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

Veeteren took a sip of his drink,
which smelled slightly of cinnamon, and felt a brief pang of
satisfaction.
“Your wife...?” he said. Sooner or later he’d have to ask
that question, after all.
“Died two years ago. Cancer.”
“Any children?”
Bausen shook his head.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Divorced. Also two years ago, or thereabouts.”
“Ah, well,” said Bausen. “Are you ready?”
“For what?”
Bausen smiled.
“A little trip into the underworld. I thought I’d show you
my treasure trove.”
They emptied their glasses, and Bausen led the way down
into the cellar. Down the stairs, through the boiler room and a
couple of storage rooms full of still more junk—bicycles, furniture, worn-out domestic appliances, rusty old garden tools,
newspapers (some in bundles and some not), bottles, old shoes
and boots...
“I find it hard to let anything go,” said Bausen. “Mind your
head! It’s a bit low down here.”
Down a few more steps and along a narrow passage
smelling of soil, and they came to a solid-looking door with
double bolts and a padlock.
“Here we are!” said Bausen. He unlocked the door and
switched on a light. “Stand by to have your breath taken away!”
He opened the door and allowed Van Veeteren to go in first.
Wine. A cellar full of it.
In the dim light he could just make out the dull reflections
from the bottles stacked up in racks around the walls. In neat
rows from floor to ceiling. Thousands of bottles, without
doubt. He sucked the heavy air into his nostrils.
“Aah!” he said. “You are rising in my estimation, Mr. Chief
of Police. This denotes without doubt the pinnacle of civilization.”
Bausen chuckled.
“Exactly! What you see here is what will become my main
occupation when I’ve retired. I’ve worked out that if I restrict
myself to three bottles per week, they’ll last ten years. I doubt
if I’ll want to continue any longer than that.”
Van Veeteren nodded. Why haven’t I been doing something
like this? he thought. I must start digging the moment I get
home!
It might be a bit problematic in view of the fact that he lived
in an apartment block, of course, but maybe he could start by
purchasing the goods instead. Perhaps he could rent an allotment or something of the sort? He made up his mind to take it
up with Reinhart or Dorigues as soon as he was back home.
“Please choose two for us to drink,” said Bausen. “A white
and a red, I think.”
“Meursault,” said Van Veeteren. “White Meursault, do you
have any of that?”
“A few dozen, I should think. What about the red?”
“I’ll leave that to the boss of the investigation team,” said
Van Veeteren.
“Ha ha. All right, in that case I’ll propose a Saint Emilion
’71. If my friend the chief inspector doesn’t disapprove.”
“I expect I’ll be able to force it down,” said Van Veeteren.
. . .
    “Not too bad an evening, on the whole,” he maintained two
hours later. “It would be no bad thing if life were to be
enhanced by rather more of this kind of thing—good food;
intelligent conversation; sublime wines, to say the least; and
this cheese.” He licked his fingers and took a bite of a slice of
pear. “What do I owe you, by the way?”
Bausen chuckled with pleasure.
“Haven’t you figured it out? Put the Axman behind bars, for
    God’s sake, so that I can grow old with dignity!”
“I knew there’d be a catch,” said Van Veeteren.
Bausen poured out the last drops of the Bordeaux.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll have a whiskey to round it
    off later. Well?”
“Hmm,” said Van Veeteren. “It might be better if we take
what you have to say first. You’ve been in it from the start,
after all.”
His host nodded and leaned back in his chair. He kicked off
his shoes and put his feet up on a wooden crate of empty jars.
Wiggling his toes for a while, he seemed to be lost in thought.
“God only knows,” he said after a minute or two.