The Zurich Conspiracy

Kohler, his hard-working genie, pretended to the security personnel that he had to check that everything was in order. That was part of the routine; nobody had any reason to be suspicious. One of his spies had fallen off, obsolete stuff, though cheap enough to buy. Things like that would happen time and again. Annoying, but unavoidable. When he crawled back out from under the table, Bourdin was standing in front of him. He must have followed him, that spying scumbag.
    The jig’s up —is what he thought at that moment. It’s all over . Bourdin had him in his clutches, but not the way he feared at first. Because Bourdin saw unsuspected possibilities for the future—and he saw in Sepp Kohler just the man to turn those possibilities into something else, for himself.
    Kohler was sworn over to Bourdin for better or for worse. More worse than better, as it turned out. Bourdin was not the man for such secret operations. Just imagine: He left the eavesdropping equipment in his hotel room where anybody could walk in and find it. And worst of all: Bourdin had “confidants” like that reptile, that blindworm Schulmann. What do you expect from a hard-boiled schemer like that?
    Bourdin just didn’t get it. Eavesdropping is a pleasure in itself, not a means to an end. Anybody who uses pirated knowledge as a weapon makes himself vulnerable, delivers himself up.
    …but never tells us where he stands.
    He had to throw Bourdin under the bus, had to tell the cops that the CEO had been sneaking around in the party tent, supposedly to check the table arrangements. That, along with the tapes and the eavesdropping apparatus—and Bourdin was caught in the trap. He wouldn’t even try to explain to the police where he got the bugs from. Wouldn’t have helped him anyhow.
    And yet he—the canny furniture mover—could have solved all the super-manager’s problems. Because while the cops were still in the dark, Bourdin told him that Schulmann was in the know. That was shortly after he’d been let out of hospital. Did Schulmann know about me too? he asked the head of Loyn right away. Bourdin dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand. At least he’d kept his mouth shut at the time. But for how long? You mustn’t tell Bourdin too much.
    And then Schulmann wanted to get rid of some old furniture, ordering him to take it to the incinerator in his truck, at night, after Kohler left work at the company.
    When he got to Schulmann’s house, it was brightly lit. He drove around to the back, just as Schulmann had told him to. The entrance there was wider. He parked the truck behind the hedge. He didn’t fancy any unwanted witnesses. He knew the entrance through the garage to the house—hadn’t he handled Schulmann’s move as well? Charged it up to Loyn of course. In his right hand was a plastic bag with a hammer in it.
    He came across something in the living room he hadn’t reckoned with. He found Schulmann lying beside the sofa in a contorted position. The guy’s got himself totally pissed . That was his first thought. A half-empty bottle of whiskey was on the table, next to a glass. Was anybody still around? He listened carefully—he was a first-rate listener. But he didn’t hear a thing. He came closer. Schulmann was still alive but completely out of it. Maybe drugs were involved?
    He couldn’t find any rhyme or reason to it, but this was no time to deliberate. Because he suddenly had a splendid idea.
    Not the hammer, no blood splattered everywhere. The plastic bag would be quite enough. So neat and quiet.
    The word’s Moebeltraeger. That was the policeman’s voice.
    Was that a warning? Did he suspect something? But now everybody thinks the photographer did it! He would have to thank Pius Tschuor. He played right into his hands. Good spadework, Herr Fotograf .
    So why was he alarmed?
    Had he left any clues? Hadn’t his contact at the former military supply depot kept his trap shut?
    Now he heard Josefa Rehmer’s voice, as if through an amplifier: My therapist would prohibit me from having anything to do with you .
    A muffled Why?
    You’ve so many cavities and passages. Your nasal passages, your ear cavities, your oral cavities, your navel cavity…
    Let me see: your nasal passages…navel cavity…
    Now there was nothing but noises. Sepp Kohler sat there spellbound.
    Then he relaxed. What he heard now were whispers of love.
    They were unsuspecting, naïve, dallying.
    He wasn’t in any danger. He was sure of that. His