— is exposed, no, discovered or observed while carrying out this check (whatever it might have been) by the murderer. (He might possibly have seen her purely by chance.) The murderer follows her and strikes (?) when Moerk appropriately enough is in the woods, in the back of beyond…
Something like that, yes. That was it, really. Was there any possibility of different scenarios? Yes, of course. But he didn’t want to think so. This is how it must have happened. He took another drink and started wondering if he ought to get out of the bath and fetch a cigarette.
Smoke in the bath? What decadence!
But why not? Dripping and shivering, he padded into his room. He collected an ashtray, his lighter and Bausen’s old, crumpled pack of HB cigarettes, then flopped back into the warm water, lit up and inhaled deeply.
Pro… what the devil’s the Latin for four? Who the hell cares?
Fourth: What had Moerk discovered? What was it?
What the hell was it that nobody else, not even he, had noticed? Unless it was just Podworsky, that is; and the more he thought about it, the more sure he was that it wasn’t. He had scrutinized the report once again earlier in the evening, and hadn’t found a thing-neither had Bausen nor Munster nor Kropke. It was incomprehensible. Bizarre.
Bizarre?
And where had she gone to?
To check?
Check what?
He slammed his fist down into the water and was surprised for a second by the lack of resistance. Was she so damn stupid that she’d walked straight into the murderer’s web? Straight into his arms, like some half-witted girl in any crime movie you cared to name?
He couldn’t believe that. Surely that wasn’t possible? If there was anybody based in this station whom he had confi dence in, it was Inspector Moerk… well, Bausen as well, of course, he had to admit that. But would Beate Moerk have No, he refused to believe it.
What other possibility was there?
That the murderer had got lucky?
Very possible.
That she’d been on his trail earlier and he’d realized that?
Kept an eye on her?
Possible, also. Munster had spoken about her ambitions as a private detective.
He dropped the cigarette into the bucket. No need to dirty the ashtray, he thought.
But where had she gone?
That was the key. He took a few olives. Between half past six, approximately, and five or ten minutes past seven yesterday evening, Beate Moerk had driven her red Mazda from The See
Warf to the parking lot close to the smokehouse off the Esplanade. Somewhere along the way she had checked up on something bizarre and attracted the attention of the murderer.
Let’s hope to God, thought Van Veeteren, that the red car attracted the attention of somebody else as well… that would be enough.
But all hell would have to be let loose first, he reminded himself.
Then Laurids Reisin came into his head-and Mrs. Reisin in her shabby coat, and Miss Marnier, one of Simmel’s lady friends he’d interviewed one afternoon a hundred years ago; and he realized that he was being subjected to yet another unnecessary information attack. He put the light on and decided to go through the Melnik report one more time. As an antidote, if nothing else.
Then he would have a chat with Munster in the bar.
He needed to find out for sure if Munster really did want to get back to his family and garden.
“It’s not necessary,” said Munster.
“What do you mean, not necessary? And what the hell are you sitting there smiling at?”
Munster turned his head away and coughed into his hand.
“Excuse me,” he said. “But Synn and the kids are coming up here tomorrow. She phoned half an hour ago.”
“Coming up here?” exclaimed Van Veeteren, looking con fused.
“Yes, she’s borrowed a holiday cottage from a friend of hers out at Geelnackt. That’s only about six miles from here. I’m moving out there tomorrow afternoon.”
Van Veeteren thought for a moment.
“Munster,” he said, “I think that’s a fantastic woman you’ve got hold of.”
“I know,” said Munster, looking embarrassed.
They drank each other’s health, and Van Veeteren gestured to the waiter.
“Just a small beer,” he explained. “How many times have
Hakan Nesser
Borkmann's Point you read the Melnik report?”
“Twice,” said Munster.
“Found anything?”
Munster shook his head.
“What do you think about that bomb business?” he asked.
Van Veeteren hesitated briefly.
“Hard to say,” he said. “I don’t really understand what somebody like Heinz Eggers could have to do with Basque sep aratists, or the others, come to that. We’ll hear tomorrow morning if Bausen has found out any more about it, I expect.
What do you think?”
“Nothing,” said Munster. “I hope I don’t have to go to the
Costa del Sol, in any case, now that I’ve got my family up here and so on.”
“You can take my word for that,” said Van Veeteren.
“Where’s Cruickshank, by the way? I thought he was a perma nent resident in the bar.”
“He went up to bed about a quarter of an hour ago,” said
Munster. “I think he was sulking because you canceled that insider interview.”
“Oh, yeah. Poor bastard,” said Van Veeteren. “Still, if he can keep calm until Monday, he’ll have all the more to report.”
He certainly will, thought Munster.
The Sunday before the infernal Monday served up a clear morning with warm winds from the southwest. Without needing to exchange any words on the subject, Van Veeteren and Munster chose to walk to the police station.
It was quite simply one of those mornings, and Munster could feel the sluggishness and reluctance in both his own and
Van Veeteren’s footsteps. The very moment they emerged from Weivers Grand, the Bungeskirke bells started ringing for the first service of the day. Van Veeteren paused for a moment to gaze at its dark portals and muttered something incompre hensible. Munster contemplated the canvas spread out before him. The splendid Hanseatic gables. The mythological bronze sculptures with the gently trickling water. The lopsided square resting peacefully under the tinkling chimes, completely deserted apart from an occasional pigeon strutting around, pecking food from between the cobbles. And a dark-skinned road sweeper standing by the bookshop, whistling Verdi.
Munster plunged his hands into his pockets and gripped his thin briefcase under his arm, and as they crossed over the uneven cobbles, a perception of the absurdity of his surround ings slowly took possession of him. The inherent and indis putable lunacy. Their task and activities seemed preposterous in this sleepy little coastal town on a Sunday morning like this.
How pale a murderer looks in daylight, as somebody once said.
And how impossible it was to grasp that they were on their way yet again, for the nth time, to assemble around the oval table in the bilious-yellow conference room at the police sta tion, to sit down and roll up their shirtsleeves for yet another discussion of who this madman might be.
The man wandering around this idyllic little town chop ping the heads off his fellow men.
The man because of whom a whole community was living in fear and trembling, and whose doings had been on every body’s lips as practically the only topic of conversation for week after week now.
The man, in fact, whose identity it was his own, DCI Van
Veeteren’s, and all the others’ duty to discover and establish so that these goings-on could be banished from this world at last.
And what the hell were people going to say tomorrow?
Yes, preposterous is the only word for it, thought Munster, squinting up at the sun above the copper roof of the police station. Or perhaps bizarre, to use Beate Moerk’s word.
And the most difficult thing to understand, the most impos sible thing to comprehend, was, of course, what could have happened to her.