The Inspector and Silence

by Håkan Nesser

  She shuddered once again, but it didn’t seem to affect her adversely. The chief inspector realized that the border between her body and her mind was sealed off for the time being.

  ‘Yes, on the road. He turned up.’

  ‘Just after you had left Clarissa’s body by the aspen tree?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Yes. I saw . . . I saw that he understood. He said as much. What else could I do?’

  ‘How did you go about it?’

  ‘The spade,’ she said. ‘I hit him with the spade. I’m sorry . . . I had . . . It was . . .’

  But there was no follow-up. Instead, Reinhart appeared on the landing.

  ‘He’s not in his bed,’ he explained. ‘Where’s your son, Mrs Fingher?’

  She looked up in surprise.

  ‘I don’t understand . . .’

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  Mathias Fingher’s powerful bulk – in pale blue washed-out pyjamas – elbowed its way past Reinhart, with Jung in tow.

  ‘What the devil do you think—’

  ‘Sit down and shut up!’ said Van Veeteren, cutting him short. ‘We have come to arrest your son for the murder of two little girls, and your wife for the murder of Oscar Yellinek!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you claiming that you knew nothing about it?’ snapped Reinhart. ‘You are also under suspicion of complicity and withholding information.’

  For a moment it looked as if Mathias Fingher was about to faint. He swayed, but recovered his balance. Walked down the remaining stairs, looked round in confusion, and was then pushed down onto the striped sofa by Servinus.

  ‘What the hell . . . ?’ he stammered. ‘There must be . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mrs Fingher without looking at her husband. ‘It’s . . . There just wasn’t any other way.’

  ‘Go to hell!’ bellowed Reinhart. ‘What have you done with your son?’

  ‘Well?’ said the chief inspector.

  ‘He must be asleep . . .’ said Mrs Fingher. ‘Why . . . ?’

  ‘Are you saying you don’t know where he is?’

  ‘No, how . . .’

  It didn’t take Van Veeteren many seconds to realize that her surprise was genuine.

  ‘Jung and Servinus!’ he said. ‘Search the upstairs rooms! Lauremaa and Tolltse, take Mrs Fingher to the car!’

  ‘But . . .’ said Mathias Fingher.

  ‘Let her get dressed first.’

  The chief inspector shoved Servinus out of the way and sat down opposite Mr Fingher. Stared into his eyes from half a metre away.

  ‘Mr Fingher,’ he said. ‘It’s possible that you know nothing at all about any of this, in which case you’re in a goddamned awful situation. But the fact is that your son is a murderer and a rapist.’

  Fingher opened and closed his mouth several times, and once again looked as if he were about to lose consciousness. His face was drained of colour, and his hands were shaking on his knee.

  ‘We have to get him. Where is he?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘It . . . Yesterday evening.’

  ‘He was watching a film on the telly,’ interrupted Mrs Fingher. ‘We went to bed earlier.’

  ‘And why isn’t he in his bed now?’

  Mathias Fingher shook his enormous head.

  ‘He’s probably gone out,’ said Mrs Fingher and went to get dressed. Tolltse and Lauremaa followed close behind her. A few seconds of silence followed.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ burst out Mathias Fingher to break it. ‘Tell me you’re only joking! For Christ’s sake tell me you’re only joking!’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said the chief inspector.

  ‘The missing bike!’ said Reinhart. ‘The bastard has gone off on his bike!’

  The caravan was on its way back to base through the forest. In slightly different formation – the chief inspector, Reinhart and Jung in the first car. Tolltse, Lauremaa and Mrs Fingher in the second. Kluuge, Servinus and Mr Fingher in the third.

  ‘What should we do now?’ said Jung.

  ‘Issue a Wanted notice, of course!’ snorted Reinhart. ‘Get every damned police officer for miles around out of bed and set ’em on the bastard’s tail! On his bike!’

  Van Veeteren nodded.

  ‘Phone Suijderbeck immediately,’ he said. ‘It’s not five o’clock yet, but we can’t lose any more time. Yes, get that Wanted notice out in every single branch of the media that exists!’

  Reinhart followed the chief inspector’s instructions, then stepped on the gas.

  ‘I feel awful,’ he said. ‘Fucking hell, I hate every second of this! We’re up the creek without a paddle again.’

  Van Veeteren said nothing.

  ‘Do we have a picture?’ wondered Jung.

  ‘Hell’s bells,’ said Reinhart. ‘Of course we ought to . . .’

  ‘Przebuda,’ said Van Veeteren.

  ‘Eh?’ said Jung.

  ‘The local newspaper,’ the chief inspector explained. ‘They must have one. I’ll phone the editor and wake him up when we get to the station.’

  Reinhart cleared his throat.

  ‘Do you think . . . ?’ he began. ‘I mean, do you think he’s at it again?’

  ‘What do you think?’ said Van Veeteren.

  For the rest of the journey all three of them remained immersed in their own silence.

  38

  Van Veeteren carried the tray in himself and placed it in front of Mirjan Fingher.

  Tea. Juice. Sandwiches with cheese and cold sausage. He stepped back to close the door, then sat down on the other bunk.

  ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘I have a few questions. I take it for granted that you will cooperate – there’s no point in making things even more difficult for yourself.’

  She nodded and took a sip of tea. He watched her closely. Her powerfully built body seemed to have shrunk during the journey to Sorbinowo. It was noticeably smaller. As if her outer features were being eaten up from inside, he thought.

  ‘Where do you think he is?’

  She tried to shrug, but it remained no more than an attempt.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Her voice was on the very edge of breaking down.

  ‘We must catch him before he does it again,’ said the chief inspector. ‘The way we look at it there’s quite a big risk that he’s gone off for that very reason. Or do you have any other suggestion?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No.’

  ‘He surely can’t have known that we were on our way?’

  ‘No . . . No, certainly not. I think . . .’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I think it could well be like you say.’

  Not much more than a whisper. How much longer can she keep going? he asked himself. We must make sure she holds herself together.

  ‘Have a sandwich,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if we can sort this out now.’

  She looked at him. Stroked back a wisp of her pale brown hair and straightened her back slightly. Took another sip of tea but didn’t touch anything else.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s probably it. A longer time has passed than between the other two.’

  Van Veeteren nodded and changed his toothpick for a new one.

  ‘How much did you know about it?’

  ‘A fair amount.’

  ‘Were you the one who phoned?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you know when he’d done it?’

  ‘I could tell by looking at him. I’m his mother, after all.’

  ‘Why did you make that call?’

  ‘To put a stop to it.’

  ‘Make sure the girls moved out?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘You found the bodies and then moved them so that we would find them?’

  ‘Only one of them.’

  ‘You didn’t find the first one?’

  �
�Not to start with, no. But . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I thought . . . No, I don’t know what I thought. I daren’t go after the first one, but then I was forced . . . Yes.’

  He hesitated for a moment. Saw that she was starting to tremble now. Her hands were shaking, her face twitching.

  ‘His daughter?’ he said eventually.

  ‘Yes.’ She cleared her throat and braced herself. ‘She . . . My daughter-in-law told me about it when they divorced. It was . . . Well, I refused to believe her of course, but I understood eventually. If it’s possible to understand. I thought it was all over and done with, you have to believe that. Nothing had happened all those years since he moved back home. Not until that sect, those damned young girls . . .’

  ‘Last summer?’ asked the chief inspector.

  She shook her head.

  ‘No. Wim was working in Groenstadt for a few months then. For my brother. He has a market garden. I found some magazines he’d hidden away, and so . . .’

  She dried up.

  ‘I understand,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘But let’s get back to the most important thing. Where do you think he is right now? You must try and help us with this.’

  She gazed out of the window and appeared to be thinking.

  ‘In the forest,’ she said in due course. ‘That’s where he feels safe, as it were, he might well be there – oh God!’

  She suddenly seemed to fall to pieces. She flung herself down onto the floor on her knees next to the bunk, wrapped her arms around her head and began swaying from side to side.

  ‘Help him, please! Please help him!’

  Van Veeteren stooped down and stroked her back rather awkwardly. Then he opened the door and shouted for Inspector Tolltse.

  No, he thought. I can’t take any more of this.

  ‘We haven’t forgotten anything, I hope?’ said Reinhart.

  ‘The Wanted messages are all seen to,’ said Kluuge.

  ‘All over the country!’ snorted Suijderbeck ‘This is where the bastard’s lying in wait. He’s riding a bike, have you forgotten that?’

  ‘We have twenty-five officers in place here,’ continued Kluuge, not to be deterred. ‘And twenty more on their way. Two helicopters have already scrambled.’

  ‘And the summer camps warned,’ said Lauremaa.

  ‘How many of those are there?’ wondered Jung.

  ‘Far too many,’ said Kluuge with a sigh. ‘At the moment we have between three and four hundred girls of about the right age in various camps.’

  ‘Good God!’ said Reinhart.

  ‘But they’ve been given strict instructions,’ said Lauremaa.

  ‘That’s no guarantee,’ said Servinus.

  ‘No,’ said Reinhart. ‘There are never any guarantees in our line of business, dammit.’

  Inspector Lauremaa stood up in irritation and walked over to the window.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘if he turns up on the streets of this town, he’s had it. Every man jack will recognize him. We’ll catch him all right, it’s just a matter of time.’

  ‘There’s something else that’s just a matter of time,’ said Reinhart.

  ‘I know,’ said Lauremaa. ‘I don’t need reminding.’

  The door opened and Van Veeteren came in, a toothpick sticking out of each side of his mouth. He flopped down onto Lauremaa’s empty chair and looked around.

  ‘The forest,’ he said. ‘His mother thinks he’s in the forest.’

  Nobody spoke for a few seconds.

  ‘Okay,’ said Suijderbeck ‘That sounds plausible. We can tell the helicopters to do a sweep over the forest. Around the lake first and foremost, that’s probably where he thinks he’ll get a bite.’

  ‘Most probably,’ said Jung. ‘What kind of communications set-up do we have access to?’

  ‘The cars parked outside,’ said Suijderbeck, pointing. ‘Servinus and I will see to that right away. What are the twenty-five officers who’ve already arrived doing?’

  ‘Waiting for orders,’ said Kluuge.

  ‘Right, out into the forest with them,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘Long lines of them scouring the other side of the lake, or what do you think?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kluuge. ‘That’s probably the best plan.’

  ‘Oh hell!’ said Jung. ‘Do you know what? Something’s just occurred to me. I saw a guy with a bike when we were driving to Waldingen. Last night, that is. He was having a pee against a tree trunk, his bicycle on the ground beside him. I only saw his back, but it could well have been him . . .’

  ‘Oh my God!’ groaned Reinhart. ‘And they’ve made you an inspector?’

  Jung shook his head and muttered something.

  ‘Weren’t you driving along the same road as well?’ asked Van Veeteren.

  ‘Enough of that,’ said Lauremaa. ‘If it was him, at least it shows that we’re searching in the right place.’

  ‘It’s a quarter to eight,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘Let’s get out there and catch this bastard!’

  He woke up and looked at his watch.

  Five minutes to eight.

  He’d managed to snatch a few hours’ sleep. It felt good, and he’d needed it.

  Not a bad place either. Protected and warmed up by the sun. He could just see the lake beyond the fir trees, and in the distance he could hear the voices of young girls playing away merrily. Presumably he’d been able to hear them while he was asleep – his insides were in tumult already, and his erection was as hard as his baton.

  He realized he was holding the baton in his hand. Gave a laugh, took hold of his own with his other hand and compared them.

  A blonde, he thought. Ten points for a blonde.

  But anything else would also be okay, of course.

  He raised himself up on his elbows and gazed down the slope towards the water.

  ‘I lost it yesterday,’ explained Helene Klausner. ‘When we were up there.’

  She pointed into the trees.

  ‘It must be still there. Are you coming with me?’

  Ruth Najda shook her head.

  ‘It’s breakfast in ten minutes. And they told us not to go anywhere. Something’s happened. They’re having a meeting now.’

  ‘It’ll only take five minutes.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘You can borrow my diving mask.’

  ‘I’ve already said, I don’t want to.’

  ‘Will you wait here then while I go and look myself?’

  Ruth Najda clambered down from the rock.

  ‘I think we should go to the dining room now. The rest are there already. You can fetch it later. It’s only a hairslide, for goodness sake!’

  Helene Klausner shook her long, fair hair.

  ‘Maybe, but I need it now. I’m going anyway. Will you wait for me?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Ruth Najda with a sigh. ‘But you’d better hurry up. I’m hungry.’

  ‘Five minutes!’ shouted Helene as she hurried into the trees.

  39

  Jung settled down behind Suijderbeck and Servinus in the radio patrol car. Felt how exhaustion was slowly taking possession of him as he stared at the red digital figures, slowly ticking out the ponderous minutes of morning.

  08.16

  08.17

  How many more minutes? he thought. Before something happens. A hundred? A thousand?

  Was there really anything to suggest that Wim Fingher really was still here in Sorbinowo? And not somewhere else? Anywhere else in the world?

  If he’d happened to hear the radio for just one minute that morning, he must have known that they were on his trail. That he was a hunted quarry – and even if he was a mad murderer, he must have had enough sense to get the hell out of there.

  By bike or on foot.

  Through the forests.

  Surely even a lunatic like him must have a certain kind of logic?

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘Hmm, I’m damned if I know,’ said Servinus. ‘What do y
ou think?’

  ‘Hard to say. Obviously it would be most convenient if—’

  ‘Shut up!’ roared Suijderbeck, adjusting his earphones. ‘What did you say? . . . Okay! . . . Good! . . . Where exactly? . . . After the bridge? Which fucking bridge? . . . Yes, I understand. I’ll inform the others. Over and out.’

  ‘Ha!’ he said as he slid down his earphones so that they hung round his neck. ‘They’ve found his bike. The bastard can’t be far away now!’

  ‘Where?’ said Jung.

  ‘The main road where the bridge crosses over between the lakes. Just on the other side.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Jung. ‘I’m on my way there, to help out.’

  ‘What the hell . . . ?’ said Reinhart, adjusting the focus.

  ‘What have you seen?’ asked the chief inspector.

  He eased back the throttle and the engine spluttered to a halt.

  ‘There’s a young girl sitting all by herself on a rock on the other side over there. Look!’

  Reinhart handed over his binoculars and pointed at the bathing beach. Van Veeteren scanned the water and the forest several times before he found the right spot.

  ‘My God, yes . . .’ he said. ‘There’s a summer camp round about there, I’m pretty sure.’

  ‘Start the engine again,’ said Reinhart. ‘She can’t sit there, for Christ’s sake!’

  After several failed attempts, Van Veeteren eventually coaxed the outboard motor back to life and they headed straight across the lake. Reinhart was crouching in the bows with the binoculars, Van Veeteren in the stern, huddled up in an attempt to avoid the worst of the wind and the spray.

  I prefer canoes, the chief inspector thought. God knows how much I prefer them. But I haven’t escaped from this treadmill yet, of course.

  ‘Hi there,’ said the man, standing up.

  She paused. Brushed her long hair from out of her eyes and squinted at him.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘What are you doing here yourself?’

  He burst out laughing.

  ‘I like people like you,’ he said. ‘I’m not doing anything special. Just looking for mushrooms – if there are any yet.’

  ‘Oh, there are,’ she said. ‘We picked a whole bagful the other day. But we had to throw most of them away. Our teachers said they weren’t edible, but I think they only said that because they couldn’t be bothered to trim and clean them. Why haven’t you got anything to put your mushrooms in? What’s that thing?’