He found Alex Tomaros, alias Mr Bean, alias Fiddler Ray, inside his office behind the bar. Harry introduced himself.
‘How can I help you, Mr Holy?’ He spoke quickly and with an unmistakable accent, the way foreigners, even when they have lived in a country for years, often do.
‘Thank you for agreeing to meet at such short notice, Mr Tomaros. I know other officers have been here and asked you a whole load of things, so I won’t detain you any longer than necessary. I—’
‘That’s fine. As you see, I have quite a bit to do. Accounts, you know . . .’
‘I understand. From your statement I saw that you were doing accounts on the evening Inger Holter went missing. Was there anyone here with you?’
‘If you’d read my statement thoroughly I’m sure you’d have seen I was on my own. I’m always on my own . . .’ Harry studied Tomaros’s arrogant face and slavering mouth. I believe you, he thought. ‘. . . doing accounts. Completely and utterly. If I’d wanted, I could have swindled this place out of hundreds of thousands of dollars without anyone noticing a thing.’
‘Technically, then, you don’t have an alibi.’
Tomaros removed his glasses. ‘Technically, I rang my mother at two and said I’d finished and was on my way home.’
‘Technically, there’s a great deal you could have done between one, when the bar closed, and two, Mr Tomaros. Not that I’m saying you’re under suspicion or anything.’
Tomaros stared at him without blinking.
Harry flicked through his empty notepad and pretended to be looking for something.
‘Why did you ring your mother, by the way? Isn’t a bit unusual to ring someone at two o’clock in the morning with that kind of message?’
‘My mother likes to know where I am. The police have spoken to her too, so I don’t know why we have to go through this again.’
‘You’re Greek, aren’t you?’
‘I’m an Australian and have lived here for twenty years. My mother’s an Australian national now. Anything else?’ He was controlling himself well.
‘You showed a personal interest in Inger Holter. How did you react when she rejected you?’
Tomaros licked his lips, and he was about to say something but paused. The tongue appeared again. Like a snake’s, Harry thought. A poor little black snake everyone despises and believes is harmless.
‘Miss Holter and I talked about having dinner together, if that’s what you’re alluding to. She’s the only person here I’ve asked out. You can check with any of the others. Cathrine and Birgitta, for example. I set great store by having a good relationship with my employees.’
‘Your employees?’
‘Well, technically, I’m—’
‘The bar manager. Well, Mr Bar Manager, how did you like her boyfriend making an appearance here?’
Tomaros’s glasses had started misting up. ‘Inger had a good relationship with many of the customers, so it was impossible for me to know which of them was her boyfriend. So she had a boyfriend? Good for her . . .’
Harry didn’t need to be a psychologist to see through Tomaros’s attempt to sound indifferent.
‘You had no idea, then, who she was on intimate terms with, Tomaros?’
He rolled his shoulders. ‘There was the clown, of course, but his inclinations were elsewhere . . .’
‘The clown?’
‘Otto Rechtnagel, a regular here. She used to give him food for—’
‘The dog!’ Harry shouted. Tomaros jumped in his chair.
Harry got up and smacked a fist into his palm.
‘That’s it! Otto was given a bag yesterday. It was leftovers for the dog! I remember now, he said he had a dog. Inger told Birgitta she was taking leftovers for the dog on the evening she went missing, and all the time we assumed they were for the landlord’s dog. But the Tasmanian Devil’s a vegetarian. Do you know what the leftovers were? Do you know where Rechtnagel lives?’
‘Good God, how should I know?’ Tomaros said, horrified. He had pushed his chair right back against the bookcase.
‘OK, listen to me. Keep quiet about this conversation, don’t even mention it to your beloved mother, otherwise I’ll be back to cut your head off. Do you understand, Mr Bea— Mr Tomaros?’
Alex Tomaros just nodded.
‘And now I need to make a phone call.’
The fan creaked abjectly, but no one in the room noticed. Everyone’s attention was focused on Yong, who had placed a transparency showing a map of Australia on the overhead projector. On the map he had put small red dots with dates next to them.
‘These are the times and places of the rapes and murders which we feel our man is responsible for,’ he said. ‘We’ve tried before to find some geographical or temporal pattern without any success. Now it looks as if Harry’s found one for us.’