Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
"So?"
the Bear said impatiently.
"The Nose
has been set up to monitor any incident in
activities of the Hangman.
A couple of
days ago a dentist's surgery was completely destroyed by fire — as was the
dentist, who had been bound into his own chair with wire."
"That
sounds like the Hangman's sense of humor," said the Bear.
"Though I guess there might be a few
other candidates among the patients."
"Needless
to say, all of the dentist's records were destroyed, and that would have been
that except it turns out he kept a backup set in his bank."
"I'm sure
his widow will enjoy looking through them.
And I presume Mr. Lodge's full frontals are among them?"
"Exactly."
"Matrushka,"
said the Bear, "if I can quote Henssen's latest obsession."
"Gesundheit,"
said Fitzduane.
*
*
*
*
*
The Chief
Kripo was contemplating the computer screen.
His face had been gashed unpleasantly, if not severely, during the Muri
raid,
and the scars itched.
The stitches had been taken out several days before, and he had been
told he was healing well.
He had also
been told the scars would be permanent unless he had plastic surgery.
He was unenthusiastic about the idea; he
thought he'd prefer to remain scarred and dangerous-looking than have some
quack peel skin off his bottom and try to stick it on his face.
He didn’t like strangers attempting to
rearrange his bit — which brought him right back to the Hangman, who had damn
nearly succeeded in disassembling him into his component parts.
He tapped the
computer keyboard a couple of times with his forefinger.
"It works," he said.
"You've proved that it does.
Why is it that now, when we're so close, it's
of no help anymore?"
Henssen
shrugged helplessly.
"It has to be
asked the right questions."
The Chief
glared at the VDU.
He had a totally
irrational desire to climb inside the machine with a screwdriver and wrench and
force the dumb beast to cough up some answers.
Somewhere inside that electronic monster lay the solution.
He was convinced of that.
But what to do about it?
He had no idea.
He was certain he was missing something —
something obvious.
He walked back and
forth across the room, glancing frequently at the computer.
After ten minutes of this, to Henssen's great
relief, he stopped and sat down.
"Tell me
more," he said, "about how this machine thinks."
*
*
*
*
*
Fitzduane
found walking in the Marzili pleasant but distracting.
The Marzili was a long, thin park sandwiched
between the River Aare and a well-to-do residential area of Bern, both of which
were overlooked by the Bundeshaus bad a plethora of government buildings,
including the Interpol building and the headquarters of the Federal Police.
The Marzili's
proximity to the center of things meant that even this early in the year, as
the day was warm and sunny, a generous sprinkling of nearly naked women was
scattered across the lawn.
Topless
sunbathing was the norm in the Marzili, and hundreds of secretaries and
computer operators and other government workers were busy making up for a long,
cold winter.
Serried ranks of nipples
were pointed at the sun like solar cells on an energy farm.
Fitzduane,
encased in a bulletproof vest under a light cotton blouson jacket, felt
overdressed.
He glanced across at the
Bear, who was humming.
Externally the detective
seemed little the worse for wear after his two weeks in the hospital, and his
cheeks had the ruddy glow of good living.
On second thought Fitzduane decided that more than good food and wine
were reflected in the Bear's demeanor.
Love and the Bear?
Well, good for Frau Maurer.
Her
first name, he had learned, was Katia.
"Don't
you find all this distracting?" he asked.
Fitzduane's eyes followed a spectacular redhead as she loped across the
grass in front of them and then lay down on a towel, eyes closed, face and body
toward the sun, knees drawn up and slightly apart.
Tendrils of pubic hair escaping from the
monokini confirmed that she was the genuine article.
She looked edible.
"On the
contrary," said the Bear, "I find it riveting."
Fitzduane
smiled.
They walked toward the path that
ran along the bank of the river.
Downstream, minutes away, was the
and just below that was the spot where Klaus Minder's body had been fished out.
The Bear sat down
on a bench.
Suddenly he looked
tired.
He threw a small branch into the
water, and his eyes followed it until it bobbed out of sight.
He extracted a creased envelope from his
pocket and smoothed it on his knee.
"Your
guess as to the Hangman's identity," he said.
"I found it in my pocket when I was
getting dressed in the hospital this morning."
"It seems
I was wrong," said Fitzduane dryly.
"There doesn't seem to be much doubt that Lodge is our man, and God
knows where he is now.
Your people have
checked every square millimeter of
"Why did
you think it was Balac?"
Fitzduane
picked up a handful of pebbles and slowly tossed them one by one into the
river.
He liked the faint plop each
stone made.
He wondered how many people
had sat on the riverbank over the years and done the
same
thing
.
Had a vast bed of pebbles built up in the river as a result?
Would the river eventually be choked up by
ruminating
the river watchers?
"A number of reasons.
For starters, just sheer gut feeling that he is a person who is not what
he seems.
Next, a
number of small things.
He is the
right age.
He was an intimate of
Erika's.
He has the right kind of
charming but dominant personality.
His
artist's training would give him an excellent knowledge of anatomy.
His work habits allow him to travel
extensively without suspicion, to have unexplained absences, and so on.
He's paranoid about security.
His studio is near where Klaus Minder's body
was found.
There are other pointers, but
none conclusive, and in any case it all appears a little academic at this
stage.
We've identified our man, and he
isn’t Balac."
"Hmm,"
mused
the Bear.
He was no longer looking so tired.
"Anyway,
I can't see him doing something as provocative as the chessboard girl."
"We're
dealing with a player of games," said the Bear.
"The Hangman isn't rational by normal
standards.
He has his own logic.
Tweaking our collective
official nose appeals to him.
Actually it’s not so uncommon.
I
once picked up a car thief who had operated freely for years until he stole a
police car — and to an unmarked one, but the full painted-up job with radio and
flashing lights and all the trimmings.
When I asked him why he'd done such a stupid thing, he said he couldn’t
resist it."
Fitzduane
laughed.
"How are you
feeling?"
"Good
considering this is my first day out of the hospital, but I do get a little
wobbly now and then.
I'll take a good
long rest when this is over."
"I'm not
sure you should go to this meeting."
"You
couldn’t keep me away if you tried," said the Bear.
"Don't forget I've a very personal
interest these days.
I want the Hangman
dead."
"What
about civil rights and due process of law?" said Fitzduane, smiling.
"The Bear
shook his head.
"This isn't a
normal case.
Normal rules don't
apply.
This is like stamping out a
plague.
You destroy the source of the
infection."
They walked
along
the
By crossing it and cutting up
Schwellenmattstrasse, they could have made it to Project K in ten minutes, but
Fitzduane took another look at the Bear and called a Berp car by radio.
The Bear didn't argue.
He was silent, lost in thought.
*
*
*
*
*
The Chief
surveyed the assembled Project K team; then his gaze fixed on the Bear.
"You
shouldn’t be here, Heini, as you damn well know.
If you collapse, don't' expect me to hold one
end of the stretcher.
You're too damn
heavy."
The Bear
nodded.
"Understood,
Chief.
You're not a young man
anymore."
"Needs
his strength for other things," said Charlie von Beck.
"Shut up,
the lot of you," said the Chief, "and listen carefully.
A short time ago we had our first major
breakthrough.
We paid a heavy price, but
we identified the Hangman's base in
and we now have a fair idea who he is, though I admit there are some problems
in that area.
On the negative side, a
couple of weeks after the Muri find, the investigation is virtually at a
standstill.
We are at an impasse in
terms of the Hangman's identity, and the man himself seems to have vanished
despite the fact that we now have a photograph of him — and dental records — to
work with.
To add insult to injury, the
death of that dentist occurred after the Muri raid, so it looks very much as if
the Hangman is still in
We know what he looks like, yet this psychopath
seems to come and go with impunity — and not just to look at the sights.
He is still killing.
"I've
called you all together to suggest that we change the way we're approaching
this investigation.
Since Muri we've
been concentrating on trying to find Lodge to the virtual exclusion of all
else.
We haven't been successful.
Now I think we need a more creative approach,
and I include in that our use of the computer."
He nodded at Henssen.
Henssen stood
up and then propped himself against a desktop.
He looked as if he needed the support.
He cleared his throat and spoke, his voice
hoarse.
"The Chief thinks that we
may have the solution in the computer but that we're not asking the right
questions.
He may well be right, so let
me explain a little more about what we have done — and can do.
"Our
identification of Lodge was the result of a mixture of computer activity and
human judgment.
We tapped into a vast
amount of data and then constructed a theoretical profile of the Hangman, and
then, using a technique known as forward chaining, we filtered through the
data.
We were lucky.
One of our two prime suspects was our
man."
"May I
interrupt here?" the Bear broke in.
"I thought it was agreed that the initial profile would look for
someone who wasn't Swiss.
If so, why did
the machine cough up Beat von Graffenlaub?
His age wasn't right either."
Henssen looked
a little uncomfortable.
"Well,
Heini, I owe you something of an apology.
I second-guessed you.
The program
allows parameters to be graded according to the confidence rating because there
wasn't a shred of hard evidence to back it up; it was outweighed by other
material.
The same applied to the age
factor.
In neither case were we dealing
with hard facts, only with guesses."
"Fair
enough," said the Bear, "but I would like to have been told that at
the time."
"The
system is totally transparent to the user," said Henssen.
"Any of the parameters can be looked at
whenever you wish.
After this I'll show
you how it's done."