The Zurich Conspiracy

quizzical look, but she was not in the mood for long explanations.
    “I market luxury luggage for the well-to-do.”
    “Aha, and what does it take for a job like that?”
    Josefa was perplexed: What’s this guy trying to get at? His eyes behind those sleepy eyelids seemed to betray nothing more than just a normal curiosity. But Josefa wasn’t fooled. By way of explanation she repeated her mantra. “I must completely put myself into the customer’s head; I must feel what they feel. I must turn into the customer, though I’m really the salesperson. That’s the trick.”
    “You call it a trick,” he said, a statement, not a question.
    She was getting a little indignant. Why should she be explaining her job to a total stranger, to a detective, of all people? “It’s much more extreme in your case, surely,” she replied. “You must get into the criminal’s head, right? You must think and plan like a criminal—be able to understand their feelings.”
    “So you’re suggesting I’m supposed to become a criminal in my mind?” Sauter asked, putting his coffee cup down noisily on the saucer.
    “To a certain extent…Of course it’s for a good cause—I don’t mean to insinuate anything,” Josefa replied unfazed.
    “See, we’ve got something in common, then,” Sauter responded. “And why do you think people buy these deluxe suitcases?”
    She thought their conversation was becoming positively bizarre. “I think they want to belong somewhere. To an exclusive club of course…But they want to belong somewhere,” she replied after some hesitation, a little surprised by her own answer.
    “Do you know anybody else living in this building?” The question came without any warning. It was an interrogation, after all.
    “I only know Esther Ardelius really well. I’m often away, and the apartments change hands a lot. They’re small, for students, whoever. The people I knew have slowly moved away.”
    “Why’s that?” Sauter asked, taking notes.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe because of the asylum seekers in the two bottom apartments.”
    “Are there any problems with them?”
    Josefa was turning a chocolate biscuit around in her hand. “Actually, no. Except…” She hesitated with her answer, afraid of making herself look ridiculous. “They do their washing all day long, and at night too. The washing machines are always in use. It’s as if they’re doing other people’s laundry too!”
    “Do those people downstairs often have visitors?”
    “Visitors? Not a clue. I only see them now and then on the stairs. They keep moving in and out. Most of the time I haven’t any idea who’s living here and who’s not.”
    She noticed that Sauter was using a gold fountain pen. A detective writing with blue ink!
    “Has anything caught your attention here recently? Something you found odd? Any changes?”
    Nothing really came to mind so she told him all she knew. “A family with a child, a little boy, is living there now, I think. But I don’t know them very well.”
    His cup was empty; he looked tired. What else does he want? Josefa’s shoes were pinching her.
    “You look tired,” she remarked, the words just slipping out. How typical of a woman to say something like that , she thought.
    “Oh?” he said, turning his cup around on the saucer. “I’ve a lot to do. Long days, short nights, irregular working hours.”
    “But of course your family is overjoyed about your flexible hours.”
    “Oh, sure—a few years ago my wife had it with ‘overjoyed.’ We couldn’t plan anything. I was an unknown quantity and still am. That’s why she filed for divorce.”
    “I know about that.”
    “Divorce?”
    “No, unknown quantities. Can’t plan anything. Always on call.”
    Why am I telling him all this? Fortunately he didn’t pursue it. Josefa was wondering if she should offer him another cup of coffee when there was a knock on the door and Esther and the other policeman came in.
    “We’re finished,” the policeman said.
    “So are we,” Sauter replied, getting up and holding his hand out to Josefa. “Thank you for the coffee,” he said, shaking her hand in goodbye. She escorted the two men to the door, locking it after they left.
    “Would you rather spend the night here?” Josefa asked Esther who was sitting at the kitchen table.
    “That would be awfully nice, but you haven’t even unpacked, Josefa.”
    “I’ve still got a few days for that. A cup of tea?”
    “He forgot