"Sod it," he said to himself quietly, as his thoughts of the dead Rudi passed on to the thought of Guido's wasting away. "Too much thinking about the dead and dying." He missed Etan.
He packed and took the tram into the city center, where he boarded the train for Bern.
10
Max Buisard, the Chief of the Criminal Police (the Kriminalpolizei, or Kripo) of the city of Bern, was at his desk in police headquarters in Waisenhausplatz at six o'clock in the morning. Sometimes he started earlier.
Such work habits would indicate, even if no other evidence were available, that the Chief Kripo had no Irish blood in him whatsoever. In Ireland — at least south of the border — there was no excuse for being awake, let alone working, at such an ungodly hour, save returning from a late night's drinking, insanity, or sex. Even Irish cows slept until nearly eight; later on Sundays.
Buisard was, in fact, by origin a Swiss Romand, a French-speaking Swiss from the canton of Vaud, but he had been a resident of Bern for there out of his over four decades, and he worked hard at integrating. For instance, by the pragmatic if somewhat energetic expedient of having a wife and no fewer than two current mistresses, he had proudly succeeded in mastering Berndeutsch, the local dialect.
His dedication did not pass unnoticed. Recently he had overheard an eminent member of the Bürgergemeinde refer to him as bodenständig — the ultimate Bernese accolade for a sensible, practical fellow, with his feet firmly on the ground. For a brief moment Buisard wondered if the rumors of his penchant for making love standing up — a by-product of his busy schedule, which combined sex with exercise — had circulated, but he dismissed the thought. He had faith in the discretion of his women and in the soundproofing of Bernese buildings.
The Chief stared at the blotter in front of him. He had a problem, a large, rather fat problem,, with a heavy walrus mustache, a gruff manner, and an increasingly unpredictable temper.
He added a mustache to the doodle on the blotter and then, as an afterthought, drew a holstered gun on the ponderous figure. What do you do with a first-rate veteran detective who has turned moody, troublesome, and downright irascible, and who also happens to be an old friend?
Buisard drew a cage around the figure on his blotter, looked at it for a while, and sketched a door with a handle on both sides. The Bear needed to be contained, not stifled. Even in Switzerland — and certainly in Bern — the rules could be bent a little for the right reasons and by the right person. But this time something had to be done. There had been a string of incidents since the death of the Bear's wife, and the latest was the most embarrassing.
The Bear normally operated as part of the drug squad. He was the most experienced sergeant in the unit and, like most Bernese policemen, was also regularly assigned to security duties guarding diplomats and visiting dignitaries. The latter was boring work but not too unpopular because the overtime pay came in handy. The presence of more than a hundred different diplomatic missions in the city also made security duties fairly regular. God alone knew what all those ambassadors, second secretaries, and cultural attachés did with their time, lurking down in the greenery of Elfenau, since all the diplomatic action was in Geneva, but that was God's problem.
The Bear had enjoyed a pretty good reputation. He had been both effective and compassionate, not the easiest combination to maintain in the drug squad. He was reliable, cheerful, diligent, and accommodating — an ideal colleague, give or take a few idiosyncrasies. For instance, he liked to carry a very large gun, most recently a Smith & Wesson .41 Magnum revolver with a six-inch barrel. Buisard shuddered at the possible consequences if the Bear ever had to fire it in a public area.
A stolen Mercedes, driven by a twenty-year-old drug addict desperate for something to sell to get a fix, had changed everything.
Tilly had finished work at Migros, done the shopping for supper, and was waiting for a tram. The Bear was about to join her. He was less than a hundred meters away when it happened. He heard the sound as the car struck her. He saw her body fly through the air and smash against a plate glass window. The glass cracked in a dozen places but did not break. Tilly lay crushed at the bottom of the window, one arm jerking spastically, her blood staining the pavement.
She remained in a coma for three months. Her brain was dead. The Bear stayed with her for days on end. He held her hand. He kissed her. He told her stories and read out loud from the papers. He brought her flowers arranged in the special way she liked. The life support system hissed and dripped and made electronic noises. People spoke to him. Occasionally he was asked to sign papers. One day they switched her off.
And the Bear's heart was broken.
* * * * *
Beat von Graffenlaub had not slept until nearly dawn. The numbness he had experienced when he first heard of Rudi's death had gradually turned to feelings of pain and guilt and a growing emptiness.
Why had Rudi killed himself? What had happened to him in Ireland? What was Rudi thinking during that brief moment just before he jumped? Did he take long to die? Was there pain? Why had he not talked to someone first? Surely there must have been some hint of what he was contemplating, some sign, some change in behavior.
Was there anything he, Beat von Graffenlaub, wealthy, influential, acclaimed and respected by his peers, could have done — should have done — to preserve the life of his son? Anything? Somehow he knew that there was; there just had to be — but what?
The clock radio woke von Graffenlaub fully. For a few moments he lay there, his eyes still closed, listening to the news. Erika had objected to this early morning habit, but it had been months since they had made love. Erika now slept in the apartment she had created a few doors away. She needed space to cultivate her creativity, she had said. He had not objected. It would have been pointless. The signs of her disenchantment had been present and growing for a couple of years.
He thought back, with a pang, to those early years of closeness and sensuality, when they just had to be together and divorcing Claire was a price well worth paying; dear, stuffy, conventional Claire, now dead. Well, he had paid the price willingly and had pushed from his mind the risks of marrying a woman nearly thirty years his junior. But time had caught up with him. At sixty-one, physically trim and fit through he was, he knew that Erika was slipping away, more probably was lost to him.
He recalled Erika's distinctive, musky odor and could feel hot wetness against his mouth. He could hear the special sounds she made when excited. He felt his erection growing, and he moved to look at the sultry features damp with the sweat of passion — and to enter her.
For the briefest of time Erika's presence remained with him even after he opened his eyes and looked around the room. Then came the full onslaught of grief and loneliness.
* * * * *
Ivo was untroubled by the combined smell of fourteen unwashed bodies sleeping on grubby mattresses on the floor of the small room. One couple had woken half an hour earlier and made love quietly, but for the last ten minutes the only sounds were those of sleep.
He decided to wait a little longer. The Dutchman, van der Grijn, had drunk enough to poleax any normal man for half a day, but he had still managed to stay awake, talking and drinking, until the early hours, before collapsing with a grunt. Ivo, small and slight, was not eager to tangle with the huge heroin courier. Ivo was almost permanently high in a miasma of marijuana. Occasionally he sniffed glue or popped a few pills. He enjoyed, but could rarely afford, cocaine. But he hated heroin.