… somewhere or other out there was a murderer, feeling more and more secure.
We have to make a breakthrough now, thought Van
Veeteren. It’s high time.
So that people dare to go out-if for no other reason.
Bausen had already set up the board.
“Your turn for white,” said Van Veeteren.
“The winner gets black,” said Bausen. “Klimke rules.”
“All right by me,” said Van Veeteren, moving his king’s pawn.
“I brought up a bottle,” said Bausen. “Do you think a Per gault ’81 might help us to get out of the shit?”
“I couldn’t possibly think of any better assistance,” said Van Veeteren.
“At last!” he exclaimed an hour and a half later. “Dammit all, I thought you were going to wriggle your way out, despite everything.”
“Impressive stuff,” said Bausen. “A peculiar opening… I don’t think I’ve come across it before.”
“Thought it up myself,” said Van Veeteren. “You have to be on your toes, and you can never use it more than once against the same opponent.”
Bausen drank to his health. Sat quietly for a while, gazing down into his empty glass.
“Damn,” he said. “This business is starting to get on my nerves, to be honest. Do you reckon we’re going to crack it?”
Van Veeteren shrugged.
“Well…”
“Keysenholt phoned half an hour before you showed up,” said Bausen. “You know, the regional boss. Wanted to know if I was prepared to go on. Until we’d cracked the case, that is…”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“The snag is that he didn’t actually ask me to keep going.
Just asked what I thought about it. Wanted me to make the decision. Damn brilliant way to bow out, don’t you think?
Condemn yourself as incompetent, then retire!”
“Well, I don’t know-” said Van Veeteren.
“The trouble is, I don’t really know myself. It wouldn’t be very flattering to give yourself a few extra months and then mess it up all the same. What do you think?”
“Hmm,” said Van Veeteren. “A bit awkward, no doubt about it. It might be best to nail the bastard first, perhaps?”
“My view exactly,” said Bausen. “But I have to give this blasted Keysenholt some kind of answer. He’s going to phone again tomorrow-”
“Will it be Kropke who takes over?”
“Until the end of the year, at least. They’ll no doubt adver tise the post in January.”
Van Veeteren nodded. Lit a cigarette and pondered for a moment.
“Tell Keysenholt you don’t understand what he’s babbling about,” he said. “The Axman will be behind bars within six to eight days, give or take.”
“How the hell can I claim that?” said Bausen, looking doubtful.
“I’ve promised to solve it before then.”
“Three cheers for that,” said Bausen. “That makes me feel much better, of course. How do you intend going about it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Van Veeteren. “But if you were to bring up a decent-let me see-a decent Merlot, I’d set up the pieces while you’re away. No doubt we’ll hit on an opening.”
Bausen smiled.
“A homemade one?” he asked, rising to his feet.
“They’re usually the best.”
Bausen disappeared in the direction of his wine cellar.
So that’s how easy it is to fool an honest old chief of police, thought Van Veeteren. What on earth am I doing here?
26
“But if…” said Beate Moerk, scraping a blob of candle wax off the tablecloth. “If Ruhme opened the door because he rec ognized the murderer, that ought to mean that we have his name somewhere on our lists.”
“Good friend or colleague, yes,” said Munster. “Do you have anybody in mind?”
“I’ll go get my papers. Have you finished eating?”
“Couldn’t eat another crumb,” said Munster. “Really deli cious… a scandal that you live on your own.”
“In view of the fact that I can make toasted sandwiches, you mean?”
Munster blushed.
“No… no, in general, of course. A scandal that the men… that nobody has got you.”
“Rubbish,” said Beate Moerk, heading for her study.
What a brilliant conversationalist I am, thought Munster.
“If we say that it’s a man, that means precisely ten possibilities, in fact.”
“Not more?” said Munster. “How many are left if we assume that he lives here in Kaalbringen?”
Beate Moerk counted them up.
“Six,” she said. “Six male friends or colleagues. A bit thin, I’d say.”
“They’d only recently moved here,” said Munster. “They can’t have all that big a circle of friends yet. Who are the six?”
“Three colleagues they occasionally saw socially… and three couples, it seems.”
“Names,” said Munster.
“Genner, Sopinski and Kreutz-they’re the doctors. The friends are Erich Meisse, also a doctor, incidentally, and… hang on a minute. Kesserling and Teuvers. Yes, that’s the lot. What do you think? Meisse is a colleague of Linckx’s, I think.”
“I’ve met them all, apart from Teuvers and Meisse. I wouldn’t have thought it was any of them, but that’s no guar antee of anything, of course. Even so, shall we say it must be… Teuvers?”
“All right,” said Beate Moerk. “That’s that solved, then.
There’s just one little snag, though-”
“What’s that?”
“He’s been away for three weeks. Somewhere in South
America, if I’m not much mistaken.”
“Oh, shit,” said Munster.
“Shall we say it was somebody he didn’t know, then?”
“That might be just as well. Not any of these, at least. It could have been a celebrity as well. Somebody everybody rec ognizes, I mean. The finance minister or Meryl Streep or somebody…”
“Would you open your door for Meryl Streep?” asked Beate
Moerk.
“I think so,” said Munster.
Beate Moerk sighed.
“We’re not getting anywhere. Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes, please,” said Munster. “If you make it, I’ll wash the dishes.”
“Excellent,” said Beate Moerk. “I hope you didn’t think I’d turn the offer down.”
“Not for a second,” said Munster.
“Are you used to this sort of thing?”
“Depends what you mean by used to,” said Munster.
“How many murderers do you generally track down per year?”
Munster thought for a moment.
“Ten to fifteen perhaps… although we hardly need to track down most of them. They turn up of their own accord, more or less. Come and give themselves up, or it’s just a matter of going around and collaring them-a bit like picking apples, really. Most cases are sorted out within a few weeks, it’s fair to say.”
“Cases like this one, though? How often do they crop up?”
Munster hesitated.
“Not so often. One or two a year, perhaps.”
“But you solve them all?”
“More or less. Van Veeteren doesn’t like unsolved cases.
He’s usually impossible to live with if it drags on too long. As far as I know, there’s only one case that he’s had to shelve the G-file. Must be five or six years ago now. I think it’s still nagging him.”
Beate Moerk nodded.
“So you think he’ll be the one who cracks this one as well?”
Munster shrugged.
“Highly likely. The main thing is that we get him, I suppose.
There’ll be enough glory to go around for all of us. Don’t you think?”
Beate Moerk blushed. She turned her head away and ran her hand through her hair, but Munster had noted her reaction.
Aha, he thought. An ambitious young inspector. Maybe fancies herself as a private detective?
“Have you any theories of your own?” he asked.
“Of my own? No, of course not. I think about it a lot, natu rally, but I don’t seem to get anywhere.”
“That’s how it usually looks,” said Munster.
“Meaning what?”
“That you think you’re just marking time and getting nowhere; then suddenly, off you go-some little detail starts to grow and becomes significant, and then it goes very quickly.”