The Inspector and Silence

20

At about one o’clock on Thursday, when acting Chief of Police Kluuge got into his hot car out at Waldingen – in order to drive back to Sorbinowo and be contactable at the police station during the afternoon (and possibly snatch a half-hour lunch with Deborah) – at least he was able to reassure himself that things had started moving.

Just a little bit. Following the example set by Marieke Bergson, a handful of girls had started to crack and speak about the last few days at the camp. Together with his colleagues from Haaldam – Lauremaa and Tolltse – Kluuge had spent a few hours that morning listening to their tear-soaked confessions. However, nothing specific nor of vital significance for the investigation had materialized. Not as far as they could tell, anyway. The girls had been ordered – more or less explicitly – to say nothing, and so they had said nothing.

It seemed to be as simple as that.

There was still a group of girls sticking to the party line and saying nothing, and there were grounds for suspecting that it was this group that had put the others – the ones whose faith was beginning to wobble – under pressure. Moreover, a trio of girls had emerged, probably led by Belle Moulder (that was Lauremaa’s contention at any rate), who had been the last to see Clarissa Heerenmacht alive.

Excluding the murderer, that is. Round about five or half past five on the Sunday evening these girls, including Clarissa, had been down by ‘the rock’ – a smooth, warm and sunny flat piece of rock a few hundred metres to the west of the summer camp – swimming in the lake. It was still unclear how the four of them had become separated, but the bottom line was that they hadn’t returned to the camp together.

Clarissa Heerenmacht hadn’t returned at all.

Instead, Clarissa Heerenmacht had met her murderer. Unclear how. Unclear when and where.

The families were another problem. Kluuge switched on the air conditioning and turned into the main road. Yesterday’s evening papers – not to mention the television and radio – had devoted a lot of space to the case (Kluuge sincerely hoped that Malijsen really was as isolated as he had said he would be: if the real chief of police were to appear on the stage without warning, his arrival would hardly have a positive effect on the work they were doing – everybody involved agreed about that, even if nobody was prepared to say so), and most of the parents had been in touch. Shortly before Kluuge left Waldingen that roasting-hot afternoon, four of the girls had been collected by worried mums and dads – obviously after spending quite a while with Lauremaa and the psychologists. Two of the girls turned out to be sisters, a detail that hadn’t been clear before.

Anyway, there were six left. Three who still hadn’t said a word, two who seemed to be about to do so, and one who had made a clean breast of it and was waiting to be picked up.

Plus Marieke Bergson, of course. She was still at the police station, under the wing of Miss Miller and a Roman Catholic Sister of Mercy (the latter had turned up out of the blue the previous evening and offered her services – for professional and ethical reasons, not to mention pressure from her trade union, the psychologist had fled the scene long ago). Her name was Vera Saarpe, and she had let the girl stay at her place overnight.

It was only this morning, early on, that they had managed to contact Marieke’s parents, and apparently they would be arriving during the course of the afternoon to take care of their daughter. Kluuge had spoken on the telephone to the mother, and established that the apple hadn’t fallen very far away from the tree in this case either.

He sighed deeply. It was far from easy to keep tabs on everything, he thought.

Far from easy.

Then he sighed even more deeply – when he began to think about Katarina Schwartz, the girl who seemed to have gone missing from the camp some ten to twelve days ago. Marieke Bergson’s claim regarding her sudden disappearance had been backed up by all the others who had spoken up so far, and it seemed reasonable to assume that it was this Katarina who had been referred to in the first two telephone calls from the anonymous woman.

To crown it all, they hadn’t succeeded in making contact with her parents. They were evidently on holiday, touring France by car. But if in fact Katarina had simply run away from the camp, it was quite possible that she was sitting in the same car as her mother and father. Or in a rented cottage, or in a deckchair. In Brest or Marseilles or wherever the hell they happened to be. Why not Lourdes, come to that?

Servinus had been in touch with the French police, who had promised to send out SOS messages to track down the couple and their car; but Servinus had dealt with his French colleagues before, and wasn’t especially optimistic.

In any case, there were indications to suggest that the girl might have had good reason to run away; but just how strong they were was something Kluuge hadn’t yet established. Nor had anybody else, come to that. The probability was that this scenario was no more than wishful thinking – neighbours, friends and relations of the Schwartz family had seemed to be quite certain that Katarina had not been in the car that set off on the journey south-west the previous week.

But the timing did fit in, as Kluuge had noted when he thought the matter over. If the daughter had suddenly turned up unexpectedly the evening before they set off – well, it wasn’t out of the question that she might have travelled with them the next morning without anybody else knowing.

In which case they had only one murder to solve.

Which was bad enough, of course.

It also occurred to him – as he sat in the car sweating and driving far too fast on the zigzagging road – that all these interrogations, all these telephone calls and all the various measures they were taking seemed to be irrelevant. They were simply taking up an enormous amount of time and energy and resources, without actually leading anywhere.

Apart from in circles. What little they found out was what they had already worked out for themselves.

When – and how – he would find the time and energy to sit down and think about the actual murder and how to solve it, well, he found that very hard to see just at the moment.

Is this the way it always was? he wondered at the back of his mind. In all the cases I’ve been involved in?

Merwin Kluuge sighed yet again, and checked his watch.

A quarter to two.

That meant a window of twenty minutes for Deborah. Half an hour at most.

I must buy her some flowers on Friday, he thought. No time for that today, that’s for sure.

At about the same time as Merwin Kluuge gently – but perhaps not quite as gently as was his wont – stroked his wife’s stomach and his as yet unborn son, Van Veeteren left Elizabeth Heerenmacht to allow her to say farewell to her murdered niece down in the cold-storage room at Sorbinowo hospital, to which the battered body had just been moved after two and a half days at the forensic clinic in Rembork.

Elizabeth Heerenmacht was not a member of the Pure Life church – although after spending half an hour in her company the chief inspector found it hard to understand why not. She seemed to have all the qualifications, to put it mildly: that was the harsh conclusion he had drawn, unfortunately.

But perhaps that was a bit unfair, given the nature of this grim and roasting-hot day. It was difficult not to be prejudiced when the sweat was flowing freely, then froze to ice down in the mortuary before starting to pour off him again when he emerged once more into the sun.

Earlier in the morning he had devoted quite a lot of time to another woman – the mysterious Ewa Siguera. At least, he wanted to convince himself that she was mysterious, that there was just as much mystery about her in reality as there was about her name and her smile in the photograph Przebuda had taken of her the previous summer.

Rubbish, he then thought in a moment of pungent self-criticism. That kind of thinking would be more appropriate in a novel.

But what the hell was one supposed to do? he thought. The less contact you had with the opposite sex, the more fond you grew of it – or of certain examples of it, anyway. Nothing new about that.

He had been advised by the registration authorities that Ewa Siguera did not live in Stamberg. He had also asked Lauremaa and Tolltse to confront the confirmation candidates with her photograph, but as far as he could tell nobody had come up with any helpful information.

The plot thickens, he thought with a feeling of bitter self-satisfaction. Then he removed a chewed-up toothpick from his mouth and shook his head. Oh shit! he exclaimed, I’m a travesty of a police detective! Of myself. Am I looking for a murderer, or for a woman? In the warmed-up cold sweat on my face? One with chestnut-brown hair…?

After an hour’s fruitless search, he called Reinhart and passed the task on to him. Asked him to track down Ewa Siguera and report back the moment he found her. There had been other possible paths to follow, of course, but as he suspected that the inspector was simply twiddling his thumbs while waiting for his holiday to begin – or devoting himself to his beautiful and newly married wife – he might as well be made to do something to earn his wages.

Reinhart had little in the way of objections. He promised loyally to get in touch as soon as he discovered anything. Within the next twenty-four hours at most.

So his assumptions about Reinhart’s thumbs and his wife had been an accurate guess, the chief inspector thought.

‘And how are things with the bloodhound himself?’ Reinhart had asked. ‘Sunbathing, swimming and fishing all day long, eh?’

‘You’ve forgotten the wine and the women,’ Van Veeteren informed him.

He began with the Finghers, as he could see that they were at home.

He only managed to say hello to Mrs Fingher, a sinewy farmer’s wife in her fifties – she was on her way to look after a grandchild, she announced, as she hurried past him in the direction of an old, hand-painted Trotta parked on the road outside the house – but both Mr Fingher and his son Wim seemed to have plenty of time for a chat.

‘It’s mainly Sunday evening I’m interested in, this time round,’ explained the chief inspector after they had settled down on garden chairs under a shady chestnut tree.

‘Sunday evening?’ said Fingher. ‘Wim, go and fetch a couple of beers. Would you like a Pilsner, Chief Inspector?’

‘I wouldn’t say no,’ said Van Veeteren, and the son went back into the house.

‘Why?’ asked Fingher. ‘What do you want to know about Sunday evening?’

‘Can you tell me what time the party from the summer camp arrived, and if anything unusual happened?’

Fingher tried to remember, and his son arrived with the beers.

‘No, everything was the same as usual, as I recall it. What do you think?’

He looked at Wim, who merely shrugged.

‘What time?’ asked Van Veeteren.

‘Seven, maybe half past. Around then. As usual.’

Wim Fingher nodded in agreement, and all three took a swig of beer. It was unusually sweet, and Van Veeteren wondered if it might be home-brewed. There were no labels on the bottles, so it wasn’t out of the question.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Was Yellinek with them?’

‘Eh? Yes, of course.’

‘And four girls?’

‘Yes, four.’

‘Do you recognize the one who was found murdered?’

Fingher nodded solemnly.

‘By Christ, yes. She’d been here several times, just like the other three. This is a right bloody mess, if only I’d had any idea I’d have…’

‘You’d have what?’ wondered Van Veeteren.

‘Huh, I’ll be buggered if I know. Castrated that damned black-coated bastard, for instance. I’m damned if I know how anybody can send their kids to a place like that. We only have Wim here, but if I had a daughter I swear I’d lock her up if there was anybody like him around…’

His anger suddenly seemed to put a lid on his words, and he fell silent. Van Veeteren took another swig and allowed a few seconds to pass before continuing.

‘Did you notice anything special about him last Sunday?’

‘That bastard,’ said Fingher. ‘No, I don’t think so. What do you say, Wim?’

Mathias emptied his glass in one swig.

‘No,’ said Wim. ‘I only saw him in passing, but he seemed the same as ever.’

‘Nothing unusual about the girls either?’

Wim shook his head. His father belched.

‘No,’ he said. ‘They just stood there holding on to the cart, as usual.’

‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Will you promise to contact us if you should think of anything? Anything at all that might seem tasty.’

Tasty? he thought. I’m losing my way with words.

‘Of course,’ said Fingher, scratching his head. ‘Obviously we’ll do anything we can to help. But I have to say I’m fucked if I know what you’re after.’

Van Veeteren ignored the criticism.

‘Last Monday, then?’ he asked instead. ‘I assume Yellinek wasn’t here then, in any case.’

‘Correct,’ said Fingher. ‘Only one of the women came on Monday.’

‘No girls?’

‘Not a single one.’

‘Did she explain why?’

‘Explain? Did she hell. Just stood there looking like a fart in a bottle, trying to be posh – as if she was God’s mother’s cousin or something.’

Van Veeteren cleared his throat.

‘You’re not religious yourself, I take it, Mr Fingher.’

‘No fucking chance,’ said the farmer and belched again.

‘Same here,’ said his son.

The chief inspector emptied his glass.

‘Ah well, thank you,’ he said. ‘I won’t disturb you any longer. But do get in touch if you think of anything… As I said.’

‘Of course,’ said Fingher, and began shepherding the chief inspector back to the road.

‘Sunday evening,’ he said, fixing the twelve-year-old with his eyes.

The girl, whose name was Joanna Halle, was gazing down at the table and rubbing her wrists nervously.

‘Sound a bit more friendly, perhaps,’ whispered the young psychologist into his ear.

‘Would you like to tell me a bit about what you were doing last Sunday evening?’ Van Veeteren tried again. ‘When you were down by the rock, swimming.’

‘We were swimming,’Joanna Halle explained.

‘I see. Who, exactly?’

‘There was me and Krystyna and Belle. And Clarissa.’

‘And you were swimming?’

‘Yes,’ said the girl.

An intelligent conversation, this, Van Veeteren thought. Gliding along as if on rails.

‘Were you friends, the four of you?’

‘Yes… No, not exactly…’

‘What do you mean?’

Don’t they teach pupils how to speak in school nowadays? he wondered.

‘We were just… sort of.’

‘Really? What time was it when you were there, roughly speaking?’

‘I don’t know, but we were back at six o’clock in any case, that’s when we have dinner.’

‘Did anything special happen when you were down there by the rock?’

‘No – what do you mean, something special?’

‘I don’t know. What did you talk about?’

‘Nothing special.’

‘You didn’t fall out?’

‘Fall out?’

‘Yes. Do you understand what that means?’

‘Yes, but we don’t fall out at the Pure Life, only Other people do that.’

‘Are you telling me the truth?’

‘Clear.’

Clear? the chief inspector thought. I’d better arrest more children so that I can learn how to communicate with them.

But Marieke Bergson and the others hadn’t caused any problems of that kind, so he decided for the moment that it was Joanna Halle who was a bit hard to get through to. Not himself.

‘Were all four of you together all the time?’ he wondered.

‘Can’t remember.’

‘Do you remember how you left there?’

Joanna Halle seemed actually to be thinking for the first time.

‘I was with Krys,’ she said.

‘Krystyna Sarek?’

‘Yes.’

‘So Clarissa and Belle Moulder were together?’

‘I think so.’

‘But you don’t know?’

‘Yes, they were still there when we left. Or at least, Belle was.’

‘But you didn’t see Clarissa when you left the rock?’

‘Yes, she must have been there.’

‘Come on, you must make your mind up. Was Belle on her own or were they both there when you and Krystyna left?’

‘They were both there.’

‘Sure?’

‘Clear.’

The chief inspector sighed and glanced at the psychologist, but she looked as inscrutable as a potato in glasses. Das Ding an sich, he thought grimly. The thing in itself.

‘But you didn’t see Clarissa later on at all?’

‘No… No, I didn’t.’

‘Do you remember if you saw Yellinek at all when you got back here?’

‘Yellinek?’

‘Yes. Will it be easier if I ask every question twice?’

The psychologist glared at him.

‘No, that’s not necessary,’ said Joanna Halle. ‘No, I didn’t see Yellinek until we went to the farm.’

‘So you’re saying you were one of those who went to collect the milk last Sunday evening?’

‘Of course. It was my turn.’

She looked at him in a way he realized was meant to express mild contempt.

‘Who else was there?’

She thought for a moment.

‘Krys and the sisters.’

‘The sisters?’

‘Yes, Lene and Tilde.’

Van Veeteren nodded.

‘Let’s go back to the rock where you went swimming. Did you notice anybody else while you were there?’

‘No, we were the only ones there.’

‘No other grown-ups either?’

‘No.’

‘And nobody else you recognized?’

‘No, I said there was only us there.’

‘How long were you there?’

‘I dunno… Not all that long.’

‘Did you notice if Clarissa was worried at all?’

‘No… No, she was the same as usual.’

‘And there was nothing else about her that made you think?’

‘No.’

‘She didn’t say she wanted to be on her own, or anything like that?’

‘No.’

‘And there wasn’t anybody who was nasty to her in some way or other?’

‘We are never nasty to one another, I’ve already told you that.’

No, you little goose, the chief inspector thought as irritation threatened to get the better of him. But the fact is that Clarissa Heerenmacht met her murderer some time after you’d returned back home – and it could possibly have been you.

‘Are you thinking of leaving this church now?’ he asked.

Joanna Halle’s face turned a deep red, and he couldn’t decide if she was angry or embarrassed. Neither could she, it seemed, and so she burst out crying instead.

‘Thank you, that’s all,’ he said, and hastened out into the sunshine, with the psychologist’s eyes sticking daggers into his back.

It was three-quarters of an hour later, when he pulled into a petrol station just outside Sorbinowo, that he realized the fourth estate had by now caught up with the police.