14

Not what you look at but what you see.

Go over things again.

More to the root of things.

Library’s basements where the incunabula were kept.

Old newspapers.

Something he had missed.

Number to contact with information about the boy.

People who knew him or were acquainted with him.

Dialled the operator and when she came on the line I asked her for long distance.

Voice at the other end of the telephone line sounded like wind.

Cool hardness of a cop.

Don’t think anything.

Investigation has been called off.

Which the crime had been committed?

Wasn’t used to this part of the world.

Not thought of such cold weather and was surprised to see it come.

Meteorology is not superfluous to the story.

Geographical features.

Where he was found is desolate even on a good day.

Grass and bracken and you may hear the forlorn crying of the titihoya.

Accidents in life and he met with a bad one.

Theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine.

Voice grew icicles.

Like I told you case is closed.

Didn’t find his clothes because we didn’t look for them.

Don’t get the idea all police are stupid. Some could take the shoes off the likes of you and you’d be walking barefoot.

Why anyone goes to the hills.

Escape from the commonplaces of existence.

Stayed with someone he met inside, perhaps.

Scoundrels of the north.

Village borders where the lepers and the lunatics, the horse thieves and the prostitutes live.

Our little country crimes.

Logged a few calls if I remember rightly.

File stored among countless others at the prefecture of police.

Send you the transcripts if I can dig them up.

No pleasure out of a corpse.

Just don’t say where you got them from.

Hush, hush, confidential.

Keep your nose clean and everything will be jake.