by Håkan Nesser
Oh yes, it was one hell of a Wednesday.
At about six in the evening the hard-pressed investigation team decided to leave Waldingen in the hands of the sentries provided by the Oostwerdingen force, plus any reporters still hanging around, and every other Tom, Dick and Harry with no home to go to. Any clues they had found were fully documented. Any leads had been followed up, interviews had taken place with families living nearby (Finghers and Kuijpers) – the first round, at least – and the earthly remains of pastor Yellinek had been placed in a body bag and transported to Sorbinowo as a part of the caravan which they themselves also joined. On Reinhart’s advice, Kluuge had announced a rest period of two hours before convening once more for continued and intensified discussions – a decision that was received with restrained acclaim.
Reinhart retired to his hotel room during the truce. Jung dined with Suijderbeck and Servinus at Florian’s, while Tolltse and Lauremaa were rumoured to have collected a packed meal and gone swimming in the lake.
As for the acting chief of police, he drove back home to his Deborah, declared that he loved her, and that he intended to start studying in order to transfer to an entirely different profession as soon as he had the time. Firefighter, monk, any damned thing but a police officer.
When Reinhart spoke to the receptionist at Glossman’s hotel in Stamberg for the third time – and was given the same negative report with regard to Mr Van Veeteren (a travelling salesman specializing in woodwind instruments and libretti) – he gave up and called Winnifred Lynch instead. They spoke for twenty minutes about love, obstetrics, attractive names for children, and whether or not it was advisable to drink red wine during pregnancy. When he replaced the receiver, he experienced two seconds of utter oblivion, during which he had no idea where he was.
Or why.
But then he remembered.
‘Okay now I’m going to sum up where we’ve got to,’ said Suijderbeck ‘Sorry but I don’t have the strength to listen to anybody else. And don’t try to correct me if I say anything wrong.’
‘We’re all as deaf as a post,’ said Reinhart, but Suijderbeck took no notice.
‘Oscar Augustinus Yellinek has been lying dead out at Waldingen for about ten days. There is nothing to suggest that he didn’t die that same Sunday evening when all the other things happened – 21 July, in other words. Why he should have first run away and hidden himself, and then come back to get murdered – well, I don’t understand why he should do that. Mind you, I have to admit that there are a lot of things in this messy business that I don’t understand.’
‘You’re in good company there,’ said Lauremaa.
‘Unlike the dead girls,’ Suijderbeck continued, ‘Pastor Yellinek displays no signs of having been raped, to borrow Servinus’s elegantly worded statement on the television.’
‘Kiss my arse,’ said Servinus.
‘Another difference from the girls is that he was killed by blows to the head. What does the latest missive from the post-mortem say?’
Kluuge fished it out.
‘“Several violent blows with a sharp instrument”,’ he quoted. ‘It still hasn’t been established what that can have been. Something pretty heavy with sharp edges. Or a sharp edge, perhaps.’
‘How many blows?’ asked Jung.
‘More than necessary,’ said Reinhart. ‘Ten or eleven. Presumably the killer carried on hitting him for a while after Yellinek was already dead. He might have finished him off with the first blow, but wanted to make sure.’
‘Not a very professional job, in other words,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘It seems he panicked. Anyway, if we believe what the experts tell us, there were several blows to the chest and shoulders as well. He was evidently a bit desperate.’
‘And no resistance,’ said Jung.
‘Apparently not,’ said Servinus. ‘But it’ll be another three days before the analysis is finished.’
‘What are they looking for?’ asked Kluuge. ‘Fragments under the fingernails and so on?’
‘Yes,’ said Reinhart. ‘And strands of hair and dandruff and fingerprints.’
‘After ten days?’ wondered Tolltse. ‘Is there any point?’
‘It’s almost impossible to get rid of dandruff,’ said Jung, scratching his head.
‘And we had that pouring rain of course,’ said Kluuge. ‘Whenever that was…’
‘Now I’ll take over again,’ said Suijderbeck ‘He probably wasn’t killed at the spot where he was found either, our pastor friend. But this time the murderer was probably trying to hide the body. It was a bloody good piece of luck that the pooches found him. A big pile of twigs and pine needles, we saw that with our own eyes. But it ought to have been possible to hide him more efficiently.’
‘If there was time,’ Servinus pointed out.
‘Time, yes,’ said Suijderbeck, looking thoughtful.
‘Wasn’t Miss Miller supposed to fix coffee and sandwiches?’ wondered Reinhart, fiddling restlessly with his pipe and tobacco pouch.
‘She’ll be serving them up at ten o’clock,’ Kluuge promised. Half an hour to go. ‘Anyway anything else? What do you think?’
Suijderbeck seemed to have got tired of summing up. Instead he stood up and began wandering around the room.
‘My artificial leg is itching,’ he explained. ‘This always happens when my brain stops working.’
‘What about the Kuijpers?’ said Servinus. ‘They seem a pretty odd couple, don’t you think?’
‘I’ve seen odder,’ said Tolltse. ‘I don’t think the Finghers seem much better.’
Nobody spoke for a few seconds.
‘You don’t think they are involved somehow, do you?’ asked Lauremaa, frowning.
Suijderbeck paused.
‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘But then, whichever way you look at it, somebody must have done it.’
‘Good thinking,’ said Lauremaa.
‘Can’t anybody draw any other… any sensible conclusions?’ Tolltse wondered, looking round the table. ‘Because if not, I shall.’
‘Please do,’ said Reinhart, lighting his pipe.
‘It wasn’t Yellinek who murdered the girls,’ said Tolltse.
‘Really?’ said Jung. ‘Are you sure of that? He presumably didn’t kill himself, I can grant you that, but as I understand it he could still have murdered the girls.’
Tolltse thought for a moment.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I take it back. But who killed him, then? Isn’t that what we’re trying to discover?’
‘Good question,’ said Servinus. ‘How do you women do it?’
Reinhart blew a diversionary cloud of smoke over the battlefield.
‘I don’t know who killed Yellinek,’ he said. ‘But what I do know is that it’s time to present him to his fancy women at Wolgershuus. The fact that he’s dead, I mean. The sooner, the better. If we don’t have anything more sensible to do, I suggest we attend to that detail right away.’
Kluuge looked around for signs of any views on that proposal, but when he didn’t detect any, he cleared his throat and made up his mind on the hoof.
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘Let’s do that. Reinhart and Jung can drive out there, that should be enough. It might be best to take them one at a time, or what do you think?’
‘What else could we do, for Christ’s sake?’ snorted Reinhart. ‘We’ll wait for a bit before showing them the actual corpse. It should be sufficient to show them a video of the news and a few newspapers – in case they don’t believe us.’
‘Do we have any video recordings of new bulletins?’ asked Jung.
Kluuge shook his head and looked worried.
‘It could be arranged, but it would take some time, I assume.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Reinhart. ‘A radio will do – they’re broadcasting news bulletins eight times an hour. We’ll be able to convince them that the Prince of Light is dead.’
‘The Prince of Light,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘Fucking hell!’
‘
Hang on a minute,’ said Servinus. ‘Can we be sure that they don’t know about it already?’
‘They’re isolated,’ said Kluuge. ‘I phoned Schenck and gave him strict orders before we set off this morning.’
‘Good,’ said Reinhart.
‘Who’s Schenck?’ said Servinus.
‘He relieves Matthorst now and then. It’s necessary – Matthorst says he’s beginning to feel peculiar.’
‘I can well believe it,’ said Tolltse. ‘He’s been hanging around up there for as long as the women.’
‘There are some people who’ve been in there for fifteen years,’ Suijderbeck pointed out.
‘Anyway,’ said Lauremaa, ‘I reckon that if those three ladies know anything about Yellinek’s death, it means that they’ve known all along. Right?’
‘Correct,’ said Reinhart. ‘That would put the cat among the pigeons. Come on, Jung, let’s get going.’
‘Leave a few sandwiches for us,’ said Jung, getting to his feet.
‘Has anybody heard anything from the chief inspector?’ wondered Lauremaa when Reinhart and Jung had left.
‘Not a dicky bird,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘I have to say he made a good impression on me, but now he seems to be like any old deserter. What the hell’s he up to?’
‘Hmm, I don’t know,’ sighed Kluuge. ‘Let’s try to make some headway even so. It would be good if we could make a bit of a better impression at tomorrow’s press conference.’
‘I’m going to give it a miss,’ said Suijderbeck.
‘I’d thought of suggesting that you should,’ said Lauremaa, and smiled for the first time all day.
35
Van Veeteren met Marie-Louise Schwartz in a terraced house in the southernmost suburb of Stamberg. The visit lasted for an hour, and fifty of those sixty minutes were spent slumped in a cretonne armchair, observing his weeping hostess in the cretonne armchair opposite.
She occasionally managed to pull herself together to some extent, but as soon as he asked her a question, she started crying again. Eventually he tired of even making an effort; simply sat there and let her despair speak for itself.
Perhaps there was a sort of point in doing that, he thought; and when he stood up to leave she grasped hold of both his hands and looked at him with tear-stained eyes. As if he had really achieved something – exhibited great warmth and fellow-feeling, or whatever it was she had been looking for. Maybe she hadn’t even realized that he was a police officer. In any case she succeeded in explaining that she was very grateful for his visit, and she would now go upstairs to the bedroom and look after her husband, who was finding it difficult to handle his sorrow.
Oh my God, Van Veeteren thought.
He took his leave, got into his car and drove around aimlessly for half an hour, accompanied by Pergolesi and Handel. When he parked again behind Glossman’s in order to collect his case, he happened to switch on the car radio and heard that Oscar Yellinek had been found murdered in Waldingen.
For a brief moment he didn’t know if he was dreaming or awake.
Then he realized that it didn’t matter which.
His next meeting was fixed for seven o’clock that evening (appointments had to be attended, children needed to be collected, a piano tuner needed to be told what to do), and so he spent the whole of the afternoon sitting in various cafes, leafing through Klimke, and listening to radio and television broadcasts. Eventually the first of the evening newspapers turned up, and as usual they didn’t improve matters.
He called the police station in Sorbinowo several times, but all Miss Miller could tell him was that the others were out in the forest, and he didn’t leave a message.
After all, he had nothing to tell them.
Apart from a suspicion that had not yet been confirmed.
And which didn’t fit in specially well with the latest development. The murder of Oscar Yellinek. Or did it?
Might as well leave them in peace to get on with their work, he thought.
Might as well keep out of the way and let others take over. Wasn’t that what he’d already decided he was going to do?
She was sitting waiting for him in the cafe they’d agreed on, and he wondered again why she had preferred to meet him here rather than in her own home.
To protect her privacy? he thought as he sat down opposite her. To keep something sacrosanct despite everything? That would be perfectly understandable.
He introduced himself, and she reached out a hand over the table to greet him, somewhat nervously.
‘So, here we are,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get away earlier. A lot has happened today.’
He nodded and dug out a toothpick. The thought suddenly struck him: I’m right. I can see it in her appearance and behaviour. How the devil could I have known that?
‘You understand what I want to talk to you about, I take it?’
He was taking a big risk, but he’d decided on that opening gambit. There weren’t really any other possibilities. No alternative moves.
She hesitated for a moment.
‘I think so.’
He could see that there was no point in rushing her. It was more important to give her plenty of time, and let things come out in whatever order seemed most natural to her. Or rather, least unpleasant.
‘We’d been together for eight years before I caught on,’ she began. ‘Eight years, and married for five.’
‘It can be something that suddenly strikes,’ he said. ‘It might not have been there all the time.’
She nodded.
‘I’ve tried to convince myself of that as well, but I don’t know if it would be much consolation. It’s so… well, so damned incomprehensible. It’s simply not possible to understand it, that’s the only conclusion I can reach. I just can’t get over it, I have to forget it and bury it. I thought that was my only chance – but now I realize that was also wrong, of course.’
She paused and rummaged in her bag. A waiter appeared, and without even asking Van Veeteren ordered coffee and cognac for them both.
‘Tell me about it,’ he said when she had lit a cigarette.
She scraped with her fingernail at a speck of candle wax on the tablecloth, and blinked several times. The chief inspector was holding his breath; it was his very presence that was digging up these old horrors, but he hoped to reduce the awfulness to a minimum.
‘It went too far,’ she said. ‘What I can never forgive myself for is that I allowed it to go on for so long, instead of reacting to the signs immediately. Over six months… I just couldn’t believe it was true. It’s the kind of thing you read about, and… Well, you know what I mean.’
Van Veeteren nodded.
‘It was in the bath that I caught him at it. Judith was only five, but old enough to understand what was going on. And to be ashamed. What was hardest to understand was that he could be so unconcerned about it.’
‘Did he admit it?’
She inhaled and took a sip of cognac before replying.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Or maybe yes and no. He pretended that he didn’t know what I was talking about, but on the other hand he agreed to an immediate divorce. He moved out – I made him move out the very same day.’
‘And you no longer meet?’
‘No. When I’d got over the shock I hired a lawyer, of course. Prepared myself for a fight, but there was no fight. He gave up everything and left us without saying a word. That’s what I regard as proof that he admitted what he’d done.’
Another pause. Van Veeteren snapped the toothpick and took a cigarette instead.
‘How far had it gone?’ he asked.
‘A long way,’ was all she said.
‘Did you have her examined?’
She nodded.
‘Yes, I wanted to know. Oh yes, he’d gone all the way. There was no doubt about it.’
The chief inspector felt a surge of disgust rising within him, and he emptied his glass of cognac as an antidote.
‘When exactly was thi
s?’ he asked.
‘Four years ago,’ she said. ‘Four years and two months.’
‘You didn’t report him?’
‘No,’ she said, sighing deeply. ‘I didn’t.’
Van Veeteren observed her hands clamped round her glass. He could have reproached her now. Turned up the heat and asked how the hell she could have failed to follow up something as horrendous as that – but of course, there was no need.
No need to torture her any longer. The whole conversation had taken less than ten minutes, and it had turned out exactly as he’d expected.
Or dreaded, rather.
Knew it would?
‘I’ll try to make sure that you are not involved in what happens next,’ he said. ‘But it’s not easy to see how it will-’
She interrupted him.
‘I’ll say my piece,’ she assured him. ‘You don’t need to worry. I don’t want to make the same mistake twice.’
‘Okay,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I’ll be in touch when the time comes.’
They shook hands again, and he took his leave. When he emerged into the street, he was shivering. It was a chill that had nothing to do with the warm, pleasant summer evening. Nothing at all.
He found a public telephone and called Sorbinowo again, but all he got was a recording of Miss Miller’s voice informing him that the police station was now closed for the day, and providing two numbers to call if he had relevant information to provide regarding the Waldingen affair.
Oh yes, Van Veeteren thought. I have relevant information all right.
But he didn’t make any further calls. There were still several question marks – with regard to Yellinek’s death, for instance – and what he would most like to do was to serve up the solution to his colleagues on a plate. All done and dusted.
