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enough for a night out at the pub, and he was feeling quite pleased with himself when he boarded the number twelve tram to the town centre. Without a ticket, of course. Andreas Fische hadn’t bought a tram ticket for the past thirty years.
    Klejne Hans, on the northern side of Maar, was one of his favourite haunts. That was where Fische usually spent the evening when he had enough money to paint the town red, and that was where he headed for that drizzly Thursday in November. The place was almost empty – it was only just turned six, and he sat by himself at one of the long tables with a beer and a whisky. Tried to make the drinks last as long as possible while he smoked the dead man’s cigarettes and wondered whether he ought to inform the police straight away. One has duties as a citizen, as they used to say. Then three or four of his friends turned up, and as usual Fische put the matter off until later. No point in rushing things, he told himself. God didn’t create hurry, and there’s no way the bloke’s going to come back down to earth to create it now.
    And when Fische tumbled into his rickety bed in the run-down lodging house in Armastenstraat at getting on for one o’clock in the morning, he had various things buzzing around inside his head – but none of them was a dead body in a deserted car park out at Dikken, nor did he hear any stern voices from what remained of his withering conscience.
    The next day, a Friday, was wet and miserable. He spent most of it in bed, feeling ill and hungover; and so it was Saturday morning before Andreas Fische rang the police from one of the free public telephones at Central Station, and asked them if they were interested in a tip-off.
    Yes, of course they were, he was told – but they were not prepared to pay for it, he should be quite clear about that from the start.
    Fische considered the odds briefly. Then his sense of civic responsibility took over and he informed them without charge that there was a dead body out at Dikken. In the car park near the golf course, outside that restaurant whose name he bloody well couldn’t remember.
    Murdered, if he wasn’t much mistaken.
    When the police officer began asking for his name and address and all that stuff, Fische had already hung up.
    ‘How long?’ asked Chief Inspector Reinhart.
    ‘Hard to say,’ said Meusse. ‘I can’t say for certain yet.’
    ‘Have a guess,’ Reinhart suggested.
    ‘Hmm,’ said Meusse, glancing at the body on the large marble slab. ‘Three or four days?’
    Reinhart considered.
    ‘So Tuesday or Wednesday, then?’
    ‘Tuesday,’ said Meusse. ‘But that’s pure speculation.’
    ‘He looks pretty worn out,’ said Reinhart.
    ‘He’s dead,’ said Meusse. ‘And it’s been raining.’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ said Reinhart.
    ‘But I expect you’ve been indoors, Chief Inspector?’
    ‘Whenever possible,’ said Reinhart. ‘Only two blows, you said?’
    ‘Only one is needed,’ said Meusse, running his hand over his own bald head. ‘If you know where to aim.’
    ‘And the murderer knew that?’
    ‘Perhaps,’ said Meusse. ‘But it’s only natural that you would hit him about there. Near his temple. The other blow, on the back of his head, is more interesting. Rather more professional. Broke the cervical spine. You can kill a horse with a blow like that.’
    ‘I’m with you,’ said Reinhart.
    Meusse went over to the washbasin in the corner of the room and washed his hands. Reinhart remained by the slab, contemplating the dead body. A man in his thirties, it seemed. Perhaps slightly younger. Quite thin and quite tall – 186 centimetres, Meusse had said. The man’s clothes were lying on another table and seemed to be very ordinary: blue jeans, a green half-length windcheater, a thin and quite worn-out woollen jumper that had once been light grey and still was here and there. Simple brown deck shoes.
    No identity papers. No wallet, no keys, no personal belongings at all. Somebody had