Borkmann's Point

by Håkan Nesser

  “I can see that,” said Van Veeteren.

  “F6 would have been better. As it is now, you’ll never manage to get it out. Why didn’t you use the Nimzo-Indian defense, as I suggested?”

  “I’ve never mastered it properly,” muttered Van Veeteren. “There’s more oomph in the Russian—”

  “Oomph, yes,” said Bausen. “So much oomph it whips up a damn gale and blows big holes through your own lines. Do you give up?”

  “No,” said Van Veeteren. “I’m not dead yet.” He checked his watch. “Good Lord! It’s nearly a quarter past one!”

  “No problem. Night is the mother of day.”

  “You have no more pieces than I have, after all—”

  “Not necessary by this stage. My h-pawn will become a queen in another three or four moves at most.”

  The telephone rang, and Bausen went indoors to answer it.

  “What the hell?” he muttered. “At this time in the morning . . .”

  Van Veeteren leaned forward and studied the situation. No doubt about it. Bausen was right. It was hopeless. Black could force the exchange of both castles and central pawns, and then the h-file would be wide open. His remaining bishop was stuck behind his own pawns on the king’s side. Bad play, really shitty play—he could have accepted a loss if he’d been black, but when he had the white pieces and was able to use the Russian opening, there was no excuse. No excuse at all.

  Bausen came rushing out.

  “Call it a draw, for God’s sake!” he yelled. “He’s done it again!”

  Van Veeteren leaped to his feet.

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. They phoned in five minutes ago. Come on for Christ’s sake! This is an emergency!”

  He plowed his way through the undergrowth with Van Veeteren after him, but stopped at the gate.

  “Oh, shit! The car keys . . .”

  “Are you really thinking of driving?” said Van Veeteren. “You’ve drunk at least three pints!”

  Bausen hesitated.

  “We’ll walk,” he said. “It’s only a few hundred yards.”

  “Let’s go!” said Van Veeteren.

  Constable Bang had been first on the scene, and had succeeded in waking up the whole apartment block in the space of a few minutes. When Bausen and Van Veeteren came around the corner, lights were on in every window and there were masses of people milling about on the stairs and landings.

  Bang had placed himself in the relevant doorway, however, so there was no risk of unauthorized persons trampling all over the crime scene, at least. In firm but friendly fashion Bausen started ushering the neighbors back into their own apartments, while Van Veeteren turned his attention to the young woman sitting on the floor at Bang’s feet, shivering. It looked as if she’d discovered the body and called the police.

  “My name’s Van Veeteren,” he said. “Would you like something to drink?”

  She shook her head. He took hold of her hands and noted that they were icy cold and trembling.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Beatrice Linckx. We live together. His name’s Maurice Rühme.”

  “I know,” said Bausen, who had cleared away all the neighbors. “You can go with Mrs. Clausewitz for the time being, and she’ll give you something hot to drink.”

  A chubby woman was peering at the scene from behind him.

  “Come along, little Beatrice,” she said, holding up a yellow blanket. “Come on. Auntie Anna will look after you.”

  Miss Linckx clambered to her feet and went with Mrs. Clausewitz as bidden, albeit unsteadily.

  “There’s goodness in the world as well,” said Bausen. “We mustn’t forget that. Shall we take a look? I’ve instructed Bang to keep the rabble at bay.”

  Van Veeteren swallowed and peeked in through the door.

  “God Almighty!” said Chief Inspector Bausen.

  The body of Maurice Rühme was lying just inside the door, and at first glance it looked as if every single drop of blood had left it. The wall-to-wall carpet in the hall, some four or five square yards, was so thoroughly soaked that it was barely possible to guess its original color. Van Veeteren and Bausen remained in the doorway.

  “We’d better wait for the crime scene boys,” said Van Veeteren.

  “There are some footprints there,” said Bausen, pointing.

  “Yes, I can see them.”

  “The same blow, more or less . . .”

  That seemed to be right. Rühme was lying on his stomach with his arms underneath him, as if he’d fallen forward but not managed to stop himself. His head was still attached, but it looked as if it had very nearly been severed as well. His face was turned to one side and slightly upward, and his wide-open eyes appeared to be staring at a point level with Bausen’s knees, more or less. Not only blood had flowed out of the opening in his neck, but also some undigested bits of food, by the look of it . . . and something fleshy that was still attached somewhere. Van Veeteren assumed it must be his tongue.

  “He must have been here for some time,” said Bausen. “Have you noticed the smell?”

  “Twenty-four hours at least,” said Van Veeteren. “Shouldn’t the forensic team be here by now?”

  “Five minutes, I’d guess,” said Bausen, checking his watch. “It seems I was right about the weapon, at least.”

  That was the novelty this time. In the case of Maurice Rühme, the murderer had not been content with one blow—after slashing through his neck and killing him instantly, he’d dealt him another blow. This time to the base of his spine, and he’d left the weapon embedded there.

  It looked as if it was firmly entrenched. The handle was pointing diagonally upward, like some sort of grotesque phallus, back to front; and from the little of what could be made out of the blade, it seemed to be more or less as Bausen and Meuritz had supposed.

  Short handle. Wide but shallow blade. A butcher’s implement, evidently, of the highest quality.

  “God Almighty!” said Bausen again. “Can you really face standing here and looking at this?”

  “No,” said Van Veeteren.

  17

  The expressway was endless.

  Endless and endlessly gray. To be sure, it was only another forty miles to the turnoff for Bokkenheim and Kaalbringen, but even so, he wished he had the chance to excise the next half hour from his life. Avoid having to sit here behind the wheel and drive for mile after mile, minute after minute with gloom and weariness building up behind his eyes like a bank of clouds. Dark and insidious.

  He’d got up early. Synn and the boys were still asleep when he left. The quarrel they’d had last night prevented him from waking her up. Even as he backed the car out of the drive, he knew it was wrong.

  Though, it was possible she’d been doing the same thing. Only pretending to be asleep while he crept around the bedroom packing a suitcase. How could he know?

  In any case, he would obviously have to call her the moment he arrived. He didn’t want it to be like this. Couldn’t put up with being at loggerheads, disagreeing about everything, all the unspoken antagonism—not between him and Synn. Others might be able to live with it, but not them! That was the way it was, they’d always agreed on that. Him and his lovely Synn . . .

  Perhaps she’d been right, after all. Perhaps he might have been able to refuse.

  “They’ve found another one in Kaalbringen,” Hiller had said. “VV needs somebody to bellow at, or he won’t be able to solve this case. You’d better go, Münster!”

  He didn’t really have any objections as such, and that was the snag. He should have. There were at least three detectives of similar standing, all of them bachelors—Reinhart, Rooth and Stauff: Hiller could have sent one of them instead.

  But he’d chosen Münster.

  Who’d agreed without blinking an eye. Without worrying that he’d be separated from Synn and the boys for . . . well, how long? Nobody could say. A few days? A week? Even longer? Until they had this Axman under lock and key?
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  Once he’d said yes, of course, it was much harder to back out of it. Even Synn had acknowledged that eventually, but of course he ought to have thought about that from the start. That’s as far as they’d got last night, and then it was stalemate. Synn had gone to bed, he’d stayed up, and he knew deep down that she was right. He did now, in any case, sitting in the car and feeling sick and driving far too fast through this unbearably gray pointlessness.

  I don’t want to get away from her, he thought. I want to get closer to her. Go back, not back off.

  The fact that Van Veeteren had no doubt specifically picked him to help him could naturally be considered rather flattering in other circumstances, but right now, that was not much of a consolation.

  I know I’m a good police officer, he thought. I only wish I was as good a husband and father as well. It sounded pretty pathetic, undeniably, and he pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and blew his nose.

  BOKKENHEIM, KAALBRINGEN 29, it said on the sign. He’d covered another five miles.

  He found The See Warf without needing to ask for directions. Chief Inspector Van Veeteren wasn’t in at the moment, he was informed, but there was a room reserved in Münster’s name. Next door to the chief inspector. Had he come in connection with the latest horrible murder? they asked.

  He admitted as much. And picked up his bag and hurried up the stairs.

  The moment he closed his room door behind him, he darted over to the telephone. He had to wait forever before the switchboard gave him an outside line, but when he eventually heard the ringing back home, he noticed to his surprise that his heart was thumping. It reminded him of his teens, when he used to call redheaded Marie, the pharmacist’s daughter, for help with his French homework. Very odd . . . but there again, perhaps it wasn’t?

  It was Bart who answered. Mom’s gone out, he was informed. No, Bart didn’t know where she was or when she’d be back; Aunt Alice was looking after them. When would Dad be coming home?

  “As soon as I can,” he said. “Say hi to Marieke and your mom. Tell Mom that I’ll call her later and that I love her.”

  “How gross!” said his six-year-old son, and hung up.

  Münster sighed, but he did feel a bit better. Time to face the music, he supposed.

  But I’d be of much more use if I could first have an afternoon nap for a couple of hours with my arms around my wife, he also thought.

  18

  “If Mooser would shut the door, we can start,” said Bausen.

  Kropke switched on the overhead projector.

  “I think it would be simplest if we were to try to map out the series of events, insofar as we know it, to sum up the situation and flesh out the bare bones for Inspector Münster.”

  “Thank you,” said Münster.

  “The murder victim,” said Bausen, “is one Maurice Rühme, aged thirty-one, a doctor up at the hospital specializing in orthopedics and back injuries. He’s been working there since March. I’d like to point out for the benefit of our guests”—he eyed Van Veeteren and Münster in turn—“that the name Rühme is not exactly unknown here in Kaalbringen. Isn’t that right, Kropke?”

  “Jean-Claude Rühme is a consultant at the hospital,” said Kropke. “He also conducts a private practice at his house up the hill. I think he does various things for the National Health Board as well.”

  “Maurice is one of two sons,” said Bausen. “The other one is in the Seldon Hospice in Kirkenau . . . mentally deficient since a childhood accident. Incurable.”

  “What kind of accident?” asked Münster, and Van Veeteren made a note on his pad.

  “Fell headfirst from the pulpit in St. Pieter’s,” explained Beate Moerk. “Fifteen feet straight down onto the stone paving. Even I know that . . . it’s part of the local folklore, you could say.”

  “Hmm,” said Bausen. “Anyway, Maurice Rühme was found dead in his apartment at 26 Leisner Allé by Beatrice Linckx, his live-in girlfriend—thirty years old, psychologist, works down the road in Kirkenau.”

  “Really,” said Van Veeteren.

  Bausen paused, but there was no further comment.

  “She found him shortly after eleven at night last Thursday, the day before yesterday, in other words, when she got home from a three-day seminar in Kiel. She appears to have had a very nasty shock—went out and sat in her car for two hours before reporting it to us. Bang was on duty, and received the call at 0111.”

  “That’s correct,” said Bang.

  “Van Veeteren and I got there just after twenty past,” said Bausen, “and it was obvious to us that our friend the Axman had struck again. Perhaps Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren might like to take it up from there?”

  “All right,” said Van Veeteren, taking the toothpick from his mouth. “The most interesting thing is the weapon, I assume. Forensics are still busy with it, but he left it behind this time, which might suggest that he’s finished now and doesn’t intend to chop anybody else’s head off. That’s only a hypothesis, of course. In any case, it’s a damn effective weapon—lightweight and easy to handle, and incredibly sharp.”

  “A child could kill with that thing,” said Bausen.

  “Rühme had been lying in the hall for quite some time when we arrived,” said Van Veeteren. “Is that a box of Danish pastries I can see behind Constable Bang?”

  “Mooser, would you go downstairs and order some coffee,” said Bausen, and Mooser departed without more ado. Bang opened the carton and sniffed noisily at the contents.

  “Today’s,” he said.

  “Anyway,” Van Veeteren continued, “even if Meuritz hasn’t delivered his last word yet, we can safely assume that Rühme had been lying there dead for at least twenty-four hours by the time we got to the scene.”

  “Late on Wednesday evening,” said Bausen. “I think we can take it that was when he struck. We have that witness as well—”

  “Mr. Moen,” said Beate Moerk. “I must say he seemed remarkably clearheaded, given the circumstances.”

  “Can we take the forensic details first?” said Bausen. “Kropke, I assume you’ve talked to the lab?”

  Mooser returned with a tray and started distributing mugs of coffee.

  “Yes,” said Kropke. “They’re not finished yet—with the weapon, that is. All the marks on the floor, in the blood, were almost certainly made by Miss Linckx. Footprints, the marks made by her suitcases—they haven’t found anything that didn’t come either from him or from her. As for the weapon, it appears to be a special tool used by butchers and is several years old, it seems. No manufacturer’s stamp or anything like that—he probably filed that away—but with a bit of luck we should be able to trace where it came from . . . in a few days, they thought.”

  “Why the hell did he leave it behind?” asked Bausen. “Can somebody tell me that?”

  “Hubris,” said Beate Moerk. “Wanted to prove he was cleverer than we are, that we’ll never catch him.”

  “Presumably correct,” said Van Veeteren, but Münster wasn’t clear which of Inspector Moerk’s assumptions he was referring to.

  “Let’s have a few more facts before we start speculating,” said Bausen. “How did it happen, Detective Chief Inspector?”

  “The blow came from above, in all probability,” said Van Veeteren. “Went in more or less in the same place as in the earlier cases . . . with the same result. He evidently died instantaneously.”

  “From above?” said Kropke. “Doesn’t that sound a bit unlikely? There were no signs of a struggle, were there? Or of resistance, as I understand it?”

  Bausen exchanged a look with Van Veeteren, then cleared his throat and leaned forward over the table.

  “We think,” he said, “the chief inspector and I, that you could do it more or less like this, and you can make up your own minds: One, the murderer rings the doorbell. Two, Rühme goes to open it. Three, he recognizes the murderer and invites him in. Four, the murderer crosses the threshold and drops something on the floor
—”

  “A scrap of paper, a coin, could be anything,” said Van Veeteren by way of explanation.

  “—five, Rühme bends down to pick it up, and six, the murderer strikes!”

  Silence all around the table. The only sound to be heard was Constable Bang chewing away on a piece of Danish pastry. Inspector Kropke loosened his tie and looked doubtful.

  “Good,” said Beate Moerk eventually. “I think you’re right—but not a coin. It could have rolled anywhere.”

  “Correct,” said Van Veeteren. “Not a coin. In any case, he had time to pick up whatever it was before making his escape.”

  “He planted the ax in Rühme’s back as well,” said Bausen. “He doesn’t seem to have been in much of a hurry.”

  “Didn’t he get any blood on himself?” asked Mooser.

  “That’s possible, but not enough for him to have left any traces if he did,” said Bausen. “There are no signs of blood on the stairs or anywhere else.”

  “Hmm,” said Van Veeteren. “A pretty professional job all around, it seems; but I don’t think we should put too much faith in the assumption that Rühme recognized him. There are masses of possible alternatives—”

  “He could have forced him down onto his knees with a gun, for instance,” said Beate Moerk.

  “For instance,” said Van Veeteren.

  “The witness,” said Bausen. “Let’s examine Mr. Moen’s evidence a little more closely. It’s crucial that we don’t mess things up here.”

  “Absolutely,” said Van Veeteren.

  “We’ve spoken to him, both Inspector Moerk and I,” said Bausen, “with somewhat different outcomes, I suppose you could say. Anyway, his name is Alexander Moen, and he lives in the apartment above Rühme and Linckx. He claims he noticed somebody coming in the front door of the apartment block shortly before eleven on Wednesday evening, and then saw the same person hurrying out again some fifteen minutes later. For the whole of that time, Moen was sitting at the table in his kitchen, looking out over Leisner Park and the avenue waiting for and then listening to the eleven o’clock news on the radio.”