The Basel Killings

by Hansjörg Schneider

  “And her parents?” Hunkeler asked. “What happened to them?”

  “They were pleased when she came back. Rosa went to see her in Basel a couple of times. Not Werner though, he wasn’t going out any more. Once, about seven years ago, Barbara turned up in the village with her fiancé. He was a smartly dressed, elegant Italian. It was early summer, they came in a convertible with the top down and drove very slowly through the village. They brought Barbara’s parents down from their farm, the Römerhof, and they all had a meal here, in the Hirzen.”

  “Over there in the corner,” Jakob said, “that’s where they had their meal. Barbara had a really beautiful pearl in her ear.”

  “That’s right,” said Gottlieb. “The place was packed. They’d all come to congratulate the young couple. And the Italian paid for everything.”

  “And then we heard she’d become a prostitute. That broke Rosa’s heart. We didn’t see her in the village any more and she died soon after.”

  “From what?” Hunkeler asked.

  “From melancholia. They say she stopped eating and slowly starved to death.”

  “Werner,” Gottlieb said, “didn’t survive that for long. He started drinking – schnapps. We drove him up to the Römerhof a few times when he’d stayed on in the inn after closing time. We did try to talk him out of it, but we couldn’t help him. One night he went down to the Aare to drown himself. And he succeeded, we couldn’t keep an eye on him all round the clock. They’re lying next to each other in the graveyard.”

  “Yes,” said Fritz, “that’s the way it was, just as we’ve told you. A sad story, wasn’t it? But we can’t put right all the mistakes that were made in the treatment of the Yenish people at one blow. We’re an open, tolerant village. Perhaps that comes from the fact that as a south-facing valley we get a lot of sunshine. But the crimes committed against many of the Yenish people sixty, seventy years ago are still having their effect today. Even though they’re not our fault.”

  They fell silent for a while. The sad story had exhausted all four of them.

  “Despite that I’d like to pay for another half-litre,” Hunkeler said. “The wine is excellent.”

  “Good,” said Jakob, “Let’s play jass for a half-litre.”

  Each one took a card to see who was playing with whom. Hunkeler was with Gottlieb.

  They played jass slowly and carefully. They gave themselves plenty of time to think. Only now and then was there a touch of venom, in a quick look at one’s partner or an almost inaudible curse. A few times Hunkeler was close to screaming at Gottlieb Hartmann. But he kept himself under control.

  “Are you playing the wrong card,” he asked in as friendly a tone as he could manage, “or are you showing me a suit when you throw it away?”

  “It all depends,” Gottlieb said firmly. “You’re meant to notice it, but you don’t notice anything at all.”

  At ten a dozen women came in. They were carrying sports bags that they deposited by the stove. They all seemed to be fit as a fiddle, bursting with joie de vivre. They sat at the table in the corner and ordered mineral water, coffee and beer. They were chattering and laughing away so merrily that Hunkeler, delighted, kept looking across at them.

  “Hey, you just keep your eye on the game,” Gottlieb said venomously. “That’s just the ladies’ squad. Keep a better eye on the card I’m playing.”

  They played for three half litres. And each time it was Gottlieb Hartmann and Inspector Hunkeler who had to pay for it.

  They said goodbye around twelve. It had been a lovely game, said Jakob Zulauf, he should come again and be sure to bring enough money with him.

  Hunkeler got back into his car and drove through the village. Then he saw the vines appear in his headlights. After Thalheim he was driving through a starry night. He saw the snow crystals glittering in the meadows.

  The next morning at eleven he collected the volume he’d ordered from the bookshop. Back home he lay down on his bed with it and started to read. He read that the aid organization Children of the Road had been set up in 1926 and lasted until 1973; that it was the aim of that organization to make Travellers sedentary in Switzerland; that they hoped to achieve this by taking the children away from Travellers; that they had not revealed to the parents where the children had been taken; that they hadn’t told the children who their actual parents were; that they had imprisoned mothers and fathers in institutions, prisons and psychiatric clinics if they refused to accept this and tried to find their children; that the new 1980 Canton of Argau constitution officially recognized “non-sedentary ethnic minorities” for the first time; that the files of the aid organization were sealed in 1986 and transferred to the Federal Archives in 1987; that in 1988 the federal government awarded the Arise Yenish Foundation three and a half million francs in compensation.

  Hunkeler also read a couple of the attached transcripts of statements by people who had been directly affected. They were so terribly sad that he gave up.

  He put the book away, went into the kitchen and ate the three bananas, one after another. He put on some water to make tea and waited until it was hot. He drank three cups of tea. Then he lay back down again and tried to get to sleep. He didn’t manage to do so for a long time. How could someone deprive a mother of her child, he wondered. How could they stop her searching for her stolen child? What did they have against these people who travelled round the country? Why had they been so cruel to them? After all, Switzerland was a democracy. And democracy didn’t mean the dictatorship of the majority, but protection for the minority and the right to participate in decision-making. At least that was what Hunkeler had learned.

  How did it come about that people tried so desperately to force a particular way of life on others? Why couldn’t everyone live the way they wanted?

  But that was how it had always been in the history of the world. Individual people kept on gaining power over the rest. Once they were in power, they went over the top and became crazy. For there was nothing so hard to bear as power. And many of the powerless had to suffer from that.

  With such unavailing philosophical thoughts, Hunkeler fell into a short sleep.

  *

  Shortly before five that evening he was outside the Waaghof and ringing the bell. He had to wait for several minutes before Kaelin, the attendant, came and opened the door.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Firstly, it’s Saturday evening, and secondly you’re not allowed in here at all.”

  “You just shut your trap,” said Hunkeler, “otherwise I’ll give you a kick in the balls.”

  Kaelin’s jaw dropped and he drew back, allowing him in. Hunkeler went up the stairs to Suter’s office and knocked. Suter was sitting at his desk reading a newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine in fact. He stood up and took Hunkeler’s arm.

  “Come on, let’s sit down and talk like sensible men.”

  Hunkeler sat in one of the armchairs.

  “Would you like to smoke?” Suter asked.

  “Not at the moment, no.”

  “I’d quite like to have coffee sent up, but as you will know, the cafeteria’s closed because it’s Saturday. Even though we’re all hard at work here.”

  He waited to see if Hunkeler would say anything, but he didn’t.

  “I’ve made enquiries,” Suter said, “to find out how little Eva Căldăraru is, and I was delighted to hear that she’s out of danger. She’s in Bruderholz Hospital. There’s a guard on her round the clock. There’s also someone from her clan with her. Naturally, you can go and see her any time.”

  “I thought the case was under the jurisdiction of the Rural District CID.”

  Suter gave a brief snort. “Of course,” he said. “But I’m in constant contact with Füglistaller. There are clear parallels with the Schirmer and Amsler cases. We can only solve the case through trans-cantonal cooperation, even though our country colleagues can still be stubborn at times. But that will sort itself out.”

  Hunkeler was leaning right b
ack in the armchair but his oblique position didn’t bother him at all this time. “What has Madörin actually found out?” he asked.

  “Madörin’s getting on with it. He seems to be close to a breakthrough. But it appears to be the way you thought. Albo, which is clearly dealing in drugs, doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the murder of Bernhard Schirmer.”

  He flicked a speck of dust off the lapel of his cinnamon jacket. Then he looked Hunkeler in the eye with a man-toman expression.

  “As you know, the senior prosecutor has instituted proceedings against you. There are plenty of reasons for that. Letting Ismail Binaku escape really was a piece of incompetence. He could have given us some decisive help in our investigations.”

  “No,” Hunkeler said, “that man would never have talked under pressure.”

  “Be that as it may. Nevertheless, I’ve been holding a protective hand over you, if I may put it like that. I’ve seen to it that the procedure against you has not got under way. I stand by my men, even if they don’t always make it easy for me.”

  “Good,” Hunkeler said, “then I’ll come back to work again.”

  “That would be my wish, yes. You can pick up your keys and go back to your office.”

  “And I’ll work just in the way I see fit?”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing all the time. Even while you were under suspension, haven’t you?”

  Now Suter did indeed smile, an honest, heartfelt smile. “Lord above,” Hunkeler thought, “the man must be in a bad way.”

  “Has Madörin actually got nothing concrete to go on?”

  “Not at the moment,” Suter said.

  “What’s the situation with the corpse in the red Punto outside Heiligbronn and the one in the Petite Camargue? Have they been identified?”

  Suter lowered his eyes. He clearly felt uncomfortable talking about it. “I suspect you already know that. You’re our best man. Devil only knows how you keep on managing it.”

  He leaned forward, as if he was going to get up. But then he didn’t.

  “They are Gjorg Binaku and Adrian Prela. But they come under Monsieur Bardet’s authority. And he’s getting nowhere either.”

  Hunkeler took a cigarette out of the box and lit it. He had all the time in the world.

  “We can’t get at Bernhard Schirmer’s data,” he said. “Why?”

  “Go on,” said Suter, very quietly.

  “Likewise, we can’t get at Thomas Garzoni’s data.”

  “Why Garzoni?” Suter asked. “Why are you bringing him into it?”

  “Because the details of the two of them have the same note: FA.”

  “Garzoni, isn’t that the man who owns the Burgfelder Pharmacy?”

  “Yes. And he was Hermine Mauch’s lover before Hardy turned up.”

  “So a crime of passion? What do you think?”

  Hunkeler shook his head slowly. He didn’t know.

  Suter leaned forward. “How did you find out about the notes?” he asked. “In general you’re not one for computers.”

  “I have a colleague.”

  Suter considered this. Now he’d gone very pale. “So there are people in my team stabbing me in the back.”

  “No, that’s not true, no one’s stabbing you in the back. We’re searching by different routes. But we all have the same goal.”

  “Is it Lüdi?”

  “In our profession there’s an unwritten rule, which you know very well. You don’t reveal the names of informers.”

  Suter thought, eyes down. Then he nodded.

  “Right then. You have to work as is best for you. Anyway, I’ve also made enquiries in Aarau about Barbara Amsler and her mother. Her mother’s maiden name was Minder. And Rosa Minder’s data also has the note FA.”

  “And what do those two letters signify?” Hunkeler asked.

  Suter had gone even paler. Hunkeler had never seen him like that. The state prosecutor was having a hard time of it.

  “FA means the Federal Archives. They have the files of the Children of the Road. I have that from a Party colleague in the Department of Justice and Police. I ask you to treat that information accordingly.”

  “I wouldn’t have got that,” Hunkeler said, “even though it’s pretty obvious.”

  “What’s pretty obvious?”

  “I’ve found out that Barbara Amsler had a Yenish mother who got into the hands of that aid organization. Schirmer is also originally a Yenish name. Eva Căldăraru comes from a family of Travellers.”

  “Oh my God,” Suter said. “What has the past got in for us? Visiting the iniquity of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation. We can’t do anything about the iniquities of our fathers. We try to repress and forget them. But they come back to us.”

  They both fell silent. Hunkeler knew that he was at one with his superior again. “I have to access those details,” he said. “They’re the key to solving these three cases.”

  “Right, what has to be has to be,” Suter said. “The files are in Bern. I’ll call Elvira Hebeisen. She’ll get in touch with you.”

  On Sunday morning Hunkeler drove to Bruderholz Hospital. There was a strong headwind blowing. The snow had gone, the meadows were in bright shafts of sunlight coming down through white clouds. Clearly it was föhn weather. At the reception desk he asked for Eva Căldăraru’s room. He bought seven roses and took the elevator up to the eighth floor. Sergeant Hasenböhler of the Rural District CID was out in the corridor, asleep on a chair. There was a torn-open packet of hazelnuts on the floor beside him. Hunkeler woke him up.

  “Oh, it’s you, Hunkeler,” he said, bending down for the nuts. “What are you doing here? I thought you were suspended.”

  “Is this what you call exemplary devotion to duty, Sergeant Hasenböhler? Sleeping while on guard?”

  “I can’t sleep at night any more, that’s why I’m so tired during the day. I’ve got such a guilty conscience. But I just can’t be everywhere at once.”

  “How’s the patient? Has she had many visitors?”

  “Fat Hauser was here. He wanted to take a photo. I got rid of him. Otherwise there’s any number of women who’ve come. Gypsies all of them. You can’t understand a word they say.”

  He stuck a couple of nuts in his mouth and chewed nervously.

  “By the way, I’m glad you’re here. One of us has to catch the bastard. Only you can do that.”

  Hunkeler opened the door and went in. He was immediately taken with the solemn mood in the room. Eva was lying in a bed, her face white and her eyes closed. There was a tube going into her open mouth and down her windpipe, a machine was pumping in a regular rhythm. Four Gypsy women were sitting neatly beside each other on the other bed, wrapped in black coats. One was Frau Căldăraru. They were all sitting in such a way that they could see Eva’s face. Hunkeler waited a while, then went over to a table and put the flowers down. Then he looked at Eva. She had a white bandage around her neck and a dressing on her left ear. Her face was haggard.

  He went over to the big window that took in the whole south side of the room. The sun had gone, the sky had clouded over. In the west he could see the tree-covered Blauen hill, looking almost close enough to touch; to the left were the individual hills of the Jura range, which went down to Gempenstollen.

  Frau Căldăraru stood up and signed to him to step out of the room with her.

  “Will you come and have a coffee with me?” he asked.

  She nodded. They went down to the cafeteria and he fetched two cups.

  “She won’t get stolen,” he said, “we’re keeping a good eye on her.”

  She sipped her hot coffee.

  “We haven’t come here because we’re afraid she might get stolen,” she said. “We’re all here so that she has company, so she’s not alone.”

  “From what I’ve heard her condition isn’t critical any more.”

  The woman shook her head a little. Then the tears started to run down her cheeks. It happened very suddenly, her exp
ression didn’t change.

  “Would you like my handkerchief?”

  She took it and wiped the tears away.

  “What kind of country is this,” she said, “where someone tries to throttle a young girl? What kind of people are they, who look on us with nothing but contempt and hostility? Aren’t we God’s children as well?”

  “Yes,” Hunkeler said, “you are just as much God’s children as we are.”

  “We’re going to stay here until Eva comes out of the hospital. Then we’re going away, across the border.”

  “Where do you intend to go?”

  “We’ll keep going until we find a country where we can live in peace, the way we want to. We will find such a country, I’m sure of that.”

  He looked out of the window, embarrassed, not knowing what he could say. He saw that it had started to rain outside. The drops were splattering on the windows, whipped along by the wind.

  “I will find the man who did this to your daughter,” he said. “Perhaps you can help me.”

  “How could I do that?”

  “By telling me what you saw.”

  She thought, shook her head.

  “I have to go through everything first to bring it back to mind. We had breakfast, as always. Eva went out with the dog. She always does that after breakfast. I heard her talking to the girl next door. The dog barked. Then everything went quiet. I assumed she’d gone over to the ponds at the back. She often went there, she likes being by the water. Then, around half an hour later, the dog was at the door yowling. I let it in. It immediately crept under the bench. That was when I knew something had happened. I ran out the back and saw her lying on the ground. The ambulance arrived immediately, the police a little later.”