post-War Hamlet rolling over in his grave.
CHAPTER 8
From Graz to Vienna, it’ll take you an hour and a half by car. But by train, nearly three hours. Because via the Semmering pass—that’s the famous mountain railway—well, the architect of it used to be on the old twenty-schilling bill: Freiherr Ritter von Ghegha. Make a note of it, never hurts.
A hundred years ago, of course, technical tour de force—don’t even ask. But nowadays, the one thing you notice above all else is how slow the train is. And Brenner was already feeling impatient because he’d gotten held up by the never-ending Horvath business. The time had come for him to find out: what’s with the girlfriend of the beheaded Ortovic?
In his impatience, he’d set a pace for himself that he could scarcely keep up with anymore. BAM! find a conductor on the train who would sell him a prepaid phone card. BAM! find the onboard phone and look up the number for the Vienna PD’s Vice Squad. BAM! request to be connected with Squad Head Winkler.
And didn’t lose his cool about that thing with Winkler’s wife—but I’m not going to go into that just now. Because it was fifteen years ago that Brenner had done that. And Winkler had been practically divorced anyway.
Didn’t lose his cool, though. When the police operator picked up, normally that alone would’ve been enough for Brenner to catch a whiff of the police barracks again. Because nineteen years on the force, you don’t just forget overnight.
Nineteen years of post-War furnishings, all of it first-class military quality, and nothing ever broke. At most, a fresh coat of paint when a suspect deliberately injured himself during an interrogation. Or, let’s say, his nerves sent him puking higher up on the wall than a coat of paint could reach, so it’d needed to be whitewashed out. And the phone system had been updated, and computers, too, of course, but still the same old typewriters. Because for some documents, typewriters—simply irreplaceable.
The lamps, the laminate flooring, the bulletin boards, the desks, the coffee makers, usually all it took was a surly “Police Precinct Two” and there’d be that smell. Usually! But Brenner—like a changed man now. He got redirected three times, he even heard background noise, but he didn’t let in any of the funk.
“Hofrat Winkler.”
“Hofrat, eh? Congrats on the promotion.”
“What promotion? Who is this?”
“Brenner. The last time we saw each other, you were still an inspector. And I was, too.”
“Ah, Brenner, I almost didn’t recognize you there. Didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again.”
Winkler was always good-natured. His wife walked all over him, it wasn’t even funny anymore. She looked like that actress in the French film—real quick, what’s it called again, the one they reran on TV recently.
Winkler didn’t let anything show, though. Who knows,maybe he’d completely forgotten about it. Men are all very different. And Winkler had always been an uncomplicated type. It’d been an eternity, too. Anyway, where am I going with this: two minutes later Brenner had Jurasic’s address. And shortly after noon, he was already standing at the Praterstern roundabout.
When Brenner was a kid in Puntigam, he would always listen to “Hit the Road” on the radio while he had lunch. It was really a very good program. Robert Stolz and Peter Alexander and call-ins and tips and everything. And every day at noon they would broadcast the midday bells from a different place in Austria. Except Puntigam never got featured, supposedly a slight because someone came forward with a sex scandal involving the town priest.
So Brenner knew the Praterstern from the traffic reports long before he ever set foot in Vienna for the first time. Interesting, though! Even though Brenner had only ever heard it mentioned when there was a traffic jam or construction or an accident in one of the traffic circle’s six lanes in the middle of downtown,
CHAPTER 8
From Graz to Vienna, it’ll take you an hour and a half by car. But by train, nearly three hours. Because via the Semmering pass—that’s the famous mountain railway—well, the architect of it used to be on the old twenty-schilling bill: Freiherr Ritter von Ghegha. Make a note of it, never hurts.
A hundred years ago, of course, technical tour de force—don’t even ask. But nowadays, the one thing you notice above all else is how slow the train is. And Brenner was already feeling impatient because he’d gotten held up by the never-ending Horvath business. The time had come for him to find out: what’s with the girlfriend of the beheaded Ortovic?
In his impatience, he’d set a pace for himself that he could scarcely keep up with anymore. BAM! find a conductor on the train who would sell him a prepaid phone card. BAM! find the onboard phone and look up the number for the Vienna PD’s Vice Squad. BAM! request to be connected with Squad Head Winkler.
And didn’t lose his cool about that thing with Winkler’s wife—but I’m not going to go into that just now. Because it was fifteen years ago that Brenner had done that. And Winkler had been practically divorced anyway.
Didn’t lose his cool, though. When the police operator picked up, normally that alone would’ve been enough for Brenner to catch a whiff of the police barracks again. Because nineteen years on the force, you don’t just forget overnight.
Nineteen years of post-War furnishings, all of it first-class military quality, and nothing ever broke. At most, a fresh coat of paint when a suspect deliberately injured himself during an interrogation. Or, let’s say, his nerves sent him puking higher up on the wall than a coat of paint could reach, so it’d needed to be whitewashed out. And the phone system had been updated, and computers, too, of course, but still the same old typewriters. Because for some documents, typewriters—simply irreplaceable.
The lamps, the laminate flooring, the bulletin boards, the desks, the coffee makers, usually all it took was a surly “Police Precinct Two” and there’d be that smell. Usually! But Brenner—like a changed man now. He got redirected three times, he even heard background noise, but he didn’t let in any of the funk.
“Hofrat Winkler.”
“Hofrat, eh? Congrats on the promotion.”
“What promotion? Who is this?”
“Brenner. The last time we saw each other, you were still an inspector. And I was, too.”
“Ah, Brenner, I almost didn’t recognize you there. Didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again.”
Winkler was always good-natured. His wife walked all over him, it wasn’t even funny anymore. She looked like that actress in the French film—real quick, what’s it called again, the one they reran on TV recently.
Winkler didn’t let anything show, though. Who knows,maybe he’d completely forgotten about it. Men are all very different. And Winkler had always been an uncomplicated type. It’d been an eternity, too. Anyway, where am I going with this: two minutes later Brenner had Jurasic’s address. And shortly after noon, he was already standing at the Praterstern roundabout.
When Brenner was a kid in Puntigam, he would always listen to “Hit the Road” on the radio while he had lunch. It was really a very good program. Robert Stolz and Peter Alexander and call-ins and tips and everything. And every day at noon they would broadcast the midday bells from a different place in Austria. Except Puntigam never got featured, supposedly a slight because someone came forward with a sex scandal involving the town priest.
So Brenner knew the Praterstern from the traffic reports long before he ever set foot in Vienna for the first time. Interesting, though! Even though Brenner had only ever heard it mentioned when there was a traffic jam or construction or an accident in one of the traffic circle’s six lanes in the middle of downtown,
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