The Inspector and Silence ivv-5

by Håkan Nesser

  ‘A car?’

  ‘Yes, they had a car out there, an old Vauxhall, registered in the name of Madeleine Zander. Yellinek doesn’t even have a driving licence.’

  ‘But it was still there next morning?’

  ‘Yes. Parked in the same place as usual. She – or one of the others – might have driven him somewhere during the night, but we have no proof or confirmation.’

  ‘How else would he have been able to get away?’

  Van Veeteren shrugged.

  ‘The devil only knows. So it’s certainly most likely that he disappeared with the help of that car, but where does that get us?’

  ‘What about neighbours out there?’ Przebuda wondered.

  ‘The Finghers in one direction,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘They had a bit of contact with the campers. And there’s a couple by the name of Kuijpers a bit deeper into the forest. There was somebody at home in both places that night, but nobody heard a car. But that doesn’t mean a thing, of course. The probability is that Yellinek’s hidden away in the home of one of his church members somewhere, but there are getting on for a thousand of them, so we need considerable resources if we’re going to make a serious search. Obviously the police in Stamberg are pouncing on as many of them as they can find, but they don’t seem to be making any headway. And of course it’s holiday time. And on top of that is the refusal to cooperate.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Przebuda, wafting away a cloud of gnats. ‘Things aren’t exactly stacked in your favour.’

  They continued in silence for a few minutes.

  ‘Why?’ said the editor eventually, having followed his own train of thought to the next halt. ‘Why did he run away if he’s innocent? Doesn’t that suggest he’s the culprit?’

  ‘That’s very possible,’ said the chief inspector. ‘Although he had good reason to go under cover in any case. He’s been in trouble with the police before, and if girls suddenly start disappearing from his camp he’s bright enough to realize that he’s on the spot. It’s obviously disgraceful of him to run away like that, but by no means beyond comprehension. We must never lose sight of the fact that we’re dealing with an arsehole. A king-size arsehole.’

  ‘So you’re saying there’s a logical explanation, are you?’

  ‘Without a doubt,’ said the chief inspector. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, and I reckon it would have been odder if he’d stayed around. Especially in view of this other girl that’s missing – remember this is just between me and you: you’re the only editor in the whole country who knows about that – and even more so when you take into account what a shit that Yellinek is.’

  ‘I see,’ said Przebuda. ‘Although I don’t really get what the implications are. There’s nothing to link Yellinek and his hangers-on directly with these terrible happenings, is there?’

  ‘No,’ said Van Veeteren with a sigh. ‘No very strong link at least. As far as I can see it’s possible we’re dealing with some anonymous lunatic wandering about in the forest.’

  ‘With no link to the Pure Life?’

  ‘No link at all.’

  ‘Well I’ll be damned!’ said Przebuda.

  ‘But on the other hand, it’s just as likely that they are the ones responsible.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Przebuda. ‘One or other of them.’

  He paused to light his pipe, then he and the chief inspector immersed themselves in private thoughts as they strolled, at a very gentle pace, side by side along what was in fact the home straight of Sergeant Kluuge’s jogging track. But not even the editor was aware of that geographical fact.

  ‘Ah well,’ said Przebuda as they approached the built-up area again. ‘Whichever way you look at it, it’s a very nasty business. I hope you can sort it out. But I must admit that I’ve got nothing much to contribute, I’m afraid… Anyway, I think we’re coming to a parting of the ways. That’s Grimm’s down there, as you can see – but if ever you need a Dr Watson again, my tiny brain is at your disposal.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Two tiny brains are better than one, I suppose.’

  They said goodbye, but before Andrej Przebuda had climbed even five of the steps up to Kleinmarckt, he paused.

  ‘Do you think you’re going to solve this case?’ he asked. ‘Do you usually solve your cases?’

  ‘Most of them,’ said Van Veeteren.

  ‘But you have some unsolved cases, do you?’

  ‘One,’ admitted the chief inspector. ‘But let’s not go into that. Every new day brings enough problems, as I’ve said before.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ said Przebuda, and Van Veeteren thought he could hear his friend smiling in the darkness. ‘Goodnight, Chief Inspector. May the angels sing you to sleep.’

  No, Van Veeteren thought grimly when Przebuda had disappeared. Let’s not start thinking about the G file as well. We’ve got enough on our hands without that.

  By the time he strode through the milk-white glass doors of Grimm’s Hotel, his dejection had caught up with him.

  We ought to have talked about other things, he thought. We ought to have focused on something else.

  Katarina Schwartz, for instance. Or Ewa Siguera. Or potential violent criminals in the area. I’m damned sure he’d have been able to come up with something useful if we’d done that!

  But perhaps his self-criticism was unfair. In any case, the disappearance of the Schwartz girl was still something they’d managed to keep away from the journalists – after nearly a week under the spotlights. That was probably due more to good luck than good management; and besides, one might ask if there was any point in keeping it secret. Perhaps, perhaps not.

  And they hadn’t heard a word from the French police.

  Becalmed, the chief inspector thought (although he had only been in a sailing boat twice in the whole of his life – both times together with Renate). For the whole of that Saturday in Sorbinowo there had hardly been a breath of wind, and the case had not moved forward even a fraction of an inch.

  Becalmed.

  He recalled the potentially meaningful silence up at Wolgershuus the previous day, and realized that there was more to coming to an end and dying than people generally imagined.

  Madeleine Zander and Ulriche Fischer! he then thought with a feeling of disgust as he stood at the reception desk, waiting for his key. Were things really so bad that he would have to tackle them as well?

  When the night porter eventually appeared, it transpired that there was another woman’s name to frustrate him.

  Albeit in a slightly different way.

  Reinhart had left a message for him. It was short and sweet: There’s no damned Ewa Siguera anywhere in this country. Shall I continue with the rest of the world?

  Van Veeteren’s reply was more or less just as stringent: Europe will be enough. Many thanks in advance.

  Ah well, he thought when he had eventually gone to bed, I suppose I might just as well carry on as planned, no matter what.

  25

  The second of the victims of the sect murderer – as several newspapers would call the person concerned – was discovered at about six on Sunday morning by a sixteen-year-old boy scout and a fifteen-year-old girl guide who were part of a biggish group on a hike in the forests north-west of Sorbinowo. At the pair’s urgent request, no attempt was made to find out what they were doing some three kilometres away from their tents at that time in the morning, but Chief of Police Kluuge – who was once again the first on the scene – naturally had his suspicions.

  The body of the young girl was under a pile of brushwood and dry twigs about twenty metres from the narrow road from Waldingen to Limbuis and Sorbinowo, and the distance to the nearest of the summer camp buildings was no more than a hundred and sixty metres or so. The distance between where the two bodies had been discovered was measured later and found to be about three times that, and perhaps one could reasonably have expected that the police team that had spent two days searching the area after the first murder would have foun
d the body; and perhaps also – Kluuge thought a propos of nothing in particular – the unusually pale colour of the girl guide’s face might have had to do with the fact that she found it hard to forget what she had been doing next to, and even hidden behind, the pile of twigs in question.

  In any case, that was the conclusion he drew as the three of them sat on a stack of logs watching the sun rise over the trees to usher in a new day, waiting for the medical team and the crime scene officers to arrive – and he was also aware that these irrelevant speculations only came into his head as a way of keeping his thoughts under control.

  When he compared the Katarina Schwartz who had spent almost two weeks in the form of a dead body, reduced to a mass of chemical processes, with the photograph of a smiling young girl with blonde plaits he had in his wallet, there was no doubt that his thoughts needed all the distractions they could possibly get.

  I’ve grown old, he thought. Even though it’s no more than a week since I grew up.

  The first report from more or less all the experts at the scene was ready by shortly after one p.m. and confirmed that the dead child was Katarina Emilie Schwartz, thirteen years old, resident in Stamberg. She had been raped (no trace of sperm) and strangled, suffered pretty much the same type of injuries as the other victim, Clarissa Heerenmacht, and had probably met her killer somewhere between twelve and sixteen days earlier. No clothes – nor indeed any trace of clothes – had been found at or in the vicinity of the place where the body was discovered, and it was considered to be highly likely that the girl had been killed at some other location. The press communique issued later in the afternoon contained all known details of the tragic discovery – apart from the fact that the police had known about the girl’s disappearance for quite a while.

  At the same time the police issued two Wanted notices.

  One was a repeat of the appeal for information about Oscar Yellinek.

  The other was new and aimed at tracing the girl’s parents.

  By coincidence, a little later that same afternoon a fax arrived from the French police: Mr and Mrs Schwartz had been traced to a so-called gite on a farm in Brittany. Before the sun had set over Sorbinowo that long Sunday, the unfortunate couple had set off on the journey home in order to be confronted as soon as possible by the earthly remains of their daughter.

  And when old Mrs Grimm – the hotel’s owner who was at bottom indifferent to anything not connected with royalty or Bohemian porcelain – checked through the hotel ledger even later that evening, she found that not only was every room taken, but that the number of guests who had given their occupation as ‘journalist’ or something similar was strikingly large.

  As for Mr Van Veeteren (watchmaker and horologist), who had been staying in room number 22 for the last ten days, by midnight he still hadn’t returned from the excursion he had set out on that morning.

  But as he seemed to have left most of his belongings in his room, she was not particularly worried that he might have run off with no intention of returning to pay his bill.

  After all, he had given the impression of being an honest man, on the whole.

  FIVE

  28-31 JULY

  26

  For the first fifteen kilometres or so he felt almost like a successful fugitive.

  Only very slightly guilty. A bit like when he was at school, he recalled, on one of those early summer days when he skipped French or Physics and instead cycled with a like-minded friend down to the canal to watch some girls swimming. Or rode out to Oudenzee to lie back on the beach and do some surreptitious smoking.

  Playing truant, in other words. There was no doubt he had left Kluuge and the others in the lurch. And hence there was no doubt either that Krantze’s was quite a satisfactory alternative, all things considered.

  Nevertheless, it was rather remarkable that he was able to keep the whole business at a distance. That’s how it felt, at least, as he sat behind the wheel in the sparse morning traffic. Servinus had informed him about the new discovery by telephone at about eight o’clock. The body of the second little girl. After overcoming his initial feelings of disgust and repugnance, he had spoken in turn to Kluuge, Lauremaa and Suijderbeck several times during the course of the morning, but he had not cancelled his plans.

  He hadn’t driven out to Waldingen to see the circumstances for himself, and didn’t feel guilty about that – or only very slightly so, as already stated. But he had been aware of a feeling of weariness swelling inside him, and it was essential to keep that at bay – that bank of clouds spreading across the landscape of his soul and casting over it a shadow of death, the dark skies of tiredness and loathing. .. and once again he was struck by this attack of poetic eloquence. He had known that this was going to happen, of course. He’d been waiting for this selfsame discovery all these days, and now confirmation had arrived.

  So perhaps this eagerness to keep things at a distance was no more than a defence against impotence, when all was said and done. Prepared in advance and defendable, in a way. After all, he wasn’t a young beginner any more. He’d been through this kind of thing before.

  Rather too often.

  ‘I have a few possible leads,’ he had explained. ‘Probably nothing of importance, but I think it’s best if I follow them up. You can manage on your own. I mean, this is what we’ve been expecting, isn’t it?’

  Kluuge hadn’t dared to protest. He’d indicated that further reinforcements were being sent, and hoped that the chief inspector would soon be back.

  ‘We shall see,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘If I find I’m not getting anywhere, I might even be back by this evening.’

  That was a blatant lie, of course. He was intending to spend at least two nights in Stamberg, and it was only for the sake of appearances that he hadn’t checked out of Grimm’s altogether.

  Still, rather a bill for four nights instead of two – something bound to raise an eyebrow in the accounts department – than having to cope with the sight of another abused little girl.

  Or having to explain why he couldn’t face up to that prospect. That was simply the way it was. His decision was not negotiable.

  And now, as he analysed and contemplated these thoughts and decisions in more detail – as the kilometres rolled past and Boccherini oozed out of the speakers – he was a bit surprised: but it was surprise tinged with resigned weariness. Even these thoughts were affected. Nothing to get excited about, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  I’ve had enough, he thought. I don’t want to stand gaping at yet another dead thirteen-year-old. I’ve reached a full stop, at last. Everything is clear now, I’ve caught up with myself.

  The decision is made.

  He stopped about halfway – after eighty kilometres or more – at a service area not far from Aarlach. Clouds had been building up all morning, quite a strong north-westerly wind was blowing over the open fields, and his guess was that it would be raining before nightfall. Nevertheless, he sat down at one of the outside tables with a cup of coffee, a bottle of mineral water and the early editions of the evening newspapers. Both Den Poost and Neuwe Gazett.

  There was nothing there about the second murder in Waldingen, not yet; but needless to say, it wouldn’t be long before he was confronted by the headlines. It wasn’t all that hard to work out the likely wording. Nor was it difficult to imagine the tension to which the investigation team was subjected.

  Nor the hunger of the hordes of reporters who were at this very moment flocking to the Sorbinowo forests in order to sink their teeth into the fresh corpse of another little girl.

  Well, no – not all that fresh. It would be a couple of weeks old by now.

  That hardly made the situation any better.

  He shuddered in disgust, and drained the bottle of mineral water.

  Then he lit a cigarette and tried instead to concentrate on what lay in store for him in Stamberg. Enough of all those thoughts about running away.

  His discussions with Inspector Puttemans t
ook about an hour, and all the time he sat watching the progress of raindrops trickling slowly down the uneven surface of the windowpanes. He wasn’t sure why, but there was something about those thin, irregular trickles that appealed to him, and that he was unwilling to lose contact with. He didn’t want to miss the moment when one of all those raindrops suddenly felt that enough was enough, and decided to trickle upwards instead. Yes, something of the sort was no doubt what fascinated him. Something to do with rebellion and spiritual affinity.

  Or possibly with the first stages of Alzheimer’s, he was suddenly horrified to think.

  When the discussion was over they shook hands. Puttemans went home to his family and the roast duck that awaited him, as it did every Sunday. Van Veeteren had declined in friendly but firm fashion the offer to partake of the meal – instead he stayed at the police station for a while and telephoned several of the people whose names his colleague had presented him with. He arranged to meet them the following day, and when he hung up after the last of the calls, he saw that it was still raining.

  And that the drops were still trickling downwards.

  He remained at the station for another twenty minutes, reading through the notes he’d made on the conversation with Puttemans. He smoked another cigarette, whereupon it stopped raining. He left the police station and wandered aimlessly around the centre of town for a few minutes. Changed his mind and left a couple of bars without actually entering them, on the grounds that they looked as uninspiring as his motive for entering them in the first place. But shortly after five o’clock he found a hotel that corresponded more or less to the calibre he’d been looking for.

  Glossman’s, it was called. Off the beaten track. Small. At least fifty years old.