The Inspector and Silence

4

From a purely physical point of view, the morning of 18 July was perfect.

The sky was cloudless, the air clear and still cool; the dark water of the lake was mirror-like, and Sergeant Merwin Kluuge completed his run round the alder-lined shore, nearly seven kilometres, in a new record time: 26 minutes and 55 seconds.

He paused to get his breath back down by the marina, did a few stretching exercises then jogged gently up to the terraced house, where he took a shower, and woke up his blonde-haired wife by carefully and lovingly caressing her stomach, inside which she had been carrying the fruit and aspirations of his life for the past six months.

The terraced house was even more recent. Barely eight weeks had passed since they had moved in – with the kind assistance of his parents-in-law’s savings; and he was still overcome by feelings of innocent wonder when he woke up in the mornings. When he put his feet on the wine-red wall-to-wall carpet in the bedroom. When he tiptoed from room to room and stroked the embossed wallpaper and pine panelling, which still exuded a whiff of newly sawn timber hinting at unimaginable possibilities and well-deserved success. And whenever he watered the flower beds or mowed the little lawn flanked by the trees, he could not help but feel warm and genuine gratitude to life itself.

Without warning, everything had suddenly fallen into place. They had been shunted onto a bright and sun-soaked new track, with himself and Deborah as the only carriages of any significance in a solidly built and smooth-running train heading into the future. All loose ends had been tied together when it became clear that Deborah was pregnant – or rather when that fact became public knowledge. They had married two weeks later, and now, on this lovely summer morning, when Merwin Kluuge toyed gently with the soft – and to the naked eye almost invisible – hairs on his wife’s rounded stomach, he was filled with a sensation bordering on the religious.

‘Tea or coffee?’ he asked softly.

‘Tea,’ she replied without opening her eyes. ‘You know I haven’t touched a drop of coffee for three months now. Why do you ask?’

Oh yes, of course, Kluuge thought, and went into the kitchen to prepare the breakfast tray.

They had breakfast together in bed, watching the early morning programme on their new 27-inch television set, and once again Kluuge ran his fingers gently over the tense skin, feeling for kicks and any other sign of life from Merwin junior. At precisely 07.45 he left his home and his married bliss.

He wheeled his twelve-gear bicycle out of the garage, clipped back his trousers, fixed his briefcase on the luggage carrier, and set off.

Exactly eleven minutes later he came to a halt in Kleinmarckt. The square was still more or less deserted; three or four market traders were busy opening up their stalls next to the town hall, arranging displays of fruit and vegetables. A few fat pigeons were strutting around the fountain, for want of anything else to do. Kluuge parked his bicycle in the stand outside the police station, secured it with a couple of stout locks, and wiped a drop of sweat from his brow. Then he walked through the semi-transparent glass doors, greeted Miss Miller in reception, and took possession of the chief of police’s office.

He sat down behind the impressively large desk, removed his bicycle clips and turned to the first page of the notepad beside the telephone.

Missing girl??? it said.

He looked out of the window, which Miss Miller had opened slightly, and gazed at the blossoming elder. The chief of police had informed him that it was an elder, but anybody could see that it was blossoming.

From a purely physical point of view it was still a perfect morning; but as far as Merwin Kluuge’s duties as acting chief of police were concerned, there was beyond doubt a cloud on the horizon.

At least one.

Precisely one.

‘Holiday,’ Chief of Police Malijsen had said, tapping him on the collarbone with two fingers. ‘I hope to God you’re fully aware of what the word holiday means. Peace and quiet. Being alone and left to yourself. Coniferous forests, mountain air and new waters to fish in. I’ve invested my hard-earned wages in hiring this damned cottage, and I have every intention of staying there for three weeks, provided the Japs don’t attack us. Is that clear, Sergeant Kluuge?’

For the last thirty years Chief of Police Malijsen’s credo had been that sooner or later the Japanese would inflict upon the world a new – but much better executed – Pearl Harbor, and he rarely missed an opportunity to mention it.

‘You’ll be in charge of the shop. It’s time for you to stand on your own two feet and become more than a mere paper shuffler and a thorn in the side of Edward Marckx.’

Gathering together and sending off the monthly reports from the Sorbinowo police district really did comprise the major part of Kluuge’s regular duties; that had been the case ever since he first took up his post just over three years ago, and would no doubt continue to be until the day – still ten years or more away – when Malijsen reached an age enabling him to resign his job and devote all his time to pleasure, sitting in front of the television. Or tying fishing flies. Or building defences to foil the increasingly inevitable attack from the slant-eyed yellow hordes from the east.

According to Kluuge’s view of the world and its inhabitants, Chief of Police Malijsen had a screw loose, an opinion probably shared by a few other Sorbinowo residents, but by no means all. Despite being a bit of a one-off character, Malijsen had the reputation of being the right man for his job, and for keeping the gap between right and wrong, between upright local citizens and crooks, open and wide. Even such a dodgy character as Edward Marckx – arsonist, jailbird, hot-tempered drug addict and violent brawler – had once, presumably in connection with one of his many brushes with the law, expressed his grudging admiration of the chief of police:

‘A particularly obnoxious bastard, but with a heart in his body and a hole in his arse!’

Perhaps Kluuge could sign up to the second part of that assessment.

On his way out of the door, Malijsen had paused and been serious for a few moments. Checked the torrent of words and raised an eyebrow.

‘Are you sure you can cope with this?’

Kluuge had snorted quietly. Not rudely. Not nervously.

‘Yes, of course.’

Nevertheless Malijsen had looked a bit doubtful and taken a card out of his wallet.

‘For Christ’s sake don’t disturb me unless you really have to! There’s a public telephone in the village, of course, but I need these weeks to get over Lilian.’

Lilian was Malijsen’s wife, stricken by cancer; after many years of more or less unbearable suffering she had finally given up the ghost and departed from this world. Drugged up to the eyeballs, and a shadow of a shadow… That was in the middle of March. Kluuge had attended the funeral with Deborah, who had noted that the chief of police had shed the occasional tear, but not excessively.

‘If the shit hits the fan, you can always get in touch with VV instead,’ Malijsen explained. ‘He’s an old colleague of mine, and he owes me a favour.’

He handed over the card and Kluuge put it in his breast pocket without so much as glancing at it. A quarter of an hour later, he sat down behind the imposingly large desk, leaned back and looked forward to three weeks of calm and prestigious professional activity.

That was six days ago. Last Friday. Today was Thursday. The first call had come last Tuesday.

The second one yesterday.

Oh hell, Kluuge thought and stared at the card with the very familiar name. He drummed on it with his finger, thinking back to what happened two days ago.

‘There’s a woman who’d like to speak to you.’

He noted that Miss Miller avoided addressing him as ‘Chief of Police’. She’d been doing that right from the start; at first it had annoyed him somewhat, but now he just ignored it.

‘A telephone call?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay put her through.’

He lifted the receiver and pressed the white button.

‘Is that the police?’

‘Yes.’

‘A little girl has disappeared.’

The voice was so faint that he had to strain his ears to catch what she was saying.

‘A little girl? Who am I speaking to?’

‘I can’t tell you that. But a little girl has disappeared from Waldingen.’

‘Waldingen? Can you speak a bit louder?’

‘The Pure Life Camp at Waldingen.’

‘You mean that sect?’

‘Yes. A little girl has disappeared from their confirmation camp in Waldingen. I can’t say any more. You must look into it.’

‘Hang on a minute. Who are you? Where are you calling from?’

‘I must stop now.’

‘Just a minute…’

She had hung up. Kluuge had thought the matter over for twenty minutes. Then he asked Miss Miller to look up the number for Waldingen – after all, there was nothing there apart from an old building used as a centre for summer camps. After a while he had given them a call.

A soft female voice answered the phone. He explained that he’d been informed that one of the confirmands had disappeared. The woman at the other end of the line sounded genuinely surprised, and said that nobody had been missing at lunch two hours previously.

Kluuge thanked her, and hung up.

The second call had come yesterday. Half an hour before the end of office hours. Miss Miller had already gone home, and the phone had been switched through to the chief of police’s office.

‘Hello. Chief of Police Kluuge here.’

‘You haven’t done anything.’

The voice sounded a little louder this time. But it was the same woman, no doubt about it. The same tense, forced composure. Somewhere between forty and fifty, although Kluuge acknowledged that he was bad when it came to guessing age.

‘Who am I speaking to?’

‘I rang yesterday and reported that a little girl had disappeared. You’ve done nothing about it. I assume she’s been murdered. If you don’t do something, I’ll be forced to turn to the newspapers.’

That was the point at which Kluuge felt the first pang of panic. He gulped, and his mind was racing.

‘How do you know that a girl has disappeared? I’ve investigated the matter. Nobody is missing from the camp at Waldingen.’

‘You mean you’ve called them and asked? Of course they’ll deny it.’

‘We’ve carried out certain checks.’

He thought that was quite a good line, but the woman wouldn’t be fobbed off.

‘If you don’t do something, they’ll kill some more.’

There was a click as she hung up. Kluuge sat there for a while with the receiver in his hand, before replacing it and diverting his attention to the portrait of Lilian Malijsen in her bridal gown, in a gilded frame at the far end of the desk.

My God, he thought. What if she’s telling the truth?

He had heard quite a bit about the Pure Life. And read a lot. As he understood it, they got up to all kinds of things.

Speaking in tongues.

Exorcizing devils.

Sexual rituals.

Mind you, the latter was probably just a malevolent rumour. Wagging tongues and the usual upright envy. Rubbish! Kluuge thought, and returned to contemplating the blossoming elders. But somewhere deep down – perhaps at the very core of his emotions, to borrow one of Deborah’s latest pet expressions – he recognized that this was serious.

Serious. There was something about that woman’s voice. There was also something about the situation in itself: his own disgracefully well-organized existence – Deborah, the terraced house, his stand-in duties as chief of police, the perfect mornings… It was only fair and just that something like this should crop up.

There has to be a balance, as his father used to say. Between plus and minus. Between successes and failures. Otherwise, you’re not alive.

He stuck a pencil in his mouth. Began chewing it as he tried to imagine Malijsen’s reactions if it turned out that a little girl had been found murdered on his patch, and the police had been tipped off but ignored it. Then he imagined the consequences of disturbing the divine peace that ruled over the heavenly fishing grounds. Neither of these options produced especially cheerful visions in Merwin Kluuge’s mind’s eye. Nor especially useful ones with regard to his possible future career prospects.

The Pure Life? he thought. A little girl missing?

It wouldn’t surprise him.

Not at all, dammit.

He’d made up his mind. Picked up the telephone and dialled the number of the police station in Maardam.