Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

Afterward the Bear went to the Barengraben for a little snack and a think. There would be a warrant out for Ivo within the hour. This time it would not be a matter of routine questioning. The little idiot would be charged with murder – at least until more information was available. Even if he ended up with a lesser charge, he was going to be locked up for an awfully long time.

The Monkey had not actually died from having his face destroyed but from a one-sided encounter with a delivery truck as he ran in panic through the streets near the Hauptbahnhof. Whether that made Ivo – them man who had wielded the chain and thus induced the panic – guilty of murder was something for the lawyers to decide. But what had possessed Ivo to behave so savagely? He had no track record of violence, and the Bear would have bet modest money that he would never do such a thing. Nonetheless, the Monkey was undoubtedly telling the truth. Ivo had done it. Had he understood the damage he was doing when he struck? Probably not, but such an excuse wouldn't take him very far in court. The Bear doubted that Ivo would survive a long stretch in prison.

The Monkey had been incoherent most of the time, but he had had some lucid moments. The Bear remembered one in particular: "…and I gave them to him. I did. I did. But he wouldn’t stop. He's mad. I gave them to him." What had the Monkey been trying to say? What did he mean by ‘them’?

The Bear enjoyed his meal. He made a list on his table napkin of what the Monkey might have been referring to, but then he needed it to remove the cream sauce from his mustache. He thought the Monkey's demise was one of the better things that had happened to Bern that day. He felt sorry for Ivo. He also thought that the Chief Kripo, with yet another dead body on his hands – albeit the killer identified – would be shitting bricks.

Well, rank had its privileges.

It was Fitzduane's third or fourth visit to Simon Balac's studio after Erika von Graffenlaub had introduced the two men at Kuno Gonschior's vernissage. Simon didn't project the smoldering anger of so many creative artists, or the sense of insecurity heightened by years of rejection. His manner was charming and relaxed, but his conversational style was enlivened by a pointed wit. He was well informed and widely traveled. Good company, in fact.

Simon was often away at exhibitions or seeking creative inspiration, but when in Bern he kept what almost amounted to a salon. This took place every weekday between twelve and two, when the painter broke for lunch and conversation with his friends. For the rest of the day Simon was ruthless in guarding his privacy. The doors were locked and he painted.

Posters of Balac's various exhibitions held throughout Europe and America decorated one end of the converted warehouse down by Wasserwerkgasse. It was said that a Balac routinely commanded prices in excess of twenty thousand dollars. He painted fewer than a dozen or so a year, and many, after one showing, went immediately into bank vaults as investments. His corporate customers, keenly aware of his ability to market his output to maximum advantage, admired his business acumen as much as his artistic talent.

Socially he was much in demand. Balac was a good listener with the ability to draw others out and spend little time talking about himself, but Fitzduane gathered that he was an expatriate American who had originally come to the Continent to study art in Paris, Munich, and Florence and had then moved to Bern because of a woman.

"My affair with Sabine didn't last," he had said, "but with Bern, it did. Bern has been more faithful. She tolerates my little infidelities when I sample the delights of other cities because I always return. To me Bern has the attraction of an experienced woman. Innocence has novelty but experience has performance." He laughed as if to show that he didn't want to be taken seriously. It was hard to know where Balac stood on most issues. His warm, open manner, combined with his sense of humor, tended to conceal what lay beneath, and Fitzduane did not try to dig. He was content to enjoy the painter's hospitality and his company.

Sometimes the Irishman just wanted to relax. The three weeks he'd spent in Switzerland had been busy and dangerous. Apart from the immediate family, he'd interviewed more than sixty different people about Rudi von Graffenlaub. It might all be very interesting, and it might even lead somewhere – but relaxing it was not.

There was also the matter of the language. Most of the people the Irishman was dealing with seemed – seemed – to speak excellent English, but there was still a strain attached to conversation that was absent when both parties spoke a common language. As the day wore on and people got tired and drink flowed, the situation got worse. People reverted to their native tongues. Even the Bear had taken to suggesting he learn Berndeutsch. Fitzduane had replied that since most of the Irish didn't even speak their own language, such suggestions were on the foolish side of optimism.

The attendance at Balac's daily salon varied considerably from several dozen to zero depending on who knew he was back in town, other commitments, the weather, and one's appetite for basic food. Balac discouraged people who liked to treat his place as a handy location for a quick lunch, both by his manner and by minimizing the attractiveness of his table. Balac's was about talk and company – not gourmet cuisine and fine wines. There was a selection of cold meats and cheeses laid out on a table, and you drank beer. The fare never changed.

This was one of the quiet days, and since Fitzduane had come late and the others had departed early, for the first time the Irishman and Balac found themselves alone.

"You like our fair city, eh?" Balac said. He uncapped a Gurten beer and drank straight from the bottle. It seemed to Fitzduane that he cultivated the bohemian image when he was working. In the evenings, by contrast, he was polished and urbane. There was a touch of the actor about Balac.

"Well, I'm still here," said Fitzduane. He ate some Bundnerfleisch, thinly sliced beef that had been cured for many months in the mountain air.

"Are you any the wiser about Rudi?" asked Balac.

"A little, not much," said Fitzduane. He refilled his glass. He spent enough time in countries where either beer or glasses or both were lacking not to have learned to make the most of what was offered.

"Do you think you ever will find out more? Is it possible to know what truly motivates someone to take his own life – when he leaves no note? Surely all you can do is speculate, and what good does that do?"

"No," said Fitzduane, "I don't think I ever will find out the truth. I'm not sure I'll even come close to an intelligent guess. As to what good it does, I'm beginning to wonder. Perhaps all I wanted to do was bury a ghost, to put an unpleasant event in context. I don't really know." He smiled. "I guess if I can't work out my own motives, I'm not going to have much luck with Rudi. On the other hand, I have to admit that coming over here has made me feel better. I expect it is just being in a different environment."

"I'm a little surprised," said Balac. "I've read your book. You're an experienced combat photographer. Surely you've become accustomed to the sight of a violent death?"

"Aren't I lucky I'm not?" said Fitzduane

The conversation drifted on to art and then to that topic beloved by the expatriate: the peculiarities of host countries, in this case of the Swiss, and the Bernese in particular. Balac had a seemingly bottomless store of Bernese jokes and anecdotes.

Just before two o'clock Fitzduane stood up to go. He looked at the clock. "This is sort of like Cinderella in reverse," he said.

"She had to leave because she switched images at midnight and didn't want to be found out. So what happens here after the doors close?"