The Zurich Conspiracy

tells us where he stands .”
    Josefa looked at Sauter expectantly.
    “‘Habe’ and ‘Pfade’—do they rhyme?” he asked, licking the finger that he’d greedily stuck into the crème bavaroise.
    “It was a crossword puzzle, not Schiller’s Ode to Joy , Herr Polizist .”
    “And what’s the answer?”
    “I suggested Koffertraeger , and it fit and was long enough. But the old man said today that the first part of the word didn’t work, and he couldn’t finish the puzzle, that made him very antsy. The first letter didn’t fit with the rest. But I’m sure that we had the right word.”
    Josefa got a ballpoint and wrote the letters on a paper napkin.
    “Do you want the last of the caviar?” Sebastian asked.
    “I’d love it.”
    Josefa wiped the inside of the tin clean with a piece of bread. “Every black speck is worth a fortune.”
    “I think, dear heart, you must bury one illusion.”
    “Why? Did you confiscate the caviar from a Russian Mafioso?”
    “I’m talking about the crossword. I think you got it wrong—the word’s Moebeltraeger .”
    She counted out the letters on her fingers. “M-O-E-B-E-L-T-R-A-E-G-E-R—furniture mover, not porter. Well, aren’t you the clever one! Is that what you learn in the Zurich Criminal Investigation Department?” She leaned over him.
    “Yes, and a lot of other things. For example, how to keep a body covered.”
    “But that doesn’t rhyme with anything.”
    He pulled her down to him and murmured in her ear, “But it sounds immensely poetic.”

Were they wise to him? Sepp Kohler sat in front of his eavesdropping equipment, petrified.
    He moves our personal belongings…
    Was this one of those crazy coincidences, or was there something he hadn’t given careful enough thought to? Frau Rehmer’s words. That melodious, crystal-clear voice—it cut like a laser beam through his secret universe. Rehmer and the police detective.
    What a strange couple. But he’d heard it coming: their cautious approach, the fumbling questions, the yearning in Sauter’s voice, his gentle wooing, Rehmer’s reticence, her relaxed laughter, the long, intense conversations. It had been better than any TV soap opera, better than the gossip in the supermarket tabloids, better than anything his fellow workers could recount about their monotonous lives.
    Strangers’ worlds pass through his hands…
    People are so clueless. They get an expensive alarm system for their houses, two fierce dogs for their garden, a combination for their safe. But they think nothing of it when a furniture mover walks in the door, into their office, into their living room, into their bedroom. To them he’s just a furniture mover for a well-known company. No, that’s not right. To them he’s a shadow, a nothing. He’s always ready to work, he functions, and he’s discreet. And he simply melts away when his duty’s done.
    Just think. They don’t know a thing about the little sentinels he leaves behind. They don’t take any notice of the tiny opening in their carapace where a little insect has burrowed in. He inserts an identifying chip, like a veterinarian does to an innocent dog. Whatever they do, whatever they say and scheme, he’ll bear secret witness.
    He knows their comings and their goings…
    That gracious Frau Rehmer. She saw in him the trusted worker, always on the spot when called for a Loyn event. How happy she was when he helped her move into her new apartment. Her generous remuneration was just as valuable to him as her beaming smile when she thanked him. Oh yes, he’d taken special care when transporting that lamp with a heavy base, an heirloom cherished beyond measure, as she put it. A solid, delicate piece, with a blue shade and a twisted, thick, brass-colored setting. It was an easy task to plant the bug. He’d done it dozens of times, under far more difficult conditions.
    Like under the tables in Loyn’s tent. He’d been relieved, and a little insulted, to read in the papers that Francis Bourdin was suspected of installing the microphones. Bourdin! What an amateur! It was a put-down of the work that he, Kohler, had carried out. As if a guy like Bourdin was capable of acquiring the devices and then installing them properly. You need technical smarts for that—and reliable connections, suppliers from the shady world of the military. Bourdin couldn’t plant a bug. He was one himself.
    That guy would be lurking around everywhere. Even that evening at the tournament when