Incompetence Page 2

  'I'm OK now,' he said.

  'You're sure?'

  'Sure. That's how it is. It passes. You say you're a fed?'

  'I'm not here to take over your investigation, Captain. I just happened by, is all.'

  'OK, that's good. I'm still in charge?'

  'I'm not even here, really. Just passing by, thought I might help.'

  'And that little contretemps -- that won't be appearing on any reports, or anything?'

  'I didn't see any contretemps, Captain.'

  'OK. Good. No harm done, then. What have you got there, Detective?'

  'This is the contraption that housed the lift buttons. Notice anything odd?'

  I handed him the housing. He turned it over a couple of times. 'It's bent,' he deduced cleverly. Sherlock Holmes, or what? 'But then, it would be, wouldn't it?' He flung it back among the debris. I winced.

  I turned and looked at the Martini building. 'Mind if I take a look at one of the other elevators?'

  Zuccho didn't answer me. I glanced back. He was biting his lip, hard, and the knuckles on his tensed fists were bone white. Clearly, for some reason, he did mind my taking a look at one of the other elevators, and he was struggling to choke back the fury.

  'No,' he said, finally, but the concession didn't come easily to him. 'No, you go take a look at one of the other elevators, Detective.' And he added, very quietly, like he didn't want to say it, but he couldn't help himself: 'I'm only the officer in charge of the scene, after all. I'll just stand here with my thumb up my arse and wait for you to tell me what to do next.' His voice started rising. 'Or maybe I should go away on vacation and leave the entire investigation up to you.' Now he was back at full volume again. 'Or wait, wait -- better still: maybe I should retire from the whole God-damned police force and you can have my fucking job. Be my guest. You can go home and nail my wife while you're at it.'

  'I meant we should take a look together, naturally. If you thought it was a good idea.'

  This seemed to appease him, marginally. He took some deep breaths and managed to lower his blood pressure down to just plain bursting point. 'Great,' he choked. 'Thank you. Let's do that.' I didn't really want him with me, but then I didn't particularly want a gun-happy idiot with a hair-trigger temper lurking around where I couldn't see him, bearing murderous grudges against me, either.

  I allowed him to lead the way. He took time out en route to chew out and piss off any subordinate who hadn't the good sense to be somewhere else. Zuccho made Captain Bligh look like a man-management genius.

  The elevators travelled up the face of the building, but they were accessed from inside. Zuccho blustered up the entrance steps and stood at the top, arms folded, foot tapping, building up a head of ire while I looked up the building's facade again, just to confirm my calculations.

  I'd only hesitated for about ninety seconds, but he reacted like I'd left him standing at the altar for the third time running without phoning ahead to let him know I was calling off the wedding.

  'So nice of you to join us, Detective. I was thinking of renting out one of the offices here so I could catch a few nights' sleep while you finished your sightseeing tour of the whole of Italy, and deigned to favour us with your sainted presence. But, no, you're here already. Doesn't time fly when you're waiting for someone special? Would you like to see the elevators now, or shall we stand here atop these steps another few months or so, drinking in the glory that is Rome?' There was actually spittle beginning to foam in the corner of his mouth. I wondered how he could exist at this level of consistent fury without his brain literally exploding.

  'Now would be dandy.'

  'Thank you so very, very much, only I do have an entire police department to run, and I'd like to think I might actually get back to my office at some point during my lifetime, if that doesn't inconvenience you overly.'

  'Like I said, right now would be a very good time to inspect the elevators.'

  'Excellent.' He swept into the building. I followed, fast enough not to piss him off any more than I had to.

  THREE

  Incidentally, here's a little-known fact about Captain Bligh: the Bounty wasn't the first or the last vessel that the magnificent seafarer lost through mutiny. In his glittering naval career, his crews mutinied on him seven times. Seven times. Not two or three times. Not four or five. Seven. Why the hell did they keep giving him a boat? I wonder how the masterminds who put him in charge of that seventh voyage felt when the salty old dog turned up yet again in a rowing boat at Portsmouth harbour with three midshipmen in filthy long johns and an empty canteen smelling of urine?

  Zuccho strode right across the marble hall towards the emergency stairs.

  'Whoa, whoa!' I called. 'Captain Zuccho? Where are you going?'

  He stopped and turned. 'Where am I going? Well, I thought I might try a quick camel trek across the Andes, Detective. Where do you think I'm going? I'm going up these stairs to inspect the elevators. I thought that was the plan. Only if the plan's changed, it would be nice if you could let me know.'

  'Wouldn't it be quicker to bring one of the elevators down?'

  His eyes widened and he took a staggering step forward, waving his arms in front of him, as if suddenly stricken blind. 'Oh, merciful Father!' He fell to his knees. 'I cannot bear to look upon thy countenance. For thine is the true blinding face of pure genius! Don't go up to the elevator, bring the elevator down to us.' He started crawling towards me. 'The scales have fallen from mine eyes. I seeth it now, so clearly.' He reached my feet and started kissing them. 'Oh what misery it must be for thee, to be compelled to worketh with mere mortals.'

  I looked down at him. 'Is there something wrong with bringing one of the elevators down?'

  He looked up at me, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. 'Are your shoes made of vegetable matter?'

  'Carrot leather and cardboard.'

  'They taste disgusting.'

  'I hadn't planned on serving them up.'

  'Is there something wrong with bringing one of the elevators down?' he repeated, clambering to his feet. 'Oh, yes, there may possibly be something wrong with bringing one of the elevators down, don't you think? Given that the last time someone tried to operate one of the elevators, it launched into fricking deep space. That might be a problem. To send another elevator to the fricking moon. Do you think we should risk it? We may have to clear it with the European Space Agency first.'

  'Captain Zuccho, I don't want to piss you off here, any more than I do by just being alive and breathing, but have you been given any strategies to deal with your anger containment problem?'

  'Yes, I have. And I'm fucking using them. You should have seen me before therapy. I was a fucking nightmare to live with, believe me.'

  'Personally, I think we can risk summoning an elevator. I'm guessing the elevator was going up when the accident happened.'

  'OK, you fricking carrot-shoed moron. Let's say we go with your genius plan. Let's say we go ahead and call the elevator, it blasts off into the stratosphere and comes crashing down on the crowds outside like an intercontinental ballistic missile, crushing everyone within fifty kilometres? How'm I going to explain that little faux pas? I say, "Whoops, sorry: the federal agent wearing vegetables on his feet thought it would be a good idea"?'

  'What floor is the nearest elevator on?'

  'Fourteen.'

  'You'd rather climb fourteen flights of stairs?'

  'Good point. I'll press the button.'

  Zuccho leaned over and made a big pantomime point of pressing the lift button with his extended forefinger, and, of course, nothing happened. 'Oh wait, it's not working. Duh, let me see: why could that be? Could that be because the power to the elevators has been cut? Could it be that I, myself, ordered the power to the elevators to be cut? Why would I do such a crazily random thing? What possible motive could I have? Could some tiny part of my minuscule little mind have been worried that some innocent party might come along and try to use the elevator, thereby inadvertently becomi
ng an unwitting volunteer astronaut on an unofficial and ill-fated mission to Mars?'

  I'd known the power would have been cut. I'd intended Zuccho to get the building engineers to isolate one of the elevator cars on the central computer, and lower it remotely, which they must have been able to do. I was thinking about trying to explain that to him, but, suddenly, it seemed like considerably less effort to climb fourteen storeys' worth of staircase.

  I made for the emergency stairs. Victory did not dim Zuccho's appetite for sarcasm. 'Oh, now the stairs are a good idea, Mr Cabbage Boots! Let me see, who thought of that one...'

  I let the door slam shut behind me and started up to the fourteenth floor. Hopefully, a couple of hundred stairs might knock the wind out of Zuccho's sails.

  It certainly left me in the doldrums. Climbing stairs is about the most demanding exercise you can subject your body to, and I'm not exactly at the absolute peak of physical fitness. I was ready to lie down and die by the time the door with '14' on it hazed into view. I could hear Zuccho below me, though, still giving some serious Wellington boot to my stupidity. Fortunately, I'd reached the elevator car and found out all I needed to know before he caught up with me.

  He spilled through the emergency door and onto the polished corridor floor. Even though he was breathless and fairly close to collapse, the good Captain couldn't still his savage tongue. 'There you go,' he rasped. 'Whaddaya know? It's an elevator car! It looks exactly the same from here as it does from the ground floor, only bigger. A-fricking-mazing. How do they do that? Thank God you dragged me all the way up the stairs to admire it, you son of a bitch. If I had the energy, I'd take out my pistol and shoot you where you stand.'

  'See here?' I tapped on the car's glass with my knuckles.

  He hoisted himself upright and started staggering towards me. 'Don't do that! Do not do that! Do not touch the elevator car. That car is a weapon of mass destruction. We're going to have to declare that car to the United Nations. Do not touch it.'

  I rapped on the glass again. 'How many buttons do you see?'

  Zuccho took out a large handkerchief and started mopping his brow. 'How many buttons do I see? What is this? A magic trick? That's why you dragged me up here, Mr David Blaine? To show me a little abraca-fricking-dabra?'

  'How many lift buttons? How many floors?'

  He peered in gingerly. 'Including the zero and the basement?'

  'It goes all the way to floor number thirty-three, right?'

  He dabbed again. 'Thirty-three, Einstein. You counted all the way up there all on your own. I bet you could reach forty if you used an abacus.'

  'How many floors in the building?'

  'A wild guess? Let me try thirty-three.'

  'Seventeen.'

  'Seventeen?'

  'There are seventeen storeys to this building.'

  'How do you know there are seventeen storeys to this building, you wiseacre? What are you, the architect? You built the building with your bare hands or something?'

  'I counted them from outside.'

  'Well, maybe you counted wrong.'

  'You saw the elevators from outside. They were all pretty close to the top of the building. You want to climb three more flights of stairs and check it out?'

  'OK. Maybe you counted right. So what?'

  'So what?'

  'What if you're right, so what?'

  'Why would you have thirty-three lift buttons on a building with seventeen floors?'

  Zuccho shrugged. 'I'm going out on a limb here: maybe the button panels were designed for another building. Or maybe all of these type of elevators have the same panels. Is that too incredible to contemplate? What would that be, the fricking Twilight Zone?'

  'I checked the back of the panel on the wrecked lift. Buttons eighteen through thirty-two weren't wired. Button thirty-three was.'

  'What are you suggesting? Are you suggesting someone screwed up? An electrician screwed up some wiring? Because that would be mysterious and unusual. That would be para-fricking-normal. Oo-ee-oo! No wonder we needed the feds in here to bust this case open. It's a fucking X-file.'

  'How long has this building been open?'

  'I don't know. Six months?'

  'So here's the scenario: the building open for six months, people using these elevators all that time, and from the opening ceremony until this very morning, nobody ever tried to press the button for the thirty-third floor. Does that sound likely to you? That not a single soul would even try to press that button?'

  'Here's a long shot, Miss Marple: nobody pressed the button because nobody ever wanted to go to the thirty-third floor. And the reason nobody ever wanted to go to the thirty-third floor is because the thirty-third floor does not exist! No one ever had an appointment to visit that particular floor because it isn't even there.'

  'Until today.'

  'It's possible. Are you saying that's impossible? Because it's not.'

  'The wiring on the panel outside: it was fresh. Someone rigged that wiring very recently. I'm guessing some time this morning. I'm also guessing each of these elevators had the same wiring job done on it. All those things, you can check them out. An elevator repairman: someone will have booked him in and out. There'll be video footage on the security cameras. The wiring, you can check that, too.'

  'Pardon me, but what will that prove? All that proves is an elevator repairman came along and screwed up the wiring. Like I said, that's not going to make me pick up the phone book and dial Rod Serling's number. It happens every day. Because, what are you suggesting is the alternative? Someone deliberately wired up those buttons, knowing someone was going to come along and press them? That it was some kind of elaborate, premeditated murder plot? That maybe the killer rigged the wiring, then arranged to meet his victim on the thirty-third floor that doesn't exist? The victim presses the button and wham! Suddenly he's looking out of the window at Sputnik 3 and wondering if he remembered to keep up his life insurance payments? Is that the wacky scenario you're suggesting here?'

  Zuccho was right: it was incredible, and no one would ever believe it.

  But that's exactly what happened.

  Exactly.

  And that's the essence of the perfect murder. It doesn't even look like a crime.

  The killer arranged to meet Klingferm on the thirty-third floor of a seventeen-storey building, and rigged the lifts to take him there.

  And those other six passengers who just happened to be in the elevator car with the wrong person at the wrong time?

  So what?

  Too bad for them.

  Whoever killed Klingferm was a cold-hearted bastard.

  It was a pretty sure thing he'd killed before. And unless I could stop him, he'd kill again.

  FOUR

  It filled me with an uncommon sadness, going through Klingferm's rooms. And not just for the predictable reasons. Of course, you'd have to have the heart of a kidney salesman not to feel a tad melancholic sifting through the bric-a-brac of a life now spent; the favourite mug that will never be drunk from again; the forlorn mundanity of an underwear drawer, with its neatly rolled socks all ready for nothing in particular; the taunt of the desk calendar with so many unnecessary sheets all full of false promises of tomorrows. Hundreds of little details like these peck away at you, deflate you at every turn. It makes for slow going, and you do a lot of unconscious sighing.

  But the thing about Klingferm's stuff, the real heart of the sadness, wasn't what was there, it was what wasn't there. No photographs of friends or loved ones. No ornaments, no souvenirs, no unwanted gifts.

  And the lonely oneness of everything. Soaking in the sudless scummy water of the kitchen sink: one plate, one knife, one fork. One chair at the kitchen table. And in the bathroom: one toothbrush, one towel, one dressing gown. No perfume. No feminine hygiene products. Nothing that gives a place life.

  It could have been my rooms I was looking through.

  It could have been my life.

  The rooms were all untidy. I assumed p
rofessionally so. It was impossible to tell if anyone had been through his things before me.

  There was no correspondence in his desk, as I'd expected; just a few utility bills, all marked 'paid' with the payment date duly noted in Klingferm's own neat hand, a dry-cleaning receipt and some pizza delivery flyers. Nobody was going to make a literary splash by publishing Klingferm's letters posthumously. His sad little library consisted mostly of manuals for household appliances and various electronic devices.

  There was a computer printer on the desk, but no sign of any computer. Klingferm would definitely have had a computer. I checked, and there was a manual for a fairly recent model. Which meant that somebody almost certainly had been here before me. The printer was a big break, though. I liberated the memory chips from inside it. Most people are criminally unaware of the fact that printer memories don't just store fonts and stuff, they also keep a record of the documents they've printed. Good. There was an excellent chance the chips would give me enough to start up some kind of a lead, but I'd still have to check Klingferm's trash, just in case.

  The kitchen bin held no great revelations, except for the telltale Englishness of old, used tea bags in various stages of desiccation. And, skilfully, I managed to impregnate my hands with the powerful odour of overripe bananas in such a way that it would last for many, many months.

  I checked in the kitchen cupboards. Big mistake for this old heart of mine. There was a half-empty bottle of tequila staring down at me. I'd been trying to avoid making this personal, but seeing the bottle put paid to that.

  The last time we'd been together, me and Klingferm, we'd killed a bottle of tequila between us, and then some. It was the end of my training, and I was going out into the big bad world, all on my lonesome. We did that tequila thing. You know: with the salt and the limes. You put some salt between the crook of your thumb and your forefinger, suck up the salt, take a slug of tequila and squeeze the lime into your mouth. We did that. We did a lot of that. We got all emotional, the first and last time we ever did. Klingferm said, in honour of the occasion, I should call myself Harry Salt. I said, not only would I call myself Harry Salt, I would also call myself Harry Tequila. Klingferm nodded sombrely and said that was fine so long as I didn't call myself Harry Lime, then he literally fell to the floor, laughing. I couldn't work out why. I wanted to get the gag and join him down there on the floor, but my booze-furred brain couldn't work it out. Then Klingferm, between guffaws, had a bash at singing the zither theme, and I remembered. The Third Man. Right. Hilarious. So I fell down laughing, too. It doesn't sound like sterling comedy now, in the cold light of death, but you try it after a quart of tequila. It's a show-stopper.