Zen and the Art of Murder Page 14

  She sat down in the sitting room and, for the first time since her split with Mick, wished she had bought a television set. At the time Lederle had said, “You need a TV if you’re going to be living on your own.” She’d laughed and replied, “The last thing I want is to be tied down again straightaway.”

  She went to lie on her bed. After a few minutes she went back into the sitting room and picked up the telephone.

  Tommo/Landen weren’t in, or they weren’t answering. She pressed Redial, hung up, then called a third time. The same number on the display three times, but no message. Landen would know that it was urgent.

  And maybe why it was urgent too.

  And that perhaps rather than ringing back later it would be better to wait until tomorrow.

  At around midnight a name began to worm its way from her memory into her consciousness. At first the image accompanying it consisted only of two huge earlobes. Then she heard a laid-back voice.

  She called directory assistance and was connected. “Hello?” Anatol said.

  “I’d like to return your sunglasses. Why don’t you come over?”

  “Who . . . oh, you.” He yawned. “Now?”

  “Yes. Have you eaten?”

  He gave a sleepy laugh. “Not so far today.”

  She suggested breakfast. A midnight breakfast. “But you’ve got to bring the bread. And, um, time.”

  Anatol paused, then said he didn’t have any bread, only deep-frozen pizza. “Vegetarian. I’m a veggie.” He cleared his throat.

  “Looks like it’s pizza then.”

  She gave him her address. As she hung up she heard him laugh in disbelief.

  But he came. He gave two short rings of the bell, a trusty friend of the early hours. As she buzzed him in she thought of Landen. The slow, confident footsteps on the stairs could have belonged to either man.

  She waited by the door wearing fresh pajamas. She’d taken a very quick shower, washed her hair, brushed her teeth and now felt very young and very old.

  Hands appeared on the banisters. The curly hair was uncombed, only the sunglasses on the forehead gave any structure to his face. “Hi!” he said with a smile.

  “Hi!”

  She found him thinner and even more laid-back than she remembered. And taller.

  He kissed her on both cheeks, took off his shoes, slid the pizza on to the work surface in the kitchenette and said, “It’s warm in here. Nice, too.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “I mean, compared to my apartment.”

  She followed him in, leaned against a kitchen cupboard and crossed her arms. For a moment neither of them said anything. Then she asked, “Have you got experience with this sort of thing?”

  He nodded thoughtfully.

  “I don’t.”

  “Hmm. OK.”

  His calmness didn’t appear put on, but there was something weary and jaded about it. It made him seem older than he probably was and it lingered in his eyes when he smiled.

  “Should we eat beforehand?” she said. “Or have something to drink? Maybe a drink first?”

  “OK.”

  She fetched two glasses, poured vodka in them and pushed one over to him. He shook his head, surprised. Not now. Later. She drank and said, “So what do we do now?”

  “Well, we do what we want.”

  He took a step toward her. They were seven feet apart. She noticed that he hadn’t introduced an unfamiliar smell into the apartment. No eau de toilette, no sweat, no smell of body or outside. In Mick’s time everything had smelled of Mick. Even her underwear.

  “Sure, but what do we want? I mean, how do we get to what we want? Should we chat a little beforehand? Should we get to know each other before we do what we want to do? I mean, do we first have to do what we don’t want to do before we can do what we want? Do we have to talk for a couple of hours first?”

  “We can talk if you like.”

  She sighed and said impatiently, “A-na-tol.”

  He grinned. Another small step.

  She put her hands on his chest. “I’m a chief inspector in the serious crimes department and have been a police officer for twenty years. My favorite authors are Clavell, Mankell and Pilcher, I like Wagner, Beethoven, Pink Floyd and Wham! and, ashamed though I am to admit it, I can’t do without Barclay James Harvest. I’m forty-two, divorced and I don’t have any children, luckily. And . . .”

  “And?”

  “And I’ve put on weight.”

  “Now, now,” Anatol said, moving closer.

  Anatol kept going till three in the morning, then said, “OK, that’s enough,” and fell asleep in a flash. She didn’t want to lie next to him; she thought he was too young for that. So she went into the bathroom and took another shower. Her legs were shaking; her breasts and womb were aching. She grinned. There were advantages to having a man who was experienced but still half a child. He was capable of everything and did whatever you asked him to.

  In front of the mirror it struck her that in the past two and a half hours she hadn’t once thought of Landen, and only once—while she was undressing—of Tommo the pencil. But Anatol had worked with such relish on her problem areas that she had quickly forgotten her.

  And yet . . . she wasn’t happy with the signs she read from her body. As the psychologist Katrin Rein had said, there was a lot to do.

  Well then, she thought, let’s get cracking. She wandered into the sitting room, curled up on the sofa and went to sleep.

  Four hours later she woke up. As soon as she opened her eyes she knew what she had to ask Ponzelt: had the red Audi or Passat and/or the MPV been spotted in Liebau over the weekend? In most villages there were people who saw, heard and knew everything.

  She sat up. This morning she would drive to Liebau and seek out these people. If one of the cars had been seen there this might lead to more information. A face, a voice, a license plate.

  Then, in the afternoon, when there was no danger of bumping into Muller or her colleagues, she would go back to the Kanzan-an.

  Deep breathing was coming from the bedroom. For a brief moment the apartment felt busy and cramped.

  Outside it was beginning to get light. She reached behind her and pulled the curtains to one side. No snow. There was the hint of a life beyond the winter. A life without images of Calambert. Or of Niksch.

  A life in the abyss.

  What was there apart from fighting and submission? She would ask Landen this question. Or Enni.

  The roshi.

  Zensu no harm people. Zensu look Buddha-nature. Look own-nature. Look shunyata. Could a person who thought and spoke like that be involved in a murder?

  Only if he were lying.

  Was the roshi lying? A man striving for a complex form of emptiness? Who stripped things down to their bare essence? Who looked for their true nature, whatever that might be?

  These people are different, Landen had said. They’re not interested in the things that people lie about. Everything these people need and are looking for they can find within themselves.

  No, she thought, the roshi wasn’t lying. She wasn’t so sure about Georges, the French novice. Georges might be lying. And she didn’t know the other monks and nuns.

  But even if they, like the roshi and Taro, were not interested in the things people lie about, it could only mean one thing. The willingness to use force to abduct someone and shoot at policemen hadn’t originated from the Kanzan-an. It had been introduced into it.

  By three men who looked eastern European.

  Who else was there? She sat on the sofa. Asile d’enfants.

  They ate the pizza for breakfast. In the ex-post facto light Anatol was just as laid-back as in the ex-ante facto dark. Without the sunglasses to hold his hair in place, the locks tumbled over his eyes. He drank worrying amounts of coffee and yawned copiously. He gave her the occasional smile, but said nothing.

  This suited her to begin with. She thought of Annegret Schelling and Pham, who would have new parents.
Of what Georges had said about the orphans in the Buddhist and Christian children’s homes in the Far East.

  What else did she know about Asile d’enfants? That in Basel they had a man called Jean Berger who had promised Bermann to get the children out of the monastery. That on Monday the carers had taken the children to a nearby pony club and had therefore not been available to talk to Justin Muller.

  On Monday. The day after.

  But what could link Asile d’enfants with three eastern Europeans who were suspected of murdering Niksch and wounding Hollerer? An organization that worked in conjunction with UNICEF and Terre des hommes?

  She wondered if she would have had the same thoughts had she been with Bermann, Lederle and the others rather than having been invalided. If she had been party to the same information as them and had taken part in the briefings. Talked to them on a regular basis.

  She stood up and went to the sink, then kneeled down. Anatol didn’t notice a thing.

  When she sat down again she said, “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Anything we should talk about? Have you fallen in love with me? Have you got a bad conscience because you identify me with your grandmother? Do you regret it?”

  “Yes, there was one thing.” He poured himself more coffee. “What’s Barclay James Harvest?”

  She grinned. “Addictive seventies’ kitsch. You do know there was a time we call ‘the seventies’?”

  “I’ve heard of them.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “That means they’re immortalized in your driving license.”

  He nodded. “Sometimes I ask myself: What came before? Before the seventies? It’s so far back that I wonder whether there was anything at all.”

  “No, there wasn’t anything. Only chaos. Listen, I’ll hang on to the sunglasses, OK?”

  “OK.” He got up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To take a shower.”

  “Later, An-a-tol,” she said, slipping off her dressing gown.

  11

  In Liebau gray remnants of snow lay by the roadside. Few people were out. In front of the town hall a drooping Baden-Württemberg flag hung at half-mast. Beneath it were several police cars and other vehicles. Louise parked in a side street, and as she got out of the car she was met with an unreal hush, as if the entire village had fallen silent in shock.

  It was just after ten in the morning. She had telephoned; Ponzelt had been at his desk since eight. As Louise walked along a short corridor it occurred to her that Landen hadn’t yet rung. She quashed a faint feeling of disappointment.

  A secretary showed her to Ponzelt’s office. He recognized her at once and nodded when she introduced herself. She apologized, explaining she’d been in shock at the hospital the day before, because of Hollerer. He said nothing. He was thin and about her age. She got the impression that he didn’t particularly like her.

  He gestured to the chair by his desk and she sat down. She asked how Hollerer was.

  Ponzelt had rung the hospital a short while earlier. Hollerer had been awake for an hour that morning. His condition was stabilizing all the time and he’d answered some initial questions. What these questions were Ponzelt didn’t appear to have discovered, or he didn’t want to tell her. His voice was quiet in a menacing way.

  “Who was with him?”

  “Your section head.”

  “Bermann?”

  The slightest of nods. Then Ponzelt said, “I thought you were on leave, but clearly that’s not the case?”

  She leaned back. This promised to be a fascinating conversation. “In theory, yes I am.”

  “Interesting.” Ponzelt glanced out of the window then turned back to her. He looked exhausted, but very determined. “Explain the difference between being on leave and being theoretically on leave.”

  “One question, then I’ll go—OK?”

  “I’d rather you went now.”

  She shook her head. “Answer my question, then I’ll leave you in peace.”

  Ponzelt leaned forward on his elbows and gazed at her. The coldness in his eyes was piercing. “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to remain polite.”

  “You think you’re polite, do you?”

  He glared at her in silence, and then said, “There’s one thing you don’t understand.” He stood up and went to the window. Only now did she realize how thin he was. Like a hyena, a vulture, with a long and knotted neck. She grinned.

  But she sensed that his shock at the course of events was genuine. A sycophant who’d been reeled in by shock on his ruthless way to the top. She couldn’t tell how significant it was that he’d been skiing with his sons when Hollerer and Niksch were shot.

  “What don’t I understand?”

  “That you’re the only reason any of this happened. If you and the Japanese guy hadn’t been here none of this would have happened. Niksch would still be alive and Hollerer would be sitting where you are, as he has done every Wednesday morning for years.” No rebuke, no interpretation, no opinion—his feeble voice had left no room for doubt: this was the truth.

  Bonì caught her breath, but she managed to hold Ponzelt’s uncompromising gaze. She wanted to get up, vacate Hollerer’s chair, but felt unable to move.

  “That’s why,” Ponzelt said, “our people don’t want women like you and strangers like the Japanese monk here. All you bring is destruction. You don’t respect our traditions, you import a world we don’t want. You don’t fit in here . . . You bring destruction.” He swallowed with a hard, dry sound. “What were you doing here? What were you and the Japanese man doing here?”

  Finally she managed to stand up and move a few paces away. A simple, anthracite-colored office chair with brass arms, narrow, hard and angular. As she looked at Ponzelt she wanted to tell him that Hollerer couldn’t have found that chair particularly comfortable. From a distance his voice wafted into her consciousness. He repeated what he’d just said, using different words and raising his voice. Louise approached him and he broke off. She stood right beside him. The long neck and skinny torso shrank, consternation flashed in his eyes. For a moment she thought he was afraid. She imagined grabbing the vulture neck with one hand and squeezing hard until her fist was fully clenched.

  But he wasn’t afraid. What had happened had thrown him off track and he couldn’t find the way back.

  Instinctively she placed a hand on his shoulder. Both of them gave a start. Ponzelt narrowed his eyes and looked down. Louise withdrew her hand and gazed out into the street.

  A white Mercedes coming from the right, then a blue Fiat from the left.

  In a hoarse voice she said, “If the people we’re looking for drove through Liebau at the weekend, who might have seen them? Who picks up on things like that?”

  “Eastern Europeans in a red Audi or Passat,” Ponzelt muttered.

  She nodded. “Or maybe an MPV.”

  “No one said anything about an MPV.”

  “They have now.”

  “Me,” Ponzelt said, looking up. “That’s my job—to see and know everything that could be of importance for Liebau. But I didn’t see anything. They must have come through here, right past my window, but I didn’t see them.”

  He quietly made his way back to the desk and sat down. They looked at each other.

  “It was snowing heavily at the weekend,” Louise said.

  “Yes.” Ponzelt glanced down at his hands. “Yes, perhaps that’s why I didn’t see them.”

  She went to the door and turned around. Their eyes met. “Thanks for answering my question.”

  Ponzelt pursed his lips and nodded.

  Five minutes later Landen called. She’d just turned on the ignition; now she switched it off again. “Where are you?” he said.

  “In Liebau. You?”

  “At home. Do you want to come past?”

  She grinned. Was it that simple?

  She had arranged to visit at twelve o’cl
ock, which gave her an hour and a half to follow up a question that was nagging her: what connection was there between the three eastern Europeans and the Kanzan-an, assuming that Landen was right in his belief that the roshi, Taro and the other inhabitants of the monastery were innocent?

  Given that the eastern Europeans had made enquiries about the Kanzan-an, it was likely that they’d gone there. Why? Who had they met there?

  Asile d’enfants?

  Justin Muller and his people were dealing with those living at the monastery. Were they also dealing with Asile d’enfants?

  She needed to know what questioning of the Asile staff had turned up. But it was too soon to ring Lederle.

  She wound down the window. Spring air. The fields on either side of the road had thawed. Now they looked muddy and weary, radiating meekness and contentment. January was almost over, February only on its way. Winter was forecast to return at the weekend.

  Let it snow. She would sleep during the day at the weekend; Anatol was coming over on Friday and Saturday night. No more snowmen, just midnight men.

  There were UNICEF and Terre des hommes offices in Freiburg. The UNICEF number was busy, Terre des hommes had a recorded message. A child’s voice squawked, “We’re on holiday, but you can call Baba at the following number!”

  Baba’s full name was Barbara Franke, and she had a call divert on her mobile, but no time.

  “Ten minutes,” Bonì said. “It’s important.”

  “Not today, I’ve got to go to court.”

  “It’s very important.”

  “Shit!” Barbara Franke said. She suggested they meet at eleven o’clock, at the fountain by the Adelhauser Neukloster. “Light-brown coat, blonde hair, laptop,” she said and hung up.

  Blue anorak, dark hair, bottle, Bonì thought as she opened the glove box.

  Barbara Franke was in her early thirties and at first glance appeared to be a classic Mick type—light-brown suit, very feminine figure, very long blonde hair, very beautiful. At second glance this assessment was shattered by the “Baba,” her commitment to Terre des hommes and her confidence.

  And of course by the fact that she was a lawyer. Lawyers hadn’t come up on the chairlift at Scuol. Only secretaries, cashiers, cleaning ladies, saleswomen, waitresses. A writer too. But no lawyers.