Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

"The results of our exercise under the amended program were intriguing. Simon Balac rocketed to the top of the list, and all sorts of other hot candidates dropped to the bottom. One and one started to make three."

"I take it Heini wasn't programming the computer," said the Chief to Henssen.

"Next we were able to fit a few more pieces of the-"

"Puzzle?" said Charlie von Beck.

The Bear shook his head pityingly. "Of the foundation of guilt." He raised his eyebrows. "One of the interesting things about the computer checks we ran on Balac is not so much what showed up as what didn't show up. Let me give you a few examples. First, Balac travels a great deal. His various showings and exhibitions are a matter of public record, yet his credit card records and travel arrangements don't adequately back that up."

"Maybe he likes to pay cash to avoid taxes," said Kersdorf. "That's not exactly uncommon. Maybe he just hates credit cards."

The Bear shook his head. "He has all the major credit cards, from American Express to Diners Club, from Access to Visa. He used them freely in Bern and to some extent when he travels. Superficially it looks all right, but a statistical analysis of how he spends indicates that his pattern is out of sync with the norm. That's not significant in itself except to suggest that he is hiding something.

"The next factor has to do with his travel arrangements. Even if he is paying cash, his name should show up on the airplane reservation computer. The point is, it doesn't. Balac disappears from Bern and then reappears at some known destination without leaving a trace as to how he got there. That isn't normal. Maybe he has a policy of traveling under an assumed name, but that isn't kosher either because it suggests strongly that he must be using a false passport. You have to remember that security arrangement on the airlines are now fairly thorough, and bookings are regularly cross-checked with passport holders. Balac doesn't show up."

"These are details," said the Chief. "He might be guilty of a passport offense. That doesn't mean he's the Hangman."

"Let me continue. So far we've got someone who, when dovetailed with Lodge, fits our computer profile exactly. Next, analysis shows his spending and travel patterns to be suspicious. Then, comparison of his known travel destinations and criminal incidents in which the Hangman is known or suspected to be involved correlate to a significant extent. That doesn't mean he was in the same city or even in the same country – but he was frequently within communication distance whether by plane, train, ship, or road. Next, we've had two positive identifications from Lenk that he was there when the incident with young Rudi von Graffenlaub and Erika took place. We struck out on that one at first when we just looked for a description, but when we went back with photographs of Balac, our luck improved."

"Photographs?" said Henssen. "Any chance our people could have been seen? He seems to have a highly developed sense of self-preservation."

" Der Bund," said the Bear. "Thank God for a newspaper of record. It may be stuffy, but it's certainly thorough. It has a file on every celebrity in town, and Balac has been here long enough and run enough exhibitions to justify a nice fat folder. We have numerous pictures of him and even more of his paintings. I'll come back to that.

"The next point is interesting. It occurred to us that given the Hangman's habit of making significant structural alterations to the buildings he uses, there might be a lead there. Some of his work may well have been carried out openly, as is the case with his reinforced door, but other work suggested a clandestine operation and a high level of skill. That indicated the possibility that he brings in small teams of experts, keeps them under wraps for the duration of the job, and then, given his penchant for tidying, disposes of them.

"To that end, using the Nose, we burrowed away and uncovered four incidents that fit our profile. In every case a highly skilled group of workmen had been killed I what looked like an accident. In one case, about eighteen months ago, a minibus of Italian workmen from Milan went over a cliff in Northern Italy after a tire blew. The carabinieri suspected the Mafia, since it is heavily into construction and related activities, and the tire had blown because of a small explosive charge, which is its style. Anyway, what made this case different was that there was one survivor of the eight in the bus. He was badly burned, but he rambled on about a special job and the sound of a river and never getting any fresh air and the smell of turpentine making his sick."

Lodge's home in Muri?" said the Chief. "It backs on the Aare."

"I don't think so," said the Bear. "There's a wood between the house and the river that blankets out all sound of the water. I checked it out."

"So you think it was Balac's studio complex down by the Wasserwerk?" said von Beck.

"Near where Minder was found," added the Chief.

"That's my best guess," said the Bear.

"Can we talk to this workman?" said the Chief.

"Through a Ouija board maybe," replied the Bear. "He recovered, went home, and someone put two barrels of a lupara into him. Terminal relapse."

"Keep going," said the Chief with a sigh. "I'm sure you've got something even better up your sleeve."

"Hang in there, Chief," said the Bear. "It's coming."

"Before I forget," said Kersdorf, "have you any idea what those workmen were working on? Did the survivor say? Who recruited them?"

"They were recruited through an intermediary using a cover story – something about an eccentric Iranian general who had fled to Switzerland after Khomeini took over and now was afraid of assassination by a hit team of Revolutionary Guards."

"Good story," said von Beck. "It's happened."

"What exactly were they to do?" asked the Chief.

"Something about a sophisticated personal security system. We don't know much else except that the survivor was a hydraulics mechanic."

"I don't like the sound of this at all," said the Chief.

"Let me move on. The next point concern blood types. We know the Hangman's blood type from the semen left in the chessboard girl. It would have embarrassed my line of reasoning if Balac hadn't matched. Well, he does."

"How in heaven's name did you find out Balac's blood type without alerting him?" said the Chief. "People tend to notice when you stick needles in them."

The Bear grinned. "I had all kinds of elaborate ideas for this one. In the end I checked with the blood bank. He's a donor."

"He's what?" exclaimed the Chief.

"A blood donor," said the Bear. "Actually Simon Balac is quite a public-spirited citizen. He is a member of a number of worthy organizations, seems to have a particular interest in the preservations of Bern, and he's a supporter of various ecology groups. He is known to be deeply concerned about the environment. He is also an avid walker and a member of the Berner Wanderwege."

"What is the Wanderwege?" asked Fitzduane.

"Hiking association," explained von Beck. "Wandering through the woods, rucksack on back, following little yellow signs. Very healthy."

"Most of the time," said the Bear, "but you may recall Siegfried, our tattooist friend."

"And not found where a body could be dumped from a car," added the Chief. "Go on, Heini. This is getting interesting."

"We have other circumstantial evidence, but you can get that off the printout. None of it is conclusive, but you'll see it all helps corroborate by thinking. I'd now like to turn to the few clues that Ivo left us, then the matter of alibis, and finally the evidence that I believe is conclusive. First of all, Ivo. He was killed before he had a chance to say much, and most of what he brought was destroyed in the gunfight, but we salvaged some intriguing scraps. There was a reference to purple rooms – not the plural. Well, both Erika's place and Lodge's house in Muri had purple rooms with black candles and sexual aids and other items that point to ritual and dabbling in black magic. In both cases we found traces of blood and semen of a number of different blood groups. They would fit the bill, but there is an additional line: ‘A smell of snow – a rush of wet – a thrusting river – there it's set.’"