He cocked his head to one side, asked why she had done it.
"Why did I do what?"
"Make Tina go away."
She laughed, shaking her head. "I made her?... I made her? You don't think maybe you had something to do with it?"
"I loved her, I loved her."
"You left her, without money, without anything. Left her in the middle of the shittiest place in Berlin, and now you tell me — you loved her? The only thing you love is booze, she came here crying her heart out, all I did was comfort her!"
"Comfort? You filthy whore!" He lurched to his feet. "I saw you together, I saw what you were doing to my little girl!"
"She wasn't your little girl, and don't think for two seconds that baby was yours — she told me it wasn't. She came here asking for money, threatened to tell that fat slob Schmidt about you, about you screwing all the young kids, and you know what he just told me? He told me that if you play around with any more teenagers then you and I will be out, contract or no contract."
"I don't believe you."
"Ask him, go ask him. Kelm was there, he heard, I just got a lecture from the fat-assed bastard. Tina was a little tramp. I am telling you the truth, the baby was not yours — she admitted it to me."
Grimaldi leaned back, closing his eyes. "I don't believe it."
Ruda moved quickly, grabbed the gun from him, and put the safety catch on. He made no effort to stop her. He held his face in his hands, saying over and over she was lying to him, then he looked up. "I could have had a life with her, I could have started again."
"Doing what? Changing someone else's brat's diapers?"
"I could have been happy with her."
Ruda sighed. "And what would you have lived on? You know I would never have parted with the act. I tell you something, you would have had to shoot me to get them. This was just a fantasy on your part."
He got up and poured himself a glass of water. "I talked to Lazars, spent hours talking to him. We argued and yelled a lot, but he's changed, too, he's changed."
"I don't follow, can I have a drink?"
He handed her a glass of water, and then stared at the posters. "I tell you the circus, as we know it, it won't last, it can't last. You remember Ivan the Russian? He spent fifteen years training his tigers, he's been in the circus business since he was six years old, but he couldn't afford to keep them out of season. He shot the poor bastards, all twenty-four of them, so nobody else would have them... said they were of no use to anyone, and he wouldn't let a zoo have them, didn't think it was fair. He told Lazars he shot them because he loved them. Now what crazy mind is that?"
Suddenly he laughed his old rumble laugh, leaning back, his eyes closed. "Maybe I should shoot myself, can't be put out to pasture, can't get any other work."
Ruda's heart was hammering. She had never heard him talk this way, ever. She sat next to him, close to him. "Don't... don't talk like this."
"It's the truth, I've known it for a while. I see them cramped in their cages. I keep on telling myself that it was different when I was working the rings, that it was better, but I know it wasn't, if anything it was worse. You, we, are living on borrowed time, because the day will come soon when all wild animals will be barred from being used as cheap entertainment."
"No, no, I don't believe it. I love them, I care for them, I love every single one of them."
Grimaldi cocked his head, gave a slow sad smile. "No, you don't. You love to dominate, you like the danger, the adrenaline, but you don't love them."
"I do, you know I do..."
"Caged, locked up twenty-four hours a day, you call that love?" He stretched out his long legs, resting his elbows behind his head. "You know this little Boris, Lazars' little chimp? Well he got her from a troupe of Italians; spent his savings on her. Boris was too young to work in the ring, she was being trained. Lazars sat in on one of the training sessions, kept on watching the Italian rubbing the chimp's head... he thought it was with affection. But the little baby was very upset. After the rehearsal Lazars checked her over, Boris's head was bleeding. This so-called trainer, he'd got a nail sharpened to a point like a fucking razor — he wasn't patting her, he was sticking his nail into her head..."
Ruda stared at her boots. "Lazars was always a second-stringer, a soft touch. You shouldn't listen to his bullshit."
"I haven't before... I just think what he's saying may be true, that acts like ours have a short time to go."
Ruda sprang to her feet. "I won't listen anymore... I've got to go and get ready to rehearse."
"Yeah, make them jump through hoops of fire — great, they love it... get their manes singed, they fucking love it."
Ruda paused at the door. "Will you give me a hand in the ring? They're still nervous about the plinths."
He looked up at her. "You don't need me, Ruda."
"What are you going to do?"
He turned away, unable to look at her. Unexpectedly, the big man's helplessness touched her. She hesitated, then went and slipped her arms around him. "You're hung over, go and lie down. I'll come by later and cook up a big dinner, okay? Luis?"
He patted her head. "Worried I'll run off, go after Tina?" She wriggled away from him, but he pulled her close. "You are, aren't you? Is it me you want?"
She tried to get away from him, but he wouldn't let her go. "Is it me?"
She eased away from him, her face flushed red. "I guess I'd miss you, I've got used to you being around."
He watched her reach for the door, unlock it. He gave a hopeless smile, he knew she didn't really want him but she didn't want anyone else to have him. The door closed behind her and he sat down, once again staring at the posters and photographs on the wall.
The forensic laboratory had made a plaster cast of the heel taken from the Grimaldi boots. They were good impressions, very clear; but the print off the carpet was not. Even so, they were reasonably sure the impression had been made by the same boots. Torsen asked whether it could be used as a piece of evidence, whether it would stand up in court. He was told that it could not, since the print taken from the victim's hotel room was only of a section of the heel.
"But you think it was from the same boot?"
"Yes I do, but that is just my personal opinion." Torsen sighed; it had been a long, fruitless day. The second disappointment was that the sawdust taken from the victim's hotel room matched the fifteen samples taken from the circus, all from different cages. The sawdust was also discovered to be similar to samples brought in from the Berlin zoo, the Tiergarten.
Torsen's next inquiry was at the bus station. The night duty staff had still to be questioned regarding bus passengers the night Kellerman was killed. The three drivers could not remember any male passenger fitting the inspector's description; two could not recall anyone getting off from a bus at or near the Grand Hotel; the third driver could only recall a female passenger who had picked up the bus from the depot and gotten off at the stop close to the Grand Hotel; but he could recall little else about her except her long, dark hair. He remembered that it had been a particularly unpleasant journey, the vehicle was mostly filled with Polish women and children who had been greatly disturbed by a group of young punks hurling bricks at the bus, shouting Nazi slogans. The driver spent considerable time berating the police, saying they should provide buses, drivers, and passengers with better security.
Torsen returned to the station, heated up a bowl of soup in the microwave and looked over his notes. He had a motive — the man was disliked by everyone he seemed to have been in contact with, possibly owed money to whoever killed him. But from there on it went downhill; no one person had seen a man fitting the description of the potential suspect.