Hakan Nesser - Hour of the wolf

‘Was there any trace of drugs in his clothes?’ wondered Sergeant Bollmert. Presumably in an attempt to make an impression, Reinhart thought. The ruddy-faced sergeant had only been in post in Maardam for a couple of weeks, and was especially keen to distinguish himself. That was nothing to hold against him, of course.

The fact that he had never met The Chief Inspector could perhaps also be seen as an advantage. Given the circumstances.

‘Not in his clothes,’ said Reinhart. ‘Not in his blood, not in his hair or nails. We can no doubt confirm that his girlfriend was telling the truth about that. It’s a pity he didn’t tell her what he was going to do out at Dikken, so that we could have had her word on that as well.’

‘The fact that he didn’t do so suggests that whatever he was going to do wasn’t entirely above board, don’t you think?’ said Rooth. ‘He said nothing about it to the girl, nor to Otto Meyer, whose boat he had been working on earlier that afternoon.’

‘Didn’t he even say he was going to Dikken?’ asked Moreno. ‘To that Meyer character, that is.’

‘Nope,’ said Jung. ‘Just that he’d have to leave at half past four as he had a little job to do.’

‘Job?’ said Reinhart. ‘Did he actually use that word?’

Jung nodded.

‘We pressed Meyer pretty hard on that point. Yes, he called it a “job”. No doubt about it. Anyway, he left the boathouse down at Greitzengraacht a few minutes after half past four. They’d been doing some sort of refurbishing work in the cabin, and the intention was that they’d continue this week. It’s a pretty smart boat, I have to say — eighteen metres, six bunks, teak panels, bar cupboard, the whole caboodle. Meyer’s a bloody crook, of course, but one of the socially acceptable kind, nothing for us.’

‘And he didn’t have anything more he could tell us?’ asked Reinhart.

‘Not a squeak,’ said Rooth.

Jung shrugged and looked apologetic. Reinhart sighed.

‘Brilliant,’ he said. ‘Our case is about as substantial as a vegan on laxatives. Has anybody anything else to add?’

He knew the answer already, but looked round the room even so and tried to seem optimistic.

‘The address book,’ said deBries in the end.

‘Precisely,’ said Reinhart. ‘On the ball as usual. How’s it going?’

DeBries thrust his arms out wide and narrowly missed hitting Rooth on the chin.

‘No need to converse in semaphore, you bloody idiot,’ said Rooth.

Bollmert laughed nervously.

‘It’s going like clockwork,’ said deBries, unrepentant. ‘There are a hundred and forty-six private individuals listed in the book, and about fifty institutions or similar. Plus a dozen or so incomprehensible entries — crossings out, vague scribbles and suchlike. He’s evidently had the book for six or seven years, that’s what his girlfriend estimates anyway — although she’s only known him for three. She’s been able to identify thirty-five people so far: we’ll start checking tomorrow.’

‘Are there any people the pair of them knew who aren’t in the book?’ asked Jung.

DeBries shook his head.

‘Not really. He’s been pretty scrupulous, it seems. A bloke they met at a party only a few weeks ago is duly listed, for instance.’

‘Hmm,’ said Reinhart. ‘So you reckon the murderer is in there somewhere, among all those names?’

‘If it was somebody he knew, there’s a pretty good chance.’

‘Good,’ said Reinhart. ‘You have Moreno, Krause and Sergeant Bollmert to help you — and make bloody sure you are careful and don’t miss anything. Meet ’em all face to face and record every single conversation. A bit of idle chatter on the phone isn’t good enough, remember that. Prepare a list of questions to ask them all, and show it to me first. What their alibi is for last Tuesday, and so on. No kid gloves, right? Is that clear? It’s all we’ve got to go on for the time being.’

‘Crystal clear,’ said deBries. ‘I’m not an idiot.’

‘That can be an advantage sometimes,’ muttered Reinhart. He lit his pipe and blew a few thick clouds of smoke over those present.

‘What about this girlfriend of his?’ said Jung. ‘Hadn’t we better have a session with her? About the last few days, what they were doing and so on?’

‘Of course,’ said Reinhart. ‘I’ll look after that. Rooth and Jung can go back to the restaurant again — that should suit Rooth down to the ground. We’ll have a press release tomorrow that will require every bastard who set foot in that restaurant to come forward. That always produces some kind of results… If you can’t fish deep down, you have to cast your nets out wide.’

‘Wise words,’ said Rooth. ‘Mind you, ugly fish swim deep, if I’m not much mistaken. Cod, for instance.’

‘True,’ said Bollmert, who was almost born on a trawler, but didn’t think that was something to bring up here and now.

‘What the hell have codfish got to do with this?’ wondered Reinhart.

There followed a few seconds of silence while the team leader exhaled more clouds of smoke and the others watched.

‘What do you think?’ said deBries eventually. ‘Surely we need to have some kind of theory as well? Why was he killed?’

Reinhart cleared his throat.

‘I’ll tell you that when I’ve mapped out this last week in rather more detail,’ he promised. ‘Young Van Veeteren was going to meet somebody out at Dikken. He was presumably going to earn a bit of pocket money as a result, and I don’t suppose he was going to sell Christmas magazines. That is what we have to sort out just now.’

‘And he was clobbered,’ said Rooth.

‘By whoever he was going to meet, or by somebody else.’

‘Could it be the geezer he borrowed the car from?’ wondered Bollmert.

‘I reckon we can count him out,’ said Reinhart after two seconds’ thought. ‘He’s in Holte jail, and as far as we know he and young Van Veeteren haven’t been in touch for several months. And he hasn’t been out on parole for ages either.’

‘What’s he in for?’ asked Rooth.

‘All kinds of things,’ said Reinhart. ‘Robbery and white slave trading, among other things. Illegal possession of weapons. Four years. Two-and-a-half left. More or less.’

‘Okay,’ said deBries. ‘We’ll count him out. Anything else? I’m hungry, I haven’t eaten since last week.’

‘Same here.’ said Rooth.

Reinhart laid his pipe in the ashtray.

‘Just one other thing,’ he said, in a serious tone of voice. ‘I spoke to The Chief Inspector yesterday evening and I promised him that we would solve this case. I hope you all understand how extraordinary this business is. I mean what I said at the start. We must sort it out. Must! Is that understood?’

He looked round.

‘We’re not idiots,’ said deBries. ‘As I said before.’

‘It’ll sort itself out,’ said Rooth.

It’s good to have a team with self-belief, Reinhart thought: but he didn’t say anything.

Van Veeteren paused in the south-west corner of the long, narrow square. Ockfener Plejn. Shuddered, dug his hands down deeper into his overcoat pockets. Looked around. Until Saturday he hadn’t known that this was where Erich lived — or had he in fact known in some subconscious way? They had met twice during the autumn: once at the beginning of September, and then again just over three weeks ago. Despite everything, he thought as he groped around after his cigarette roller, despite everything he had socialized a little with his son. Recently. He had received Erich in his home, and they had talked to each other like civilized human beings. That was definitely the case. Something was on its way: it wasn’t clear exactly what, something confused and obscure of course, but something nevertheless… Erich had talked about Marlene Frey as well, but only in terms of a nameless young woman, as far as he could remember, and of course he might well have mentioned where they lived as well — why not? It was just that he couldn’t remember.