Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

"Did he always write that way?" asked Henssen.

"All the time I dealt with him," said the Bear. "He like rhymes and puzzles. I think they gave him a certain self-respect. He didn't feel he was informing when he gave us a tip in the form of a poem."

"How do you read this one?" asked the Chief.

"I'm biased," said the Bear. "I think it's another reference to the river and the location of Balac's studio, which supports what we've learned from our deceased Italian friend."

"But that's an opinion, not proof," said von Beck.

The Bear shrugged. "I'm not going to argue that point. It might be clearer if we had all of Ivo's book, but we don't. Of more interest is what it was wrapped in."

"I'm not sure I follow you," said Kersdorf.

"Ivo went to meet Hugo to see if he could enlist his support to find Klaus Minder's killer. He brought a package that outlined in his inimitable manner what he had learned to date. The package was wrapped in a piece of cloth. Clear so far?"

Kersdorf nodded his head. The rest of the team looked at the Bear expectantly. "The cloth turned out to be canvas, not the kind you camp under in the summer or sit on watching the talent in the Marzili, but the kind you use for painting. The piece that Ivo was using had already been sized and bore faint traces of paint. I'd guess it had been made up, but the stretching wasn't right, so it had been torn up and discarded."

"I thought painters bought their canvases already made up," said the Chief.

"Many do," said the Bear, "but that's more expensive. Perhaps more to the point, if you are a professional, you have more flexibility if you make up your own. You can produce in nonstandard sizes; you can use a nonstandard canvas base.

"Now canvas is a catchall term for a range of different materials used to paint on. The commonest are made of cotton; the more expensive grades are made from flax – linen, in other words. Most painting canvas arrives already coated and sized. In this case we are dealing with an expensive flax-based canvas bought raw and sized by the artist. Only one artist in Bern operates this particular way, and forensics has already compared the mix of size or base coating material he uses. They tally. There is no doubt about it. The piece of canvas used by Ivo as wrapping material was prepared by Balac."

There was silence in the room, then the Chief spoke. "You're making me a believer, Heini. But we still don't have a case that would stand up in court. You've already said the canvas looks like a discard, so a defense lawyer would say it could have been picked up almost anywhere. It doesn't even create a direct link between Balac and Ivo, merely the possibility of one."

"Chief," said the bear, "I don't think we're going to have all the evidence we need before we pick Balac up. It would be nice, but the bastard is too careful for that. My modest ambition tops out at a prima facie case followed by a search of his house and some nice detailed investigation by a persistent examining magistrate."

"Which unfortunately won't be me," said von Beck. "A little matter of conflict of interest." There was an undercurrent of embarrassment in the room. All the members of the team knew something of what had transpired with Paulus von Beck, but few knew the details.

The Chief broke the silence. "It's not your fault, Charlie, and it doesn't mean you can't go on working on the investigation. Anyway, let's leave that until we've heard Heini out. I've only heard an outline of what he and Hugo found."

The Bear looked at Charlie von Beck. "Do you want to stay for this?" he said to the magistrate. "It's not too pretty."

Von Beck nodded. "I'd prefer to hear it straight."

The Bear put his hand on Charlie's shoulder for a moment. "Don't take it personally," he said. He continued after a short pause. "I'd like to say that our discover of Paulus von Beck's involvement – marginal involvement, I may add – was the result of painstaking detective work and many long hours of investigation. Well, it wasn't. It was a pure fluke. If Paulus hadn't opened his mouth, we'd still be none the wiser.

"I originally approached Paulus because I wanted an art expert to give me an opinion on the tattoo design – the ‘A’ in a circle of flowers – that we've found on so many involved with the Hangman. The design is intricate and different from the usual style used in tattoos, and it seemed to me that there might be some advantage to checking it out further. The first thing I did was to get hold of some samples of the tattooist's work to see if the design might have originated with him."

"I thought Siegfried's place in Zurich had been completely destroyed," said the Chief.

"Yes, well, it had been in official report-type language, but I've been around long enough to know that there are few absolutes in this world. There is almost always something left. In this case the Zurich cops were thinking in terms of records and valuables when they filed their report. A pile of half-burned tattoo designs wasn't high on their agenda. I assembled all the samples of the tattoo together and had blowups made of its various features. I took those, samples of Siegfried's work, and a collection of photographs of Balac's work to Paulus and asked him to tell me if he thought either of the two had originated the design."

"Where did you get the photos of Balac's pictures?" asked the Chief.

"Mostly from Der Bund," said the Bear. "As I mentioned, it's written about him on many occasions, and there was a lot more stuff in the file than what it published. There was an added bonus of some color slides one photographer had taken in addition to the black-and-white stuff, apparently with the idea of selling them to a magazine. Der Bund, as you may know, doesn't run color. As it happens, I needn't have bothered. Paulus knew Balac's work intimately. He was extremely shaken by what he discovered, and that led to his" – he paused, not wishing to use the word confession with all it unpleasant connotations – "desire to put us fully in the picture."

"My God," said the Chief, "do I understand you correctly? Did Paulus actually identify the tattoo found on the terrorists as having been originally designed, drawn, by Balac?"

The Bear smiled. "Indeed he did," he said. He glanced at Henssen. "There are some things even the most advanced computers miss."

Henssen grinned. "Pattern recognition. Give us another five to ten years, and you'll eat those words."

"We've got the fucker," said the Chief excitedly. "Heini, you're a genius."

"I'm not finished." The Bear removed a small piece of cardboard from a file and passed it across to the Chief. "Balac's visiting card," he said. "Take a look at the logo. He uses it on his notepaper and catalogs, too."

The Chief looked at the card and then at a blowup of the logo that had been mounted beside an enlargement of the tattoo. The resemblance was striking, the circle of flowers almost identical in conception and execution, the only difference being the letter in the center of the circle. On the tattoo it was an ‘A.’ On Balac's card, it was a ‘B.’

"The murdering, arrogant bastard," said the Chief. "He's rubbing our noses in it."

"He's a clever murdering, arrogant bastard. That logo has been distributed thousands of times on brochures, catalogs, headed notepaper, and who knows what else. It has even appeared on posters. It's so much in the public domain that it proves nothing. Anyone could have copied it. Further, in Paulus's professional opinion, the letters ‘A’ and ‘B’ have been designed by different people. Balac didn't design the ‘A.’"

The Chief looked depressed. "This guy doesn't miss a trick."

"Like Icarus," said the Bear, "he likes to fly close to the sun. Sooner or later, no matter how smart he is, that's going to be fatal. Thanks to Paulus, I think it's going to be sooner."