The Zurich Conspiracy

for coffee and cake. I told her you were up to your ears in work right now.”
    “Give her my regards at least,” Josefa said in a flat voice, closing the door behind her.
    She went back to the couch and began thumbing through the newspapers Helene had brought from downstairs. Then she spotted the headline:
    BEAT THÜRING DROWNS OFF TENERIFE
    Spanish police announced on Thursday that after an intensive investigation they now assume that the Swiss financier Beat Thüring drowned off Tenerife on July 21. The former CEO of the bankrupt Swixan Group…
    Josefa didn’t read any further. She stared at the photograph next to the report. It showed Thüring on Tenerife with “friends,” the caption said. Two men, tanned and laughing, each with an arm around Thüring’s shoulder. An attractive blonde was just in front of the three men, looking up at them from her seat. One of the men had a hand on her neck. Josefa immediately recognized the woman. She was wearing the same green chemise dress she’d been wearing at the Tenerife hotel. Ingrid.

He was already waiting at the zoo entrance, looking a bit lost among the children and parents queuing up at the ticket counter, when Josefa came around the corner. He wore a brown checked shirt, beige pants, and a cap. His face was lined. The tired detective short on sleep.
    “You don’t need your cap, you’ve already got one,” Josefa said by way of a welcome.
    Sebastian Sauter instinctively put his hand to his head. Or was it out of embarrassment?
    He had phoned her just as she was going out the door for a breath of fresh air, and his call had given her a guilty conscience. How long had it been since he’d called her about his cap? And she never got back to him. But he didn’t seem annoyed.
    “I’m on my way to the zoo,” she informed him.
    “Then I’ll meet you there,” he replied quickly. A decisive man, this Sebastian Sauter , she’d thought approvingly after hanging up.
    Now she handed him the plastic bag with his hat. He accepted it with an impish smile.
    “It’s my favorite pattern.”
    They stepped aside to avoid a stampede of excited children.
    “What makes it your favorite cap?” Josefa asked.
    “Long years of loyalty.”
    She grinned. “And it just happened to be at my place that you strayed from this principle.”
    The detective scratched his face. He’d apparently shaved in haste and was now bleeding slightly in one spot. Then he reached into his pocket. “I’ve brought you a little thank-you present.”
    Josefa was caught by surprise. She unwrapped the gift, revealing a tiny, cube-shaped box. Should she open it right here, right in front of him? She wasn’t sure. But Sauter made the decision for her. “Let’s go for a coffee?” he suggested.
    “We’ll have to buy a ticket for the zoo because the café is inside,” Josefa explained. She really didn’t want to sit in a café instead of taking a walk through the zoo—her tried-and-true method of unraveling her thoughts. But why shouldn’t she let the detective accompany her on her stroll? Perhaps that would prove to be an even more efficient method of sorting through things.
    “And when we’re inside,” she said to Sauter, “we must go see the gorillas. They’ve had a birth.”
    “You won’t scare me away; it’s my day off.” He headed for the ticket window.
    They drank their coffee from paper cups at the café bar surrounded by a pack of wild children. Josefa opened the box a bit nervously. What kind of present would a cop give? An object the size of a strawberry was wrapped in tissue paper. Josefa unwrapped it carefully: a miniature cup and saucer made of wood.
    “Rosewood,” Sauter explained. “I made it myself—a memento of your good coffee.”
    Then she remembered with embarrassment that she hadn’t even offered him a second cup that night.
    “You made it yourself? You’re a craftsman?” Josefa rotated the delicate little cup and saucer in the palm of her hand.
    “I carve pipes too, from briar root, bruyère .”
    “You’re a versatile man, Herr Sauter. If the burglars only knew.”
    “Burglars?”
    “Your clientele, remember?”
    “Aha,” was all he said.
    “I shall give your piece of work a place of honor.” Josefa rewrapped the little cup and saucer.
    “How’s your neighbor?”
    “I think she’s OK. I don’t see her very often, and she’s out most evenings. She’s a ballet dancer, but you already know that.”
    The sky was overcast and the air