Jonathan Rabb - Rosa

“Yes, I’m feeling very lucky.” Hoffner knew Prager was right: the Polpo had nothing to gain by it. No one wanted the hysteria this might produce. Still, Hoffner had his doubts. “They’ve got Luxemburg,” he said. “Of course she wouldn’t be mentioned.”

Prager disagreed. “This isn’t the way they’d go about it. Also, there are too many other possibilities-a family member of one of the victims, someone downstairs. Any one of them could have let this out. It’s the BZ, Nikolai. This story didn’t come cheap.” Prager turned to Fichte. “So, Herr Kriminal-Assistent, what do you think? Is this the Polpo?”

Fichte stood motionless. The KD had never asked his opinion on anything. “Well,” Fichte said with as much certainty as he could find, “any leak might lead back to Luxemburg, Herr Kriminaldirektor. I don’t think they’d want that.”

Prager smiled and turned to Hoffner. “That’s a very good point, Herr Kriminal-Assistent. Don’t you think, Nikolai?”

Hoffner said, “You know I’m going to look into this personally, Edmund. And I’m going to want a note sent out to every Kripo office. A general reminder on discretion.”

Prager knew there would be no fighting Hoffner on this one. “Fine. Just don’t let it get in the way.”

“It won’t.”

Fichte cut in. “The telephone call, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar. We should get back to the office.”

Hoffner turned to Fichte. He tried not to sound too cavalier. “Have you been paying attention, Hans? We’re not going back to the office.”

The switchboard operator stared defiantly at Hoffner, who stood hovering above her. This, he knew, was the surest way to keep the lines of communication as restricted as possible. Fichte agreed: Thursday’s late-night encounter had opened him up to an entirely new world at the Alex. And while Fichte had been strangely intrigued by it at the outset, Hoffner had quickly set him straight: these were uncharted men, the source of speculation and derision from a distance, but far more treacherous up close. Whatever arguments there were to the contrary, Hoffner made it clear that the Polpo never merited the benefit of the doubt. Fichte now understood that.

Electricity had come back to the Alex sometime on Monday. The lights from perhaps ten unattended calls flashed in frantic patterns across the board; Hoffner continued to keep the woman from answering them: she was doing little to hide her disapproval. Fichte stood by the door.

“This is highly unusual, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar, ” she said as the board begged for attention. “I really need to take care of these. I can easily forward the call to your office when it comes in.”

Hoffner nodded. “Yes, I know, Frulein. I just feel more comfortable receiving it here.”

“The international line is no difficulty, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar. ”

“Well, I don’t want to tie up any more of your wires than are necessary, Frulein.”

The woman insisted, “You wouldn’t be tying up-”

“Let’s just wait for the call, shall we?” Hoffner checked his watch. It was coming up on one o’clock. At eight seconds to, the international line began to flash. Hoffner nodded and the operator made the connection. She confirmed the caller and then handed the earpiece to Hoffner. Without any hesitation, she retrieved a second earpiece and sat back.

“Could you wait outside, Frulein?” said Hoffner.

The woman looked up in disbelief “Excuse me, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar ?”

“This won’t take more than a few minutes, Frulein.”

The woman spoke as if to a child. “I can’t leave my post, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar. All of these calls-”

“Can wait.” Hoffner’s tone made sure she understood. “Time for a coffee break, wouldn’t you say, Frulein?” Hoffner nodded to Fichte to open the door. The woman’s gaze grew more hostile until, with a practiced civility, she slowly stood, nodded to both men, and headed for the door.

At the door, she turned back to Hoffner bitterly. “This will be reflected in my report to the Kriminaldirektor, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar. ”

“Yes, I’m sure it will, Frulein Telephonistin. ”

Fichte shut the door, and Hoffner brought the receiver up to his ear. “Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner here,” he said in French.

“One moment, Monsieur.” Hoffner waited through the silence. He nodded to Fichte to stay by the door.

“Inspector Hoffner?” The voice was distant but audible. “This is Chief Inspector van Acker, Bruges police.”

“Chief Inspector. I appreciate the speed of your response.”

“Not at all,” said van Acker. “I do need to ask, is this the same Inspector Hoffner who published a piece titled “The Odor of Death” in Die Polizei, eight, maybe nine years ago?”

For a moment, Hoffner thought he had misheard; he had a hard time believing that anyone still remembered the article, less so that it’s “fame” had ever extended beyond a five-block radius of the Alex. “Yes,” said Hoffner, not quite convinced. “You know it?”

“Of course,” said van Acker. “Pretty standard reading here, Inspector. In Brussels, as well.”

“Really?”

“Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have set up the telephone call except, well, I thought it might be my only chance to talk with you in person.”

“Really, I’m-flattered,” said Hoffner. Fichte looked over. Hoffner shook him off.

“Nice little feather in my cap,” said van Acker. “Anyway, about your wire, Inspector. I’m not sure how helpful we can be, but we might have a little something.”

“You’ve got a missing girl, then?”

“Your description was a bit vague, but the time frame is about right for a case we’ve been looking into. May I ask how you knew to contact us?”

Hoffner told him about the gloves.

“It might also be Brussels,” said van Acker.

“Yes. I’ve got a call in.”

“Of course. The problem is, I’m not sure the girl we’ve got in mind could have afforded a pair of Troimpel gloves.”

“And why is that?”

“She was an attendant at one of the area hospitals. A scrub girl.”

That seemed a poor excuse. “And Belgian scrub girls aren’t capable of saving their money, Chief Inspector? I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, not for gloves, no. And especially not for these gloves, Inspector.”

“And no well-off boyfriends?” said Hoffner.

“Not this girl,” said van Acker. “There’s something of a stigma attached to-” He stopped. “Look, to be honest, it’s more of an asylum than a hospital. These are girls who can’t get work elsewhere. They also don’t usually spend much time away from home, for rather obvious reasons. And this girl had no family. You understand.”

Sadly, Hoffner did. Insanity as infection, he thought, with its equally despicable maxim: that only the most pitiful, vile, and unprepossessing would be willing to risk contamination by cleaning up the filth produced by a group of lunatics. Berlin’s own Herzberge Asylum was proof that such idiocy was still thriving well beyond the narrow minds of the provinces. Hoffner had often walked along its dingy halls not sure which of the two groups-the patients or the menial staff-deserved to be under lock and key, although with the latter, he did recognize that malice, and not madness, was more often the dominant pathology.

“I see,” said Hoffner. “Then perhaps this isn’t the girl.”

“Not to be blunt, but did she have the look of a-” At least van Acker was trying to be delicate. “-well, of one of these types.”

“Hard to tell, Chief Inspector. The face was. . gnawed away at.”