GAMES OF THE HANGMAN

by VICTOR O'REILLY

  "These are details," said the Chief. "He might be guilty of a passport offense. That doesn't mean he's the Hangman."

  "Let me continue. So far we've got someone who, when dovetailed with Lodge, fits our computer profile exactly. Next, analysis shows his spending and travel patterns to be suspicious. Then, comparison of his known travel destinations and criminal incidents in which the Hangman is known or suspected to have been involved correlate to a significant statistical extent. That doesn't mean he was in the same city or even in the same country—but he was frequently within communication distance whether by plane, train, ship, or road. Next, we've had two positive identifications from Lenk that he was there when the incident with young Rudi von Graffenlaub and Erika took place. We struck out on that one at first when we just looked for a description, but when we went back with photographs of Balac, our luck improved."

  "Photographs?" said Henssen. "Any chance our people could have been seen? He seems to have a highly developed sense of self-preservation."

  "Der Bund," said the Bear. "Thank God for a newspaper of record. It may be stuffy, but it's certainly thorough. It has a file on every celebrity in town, and Balac has been here long enough and run enough exhibitions to justify a nice fat folder. We have numerous pictures of him and even more of his paintings. I'll come back to that.

  "The next point is interesting. It occurred to us that given the Hangman's habit of making significant structural alterations to the buildings he uses, there might be a lead there. Some of his work may well have been carried out openly, as is the case with his reinforced door, but other work suggested a clandestine operation and a high level of skill. That indicated the possibility that he brings in small teams of experts, keeps them under wraps for the duration of the job, and then, given his penchant for tidying, disposes of them.

  "To that end, using the Nose, we burrowed away and uncovered four incidents that fit our profile. In every case a highly skilled group of workmen had been killed in what looked like an accident. In one case about eighteen months ago, a minibus of Italian workmen from Milan went over a cliff in Northern Italy after a tire blew. The carabinieri suspected the Mafia, since it is heavily into construction and related activities, and the tire had blown because of a small explosive charge, which is its style. Anyway, what made this case different was that there was one survivor out of the eight in the bus. He was badly burned, but he rambled on about a special job and the sound of a river and never getting any fresh air and the smell of turpentine making him sick."

  "Lodge's house in Muri?" said the Chief. "It backs on to the Aare."

  "I don't think so," said the Bear. "There's a wood between the house and the river that blankets out all sound of the water. I checked it out."

  "So you think it was Balac's studio complex down by the Wasserwerk?" said von Beck.

  "Near where Minder was found," added the Chief.

  "That's my best guess," said the Bear.

  "Can we talk to this workman?" said the Chief.

  "Through a Ouija board maybe," replied the Bear. "He recovered, went home, and someone put two barrels of a lupara into him. Terminal relapse."

  "Keep going," said the Chief with a sigh. "I'm sure you've got something even better up your sleeve."

  "Hang in there, Chief," said the Bear. "It's coming."

  "Before I forget," said Kersdorf, "have you any idea what those workmen were working on? Did the survivor say? Who recruited them?"

  "They were recruited through an intermediary using a cover story—something about an eccentric Iranian general who had fled to Switzerland after Khomeini took over and now was afraid of assassination by a hit team of Revolutionary Guards."

  "Good story," said von Beck. "It's happened."

  "What exactly were they to do?" asked the Chief.

  "Something about a sophisticated personal security system. We don't know much else except that the survivor was a hydraulics mechanic."

  "I don't like the sound of this at all," said the Chief.

  "Let me move on. The next point concerns blood types. We know the Hangman's blood type from the semen left in the chessboard girl. It would have embarrassed my line of reasoning if Balac hadn't matched. Well, he does."

  "How in heaven's name did you find out Balac's blood type without alerting him?" said the Chief. "People tend to notice when you stick needles in them."

  The Bear grinned. "I had all kinds of elaborate ideas for this one. In the end I checked with the blood bank. He's a donor."

  "He's what?" exclaimed the Chief.

  "A blood donor," said the Bear. "Actually Simon Balac is quite a public-spirited citizen. He is a member of a number of worthy organizations, seems to have a particular interest in the preservations of Bern, and he's a supporter of various ecology groups. He is known to be deeply concerned about the environment. He is also an avid walker and a member of the Berner Wanderwege."

  "What is the Wanderwege?" asked Fitzduane.

  "Hiking association," explained von Beck. "Wandering through the woods, rucksack on back, following little yellow signs. Very healthy."

  "Most of the time," said the Bear, "but you may recall Siegfried, our tattooist friend."

  "And not found where a body could be dumped from a car," added the Chief. "Go on, Heini. This is getting interesting."

  "We have other circumstantial evidence, but you can get that off the printout. None of it is conclusive, but you'll see it all helps corroborate my thinking. I'd now like to turn to the few clues that Ivo left us, then the matter of alibis, and finally the evidence that I believe is conclusive. First of all, Ivo. He was killed before he had a chance to say much, and most of what he brought was destroyed in the gunfight, but we salvaged some intriguing scraps. There was a reference to purple rooms—note the plural. Well, both Erika's place and Lodge's house in Muri had purple rooms with black candles and sexual aids and other items that point to ritual and dabbling in black magic. In both cases we found traces of blood and semen of a number of different blood groups. They would fit the bill, but there is an additional line: 'A smell of snow—a rush of wet—a thrusting river—there it's set.' "

  "Did he always write that way?" asked Henssen.

  "All the time I dealt with him," said the Bear. "He liked rhymes and puzzles. I think they gave him a certain self-respect. He didn't feel he was informing when he gave us a tip in the form of a poem."

  "How do you read this one?" asked the Chief.

  "I'm biased," said the Bear. "I think it's another reference to the river and the location of Balac's studio, which supports what we've learned from our deceased Italian friend."

  "But that's an opinion, not proof," said von Beck.

  The Bear shrugged. "I'm not going to argue that point. It might be clearer if we had all of Ivo's book, but we don't. Of more interest is what it was wrapped in."

  "I'm not sure I follow you," said Kersdorf.

  "Ivo went to meet Hugo to see if he could enlist his support to find Klaus Minder's killer. He brought a package that outlined in his inimitable manner what he had learned to date. The package was wrapped in a piece of cloth. Clear so far?"

  Kersdorf nodded his head. The rest of the team looked at the Bear expectantly. "The cloth turned out to be canvas, not the kind you camp under in the summer or sit on watching the talent in the Marzili, but the kind you use for painting. The piece that Ivo was using had already been sized and bore faint traces of paint. I'd guess it had been made up, but the stretching wasn't right, so it had been torn up and discarded."

  "I thought painters bought their canvases already made up," said the Chief.

  "Many do," said the Bear, "but that's more expensive. Perhaps more to the point, if you are a professional, you have more flexibility if you make up your own. You can produce in nonstandard sizes; you can use a nonstandard canvas base.

  "Now canvas is a catchall term for a range of different materials used to paint on. The commonest are made of cotton; the more expensive grades are made f
rom flax—linen, in other words. Most painting canvas arrives already coated and sized. In this case we are dealing with an expensive flax-based canvas bought raw and sized by the artist. Only one artist in Bern operates this particular way, and forensics has already compared the mix of size or base coating material he uses. They tally. There is no doubt about it. The piece of canvas used by Ivo as wrapping material was prepared by Balac."

  There was silence in the room, then the Chief spoke. "You're making me a believer, Heini. But we still don't have a case that would stand up in court. You've already said the canvas looks like a discard, so a defense lawyer would say it could have been picked up almost anywhere. It doesn't even create a direct link between Balac and Ivo, merely the possibility of one."

  "Chief," said the Bear, "I don't think we're going to have all the evidence we need before we pick Balac up. It would be nice, but the bastard is too careful for that. My modest ambition tops out at a prima facie case followed by a search of his house and some nice detailed investigation by a persistent examining magistrate."

  "Which unfortunately won't be me," said von Beck. "A little matter of conflict of interest." There was an undercurrent of embarrassment in the room. All the members of the team knew something of what had transpired with Paulus von Beck, but few knew the details.

  The Chief broke the silence. "It's not your fault, Charlie, and it doesn't mean you can't go on working on the investigation. Anyway, let's leave that until we've heard Heini out. I've only heard an outline of what he and Hugo found."

  The Bear looked at Charlie von Beck. "Do you want to stay for this?" he said to the magistrate. "It's not too pretty."

  Von Beck nodded. "I'd prefer to hear it straight."

  The Bear put his hand on Charlie's shoulder for a moment. "Don't take it personally," he said. He continued after a short pause. "I'd like to say that our discovery of Paulus von Beck's involvement—marginal involvement, I may add—was the result of painstaking detective work and many long hours of investigation. Well, it wasn't. It was a pure fluke. If Paulus hadn't opened his mouth, we'd still be none the wiser.

  "I originally approached Paulus because I wanted an art expert to give me an opinion on the tattoo design—the 'A' in a circle of flowers—that we've found on so many involved with the Hangman. The design is intricate and different from the usual style used in tattoos, and it seemed to me that there might be some advantage to checking it out further. The first thing I did was to get hold of some samples of the tattooist's work to see if the design might have originated with him."

  "I thought Siegfried's place in Zurich had been completely destroyed," said the Chief.

  "Yes, well, it had been in official report-type language, but I've been around long enough to know that there are few absolutes in this world. There is almost always something left. In this case the Zurich cops were thinking in terms of records and valuables when they filed their report. A pile of half-burned tattoo designs wasn't high on their agenda. I assembled all the samples of the tattoo together and had blowups made of its various features. I took those, samples of Siegfried's work, and a collection of photographs of Balac's work to Paulus and asked him to tell me if he thought either of the two had originated the design."

  "Where did you get the photos of Balac's pictures?" asked the Chief.

  "Mostly from Der Bund" said the Bear. "As I mentioned, it's written about him on many occasions, and there was a lot more stuff in the file than what it published. There was an added bonus of some color slides one photographer had taken in addition to the black-and-white stuff, apparently with the idea of selling them to a magazine. Der Bund, as you may know, doesn't run color. As it happens, I needn't have bothered. Paulus knows Balac's work intimately. He was extremely shaken by what he discovered, and that led to his"—he paused, not wishing to use the word confession with all its unpleasant connotations—"desire to put us fully in the picture."

  "My God," said the Chief, "do I understand you correctly? Did Paulus actually identify the tattoo found on the terrorists as having been originally designed, drawn, by Balac?"

  The Bear smiled. "Indeed he did," he said. He glanced at Henssen. "There are some things even the most advanced computers miss."

  Henssen grinned. "Pattern recognition. Give us another five to ten years, and you'll eat those words."

  "We've got the fucker," said the Chief excitedly. "Heini, you're a genius."

  "I'm not finished." The Bear removed a small piece of cardboard from a file and passed it across to the Chief. "Balac's visiting card," he said. "Take a look at the logo. He uses it on his notepaper and catalogs, too."

  The Chief looked at the card and then at a blowup of the logo that had been mounted beside an enlargement of the tattoo. The resemblance was striking, the circle of flowers almost identical in conception and execution, the only difference being the letter in the center of the circle. On the tattoo it was an "A." On Balac's card, it was a "B."

  "The murdering, arrogant bastard," said the Chief. "He's rubbing our noses in it."

  "He's a clever murdering, arrogant bastard. That logo has been distributed thousands of times on brochures, catalogs, headed note-paper, and who knows what else. It has even appeared on posters. It's so much in the public domain that it proves nothing. Anyone could have copied it. Further, in Paulus's professional opinion, the letters 'A' and 'B' have been designed by different people. Balac didn't design the 'A.' "

  The Chief looked depressed. "This guy doesn't miss a trick."

  "Like Icarus," said the Bear, "he likes to fly close to the sun.

  Sooner or later, no matter how smart he is, that's going to be fatal.

  Thanks to Paulus, I think it's going to be sooner."

  Chapter 22

  Fitzduane played the tape that he'd made of the first half of their interview with Paulus. He plugged the miniature tape recorder into a battery-powered extension loudspeaker. Immediately the sound was crisp and clear, and the listeners were transported to that small office in the museum and the strained voice of Paulus von Beck. Fitzduane stopped the tape at the point previously agreed on with the Bear. There was silence in the room.

  "For the first time," said the Bear, "we've actually got a live witness who can tie Balac in with some of the key elements of the case. It's no longer supposition. We now know that Balac was involved with Erika von Graffenlaub on an intense and regular basis. We know that he was the original seducer of Rudi and Vreni. We know that he made use of drugs in a manner similar to the Hangman. It's all getting closer."

  "There's a difference between running orgies, even if they do involve underage kids, and killing people," said Charlie von Beck. "God knows I'd like to believe we've got a case. If you put everything together, I guess we have, but it's far from a sure thing. There could be an innocent explanation for almost everything we've got so far. You've put forward one hell of a clever hypothesis, I'll grant you, but that final firm link is still missing."

  The Bear looked around the room. It was clear that most of the team agreed with the magistrate. The Chief looked indecisive. The Bear was glad he'd taken the time to build his argument point by point. Once the discussion stage was over, they would be back in harm's way. They had to avoid another Muri. They needed a united team convinced of what it was doing if they were to come up with an angle that would result in success.

  "Both Hugo and I," continued the Bear, "felt that Paulus's reaction indicated rather more than that he was gay and had played around with group sex, even if some borderline minors were involved. This is a tolerant town if you're discreet, and whereas the Rudi/Vreni thing isn't the stuff fairy tales are made of, they weren't exactly prepubescent children—that would have been serious. No, Paulus was actually afraid, afraid for his life. Why? What does he know or surmise that brings him close to panic?

  "Most of you here know what an interrogation is like. A good interrogator often learns more from atmosphere and body language than he does from the actual words used. After a while he gets
so immersed in the mood of the whole thing that he begins to sense meanings, almost to be telepathic.

  "Any successful investigation requires luck as well as man-hours. So far the tide of fortune seems again and again to have favored the Hangman. Whether by accident or design or a mixture of both, he seems to have been just ahead of us most of the time. He had Ivo killed before we could talk to him. Siegfried, the tattoo artist, went the same way. Vreni was saved, but she can't or won't talk about her experiences. Erika von Graffenlaub, who might have cracked under interrogation, is dead. Lodge either wasn't there or escaped before we arrived. And so it goes on. We're dealing with a shrewd and lucky man. But no one is lucky all the time. Very early into the questioning of Paulus, both Hugo and I had the feeling that here was the essential link we were looking for. You can decide for yourselves."

  Fitzduane moved the tape recorder selector switch to "play."

  "This is an edited version," began the Bear.

  "Play it," said the Chief.

  There was a slight hiss, and the Bear's recorded voice could be heard. "Paulus," he said, "you've stated that your relationship with Balac started about five years ago."

  "Yes."

  "Is it still going on?"

  "Not... not exactly," said Paulus hesitantly.

  "I don't quite understand," said the Bear, his voice gentle.

  "It's not so easy to explain. The relationship, as it were, changed; it came to an end. But from time to time he calls me, and I go to him."

  "Why, if it's over?"

  "I ... I have to. He has ... he has a hold on me."