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carton from the bakery, brimful of Danish pastries.
“Excellent,” said Van Veeteren.
“From Sylvie’s, a top-notch bakery and café,” said Bausen.
“I recommend a visit. You’ll get a twenty percent discount if
you tell them you’re a copper. It’s just around the corner from
here.”
Van Veeteren removed his toothpick and helped himself to
a pastry.
“Anyway,” said Kropke, “as far as Eggers is concerned, we’re
rowing against the tide, you might say.”
“What about the weapon?” asked Van Veeteren, speaking
with his mouth full. “What does the doctor have to say?”
“Just a moment.”
Kropke produced a new transparency—a sketch of how the
ax blade, or whatever it was, had cut its way through the back
of Eggers’s neck, passing straight through the vertebrae,
artery, gullet—the lot.
“A massive blow?” asked Van Veeteren.
“Not necessarily,” said Beate Moerk. “It depends on what
the blade looks like, and it seems to have been extremely
sharp—and thin.”
“Which means that not so much force was needed,” added
Kropke.
“You can also see,” said Beate Moerk, “that it came at quite
an angle, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything special. It
could indicate that the murderer was quite short, or rather tall.
It all depends on how he held the weapon. And what it looks
like, of course.”
“Just think how many different ways there are of hitting a
tennis ball,” said Kropke.
Van Veeteren took another Danish pastry.
“And it’s likely that the weapon was an ax?” he asked.
“Of some kind,” said Bausen. “I think we’ll move on to
Simmel now. Maybe Inspector Moerk would like to fill us in?”
Beate Moerk cleared her throat and leafed through her
notebook.
“Well, we haven’t got very far yet. It was only the day
before yesterday, at eight in the morning, that a jogger found
him in the municipal woods. He first noticed blood on the
path; and when he stopped to investigate, he saw the body just
a few yards away. The murderer doesn’t seem to have made
much of an effort to hide it. He—the jogger, that is—called
the police right away. Chief Inspector Bausen and I went to the
spot together, and we were able to establish that, well, that we
seemed to be dealing with the same killer as last time.”
“Cut down from behind,” said Bausen. “A bit harder and
the head would have been severed altogether. It looked like
one hell of a mess.”
“The same weapon?” asked Van Veeteren.
“Ninety percent certain,” said Kropke.
“A hundred would be better,” said Van Veeteren.
“Presumably,” said Bausen, “we’re not talking about an
ordinary ax. The blade appears to be wider than it’s deep.
Maybe six or even eight inches. No sign of either end of the
blade in Eggers or Simmel, according to the pathologist, at
least. And Simmel especially had a real bull neck.”
“A machete, perhaps?” suggested Van Veeteren.
“I’ve looked into that,” said Bausen. “I wondered if it might
be some kind of knife or sword with a very strong blade, but
the cutting edge is straight, not curved like a machete.”
“Hmm,” said Van Veeteren. “Maybe that’s not the most
important thing at this stage. What’s the link between Eggers
and Simmel?”
Nobody spoke.
“That’s a good question,” said Bausen.
“We haven’t found one yet,” said Kropke. “But we’re looking, of course—”
“Scoundrels, the pair of them,” said Bausen. “But in different leagues, you might say. I reckon Simmel’s business affairs
wouldn’t stand all that much broad daylight shining on them,
but that’s something for the tax lawyers rather than ordinary
mortals like us. He’s never been involved in anything specifically criminal. Not like Eggers, I mean.”
“Or at least, he’s not been caught,” said Moerk.
“Drugs?” said Van Veeteren. “They usually unite princes
and paupers.”
“We have no indications of any such involvement,” said