Hakan Nesser - Hour of the wolf

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘There doesn’t seem much point.’

But she got out of the car even so and walked up to the door. Pressed the bell push and waited for half a minute. Tried again. Nothing happened. She went back to Reinhart, who was standing beside the car, smoking with the pipe upside down in view of the rain.

‘Now what?’ she said.

‘We raid the house tomorrow morning,’ said Reinhart. ‘He has twelve hours in which to turn up.’

They crept back into the car and started trying to find their way out of the suburb.

‘Who did you say?’ said Constable Klempje, dropping his newspaper on the floor. ‘Oh dear… I mean, good morning, Chief Inspector!’

He stood up and bowed solemnly.

‘No, he’s not in, but I saw Krause in the corridor two seconds ago — shall I shout for him?’

He stuck his head out of the door and was lucky enough to attract Krause’s attention.

‘ The Chief Inspector,’ he whispered when Krause came closer. ‘On the phone… The Chief Inspector! ’

Krause stepped inside and took over the receiver.

‘Krause here. Good morning, Chief Inspector… What can I do for you?’

He listened and made notes for about a minute. Then he wished him a pleasant day and hung up.

‘What did he want?’ asked Klempje, scratching his ear with his index finger.

‘Nothing you need bother about,’ said Krause, and left.

Stuck-up ass, Klempje thought. I was only trying to help…

It took a few hours to prepare the necessary documentation for raiding the house, but at ten o’clock they were in place outside Malgerstraat 17. Reinhart, Moreno, Jung, and a car with four technicians and equipment worth a quarter of a million. If it’s going to be done, we’d better do it properly, Reinhart thought. He had rung Clausen’s number twice an hour since half past six; Rooth, deBries and Bollmert had been sent to the New Rumford Hospital to gather more facts, and it had stopped raining ten minutes ago. Everything was ready for the big breakthrough.

‘It looks a bit better in daylight in any case,’ said Reinhart. ‘Let’s go.’

The front door lock was opened by one of the technicians in thirty seconds flat, and Reinhart entered first. He took a look around. Hall, kitchen and large living room on the ground floor. Everything looked very ordinary: not all that clean, some unwashed cups, glasses and cutlery in the kitchen sink. The living room had a sofa group, teak bookcases, a hi-fi system and a substantial cupboard in what he thought was red oak. A television set without a video recorder, but with a thick layer of dust. On the smoke-coloured glass table was a fruit bowl with three apples and a few sorry-looking grapes. A copy of the Neuwe Blatt from last Thursday was lying open on the floor beside one of the armchairs.

Thursday? he thought. Four days already. Time to fly to the moon several times over.

He walked up the stairs. Jung and Moreno followed at his heels while the technicians carried in their equipment then stood in the hall, waiting for instructions.

Three rooms on the upper floor, one of which served as a study with a desk, a computer and a few rickety bookcases; another was a box room. The third was the bedroom: he walked in and looked around. Large double bed with pine head- and footboards. The bedding was primitively masculine… A bedcover with a large multi-coloured check pattern was draped over haphazard groups of pillows and blankets. A Van Gogh reproduction hung on one wall, suggesting a lack of interest in art. Reinhart had the impression that he had even seen the motif on tins of coffee. Various items of clothing lay about, both in and around a brown plastic laundry basket. Shirts and trousers were hanging on both white-painted chairs. Two books, a telephone and a clock radio were standing on one of the bedside tables… A dry cactus on the window ledge between half-drawn curtains… A series of dark stains on the beige fitted carpet.

He beckoned Jung and pointed at the carpet.

‘There,’ he said. ‘Tell them to start up here.’

While the technicians were carrying their equipment upstairs, Reinhart and Moreno went through the kitchen and into the garage. There was a red Audi, probably a couple of years old, and about as ordinary as everything else in the house. He tried the door. It wasn’t locked. He bent down and looked inside, first the front seat and then the back. Stood up again and nodded to Moreno.

‘When they’ve finished upstairs I think they should take a look at this.’

He had left the back door open, and Moreno looked inside.

‘It could be anything,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t have to be blood.. Neither here nor in the bedroom.’

‘Don’t talk crap,’ said Reinhart. ‘Of course it’s blood. I can smell it. The devil be praised, we’ve got him!’

‘Really?’ said Moreno. ‘Aren’t you overlooking something?’

‘What?’

‘He doesn’t seem to be at home. Hasn’t been since last Thursday, as far as I can judge.’

‘Thank you for reminding me,’ said Reinhart. ‘Come on, let’s call on the neighbours.’

Reinhart and Moreno stayed out at Boorkhejm until half past twelve, which was when Intendent Puijdens, the man in charge of the technicians, finally announced — with a hundred per cent certainty — that the stains were in fact blood, both in the bedroom and in the car, the red Audi, which was indeed registered in the name of Pieter Clausen. Establishing whether the blood was from a human being, and possibly from the same human being, would take another hour or so of analysis, Puijdens reckoned.

Ascertaining if it was Vera Miller’s blood, from both the afternoon and the evening.

‘Come on,’ said Reinhart to Moreno. ‘There’s nothing more we can do here. Jung can continue with the neighbours — let’s hope he finds somebody who isn’t both blind and deaf. I want to hear how things are going at the hospital, if there’s anybody who can suggest where the bastard has run away to. If the blood turns out to be what I assume it is, he’s already linked to the crime, for God’s sake!’

‘Don’t you mean crimes?’ wondered Moreno, getting into the car.

‘Piffling details,’ snorted Reinhart. ‘Where is he? Where has he been since Thursday? Those are the questions to which you should be devoting your little grey cells instead.’

‘All right,’ said Moreno, and remained sunk in thought all the way back to the police station.

‘A breech presentation,’ said Dr Brandt. ‘First child. It took some time — sorry to keep you waiting.’

‘You can’t rush a breech presentation,’ said Rooth. ‘I know all about that — it’s how I was born.’

‘Really?’ said Brandt. ‘Well, I suppose you were a bit smaller in those days. What did you want to talk to me about?’

‘Maybe we could go down to the cafeteria?’ suggested Rooth. ‘I can treat you to a cup of coffee.’

Dr Brandt seemed to be about forty, but was small and slim, and moved with a youthful eagerness that reminded Rooth of a puppy. It was Jung who had spoken to him previously: Rooth hadn’t got round to listening to the recording of the conversation, but he knew Brandt had said something about Dr Clausen. Assuming Jung hadn’t simply nodded off, that is.

But now it was Clausen everything was centred on, only Clausen, and Rooth didn’t beat about the bush once they had sat down at the rickety rattan table.

‘Your good friend,’ he said. ‘Dr Clausen. He’s the person we’re interested in.’

‘Clausen?’ said Brandt, adjusting his glasses. ‘Why?’

‘How well do you know him?’

‘Well…’ Brandt opened his arms out wide. ‘We socialize a bit. I’ve known him since I was a lad — we went to secondary school together.’