The Basel Killings

by Hansjörg Schneider

  THE BASEL KILLINGS

  Hansjörg Schneider

  Translated by Mike Mitchell

  BITTER LEMON PRESS

  LONDON

  Contents

  Title Page

  The Basel Killings

  About the Author

  Copyright

  THE BASEL KILLINGS

  Peter Hunkeler, inspector with the Basel City criminal investigation department, divorced with one daughter, came out of the Milchhüsli onto Missionsstrasse. It was early in the morning of Monday, 27 October, half past midnight to be precise – he’d looked at the clock on the wall of the inn before heading outside. There was a shimmer of white in the air, cast down from the street lamp in the fog. The end of October and already the town was grey and wet, just like the beginning of December.

  Hunkeler felt a need to pee. The sudden cold, he thought: inside it had been nice and warm. Not just because of the heating but also because of all the people sitting round the regulars’ table, one next to the other, like beasts in the cowshed. He wondered whether to go back inside to the toilet. Then he heard a tram approaching from the right, from the city centre. The soft sound of the wheels on the rails, metal on metal, a round light, the outline hardly discernible. A ghostly gleam gliding through the fog. Then the lighted windows of the number 3, a man with a hat on in the front car, a young couple in the rear. The girl’s light hair was draped over the boy’s shoulder. The tram disappeared in the fog, heading for the border. A sudden screech of the wheels – the light on Burgfelderplatz was presumably on red.

  Hunkeler waited until he heard the tram setting off again. He crossed the road to the Turkish pizzeria and looked in through the window of the Billiards Centre. He saw the artist Gerhard Laufenburger sitting at the round table with his girlfriend Nana, beside them little Cowboy with his Stetson on his head and his black dog. He didn’t want to see them that evening, so he headed off towards Burgfelderplatz.

  After he’d taken a few steps he came to the Cantonal Bank on the corner that had a little tree in a tub outside. He thought the plant was ridiculous. Either a tree or no tree, rather than an apology for a tree. But now the little tree was just what he needed. He went over to it and pissed on the slim trunk. Bloody prostate, he thought, by now he couldn’t even hold his water for the few hundred yards to his apartment.

  He turned his head and saw a dark figure sitting on the stone bench in the corner, leaning against the wall. He went over to see who it was. It was Hardy, the old vagabond who always had a diamond in his left earlobe. He appeared to be asleep, mouth open. Hunkeler sat down on the damp seat beside him, grasped the collar of his jacket and pulled it up. He looked across the square, where there was nothing but fog. After a while he heard the sound of a car approaching. Two bright headlights appeared and slowly went past.

  “Shitty weather,” Hunkeler said. “Shitty town, shitty time of year.”

  He looked back at Hardy, who wasn’t moving. His false teeth had a strange white glow.

  “My Hedwig,” Hunkeler said, “is a lousy bitch. When you need her, she isn’t there. At the moment she’s away in Paris, studying the Impressionists. A sabbatical, that’s what she calls it, for three months, until the new year, to recharge her batteries. Being a kindergarten teacher is obviously an extremely stressful job, normal holidays aren’t enough for you to recover. You need an extra three months’ further study in Paris to be able to withstand the psychological pressure of the brats. That’s a quarter of a year.”

  He spat on the wet asphalt, three yards away, and lit a cigarette. He took a drag, coughed and leaned back against the wall.

  “I’m finding it a real effort getting through this dreary time,” he said. “Not smoking too much, not drinking too much beer, not going to bed too late. I could use a sabbatical too. Just imagine, Manet’s women in the park with their lovely hats and white blouses and the sunlight falling through the foliage. Monet’s water lilies. Van Gogh’s blue church. And now just look across this square. What do you see? Just muck, and so grey you don’t even recognize it as muck.”

  He spat out the cigarette in a wide curve; it landed by the tree. He watched the glow gradually die out.

  Hardy still wasn’t saying anything. He’d leaned his head back, his eyes half open. It almost looked as if he wasn’t breathing.

  Hunkeler suddenly felt a chill on the back of his neck. He got to his feet, grabbed the man’s upper arms and tried to pull him up. But he was too heavy. At least Hunkeler managed to heave him up so far that his head tipped back, as if it wasn’t firmly attached any more. A sharp wound appeared across his throat, going from one side to the other. The left earlobe had been slit. He had a closer look to see if the diamond was still there. It wasn’t.

  He let the man’s corpse drop back and went to the little tree to throw up. He didn’t want to, but he had to. Beer ran out of his mouth, dripping down. Odd, he thought, why am I being sick on the tree and not simply on the ground – as if that would make any difference?

  He took some fast, deep breaths, like a dog panting, forcing the stuff back down that was coming up. He wiped his chin and forehead with his handkerchief; they were suddenly dripping with sweat. He could feel himself swaying. For a moment he thought of running off, going to the Billiards Centre and joining Laufenburger and Cowboy as if nothing had happened. But then he took his phone out of his pocket and called the emergency number.

  The ambulance was the first to arrive, with its siren sounding and its blue light flashing through the fog. It came from the cantonal hospital on Hebelstrasse, down towards the Rhine. The doctor, a youngish man with rimless glasses, leapt out. He went over to the slumped figure of Hardy and grasped him by the chin, making his head tilt to one side. He had a close look at the wound on his neck and his left ear.

  “Broken neck,” he said. “Strangled. What’s this with his ear?”

  “He wore a diamond in the lobe,” Hunkeler said.

  “There’s no diamond there any more,” the doctor said, carefully leaning Hardy’s head back against the wall. He took a cigarillo out of a tin, lit it and looked across the square, a nauseated expression on his face. The first onlookers were standing there in the fog.

  “Turn that bloody blue light off,” Hunkeler said.

  The driver nodded, got into the ambulance and turned it off. The crossroads were grey in the light, which was so diffuse you couldn’t tell where it came from. It was quiet, an almost unnerving silence. The men could all feel it: no one was moving any more. The onlookers stood there like spectres, no one came close.

  Then a light flared up, sharp and brutal. It was directed at the dead man, tearing him out of the protective darkness, his white teeth, the cut on his neck. It was fat Hauser, the newshound, a reporter, always first on the scene. He lived just round the corner on Hegenheimerstrasse.

  Hunkeler went over and grabbed him by the arm, but Hauser was young and strong.

  “I’ll break every bone in your body,” Hunkeler said, “if you press that button again.”

  “Not necessary, I’ve got what I need.” Hauser wriggled out of his grip and disappeared in the fog.

  Hunkeler went over to the onlookers. He knew them all. Nana was there from the Billiards Centre and little Cowboy with his dog. Luise in her leopard-skin jacket. Dolly with the long legs, little Niggi, pale Franz, Richard the foreign legionnaire. They’d all been sitting at the regulars’ table in the Milchhüsli. There were also a few old people there from the surrounding apartments – they’d presumably also heard the siren.

  “Hardy’s dead,” Hunkeler said. “Someone broke his neck.”

  He’d no idea what else he could say. No one moved, no one cried. Out on the street a taxi slipped past.

&
nbsp; Then Hermine appeared out of the fog. She lived directly opposite, in an apartment over the pharmacy she managed. She was over fifty but still had a model’s complexion, like Dresden china. She was wearing slippers and had slung on a blue dressing gown. She went over until she was three paces from where Hardy was slumped, stopped, put her hand over her mouth and seemed to be swaying for a moment.

  “You must get away from here,” the doctor said. “It’s a crime scene, no unauthorized person is allowed. Actually, that should be your task, Inspector. You should know what is to be done.”

  “She’s Hardy’s lover,” Hunkeler said. “She wants to say farewell to him.”

  “No,” Hermine said, “I’m not saying farewell to him. We’d only had an argument, it wasn’t a farewell for good. Why is he dead?”

  “That I don’t know. Go now, have a cognac.”

  Putting his arm round her skinny shoulders, he took her to the others.

  “Take her with you. Give her something to drink, put it on my tab. The square will be cordoned off, there’s nothing more to see here.”

  Luise nodded. “Come on, you lot. We can’t do anything more for Hardy now.”

  They vanished in the fog, heading for the Milchhüsli.

  The police squad finally arrived, a good quarter of an hour after Hunkeler had called. It consisted of Detective Sergeant Madörin, Corporal Lüdi and Haller, with his cold curved pipe in his mouth. They got out, a bit too slowly as it seemed, and went over to the dead Hardy.

  “He’s dead,” Lüdi said. “Strangled.”

  They looked round the foggy square, nauseated by their profession, the work that was waiting for them.

  Haller scratched his neck ostentatiously. “A stupid business,” he said. “What have you been getting up to?”

  “I haven’t been getting up to anything,” Hunkeler said. “This is my way home. I just happened to come across him.”

  “You said on the phone that you knew him. You know what he’s called.”

  “He’s called Bernhard Schirmer. Known as Hardy. He used to have a diamond in his left earlobe.”

  “I didn’t see a diamond in his earlobe,” Haller said. “I saw a bloody gash.”

  “Your way home?” Madörin asked. “From where? The Milchhüsli over there isn’t exactly a top-class establishment. Nor the Billiards Centre. That’s where the Albanians go.”

  “That doesn’t bother me,” Hunkeler said. “I drink my beer where I want.”

  He was trying to give his voice the sharpness he usually had at his disposal. But he couldn’t summon it up.

  “I had a drink in the Milchhüsli and studied the Barbara Amsler file. That case just won’t leave me in peace.”

  “Night work then?” Madörin grinned. “Which file was that exactly?”

  “I call the emergency squad,” Hunkeler said, “and you take more than quarter of an hour. What’s going on?”

  “Calm down,” Lüdi said. “We can’t tear along through the fog. You really ought to know that.”

  “Hauser was here,” said Hunkeler. “He was faster than you. He took a photo.”

  “And you allowed that?” Madörin said nastily.

  “I didn’t see him coming, because of the fog. What’s more, I feel as depressed as if it was just before Christmas.”

  “It’s this shitty fog,” Haller said.

  They stood there and waited. No one sat down on the stone bench, it was too damp.

  Then the crime scene squad arrived, in three cars. They parked on the pavement. The spotlights were set up, the square was cordoned off, the usual work began.

  A chubby man with a reddish face came over to Hunkeler and grasped him by the arm. It was Dr de Ville, from Alsace, head of the section.

  “Hélas, Hünkelé,” he said, “why did you have to go across this of all squares on your way home? The man could quite happily have stayed sitting there until the morning. No one’s going to bring him back to life again.”

  Hunkeler took a cigarette out of the packet and put it between his lips, but seeing Madörin’s venomous look he put it back in the packet. Then he went to find the cigarette butt he’d spat out at the tree and picked it up.

  “The crime scene must stay the way it was,” Madörin said. “Who’s actually in charge of the squad here?”

  “I threw this butt away while I was waiting for you and the ambulance. I’m in charge of the squad. And my instructions are to let the forensic team get on with their work. Lüdi and Madörin are to go over to the Billiards Centre and take the customers’ details.”

  “If it was one of them,” Lüdi said, “he’ll have been across the border long since. And no one will know him.”

  “No one is to leave the place,” Hunkeler said, feeling the sharpness returning to his voice, “before their names and addresses have been taken down. Haller and I will do the same in the Milchhüsli.”

  *

  As Hunkeler went into the Milchhüsli, he felt a slight dizziness. He stopped and clutched his forehead. He could see the bar with no one sitting at it. The darts machines on the walls with no one playing at them. The regulars’ table, which was fully occupied, the pall of tobacco smoke over it. He felt as if he was going back to a long-past time that he could hardly remember any more but which had him in its grip and wouldn’t let him go. Most of all he would have liked to turn round at once and stride out towards the border and into Alsace. To tramp over the wet meadows, through the clayey woods, up the rise to Folgensbourg, across the plateau to the village where his house was. He would have opened the door, called the cats, lit the stove and gone to bed, pulling the blankets up over his head. Then the crackle of the logs, the purring of the cats, the calls of the owls in the trees outside.

  He took his hand off his forehead, as if he’d just been wiping off the sweat, went over to the bar and ordered a cup of coffee from Milena. He watched Haller sit down at the regulars’ table, light his pipe and take a notepad out of his pocket. That was all so pointless, so boring, so stupid. He saw Hermine whimpering in Luise’s arms.

  “Hardy’s dead, isn’t he?” Milena said as she put the cup down in front of him.

  “Yes.”

  “Who did it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Milena was Serbian. She had two children who were at school, whom you could sometimes see doing their homework in the kitchen. She was paler than usual. She gave Hunkeler a long keen look. Then she shook her head slowly. This slowness was one of the reasons he liked her so much.

  “I can’t imagine,” she said, “that there would be any reason at all to kill Hardy. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  He stirred the two sugar lumps in his coffee, equally slowly.

  “You never know who can hurt whom,” he said. “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary this evening?”

  She thought, then shook her head again. “It’s the end of the month. A few had already had their money, they paid for rounds. A lot was drunk, but no more than usual for the time of the month.”

  “Was Hardy in here? I mean before I was?”

  “Yes, at eight, as always. He was drinking apple juice until nine. Then he set off on his walk, as he did every evening. He doesn’t drink alcohol any more, since Hermine threw him out of her apartment. He couldn’t sleep any more. Every night he walked round the block where she lives, as if he wanted to guard her. But you know all that, of course.”

  She lowered her eyes and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “Now he’s dead,” she said.

  “Was there anything that struck you while Hardy was here, between eight and nine? Was there anyone here you’ve never seen before?”

  She thought about it, her expression brightening. “Yes, two middle-aged men. Powerfully built, well dressed, ties and all that. They had coffee. One certainly weighed more than two hundred pounds. The other had a thick chain on his left wrist, solid gold.”

  “Do you know where they came from?”

  “They were speaking Turkish. Pres
umably they’d been collecting money from the Turkish pizzeria opposite. I’m pretty sure of that actually, I know that kind of gentleman. They were laughing very loud, that did strike me. They left immediately after Hardy.”

  Hunkeler looked across at the regulars’ table, where Haller was writing something down in his notepad. No one was speaking, they were just waiting tensely for the questions.

  “Do you think the two of them killed Hardy?”

  “No. They were pros. They wouldn’t just go and kill an old man like that.”

  He took out his notebook and wrote down: Two Turks, professionals, one with a solid-gold chain on his left wrist.

  “It wasn’t them,” Milena said. “They only use violence when there’s no other way.”

  “I know. Still, it’s remarkable for two Turks to be drinking coffee in a Serbian cafe. Isn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily. That’s all ancient history, we have to forget it.”

  She took a bottle of vodka out of the fridge, put schnapps glasses on a tray and filled them.

  “Do you want one too?”

  “No.”

  He watched her take the tray over to the regulars’ table, looking a bit slipshod but still charming.

  “How’s Hedwig?” she asked, once she was back behind the bar. “Still in Paris?”

  “She’s doing fine, excellently.”

  Now she did smile, with a trace of mockery, or so it seemed to him.

  “Let me give you a piece of good advice. Go home and have a good sleep. You’ve got dark rings round your eyes.”

  *

  Outside he crossed the road and saw that Gerhard Laufenburger was still in the Billiards Centre. Nana and Cowboy were there as well. Most of all he’d have liked to go home, but there was still something he wanted to know. Skender, the Albanian landlord, came over to him as soon as he went in.

  “Listen, Herr Hunkeler,” he said, agitated, “this is all a misunderstanding. We are peaceful people. We don’t kill anybody. Our religion forbids it. Recently everyone seems to have come to think we Muslims are bandits and murderers. That is an insult.”