“I see. . Make sure you grab him when he comes back, or I’ll have you skinned alive. I’m flying to Australia on Thursday, and I need him before then.”
Frank said something, and Van Veeteren nodded slowly.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll stay here. Ring the moment you’ve got him.”
He hung up.
“You can go home now,” he said to Munster. “They’ll pick him up as soon as he shows at the hotel. He’s shaved off all his hair, started wearing glasses and made himself up, it seems.
An ingenious bastard. Booked into the Palace Hotel for four nights, a congress for artificial-limb salesmen. . Have you ever heard anything like it, Munster? Artificial-limb salesmen!”
“How did they find him?”
“Parking offense,” said Van Veeteren with a shrug. “The deadly sin of our time, no doubt about it.”
When Munster emerged into the raw night air, he realized to his surprise that he wasn’t dying to get home: he would have happily stayed up there with the chief inspector and waited.
Sat reading his newspaper for a while longer, until the next call came. .
The last verse.
The signal to indicate that the hunt was over.
Case closed. Murderer captured.
Time for the wheels of justice to start grinding. .
There were still a few loose ends, it seemed; but even so, the basic facts appeared to be clear. The fax had explained everything; there was no longer scope for alternative theories m i n d ’ s e y e
and solutions. Van Veeteren had been right. As usual. Carl Ferger was their man.
And it was, as somebody had remarked a few weeks ago, a terrible business.
As he drove to the suburb where he lived, Munster thought over what Van Veeteren had said about the determinant. He couldn’t quite work out if the chief inspector was being serious or not. However, it couldn’t be denied that there was some truth in it, and maybe it was yet again the same old story: the only way of catching the big and most evil players was by trawling with a wide-mesh net aimed at capturing both the serious and the frivolous.
He was momentarily surprised by the wording of that thought, but then it dawned on him that it must be something Reinhart had said.
A wide-mesh net. .
In any case, he made up his mind to look up “determinant”
in his new and as yet incomplete twenty-four-volume encyclo-pedia when he got home.
Van Veeteren didn’t have to wait for as long as he’d feared. The call from Frank came as early as half past ten.
Ferger had been arrested.
He had strolled into the hotel without a care in the world, and immediately been overpowered by twelve armed police officers.
“Twelve?” wondered Van Veeteren.
“Twelve,” said Frank.
“Has he confessed?”
“No. He’s playing silly buggers.”
“Okay,” said Van Veeteren. “Put him in a prison van and shunt him up here tonight. I fancy him for breakfast.”
“Your word is my command,” said Frank. “How’s your
backhand nowadays? I seem to recall that you had a few problems with it when we were in Frigge. . ”
“Lethal,” said Van Veeteren. “Next time you’re in these parts, call in and I’ll give you a demonstration.”
43
Munster would never have recognized him.
To be honest, he didn’t have a clear recollection of him from the interviews at Bunge, but this shrunken specimen of humanity bore virtually no resemblance to the picture that had been broadcast on television and promulgated in the press.
In a way, he looked younger. His totally bald and rounded head gave a dubious impression of innocence. Of naivete. Or perhaps something quite different: advanced senility.
A combination of the two?
He was sitting next to the wall, his hands clasped in front of him on the rickety table. His gaze was lowered. He was probably closing his eyes now and then.
Reinhart and Munster were sitting in front of the opposite wall in the oblong-shaped room. On either side of the door.
The chief inspector’s chair appeared to have been placed meticulously in the geometrical center. All Munster could see of Van Veeteren was his back: he was as static as a sphinx for the whole of the interrogation. His questions were spat out tonelessly and contemptuously, as if he knew all the answers in advance, and as if he had no interest at all in the proceedings.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“No.”
“I didn’t ask if you were guilty. I asked if you knew why you’re here. An appeal for information about you has been 2 6 3
featured on radio and television, and in sixty-eight different newspapers, together with your name and a picture. And despite that, you claim that you don’t know why you are here.
Are you thinking of pleading that you are an idiot, or that you can’t read?”
“No. I know why I’m here.”
The voice was faint, but with no trace of unsteadiness.
“Let me make it clear from the very beginning that I have nothing but contempt for you, Mr. Ferger. The sight of you arouses no reaction in me but utter disgust. In different circumstances, in a less civilized society than the one we live in, I would have no hesitation in executing you on the spot. Have you understood?”
Ferger swallowed.
“I’m convinced that my feelings are shared not only by my colleagues, but also by more or less everybody who knows what you have done.”
“I’m innocent.”
“Shut up, Mr. Ferger. You are sitting here because you are a murderer. You will be charged with the murder of Eva Ringmar on October third, of Janek Mitter on November twentieth, and of Elizabeth Hennan on November twenty-eighth.
You also killed a four-year-old child on May thirty-first, 1986, but we haven’t yet finished accumulating the necessary proof for that murder.”
“It’s not true.”
That was a whisper, so faint that Munster could barely hear it. Van Veeteren ignored it.
“If you think that the answers you give will make the slightest difference, let me relieve you of that illusion. You will be found guilty, and you will spend the rest of your life in prison. I must warn you that there is a possibility that you will be executed. . ”
“What the hell are you saying?”
He was still talking to the table rather than to Van Veeteren.
“Not as a result of due process of law, of course, but by one of your fellow prisoners. There is a deep-seated contempt for scum like you even inside our prisons. Some very nasty things can happen. I want you to be aware of that, so that you can take whatever precautions might be necessary.”
Ferger squirmed on his chair.
“Nobody will lift a finger to help you. Why don’t you want a lawyer?”
“That’s my business.”
“There are no volunteers to defend you, of course; but even so, you have a legal right to a lawyer if you want one. The law applies even to the likes of you, Mr. Ferger. Why did you kill Liz Hennan?”
“I’ve never set eyes on her.”
“Was it because you couldn’t satisfy her?”
“I’ve never set eyes on her.”
“Was it because she mocked you for being such an inadequate lover?”
No response.
“Are you frightened of women? Do you think Liz Hennan was a tart?”
Ferger muttered something.
“Was that a ‘yes’?”
“I’ve never set eyes on her.”
“Why did she have a photograph of you, then?”
“I’ve never given her a photograph.”
“But you had a photograph of her.”
“No. . It. . You’re lying.”
“I’m sorry. I meant to say that you had a photograph of Eva Ringmar. Is that true?”
“Maybe. . I don’t remember.”
“We found it in your apartment. Did you have a relationship with Eva Ringmar?”
No response.
“Was Eva Ringmar a tart as well?”
“No. I’ve no desire to answer any more questions.”