Read Inspector O 04 - The Man with the Baltic Stare for Free Online

your skull open and cook your brains for breakfast if you give me trouble. Is that clear?”
    “Finally, we’re getting somewhere. Let me put two and two together. You’re from the South, as you told me last night. Youseem to be under the impression that you are my superior. Streetlights are on everywhere. And the room maid addresses me as ‘sir.’ Shall I take a guess at what has happened? Or what might happen?”
    “No. You won’t be doing any guessing, Inspector. There’s no margin here for that. I move according to stone-cold facts. And that’s what you will do from now on, too.” He shrugged. “Confused? I suggested to you last night that facts are inconvenient, but so is reality. Facts may be a problem, but reality is a killer. There’s no way around reality, in my experience. Admittedly, you seem to have spent a lifetime avoiding it.”
3
     
    “Let me get this straight.” I reached in my pocket for a piece of pine.
    The major frowned. “What’s that? One of those wood chips you carry around?”
    “This?” I held it up for him to see. “It’s pine, that’s all, a very uncomplicated wood. It helps me think uncomplicated thoughts. Nothing threatening about it, don’t worry. It won’t explode or anything.”
    “Uncomplicated thoughts? By all means, Inspector, let’s keep things simple. Maybe I should pass out some of that wood to my staff. Do you have more?”
    I considered that. “No, I don’t think it would do any good. What works for me might not work for them.”
    “And what work is that? More adducing of the evidence assembled so far? Is this a reflection of your training or your temperament, Inspector?”
    “The three dogs at the long table last night knew who you are. Paul the pliant waiter has a reasonably good idea. Everyone around here knows, I take it. Everyone but me.”
    “Not everyone. Let’s say everyone that matters.”
    “So, do I matter?” I got up and walked over to the window. The view told me nothing. It was an inner courtyard with two wooden benches, a few flowerpots with bright yellow mums, and a stone fountain made to look like a mountain waterfall, but it wasn’t turned on. The sky above the courtyard was still dark, but there was soft lighting around the fountain to illuminate the scene. “Must be pleasant, hearing the sound of water. It soothes the nerves; do you think that’s why they put it there? Very stressful, I imagine, working here. This office, for example, it must have been for someone with real power. Whose was it?” I looked at the windows across the way. The curtains were closed. It reminded me of the Operations Building across the courtyard from my old office. Our courtyard had no flowerpots and no fountain. We made do with three old gingko trees and a pile of bricks. “Before you moved in, who had this building?”
    “You don’t know?”
    “Never been here. Never even been near here, I don’t think. I never had much to do with buildings surrounded by tanks.”
    “Let’s just say that whoever was in these offices has moved. They were happy to pack up when they were offered something better.”
    “You’re not going to tell me.”
    “At the moment, you wouldn’t be interested even if I did, because you wouldn’t know what I was talking about.”
    “I might.”
    “No, Inspector, I’m quite serious. This building was for a group formed after you left. Or is ‘retired’ the term we’re supposed to use?” I didn’t rise to that crummy piece of bait. “The group was put together for a very specific purpose. That purpose has been overtaken by events. A lot has happened since you left.”
    “People keep telling me that.”
    “Perhaps you should pay attention.”
    I went back to the brown chair. There was no way to relax init, no way to strike a pose of nonchalance in front of Kim. “I’m listening. I’m not going to interrupt. Sit and absorb—will that suffice?”
    “We want you to take charge of a camp.” The idea came out of