The Inspector and Silence (16 page)

‘Sexual violence on the lower abdomen?’ said Suijderbeck. ‘In other words, it’s not at all certain that we have a case of straightforward rape. I reckon we should bear that in mind.’

Van Veeteren nodded. Kluuge wrote something on his pad.

‘What are you implying?’ wondered Servinus, looking sceptical.

‘I dunno,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘I just think it’s worth bearing in mind.’

He took out a pack of cigarettes and looked round to see what the reaction was. Kluuge nodded, and produced an ashtray. Van Veeteren indicated that he had nothing against being offered one.

‘Have you made contact with the parents?’ asked the chief inspector, having taken a deep drag.

‘No,’ said Kluuge. ‘It seems there isn’t a dad, incidentally. Not any longer, that is. The mother is on a coach tour in India, so it’ll probably be some time before we can get in touch with her. But there’s an aunt on her way here – we had a bit of luck in finding her.’

‘Luck?’ said Suijderbeck. ‘Why was that lucky?’

A good question, Van Veeteren thought. Kluuge hesitated.

‘Well, identification if nothing else. There has to be a relative in order to make it legal.’

‘Yes, well,’ said Servinus, sitting up straight on the sofa. ‘That detail will no doubt sort itself out. But isn’t it about time we really started to get stuck in? It seems a bit like playing blind man’s buff at the moment, I have to say . . .’

Of course,’ said Kluuge. ‘It was a bit much last night. Well, what can one say? Anyway, it all started a week ago when that anonymous woman made the telephone call . . .’

Van Veeteren leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes while Kluuge recapitulated what had happened before, for the benefit of his colleagues from Rembork Tried to switch off and instead started to wonder how many times he’d been in a situation like this during all his years as a detective.

All those years.

It must have been hundreds of occasions, and then hundreds more. But even so he was aware that he could recall each and every one of them. Every single case. Always assuming he had the required time. There was something special about these opening gambits, he thought; something almost unique. At this early stage, when most of the logical structure that was always there behind every act of violence – behind most of what human beings said and did as well, of course – was hidden and inaccessible. Camouflaged and disguised.

But then it struck him that perhaps the term ‘opening gambit’ was wrong. Wouldn’t it be more accurate to think in terms of the final confrontation? The only thing they had to go on was the final move, and what it was all about was reconstructing from the end-game positions: with the king (the murdered high school teacher, the poisoned restaurant owner, the strangled and raped teenager) surrounded and in check under the spotlight, they had to go back to the beginning and work out all the moves from the very start.

Until you finally managed to blow away all the mists and the clouds of gunpowder, and concentrate on the chessboard without distractions; work out what had actually happened. And why.

And then – the final denouement – look up and identify your opponent at the other side of the board.

The perpetrator.

Hmm, he thought. A bit overdone perhaps, but nevertheless not a bad image for how things could turn out, a description of the vocation he had made his own. He made a mental note to consider and assess the logic of it all, when the time came – when the time came to write his memoirs. He was finding it more and more difficult not to keep thinking about them. It was remarkable how often they had kept imposing themselves upon his thoughts of late. Was it mere coincidence, mere chance – or was it more than that? A pointer? Time to get out?

‘But holy shit!’ exclaimed Servinus, intruding upon his thoughts. ‘That means there could be another one!’

Van Veeteren opened his eyes. Servinus looked as if he were petrified. Suijderbeck was staring up at the ceiling. Kluuge was leaning back in his chair, apparently having concluded his summing-up of the circumstances thus far.

‘Exactly,’ said the chief inspector, clearing his throat. ‘There’s plenty to suggest that she’s in good company.’

‘Oh shit!’ said Suijderbeck.

‘And they’re still refusing to say anything, are they?’ asked Van Veeteren, snapping a toothpick.

Kluuge nodded.

‘Both the sisters and the youngsters. It’s presumably exactly as you said: they’ve had it drummed into them that this is some kind of test they’re being subjected to. In order to be accepted into the church, or into heaven, or wherever. They have to be strong and not cooperate with us, no matter what. Presumably they’ve been brainwashed good and proper, and they’ve been promised no end of rewards as long as they do as they’ve been told and say nothing.’

‘Eternal life, perhaps,’ suggested Servinus.

‘Us and them,’ said Suijderbeck.

Kluuge nodded again.

‘Something like that,’ said the chief inspector. ‘This is the crucial battle. The Pure Life versus the Other World.’

‘Eh?’ said Servinus.

Van Veeteren shrugged.

‘Well, they seem to live in the shadow of categories like that. The worst of their fads will fade away after a few days, I hope . . . Because there’s nothing to support them. But that’s only my assessment.’

‘So the chief inspector is suggesting that we should wait until they make a false move?’ wondered Kluuge.

Van Veeteren scratched his head and waited for a few seconds before answering.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘There might be the odd shit-stirrer among them. We can keep our eye on them and pick out the leader types. That Belle Moulder, for instance.’

Kluuge made a note. Servinus sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes.

‘Is it really such a good idea to keep them cooped up there?’ he asked. ‘Or even possible, come to that? The whole business will surely be in the newspapers this evening and tomorrow morning, so no doubt we’ll have the parents breathing down our necks before we know where we are . . . I gather there’s been something on the radio already?’

‘It is a problem,’ Kluuge admitted. ‘Although we’ve sorted out the practical side. So that they can stay there for a few more days at least. We’ve fixed food and that sort of thing.’

‘But they’re also a gang of wackos as well,’ said Servinus. ‘The parents, I mean.’

‘Wackos?’ Kluuge queried.

‘Sheep,’ Servinus explained. ‘They prefer bleating to thinking.’

‘For Christ’s sake, one of them has to start talking soon,’ said Suijderbeck, obviously annoyed. ‘They know that one of their friends has been murdered. Possibly two. Surely they’re bright enough to realize that . . . well . . .’

‘Well?’ the chief inspector prompted.

‘Oh shit,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘I’m so tired I’m beginning to see double. So you’re really saying that this Yellnek—’

‘Yellinek,’ said Kluuge.

‘That this Yellinek’s charisma is so damned strong that he can put a muzzle on his three mistresses and a dozen teenage girls while he slinks away from the crime scene, no problem at all, and scurries off out of harm’s way? Beyond belief, and that’s what I’ll think when I wake up as well!’

‘Hmm,’ said Kluuge. ‘I don’t know. But this seems to be a pretty peculiar sect, and we might just as well be clear about that before we go any further.’

‘All right,’ said Suijderbeck with a sigh. ‘Maybe you’re right. But what the hell should we do next?’

‘Hmm,’ said Kluuge again and checked his watch. ‘First of all we’d better cope with the press conference, and then I suppose we don’t have a lot of choice. Keep on questioning them until they crack, I guess. Both the girls and the ladies at Wolgershuus. Or till somebody cracks, in any case. What does the chief inspector think?’

Van Veeteren stood up and walked over to the window. Turned his back on the others and gazed out over the unsettled sky, swaying back and forth.

‘Well,’ he said eventually, ‘of course we should interrogate them while we’re waiting. But we mustn’t forget to ask ourselves what the hell has been going on out there. Or what we think has been going on, at least. I have my doubts, myself.’

‘What?’ said Kluuge. ‘What do you mean by that, Chief Inspector?’

But he didn’t receive a reply. The notorious detective inspector simply stood there, swaying back and forth on his heels, his hands clasped behind his back. Suijderbeck lit his fourth cigarette in the last half-hour, and Servinus had leaned back and fallen asleep with his mouth open wide.

Huh, Sergeant Kluuge thought. It’s not easy, being in charge of a murder investigation. It needs somebody who’s up to it, no doubt about that.

He had spent a lot of time and effort on his equipment, but evidently it wasn’t appropriate even so. Not in everybody’s eyes, that is.

‘Are you going to take all that stuff with you?’ asked the young man with a crew cut and sporting a buttercup-yellow tracksuit.

‘Naturally,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Is it a problem?’

‘No, of course not. But cushions and an umbrella . . . ?’

‘Parasol,’ insisted the chief inspector. ‘Protection from the sun. As you may have noticed, it looks like being another hot day. The cushions are for my back and my head – I happen to know how uncomfortable it is, sitting in a canoe, and I intend being away all day. Well, are you going to rent one to me, or aren’t you?’

‘Of course,’ said the youth, a becoming shade of red appearing to contrast with the buttercup yellow. ‘I beg your pardon. So, which one would you like? It’s thirty guilders per day, plus a hundred-guilder deposit.’

Van Veeteren took out his wallet and paid.

‘That one,’ he said, pointing at one of the red Canadian canoes lined up neatly beside the boathouse. ‘The wider it is, the better.’

The young man carried the canoe to the water without needing any assistance, then held on to it while the chief inspector loaded on board the cushions, his briefcase and the parasol. And then himself. For a nerve-racking second, before he flopped down onto the bottom of the boat, he thought it would capsize; but once he had settled down and adjusted the cushions behind his back, he smiled and nodded to the young man, who gave him a good push, sending the canoe gliding over the mirror-like water.

Not bad, he thought as he began paddling cautiously alongside the bank lined with alders. Not bad at all.

Heading east, that’s how he had planned it. Upstream out, downstream back. Mind you, in this early morning stillness the canoe was gliding along so effortlessly that he doubted if there was any current at all. Ah well, no doubt it would make itself felt when he came to some narrower stretches.

He paddled for a hundred strokes before checking his watch. A quarter to nine. Carpe diem! he thought. Dipped his hand into the cool water and rinsed his face. Took off his shirt and shoes, and set off again. Calmly and rhythmically. The temperature was still only about twenty degrees, at a guess; but there was no doubt – as he had explained to the buttercup-yellow youth – that it was going to be a hot day. Another one. But it would be hard to think of a more acceptable way of spending it, surely?

Poor Kluuge, he thought, in a moment of generosity and sympathy.

But if you are only a consultant, you may as well act like one.

In his briefcase he had – apart from newspapers and toothpicks – two bottles of mineral water, a bag of newly baked buns (from the bakery next door to Grimm’s) and a few tomatoes. That was all. No beer, no cigarettes.

It was intended to be that sort of day. One of those days when you get things done, and even so feel younger when you go to bed in the evening than you did when you got up in the morning. As somebody or other – presumably not Reinhart – had once put it.

It was also meant to be a day when, in peace and quiet – one might even say in splendid isolation – he would have an opportunity to put what had happened back there in Waldingen under the microscope.

Mainly that sort of day.

Weigh up the pros and cons, whatever they may be, and listen to the voice of his intuition – it hadn’t been very audible thus far, but then, if he counted Monday – when they had discovered Clarissa Heerenmacht’s dead body – as day number one, this was only the morning of day three. There again, if he started with his arrival in Sorbinowo, he would have to admit that nearly a week had passed by already.

So the chances of his coming up with something or other during his day on the dark waters should be rather more than mere pious hope. Might he be able to find a foothold, and clear his mind of irrelevant junk and prejudices?

Those were the thoughts passing through the chief inspector’s head as he paddled along the river. Left, right, left, right. He had to keep adjusting his course – he was finding it a bit hard to stick to the rhythm he’d learned many moons ago, but what the hell? This wasn’t a display.

It was only when he’d progressed quite a long way up the river, and was beginning to feel the strength of the current, that he felt able to divert the whole of his attention to the thoughts building up in his mind. To the case.

Clarissa Heerenmacht. Waldingen.

The Pure Life. The anonymous woman.