Murder on the Thirty-First Floor (12 page)

He smiled his wan smile and drummed his fingers on the edge of the table.

‘This man, this celebrity, happened to have been born in a socialist country, one of the most studiously overlooked, in fact. I don’t think our government has acknowledged its existence.’

He gave Inspector Jensen a sad, searching look.

‘Do you know what I did? I used the assignment as the basis for a detailed and largely positive analysis of the political and cultural standards of that country, compared to ours. The articles weren’t published, of course, and I hadn’t expected them to be.’

He paused briefly and frowned. Then he said:

‘The funny thing is, I still don’t know why I did it.’

‘Bravado?’

‘That’s not inconceivable. But still, I haven’t spoken about all these things for many years. I don’t know why I’m doing it now, in fact. I don’t think they’ve even crossed my mind. I lost
heart within a couple of weeks of starting at the publishing house, and then I just sat there writing what they wanted, page after page of it. At the beginning they were obviously more worried about me than they needed to be. Then they realised I wasn’t a threat and could be turned into a useful little cog in the big machine. But to start with there was talk of transferring me to the Special Department. Maybe you don’t know what they do there?’

‘I’ve heard it mentioned.’

‘It’s also called Department 31. It’s viewed as one of the most important. I don’t know why. You seldom hear anything about it; its work is kept very hush-hush. I’m pretty sure it works on projections of some kind: a dummy group is the slang term for it, in the profession. A move there was on the cards for me at one stage, but then I suppose they saw that all I was fit for was fabricating nice, pretty life stories for well-known people. And they were right.’

He fiddled absent-mindedly with his coffee cup.

‘Then all of a sudden I went and did that. My God, it caught them on the hop.’

Inspector Jensen nodded.

‘You see, I’d realised I wouldn’t ever write any more, and it dawned on me that I couldn’t bear the last thing I wrote to be some rose-tinted, tear-jerking pack of lies about that lout, a piece of flattery for a clown who earns millions from looking gross and not being able to sing, and who goes round the world causing scandals in gay brothels.’

‘The last thing you wrote?’

‘Yes, I’ve stopped. I’d known for a while that I’d written all I was going to and wouldn’t be able to produce any more. Eventually I’m going to find some entirely different line of
work, anything at all. It might not be very easy, because we journalists don’t really know how to do anything. But it’ll be okay; these days, nobody needs to know how to do anything.’

‘What do you live on?’

‘The publishing house treated me very kindly. They said they knew I was burnt out, gave me four months’ salary and let me go straight away.’

‘And they even gave you a diploma?’

The man looked at Jensen in surprise.

‘Yes, farcically enough. How did you know?’

‘Where is it now?’

‘It doesn’t exist any more. I’d like to say I tore it into tiny pieces and scattered them from the thirtieth floor but prosaically enough, I just threw it away before I left the building.’

‘Did you crumple it up?’

‘I wouldn’t have been able to get it in the bin otherwise. It was quite a size, as I recall. Why do you ask?’

Inspector Jensen asked four further questions.

‘Is this your permanent address?’

‘As I told you before, I’ve lived here ever since the flats were built, and I’m planning to stay for as long as there’s still electricity and running water. In a way it’s better than before. There are no neighbours, so you don’t notice how thin the walls are.’

‘Why is the Special Department called Department 31?’

‘Its rooms are on the thirty-first floor.’

‘Is there one?’

‘Yes, in the attic, between the editorial offices for the comics and the roof terrace. The lifts don’t go that far.’

‘Have you been there?’

‘No, never. Most people don’t even know it exists.’

Before they parted, the man said:

‘I’m sorry I went on like that. It must have seemed naïve and muddled, the way I had to simplify and condense it all. But you would insist …’

And finally:

‘Incidentally, am I still under suspicion for something?’

Jensen was already on the stairs and did not reply.

The man remained in the doorway. He did not seem worried, just indifferent and rather tired.

He sat in the car for a few minutes, looking over his notes. Then he turned the page and wrote: Number 3, former chief editor, age 48, unmarried, employment terminated at own request, on full pension.

Number 3 was a woman.

The sun was shining, white and pitiless. It was Saturday, and the clock showed one minute to twelve. He had exactly thirty-six hours left. Inspector Jensen turned the key in the ignition and pulled away.

He had turned off the short-wave radio, and even though he was obliged to pass through the city centre, he did not bother to drop into the Sixteenth District station.

He did, however, stop at a snack bar, where he spent some time contemplating the three standard dishes of the day. The menus were devised in a special division of the Ministry for Public Health. The food was prepared centrally by a large food industry syndicate, and the same dishes were served at all the snack bars and restaurants. He stood in front of the electronic menu for so long that the queue grew restive behind him.

Then he pressed one of the buttons, took the loaded tray that appeared, and pushed his way through to a table.

He sat and looked at his lunch: milk, carrot juice, mince, some soggy white cabbage and two boiled potatoes cooked to a mush.

He was very hungry but dared not rely on his digestive system. After a while he put a little bit of the mince in his mouth, chewed it for a long time, drank the carrot juice, got up and went out.

The street he was heading for was in the east, not far from the centre, and in a residential part of town that had always been favoured by whatever upper class happened to exist at the time. The building was new, and not designed to the standard model. It belonged to the group, and boasted not only guest suites and conference rooms but also a large studio apartment with a terrace and skylight windows.

A dumpy little woman opened the door. Her blonde hair seemed to be fixed up in some artistic style, and her made-up face was smooth, as bright and rosy as a picture in a colour supplement. She was wearing a pink and powder blue negligee of some filmy fabric. On her feet she had high-heeled red mules with gold embroidery, and peculiar, multicoloured tassels on the front.

Inspector Jensen felt he remembered precisely that outfit from a fold-out, colour picture in one of the hundred and forty-four magazines.

‘Ooh, a man,’ the woman giggled.

‘Inspector Jensen from the Sixteenth District. I’m conducting an investigation that has to do with your former employment and place of work,’ he intoned, holding up his police ID.

As he did so, he looked past the woman into the apartment.

It was a large, airy room, and the interior design looked expensive. Against a background of pastel fabrics and plants growing up a trellis were low groups of furniture made of light-coloured wood. The whole flat looked like a bedroom for
the daughter of an American millionaire, abnormally enlarged and transplanted direct from an ideal home show.

On the sofa sat another woman, dark-haired and considerably younger. On one of the low tables sat a sherry bottle, a glass and an exotic species of cat.

The woman in the negligee tripped lightly into the room.

‘Heavens, how exciting, a detective,’ she said.

Jensen followed her.

‘Fancy that dear, a real detective, from some special office or district or whatever it’s called. Just like in one of our picture serials.’

She turned to him and chirped:

‘Do sit down, dear. By all means make yourself comfy in my little lair. Now, Inspector, can I offer you a glass of sherry?’

Jensen shook his head and sat down.

‘Oh, I’m forgetting that I’ve got company; this is one of my dear colleagues, one of those who took over the ship when I came ashore.’

The dark-haired woman gave Jensen a brief, uninterested glance. Then she turned a polite, subservient smile on the woman in the negligee. Her hostess sank on to the sofa, put her head to one side and blinked girlishly. Suddenly she said, in a cold and businesslike tone:

‘How can I help?

Jensen got out his notebook and pen.

‘When did you cease your employment?’

‘At the end of the year. But please don’t call it my employment. Being a journalist is a calling, as much as being a doctor or a priest is. One mustn’t forget for a moment that the readers are our fellow human beings, almost our spiritual patients. One’s life is so intensely in tune with the rhythm of our
publications, and lived entirely for the readers; one had to give with one’s whole heart.’

The younger woman stared at her shoes and bit her lip. The corners of her mouth twitched, as if she were trying to suppress a scream or a smile.

‘Why did you leave?’

‘I left the publishing house because I felt my career was complete. I had achieved my goal, leading the magazine from triumph to triumph for twenty years. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I created it with my own hands. When I took it over it was nothing. In only a short time I had made it the biggest women’s magazine in the country, and before long it was the biggest of all the magazines. And it’s held on to that position.’

She looked at the dark-haired woman and said venomously:

‘And how did I do it? Through work, through total self-sacrifice. One has to live for one’s task, think in pictures and headlines, with every sense open to the reader’s demands, to …’

She thought for a moment.

‘To satisfy their legitimate need to gild their everyday lives with beautiful dreams, ideals and poetry.’

She took a sip of her sherry and said icily:

‘To achieve that, one has to have what we call feeling. Not many people have that natural gift. Sometimes we have to harden ourselves as we look inward in order to give our all when we look outward.’

She closed her eyes. Her voice softened.

‘All this one does with a single aim. The magazine and its readers.’

‘That’s two,’ said Inspector Jensen.

The dark-haired woman shot him a frightened glance. Their hostess did not react.

‘I presume you know how I became the editor in chief?’

‘No.’

Her tone changed again, becoming almost dreamy.

‘It’s almost like a fairy tale. I can see it all in front of me like a real-life picture story. This is how it happened.’

Her pitch and facial expression changed again.

‘My origins are simple, and I’m not ashamed of it,’ she said aggressively, the corners of her mouth turned down and her nose in the air.

‘I see.’

She gave her visitor a quick, appraising look and said matter-of-factly:

‘The chairman of the group is a genius. Nothing less than a genius. A great man, greater than Demokratus.’

‘Demokratus?’

She chirruped and waggled her head.

‘Oh, me and names. I mean somebody else, of course. It’s not easy when there’s so much to fit in up there.’

Jensen nodded.

‘The chairman took me directly from a very humble post and let me look after the magazine. I mean to say, what complete madness, what boldness. Just think, a young girl like me as the head of a big editorial department. But I was the fresh new blood the magazine needed. In three months I’d knocked the department into shape, cleared out the dead wood, and within six months I’d made it every woman’s favourite reading. Which it has been ever since.’

Her voice changed as she addressed herself to the woman with dark hair:

‘Never forget that the eight-page horoscope, the cinemascope picture stories and the real-life series about the mothers of great men were my idea. We’re still making capital out of those today. And the pets, the full-colour pull-out.’

She made a feeble gesture of self-deprecation, rings sparkling on her fingers, and said mildly:

‘But I’m not saying that because I want praise or flattery. I’ve already got my reward, in the form of hundreds of thousands of heart-warming letters from grateful readers.’

The woman lapsed momentarily into silence, her hand raised and her head turned to one side, as if she were scanning the horizon.

‘Don’t ask me how you achieve something like that,’ she said diffidently. ‘It’s something you just feel, you feel it as surely as you know that every woman at least once in her life is going to experience a look of hot, intense desire.’

The dark-haired woman gave a stifled sort of gurgle.

The woman in the negligee flinched, and stared at her with undisguised loathing.

‘That was in our time, of course,’ she said in a hard, patronising tone. ‘When we women still had a bit of fire in our bellies.’

Her face had fallen and a network of wrinkles had emerged around her eyes and mouth. She chewed irritably on the long, pointed, shimmering silver nail of her left thumb.

‘You were given a farewell diploma when you left?’

‘I certainly was,’ she said. ‘Oh, it was just so sweet of them.’ The teenage smile returned and her eyes began to twinkle.

‘Would you like to see it?’

‘Yes.’

She rose gracefully and floated out of the room. The dark-haired woman gave Jensen a panic-stricken look.

The woman came back with the document pressed to her chest.

‘And can you imagine, every single personality of any importance signed it for me, even a real princess.’

She opened the diploma. The blank page on the left was covered in signatures.

‘I think this was my very favourite, of all the hundreds of presents I got. From all over, do you want to see?’

‘There’s no need,’ said Jensen.

The woman smiled, bashful and bewildered.

‘But why have you, a police inspector, come here to ask me all this?’