‘I shall be attending my course on Saturday.’
‘Eh?’
She laughed.
‘My course. Come on, you know about that. It’s the fourth weekend in a row. I love that course.’
He thought about what she’d said with regard to treating Andreas above board, but he didn’t follow it up.
‘I love it as well,’ he mumbled instead. ‘I need you.’
‘You’ve got me,’ she said.
When they’d hung up he started crying. He remained seated in the armchair for quite some time, until it had passed over and he’d had a chance to think about when he had last wept.
He couldn’t remember.
He took two Sobran tablets instead.
15
‘We’re not exactly making progress,’ said Reinhart, eyeing the investigation team. Five of the original seven were left: Krause had been hijacked by Hiller, and Bollmert was still tracking down obscure candidates for interrogation in the provinces.
‘But on the other hand, we’re not going backwards,’ said Rooth. ‘What we knew a week ago we still know today.’
Reinhart ignored him.
‘Moreno,’ he said. ‘If you would be so kind as to summarize the situation, the rest of us can lean back and enjoy the sound of a beautiful voice for a change.’
‘Thank you,’ said Moreno. ‘Man’s ability to keep on inventing new compliments never ceases to amaze us females. However, let’s get to the point.’
Reinhart smiled slightly, but said nothing. She flicked through her notebook until she found a summary. Noted that Jung was wearing a tie for some inexplicable reason, and that deBries had a sticking plaster over the bridge of his nose. For some other inexplicable reason. She took a deep breath, and began.
‘What we know more or less for certain is as follows: Erich Van Veeteren was killed by a powerful blow to the temple and the back of his head with a blunt instrument shortly after six p.m. on Tuesday, the tenth of November. I won’t go into the weapon, which was presumably some kind of metal pipe. But as we haven’t found it, it is hardly of much importance at this stage. There were no witnesses to the actual attack: the car park was deserted, it was dusk, and the murderer had time to drag the body of his victim into the surrounding bushes. We have interviewed everybody who was in the Trattoria Commedia at — and before — the time of the murder. All but two, that is — the victim and the killer, assuming the latter had also been in there. Ten customers and four members of staff, at any rate: we’ve spoken to all of them. Nobody had anything of direct importance to tell us, apart from the fact that three of them saw a strange-looking character sitting in the bar for a short time. Between six and a quarter past, roughly speaking. We have a pretty detailed description of him, and it seems highly likely that he was disguised, with a wig, a beard and dark glasses. It also seems highly likely that he was the murderer.’
‘As I seem to recall somebody saying a week ago,’ said Rooth.
‘That’s true,’ said Moreno. ‘We advertised his description and a Wanted notice several days ago, but he hasn’t contacted us, so I suppose we can give a brownie point to Rooth. Anyway, none of the witnesses noticed any kind of contact between this Mr X and Erich Van Veeteren — who was sitting in the restaurant section, and left the premises shortly after Mr X. They might well have been in eye contact; Erich was sitting at a table with quite a good view of the bar.’
‘Hmm,’ said Reinhart. ‘He sits there waiting for an hour. And when the man appears he does nothing, but the man follows him out into the car park, and kills him. There we have it in a nutshell. Can you tell me what the hell it’s all about?’
‘Drugs,’ said deBries after a while.
‘Any other suggestions?’ asked Reinhart.
‘I’m not convinced that deBries is right,’ said Jung. ‘But if we assume it was in fact a delivery of some kind of goods, there are two things I wonder. First of alclass="underline" did they know each other? Did they both know who the contact person was that they would be meeting in the restaurant? Or was there just one of them who knew the other’s identity?’
‘Was that one or two wonderings?’ asked Rooth.
‘One,’ said Jung. ‘The other is: which of them was delivering, and which was receiving?’
Nobody spoke for a couple of seconds.
‘Another question, in that case,’ said deBries. ‘If it was a delivery, where did it take place?’
‘It wasn’t a delivery,’ said Rooth. ‘He murdered him instead.’
‘Where would it have taken place, then?’ said deBries, fingering his plaster in irritation.
‘The car park, it has to be the car park,’ said Moreno. ‘It’s also obvious that Erich must have identified Mr X. He recognized him when he came in and sat in the bar, then followed him out as had been agreed.’
‘Possible,’ said Reinhart, lighting his pipe. ‘Very possible. But that arrangement seems to me more like the meeting of a couple of secret agents than a drugs deal. But I agree with deBries in principle, and I also agree that it must have been Mr X who was delivering the stuff…’
‘… and that he didn’t have anything to deliver, in fact, but killed his contact man instead.’
There followed a few more seconds of silence. Reinhart closed his eyes and blew out smoke with full force.
‘But where exactly is this getting us?’ wondered Rooth. ‘And what the hell could it have been about if it wasn’t drugs? Is there anybody apart from me who votes for a postage stamp? One of those bloody misprinted ones that sell for eighteen million…’
‘A postage stamp?’ said deBries. ‘You’re out of your mind.’
Reinhart shrugged.
‘Could be anything,’ he said. ‘It could have been stolen goods.. Something that was dangerous but useful in the right hands… Or it could have been money, that’s surely the simplest explanation. One of them was going to pay the other for something or other. Something that needed a degree of discretion, as it were. But I don’t think we’re going to get much further than this at the moment. Maybe it’s time to change the perspective a bit. As long as we can’t work out what he was doing out there, we’re stymied and just marking time — I agree with Rooth on that score.’
‘So do I,’ said Rooth.
‘Okay, let me sum up where the brains trust has got to so far,’ said Moreno. ‘Erich knew that the contact person was Mr X when he arrived and sat down in the bar. And when he left he followed him out in order to collect something from him, and instead was given a blow to the side of his head and another to the back of it. Fatal. Have I got that right?’
‘I would think so,’ said Reinhart. ‘Any objections? No? Well, remember for Christ’s sake that this is no more than speculation. Right, let’s go over to the Western Front. We’ve got no end of information there. Marlene Frey and the address book. Who wants to start? DeBries has volunteered.’
It took an hour and twenty minutes to deal with the Western Front. A hundred and two interviews had taken place with people who had known Erich Van Veeteren in one context or another, according to the list in the black address book.
All of them had been duly recorded: deBries and Krause had spent all Wednesday afternoon and a good part of the night listening to every one of them. They had also produced a list of the people who had been in contact with Erich Van Veeteren during the weeks immediately before his death, a list so far comprising twenty-six names. But several further interviews were still outstanding, so the list could well expand before the end of the road was reached.
The result of all this was not too bad, from a quantitative point of view: but as they were not involved in a macro-sociological investigation, as deBries pointed out, the real result was very meagre indeed.
To be frank, so far — sixteen days after the murder and twelve since the body had been found — they had not succeeded in digging up anything looking remotely like a lead or a suspicion. Not with the best will in the world. It was enough to drive one up the wall. However, with the aid of the interviews and above all of Marlene Frey, they had begun to establish what her boyfriend had been up to during the last days of his life. It had been a very tiring process, and as far as being fruitful was concerned, it had not yet produced so much as a gooseberry. As Detective Inspector Rooth chose to put it.