Games of the Hangman (68 page)

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."

22

Fitzduane
played the tape that he'd made of the first half of their interview with
Paulus.
 
He plugged the miniature tape
recorder into a battery-powered extension loudspeaker.
 
Immediately the sound was crisp and clear,
and the listeners were transported to that small office in the museum and the
strained voice of Paulus von Beck.
 
Fitzduane stopped the tape at the point previously agreed upon with the
Bear.
 
There was silence in the room.

"For the
first time," said the Bear, "we've actually got a live witness who
can tie Balac in with some of the key elements of the case.
 
It's no longer supposition.
 
We now know that Balac was involved with
Erika von Graffenlaub on an intense and regular basis.
 
We know that he was the original seducer of
Rudi and Vreni.
 
We know that he made use
of drugs in a manner similar to the Hangman.
 
It's all getting closer."

"There's
a difference between running orgies, even if they do involve underage kids, and
killing people," said Charlie von Beck.
 
"God knows I'd like to believe we've got a case.
 
If you put everything together, I guess we
have, but it's far from a sure thing.
 
There could be an innocent explanation for almost everything we've got
so far.
 
You've put forward one hell of a
clever hypothesis, I'll grant you, but that final firm link is still
missing."

The Bear
looked around the room.
 
It was clear
that most of the team agreed with the magistrate.
 
The Chief looked indecisive.
 
The Bear was glad he'd taken time to build
his argument point by point.
 
Once the
discussion stage was over, they would be back in harm's way.
 
They had to avoid another Muri.
 
The needed a united team convinced of what it
was doing if they were to come up with an angle that would result in success.

"Both
Hugo and I," continued the Bear, "felt that Paulus's reaction
indicated rather more than that he was gay and had played around with group
sex, even if some borderline minors were involved.
 
This is a tolerant town if you're discreet,
and whereas the Rudi / Vreni thing isn't the stuff fairy tales are made of,
they weren't exactly prepubescent children — that would have been serious.
 
No, Paulus was actually afraid, afraid for
his life.
 
Why?
 
What does he know or surmise that brings him
close to panic?

"Most of
you here know what an interrogation is like.
 
A good interrogator often learns more from atmosphere and body language
than he does from the actual words used.
 
After a while he gets so immersed in the mood of the whole thing that he
begins to sense meanings, almost to be telepathic.

"Any
successful investigation requires luck as well as man-hours.
 
And so far the tide of fortune seems again
and again to have favored the Hangman.
 
Whether
by accident or design or a mixture of both, he seems to have been just ahead of
us most of the time.
 
He had Ivo killed
before we could talk to him.
 
Siegfried,
the tattoo artist, went the same way.
 
Vreni was saved, but she can't or won't talk about her experiences.
 
Ericka von Graffenlaub, who might have
cracked under interrogation, is dead.
 
Lodge either wasn't there or escaped before we arrived.
 
And so it goes on.
 
We're dealing with a shrewd and lucky
man.
 
But no one is lucky all the
time.
 
Very early into the questioning of
Paulus, but Hugo and I had the feeling that here was the essential like we were
looking for.
 
You can decide for
yourselves."

Fitzduane
moved the tape recorder selector switch to ‘play.’

"This is
an edited version," began the Bear.

"Play
it," said the Chief.

There was a
slight hiss, and the Bear's recorded voice could be heard.
 
"Paulus, he said, "you've stated
that your relationship with Balac started about five years ago."

"Yes."

"Is it
still going on?"

"Not...
not exactly," said Paulus hesitantly.

"I don't
quite understand," said the Bear, his voice gentle.

"It's not
so easy to explain.
 
The relationship, as
it were, changed; it came to an end.
 
But
from time to time he calls me, and I go to him."

"Why, if it's over."

"I
...
I have to.
 
He
has... he has a hold on me."

"An emotional hold?"

"No, it's
not like that.
 
He has photographs and
other things he his threatened to send to the police."

"We don't
care about your sex life," said the Bear.
 
"What kind of photographs are these?"

There was
silence again and then the sound of sobbing, followed by an editing break.
 
The conversation started again in
mid-sentence.

"...embarrassing,
terribly embarrassing to talk about," said Paulus in a strangled voice.

"So the
von Graffenlaub twins weren't the only underage kids involved," said the
Bear.

"No."

"How old
were they?"

"It
varied.
 
Normally they were in their
mid-teens or older — and that was all right."

"But not always?"

"No."

"What age
was the youngest?"

There was
silence yet again, and then an encouraging noise from the Bear could be
heard.
 
Reluctantly Paulus answered.
 
"About twelve or
thereabouts.
 
I don't know
exactly."

There was a
crash as Charlie von Beck threw his coffee mug to the ground.
 
His face was white with anger.
 
Fitzduane stopped the tape.
 
"The idiot, the stupid, irresponsible,
disgusting idiot!" shouted the examining magistrate.
 
"How could he?"

"Calm
down, Charlie," said the Chief.
 
"You nearly gave me a heart attack.
 
I hope that mug was empty."

Charlie von
Beck smiled in spite of himself.
 
The
Chief waited until he was sure von Beck was in control,
then
gave Fitzduane the signal to proceed.

"Where
did these sexual encounters take place?" said the Bear's voice.

"Oh, various places."

"For instance?
 
In your house, for example?"

"No, never in my house.
 
Balac always like things done his way.
 
He likes a certain setting, and he likes to
have the things he needs, his drugs and other things."

"So where
did you go?"

"I didn't
always know.
 
Sometimes he would pick me
up and blindfold me.
 
He likes to play
games.
 
Sometimes he would pretend I was
a stranger and we were meeting for the first time."

"Did you
ever go to Erika's apartment?"

"Yes, but
not so often.
 
Mostly we went to Balac's
studio down by the Wasserwerk."

"You
mentioned that Balac likes a certain setting," said the Bear.
 
"Could you describe it?
 
Why was it important?"

"He likes
rituals, different kinds of rituals," said Paulus, his voice uncertain and
strained.

"What
kinds of rituals?"

"Like...
like a black mass, only not the real thing.
 
More like a parody of a black mass but with black candles and mock human
sacrifices.
 
It was frightening."

Fitzduane
broke in.
 
"Could you describe the
rooms where this happened?"