Games of the Hangman (67 page)

"Maybe he
likes to pay cash to avoid taxes," said Kersdorf.
 
"That's not exactly uncommon.
 
Maybe he just hates credit cards."

The Bear shook
his head.
 
"He has all the major
credit cards, from American Express to Diners Club, from Access to Visa.
 
He used them freely in
Bern
and to some extent when he travels.
 
Superficially it looks all right, but a
statistical analysis of how he spends indicates that his pattern is out of sync
with the norm.
 
That's not significant in
itself except to suggest that he is hiding something.

"The next
factor has to do with his travel arrangements.
 
Even if he is paying cash, his name should show up on the airplane
reservation computer.
 
The point is
,
it doesn't.
 
Balac
disappears from
Bern
and then reappears at some known destination without leaving a trace as to how
he got there.
 
That isn't normal.
 
Maybe he has a policy of traveling under an
assumed name, but that isn't kosher either because it suggests strongly that he
must be using a false passport.
 
You have
to remember that security
arrangement on the airlines are
now fairly thorough, and bookings are regularly cross-checked with passport
holders.
 
Balac doesn't show up."

"These
are details," said the Chief.
 
"He might be guilty of a passport offense.
 
That doesn't mean he's the Hangman."

"Let me
continue.
 
So far we've got someone who,
when dovetailed with Lodge, fits our computer profile exactly.
 
Next, analysis shows his spending and travel
patterns to be suspicious.
 
Then, comparison of his known travel destinations and criminal
incidents in which the Hangman is known or suspected to be involved correlate
to a significant extent.
 
That
doesn't mean he was in the same city or even in the same country — but he was
frequently within communication distance whether by plane, train, ship, or
road.
 
Next, we've had two positive
identifications from Lenk that he was there when the incident with young Rudi
von Graffenlaub and Erika took place.
 
We
struck out on that one at first when we just looked for a description, but when
we went back with photographs of Balac, our luck improved."

"Photographs?"
said Henssen.
 
"Any chance our
people could have been seen?
 
He seems to
have a highly developed sense of self-preservation."

"
Der Bund
," said the Bear.
 
"Thank God for a newspaper of
record.
 
It may be stuffy, but it's
certainly thorough.
 
It has a file on
every celebrity in town, and Balac has been here long enough and run enough exhibitions
to justify a nice fat folder.
 
We have
numerous pictures of him and even more of his paintings.
 
I'll come back to that.

"The next
point is interesting.
 
It occurred to us
that given the Hangman's habit of making significant structural alterations to
the buildings he uses, there might be a lead there.
 
Some of his work may well have been carried
out openly, as is the case with his reinforced door, but other work suggested a
clandestine operation and a high level of skill.
 
That indicated the possibility that he brings
in small teams of experts, keeps them under wraps for the duration of the job,
and then, given his penchant for tidying, disposes of them.

"To that
end, using the Nose, we burrowed away and uncovered four incidents that fit our
profile.
 
In every case a highly skilled
group of workmen had been killed I what looked like an accident.
 
In one case, about eighteen months ago, a
minibus of Italian workmen from
Milan
went over
a cliff in
Northern Italy
after a tire
blew.
 
The carabinieri suspected the
Mafia, since it is heavily into construction and related activities, and the
tire had blown because of a small explosive charge, which is its style.
 
Anyway, what made this case different was
that there was one survivor of the eight in the bus.
 
He was badly burned, but he rambled on about
a special job and the sound of a river and never getting any fresh air and the
smell of turpentine making his sick."

Lodge's home
in Muri?" said the Chief.
 
"It
backs on the
Aare
."

"I don't
think so," said the Bear.
 
"There's a wood between the house and the river that blankets out
all sound of the water.
 
I checked it
out."

"So you
think it was Balac's studio complex down by the Wasserwerk?" said von
Beck.

"Near
where Minder was found," added the Chief.

"That's
my best guess," said the Bear.

"Can we
talk to this workman?" said the Chief.

"Through
a
Ouija board maybe," replied the Bear.
 
"He recovered, went home, and someone
put two barrels of a lupara into him.
 
Terminal relapse."

"Keep
going," said the Chief with a sigh.
 
"I'm sure you've got something even better up your sleeve."

"Hang in
there, Chief," said the Bear.
 
"It's coming."

"Before I
forget," said Kersdorf, "have you any idea what those workmen were
working on?
 
Did the survivor say?
 
Who recruited them?"

"They
were recruited through an intermediary using a cover story — something about an
eccentric Iranian general who had fled to
Switzerland
after Khomeini took
over and now was afraid of assassination by a hit team of Revolutionary
Guards."

"Good
story," said von Beck.
 
"It's
happened."

"What
exactly were they to do?" asked the Chief.

"Something about a sophisticated personal security system.
 
We don't know much else except that the
survivor was a hydraulics mechanic."

"I don't
like the sound of this at all," said the Chief.

"Let me
move on.
 
The next
point concern blood types.
 
We
know the Hangman's blood type from the semen left in the chessboard girl.
 
It would have embarrassed my line of
reasoning if Balac hadn't matched.
 
Well,
he does."

"How in
heaven's name did you find out Balac's blood type without alerting him?"
said the Chief.
 
"People tend to
notice when you stick needles in them."

The Bear
grinned.
 
"I had all kinds of
elaborate ideas for this one.
 
In the end
I checked with the blood bank.
 
He's a
donor."

"He's
what?" exclaimed the Chief.

"A blood
donor," said the Bear.
 
"Actually Simon Balac is quite a public-spirited citizen.
 
He is a member of a number of worthy
organizations, seems to have a particular interest in the preservations of
Bern
, and he's a
supporter of various ecology groups.
 
He
is known to be deeply concerned about the environment.
 
He is also an avid walker and a member of the
Berner Wanderwege."

"What is
the Wanderwege?" asked Fitzduane.

"Hiking
association," explained von Beck.
 
"Wandering through the woods, rucksack on back, following
little yellow signs.
 
Very healthy."

"Most of
the time," said the Bear, "but you may recall Siegfried, our
tattooist friend."

"And not
found where a body could be dumped from a car," added the Chief.
 
"Go on, Heini.
 
This is getting interesting."

"We have
other circumstantial evidence, but you can get that off the printout.
 
None of it is conclusive, but you'll see it
all helps corroborate by thinking.
 
I'd
now like to turn to the few clues that Ivo left us, then the matter of alibis,
and finally the evidence that I believe is conclusive.
 
First of all, Ivo.
 
He was killed before he had a chance to say
much, and most of what he brought was destroyed in the gunfight, but we
salvaged some intriguing scraps.
 
There
was a reference to purple rooms — not the plural.
 
Well, both Erika's place and Lodge's house in
Muri had purple rooms with black candles and sexual aids and other items that
point to ritual and dabbling in black magic.
 
In both cases we found traces of blood and semen of a number of
different blood groups.
 
They would fit
the bill, but there is an additional line:
 
‘A smell of snow — a rush of wet — a thrusting river — there it's
set.’"

"Did he
always write that way?" asked Henssen.

"All the
time I dealt with him," said the Bear.
 
"He like rhymes and puzzles.
 
I think they gave him
a
certain
self-respect.
 
He didn't
feel he was informing when he gave us a tip in the form of a poem."

"How do
you read this one?" asked the Chief.

"I'm
biased," said the Bear.
 
"I
think it's another reference to the river and the location of Balac's studio,
which supports what we've learned from our deceased Italian friend."

"But
that's an opinion, not proof," said von Beck.

The Bear
shrugged.
 
"I'm not going to argue
that point.
 
It might be clearer if we
had
all of Ivo's
book, but we don't.
 
Of more interest is what it was wrapped
in."

"I'm not
sure I follow you," said Kersdorf.

"Ivo went
to meet Hugo to see if he could enlist his support to find Klaus Minder's
killer.
 
He brought a package that
outlined in his inimitable manner what he had learned to date.
 
The package was wrapped in a piece of
cloth.
 
Clear so far?"

Kersdorf
nodded his head.
 
The rest of the team
looked at the Bear expectantly.
 
"The cloth turned out to be canvas, not the kind you camp under in
the summer or sit on watching the talent in the Marzili, but the kind you use
for painting.
 
The piece that Ivo was
using had already been sized and bore faint traces of paint.
 
I'd guess it had been made up, but the
stretching wasn't right, so it had been torn up and discarded."

"I
thought painters bought their canvases already made up," said the Chief.

"Many
do,"
said
the Bear, "but that's more
expensive.
 
Perhaps more to the point, if
you are a professional, you have more flexibility if you make up your own.
 
You can produce in nonstandard sizes; you can
use a nonstandard canvas base.

"Now
canvas
is a catchall term for a range of
different materials used to paint on.
 
The commonest are made of cotton; the more expensive grades are made
from flax — linen, in other words.
 
Most painting
canvas arrives already coated and sized.
 
In this case we are dealing with an expensive flax-based canvas bought
raw and sized by the artist.
 
Only one
artist in
Bern
operates this particular way, and forensics has already compared the mix of
size or base coating material he uses.
 
They tally.
 
There is no doubt
about it.
 
The piece of canvas used by
Ivo as wrapping material was prepared by Balac."

There was
silence in the room, then the Chief spoke.
 
"You're making me a believer, Heini.
 
But we still don't have a case that would
stand up in court.
 
You've already said
the canvas looks like a discard, so a defense lawyer would say it could have
been picked up almost anywhere.
 
It
doesn't even create a direct link between Balac and Ivo, merely the possibility
of one."

"Chief,"
said the bear, "I don't think we're going to have all the evidence we need
before we pick Balac up.
 
It would be
nice, but the bastard is too careful for that.
 
My modest ambition tops out at a prima facie case followed by a search
of his house and some nice detailed investigation by a persistent examining
magistrate."

"Which
unfortunately won't be me," said von Beck.
 
"A little matter of conflict of interest."
 
There was an undercurrent of embarrassment in
the room.
 
All the members of the team
knew something of what had transpired with Paulus von Beck, but few knew the
details.

The Chief
broke the silence.
 
"It's not your
fault, Charlie, and it doesn't mean you can't go on working on the
investigation.
 
Anyway, let's leave that until
we've heard Heini out.
 
I've only heard
an outline of what he and Hugo found."