Lee Child - Night School

“What, then?”

“There’s nothing. We have no theory.”

Ten o’clock in the evening, in McLean, Virginia.

–

Which was half past seven the next morning in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The messenger was once again waiting in the antechamber. Early sun was coming in a high window, catching motes of dust, and stirring newborn flies. Tea was brewing in the kitchen.

Eventually the messenger was led to the same small hot room. It too had a high window, with a shaft of morning sun, and dancing dust, and waking flies. The same two men sat below the sunbeam, on the same two pillows. Both bearded, one short and fat, one tall and lean, both in the same plain white robes and the same plain white turbans.

The tall man said, “You are to leave today with our answer.”

The messenger inclined his head, respectfully.

The tall man said, “The way of the world is to bargain. But we’re not buying camels. So our answer is simple.”

The messenger inclined his head again, and turned it a little, as if presenting his ear.

The tall man said, “Tell the American we will pay his price.”

Four hours later it was eight o’clock in the morning in Hamburg, Germany, and the city’s chief medical examiner was starting work at the central morgue. He had completed his autopsy late the previous evening. Unpaid overtime, but homicide was rare, and careers could be built. Now he wanted to review his notes before presenting his conclusions.

The victim was a tall pale-skinned Caucasian female. According to her papers she had been thirty-six years and eight months old at the time of her death. Which was consistent with the physical evidence. The woman had been in good shape. A dieter, judging by her low body fat. A gym member, judging by her muscle tone. She had eaten a couscous salad about six hours prior to death, and had swallowed semen about an hour before. Then she had been strangled from behind, savagely, by a right-handed assailant. The tissue damage was marginally greater on the right side, indicating stronger fingers.

The victim’s pale skin had permitted perimortem bruising in other locations. Not dramatic, but well defined. In particular there were incipient contusions on the backs of her elbows, from her assailant’s knees. He had pinned her down, straddling her, riding her like a pony. And her buttocks were faintly bruised, from the pressure of his. He was bony, in the medical examiner’s opinion. Strong, but wiry. Sharp-edged, in the hands, and at the knees. A skinny-ass dude, they would say on the television. Possibly charged with energy, possibly nervous in his manner, and capable of violent outbursts.

A picture was emerging.

And best of all, the linear measurement between the bruises on the victim’s buttocks and on her elbows was self-evidently the precise distance between the sharp base of the assailant’s pelvic girdle and his kneecaps. Which after standard deductions for the joints in question gave the precise length of his femur. And the length of the femur was considered an infallible guide to a person’s height.

The assailant was one meter seventy-three tall. In American, five feet eight inches. And American had to be quoted, because the victim was a prostitute. GIs still had money to spend. But either way, not a dwarf and not a giant.

The medical examiner clipped a personal note to the back of the file. Not standard practice, but he was a little caught up in the excitement. The note said in his opinion the guilty party was a right-handed man of average height, probably less than average weight, with pronounced bone structure, and a strong physique, but wiry rather than muscular. Like a long-distance runner, perhaps.

Then the medical examiner sealed the file in an envelope, and asked for it to be biked immediately to the chief of detectives, in the city’s police department.

–

The chief of detectives was not thrilled to get it. Not at first. He got more excited later. His name was Griezman. He was considered successful. His department’s ninety-percent record was impressive. But on this occasion Griezman didn’t want impressive. He wanted a short investigation, and then he wanted the case far away in the distance, on the other side of the divide, firmly in the ten percent of cold and forgotten failures.

He had read the notes from his detectives. One said normally the victim drove from her home to the hotel, late in the evening, and parked in the garage, and worked the bar. But that night no one had seen her arrive. Normally the client would use his own hotel room. Normally she would leave in the middle of the night, or sometimes early the next morning. The bartenders and the housekeeping staff might be able to generate a list of men she had been seen with.

Another note said it was unusual for her to entertain clients at her own apartment. Unusual for hotel hookers generally. Perhaps the client had been a repeat customer. Known and trusted. In which case close investigation of regular clients might pay dividends. Over the past year or two, perhaps. It was assumed the relationship had begun in the bar. Perhaps the hotel workers would remember the original meeting. Most of them had been there a very long time.

A third note said she was extremely expensive.

Griezman closed his eyes.

He already knew that. And he knew she worked the bar. The notes were wrong in some respects. It wasn’t unusual for her to use her own apartment. Not at all. Sometimes quite naturally she would meet people in the bar who weren’t staying in the hotel. Local gentlemen, perhaps unwinding after a hard day at the office. With homes of their own nearby, but of course those could not be used. Because of wives, and families, and so on.

Local gentlemen, like himself.

He had been her client. Almost a year earlier. Three times. OK, four. All at her place. The first time from the hotel, indeed. What’s your room number? I’m not actually staying here. I’m just here for a drink . They had gone in separate cars. He had an insurance policy, recently matured and paid out, with a bonus, all of it supposed to go in the savings account. For the children. And now she was dead. Murdered. He would be on the list of men she had been seen with. Close investigation would be disastrous. Someone would remember. He would be fired, obviously. And divorced, of course. And shamed.

He opened the medical examiner’s envelope. He read the cold, hard facts. He knew that neck. It was long and slender and exquisitely pale. He knew she liked couscous. He knew she swallowed.

He turned the last page and saw the personal note. Right-handed, average height, underweight, pronounced bone structure, wiry rather than muscular.

Like a long-distance runner .

Griezman smiled.

He was two meters tall, and weighed 136 kilograms. Six feet six inches and three hundred pounds, in American. Most of it fat. He ate sausage and mashed potatoes for breakfast. The last time he had seen a bone had been on an X-ray.

Nothing like a long-distance runner.

He told his secretary to call a meeting. His team came in. His detectives. He said, “It’s time to set some new parameters. Let’s say the victim drove to the hotel, but got picked up before she got in the door. A chance meeting in the garage itself, maybe. Possibly a regular client. Possibly a long-time-no-see thing. Which tells us he’s rich enough for her, but doesn’t stay in the hotel, or she’d have suggested his room as first preference. So he was either local or bunking elsewhere. The question is, did he have a car? Probably, because he was in the garage. But possibly not, because the garage is also a shortcut to the other side of the block. In which case the victim might have driven him to her home herself. In which case we should fingerprint the inside of her car. The door handles and the seat belt latch at least.”