Hour of the Wolf

TWO
6

It was a certain Andreas Fische who found the body.

It happened on the Thursday afternoon. Fische had been visiting his sister in Windemeerstraat out at Dikken (a pain in the neck if truth be told, but blood is thicker than water and she had managed to marry a pretty wealthy lawyer), and he had taken a shortcut over the car park at the Trattoria Commedia, stopped for a pee, and noticed that there was something lying in among the bushes.

Fische finished peeing, and looked around. Then he bent aside some thorny branches and peered into the undergrowth. There was a man lying there. A body. A dead body.

Fische had seen dead bodies before. On several occasions during his rather colourful life; and having overcome his first impulse — which was to get the hell out of there — he allowed his better and more practically inclined self to take command. He checked once again to make sure there was nobody around in the dimly lit car park, then bent down carefully and moved aside several more branches — making a point of not treading on the soft, damp soil and leaving a footprint — he was no wide-eyed innocent — and took a closer look at the corpse.

Quite a young and rather tall man. Lying on his stomach with his arms stretched out peacefully over his head. Dark-green jacket and blue jeans. The side of his face turned upwards was covered in dark, dried-out stains, and Fische guessed that somebody had put an end to the man’s life by hitting him on the head with something hard and heavy. Just like that, without any fuss. He’d seen that sort of thing before, even if it was quite a few years ago now.

Checking once again to make sure there was nobody about, he leaned down and started going through the man’s pockets.

It only took a few seconds, and his booty was rather meagre. He established this fact after putting a couple of hundred metres between himself and the body. A battered wallet containing no credit cards and a small amount of cash in notes and coins. An almost empty packet of cigarettes and a lighter. A bunch of four keys and a business card from some pharmaceutical company or other. That was all. He threw it all into a litter-bin apart from the money and the cigarettes, made a rapid calculation of his current financial situation and decided that despite everything, he had a decent sum to get by on. Together with the hundred he’d wheedled out of his sister, he had more than enough for a night out at the pub, and he was feeling quite pleased with himself when he boarded the number twelve tram to the town centre. Without a ticket, of course. Andreas Fische hadn’t bought a tram ticket for the past thirty years.

Klejne Hans, on the northern side of Maar, was one of his favourite haunts. That was where Fische usually spent the evening when he had enough money to paint the town red, and that was where he headed for that drizzly Thursday in November. The place was almost empty — it was only just turned six, and he sat by himself at one of the long tables with a beer and a whisky. Tried to make the drinks last as long as possible while he smoked the dead man’s cigarettes and wondered whether he ought to inform the police straight away. One has duties as a citizen, as they used to say. Then three or four of his friends turned up, and as usual Fische put the matter off until later. No point in rushing things, he told himself. God didn’t create hurry, and there’s no way the bloke’s going to come back down to earth to create it now.

And when Fische tumbled into his rickety bed in the run-down lodging house in Armastenstraat at getting on for one o’clock in the morning, he had various things buzzing around inside his head — but none of them was a dead body in a deserted car park out at Dikken, nor did he hear any stern voices from what remained of his withering conscience.

The next day, a Friday, was wet and miserable. He spent most of it in bed, feeling ill and hungover; and so it was Saturday morning before Andreas Fische rang the police from one of the free public telephones at Central Station, and asked them if they were interested in a tip-off.

Yes, of course they were, he was told — but they were not prepared to pay for it, he should be quite clear about that from the start.

Fische considered the odds briefly. Then his sense of civic responsibility took over and he informed them without charge that there was a dead body out at Dikken. In the car park near the golf course, outside that restaurant whose name he bloody well couldn’t remember.

Murdered, if he wasn’t much mistaken.

When the police officer began asking for his name and address and all that stuff, Fische had already hung up.

‘How long?’ asked Chief Inspector Reinhart.

‘Hard to say,’ said Meusse. ‘I can’t say for certain yet.’

‘Have a guess,’ Reinhart suggested.

‘Hmm,’ said Meusse, glancing at the body on the large marble slab. ‘Three or four days?’

Reinhart considered.

‘So Tuesday or Wednesday, then?’

‘Tuesday,’ said Meusse. ‘But that’s pure speculation.’

‘He looks pretty worn out,’ said Reinhart.

‘He’s dead,’ said Meusse. ‘And it’s been raining.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Reinhart.

‘But I expect you’ve been indoors, Chief Inspector?’

‘Whenever possible,’ said Reinhart. ‘Only two blows, you said?’

‘Only one is needed,’ said Meusse, running his hand over his own bald head. ‘If you know where to aim.’

‘And the murderer knew that?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Meusse. ‘But it’s only natural that you would hit him about there. Near his temple. The other blow, on the back of his head, is more interesting. Rather more professional. Broke the cervical spine. You can kill a horse with a blow like that.’

‘I’m with you,’ said Reinhart.

Meusse went over to the washbasin in the corner of the room and washed his hands. Reinhart remained by the slab, contemplating the dead body. A man in his thirties, it seemed. Perhaps slightly younger. Quite thin and quite tall — 186 centimetres, Meusse had said. The man’s clothes were lying on another table and seemed to be very ordinary: blue jeans, a green half-length windcheater, a thin and quite worn-out woollen jumper that had once been light grey and still was here and there. Simple brown deck shoes.

No identity papers. No wallet, no keys, no personal belongings at all. Somebody had emptied his pockets, that was obvious.

Somebody had killed him by hitting him on the temple and the back of his head with a blunt instrument, that was equally obvious.

Ah well, Reinhart thought. Here we go again.

Meusse cleared his throat and Reinhart gathered it was time for him to go and leave the pathologist in peace. Before leaving he took a final look at the dead man’s face.

It was long and thin. Rather haggard with a broad mouth and heavy features. Long hair, pulled back from behind the ears and tied in a ponytail at the back of his head. Dark stubble and a little scar just underneath his left eye. There was something familiar about him.

I’ve seen you before, Reinhart thought.

Then he left the Forensic Laboratories and returned to the police station.

Detective Inspector Ewa Moreno put the photographs back into the folder and slid it across the table to Reinhart.

‘Nope,’ she said. ‘He’s not on the list. We’ve only had notice of three disappearances this week, incidentally. A senile old woman from a care home in Lohr and a fifteen-year-old boy who’s run away from home.’

Rooth finished chewing away at a biscuit.

‘Three,’ he said. ‘You said three.’

‘Yes, I did,’ said Moreno. ‘But the third one’s a snake. I think we can exclude that one as well.’

‘A snake?’ said Jung.

‘A green mamba,’ explained Moreno. ‘Apparently it escaped from a flat in Kellnerstraat during the night between Monday and Tuesday. Highly dangerous, according to the owner. But friendly. It can kill a human being in two seconds. Answers to the name of Betsy.’

‘Betsy?’ said Rooth. ‘I used to have a girlfriend called Betsy. She wasn’t very friendly, but she went missing as well…’

‘Thank you for that information,’ said Reinhart, tapping his pipe on the table. ‘I think that’s enough to be going on with. Tropical snakes are unlikely to survive for several days in this kind of weather, no matter what. But you’d have thought that somebody would have missed the young man we’ve found by now. If Meusse is right, that is…’

‘Meusse’s always right,’ insisted Rooth.

‘Don’t interrupt,’ said Reinhart. ‘If Meusse is right, our man has been lying there in that undergrowth since last Tuesday — most people don’t wait for more than a day or two at most before they ring us.. The nearest and dearest, that is.’

‘If there are any,’ said Moreno. ‘Nearest and dearest, I mean.’

‘Lonely old blokes can lie dead for six months before anybody notices nowadays,’ said Jung.

‘Yes, that’s how it is now,’ said Reinhart with a sigh. ‘And not only old blokes. I read about a woman in Gosslingen who continued to receive her pension for two-and-a-half years after she died. She was lying in the cellar, and her pension was paid directly into her bank account… Huh, that’s the world we live in… Jung, what did they have to say for themselves at that restaurant?’

Jung opened his notebook.

‘I’ve only spoken to a few of the people who work there,’ he said ‘Nobody recognized him from the photographs, but tomorrow afternoon we’re due to meet a couple of the staff who were on duty last Tuesday. If that’s really when it did happen, it’s not impossible that they might be able to identify him. Or at least to tell us whether he’s been there for a meal.’

‘Anything else?’ asked Reinhart, lighting his pipe.

‘Yes, that car,’ said Jung. ‘There’s apparently been an old Peugeot parked there since last Tuesday or Wednesday. We’ve checked up on it and it’s owned by somebody called Elmer Kodowsky. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to get hold of him. According to the caretaker in the block of flats where he lives, he works on an oil platform somewhere out in the North Sea.’

‘Brilliant,’ said Reinhart. ‘It’s probably lovely weather out there at this time of year. Any volunteers?’

‘Mind you, the caretaker indicated that he might be a bit closer to home in fact,’ said Jung. ‘But in any case it wasn’t Kodowsky lying there in the undergrowth.’

‘What do you mean?’ wondered Rooth. ‘Talk so that we can understand what you’re on about.’

‘Jail,’ said Jung. ‘Kodowsky isn’t one of God’s chosen few, according to the caretaker, so it’s not impossible that the business of being away on an oil platform is just another way of saying that in fact he’s in prison somewhere. It’s happened before, it seems.’

‘Hmm,’ said Reinhart. ‘That sounds better. Check up on all the prisons… Or maybe Krause should do that. But if he is in clink, this Kodowsky, he’d presumably have found it a bit hard to drive his car out to Dikken and park there, wouldn’t he?’

‘Parole,’ said Jung. ‘Or he might have lent it out… Or somebody might have stolen it.’

‘Not impossible,’ admitted Reinhart, blowing out a cloud of smoke. ‘Although if it’s an old banger it’s unlikely anybody would want to pinch it. Car thieves are pretty choosy nowadays. No, I don’t think we’re going to get any further right now. Or has anybody got anything they want to say?’

Nobody had. It was a quarter past five on Saturday afternoon, and there were better times for small talk and speculations.

‘Okay, we’ll meet again for a couple of hours tomorrow morning,’ Reinhart reminded them. ‘If nothing else the fingerprints should be sorted out by then. Not that there’s likely to be any that will be of use to us. But let’s hope we get a bit more info from Meusse and the forensic boys in any case. By the way…’

He took the photographs out of the yellow folder once again and eyed them for a few seconds.

‘Does anybody think they recognize him?’

Jung and Rooth looked at the pictures and shook their heads. Moreno frowned for a moment, then sighed and shrugged.

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘There might be something there I recognize, but I can’t put my finger on it.’

‘Okay,’ said Reinhart. ‘Let’s hope the penny drops. There’s no denying that it’s an advantage if you know who the victim is. That applies to all types of investigation. Here’s wishing all my colleagues a perfect Saturday evening.’

‘Thank you, and the same to you,’ said Moreno.

‘The first of many,’ said Rooth.

‘Can I offer you a beer?’ asked Rooth a quarter of an hour later. ‘I promise not to rape you or to make advances.’

Ewa Moreno smiled. They had just emerged from the main entrance of the police station, and the wind felt like an ice machine.

‘Sounds tempting,’ she said. ‘But I have a date with my bathtub and a third-rate novel — I’m afraid it’s binding.’

‘No hard feelings,’ Rooth assured her. ‘I also have a pretty good relationship with my bathtub. She’s as bad at the tango as I am, so I assume we’ll end up together again. It makes sense to make the best of what you’ve got.’

‘Wise words,’ said Moreno. ‘Here comes my bus.’

She waved goodbye and scampered over the parking area. Rooth checked his watch. He might just as well go back in and sleep in his office, he thought. Why the hell should anybody want to go wandering around out of doors at this time of year? Sheer madness.

Nevertheless, he started walking towards Grote Square and his tram stop, wondering how long it was since he’d last cleaned his bathtub properly.

Well, it certainly wasn’t yesterday, he decided.