Inspector Jensen did not fall asleep. From three o’clock to twenty past five he lay in a sort of stupor, unable to think clearly and yet incapable of disconnecting his thought processes. When the alarm clock rang, he felt queasy and found he was drenched in sweat. Forty minutes later, he was sitting in the car.
The place he had to get to lay two hundred kilometres to the north, and since it was Sunday he reckoned he ought to be there in three hours.
The city was silent and desolate, its multi-storey car parks empty and its parking spaces naked, but the traffic lights worked away as usual and as he drove through the centre he found himself stopping for ten red lights.
The motorway was straight, the driving trouble-free, and the scenery on either side uninteresting. Here and there he saw distant suburbs or self-clearance estates silhouetted against the sky. From the horizon to the motorway, the ground was covered in an expanse of dry and dreary vegetation: deformed trees and low, scrubby bushes.
At eight o’clock, Inspector Jensen turned into a service station to fill up with petrol. He also drank a cup of lukewarm tea and made two phone calls.
The head of the plainclothes patrol sounded tired and hoarse, and had clearly been roused from his sleep.
‘It was nineteen years ago,’ he said. ‘The man got stuck in a lift and was crushed to death.’
‘Have we still got the file on the case?’
‘Only a routine investigation noted in the log. It was evidently an open and shut case. A pure accident seemed the likeliest explanation, a chance cut in the power supply which made the lift stop for a couple of minutes and then start again of its own accord. And anyway, the man seems to have been entirely useless.’
‘And his surviving relatives?’
‘He had no family. Lived in a bachelors hostel.’
‘Did he leave anything?’
‘Yes. A pretty large sum of money, actually.’
‘Who inherited?’
‘No relatives came forward within the prescribed time. In the end the money went to some state fund or other.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Nothing that seems significant. The fellow was a recluse, lived alone, had no friends.’
‘Goodbye.’
The man who had been sent to go through the newspaper archives was also at home.
‘Jensen here.’
‘Yes, Inspector.’
‘Any results?’
‘Didn’t you get my report, sir?’
‘No.’
‘I handed it in yesterday afternoon.’
‘Give me a verbal report now.’
‘Yes of course,’ said the man. ‘Just a minute while I try to remember.’
‘The cut-out letters that were used all come from the same paper, but not all from the same day. They were taken from two different issues, the Friday and the Saturday papers of last week. The typeface is called Bodoni.’
Jensen got out his spiral-bound notebook and wrote the information on the inside cover.
‘Anything else?’
The man was quiet for a moment. Then he said:
‘Yes, one more thing. The required combination of letters and text on the back page wasn’t in all the editions of the paper. It was only in the so-called A edition.’
‘Which implies what?’
‘It means that the letters were only in the copies of the paper that were printed last. The ones that are sent out to vendors and subscribers here in the city.’
‘You’re released from the investigation,’ said Inspector Jensen. ‘Return to normal duties. Goodbye.’
He hung up, went out to the car and drove on.
At nine he passed through a densely built up area, quiet at this early hour on a Sunday, but consisting of perhaps a thousand identical terraced houses, grouped in a rectangle round a factory. From the factory chimneys rose fluffy columns of yellowish smoke. A hundred or so metres in the air, the vapour cloud flattened out and sank back down over the community.
A quarter of an hour later he was at his destination.
So his calculation of the journey time had proved correct. The stop at the petrol station must have taken about fifteen minutes.
The house was a modern weekend cottage, with large picture windows and a roof of corrugated plastic. It lay on a hillside three kilometres east of the motorway, surrounded by trees. At the bottom of the hill there were glimpses of a lake of dirty brown water. The air was fouled by the stench of the factory.
On the concrete area in front of the house stood a plumpish man in his dressing gown and slippers. He seemed sluggish and lethargic, and regarded his visitor without enthusiasm. Inspector Jensen showed his ID.
‘Inspector Jensen from the Sixteenth District. I’m conducting an investigation that has to do with your former employment and place of work.’
‘What do you want?’
‘A few questions.’
‘All right, come in,’ he said.
The two rooms contained a number of rugs, ashtrays and items of steel furniture that looked as if they had been transported there from the publishing house.
Jensen took out his notebook and pen.
‘When did you cease your employment?’
The other man stifled a yawn and looked about him, as if trying to avoid something.
‘Three months ago,’ he said finally.
‘Why did you leave?’
The man regarded Jensen. There was a musing look in his shallow-set grey eyes. He seemed to be weighing up whether to answer or not. At length he waved a vague hand and said:
‘If it’s the diploma you want to see, I haven’t got it here.’
Jensen said nothing.
‘I left it in my wife’s flat in town.’
‘Why did you leave?’
The man furrowed his brow as if trying to concentrate. Eventually he said:
‘Listen, whatever you’ve heard and whatever you’re imagining, it’s wrong. I can’t help you with anything.’
A few seconds passed in silence. The man rubbed the tip of his nose unhappily.
‘I haven’t really left. My contract with the company has expired, admittedly, but I’m still linked to the group.’
‘What work are you doing?’
Jensen looked around the bare room. The other man followed his gaze. After another silence, longer than the first, the man said:
‘Listen, what’s the point of all this? I don’t know anything that could be of any use to you. I swear the diploma’s still in town.’
‘Why would I want to see your diploma?’
‘Don’t ask me. It seems very odd that you’d drive two hundred kilometres for a thing like that.’
The man shook his head.
‘How long did it take you, by the way?’
He said it with a hint of interest, but Jensen did not reply and the man reverted to his earlier tone.
‘My best time’s an hour and fifty-eight minutes,’ he said gloomily.
‘Have you got a telephone here?’
‘No, there isn’t one.’
‘Do you own this house?’
‘No.’
‘Who owns it?’
‘The group. I’ve been lent it. I’m supposed to be having a good rest before I take on my new duties.’
The answers had been getting increasingly hesitant. Now they seemed to have stopped altogether.
‘Do you like it here?’
The man cast Jensen a plaintive look.
‘Listen, I told you, didn’t I, that you’ve got completely the wrong end of the stick. All those stories are groundless, believe me.’
‘Which stories?’
‘Well, whatever it is you’ve heard.’
Jensen kept his eyes fixed on the man. There wasn’t a sound in the room. The smell of the factory was as pungent inside the house as it had been on the terrace.
‘What post did you hold within the group?’
‘Oh, a bit of everything. Sports reporter first. Then I was editor in chief of a few papers. Then I got into the advertising side. Travelled a lot, mostly sports features from all over the world. Then I was at various branch offices abroad, and then … well, I went on study trips.’
‘What did you study?’
‘A bit of everything. Public relations and that kind of thing.’
‘What does it involve, public relations?’
‘That’s not very easy to explain.’
‘So you’ve travelled a lot?’
‘I’ve been almost everywhere.’
‘Do you speak many foreign languages?’
‘No, I’m not much good at languages.’
Inspector Jensen sat for a moment, saying nothing. He did not take his eyes off the man in the dressing gown. Finally he said:
‘Do the magazines and papers publish many sports features?’
The man was looking more and more miserable.
‘Nobody’s interested in sport these days, except on TV.’
‘And yet you travelled all over the world writing sports features?’
‘I’ve never been able to write anything else. I tried, but I couldn’t.’
‘Why did you stop?’
‘It got too expensive, I think.’
The man thought for a few seconds.
‘They’re pretty mean, when all’s said and done,’ he said, mournfully contemplating the furniture.
‘What postal district are we in here?’
The man looked at Jensen, nonplussed. Then he gestured towards the window. Above the woods on the other side of the lake hung the cloud of yellow smoke from the factory.
‘The same as over there. The postman comes from there, at any rate.’
‘Is there a collection every day?’
‘Not on Sundays.’
The only sounds to be heard were the man’s breathing and the distant roar of the cars on the motorway.
‘Do you have to carry on tormenting me like this? It serves no purpose.’
‘Do you know why I’ve come here?’
‘No idea.’
The man in the dressing gown shifted uneasily. The silence seemed to trouble him.
‘I’m just a plain, ordinary bloke who ran into bad luck,’ he said.
‘Bad luck?’
‘Yes, bad luck. Everyone says the opposite, thinks I got lucky. But you can see for yourself, sitting here mouldering away all on my own, what sort of good luck is that?’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘Nothing. I don’t want to be a bother to anyone.’
The silence grew long and oppressive. A couple of times the man in the dressing gown gave Jensen a faintly desperate look, but each time he immediately looked away.
‘Please go now,’ he said in an undertone. ‘I swear the diploma’s in town. In my wife’s flat.’
‘You don’t seem happy here.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Were you unhappy at work?’
‘No, no, not at all. Why should I have been? I mean to say, I got whatever I wanted.’
He seemed to drift off into vague brooding. Eventually he said: ‘You’re misunderstanding everything. You’ve heard those stories and you think something, I don’t know what. And anyhow, it’s not at all like people say. It simply isn’t true. Not all of it, at any rate.’
‘So the claims that are made about you aren’t true?’
‘Okay, if you bloody well insist, the boss did get petrified and jump overboard. But that was hardly my fault, was it?’
‘When did this happen?’
‘During the regatta, you know that as well as I do. It wasn’t anything particularly remarkable. He took me along because he thought I knew how to sail. I suppose he wanted to win. And when we had that sudden squall and I got up on to the rail to hang out, I suppose he thought we were going to capsize, and he gave a howl and jumped in the sea. And as for me, all I could do was carry on.’
‘If I’d only been able to keep quiet about it, nothing would’ve happened. But I thought it was a funny story. And then I was so fed up when I realised I only got the plum jobs because they wanted to keep me well out of the way. And I couldn’t keep quiet about that, either, but what …’
He gave a start, and rubbed his nose.
‘Take no notice of those stories. It’s all just talk. My wife cashed in on it, but then she does as she likes, doesn’t she? We’re divorced now, anyway. I’m not complaining. Don’t think that, whatever you do.’
After a short pause he said:
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Show me the telegram.’
The man in the dressing gown gave Jensen a frightened stare. ‘What telegram? I haven’t …’
‘Don’t lie.’
The man stood up violently and went over to the window. He clenched his fists and beat them against each other.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, you’re not going to trick me. I’m saying no more.’
‘Show me the telegram.’
The man turned. He still had his hands clenched into fists.
‘I can’t. There is no telegram.’
‘Did you tear it up?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘What did it say?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Why did you leave your job?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Where does your former wife live?’
‘Where were you at this time a week ago?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Were you here?’
‘I don’t remember.’
The man in the dressing gown was still standing with his back to the window and his fists clenched. His face was sweating and he looked frightened and childishly defiant. Jensen regarded him expressionlessly. After a good minute, he put his spiral-bound notepad away, took his hat and moved towards the door. Before leaving the house he said:
‘Where’s Department 31?’
‘I don’t remember.’
As he drove into the built-up area where the factory was, it was a quarter past eleven. He stopped at the police station and rang the head of the plainclothes patrol.
‘Yes, they’re divorced. Find out her address. Get round there and look at the diploma. If it isn’t intact, bring it back with you.’
‘Understood.’
‘And be quick about it. I’ll wait here.’
‘Understood.’
‘One more thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘He received a telegram yesterday or this morning. Put a man on to locating the copy.’
‘Understood.’
The reception area was large and dreary, with yellow brick walls and plastic curtains at the windows. In the inner section there was a counter, and beyond it a series of arrest cells with shiny, barred doors. Some of them were already occupied. At the counter sat a policeman in green uniform, leafing through a report file.
Inspector Jensen sat down by the window and looked out over the square, which was empty and silent. The yellow smoke seemed to filter all the warmth out of the sun’s rays and the light was flat and lifeless. The stench of the factory was awful.
‘Does it always smell this bad?’
‘It’s even worse on weekdays,’ said the constable.
Jensen nodded.
‘You get used to it. They say the fumes aren’t a health risk, but my theory is, they make people depressed. Loads of them kill themselves.’
‘I see.’
Fifty minutes passed, and then the phone rang.
‘She was very accommodating,’ said the head of the plainclothes patrol. ‘Showed it to me right away.’
‘And?’
‘It was completely undamaged. All the sheets were there.’
‘Was there anything to indicate that they might have been renewed or replaced?’
‘The signatures weren’t new, at any rate. The ink wasn’t fresh.’
‘Did you go inside the flat?’
‘No, she went and fetched the diploma. Accommodating, as I say; she almost seemed to be expecting me. And a very elegant young lady, I might add.’
‘And the telegram.’
‘I’ve sent a man to the telegraph office.’
‘Call him back.’
‘You don’t need the copy?’
‘No.’
Inspector Jensen did not respond for a moment. Then he said:
‘It appears to have nothing to do with the case.’
‘Inspector?’
‘Yes?’
‘There was one little thing that baffled me. One of my men was posted outside the building where she lives.’
‘I see. Anything else?’
‘The police chief’s been trying to get hold of you.’
‘Did he leave a message?’
‘No.’
The motorway was busier, and there were cars parked along the lay-bys at many points. Most of the owners were polishing the bodywork, but many had taken out the seats and were sitting on them at small folding tables beside their vehicles. On the tables they had portable TV sets and pre-packed plastic picnic baskets of the kind available from the snack vending machines. Closer to the city, the traffic queues intensified, and when Inspector Jensen reached the central district it was already ten to five.
The city was still empty of people. The football was in full swing, and those who weren’t busy with their cars were indoors. The football matches were intended exclusively for broadcasting nowadays. They were played without a crowd in big, heated television studios. The teams were made up of players employed on full-time contracts, among them many foreign players, but despite the high standard, interest for the matches was said to be waning. Inspector Jensen rarely watched them, but he nearly always had the television turned on when he was at home. He guessed many other people did the same.
Over the last half-hour he had been feeling increasingly light-headed, as if he was going to faint. He knew that hunger was the cause, and pulled in at a snack bar, where he purchased a cup of hot water, a small plastic sachet of instant broth mix and a portion of cheese.
While he was waiting for the soup powder to dissolve, he got out his notebook and wrote: Number 7, journalist, unmarried, age 58, left at his own request.
Even though he drank the clear soup scalding hot, it was half past five before he was back in the car, and dusk was falling as he drove west.
There were six hours left before midnight.