“What about the Eggers case?”
“The same story. We were very interested in a cigarette end for a long time, but it turned out to be two days old. It occu pied several officers for a week.”
“Has Meuritz had backup from forensic officers, by the way?” asked Van Veeteren.
“Four of them. Not that I think he needed them. Damn competent doc, even if he can be a bit difficult to work with.”
Van Veeteren bent down and studied the stained grass.
“Have you heard of Heliogabalus?” he asked.
“The guy with the blood on the grass?”
“That’s the one. Roman emperor, 218–222. Killed people because he liked to see red against green. An uncompromising aesthete, no doubt about it. Although blood doesn’t keep its color all that well, it has to be said-”
“No,” said Bausen. “Not really the right motive in this case, anyway. It must have been pitch-black here last Tuesday night.
Two lights in sequence along the path were out.”
“Hmm,” said Van Veeteren. “We’ll eliminate Heliogabalus, then. It’s always good to be able to cross a name off the list.”
Some would-be detectives from the general public were approaching from the Rikken direction. Bang must have put in place some kind of barrier down by the harbor, as they’d been left in peace for nearly ten minutes. Bausen checked his watch.
“Half past four,” he said. “I have a leg of mutton in the freezer. Only needs some roasting. How about it?”
Van Veeteren hesitated.
“If you allow me a couple of hours at the hotel first.”
“Of course,” said Bausen. “You’re welcome at the nest around seven. I hope we’ll be able to sit outside.”
9
Beate Moerk slid down into the bath and switched off the light.
She allowed herself to be swallowed up by the hot water and imagined that she was inside a womb. That was a recurring thought, and no doubt had some significance.
She felt her waist and hips, and had the impression that she was not putting on weight. A hundred and twenty pounds.
She’d run five miles, the last one pretty quickly. It was true some experts maintained that the most efficient speed for burning up calories was sixty percent of maximum, but what the hell! Surely you would lose a few extra ounces if you really stretched yourself.
That’s enough vanity for now. She rested her head on the edge of the bath and let her tiredness grow and spread all over her body. I’m thirty-one, she thought. I’m a thirty-one-year-old female cop. Without a husband. Without children. Without a family, a house, a boat…
That was also a recurring thought. She wasn’t too worried about a house or a boat. She could also imagine getting by without a husband, for the time being, at least. But children were another matter. A very different matter.
She was living in a different world, in fact. Perhaps it was to get away from that feeling that she liked to fantasize about lying in a womb. Who knows? Of the seven or eight best friends she’d had since she was a teenager, at least five or six of them had masses of children by this time; she was aware of that. Husbands and boats as well, for that matter. Still, thank
God, she wasn’t still living in Friesen; that had been a necessary condition, of course. She’d never have been able to survive if she’d had to put up with all that went with living there wher ever she turned. Her independent and liberated life would have shriveled away like a… like a used condom if she’d been forced to have everybody and everything weighing down on her all the time. With her parents and childhood misde meanors and the follies of youth like a caste mark on her fore head. Like a contents list writ large that she could never detach herself from! Hell, no, she thought.
But there again, sooner or later she would have to give birth to that child; sooner or later she’d have to toe the line of accepted lifestyles. She’d known that for some years now, but every time she celebrated her birthday, at the beginning of Jan uary, she would give herself just one more year. A twelve month moratorium, she would think. One more round. That wasn’t a bad birthday present, and it would no doubt be on her wish list one more year, at least…
She groped for the soap and found it, then changed the sub ject. This was certainly not the time to start thinking about a husband and children. Besides, the reality probably was that only a policeman would consider marrying a policewoman, so the choice was a bit limited. Bang, Mooser, Kropke… perish the thought! She started soaping her breasts… still firm and bouncy; another recurrent thought was that one of these days she would start to dislike her breasts-the whole of her body, come to that. But naturally, that was a trauma she shared with all women. A fact of life, presumably, and one that had to be accepted… Anyway, both Kropke and Mooser were married already. Thank goodness for that.
But it was none of them she wanted to think about tonight.
Why should she? The person she was going to devote her attention to for the next few hours was not a police officer at all. On the contrary. It was that other man…
The Axman. Him and nobody else.
He’s the one I want.
She smiled at the thought. Smiled and switched on the light with a haste that seemed to her a little sudden.
She had done no more than sit down at her desk when the tele phone rang. Beside her was a cup of Russian tea, and the only light in the room formed a small oval in which her notebooks basked.
Her mother, of course. Ah, well, might as well get that call over with now rather than being interrupted later.
Would Beate be coming home this Sunday? That was what she wanted to know. Dad would be so pleased. He’d been depressed all week and the doctors had said that… but that was something they could come back to, perhaps. What was she doing? Working! Surely she didn’t have to get involved in that awful murder business; that was a man’s job, surely?
Hadn’t they got any men in the Kaalbringen police force?
What kind of a place was it?
Ten minutes later the call was over, and her bad conscience was gnawing at her like an aching tooth. She was looking out the window, watching the last stages of the sunset as it spread its symbolic light over the whole sky, and made up her mind to go home for a few hours on Sunday evening after all. Per haps she could spend the night there and take the first train back on Monday morning… yes, she had no alternative, of course.
She unplugged the telephone. Just in case. After all, it wasn’t impossible that Janos might ring, and she had no desire at all to sacrifice a whole evening to that particular bit of bad conscience… not for a while yet, at least.
The Axman.
She opened the two notepads and placed them side by side.
Started to study the one on the left.
Heinz Eggers, it said at the top, underscored with a double line.
Born April 23, 1961, in Selstadt.
Died June 28, 1993, in Kaalbringen.
That was indisputable, of course. Below came a long series of notes. Parents and siblings. School education. Various ad dresses. A list of women’s names. A number of dates marking when Eggers had entered or left various penal institutions, mainly prisons, dates of convictions and sentences…
Two children with different women. The first, a girl, born in Wodz, August 2, 1985. The mother, one Kristine Lauger. The second, a boy, born on December 23, the day before Christmas
Eve she had noted earlier, 1991-so he was not yet two.
Mother’s name Matilde Fuchs, address and place of domicile unknown. She devoted a few seconds’ thought to this woman, musing on how she appeared to have achieved what Beate her self was striving for. A child without a father-there again, was that really what she was striving for? Besides, Fuchs could just as well be a junkie and a whore who had long since given the unwanted boy away to some other, more suitable guardians.