It was a sign, no doubt about it. There were other criteria to be applied to this case. Different assumptions. Intuition! Woman!
None of this confounded left side of the brain! Yin, not yang!
She sat smiling at the moon. I’m an idiot, she thought. A damn fool! Time to go to bed. Yes, no doubt about it. Lucky that nobody else knows how I’m using my brain. Or rather, abus ing it!
She stood up and went into the hall. She slid out of her dressing gown and examined herself in the mirror. Hmm, not too bad, she thought. Could easily be twenty-five, twenty six, or thereabouts. A pity there isn’t a man waiting for me in my bed.
But she certainly didn’t want him there tomorrow morning as well!
And when she started to doze off a quarter of an hour later, all that drifted into her subconscious through the darkness were the imaginary images of the murderer. Insofar as there are any imaginary images…
The Axman?
Could they even be sure that it was a man?
That question registered just as she abandoned her final foothold and submitted to the boundless embrace of slumber.
There was no time to consider whether or not Wundermaas would have assigned her to one of the potentially fruitful haystacks.
10
“I sometimes get the feeling there is a guiding hand, despite everything,” said Bausen, handing Van Veeteren a glass.
“God’s finger?”
“Or the other one’s. Cheers! This is not strong; I didn’t want to kill off your taste buds. I thought we could sample a few decent things later.”
They drank and the wicker chairs creaked in sympathy. Van Veeteren lit a cigarette. He’d succumbed to temptation and bought a pack at the newsstand outside his hotel. It was the first one since Erich had left him, so he felt entitled to it.
“Anyway,” said Bausen, producing a shabby tobacco pouch vaguely reminiscent of something Van Veeteren had seen in
Ernst Simmel’s throat. “We lead a fairly quiet life here. Lock up a few drunks, clear up the occasional case of assault and bat tery, confiscate a few bottles of the hard stuff from the boats coming in from the east, and suddenly we’re landed with this.
Just when I’m about to call it a day. Don’t try to tell me that’s not a pointer!”
“There are certain patterns,” said Van Veeteren.
Bausen sucked fire into his pipe.
“I’ve even given the racists a rap on the knuckles.”
“Ah, yes. You have a refugee camp out at Taublitz, if I remember rightly,” said Van Veeteren.
“We certainly do. These characters started stirring up trouble a few years ago, and in November last year there was a gang going around setting fire to things. They burned two huts down to the ground. I arrested eight of them.”
“Excellent,” said Van Veeteren.
“Four of them are busy rebuilding the cabins; can you imag ine that? They’re working alongside the asylum seekers! They were allowed to choose between two years in jail or commu nity service. Damned fine judge. Heinrich Heine his name was, the same as the poet. And now they’ve learned their lesson.”
“Impressive,” said Van Veeteren.
“I agree. Maybe it is possible to make human beings out of anybody at all, providing you go for it hook, line and sinker.
Mind you, four of them preferred jail, of course.”
“Are you intending to go on October first anyway, no matter what happens?” asked Van Veeteren. “They haven’t approached you about staying on, or anything?”
Bausen snorted.
“No idea. I’ve not heard any hints yet, in any case. I expect they hope you’ll sort this out in a couple of ticks so that they can send me packing in the usual manner when the day comes.
I hope so as well, come to that.”
Same here, thought Van Veeteren. He picked up his glass and looked around. Bausen had cleared the table and put a cloth on it, but apart from that, the patio looked the same as the previous time-books and newspapers and junk every where. The serpentine rambling roses and the overgrown gar den sucked up every noise and impression but their own; you could easily imagine having been transported to some Greene esque or Conradian outpost. A mangrove swamp at the mouth of some river in the as yet unexplored continent. The heart of darkness, perhaps. A couple of topis, a jar of quinine tablets and a few mosquito nets would not have disturbed the image.
But nevertheless, he was in the middle of Europe. A little toy jungle by a European sea. Van Veeteren took a sip of his drink, which smelled slightly of cinnamon, and felt a brief pang of satisfaction.
“Your wife…?” he said. Sooner or later he’d have to ask that question, after all.
“Died two years ago. Cancer.”
“Any children?”
Bausen shook his head.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Divorced. Also two years ago, or thereabouts.”
“Ah, well,” said Bausen. “Are you ready?”
“For what?”
Bausen smiled.
“A little trip into the underworld. I thought I’d show you my treasure trove.”
They emptied their glasses, and Bausen led the way down into the cellar. Down the stairs, through the boiler room and a couple of storage rooms full of still more junk-bicycles, fur niture, worn-out domestic appliances, rusty old garden tools, newspapers (some in bundles and some not), bottles, old shoes and boots…
“I find it hard to let anything go,” said Bausen. “Mind your head! It’s a bit low down here.”
Down a few more steps and along a narrow passage smelling of soil, and they came to a solid-looking door with double bolts and a padlock.
“Here we are!” said Bausen. He unlocked the door and switched on a light. “Stand by to have your breath taken away!” He opened the door and allowed Van Veeteren to go in first.
Wine. A cellar full of it.
In the dim light he could just make out the dull reflections from the bottles stacked up in racks around the walls. In neat rows from floor to ceiling. Thousands of bottles, without doubt. He sucked the heavy air into his nostrils.
“Aah!” he said. “You are rising in my estimation, Mr. Chief of Police. This denotes without doubt the pinnacle of civili zation.”
Bausen chuckled.
“Exactly! What you see here is what will become my main occupation when I’ve retired. I’ve worked out that if I restrict myself to three bottles per week, they’ll last ten years. I doubt if I’ll want to continue any longer than that.”
Van Veeteren nodded. Why haven’t I been doing something like this? he thought. I must start digging the moment I get home!
It might be a bit problematic in view of the fact that he lived in an apartment block, of course, but maybe he could start by purchasing the goods instead. Perhaps he could rent an allot ment or something of the sort? He made up his mind to take it up with Reinhart or Dorigues as soon as he was back home.
“Please choose two for us to drink,” said Bausen. “A white and a red, I think.”
“Meursault,” said Van Veeteren. “White Meursault, do you have any of that?”
“A few dozen, I should think. What about the red?”
“I’ll leave that to the boss of the investigation team,” said Van Veeteren.
“Ha ha. All right, in that case I’ll propose a Saint Emilion ’71. If my friend the chief inspector doesn’t disapprove.”
“I expect I’ll be able to force it down,” said Van Veeteren.
“Not too bad an evening, on the whole,” he maintained two hours later. “It would be no bad thing if life were to be enhanced by rather more of this kind of thing-good food; intelligent conversation; sublime wines, to say the least; and this cheese.” He licked his fingers and took a bite of a slice of pear. “What do I owe you, by the way?”
Bausen chuckled with pleasure.
“Haven’t you figured it out? Put the Axman behind bars, for God’s sake, so that I can grow old with dignity!”
“I knew there’d be a catch,” said Van Veeteren.
Bausen poured out the last drops of the Bordeaux.