidents that fit our profile. In every case a highly skilled group of workmen had been killed I what looked like an accident. In one case, about eighteen months ago, a minibus of Italian workmen from Milan went over a cliff in Northern Italy after a tire blew. The carabinieri suspected the Mafia, since it is heavily into construction and related activities, and the tire had blown because of a small explosive charge, which is its style. Anyway, what made this case different was that there was one survivor of the eight in the bus. He was badly burned, but he rambled on about a special job and the sound of a river and never getting any fresh air and the smell of turpentine making his sick."

Lodge's home in Muri?" said the Chief. "It backs on the Aare."

"I don't think so," said the Bear. "There's a wood between the house and the river that blankets out all sound of the water. I checked it out."

"So you think it was Balac's studio complex down by the Wasserwerk?" said von Beck.

"Near where Minder was found," added the Chief.

"That's my best guess," said the Bear.

"Can we talk to this workman?" said the Chief.

"Through a Ouija board maybe," replied the Bear. "He recovered, went home, and someone put two barrels of a lupara into him. Terminal relapse."

"Keep going," said the Chief with a sigh. "I'm sure you've got something even better up your sleeve."

"Hang in there, Chief," said the Bear. "It's coming."

"Before I forget," said Kersdorf, "have you any idea what those workmen were working on? Did the survivor say? Who recruited them?"

"They were recruited through an intermediary using a cover story — something about an eccentric Iranian general who had fled to Switzerland after Khomeini took over and now was afraid of assassination by a hit team of Revolutionary Guards."

"Good story," said von Beck. "It's happened."

"What exactly were they to do?" asked the Chief.

"Something about a sophisticated personal security system. We don't know much else except that the survivor was a hydraulics mechanic."

"I don't like the sound of this at all," said the Chief.

"Let me move on. The next point concern blood types. We know the Hangman's blood type from the semen left in the chessboard girl. It would have embarrassed my line of reasoning if Balac hadn't matched. Well, he does."

"How in heaven's name did you find out Balac's blood type without alerting him?" said the Chief. "People tend to notice when you stick needles in them."

The Bear grinned. "I had all kinds of elaborate ideas for this one. In the end I checked with the blood bank. He's a donor."

"He's what?" exclaimed the Chief.

"A blood donor," said the Bear. "Actually Simon Balac is quite a public-spirited citizen. He is a member of a number of worthy organizations, seems to have a particular interest in the preservations of Bern, and he's a supporter of various ecology groups. He is known to be deeply concerned about the environment. He is also an avid walker and a member of the Berner Wanderwege."

"What is the Wanderwege?" asked Fitzduane.

"Hiking association," explained von Beck. "Wandering through the woods, rucksack on back, following little yellow signs. Very healthy."

"Most of the time," said the Bear, "but you may recall Siegfried, our tattooist friend."

"And not found where a body could be dumped from a car," added the Chief. "Go on, Heini. This is getting interesting."

"We have other circumstantial evidence, but you can get that off the printout. None of it is conclusive, but you'll see it all helps corroborate by thinking. I'd now like to turn to the few clues that Ivo left us, then the matter of alibis, and finally the evidence that I believe is conclusive. First of all, Ivo. He was killed before he had a chance to say much, and most of what he brought was destroyed in the gunfight, but we salvaged some intriguing scraps. There was a reference to purple rooms — not the plural. Well, both Erika's place and Lodge's house in Muri had purple rooms with black candles and sexual aids and other items that point to ritual and dabbling in black magic. In both cases we found traces of blood and semen of a number of different blood groups. They would fit the bill, but there is an additional line: ‘A smell of snow — a rush of wet — a thrusting river — there it's set.’"

"Did he always write that way?" asked Henssen.

"All the time I dealt with him," said the Bear. "He like rhymes and puzzles. I think they gave him a certain self-respect. He didn't feel he was informing when he gave us a tip in the form of a poem."

"How do you read this one?" asked the Chief.

"I'm biased," said the Bear. "I think it's another reference to the river and the location of Balac's studio, which supports what we've learned from our deceased Italian friend."

"But that's an opinion, not proof," said von Beck.

The Bear shrugged. "I'm not going to argue that point. It might be clearer if we had all of Ivo's book, but we don't. Of more interest is what it was wrapped in."

"I'm not sure I follow you," said Kersdorf.

"Ivo went to meet Hugo to see if he could enlist his support to find Klaus Minder's killer. He brought a package that outlined in his inimitable manner what he had learned to date. The package was wrapped in a piece of cloth. Clear so far?"

Kersdorf nodded his head. The rest of the team looked at the Bear expectantly. "The cloth turned out to be canvas, not the kind you camp under in the summer or sit on watching the talent in the Marzili, but the kind you use for painting. The piece that Ivo was using had already been sized and bore faint traces of paint. I'd guess it had been made up, but the stretching wasn't right, so it had been torn up and discarded."

"I thought painters bought their canvases already made up," said the Chief.

"Many do," said the Bear, "but that's more expensive. Perhaps more to the point, if you are a professional, you have more flexibility if you make up your own. You can produce in nonstandard sizes; you can use a nonstandard canvas base.

"Now canvas is a catchall term for a range of different materials used to paint on. The commonest are made of cotton; the more expensive grades are made from flax — linen, in other words. Most painting canvas arrives already coated and sized. In this case we are dealing with an expensive flax-based canvas bought raw and sized by the artist. Only one artist in Bern operates this particular way, and forensics has already compared the mix of size or base coating material he uses. They tally. There is no doubt about it. The piece of canvas used by Ivo as wrapping material was prepared by Balac."

There was silence in the room, then the Chief spoke. "You're making me a believer, Heini. But we still don't have a case that would stand up in court. You've already said the canvas looks like a discard, so a defense lawyer would say it could have been picked up almost anywhere. It doesn't even create a direct link between Balac and Ivo, merely the possibility of one."

"Chief," said the bear, "I don't think we're going to have all the evidence we need before we pick Balac up. It would be nice, but the bastard is too careful for that. My modest ambition tops out at a prima facie case followed by a search of his house and some nice detailed investigation by a persistent examining magistrate."

"Which unfortunately won't be me," said von Beck. "A little matter of conflict of interest." There was an undercurrent of embarrassment in the room. All the members of the team knew something of what had transpired with Paulus von Beck, but few knew the details.

The Chief broke the silence. "It's not your fault, Charlie, and it doesn't mean you can't go on working on the investigation. Anyway, let's leave that until we've heard Heini out. I've only heard an outline of what he and Hugo found."

The Bear looked at Charlie von Beck. "Do you want to stay for this?" he said to the magistrate. "It's not too pretty."

Von Beck nodded. "I'd prefer to hear it straight."

The Bear put his hand on Charlie's shoulder for a moment. "Don't take it personally," he said. He continued after a short pause. "I'd like to say that our discover of Paulus von Beck's involvement — marginal involvement, I may add — was the result of painstaking detective work and many long hours of investigation. Well, it wasn't. It was a pure fluke. If Paulus hadn't opened his mouth, we'd still be none the wiser.

"I originally approached Paulus because I wanted an art expert to give me an opinion on the tattoo design — the ‘A’ in a circle of flowers — that we've found on so many involved with the Hangman. The design is intricate and different from the usual style used in tattoos, and it seemed to me that there might be some advantage to checking it out further. The first thing I did was to get hold of some samples of the tattooist's work to see if the design might have originated with him."

"I thought Siegfried's place in Zurich had been completely destroyed," said the Chief.

"Yes, well, it had been in official report-type language, but I've been around long enough to know that there are few absolutes in this world. There is almost always something left. In this case the Zurich cops were thinking in terms of records and valuables when they filed their report. A pile of half-burned tattoo designs wasn't high on their agenda. I assembled all the samples of the tattoo together and had blowups made of its various features. I took those, samples of Siegfried's work, and a collection of photographs of Balac's work to Paulus and asked him to tell me if he thought either of the two had originated the design."

"Where did you get the photos of Balac's pictures?" asked the Chief.

"Mostly from Der Bund," said the Bear. "As I mentioned, it's written about him on many occasions, and there was a lot more stuff in the file than what it published. There was an added bonus of some color slides one photographer had taken in addition to the black-and-white stuff, apparently with the idea of selling them to a magazine. Der Bund, as you may know, doesn't run color. As it happens, I needn't have bothered. Paulus knew Balac's work intimately. He was extremely shaken by what he discovered, and that led to his" — he paused, not wishing to use the word confession with all it unpleasant connotations — "desire to put us fully in the picture."

"My God," said the Chief, "do I understand you correctly? Did Paulus actually identify the tattoo found on the terrorists as having been originally designed, drawn, by Balac?"

The Bear smiled. "Indeed he did," he said. He glanced at Henssen. "There are some things even the most advanced computers miss."

Henssen grinned. "Pattern recognition. Give us another five to ten years, and you'll eat those words."

"We've got the fucker," said the Chief excitedly. "Heini, you're a genius."

"I'm not finished." The Bear removed a small piece of cardboard from a file and passed it across to the Chief. "Balac's visiting card," he said. "Take a look at the logo. He uses it on his notepaper and catalogs, too."

The Chief looked at the card and then at a blowup of the logo that had been mounted beside an enlargement of the tattoo. The resemblance was striking, the circle of flowers almost identical in conception and execution, the only difference being the letter in the center of the circle. On the tattoo it was an ‘A.’ On Balac's card, it was a ‘B.’

"The murdering, arrogant bastard," said the Chief. "He's rubbing our noses in it."

"He's a clever murdering, arrogant bastard. That logo has been distributed thousands of times on brochures, catalogs, headed notepaper, and who knows what else. It has even appeared on posters. It's so much in the public domain that it proves nothing. Anyone could have copied it. Further, in Paulus's professional opinion, the letters ‘A’ and ‘B’ have been designed by different people. Balac didn't design the ‘A.’"

The Chief looked depressed. "This guy doesn't miss a trick."

"Like Icarus," said the Bear, "he likes to fly close to the sun. Sooner or later, no matter how smart he is, that's going to be fatal. Thanks to Paulus, I think it's going to be sooner."