The Zurich Conspiracy (36 page)

She knew exactly which picture he meant. She’d look back when she was old and gray and recall the moment when she was truly beautiful. But she didn’t want to let on how much the photograph meant to her.

“My dear, charming fellow, you must have gorged on honey for breakfast to make your words sound so sweet,” she kidded him. “Isn’t that part of your repertoire?
I shall make you beautiful, madam, and you shall make me happy in return.
No, even better:
You shall make me rich in return
.” Josefa placed a theatrical hand over her heart.

“Josefa, you’re not that easy to sweet-talk. I had to ambush you just to snap a picture.”

“And yet the most stunning women lie before your lens of their own free will,” she joked. “From Joan Caroll to Pamela Hartwell.”

Pamela’s name had hardly escaped her lips when she realized her mistake. She could have kicked herself. How could she have been so thoughtless as to give away her obvious snooping?

Pius didn’t respond, and Josefa feverishly imagined how she could make up for it. “Maybe ‘lie’ isn’t the right expression, I meant ‘place.’”
You’re just making it worse!

Pius still said nothing. The road was getting steeper. “Are we coming to the top of the pass soon?” she asked brightly, changing the subject.

“So you think they make me rich?” Pius asked all of a sudden.

“Who?” Josefa said nonchalantly, making a great show of admiring the dramatic landscape.

“Women like Joan and Pamela.”

“Pius, that was a dumb joke, I was just goofing around.”

He took the next curve so fast she bounced against the car door.

The atmosphere in the conference room was downright solemn. Six men and one woman were looking expectantly toward the end of the table where Kündig and Zwicker were sitting. It was 7:30 a.m. Kündig got going without the usual formalities.

“We have here the transcript of an interview with Pamela Hartwell, the wife of Colin Hartwell, the golfer. They are both in Paris at this moment—she’s gone shopping and he’s romping around on some golf course. Frau Hartwell did not want her husband present at the interrogation. But that doesn’t matter. Our colleague Zwicker went to Paris. He showed her some photos, the ones where she’s crawling under the table. Heinz, will you take over?”

Zwicker cleared his throat. “When Frau Hartwell looked at the pictures, she grew nervous and asked what we wanted. A French justice official was present. I said she was to explain what she was doing under the table. She said she was looking for an earring she’d lost but didn’t find. She asked who took the pictures. I gave her the name of Pius Tschuor, the photographer at Loyn, whereupon she became visibly upset. ‘I don’t believe you. It was definitely somebody else who took these photos,’ she insisted. Then she stood up and shouted, ‘Why should he do that? What did he tell you?’ I asked her why she was so distressed. She was on the brink of tears. Then she demanded to talk to her lawyer.”

Zwicker paused, and Kündig took the floor again.

“On the basis of Pamela Hartwell’s remarkable reaction we would like to question Pius Tschuor. But he cannot be reached at home or on his cell phone. We could not find anyone who knows of his whereabouts. For this reason we have asked for a search warrant of his premises, which we will certainly get today.”

Kündig looked around the table. The young woman, who had been assiduously taking notes, asked, “What do you expect to find in his apartment? Have you any definite suspicions?”

“We suspect we will find pictures that Tschuor, for whatever reason, did not share with us.”

Of course everyone at the table knew that this was only a half-answer. Kündig, the old dog, was once again holding something back.

“Black ice,” Pius noted. “That’s good.”

Josefa looked at him in bewilderment.

“The colder, the better,” he explained. “When it gets warmer in the spring, you can expect water seepage.”

“But it’s been unusually warm for the past few days,” she objected.

“No problem, it doesn’t happen that fast.” He took the curves more carefully now. “This book is very important to me, Josefa. It will be phenomenal, I can tell you. And if working with beautiful women ultimately makes the book doable, then it was worth the effort.”

They were obviously now at the top of the pass, but Pius didn’t stop; he seemed anxious to get to the caves.

“I thought Walther was bankrolling the book,” Josefa said, picking up where they had left off.

“Walther’s a coward. First he made grandiose promises, and now he wants to renege.”

“Just like him. What did he say about it?”

“He said it wasn’t a promising time for a project like this, he had other priorities and didn’t want to commit himself to anything.” Pius suddenly sounded bitter. His smile had vanished. Josefa chose her next words with care.

“I understand your disappointment, but…couldn’t you see it coming?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well…He’s in a really tough spot. Schulmann’s death, Bourdin’s suicide, rumors about Thüring and his buddies. I can well imagine that in his present situation he wouldn’t give a damn about a picture book on underground caverns.”

“They’re all wimps. Walther should be glad he’s rid of Schulmann so elegantly—he’d have made a mess of the whole company. Schulmann and Bourdin wanted to get Walther over a barrel and take over the firm. Even the biggest idiot could have seen that, it was clear as a bell. Now they’re both dead meat. But that’s good—what’s Walther’s problem? He’s got the public’s sympathy. The brilliant self-made man, that’s what they call him. Or even better—the kind owner of a family business. Laugh that one off! The champion of enduring quality in an age of junk,” Pius announced, imitating a TV announcer’s voice. “So what’s his problem? I simply don’t understand how he could leave me up a tree with this project. I was always loyal to him.”

Josefa found his logic shocking. Walther had always treated Pius well; she had seen it herself. And to shrug off the deaths of two men, one violent, as a lucky break for Walther—that was truly cynical.

“Do you know how much harm can be done to a public image? The name of Loyn is now associated, first and foremost, with unexplained deaths, not with glamour and exclusiveness and everlasting beauty. And then there’s that bug business. The guests are all asking themselves if their gossip and tittle-tattle were caught on tape. Loyn may never recover.”

Pius was not impressed. “I strongly disagree with you there. People forget so incredibly easily. They
want
to forget. Do you remember when the first Gulf War took place? No. In a year Schulmann and Bourdin will be unread footnotes too.”

“That’s exactly what Claire says.”

“She’s right. Claire’s looking ahead. She’s doing a lot to keep Loyn on its feet. She’s doing well, your hardworking assistant. Wouldn’t be surprised if she makes it to management someday.”

Josefa kept her doubts to herself. She was afraid that Walther, who was in a bind, was exploiting Claire unscrupulously and would bring someone in ahead of her when times were better.

“Claire was the best assistant I ever had,” Josefa reflected. “She always knew what I wanted and often did things before I asked. We were so much on the same wavelength at the end that we could read each other’s thoughts and feelings. Like an old married couple.”

“Oh, sure, the Rehmer-Fendi duo struck terror into everybody’s heart.” Pius grinned mischievously.

They were now bumping along on a broad, uneven path that was probably meant for agricultural vehicles. Josefa had gone quiet. She didn’t want Pius to know that she was a bit annoyed with Claire—Claire, who apparently wanted to demonstrate that everything was running very smoothly, much better than during Josefa’s time at Loyn.

Josefa’s mind kept going back to Pius’s opinions on Walther. Why this chilling lack of understanding? How could he size up the situation so badly? Of course he wanted to see his book in print. And maybe he was more strongly driven by ambition and the desire for recognition than she wanted to believe until now.
Everybody fights in his own way for a place in the sun
.

“Did you ever find out who the anonymous e-mails were from?” His question took her by surprise.
What made him think of
that?

“Yes. Joe in the Internet café gave me a key tip.” She didn’t want to elaborate, which is why she asked, “Where do you know Joe from?”

“From our training.” Pius brought the car to a standstill. “We’re here.”

Josefa looked around everywhere. “Here? Where’s the cave?”

They proceeded systematically and thoroughly. First they packed up the photo archive then the rest of the documents. Zwicker took care of the tape cassettes and sent them immediately to the sound specialist. He’d have his triumph eight hours later, maybe the biggest of his professional career.

Late that evening, he was sitting with Kündig and the sound technician in front of the mixing console.

“Is that a copy?” he asked.

The technician shrugged. “Can’t say without comparing the tapes first. And we’d have to bring in another expert. Then we could get the English words better.”

“English words?” Kündig and Zwicker looked at each other. “What English words?”

“The section at the very end,” the technician said.

“What section?” Kündig leaned over the console as if he could read the answer there.

The technician pressed a few buttons and moved some controls back and forth. “You gotta hear this,” he said, grinning and slowly turning the volume up.

At first it sounded like scratching and fluttering, then human sounds: whispers, suppressed laughter. Rustling and groaning.

The two detectives were concentrating so hard that the sound technician didn’t dare grin anymore. Zwicker understood “yes” and “that feels” and “please” and “not yet.” A man and a woman. But it was mostly the woman speaking. He was about to ask a question when the female voice clearly said, “I love you, Dick.” Then slurping, sucking, a gasp, suppressed groans. The man said after a while, “You’ve made me happy, baby.” Sighs, suppressed giggles. Then static and crackling.

The technician broke the spell. “It goes on for a few minutes before the tape ends.”

“What, they keep on screwing?” Kündig asked, obviously off track.

“No, the sex is over, there’s nothing more, only rattling and crackling and static. No identifiable sounds. Must have been an antediluvian device that recorded it.”

Kündig looked over at Zwicker, who couldn’t help smirking.

“So it’s all about sex yet again,” Kündig finally said, dryly. “Who and with whom?”

Zwicker scratched his temple. “Could be the golfer’s wife. No wonder she needs a lawyer. That would explain some things.”

“And the man?”

“She said, ‘I love you, Dick.’”

Dick, Kündig thought, short for Richard in English.

“Richard.” He pronounced the name in German. “Right now only one man comes to mind.”

“My mind too. When do we bring him in?”