Borkmann's Point by Håkan Nesser

graveyard—St. Pieter’s Church, if he remembered rightly—
the graveyard that looked out over the sea. It must have been
leveled and terraced at some point in the past when they
started to use it, he thought, and he spent a little time wondering what it was really like down there in the loose, artificial
earth among all the caskets and cavities. He noticed the outline
of The See Warf on the other side of the graves, and decided
to take the most direct route.
He threaded his way through the graveyard, zigzagging
along the raked gravel paths. As he passed the gravestones, he
read a year here, a name there; but it was not until he’d passed
through them all and was about to open the gate and leave the
cemetery from the other side that he noticed him: Chief
Inspector Bausen’s burly figure, head bowed, standing by one
of the memorial stones.
What had he said? Two years ago?
He couldn’t be sure if the chief of police was actually praying. He found that hard to believe; but in any case, there was
something solemn and spiritual about his expression—serene,
even—and for a brief moment he felt a pang of envy. He
decided on the spur of the moment not to announce his presence. To leave the chief inspector in peace by his grave.
How on earth can I envy a man who is mourning the death
of his wife? he thought as he passed through the gate. Sometimes I don’t even understand myself.
    Back in his hotel room he lay down on his bed with his feet on
the footboard. Lay there and stared up at the ceiling with nothing more in mind than smoking and giving free rein to his
thoughts.
    He was back in the habit: smoking, as usual, when work
was getting on top of him. When an investigation was not
flowing along the channels he’d dug out, or wished he had.
When everything came up against a brick wall, when the
breakthrough never came.
    Nevertheless, that’s not really how it felt.
He thought about Bausen’s two-week rule. If it was right,
they had five days left. He’d spent a week in Kaalbringen by
this time, and when he tried to sum up his input into the investigation so far, he got no further than the uncomfortably
round number of zero.
    Zero, zilch.
I can’t stand hanging around here another five days, he
thought. I’m going home on Sunday! Hiller will just have to
send somebody else—Rooth or deBries or any other bastard
he feels like. Nobody gains by my hanging around here any
longer!
Living out of a suitcase in a hotel. Drinking the chief of
police’s wine, and being beaten at chess! The renowned Chief
Inspector Van Veeteren!
The only thing that could change matters, he told himself,
was the possibility Bausen had floated a few days back.
If he struck again. The Axman.
Not much chance of that, according to the experts they’d
called in. If he strikes again, we’ll get him!
But there again...At the same time, he had this remarkable feeling that all they needed to do was wait. To hang in
there. That this remarkable case would be solved, or solve
itself, in some way that thumbed a nose at all the rules,
and that neither he nor anybody else would be able to stop or
influence...
    After thinking these rambling thoughts and smoking four (or
was it five?) cigarettes, Van Veeteren went to stretch out in the
bathtub. He spent an hour pondering how to develop a Russian
or Nimzo-Indian opening. Much more tangible, of course, but
he didn’t reach any conclusions on this either.
When Beatrice Linckx had parked and locked her car in Leisner
Allé, the clock in the Bunges church tower struck eleven p.m.
She’d been on the road since four in the afternoon, having
skipped the final evaluation session of the conference, and
now there were only three things she was longing for.
    A glass of red wine, a hot bath, and Maurice.
She glanced up at their apartment on the third floor, saw
that the light was on in the kitchen, and concluded that he was
waiting up for her. It was true that she