Read Online Borkmann's Point by Håkan Nesser - Free Book Online

examined herself in the mirror. Hmm,
not too bad, she thought. Could easily be twenty-five, twentysix, or thereabouts. A pity there isn’t a man waiting for me in
my bed.
But she certainly didn’t want him there tomorrow morning
as well!
And when she started to doze off a quarter of an hour later,
all that drifted into her subconscious through the darkness
were the imaginary images of the murderer. Insofar as there
are any imaginary images...
The Axman?
Could they even be sure that it was a man?
That question registered just as she abandoned her final
foothold and submitted to the boundless embrace of slumber.
There was no time to consider whether or not Wundermaas
would have assigned her to one of the potentially fruitful
haystacks.
“I sometimes get the feeling there is a guiding hand, despite
everything,” said Bausen, handing Van Veeteren a glass.
“God’s finger?”
“Or the other one’s. Cheers! This is not strong; I didn’t
want to kill off your taste buds. I thought we could sample a
few decent things later.”
They drank and the wicker chairs creaked in sympathy. Van
Veeteren lit a cigarette. He’d succumbed to temptation and
bought a pack at the newsstand outside his hotel. It was the
first one since Erich had left him, so he felt entitled to it.
“Anyway,” said Bausen, producing a shabby tobacco pouch
vaguely reminiscent of something Van Veeteren had seen in
Ernst Simmel’s throat. “We lead a fairly quiet life here. Lock up
a few drunks, clear up the occasional case of assault and battery, confiscate a few bottles of the hard stuff from the boats
coming in from the east, and suddenly we’re landed with this.
Just when I’m about to call it a day. Don’t try to tell me that’s
not a pointer!”
“There are certain patterns,” said Van Veeteren.
Bausen sucked fire into his pipe.
“I’ve even given the racists a rap on the knuckles.”
“Ah, yes. You have a refugee camp out at Taublitz, if I
remember rightly,” said Van Veeteren.
“We certainly do. These characters started stirring up
trouble a few years ago, and in November last year there was a
gang going around setting fire to things. They burned two huts
down to the ground. I arrested eight of them.”
“Excellent,” said Van Veeteren.
“Four of them are busy rebuilding the cabins; can you imagine that? They’re working alongside the asylum seekers! They
were allowed to choose between two years in jail or community service. Damned fine judge. Heinrich Heine his name was,
the same as the poet. And now they’ve learned their lesson.”
“Impressive,” said Van Veeteren.
“I agree. Maybe it is possible to make human beings out of
anybody at all, providing you go for it hook, line and sinker.
Mind you, four of them preferred jail, of course.”
“Are you intending to go on October first anyway, no
matter what happens?” asked Van Veeteren. “They haven’t
approached you about staying on, or anything?”
Bausen snorted.
“No idea. I’ve not heard any hints yet, in any case. I expect
they hope you’ll sort this out in a couple of ticks so that they
can send me packing in the usual manner when the day comes.
I hope so as well, come to that.”
Same here, thought Van Veeteren. He picked up his glass
and looked around. Bausen had cleared the table and put a
cloth on it, but apart from that, the patio looked the same as
the previous time—books and newspapers and junk everywhere. The serpentine rambling roses and the overgrown garden sucked up every noise and impression but their own; you
could easily imagine having been transported to some Greeneesque or Conradian outpost. A mangrove swamp at the mouth
of some river in the as yet unexplored continent. The heart of
darkness, perhaps. A couple of topis, a jar of quinine tablets
and a few mosquito nets would not have disturbed the image.
But nevertheless, he was in the middle of Europe. A little toy
jungle by a European sea. Van