Woman with Birthmark (18 page)

The chief of police had said his piece. Van Veeteren leaned forward over the table and glared at the audience.

“Fire away,” he said.

“Was it the same method in this case as well?” said somebody.

“How come the police didn't provide some kind of protection, if it was known that the victim would be one of that group?” wondered somebody else.

“With regard to the method …,” Van Veeteren began.

“Has the level of protection been increased?” interrupted a third.

“With regard to the method,” Van Veeteren repeated, unperturbed, “it was a little different this time. The victim, Innings, that is, evidently invited the perpetrator into his house and offered him tea…. Or her. This naturally suggests …”

“What does that suggest?” yelled a red-haired reporter in the third row.

“It can suggest that he was acquainted with the murderer. At any rate, it seemed that he was expecting him to call.”

“Is it one of the others in the group?” asked somebody from the
Allgemejne.

“We don't know,” said Van Veeteren.

“But you have interrogated the whole group?”

“Of course.”

“And will do so again?”

“Naturally.”

“Protection?” somebody repeated.

“We don't have unlimited resources,” explained Van Veeteren. “It obviously requires vast manpower to keep thirty people under observation all around the clock.”

“Is it a madman?”

“A person is presumably not totally sane if he goes out and kills three people.”

“Was there any sign of a struggle at Innings's place? Had he tried to defend himself or anything like that?”

“No.”

“What theories do you have? Surely you have more than just this to go on?”

“Do you have a suspect?” the redhead managed to interject.

Van Veeteren shook his head.

“At this stage we don't have a suspect.”

“Is it a man or a woman?”

“Could be either.”

“What's all this about music being played over the telephone?”

“There are indications that suggest the murderer keeps calling his victims for some time before shooting them. He calls them and plays a particular tune over the phone to them.”

“What tune?”

“We don't know.”

“Why? Why does he ring?”

“We don't know.”

“What do you think?”

“We're working on various different possibilities.”

“Had Innings received one of these phone calls?”

“We haven't clarified that as yet.”

“If he had, surely he'd have contacted the police?”

“You would think so.”

“But he hadn't?”

“No.”

There was a pause. Van Veeteren took a sip of soda water.

“How many police officers are working on this case at the moment?” asked Würgner from
Neuwe Blatt.

“All available officers.”

“How many is that?”

Van Veeteren did the calculation.

“About thirty Of various ranks.”

“When do you think you'll be able to close the case?”

Van Veeteren shrugged.

“It's not possible to say.”

“Has it got something to do with the armed forces? The link seems to suggest that.”

“No, I would hardly think so,” said Van Veeteren after a moment's thought.

An elderly and unusually patient editor of a crime-magazine program on one of the television channels had been waving his pen for a while, and now managed to get his oar in.

“What exactly do you want help with? Pictures and stuff?”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “We'd like you to publish photographs and names of all the men in the group, and to write about the telephone calls. Ask the general public to pass on to us any possible tips they may have.”

“Why didn't you release the pictures and so on earlier? You must have known about it after the second murder, surely?”

“It wasn't definite,” said Van Veeteren with a sigh. “It was only an indication.”

“But now it's definite?”

“Yes.”

A gigantic man with a long, gray beard—Van Veeteren knew him to be Vejmanen on the
Telegraaf
—stood up at the back of the room and bellowed in a voice reminiscent of thunder: “Okay. The interviews with Innings's relatives and friends! What results have they produced?”

“We are still conducting them,” said Van Veeteren. “You'll get the details tomorrow.”

“How kind of you,” thundered Vejmanen. “And when do you think we'll have the next victim?”

Van Veeteren blew his nose.

“Our intention is to pick up the killer before he strikes again,” he explained.

“Excellent,” said Vejmanen. “So shall we say that you are in no particular hurry? This business is going to be newsworthy for four or five days at least…. Possibly a whole week.”

He sat down, and appreciative laughter could be heard here and there in the audience.

“If I understand it rightly,” said a woman whose clothes and makeup suggested that she was attached to some television program, “you will be providing some kind of protection to all the remaining members of this group. But at the same time, one of
them might be the murderer. Won't that be a pretty intricate task?”

“Not really,” said Van Veeteren. “I can promise you that we shall cease to protect the murderer from himself the moment we know who he is.”

“Have you made a profile of the killer?” shouted somebody from the back.

“I can't say we have.”

“Will you be making one?”

“I always make a profile of the perpetrator,” said Van Veeteren, “but I don't normally send it out into the ether.”

“Why not?” asked somebody.

The chief inspector shrugged.

“I don't really know,” he said. “I suppose I hold the old-fashioned view that one ought to stick to the facts when it comes to the media. Theories are best suited to the inside of my head. At least, my theories are. Any more questions?”

“How long is it since you failed to solve a case?”

“About eight years.”

“The G-file?”

“Yes. You seem to know about it…. As you can all hear, the level of questioning has sunk. I think we'd better leave it at that.”

“What the hell?” exclaimed the red-haired reporter.

“As I said,” said Van Veeteren, rising to his feet.

“For Christ's sake, this is incredible!” said Reinhart when he, Münster, and Van Veeteren gathered in the chief inspector's office ten minutes later. “The murderer rings the doorbell, is let in, sits down on the sofa, and drinks a cup of tea. Then takes out a gun and kills him. Incredible!”

“And then simply goes away,” Münster added.

“Conclusion?” demanded Van Veeteren.

“He knew him,” said Münster.

“Or her,” said Reinhart.

“You mean the bullet in the balls suggests a her?”

“Yes,” said Reinhart. “I do.”

“But it's hardly any less incredible if it's a woman,” said Münster.

There was a knock on the door and Heinemann came in.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he perched cautiously on the window seat.

“These two are standing here saying it's incredible all the time,” muttered the chief inspector. “I'm just sitting and thinking.”

“I see,” said Heinemann.

“What's everybody else doing?” asked Reinhart.

“Rooth and deBries have gone off to interview the neighbors in a bit more detail,” said Heinemann. “Moreno and Jung were going to take his workplace, I think you said.”

“That's right,” said Van Veeteren. “There doesn't seem to be much point in looking for a murderer among his relatives and friends in this case, but we have to hear what they have to say. Somebody might have noticed something. You can take this little lot, Münster….”

He handed a list to Münster, who read it as he walked slowly backward through the door.

“Heinemann,” said the chief inspector, “I suggest you continue searching for links…. Now you've got an extra one to work on. Let's hope there's a lower common denominator than the whole group.”

Heinemann nodded.

“I think there will be,” he said. “I'm thinking of asking Hiller for a bit of help in getting me permission to look at their bank details.”

“Bank details?” said Reinhart. “What the hell for?”

“There's no harm in having a look,” said Heinemann. “If these three have been up to something, the odds are it won't withstand all that much daylight. And such things usually leave traces in bank accounts. Is there anything else you want me to do, Chief Inspector?”

“No,” said Van Veeteren. “You might as well keep on doing what you've been doing.”

Heinemann nodded. Put his hands in his trouser pockets and left Van Veeteren and Reinhart on their own.

“He's not so thick,” said Reinhart. “It's mainly a question of tempo.”

Van Veeteren took out a toothpick and broke it in half.

“Reinhart,” he said after a while. “Will you be so kind as to explain something for me?”

“Shoot,” said Reinhart.

“If it's as Heinemann says and these three have had some kind of criminal past together, and that they know very well … er, knew very well … who the perpetrator is, why the hell did Innings let him in and serve him tea before allowing himself to be shot?”

Reinhart thought for a while, digging away with a matchstick at the bowl of his pipe.

“Well,” he said eventually. “He—or she, I mean—must have been in disguise, I assume. Or else …”

“Well?”

“Or else they know who it is, but don't know what the person looks like. There's a difference. And it was a long time ago, of course.”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“Have you any cigarettes?”

Reinhart shook his head.

“Afraid not.”

“Never mind. Just a few more questions, so that I know I'm not barking up the wrong tree. If it really is just a small group that the killer is after, Innings must have known that his turn would be coming. Or suspected it, at least. Isn't that right?”

“Yes,” said Reinhart. “Especially if he was going to be the last one.”

Van Veeteren thought about that for a few seconds.

“And must have known who the killer is?”

“Who's behind it all, in any case. A slight difference again.”

“Is there any possibility do you think, that Innings wouldn't recognize one of the group?”

Reinhart lit his pipe and thought that one over.

“They haven't seen one another for thirty years,” he said. “We know what they all look like nowadays, but they don't. They may just have that old photograph to go on…. And their memories, of course.”

“Go on,” said Van Veeteren.

“Even so, I think I'd recognize the blokes I did National Service with. Without any trouble at all, in fact.”

“Same here,” said the chief inspector. “Especially if I'd been prepared for it. So, conclusion?”

Reinhart puffed away at his pipe. “If we're talking about a small group,” he said, “then the murderer is an outsider. It could be a contract killer, of course, but I think that's hardly likely.”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“Yes,” said Reinhart. “As I've said before, I'm inclined to think that the murderer is a woman, and as far as I know, there isn't a woman in the group.”

“You're sometimes bloody brilliant at observing things,” said the chief inspector.

“Thank you. There's one thing we mustn't forget, though.”

“What's that?”

“There's nothing to stop it being a woman who intends to kill the whole lot of 'em.”

“There's nothing much to stop a woman doing anything at all,” sighed Van Veeteren. “Apart from us. Shall we get this thing solved now, then?”

“Let's. It's about time,” said Reinhart.

The distance to Loewingen, the latest murder scene, was not much more than thirty kilometers, and as he settled down in the car, he regretted that it wasn't a bit farther. A few hours' driving wouldn't have done him any harm; even when he got up, he'd felt the unfulfilled need for a long and restful journey. Preferably through a gray, rain-sodden landscape, just like this one. Hours in which to think things over.

But in fact it was minutes instead—he managed to stretch it to half an hour by taking the alternative route via Borsens and Penderdixte, where he had spent a few summers as a seven- or eight-year-old.

There were two reasons why he had postponed his visit until Friday. In the first place, Münster and Rooth had already spoken to Ulrike Fremdli and the three teenagers on Wednesday evening, and it might be a good idea not to give the impression that the police were hounding them every day. And in the second place, he'd had plenty to occupy himself with yesterday even so.

You could say that again. During the afternoon he and Rein-hart had addressed the delicate business of organizing protection for the as-yet-not-murdered (as Reinhart insisted on calling them).

The five living abroad were without doubt the easiest ones to sort out. After a brief discussion it was decided quite simply to leave them to their own devices. This was made clear in the letter circulated to everybody concerned, which urged them to turn to the nearest police authority in whatever country they were living in, if they felt threatened or insecure in any way.

There are limits, after all, Reinhart had said.

As for those still in the country but outside the Maardam police district, something similar applied. Reinhart spent more than three hours telephoning colleagues in various places and simply instructing them to protect Mr. So-and-So from all threats and dangers.

It was not a pleasant task, and afterward Reinhart had gone to Van Veeteren's office and requested a job with the traffic police instead. The chief inspector had rejected this request, but told Reinhart that he was welcome to throw up in the wastepaper basket if he felt the need.

It was one of those days.

In the Maardam police district there were now thirteen possible victims left, and to look after them Van Veeteren assembled—if one were to be honest—a ragbag of constables and probationers, and left it to the promising and enthusiastic Widmar Krause to instruct and organize them.

When he had done that and leaned back for a moment, Van Veeteren tried to make a snap judgment of how effective this expensive protection would really be, and concluded that if it had been a condom he'd been assessing, to put it brutally, they might just as well have gone ahead without it.