by Håkan Nesser
“I don’t see why . . . I didn’t have anything special to say.”
“Your husband went out at around eight o’clock, I gather you said.”
Mrs. Simmel gave a little sob, but regained control of herself.
“Yes.”
“Why did he go out?”
“He was going to meet a business contact. At The Blue Ship, I think.”
“Did he often do business there?”
“Now and again. He is . . . was . . . in real estate.”
“But we understand that your husband was alone in The Blue Ship.”
“He can’t have turned up.”
“Who?”
“His business contact.”
“No, evidently not. But your husband didn’t come home instead, when this other person didn’t put in an appearance?”
“No . . . no, I suppose he thought he might as well have dinner, seeing as he was there anyway.”
“He hadn’t eaten already?”
“No, not dinner.”
“Do you know who it was?”
“Excuse me?”
“Who he was going to meet.”
“No . . . no, I never interfere in my husband’s business.”
“I understand.”
Mrs. Simmel gestured toward the cake dish and helped herself to a chocolate biscuit.
“What time did you expect him home?”
“Around . . . well, about midnight, I suppose.”
“What time did you go to bed yourself?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Simmel, but your husband has been murdered. We simply have to ask all sorts of questions. If we don’t, we’ll never be able to catch the man who did it.”
“I suppose it’s the same one.”
“The same as what?”
“The one who killed that Eggers in June.”
Beate Moerk nodded.
“There is evidence to suggest that, yes. But there again, it could be that somebody was, er, inspired by that.”
“Inspired?”
“Yes, somebody who used the same method. You never know, Mrs. Simmel.”
Mrs. Simmel swallowed, and took another biscuit.
“Did your husband have any enemies?”
Mrs. Simmel shook her head.
“Many friends and acquaintances?”
“Yes . . .”
“A lot of business contacts you weren’t all that well acquainted with, perhaps?”
“Yes, lots.”
Beate Moerk paused and took a sip of coffee. It was weak and wishy-washy. If you did what her hostess had done and added two lumps of sugar, it would have been impossible to say what it was.
“I have to ask you to allow me to ask a few questions that you might find a bit indiscreet. I hope you realize how serious this business is, and that you’ll answer them as honestly as you can.”
Mrs. Simmel scraped her cup nervously against the saucer.
“How would you describe your marriage?”
“Excuse me?”
“What sort of a married life did you have? You’d been married for thirty years, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Thirty-two.”
“Thirty-two, yes. Your children have flown the nest. Did you still have much contact?”
“With the children, you mean?”
“No, with your husband.”
“Well . . . yes, I suppose so.”
“Who are your closest friends?”
“Friends? The Bodelsens and the Lejnes . . . and the Klingforts, of course. And the family, naturally. My sister and her husband. Ernst’s brother and sister . . . And our children, it goes without saying. Why do you want to know about them?”
“Do you know if your husband had a relationship with any other woman?”
Mrs. Simmel stopped chewing and tried to look as if she hadn’t understood the question.
“With another woman?”
“Or several. If he’d been unfaithful, for instance.”
“No . . .” She shook her head slowly. “Who might that have been? Who would have had him?”
That was one way of looking at it, of course. Beate Moerk took a drink of coffee in order to suppress a smile.
“Has there been anything lately that you noticed? Anything unusual about your husband’s behavior, I mean.”
“No.”
“Or anything else you can think of?”
“No. What could that have been?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Simmel, but it would be very helpful if you could think carefully about the last few weeks. Something might occur to you. Did you go away this summer, for instance?”
“Two weeks in July, that’s all. A package holiday, but . . . but we went to different places. I went with a friend to Kos. Ernst went off with a friend of his.”
“To Kos?”
“No, not to Kos.”
“Where to, then?”
“I can’t remember.”
“I see . . . And apart from that you’ve been at home?”
“Yes, apart from the odd day now and then, when we went off in Vanessa . . . That’s our boat. We sometimes go sailing, and stop somewhere for the night.”
Beate Moerk nodded.
“I understand. But there was nothing special that your husband was worried about lately?”
“No . . . no, I don’t think so.”
“No new friends or acquaintances?”
“No . . .”
“He didn’t tell you about or hint at anything unusual?”
“No.”
Beate Moerk sighed and put down her pen. She leaned back in the sofa.
“And how was business?”
“Fine,” Mrs. Simmel answered, seeming surprised. “Fine, I think . . .”
As if there were no other possibility, thought Beate Moerk as she dusted a few crumbs from her skirt.
“Do you work, Mrs. Simmel?”
She seemed to hesitate.
“I sometimes help my husband at his office now and then.”
“Doing what?”
“This and that . . . smartening the place up. Flowers and cleaning, that sort of thing . . .”
“I’m with you. It’s in Grote Plein, is that right?”
Mrs. Simmel nodded.
“When were you last there?”
“The last time? Er, that would be in May, I think.”
My word, you are a busy bee! thought Beate Moerk.
She had a look around the house as well, mainly because Bausen had instructed her to do so. Mrs. Simmel led the way, puffing and panting, and Beate Moerk found herself feeling almost sorry for her, having to keep up all these large rooms. Mind you, no doubt there was a cleaning lady to help out.
It wasn’t easy to see what good it would do, but there again, it was always the same with murder investigations. The aim was to gather facts and information of every kind imaginable—the more the better—and file it all away, ready for when some kind of breakthrough was achieved, at which point the tiniest little detail could suddenly prove to be the key to the whole puzzle . . . case . . . mystery, or whatever you wanted to call it.
Beate Moerk hadn’t been involved in a murder investigation for over six years, not since she was a probationer down in Goerlich, and then she hadn’t been much more than a messenger: knocking on doors, passing on messages, sitting in freezing-cold cars waiting for something to happen that never did.
But now they were faced with an ax murderer. Her, Kropke and Detective Chief Inspector Bausen. No wonder it all seemed a bit odd. Some big shot or other was evidently being sent to help them out but basically it was their case. Local people naturally expected them to be the ones who sorted it all out.
To arrest this madman.
And when she thought about Kropke and Bausen, she realized that much depended on her for a successful outcome.
“Would you like to see the basement as well?”
She nodded, and Mrs. Simmel puffed and panted her way
down the stairs.
In June, when the first one happened, she’d been on vacation, in a cottage in Tatrabergen with Janos. She’d broken up with him since then or, at least, put him on ice for a while. She’d missed the first few days of the case, and even if she would never admit it, she’d been fretting about it quite a lot.
Heinz Eggers. She’d read up all about it and put herself in the picture, obviously. She’d taken part in the interviews and interrogations, drawn up outline plans and solved puzzles for the rest of the summer. But they hadn’t gotten very far, she’d be the first to admit. After all those hours of interrogation and consideration, they didn’t seem to have dug up even the slightest trace of a suspicion. Both she and Kropke had put in so many hours of overtime by now that they must be due at least an extra month’s leave—and she might very well cash that in, provided they’d caught the confounded Axman first.
That’s what they called him in the newspapers: the Axman.
And now he’d struck again.
Her mind elsewhere, she allowed Mrs. Simmel to take her on a guided tour of the house. Six rooms and a kitchen, if she’d counted right—for two people. Only one now. Plus a poolroom and a sauna in the basement. Patio and a large garden facing the woods. Real estate? Bausen had given Kropke the task of digging around in Simmel’s company. Not a bad idea, in fact. Surely they would come up with something?
But what the hell could Heinz Eggers and Ernst Simmel possibly have in common?
Needless to say, that was the question that had been nagging away inside her ever since they’d found Simmel’s body, but so far she hadn’t even managed to hit on anything even resembling a guess.
Or was there no link?
Was it just somebody killing at random?
No motive whatsoever, and a month in between strikes. When he felt like it. Were they really dealing with a madman, as some people maintained? A lunatic?
She shuddered, and the hairs on her arms were standing on end.
Get a grip, Beate! she thought.
She took her leave of Grete Simmel on the paved drive leading into the garage, taking a shortcut over the neat lawn and stepping over the low fence in faux jacaranda. She settled down behind the wheel of her car and considered indulging in a cigarette, but suppressed the urge. She’d gone over four weeks without now, and it would take more than an axman to break her willpower again.
On the drive, watching her pull away, stood Mrs. Simmel, a black, depressed colossus who had suddenly been saddled with a house worth a million, a sailing boat and a real estate company.
And God only knows what else.
The visit had made several things clearer, in any case.
It wasn’t Grete Simmel who had been lying in wait with the ax in the woods; Beate Moerk was 100 percent certain of that.
She was almost equally sure that the victim’s wife hadn’t hired anybody else to carry out the attack, and that she wasn’t involved in any other way. Needless to say, there was no solid evidence to support any of these conclusions; but why not bow to your good judgment and intuition when you’ve been blessed with an abundance of both qualities?
Why not indeed?
She checked her watch. There was time to go home and take a shower before meeting that big shot, she decided.
4
Van Veeteren parked outside the overgrown garden. He checked that the number on the flaking mailbox by the gate really did correspond with the address he’d noted down on the scrap of paper in his breast pocket.
Yes. No doubt about it.
“You’ll find it all right,” Chief of Police Bausen had said. “There’s nothing else like it anywhere in town!”
That was certainly no exaggeration. He got out of his car and tried to peer over the tangled spirea hedge. It looked dark inside there. Heavy, sagging branches of unpruned fruit trees coalesced at about chest height with the undergrowth—grass three feet high, untamed rosebushes and an assortment of prickly tendrils of obscure origin—to form a more or less impenetrable jungle. There was no sign of a house from the pavement, but a well-worn path suggested that one might possibly be in there somewhere. A machete would have been useful, thought Van Veeteren. The guy must be crazy.
He opened the gate, crouched down and ventured in. After only ten yards or so he found a house wall ahead of him, and a thickset man came to meet him. His face was rugged, wrinkled and heavily tanned—it had been a hot summer. His hair was sparse, almost white, and Van Veeteren thought he looked as if he’d already been retired for some time. Nearer seventy than sixty, if he’d had to guess. But still pretty fit and strong, obviously. His clothes indicated that he was on home territory—slippers, worn corduroy trousers and a checked flannel shirt, with the sleeves rolled up.
“Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, I presume?”
He held out a muscular hand. Van Veeteren shook it and admitted his identity.
“Forgive the garden! I started growing roses and a few other things a couple of years ago, but then I got fed up. Bloody amazing how fast everything grows! I haven’t a clue how to sort it out.”
He flung out his arms and smiled apologetically.
“No problem,” said Van Veeteren.
“Anyway, welcome! Come this way; I have a few easy chairs around back. I take it you drink beer?”
“Masses,” said Van Veeteren.
Bausen contemplated him over the edge of his glass and raised an eyebrow.
“I hope you’ll forgive me,” he said. “I felt I had to check out what sort of bastard I’d been stuck with. Before we meet the rest of them, that is. Cheers!”
“Cheers,” said Van Veeteren.
He lounged back in the wicker chair and emptied half the bottle in one gulp. The sun had been blazing down all the way there; only an hour, it was true, but he could feel his shirt clinging to his back.
“I think the heat wave’s going to last.”
The chief of police leaned forward and tried to find a patch of sky through the network of branches.
“Yes,” said Van Veeteren. “Nice place you’ve got here.”
“It’s not bad,” said Bausen. “Once you get out into the jungle, you’re usually left in peace.”
That seemed to be the case. A well-camouflaged little nest, no doubt about it. The dirty yellow awning; straggly clumps of bushes and roses climbing up the trellis; the thick, tall grass; a heavy scent of late summer, the buzzing of bees . . . And the patio itself: nine or ten square yards, stone flags and a frayed cord mat, two battered wicker chairs, a table with newspapers and books, a pipe and tobacco. Next to the house wall was a lopsided bookcase full of tins of paint, brushes, plant pots, several magazines and other bric-a-brac . . . a chessboard protruded from behind a few crates of empty bottles. Oh yes, there was something special about this place. Van Veeteren produced a toothpick and stuck it between his front teeth.
“Sandwich?” asked Bausen.
“If I can have something to wash it down with. This is empty, I’m afraid.”
He put the bottle on the table. Bausen knocked out his pipe and rose to his feet.
“Let’s see if we can do something about that.”
He disappeared into the house, and Van Veeteren could hear him pottering about in the kitchen and singing something that sounded reminiscent of the bass aria from The Pearl Fishers.
Well, he thought, clasping his hands behind his head. This could have got off to a worse start. There’s life in the old boy yet!
Then it struck him that there could hardly be more then eight or ten years between them.
He declined Bausen’s offer of accommodation most reluctantly, indicating that he might well change his mind later on. In any case, he hoped that his esteemed colleague would keep a door open . . . if this business drags on and on, that is . . .
Instead he took a room at The See Warf. Fourth floor with a balcony and sun in the evening. View over the harbor, quays and the bay with the open sea beyond. This wasn’t too bad a place either, he had to a
dmit. Bausen pointed out to sea.
“Straight ahead you can see Lange Piirs, the lighthouse, but only when the mornings are clear. Last year that meant four days. On top of the cliffs over there is The Fisherman’s Friend, a gourmet restaurant. Maybe we can treat ourselves to an evening there, if we can’t think of anything better to do.”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“Perhaps it’s time to do a bit of work?”
Bausen shrugged.
“If you insist, Chief Inspector.” He checked his watch. “Oh, damn! They’ll have been waiting for us for half an hour, I reckon!”
The police station in Kaalbringen was a two-story affair at the Grande Place. A front office, canteen, changing rooms and a few cells in the basement; a conference room and four offices on the upper floor. Because of his status as chief of police, Bausen had the biggest office, of course, with a desk and bookcases in dark oak, a worn leather sofa and a view over the square. Inspectors Moerk and Kropke each had a smaller office overlooking the courtyard, and the fourth was occupied by Constables Bang and Mooser.
“Allow me to introduce Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, who’s come here to solve the case for us,” said Bausen.
Moerk and Kropke stood up.
“Bausen’s the man in charge,” said Van Veeteren. “I’m only here to help out . . . if and when needed.”
“You’ll be needed all right,” said Bausen. “This is the whole Kaalbringen force. Plus the lesser ranks, of course, although I wouldn’t expect too much of them if I were you.”
“Inspector Kropke,” said Kropke, standing to attention.
Idiot, thought Beate Moerk, and introduced herself.
“Inspector Moerk is responsible for all the charm and intuition we have to offer,” said Bausen. “I would advise you not to underestimate her.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Van Veeteren.
“Right, shall we get going?” Bausen started to roll up his shirtsleeves. “Is there any coffee?”
Beate Moerk indicated a tray on a table in the corner. Kropke ran a hand through his fair, close-cropped hair and fumbled with the top button of his shirt behind the knot in his tie. He was obviously the one charged with holding forth.
Rookie’s up first, presumably, Van Veeteren thought. Perhaps Bausen is teaching him the ropes.