Hour of the Wolf

24

‘Right then, let’s kick off this brainstorming session,’ said Reinhart, placing his pipe, tobacco pouch and lighter in a neat row on his desk in front of him. ‘I’ll be meeting The Chief Inspector this evening, and as you can well imagine he’s more than a little interested in how things are going for us. I intend to give him a tape recording of this run-through, so that I have at least something to deliver. So think about what you say.’

He pressed the button and started the recorder running. Immediately, Van Veeteren’s presence was felt in the room as something almost tangible, and a respectful silence ensued.

‘Hmm, okay,’ said Reinhart. ‘Tuesday, the eighth of December, fifteen hundred hours. Run-through of the cases Erich Van Veeteren and Vera Miller. We’ll take them both even though the connection is far from definite. Let’s hear your comments.’

‘Have we anything more than Meusse’s guess to suggest that the two cases are linked?’ wondered deBries.

‘Nothing,’ said Reinhart. ‘Apart from the fact that our esteemed pathologist’s guesses can usually be taken as dead-certs. But I suppose even he will have to get something wrong one of these days.’

‘I doubt that,’ said Moreno.

Reinhart opened the zip of his tobacco pouch and sniffed the contents before continuing.

‘Let’s start with Vera Miller,’ he suggested. ‘We have no new technical evidence relevant to her case. Unfortunately. Apart from the time being slightly more precise now. She evidently died some time between a quarter past two and half past three in the early hours of Sunday morning. It’s difficult to say when she was dumped out there at Korrim. If she’d been there long, you might think she ought to have been discovered sooner: but we must remember that the body was hidden and there’s hardly any traffic on those roads. Not at the weekend at this time of year, at least. Oh, we’ve spoken again to Andreas Wollger

… That is, Inspector Moreno and I have spoken to him. The gods should be aware that he didn’t have much to tell us — like everybody else we’ve talked to. But at least he’s begun to admit that their marriage wasn’t entirely idyllic. I think in fact that he’s only just beginning to realize that… He seems to be a bit handicapped when it comes to the labyrinth of love — something else the gods ought to be aware of.’

‘He was thirty-six when he got married,’ Moreno explained. ‘He doesn’t seem to have had many relationships earlier in his life. If any.’

‘A peculiar chap,’ said Rooth.

‘Yes, he gives the impression of being a bit of a wimp,’ said Reinhart, ‘and I don’t think he’s the type who would commit murder on grounds of jealousy. I suspect he’d prefer to cut off his testicles and give them away as a peace offering if a crisis arose. He has an alibi until one o’clock on Sunday morning, which was when he left a restaurant he’d been at with a good friend… And who the hell has an alibi for the small hours?’

‘I do,’ said Rooth. ‘My fish are my witnesses.’

‘So we can clear him of any suspicion — for the moment, at least,’ said Reinhart.

‘How many does that leave, then?’ asked deBries. ‘Assuming we can exclude Rooth as well.’

Reinhart looked as if he had a retort on the tip of his tongue, but he glanced at the tape recorder and suppressed it.

‘Perhaps Rooth can tell us what Vera Miller’s mother had to say for herself,’ he said instead.

Rooth sighed.

‘Not so much as the shadow of a chicken’s fart,’ he said. ‘To make things worse she was a domestic science teacher and hysterical about calories. I wasn’t even allowed to eat my Danish pastry in peace and quiet. Not my type.’

‘We all feel sorry for you,’ said deBries. ‘But I have to say I think we’re missing something in this connection.’

‘What?’ said Moreno.

‘Well, listen to this,’ said deBries, leaning forward over the table. ‘We know that Vera Miller was two-timing her wimp of a husband. We know there must be some other bloke involved. Why don’t we make an appeal via the media? Issue a Wanted notice for the bastard in the newspapers and on the telly — I mean, somebody must have seen them out together… If they’d been carrying on for four or five weekends in a row.’

‘That’s not certain,’ said Reinhart. ‘I can’t believe that they were prancing around in pubs and restaurants. Or canoodling in public. Besides… Besides, there are certain ethical aspects we must take into account.’

‘You don’t say?’ said deBries. ‘And what might they be?’

‘I know that this isn’t your strong point,’ said Reinhart, ‘but we haven’t had it confirmed yet. The infidelity, that is. Her mythical courses might have been a cover for something quite different — though I have to say I find it hard to understand what. But in any case, she’s been murdered, and I think we ought to be a bit careful about adding adultery to her obituary. In public, that is… Bearing in mind the feelings of her husband and other next of kin. I wouldn’t want to be held responsible if it turned out that we’d hung her out to dry in the press, but then discovered that she was innocent.’

‘All right,’ said deBries with a shrug, ‘I give in. Did you say it was a matter of ethics?’

‘Exactly,’ said Reinhart, pressing the pause button on the tape recorder. ‘I think it’s time for a coffee break now.’

‘We don’t have much that’s new regarding Erich Van Veeteren either, I’m afraid,’ said Reinhart when froken Katz had left the room. ‘A few interviews of course, mainly conducted by Detective-Sergeant Bollmert who’s been out and about. Anything of interest?’

‘Not as far as I can see,’ said Bollmert, fiddling nervously with a propelling pencil. ‘I’ve spoken to welfare officers and probation officers and old friends of Erich’s, but it was mainly people who haven’t had much to do with him in recent years. He’d been walking the straight and narrow, as you know. I mentioned Vera Miller to the ones I spoke to as well, but nobody took the bait there either.’

‘Yes, that seems to be the way things are,’ said Reinhart. ‘No winning tickets. You’d think that somebody — just one individual would do — would be acquainted with both our victims… from a purely statistical point of view. We’ve spoken to hundreds of people, for God’s sake. But no…’

‘Unless of course the murderer is acquainted with both of them,’ Rooth pointed out, ‘but is being crafty and not letting on.’

‘Not impossible,’ said Reinhart offhandedly. ‘Incidentally I’ve spent some time trying to find a plausible link between Erich Van Veeteren and fru Miller — how they might theoretically be connected — but I have to say it’s not easy. Mainly airy-fairy hypotheses… Cock and bull stories…’

He made eye contact with Moreno, who smiled and shook her head: he understood that she shared his opinion. He raised his hand to switch off the tape recorder, but paused. Jung was waving a pencil and looking thoughtful.

‘With regard to hypotheses,’ he said, ‘I’ve been looking into Rooth’s hypothesis.’

‘Rooth?’ said Reinhart, raising his eyebrows. ‘Hypothesis?’

‘Which one do you mean?’ wondered Rooth.

‘The postage stamp gang,’ said deBries.

‘No, the stethoscope syndrome,’ said Jung.

Now Reinhart switched off the tape recorder.

‘What the devil are you on about?’ he said. ‘Wait while I wind the tape back.’

‘Sorry,’ said deBries.

‘I’m serious,’ said Jung. ‘It’s like this…’

He waited until Reinhart had pressed the record button again.

‘What Rooth suggested was that this bloke — always assuming that Vera Miller did have another bloke — would most probably be a doctor. You know what they say about nurses and men in white coats and all that…’

He paused and looked round to see if there was any reaction.

‘Go on,’ said Reinhart.

‘Well, I thought it might be worth looking into whether she might have been having an affair with one of the doctors at the Gemejnte. Nearly everybody who’s unfaithful does it with somebody at work, according to what I’ve read… So I went to hear what Liljana had to say this morning.’

‘Liljana?’ said Reinhart. ‘Who the hell is Liljana?’

He could have sworn that Jung blushed.

‘One of Vera Miller’s workmates,’ he said. ‘I spoke to her for the first time yesterday.’

‘I’ve seen her,’ said Rooth. ‘A veritable bombshell… From the Balkans as well, but not in that way…’

Reinhart glared at him and then at the tape recorder, but let it pass.

‘Go on,’ he said again, ‘What did she have to say?’

‘Not a lot, I’m afraid,’ said Jung. ‘But she reckons it’s not impossible that Vera Miller had something going with a doctor. She had the impression that another colleague had hinted at that, but she wasn’t absolutely sure.’

‘Another colleague?’ said Moreno. ‘And what did she have to say? I assume it’s a she.’

‘Yes,’ said Jung. ‘A trainee nurse. But I haven’t been able to get hold of her. She’s off work today and tomorrow.’

‘Shit,’ said Reinhart. ‘Anyway, we’ll dig her out, of course. We might as well get to the bottom of this. I have to say that it sounds quite likely, when you think about it. A nurse and a doctor — we’ve heard about that before.’

‘They say there are quite a few white coats at the Gemejnte,’ said deBries.

Reinhart sucked at his pipe and looked ready to kill.

‘This is what we’ll do,’ he said after a few seconds’ thought. ‘I’ll phone the head doctor, or the hospital’s CEO, or whatever the hell he’s called. He can supply us with the full list of employees — let’s hope he’s got photographs as well. It would be a bit of a bugger if we didn’t get a bit of joy out of this… I don’t suppose Inspector Rooth has a little theory about a possible link to Erich Van Veeteren as well?’

Rooth shook his head.

‘I seem to recall that I did have,’ he said. ‘But I can’t remember what it was.’

DeBries sighed loudly. Reinhart pressed the stop button, and the run-through was finished.

He had chosen Vox again — bearing in mind Van Veeteren’s positive memory from the previous time — but this evening there was no velvet-voiced chanteuse to look forward to. No music at all, in fact, as it was a Tuesday. Monday and Tuesday were low season, and apart from Reinhart and Van Veeteren there was only a handful of listless customers sitting at the shiny metal tables. The Chief Inspector was already installed when the chief inspector arrived. For the first time — the first time ever, as far as he could remember — Reinhart thought he was looking old.

Or perhaps not old, rather resigned in that way a lot of elderly people gave the impression of being. As if some strategic muscles in the spine and the back of the head had finally had enough and contracted for the last time. Or snapped. He assumed Van Veeteren must be sixty by now, but he wasn’t sure. There were a lot of mysterious circumstances surrounding The Chief Inspector, and one of them was the question of his real age.

‘Good evening,’ said Reinhart, sitting down. ‘You look tired.’

‘Thank you,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘No, I don’t sleep at night any more.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Reinhart. ‘When the Good Lord robs us of our sleep, he doesn’t exactly do us any favours.’

Van Veeteren opened the lid of his cigarette-rolling machine.

‘He stopped doing us favours hundreds of years ago. The devil only knows if he ever did us any.’

‘Could well be,’ said Reinhart. ‘I’ve just been reading about God’s silence after Bach. Two Dunckel, please.’

The latter request was addressed to a waiter who had just emerged from the shadows. Van Veeteren lit a cigarette. Reinhart started filling his pipe.

Hard going, he thought. It’s going to be hard going this evening.

He took the tape out of his jacket pocket.

‘I’m afraid I don’t have a Gospel for you either,’ he said. ‘But if you want an indication of where we are, you can always listen to this. It’s a recording of today’s discussions. Not exactly a climactic experience, of course, but you know what it’s usually like. The voice you won’t recognize is a detective-sergeant called Bollmert.’

‘Better than nothing,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Ah well, I’m not finding it easy to keep my nose out of things.’

‘Perfectly understandable,’ said Reinhart. ‘As I’ve said before.’

He took out the photograph of Vera Miller.

‘Do you recognize this woman?’

Van Veeteren looked at the picture for a couple of seconds.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do, in fact.’

‘What?’ said Reinhart. ‘What the devil do you mean by that?’

‘If I’m not much mistaken,’ said Van Veeteren, handing the photograph back to Reinhart. ‘A nurse at the Gemejnte. Looked after me when I had my colon operation a few years ago. A very pleasant woman — how have you come across her?’

‘That’s Vera Miller. The woman who was found murdered out at Korrim last Sunday morning.’

‘The woman who’s linked with Erich somehow or other?’

Reinhart nodded.

‘It’s only a hypothesis. Extremely shaky so far — but perhaps you can confirm it?’

The waiter came with the beers. They each took a swig. Van Veeteren looked at the photograph again, then slowly shook his head and looked sombre.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s sheer coincidence that I happen to remember her. Have I understood it rightly, and that it’s Meusse who has indicated this link?’

‘Meusse, yes. He thinks the blow to the back of the head suggests a connection. It indicates a degree of expertise, he says. In both cases… Well, you know Meusse.’

Van Veeteren was lost in silence. Reinhart lit his pipe and allowed him to ponder to his heart’s content. Suddenly felt extreme anger bubbling up inside himself. A fury directed at whoever had killed The Chief Inspector ’s son. Who had killed Vera Miller.

Was it the same person, or two different ones? Who cares? A fury directed at this murderer or these murderers, but also at all killers, whoever they might be… And so the coldest and darkest of all his memories began to stir. The murder of Seika. Of his own girlfriend. Seika, whom he should have married and built up a family with. Seika, whom he had loved like no other. Seika with the high cheekbones, the half-Asian eyes and the most beautiful laugh the world has ever heard. It was almost thirty years ago now: she had been lying in that accursed grave out at Linden for three decades. Nineteen-year-old Seika who ought to have been his wife.

If it hadn’t been for that evil killer, a knifeman on that occasion, a drugged-up madman who had stabbed her to death one evening in Wollerims Park without the slightest trace of a reason.

Or at least, nothing more than the twelve guilders she had in her purse.

And now The Chief Inspector ’s son. Bloody hell, Reinhart thought. He’s absolutely right, it was a long time ago that the Good Lord stopped doing us favours.

‘I went out to Dikken to have a look around,’ said Van Veeteren, interrupting his train of thought.

‘What?’ said Reinhart. ‘You?’

‘Me, yes,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I took the liberty — I hope you’ll forgive me.’

‘Of course,’ said Reinhart.

‘I spoke to a few people at that restaurant. It’s more like a sort of therapy really. I don’t expect to find anything that you lot won’t find, but it’s so damned hard just sitting around, doing nothing. Can you understand that?’

Reinhart paused for a few seconds before answering.

‘Do you remember why I joined the police?’ he asked. ‘My fiancee in Wollerims Park?’

Van Veeteren nodded.

‘Of course I do. Okay, you understand. But anyway, there’s one thing I wonder about.’

‘What?’ said Reinhart.

‘The plastic carrier bag,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘That plastic carrier bag that changed owners. Or was supposed to change owners.’

‘What bloody plastic bag are you on about?’ said Reinhart.

Van Veeteren said nothing for a moment.

‘So you don’t know about it?’

Oh, shit, Reinhart thought. Now he’s put us on the spot again.

‘There was somebody who said something about a plastic carrier bag,’ he said, trying to sound offhand about it. ‘That’s true.’

‘It seems that this Mr X, who is presumably the killer…’ said The Chief Inspector, noticeably slowly and in a tone of voice that sounded to Reinhart painfully like some pedagogue explaining the obvious to ignorant pupils, ‘… had a plastic carrier bag by his feet when he was sitting in the bar. And it appears that Erich was carrying that bag when he left the restaurant.’

He raised an eyebrow and waited for Reinhart’s reaction.

‘Oh, shit,’ said Reinhart. ‘To tell you the truth… Well, to tell you the truth I’m afraid it looks as if we’d missed this. The second half, that is. Several witnesses said Mr X had a plastic carrier bag with him, but we haven’t heard anything about Erich having taken it over. How did you find out about that?’

‘I happened to meet the right people,’ said Van Veeteren modestly, contemplating his newly rolled cigarette. ‘One of the waitresses seemed to recall having seen him carrying a plastic bag when he left the restaurant, and when she said that the barman remembered it as well.’

And you happened to ask the right questions as well, no doubt, Reinhart thought, and felt a flood of deep-rooted admiration surging through his consciousness, removing all trace of anger and embarrassment. Admiration for that psychological insight that The Chief Inspector had always been blessed with, and which… which could cut like a scalpel through a ton of warm butter faster than a hundred riot police in bullet-proof vests could work out the whiff of a suspicion.

Intuition, as it was called.

‘So what conclusion do you draw?’ he asked.

‘Erich was there to collect something.’

‘Obviously.’

‘He drove out to the Trattoria Commedia in order to collect the plastic carrier bag in an agreed location — perhaps in the gents.’

Reinhart nodded.

‘He didn’t know who Mr X was, and it was not the intention that he should know.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘If it had been possible for them to meet without concealing their identities, they could just as well meet anywhere at all. In the car park, for instance. Why mess about with that bloody masquerade if it wasn’t necessary?’

Reinhart thought that over.

‘Mr X was disguised,’ he said.

‘He was going to murder my son,’ Van Veeteren pointed out. ‘And he did so. Of course he was going to be disguised.’

‘Why hand over the carrier bag if he was going to kill him anyway?’ said Reinhart.

‘You can answer that yourself,’ said Van Veeteren.

Reinhart sucked twice at his pipe, which had gone out.

‘Oh, shit,’ he said. ‘He didn’t know who he was. Neither of them knew who the other was. He didn’t know who it was until he saw him with the carrier bag in his hand… He’d be out in the car park, waiting for him, of course.’

‘Presumably,’ said Van Veeteren, rolling another cigarette. ‘That’s the conclusion I’ve drawn as well. What else? What do you think it was all about? Who’s calling the shots, and who’s obeying?’

A good question, Reinhart thought. Who is calling the shots and who is obeying?

‘Erich calls the shots, and Mr X obeys,’ he says. ‘To start with, at least. Then Mr X reverses the roles. That’s why… Yes, that’s why he does it. That’s why he kills him.’

Van Veeteren leaned back on his chair and lit the cigarette. His son, Reinhart thought. For Christ’s sake, we’re talking about his murdered son.

‘And what do you think it was all about?’

The narcotic cloud hung in the way, and blurred Reinhart’s thinking for five seconds: then he hit on the answer.

‘Blackmail,’ he said. ‘It’s as clear as bloody day.’

‘He maintains that Erich had never indulged in anything like that,’ Reinhart explained to Winnifred an hour later. ‘I believe him. Besides, it seems incredible that he’d be so bloody stupid simply to drive out to that restaurant and sit there waiting for the money… Not if he knew what it was all about. Erich was a messenger boy. Somebody else — the real blackmailer — had sent him out there: when you come to think about it it’s pretty obvious. Everything falls into place.’

‘What about this Vera Miller woman, then?’ said Winnifred. ‘Was she behind it all, somehow or other?’

‘It’s very possible,’ said Reinhart. ‘The murderer thought it was Erich who was the blackmailer, and killed him quite unnecessarily. Maybe he got the right person when he killed Vera Miller.’

‘Did Erich know Vera Miller?’

Reinhart sighed.

‘Unfortunately not,’ he said. ‘That’s where it all comes to a stop for the moment. We haven’t found a single little thing to link them together. But there might be one. If we assume that he — the murderer, that is — is a doctor at the Gemejnte, it’s quite possible that Vera Miller had some kind of hold over him. An operation that he made a mess of, something of that sort perhaps. Could be any damned thing. It’s unforgivable for a doctor to make a mistake. He might have killed a patient through sheer carelessness, for instance. She saw an opportunity to earn a bit of cash, and took it. That it turned out as it did is another matter altogether, of course. Anyway, it’s a theory at least.’

Winnifred looked sceptical.

‘And why did she have to go to bed with him? That’s what she did, isn’t it?’

‘Hmm,’ said Reinhart. ‘Were you born yesterday, my lovely? That’s where a man reveals his true self. It’s in bed that a woman gets to know all a man’s merits and shortcomings.’

Winnifred laughed in delight and snuggled up close to him under the covers.

‘My prince,’ she said. ‘You are so right, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for a few days before you can demonstrate your merits to me.’

‘That’s life,’ said Reinhart, and switched off the light. ‘And I have hardly any shortcomings.’

A quarter of an hour later he got up.

‘What are you doing?’ wondered Winnifred.

‘Joanna,’ said Reinhart. ‘I thought I heard something.’

‘You didn’t at all,’ said Winnifred. ‘But go and fetch her so that we can lie here, all three of us. That’s what you were thinking, isn’t it?’

‘More or less,’ admitted Reinhart and tiptoed over to the nursery.

My wife knows what I’m thinking before I do, he told himself as he lifted up his sleeping daughter. How the hell does she do that?