Murder on the Thirty-First Floor Read Online Free

as a result of an explosion there wasn’t much we could have done. The fire brigade’s ladders only reach the seventh or eighth floor. The firefighters would have had to attack it from below and the fire would have carried onspreading upwards. What’s more, the building’s a hundred and twenty metres tall and at heights above thirty metres the jumping nets are useless.’
    ‘Of course, I understand all that. And I’m not criticising you, as I said. But they’re very upset. The shutdown allegedly cost them nearly two million. The chairman’s been in personal touch with the Minister for the Interior. He didn’t exactly lodge a complaint.’
    Pause.
    ‘Thank God, no official complaint.’
    Jensen said nothing.
    ‘But he was very upset, as I say. By both the financial cost and the chicanery they’ve been exposed to. That was his precise word: chicanery.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘They demand that the perpetrator be apprehended at once.’
    ‘It may take time. The letter’s our only lead.’
    ‘I know that. But this matter’s got to be cleared up.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘It’s a very sensitive investigation, and not only that but also, as I say, extremely urgent. I want you to clear your desk of everything else right away. Whatever else you’re busy with can be considered non-essential.’
    ‘Understood.’
    ‘Today’s Monday. You’ve got a week, no more. Seven days, Jensen.’
    ‘Understood.’
    ‘I’m putting you in personal charge of this. Naturally you’ll get all the technical support staff you need, but don’t give them any details about the case. If you need to confer with anyone, come straight to me.’
    ‘I dare say the plainclothes patrol already has a fair idea what’s been going on.’
    ‘Yes, that’s very unfortunate. You must insist on their complete discretion.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘You must conduct any essential interviews yourself.’
    ‘Understood.’
    ‘One other thing: they don’t want to be disturbed by the investigation while it’s in progress. Their time is at a premium. If you consider it absolutely vital to ask them for information, they prefer to communicate it to you through their chief executive, the director of publishing.’
    ‘Understood.’
    ‘Have you met him?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Jensen?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘You’ve got to pull this off. Not least for your own sake.’
    Inspector Jensen hung up. He rested his elbows on his green blotter and put his head in his hands. His short grey hair was rough and bristly to the touch of his fingertips. He had been on duty now for fifteen hours, it was 10 p.m. and he was very tired.
    He got up from his desk chair, stretched his back and shoulders, and went out into the corridor and down the spiral staircase to the reception area and duty desk. Everything down there was old-fashioned and the walls were painted the same grass-green colour he remembered from his own time as a patrol officer twenty-five years before. A long wooden counter ran the length of the room, and beyond it were some wall-mounted benches and a row of interrogation booths with glassscreens and smooth, round doorknobs. At this time of day there were few people in the guardroom. A few escaped alcoholics and starving prostitutes, all middle-aged or older, sat huddled on the benches waiting for their turn in the booths, and behind the desk sat a bare-headed police officer in a green linen uniform. He was the one on telephone duty. Every so often there was the sound of a vehicle rumbling in through the archway.
    Jensen opened a steel door in the wall and went down to the basement. The Sixteenth District station was an old one, virtually the only old building still standing in this part of the city, and in a pretty poor state of repair, but the arrest cells were newly built. The ceilings, floors and walls were painted white and the barred doors gleamed, etched in the bright lights.
    Outside the door to the yard stood a grey police van with the back doors open. Some uniformed