The Basel Killings

by Hansjörg Schneider

  His phone rang. It was Hedwig. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Why haven’t you called?”

  “Why? What time is it?”

  “Half past nine. You said you would call every evening at nine.”

  “And you said I was a coward.”

  “Of course you’re a coward, if you don’t resist. You can’t simply accept your suspension. And you shouldn’t keep on having fights with men who are stronger than you. You should take care of your teeth, I don’t want a toothless man.”

  “I’ve already told you I wasn’t having a fight,” he shouted. “I was hit.”

  “Serves you right,” she said coolly, “if you don’t keep your eyes open. And there’s one more thing I’m going to tell you. If you don’t call me at nine on the dot tomorrow, that’s the end for us.”

  She hung up.

  He put the phone back in his pocket. He just loved that woman. He knew he would always love her.

  Hunkeler got up and stretched his back, which had seized up. He saw the number 3 appear, coming from the border. Sitting in the rear carriage were Turkoğlu and Sermeter, in light-coloured raincoats. Why were they travelling through the night? What had they been up to out there at the border?

  No, they weren’t important. It was a very faint trail he was following; he mustn’t let himself be diverted from it.

  He crossed the street and briefly had a look at the sex cinema’s display. Naked women, their lips apart with longing, that wouldn’t have been bad on such a chilly night. Then he grinned at the stupid idea going through his mind.

  The usual regulars were gathered in the Milchhüsli. Luise in her black tulle dress, little Niggi in his far-too-tight confirmation suit, Richard with the black ribbon on his lapel, pale Franz with his black tie. On the table a bottle of Beaujolais Villages with a white paper frill round the neck.

  At the bar Joseph the Bavarian with his wife, who was always in a good mood. Senn, the second-hand bookseller, engrossed in a magazine. In the corner an oldish gentleman who seemed familiar to Hunkeler, although he didn’t know the man’s name.

  He sat down at the regulars’ table.

  “Why didn’t you come to the funeral?” Luise asked. “After all, Hardy was a friend of yours.”

  “No, he wasn’t a friend, he was a boozing companion. And I’ve been excluded from the investigation, anyway.”

  “Who’s going to find the murderer if not you?”

  “How should I know? There are enough police officers in Basel.”

  “We’ll find him,” pale Franz said, “it’s just a question of time. His guilt will bring him back to the scene of his crime.”

  The door opened and an oldish dark-haired man came in. He looked round to see where he could sit and went to the table to the right of the entrance and ordered a glass of white wine. It was the man Hunkeler had seen walking past on Burgfelderplatz.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “That’s Herr Rentschler,” Luise said. “He’s taken early retirement; his wife died two months ago.”

  She gave the man a friendly smile.

  “And who’s the man in the corner back there?” Hunkeler asked.

  “Don’t you know him? That’s Garzoni, Hermine’s ex; he owns the pharmacy. He was at the funeral service as well.”

  Milena came over to take the empty wine bottle away. Luise ordered a camomile tea, Franz a coffee with schnapps, Richard a glass of white wine from Wallis, Niggi a double fruit brandy and Hunkeler a beer.

  “The guy isn’t kosher,” Franz said, “I’m sure of that. I’ve tried to hack his data. Generally I’m good at that, usually the register of inhabitants is no problem for me. But it didn’t work with Garzoni. I can’t get through to him. All I know is that he grew up in the Frick valley, in Herznach to be precise. And that his father had a filling station there. There’s something secretive about him. He does come over and sit with us now and then, he’s very friendly. But he never tells us anything about himself.”

  “He was really furious with Hardy,” Richard said, “because he pinched Hermine from him. But he didn’t let on. He’s always smiling like a Chinaman, he does yoga.”

  “Just have a look,” little Niggi said to Luise, “to see what kind of guy the murderer was. We have to go about this systematically.”

  “No,” she said, “not here. People are going to laugh at me.”

  “No one’s laughing here,” Niggi said. “Go on, do it.”

  Luise took the silver chain off her neck; it had a green tourmaline attached. Taking a piece of chalk out of her bag, she drew a cross on the table.

  “This branch is fire, that one air, that one water and then earth.”

  She held her hand over the table, closed her eyes and let the stone swing. “Your cigarette,” she said, “it’s putting me off.”

  Hunkeler stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. Luise’s hand was relaxed. For a long time nothing happened. Then the stone moved to the left, so faintly it could hardly be seen, swayed back then swung towards the left again. Luise opened her eyes and hung the chain round her neck again.

  “Aquarius,” she said. “Opposite him is fire. The fire will try to eat up the water. But the water will win.”

  Hunkeler picked up his glass and went over to the man in the corner.

  “May I?”

  “Yes, of course, Herr Hunkeler,” Garzoni said. “I’m delighted to get to know you personally at last.”

  He was very well groomed, his hands neatly manicured, bald head, surrounding hair cropped short. Bright, intelligent eyes.

  “I didn’t see you at the funeral. You were often together with Hardy.”

  “True,” Hunkeler said. “However, I do wonder how you know that.”

  “I live on the corner down there, over the Cantonal Bank. I have private means, the pharmacy brings in enough. I have plenty of time for watching what’s going on.”

  He had a glass of mineral water. He put his hand in his jacket pocket, took out a flask and had a swig.

  “Irish whiskey,” he said. “I can’t take Scotch, it makes me aggressive.”

  There seemed to be a scar on his left ear. But perhaps it was a birthmark.

  “You have a good look at me,” he said, “it doesn’t bother me. I used to have a ring in my left earlobe. The kind of thing you do when you’re young; I thought it was great to have gold in my ear. My early life wasn’t a bed of roses.”

  “Garzoni? Where does the name come from?”

  “From Lombardy. My father immigrated when he was young and married a woman from Herznach and opened a filling station. Both died young.”

  He smiled as if it was an interrogation that he was enjoying.

  “I worked my way up, studied pharmacy. A few years ago I managed to buy the property on Burgfelderplatz. I’m sure you know that I had a liaison with Hermine, don’t you?”

  “How should I know that?”

  “Because you’re interested in me. Oh yes, you’re showing interest. Otherwise you wouldn’t have come over and sat down at my table. Unfortunately the liaison broke up. C’est la vie, isn’t it?”

  Hunkeler nodded and waited.

  “I don’t hold it against Hardy. He did take her away from me, but that’s just the way love goes.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Hunkeler, “I don’t know the way love goes. But all the time I’ve been asking myself where I’ve seen you before.”

  Garzoni smiled, delighted. “There you are, I knew you’d remember me. It was Monday evening, 27 October, almost two weeks ago. I was in the Singerhaus watching the ladies who were good enough to get undressed.”

  Oh yes, the man in the corner with the newspaper, Hunkeler remembered now. But hadn’t his hair been different?

  “I didn’t notice you,” he said.

  “Do we need to be noticed? At our age we’re happy when we can see a beautiful naked woman now and then, aren’t we, Inspector? And sometimes we’re fortunate enough to possess a woman, at least f
or one night. Angel from Seville is really a most beautiful angel.”

  Hunkeler looked at the man, fury rising inside him. What did this guy know? But he controlled himself and calmly emptied his glass.

  “I don’t want to put pressure on you in any way,” Garzoni said. “On the contrary, I’m happy to communicate with you. Moreover, beautiful Angel told me you were working on the Barbara Amsler case. A terrible crime, really.”

  Hunkeler was now sitting there quite calm, relaxed and composed. What else was going to come out?

  Garzoni took out his flask, had a swig and screwed the top back on.

  “Sometimes I feel the need,” he said, “to sit down with ordinary people, to feel a bit of human warmth. Basically we’re wretched creatures. Too weak for the harshness of today’s society, shattered by the unloving nature of the world. All those over at the regulars’ table are drawing their pension. I’m afraid there are going to be more and more like that, unable to stand the pressure any longer. In Basel almost every tenth person is living on a disability pension. And a good quarter are foreigners. Unfortunately there are hardly any people left resisting that trend.”

  “That’s enough idle chatter. Your father was a foreigner too. And you aren’t working either.”

  There was a flicker of something in Garzoni’s eyes, a brief flash, then he was smiling again.

  “Sorry. I thought one could talk quite calmly about anything with a flatfoot.”

  “A flatfoot?”

  “Sorry, that wasn’t very polite. I’m a lonely man and you have to be careful that the capacity for love that you do have doesn’t turn into hatred. I’ll say goodbye now. Perhaps we’ll see each other at Herr Laufenburger’s place later on.”

  Out in the street Hunkeler stood for a while breathing in the cool air, which promised snow. There was a light shimmer on the asphalt. He heard the sound of roller skates coming from the town. A figure appeared, striding out, wearing a red jacket, white hair flying, hands clasped behind his back like a speed skater. He braked a little, performed an elegant curve to the left and did a complete circle in the road. Then he disappeared in the direction of Burgfelderplatz.

  It had been an old man on in-line skates, a man of Hunkeler’s age. Going through the night, he thought, an ice skater, turning Basel’s streets into frozen canals. An old city gent rolling across the Rhine bridges, along the Ring under the bare plane trees, across Petersplatz, Kannenfeldplatz, Voltaplatz, now he’s speeding down St Johann’s- Ring. And at midnight he’ll go to bed, tired and contented.

  What was he actually doing here? Why was he filling his belly with beer and smoke? Why was he listening to an old man who hated immigrants, who was prophesying the decline of the West?

  He wondered whether to go home and lie down, tired and discontented. But he didn’t want to do that. He crossed the road and went into the Billiards Centre. He joined Laufenburger, Nana and little Cowboy and ordered a bottle of Beaujolais for them to share. Skender came over to the table, cursing the Basel police, who, he said, were ruining his business. Hunkeler had great difficulty shaking him off.

  Laufenburger had fallen asleep in his chair, the Siamese cat in his lap. Cowboy was talking in his lilting local dialect about the valley he came from. About herds of cows with bells ringing, about black quartz crystals, about a meadow full of edelweiss plants that were so big, you could put a coffee cup on them without it falling off. Nana said almost nothing at all, she seldom spoke about herself.

  Shortly after twelve Dolly came in from her work in the hospital, she’d had a late shift. Hunkeler got on very well with her. He listened as she talked about a woman with cancer who had died two hours ago in her arms.

  At one o’clock he bought another bottle as a carry-out, and they all went together to Laufenburger’s apartment. Hunkeler knew it, he’d been there several times before. A kind of Noah’s Ark for the shipwrecked, a haven for all kinds of lost nightbirds. It looked out onto Missionsstrasse, which was very busy with traffic until the early morning. A corridor, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom. Piles of magazines in the corridor. The bedroom crammed full of boxes and books the artist had dug out in second-hand bookstores in Paris and intended to sell at a profit. Among them three wire sculptures, really beautiful, meticulously made, the only art objects of his own Laufenburger still possessed. Years before they’d made him one of the most promising of Swiss artists.

  Nana put a casserole of goulash down on the table. Hunkeler had a plateful as well; it was excellent. Laufenburger had an attack of drunken misery, he was crying, hands over his face. He was moaning in the most pathetic terms about his mother, who had married for a second time when he was eight. His stepfather had terrorized him and once hit him over the head with the blunt end of an axe. The indentation was still there, they all had to put their hand on the poor artist’s head and feel it. They did that, they’d done it several times already.

  At half past one Garzoni rang the bell. He sat down at the table without a word, he didn’t want anything to eat, he just wanted to sit there and drink his whiskey. Later Hauser arrived bringing a bottle of grappa. He didn’t say anything either, he just wanted to drink grappa, and to do so in company.

  Once Hunkeler went to the toilet. He had to step over little Cowboy, who was lying on the floor in the corridor, his arms wrapped round his dog.

  Around three there was another ring at the door but Nana didn’t go to open it. She cleared away the casserole and plates, then started washing up.

  “Will you take me home?” Dolly asked. “I don’t want to sleep by myself, I’m too sad.”

  “Of course,” Hunkeler said.

  “But just an embrace, nothing more.”

  “If that’s what you want,” he said.

  They went down into the street. The road was quiet, not a sound, no engine noises. One street lamp was swaying a little, its gleam seemed to be dancing. Clearly the wind had dispersed the fog a little. A marten darted across the road in drawn-out wavy movements. It disappeared under a parked car.

  There was a figure standing in the entrance to the sex cinema across the road. Just a shadow, but Hunkeler still saw him. It was Richard, the former foreign legionnaire, standing there motionless.

  “Clear off,” he said. “Don’t give me away.”

  He pointed across the road to the bench in the corner on which Hardy had died. Little Niggi was lying there, apparently asleep. Hunkeler nodded and grinned. So the Milchhüsli regulars were setting a trap for Hardy’s murderer.

  He felt Dolly’s left hand on his hip. That was nice, and he put his hand round her hip as well. And they went on like that to Kannenfeldplatz with its trees towering up into the fog. There was a slight rustling from the wind going through the autumn leaves.

  Dolly lived in Ensisheimerstrasse. They went up in the elevator to her apartment. They stood there looking at each other.

  “It’s difficult,” she said, “to accompany someone you don’t know to their death. What should you say to them, how should you say farewell?”

  They went to bed. He put his arms round her. Then he could hear her calm breathing.

  At ten the next morning – it was Tuesday, 11 November – he parked by Allschwil Pond. He didn’t go to the water, he didn’t want to see another woman’s body float to the surface. He went up the stream at the back past the Gypsy caravans, in which there didn’t seem to be anything moving at all. He stopped by the horizontal bar in the keep-fit circuit, making sure that he was alone. Then he grasped it and tried to pull himself up. It was impossible, his arms were too weak. He felt a pain in his back, his weak spot, he’d had that for years, the doctor had warned him against doing pull-ups.

  Sitting on a bench by the rear pond he saw Sergeant Hasenböhler of the Basel Rural District CID. “Oh, it’s Hunkeler,” he said grumpily, “who’s been suspended and is having a nice day out.”

  “It’s not that nice a day,” Hunkeler said. “On the horizontal bar just now I got a real pain in the back.”
>
  Hasenböhler grinned maliciously. “At your age you shouldn’t be hanging from horizontal bars. At your age you should at most get massaged by a Thai lady.”

  Hunkeler put a foot on the bench, first the right, then the left. As he did so he pushed his hips forward to ease his back.

  “Anything new?” he asked.

  “No, nothing new. Apart, that is, from the fact that I’m amazed at how many people there are running round here. Clearly they all want to toughen themselves up, from teenagers to old men. And then the border’s up there. Who’s actually supposed to be checking that?”

  “I mean with the Gypsies. The girl you were observing eating an apple, for example.”

  “What are you getting at? Are you trying to tick me off?”

  “No, of course not, I know how boring your job is.”

  Hunkeler sat down, lit a cigarette and looked across the pond. The surface was dull in the fog. A pair of ducks paddled across, the female in front, the drake behind.

  “I do wonder,” he said, “why the drake doesn’t get fed up with going along behind the female all the time. Why does he do that?”

  “Why are you surprised at that? We do it as well.”

  Hunkeler spat on the ground, on the wet grass. There was something there that caught his eye. He leaned down and saw that it was a pumpkin seed. He picked it up, wrapped it in his handkerchief and put it away.

  “What’s all that about?” Hasenböhler asked. “What did you find there?”

  “Nothing special. Just a snail shell.”

  “That would be the thing, a shell you could withdraw into. I have great difficulty not popping into the nearest bar to have a coffee with a schnapps or two. What am I doing here? I see some figures appear out of the fog and then disappear again. And almost none of them are carrying an identity card. And why should I keep a watch on the Gypsies? I’m no racist, I’m a decent husband and father.”

  He took a bag of hazelnuts out of his pocket, put some in his mouth and chewed.