Chapter 16 Chapter Sixteen

It was nearly ten o'clock in the morning and Martin Baker was sweating in the sun as he walked along the pier towards Gate Square.The sun was not strong, and the wind was very cold, but he walked so fast that the coat on his body was warmed. Hoult offered to take him to Kings Island Street, but he declined.Martin Baker was terrified of falling asleep in the car, and thought a walk might wake him up a bit.He unbuttoned his coat and slowed down. Once at Gate Square, Martin Baker went into a phone booth and called headquarters, who told him Lehn hadn't returned.Before Le En came back, he couldn't do anything, and he had to wait at least an hour.If he goes home directly, he can lie on the bed in ten minutes. He is really tired and wants to go back and take a nap. He can set the alarm clock and sleep for an hour.

Gritting his teeth, Martin Baker crossed the Gate Square into Via Gianto, and then began to slow down.He can imagine that when the alarm clock rings an hour later, he must not have had enough sleep, and he must reluctantly get up, put on his clothes, and drag out the door.But then again, it would be nice to take off your clothes and take a shower. He stopped in the middle of the square, not knowing what to do.He could of course blame his hesitation on fatigue, but he was still irritable. Martin Baker turned around and walked toward Skubang Street. He didn't know what to do when he got there, but when he saw the taxi, he had an idea.Martin Baker decided to find a place to take a sauna.

The driver looked like a man - trembling, with a mouth full of wind, and apparently his ears weren't working.Martin Baker, sitting in the front seat, secretly prayed that the old man would not be blind too.It seems that the old man is the owner of a taxi company, and he hasn't driven his own company's car for many years. He keeps making wrong turns, and once drove to the left lane in the wrong direction, unaware that the driving direction has changed to the right.The old man babbled all the way, his withered and aged body shaking from coughing from time to time.When he finally pulled up in front of the central bathhouse, Martin Baker promptly tipped him generously, thanking him for delivering him safely.After seeing the old man's hands shaking like autumn leaves, Martin Baker decided not to ask him for a receipt.

Martin Baker hesitated for a while before the ticket office. Usually he takes a bath downstairs with a swimming pool, but now he doesn't want to swim, so he only bought a ticket for the Turkish bath upstairs. To be on the safe side, he asked the bath attendant who brought the towel to wake him up at eleven o'clock, and then went to the hottest bath, sweated himself, took a shower, and took a quick dip in the small cold pool , Then dry your body with a towel, wrap yourself in a large bath towel, and lie down on the bed in the small room. He closes his eyes. Baker tried to think of something pleasant, but his thoughts kept coming back to Hult, sitting alone and bored in his bleak apartment, wearing his uniform even on holidays.Hult will only do one thing in his life - be a policeman.Take that away from him, and there's nothing left of him.

I don't know what Hulter will be like when he retires. Maybe he will sit quietly by the window with his hands on the table until he dies of old age. Did Hult have civilian clothes?Maybe not. Martin Baker's eyes were sore and sore, and he was staring at the ceiling, too tired to sleep.Martin Baker put his arms over his face and tried to relax, but his muscles remained tense. There were crackling and splashing sounds from the massage room, and the sound of water being splashed on the marble chairs, and muffled snoring from the small nearby room. Nieman's death suddenly appeared in his mind, and he thought of what Coleberg told him about Nieman training his men to kill people.

Martin Baker never killed anyone. He tried to imagine the feeling, the feeling of not killing someone with a gun.It shouldn't be too difficult to use a gun, as you only need to squeeze the trigger lightly and the bullet will do the rest.It doesn't take much strength to shoot and kill, and it's acceptable to keep a distance from the victim.But to kill a man with bare hands, with a rope, with a knife, or with a bayonet is quite another matter.He thought of the corpses on the hospital floor, the slits in the throats, the blood all over the floor, the viscera pouring out of their stomachs—Baker knew he couldn't kill someone like that.

Martin Baker had often asked himself if he was a coward in all his years as a policeman, and now, as he got older, he was more certain that yes, he was a coward, but he didn't care as much as he did when he was young. He wasn't sure if he was afraid of death. His job was to investigate the cause of other people's death. After doing it for a long time, he became numb and no longer afraid. He seldom thought about the moment when he died. The waiter knocked on the door and said it was eleven o'clock.Martin Baker didn't close his eyes for a second.