by Peter Beck
Then it was over.
On the way back to the courtyard he had to pass through a small archway and shake the priest’s hand. It felt clammy and a shiver ran down Winter’s spine. The mourners huddled in groups in the courtyard, waiting to express their condolences. After a few minutes of awkwardly hanging around, Anne’s colleagues followed their boss, shook the family member’s hands in turn and muttered a few words of comfort. When it was Winter’s turn to speak to Angela he told her his name and said he’d been Anne’s direct superior in the bank.
‘Oh, Herr Winter,’ she said. ‘Nice that you could come.’
‘I had to be here. I owed it to Anne.’ Winter offered Angela his hand. ‘What you said about her in the church really touched me. I wish you all the best. My deepest condolences,’ he said, making to move on to avoid holding up the queue.
But Angela held on tight to his hand. ‘Thank you.’ She looked at him with tears in her eyes. ‘Anne really liked you.’
What had Anne told her sister?
She smiled feebly and added, after a pause, ‘Why didn’t you speak?’
‘I don’t know.’ Then he stuttered out an excuse: ‘I’m not good at speaking in public.’ He composed himself. ‘If there’s anything I can do for you, please give me a call.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, nodding at him with smiling eyes.
Then she turned to Dirk, who was standing somewhat awkwardly behind Winter. The guests were trickling out of the castle courtyard. Mediaeval attackers were better able to defend themselves with their shields when in retreat. On behalf of the family, the priest warmly invited all the mourners for a small reception in the restaurant ‘Bären’. Winter wasn’t hungry and he had an appointment.
Dirk nudged him. ‘Such a sad story.’
Winter said: ‘I need to understand it.’
‘What do you mean? You really don’t believe it was an accident, do you? That’s the reason for all the research.’
Winter shrugged his shoulders.
Dirk continued, ‘I get it. You’ve been away the last few days. But the bank’s internal news and the newspapers talked of an accident. Caused by a fire.’
Winter hadn’t read a paper over the past few days, nor had he checked the bank’s intranet. The police were often reluctant to release information and the intranet’s news site was nicknamed ‘Pravda’, Russian for ‘truth’. ‘I’m not sure,’ Winter said out loud. He shook his head. ‘It’s my job to be paranoid. Do you have the details of Anne’s phone calls?’
‘Yes, here you are,’ Dirk said, pulling out some folded computer printouts from his inside jacket pocket. He leafed through the lists that were stapled together. ‘Her calls to and from landlines in the bank over the last four weeks. Thanks to VOIP that was a doddle. Here.’ Dirk continued looking through the printouts and pointed to the third page. ‘The calls to and from her mobile phone, also for the last four weeks. That wasn’t so easy, but because we’re a good client the provider was prepared to give us the data individually. Some of the numbers are anonymous, which means the caller withheld their number or the call came from a computer.’
The lists showed the caller’s number, the date and the start and finish times of the calls, down to the second. Where the numbers were withheld only the duration of the call was given. Dirk handed Winter the list.
‘Thanks. I hope this helps. What about Al-Bader’s number? Any success there?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. Not a chance. Zero. Nada. His number isn’t registered in Europe and we had to go via the official channels.’
Winter turned to the fourth page. The two last calls from Anne’s mobile were to a number Winter knew well. 24/07, 20:41:22 – 24/07, 20:41:45. Anne’s status update. 25/07, 00:08:06 – 25/07, 00:08:22. Anne’s call had lasted twenty-three seconds, the one from the policeman in the Höllentobel sixteen seconds.
Winter heard Anne’s voice. ‘Hi, Tom. It’s me. Everything’s fine. We’re on our way with a twenty-minute delay, but the sunset is fantastic, unbelievable.’ Then he pictured again her filthy, twisted body in the Höllentobel. Now, at least, Anne had been cleaned and was lying straight in a simple, wooden coffin. For a moment at least, this idea gave Winter the curious impression that everything had been cleared up. Thank goodness he’d brought the rose. He shook his head to disperse the images inside his head.
Looking at Dirk, Winter asked, ‘Have you found out anything about my intruder and his client? Surely the guy’s email address must lead somewhere.’
Dirk shrugged and shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Is it really that hard for a whiz like you?’
‘You underestimate it. And maybe it’s got nothing to do with the helicopter crash. Maybe…’
‘Bullshit!’ Winter barked. He couldn’t restrain his anger any more. The funeral had shredded his nerves. The grief was affecting him badly. It made him furious. He was furious that he didn’t know who was behind the murders. He was furious at himself because he hadn’t made any real progress yet. And now he was venting his anger at Dirk, who was only trying his best. After a while he calmed down. ‘I’m sorry, Dirk. I didn’t mean it like that.’
Dirk looked away. ‘It’s okay.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m sorry, but Känzig made it quite plain that I mustn’t do any more “private” stuff at work and that I’ve got to focus squarely on the IT.’
‘Fucking bullshit. Since when have you listened to Känzig?’
Now Dirk was getting worked up. ‘He gave me a bit of a roasting because of the trade platform and your private affairs really aren’t my number one priority.’
‘Calm down. It’s fine. And thanks anyway for this.’ Winter pocketed the lists. Having reached Dirk’s Passat, they shook hands and Dirk got in. Winter’s Audi was a hundred metres further down, slightly on its own by the side of the road. Everyone’s in a hurry, he thought, either to get to their next appointment or to the reception.
Sitting on a bench, from which he could gaze down at the village surrounded by fields, Winter concentrated on the lists. But the figures swam before him. Finally he was on his own and no longer had to maintain his composure. The corners of his mouth twitched. Putting the lists to one side he leaned back. The unending, dark emptiness that had been pursuing him all morning enveloped Winter and took possession of him.
Anne was dead and buried. He’d never hold her in his arms again. He’d never hear her laugh again. He’d never see her sparkling eyes again. It was his fault, but there was nothing he could do about it. Winter slapped the bench.
He’d never told her that he loved her. What an idiot! Winter pressed the heels of his hands against his temples. The physical pain was nothing in comparison to the grief he felt inside. He bit his lip and felt his eyes becoming damp.
He bent forwards and tore his hair. With his elbows digging into his knees and his hands clenched tight he stared at the picture postcard landscape before him.
Without seeing it.
People at the foot of the hill were merrily hanging up paper lanterns for Swiss National Day, August 1, and getting ready for their family celebrations. The sunny landscape infuriated Winter. Perhaps it would be easier if it were autumn and starting to rain. He shook his head. He couldn’t change the past. His mistakes would pursue him forever. Only the future remained. He could influence that. Or at least he believed he could.
Winter took a deep breath. After several more he calmed down. He would focus on solving the murders. Where were the telephone lists? Grabbing the papers, he got up and rested his foot on the bench for support. As he stood there he studied the printouts.
The calls from the bank were easy to identify because the first three digits were always the same. Winter leaned back and gazed into the distance. A sea of green. Then he turned back to the lists and remembered an unanswered question. Who had called Anne when she stopped at her parents’ in Fraubrunnen on the way to Zürich? Around the time in question – about five o’clock – there were two calls:
/> 24/07, 16:55:12 – 24/07, 16:55:52. The first three digits ‘belonged’ to the bank.
24/07, 17:02:01 – 24/07, 17:02:42. Number withheld.
JULY 31 – 12:10
Winter slammed the Audi door, chucked the lists onto the passenger seat and drove off. As he passed through the village he had to concentrate on not driving too fast. Children in swimwear frolicked in the spray of a sprinkler, its water running into the road.
Grief and anger mingled. He felt angry at his lack of progress and at his colleagues, who were taking liberties with the truth and thinking only of themselves. And he was livid at the diffuse, intangible powers behind the murders.
He’d sunk his teeth into finding the murderers like a dog. But emotions were a double-edged sword. On the one hand they helped you make quick decisions. Emotions could animate you. Anger in your belly could unleash unimagined powers.
On the other hand, emotions blurred the senses, sometimes inducing rash behaviour. Winter knew that he could only strike at precisely the right moment if he were composed and patient.
During the drive back he focused on his next task. He programmed his GPS with the address of the firm where the helicopter was registered, the one that he’d seen circling above the Höllentobel.
Strittmatter’s competitor had his base in a rural hamlet whose name Winter hadn’t heard of till yesterday, and which lay in the Zürich–Basel–Bern triangle. An enormous sign in the shape of a helicopter pointed the way from the main road through a wood to a large clearing. The wood screened off the noise.
The helicopter base was an old farm. Winter drove across the clearing, past a herd of cattle and two, white, Robinson helicopters. He parked on the forecourt, switched off the engine and got out.
There were half a dozen cars: two gleaming off-road vehicles with broad tyres and advertising stickers with helicopters, and dark saloons with Zürich number plates. Business cars. A military vehicle from the air force. The barn had been renovated into a hangar. An orange windsock hung limply above the corrugated iron container that served as an improvised tower.
Winter closed the car door and headed for the shack. An information board was affixed outside; Winter ignored it. He knocked at the door and entered without waiting for an answer. The inside of the container was dark and divided into two by a sort of counter. Behind this, a man in a cap sat at a double desk, eating a pasta ready-meal and drinking a can of Coke.
When the man stood up Winter could make out in the dim light a smooth-shaven, tanned face. Clear eyes, around thirty-five. A helicopter logo on the cap. The fan on the counter was struggling in vain to battle the heat inside the container.
‘Good afternoon. How may I help you?’
The man wore a short-sleeved, khaki shirt with loops buttoned onto the shoulders for attaching badges.
Winter took out his old police badge from his breast pocket. Resembling the Swiss identity card, it was genuine, with a Swiss cross at the front, a photo from earlier days and his name. The expiry date was printed on the back in small digits; it was some years ago now. When he left the police they’d forgotten to seize his ID.
‘Good afternoon, please excuse me for interrupting you,’ Winter said, pointing at the pasta. ‘My name’s Winter and I’m investigating a helicopter crash for Bern.’
Bern could refer to a number of things; the Swiss capital was the seat of many different authorities. The man’s hand was rough with residues of dirt beneath his nails from working in the stable. As they shook hands vigorously, Winter smiled at the man and put his badge away. Peering outside, he motioned to the window with his chin and asked out of curiosity, ‘Doesn’t it disturb those cows when choppers take off and land?’
‘No, on the contrary, I get the impression that they rather like the activity. My father’s been logging their milk output for ages and it’s increased over the last few years.’
‘May I ask how you hit on the idea of providing a helicopter service? It’s a rather unusual idea.’
‘I’ve always wanted to fly. But it’s not easy for a farmer. When I visited my friend who’d emigrated to Canada, I got hooked on helicopters.’ With a proud smile, he continued, ‘These days everyone wants to be up in the air. Our speciality is photo flights. You can’t imagine how many people want a photo of their house from the sky.’ Stuck to the walls of the container were long photographic panoramas mounted on cardboard.
‘Exciting.’ Winter returned the smile and felt that the man was sufficiently warmed up for him to be able to broach the reason for his visit. ‘The truth is, all I wanted to know was which of your clients was in one of your helicopters from the night of the twenty-fourth to the twenty-fifth of July – that’s last Friday to Saturday.’
‘None.’
‘I wrote down the registration number.’ Winter took a small piece of notepaper from his wallet and showed it to the man.
‘Yes, that’s one of my Robis.’
‘But none of your clients chartered a Robi that night?’
‘No. We flew ourselves.’ Raising his cap slightly, the man scratched his head. ‘We were commissioned to do it. A strange job. But we priced it based on the night-time tariff.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I couldn’t say. I don’t like to give out information about my clients.’
‘Oh, come, come. We can sort this out here, or would you like me to have you summoned to Bern?’
‘No, okay.’
‘How was it a strange job?’
‘It came at short notice and late in the evening. By email.’ Winter just nodded. It sounded familiar. ‘You can book us via our website, you know. It was a freelance journalist for a local paper, wanting pictures of a helicopter crash. It was something I was interested in personally and we specialize in photography, especially night photography. We’re completely booked out tomorrow: sunsets with bonfires. He sent us the coordinates, made an offer we couldn’t refuse and we were on our way.’
‘We?’
‘Me and my brother. I fly, he snaps away.’
‘What happened to the pictures?’
‘As soon as we got back we uploaded and emailed them. So that our client didn’t miss his deadline.’
A lie. Much too late. They would have had to improvise. ‘Can I see the email?’ Winter asked.
The helicopter pilot turned around and woke the computer from its sleep mode. Clicking through his emails, he found the relevant one and waved. Winter went around the counter and bent over the pilot. The sender called himself Harald Schneider and said he was a freelancer for the Schwyzer Landbote. No telephone number. A Hotmail address. Another trace that would get lost in the infinity of the web. ‘Did he pay?’ Winter asked.
‘Yes, he posted cash in an envelope. Rounded up to the nearest hundred.’
‘What about the photos?’
‘They were good. We used a Nikon with a fast lens and thermographic filter.’
He opened one of the attachments in the email reply and the accident site filled the screen. It was a ghostly setting and almost as light as in daytime, but with a green tinge. The helicopter wreck shone brightly because of the heat it emitted. Winter could make out the policeman, the fireman, the alpine cowherd and himself standing next to the car. Anne’s twisted body was pale yellow.
Taking a closer look, the pilot said, ‘Is that you?’
Winter just nodded. His face was easily recognisable. The email had been sent at 01:42. Someone had spotted him in the photo and issued the order, via another anonymous email address, to monitor his computer. Who knew him?
On the drive back to Bern Winter received a call from Strittmatter’s cousin. On July 24 Strittmatter had indeed flown directly from his base in Valais to Zürich across the Lötschberg. Winter thanked her for having called back, then put his foot down. He left the motorway at the football stadium and drove into the third underground floor of a public car park in Bern city centre, where the bank had eight spaces permanently reserved for clients and staf
f, marked with the bank’s logo and a sign that read ‘Private: clients only’. There were internal rules detailing the procedure to follow if you wanted to book one of the expensive parking spaces.
He parked beside Anne’s Mini Cooper S, an old original. She’d loved this car. Winter recalled her almost childlike excitement when she’d found it in a classified ad and bought it in good condition off an elderly teacher. She’d cruised around everywhere in that Mini.
On the day she died Anne had driven back to Bern from Fraubrunnen. A journey of about twenty minutes. Then she’d left the car in the underground garage. In all likelihood, Anne had removed her pistol before visiting her parents, then left it in the car.
The SIG Mosquito must be here.
What then? Was Anne picked up? By the anonymous caller? Did she opt to take the train because of the risk of getting caught in an evening rush-hour jam? After all you could comfortably get to Zürich in an hour by train and it stopped right at the airport.
Although Winter didn’t have a key, he did have the relevant experience. One of his training instructors had been a reformed car burglar. In a nearby bin he found a strip of metal three metres long and a centimetre wide, the sort used to fasten boxes on palettes, and folded it in the middle.
Winter looked around. Nobody was watching.
Carefully he slipped the metal strip between the glass and frame of the driver’s door, then jiggled about inside. Luckily these old cars didn’t have electronic central locking. Winter was a bit out of practice, but within a few seconds he found the hidden mechanical lever and the door unlocked with a click. A Citroën drove past. Winter opened up, squeezed himself into the black seat behind the wheel and closed the door behind him.
A green, miniature Christmas tree dangled incongruously from the rear-view mirror. He looked around, wound down the window, switched on the radio and the volume made him jump. Music reverberated loudly around the walls of the underground car park and Winter quickly turned down the volume. In the glove compartment he found the car’s papers, some tissues and a pair of gloves. He felt beneath the driver’s seat. Nothing. He leaned over to the passenger side and put his hand under there too.