V

February 1-7

13

“So there's no doubt, then?” said Heinemann.

“Not really,” said Münster. “Same ammunition-7.65 millimeter. The technical guys were more or less certain that it was the same weapon, but we won't know that for sure until tomorrow.”

“Two bullets in the chest, two below the belt,” said Rooth, looking at the photograph lying on the table in front of him. “I'll be damned if it isn't the same thing all over again, more or less. A copy of Ryszard Malik.”

“Of course it's the same culprit,” said Moreno. “There hasn't been a word in the papers about the bullets below the belt.”

“Correct,” muttered Van Veeteren. “Sometimes the muzzle we put on journalists actually works.”

He looked up from the document he was holding and had just read. It was a very provisional medical statement Miss Katz had popped in to hand over, and it suggested that Rickard Maasleitner had probably died between eleven and twelve o'clock the previous night, and that the cause of death was a bullet that had penetrated the heart muscle. The other shots would not have brought about instant death; not taken one at a time, that is-possibly in combination, as a result of blood loss.

“A bullet in the heart,” said Van Veeteren, passing the sheet of paper on to Münster, who was sitting next to him.

“He didn't leave Freddy's until shortly after half past eleven,” said Moreno. “It takes at least a quarter of an hour to walk to Weijskerstraat. The murderer can hardly have struck before midnight.”

“Between twelve and two, then,” said Rooth. “Ah well, we'll have to find out if anybody saw anything.”

“Or heard,” said Heinemann.

Rooth stuck his index finger into his mouth, then withdrew it with a plopping sound.

“Did you hear that?” he asked. “That's about as much noise as is made when you use a silencer. He must have used one, or he'd have woken up the whole building.”

“Okay,” said Heinemann. “We'll assume that, then.”

Van Veeteren broke a toothpick in half and looked at the clock.

“Nearly midnight,” he said with a deep sigh. “We might as well go home now and get some sleep, but so help me God, we'd better make some progress tomorrow. We have quite a few threads to pull at, this time around; and there's no reason why we should be left floundering. The sooner we solve this business, the better.”

He paused briefly, but nobody took advantage of the opportunity to speak. He could see in his colleagues' faces the same mixture of intense concentration and weariness that he could feel inside his own head. Best to rest for a few hours, no doubt about that. Besides, there wouldn't be much point in waking people up in the middle of the night to answer a few questions. The police had a bad enough reputation as it was; there was no need to make it any worse.

“This is what we'll do tomorrow,” said the chief inspector. “Reinhart and deBries will continue interviewing the neighbors. The whole block, if there's time. I assume they're still at it now, and I suppose they might as well carry on. It could be that somebody has seen something-the murderer must have called round twice, for God's sake. Once to tamper with the lock, and once to kill. It might be that nobody noticed anything, but we'll have to see… Heinemann.”

“Yes.”

“I want you to dig into the background. We have details of the whole of Malik's life. Find out when his and Maasleitner's paths crossed. There must be a link.”

“Let's hope so,” said Heinemann.

“Münster and Rooth will take his family. Or rather, the family that used to be his. I have a list of them here. Moreno and Jung will go to the Elementar school…”

“Oh my God,” said Jung. “That's the school I used to go to…”

Van Veeteren raised his eyebrows.

“When was that?” he asked.

Jung tried to work it out.

“Eighteen years ago,” he said. “Just one term in the seventh grade, then we moved in the spring. I hardly recall a single teacher. I didn't have Maasleitner in any case.”

“A pity” said Van Veeteren. “Talk to the headmaster and some of the staff even so, but tread carefully. They're usually very wary of anybody who intrudes on a seat of learning like that. Remember what happened at Bunge?”

“I certainly do,” said Münster. “Lie low, that's my advice.”

“I'll bear it in mind,” said Jung.

“But leave that Faringer character alone,” said Van Veeteren. “I intend to have a little chat with him myself.”

“A bit of an oddball,” said Münster.

“Of course,” muttered Van Veeteren. “All teachers are. If they're not odd to start with, they become so as the years go by.”

He rummaged in his empty breast pocket and looked around the room.

“Any questions?”

Rooth yawned, but nobody spoke.

“Okay,” said the chief inspector, and started collecting his papers together. “We'll meet for a run-through at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon. Make sure you make the most of the time until then. This time we're going to get him.”

“Or her,” said Münster.

“Yes, yes,” said Van Veeteren. “Cherchez la femme, if you really must.”

When he got home and had gone to bed, he realized that his tiredness had not yet overcome the tension in his brain once and for all. The image of Rickard Maasleitner's bullet-ridden body kept cropping up in his mind's eye at regular intervals, and after ten minutes of vainly trying to fall asleep, he got up and went to the kitchen instead. Fetched a beer from the refrigerator and sat down in the armchair with a blanket around his knees and Dvořák in the speakers. He allowed the darkness to envelop him, but instead of the unease and disgust he ought to have felt, in view of the two unsolved murders they were struggling with, another sensation altogether took possession of him.

It was a feeling of movement. Of hunting, in fact. The feeling that the drive had begun now, and that the prey was somewhere out there in the hustle and bustle of town, and it was only a matter of time before he would be able to get his teeth into it. Bring down the murderer.

Oh, shit! he thought as he took a swig of his beer. I'm beginning to lose the plot. If I weren't a police officer, I'd probably have become a murderer instead.

It was only a random thought, of course, but nevertheless, somewhere in some obscure corner of his brain, he realized that there was more meaning in it than would be sensible to acknowledge. It had something to do with the concept of the hunt…

In the beginning, at least.

Only in the beginning, if truth be told. Somewhere along the line came the peripeteia, the volte-face, and when he eventually-usually much, much later-stood there with his prey, with the perpetrator, what generally possessed him were exclusively feelings of loathing and disgust. The excitement-the stimulation-was only theoretical.

And in the beginning.

For when you had dug down sufficiently deep into dire reality, his stream of thought told him, when you had dug down as deep as the soil layer of the crime itself, all there was to see was the black and hopeless dregs. The causes. The maggot-ridden roots of warped society.

The back side.

Not that he believed the society in which he lived had higher or lower moral principles than any other. It was simply the way things were-two to three thousand years of culture, and law-making bodies were unable to do anything about it. The veneer of civilization, or whatever you preferred to call it, could begin to crack at any moment, crumble away and expose the darkness underneath. Some people might have imagined that Europe would be a protected haven after 1945, but Van Veeteren had never been one of them. And then things had turned out as they did. Sarajevo, Srebrenica, and all the rest of it.

And of course it was in the same underlying darkness that his own hunting instincts originated. In any case, he had always found it difficult to associate his police activities with any kind of noble deeds. Nemesis, rather. The inexorable goddess of revenge with blood on her teeth… Yes, that was more like it, there was no denying it.

And at some point, the game always turned deadly serious.

In this particular case it had taken two murders for him to begin to feel involved. Were his senses becoming duller? he wondered. What would he be like a few years from now? What would be needed by then to start the notorious Chief Inspector Van Veeteren firing on all cylinders?

Butchered women? Children?

Mass graves?

When would cynicism and world-weariness have overcome his determination to fight once and for all? For how much longer would the moral imperative have the strength to continue screeching in the darkness of his soul?

Good questions. He felt his self-disgust rising and cut off the train of thought. No doubt it had been the contrary nature of January that had made him a little sluggish at the start. Now it was February. February the second, to be precise. What was this Maasleitner business all about?

He started thinking about what had happened that afternoon.

The alarm had sounded just as he was preparing to pack up for the day. Half past four. He and Münster had been at the apartment in Weijskerstraat a quarter of an hour later, more or less at the same time as the forensic guys and the medical team. Rickard Maasleitner was lying in exactly the same posture as Ryszard Malik had been some… how long ago was it now? Two weeks, more or less? Yes, that was correct.

He had been convinced from the very first glance that it was the same killer. And that the method had been the same.

A ring on the doorbell, and then shots the moment the door opened.

A sound method, Rooth had said.

Most certainly. Once it was done, all that remained was to close the door and walk away. What sort of time was involved? Ten seconds? That would probably be long enough. You could fire four shots from a Berenger in half that time, if need be.

He emptied his glass.

And then?

Well, then everything got under way, of course. Police tape around the crime scene, a thorough search, taking care of the poor daughter who had found him. And so on.

Questions.

Questions and answers. No end to it already. And yet it was just the beginning. As already stated.

But if one were to look a little more closely at the whole business, one thing stood out, of course. Only one so far, that is. There was an enormous difference between the risk involved in the two murders.

In the case of Malik, the chances of being seen were as minimal as it is possible to be; but yesterday, all it needed was for somebody to happen to go out with a garbage bag, or to glance out through a half-open door.

It had been nighttime, of course; but even so.

Ergo: either there were witnesses or there weren't.

Perhaps, and this was much to be desired, somebody (or several people) had seen the killer on one of the two occasions when he must have visited the apartment block-while he was fiddling with the lock (because it must surely be the murderer who was responsible for that?), or when the shooting took place. Either on the way there or while leaving.

Or while he was standing waiting?

A case of either-or, then. If Reinhart and deBries did their job properly, we should know tomorrow. And even if the neighbors, or Reinhart and deBries, had missed something, there was still a good chance of striking lucky. A press release had been issued at ten o'clock, and it would be in all the main newspapers and in the radio and television news bulletins later this morning. Everybody who thought they might have some relevant information, or had merely been in the Weijskerstraat area around midnight on Wednesday evening, was urged to get in touch with the police immediately.

So there were grounds for hope.

Having come thus far in his deliberations, Van Veeteren gave in to temptation and lit a cigarette. It was time to address the big question, and that would no doubt need a bit of extra effort.

Why?

Why in hell's name should anybody march up to somebody's door, ring the bell, and shoot whoever opened it?

What was the motive?

What was the link between Ryszard Malik and Rickard Maasleitner?

And furthermore: What would have happened if somebody else had opened the door? Could the murderer be one hundred percent certain who it would be? Was it all the result of meticulous planning, or was coincidence involved?

There's no such thing as coincidence, Reinhart had once said, and that was no doubt basically true. Nevertheless, there was a hell of a difference between some causes and others. Between some motives and others.

Why had Malik and Maasleitner been singled out by the murderer?

Dvořák fell silent, and Van Veeteren could feel the weariness behind his eyes now. He stubbed out his cigarette and heaved himself up out of the armchair. Switched off the CD player and went to bed. The blood-red digital numbers on the clock radio showed 2:21, and he realized that he had less than five hours' sleep to look forward to.

Ah well, he'd been through worse situations in the past, and no doubt would be faced with worse in the future as well.

When Detective Inspector Reinhart snuggled down under the covers on his big iron-frame bed, the night had ticked its way through twenty more red minutes; but even so, he considered phoning Miss Lynch and asking her if she felt like popping over. In order to exchange a few words, if nothing else; and to remind her that he loved her.

However, something-he was confident it had to do with his good character and upbringing-restrained him from submitting to his desires, and instead he lay for a while thinking about their efforts during the course of the evening, and the way in which people seemed to notice nothing of what was happening round about them.

Or their stupidity, as some would doubtless have expressed it.

In any case, a lack of awareness. In the old, well-maintained 1930s apartment block where Rickard Maasleitner lived, there were no fewer than seventy-three inhabitants. In apartments off the relevant staircase-26B-there were seventeen tenants at home at the time of the murder, in addition to the victim himself. At least eight of those had been awake when the murderer fired the fatal shots (assuming that the incident took place before two in the morning). Five of those had been on the same floor. One had come home at ten minutes to twelve.

Nobody had noticed anything at all.

As for the front-door lock, which the murderer had sabotaged by jamming a piece of metal between the bolt and the drum, at least three persons had noticed that there was something amiss, but none of them had done anything about it, or drawn any conclusions.

Stupid idiots! Reinhart thought.

There again, of course, he knew that this was not an entirely fair judgment. He himself hadn't the slightest idea of what his neighbors got up to of an evening-he hardly knew what they were called, never mind anything else-but after seven hours of interrogation, and with so many possible witnesses among them, one would surely have been justified in expecting a rather more positive outcome.

Or any outcome at all, to be honest.

But there had not been any.

What was pretty clear, however, was the time sequence. The front door of Weijskerstraat 26 was locked automatically at 2200 hours every evening. In order to tamper with the lock in the way the murderer had done, he (or she, as Winnifred Lynch maintained) must have waited until after that time, presumably somewhere inside the building. And then, when the automatic locking took place, he or she must have calmly opened the door from the inside and inserted the piece of metal. The alternative was that the murderer stood hidden somewhere in the shrubbery outside the front door, and slipped in when one of the residents went in or came out. A pretty risky operation, and hence not very likely, as deBries and Reinhart had agreed.

What the murderer did after that was impossible to say, of course; but when Maasleitner came home at about midnight after his night out with Faringer, he (or she) had presumably wasted no time hanging around. Everything suggested that Maasleitner hadn't been at home for more than a few minutes before the doorbell rang.

And then four bullets. Two in the chest, and two below the belt. Exactly the same as on the previous occasion. Close the door and melt away. And no witnesses.

Good God, thought Reinhart with a shudder. It was so simple, enough to make you afraid of the dark.

Nevertheless he stretched out his arm and switched off the light. And as he did so he remembered that there were a couple of straws to grasp. Two of the apartment owners had been at home during the night in question, but had not been available for an interview. What is more, one of them-a certain Mr. Malgre-lived next door to Maasleitner; for want of anything better, Reinhart made up his mind to attach his best hopes for the next day's interviews to the one with him. This was scheduled for midday, when Malgre would be back from a conference in Aarlach. DeBries was due to interrogate him.

Now, if Malgre was the type used to attending conferences, Reinhart thought, he was bound to be a person with a high level of awareness. Not your usual thickie.

As he registered that thought, the usual flag of protest was raised in the back of his mind, condemning such prejudiced thoughts. But his exhaustion had the upper hand. Reinhart sighed, turned onto his side, and fell asleep.

By that time the minutes had ticked their way forward to 3:12. All evening and night he hadn't devoted a single second to thinking about the motive.

That would have to wait until tomorrow.

He'd been working today. Tomorrow he would start using his brains.

14

Baushejm was only a few stone's throws away from the suburb where Münster lived, and he drove straight there on Friday morning. If for no other reason than to save time. Wanda Piirinen (formerly Maasleitner) had to get to work-she was a secretary at one of the town's most reputable attorneys' offices-and despite the murder of her ex-husband, she had no intention of taking any more leave than necessary. Half a day, to be precise.

The children-three of them, aged seventeen (the girl who had found her father murdered the previous day), thirteen, and ten-had been allowed an extended weekend, and when Münster was shown into the well-kept villa, they had just been collected by an aunt, and would be spending at least two days with her and their cousins out at Dikken.

“We divorced eight years ago,” explained Wanda Piirinen. “It was not a good marriage, and relations have not improved since then. I don't have any feelings, although I know I ought to have.”

“You have three children together,” said Münster, devoting a rapid thought to his own two.

She nodded and gestured toward the coffeepot on the table. Münster poured himself a cup.

“That's the only reason why we still remain in contact. Or used to, perhaps I should say.”

Münster took a sip of coffee and observed her covertly over the edge of his cup. An elegant lady that was for sure. Round about forty-five, he thought; fit-looking and suntanned despite the time of year, but also displaying signs of ruthlessness which she had difficulty concealing.

Perhaps she doesn't want to, Münster thought. Perhaps she wants her independence and strength to be noticed immediately. To deter men from getting any inappropriate ideas or taking liberties. Her thick, ash-blond hair was skillfully done in a French braid, and her makeup seemed to be fastidious and understated. He guessed that she spent rather a long time at the dressing table every morning. Her nails were long and well manicured, and it was a little difficult to believe that she had been solely responsible for bringing up three children. On the other hand, of course, this is what people working in an attorney's office should look like-efficiency and well-directed energy radiated from her like an aura, and he realized that he would have to deal with what Rein-hart generally called a modern woman.

Or possibly postmodern?

“Well?” she said, and he became aware that he had lost himself in thought.

“Describe him!” he said.

“Rickard?”

“Yes, please.”

She gave him a searching look.

“I don't think I want to.”

“Why not?”

“I would only have negative things to say. It doesn't seem appropriate for me to disclose my feelings about my former husband when he has just been murdered. Please excuse me.”

Münster nodded.

“I understand. How was contact with the children? Between him and the children, I mean.”

“Bad,” she said, after a moment's hesitation. “At first they used to go and stay with him occasionally. Every other weekend, and sometimes during the week. We live in the same town, after all. It ought to have been a practical possibility to arrange something along those lines, but after a year I realized that it would be better for them to live with me all the time. They needed a home, not two homes.”

“Did he protest?” Münster asked.

“Not really. Just a little bit, for appearances' sake. He no doubt thought it was a bit of a nuisance, having them in his house. That is… was… his attitude toward quite a lot of people.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm sure you understand. If you talk to some of his colleagues, you will soon get a clear idea about that. And his friends, always assuming that he has any left…”

“We'll do that, of course,” said Münster.

He looked around the modern kitchen. There was very little to show that four people had recently had breakfast there, but no doubt there are painless routines for cleaning up, he assumed.

Why am I feeling so aggressive? he wondered, slightly surprised. What's the matter with me?

He had managed to find time to make love to Synn, take a shower, and have breakfast before leaving home, so he ought not to be so irritated. Surely she wasn't all that dangerous?

“What do you think about it?” he asked.

“About the murder?”

“Yes.”

She leaned back and gazed out the window.

“I don't know,” she said, and for the first time there was a trace of doubt in her voice. “A lot of people don't like Rickard, that is no secret; but that anybody would want to murder him… no, I'd never have thought that.”

“Why didn't people like him?”

She thought for a moment, searching for the right words.

“He could see no further than himself,” she said. “Contemptuous of everybody and everything that didn't suit his taste. Or didn't fit in with his way of thinking.”

“And what was that?”

“Excuse me?”

“His way of thinking.”

She hesitated slightly again.

“I think it can be traced back to his upbringing,” she said. “He was an only child from the age of ten onward. He had an elder brother who drowned at the age of fourteen. After that, his parents devoted all their care and attention to Rickard, but they were totally blind to the fact that he might have any faults or shortcomings. Yes, that was the basis of it all, of course.”

“Why did you marry him?” Münster asked, wondering if he might be being impertinent.

But she smiled for the first time.

“Feminine weakness,” she said. “He was handsome and I was young.”

She took a sip of coffee and sat for a few moments with the cup in her hand.

“He was overflowing with manly attributes,” she said eventually. “They are best in the early stages. By the age of forty they have somehow changed. I hope you don't mind my saying that.”

“Not at all,” said Münster. “I'm forty-three. But that isn't what we should be talking about. You don't have any suspicions, I take it?”

She shook her head.

“And he hadn't mentioned anything?”

“No. But we didn't talk to one another all that often. A telephone call once a week, perhaps. He had a life of his own.”

“What was your daughter doing there? When she found him, that is.”

“She'd gone to fetch some books. She was the one most in touch with him. They could talk to each other, I think, and her school is only a couple of blocks away from Weijskerstraat. She used to go there to study sometimes. When she had a free period, for instance.”

“And she had a key?”

Wanda Piirinen nodded.

“Yes. It's worst for her, that's for sure. It'll take time… A pity she should have to be the one who found him as well.”

She bit her lip.

“Please be gentle with her, if you have to interview her several times. She didn't sleep much last night.”

Münster nodded.

“We talked to her quite a lot yesterday. A smart girl.”

Suddenly Wanda Piirinen had tears in her eyes, and he wondered if he had misjudged her slightly. He felt it was about time to take his leave.

“Just one more thing,” he said. “Ryszard Malik. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“He's the one who was shot on the previous occasion, isn't he?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I've never heard the name before, I'm quite sure.”

“Okay, many thanks,” said Münster, rising to his feet. “I hope you'll get in touch if you think of anything you consider might be of interest to us.”

“Of course.”

She showed him out. For some reason she remained in the doorway until he had clambered into his car in the street outside. When he started the engine, she raised her hand as a sort of farewell gesture before disappearing into the house.

That's that, then, Münster thought. Another insight into another life. And as he did a U-turn in the deserted suburban street, he suddenly felt something dark and somber stick its claws into him.

“Hell and damnation,” he muttered. It must be something to do with the time of year…

“Fired!” said Jung. “Can you believe that he was actually in the process of being fired? For Christ's sake, I thought it was impossible for a teacher to get the boot!”

They were in the car again, on the way back to the police station. The visit to the Elementar school had taken up three hours of their time, but the outcome was not bad at all. After a short introductory conversation with Greitzen, the headmaster, they had spent most of the time with the school's so-called staff welfare group-three women and three men-and the picture of Rickard Maasleitner that had emerged was undoubtedly a colorful one.

He was evidently one of those pedagogues who should have chosen a different career. That was soon clear to Jung. A job in which he didn't have such good opportunities to take advantage of his position. To use and misuse his power.

The incidents in December had not been the first ones. By no means. Maasleitner's twenty-five-year teaching career had been littered with similar intermezzos. What had kept him in his job were esprit de corps, misguided solidarity on the part of colleagues, interventions by school leaders and others; but it was crystal clear that many people were sick and tired of him. Not to say everybody.

“There are two types of teacher,” a hardened, chain-smoking counselor had explained. “Those who solve conflicts, and those who create them. Unfortunately, Maasleitner belonged to the latter category.”

“Belonged to?” a gently ironic but confidence-inspiring woman, a language teacher, had commented. “He was their uncrowned king. He could hardly walk across the school playground without stirring up trouble. He could pick an argument with the flagpole.”

Moreno had wondered if Maasleitner had enjoyed any kind of support from the staff even so, and what the outcome of his suspension would have been, if it had progressed to a natural conclusion, as it were. Needless to say the problem had been discussed in the staff welfare group-whose function was to deal with delicate matters like the problems caused by Maasleitner-and there was a surprisingly firm agreement that they would have let it take its natural course. They would have left Maasleitner to dig his own way out of the hole he had created himself, as best he could.

That indubitably said quite a lot about the situation. And about Maasleitner.

“But he must surely have had a few allies?” Jung had suggested.

But not a single name was mentioned. Perhaps that was a way of presenting a united front, it had occurred to Jung afterward. Perhaps it was only natural. But there again, it was rather odd. Maasleitner had just been murdered, after all… Don't speak ill of the dead, and all that. But here the opposite seemed to be the case.

Terrible, he thought. If the people you have been working with every day-in some cases for more than twenty years-had nothing but shit to throw at a man lying helpless on the ground, well… It indicated that he hadn't been anybody's favorite, that was definite.

They had spoken to some of the pupils as well. Six of them, to be precise; one at a time. These somewhat younger witnesses displayed rather more consideration and respect for the dead. To be sure, Maasleitner had been a pain, but it was going over the top for somebody to go and shoot him. Kick him-yes! Kill him-no, no! as one young man put it. A couple of the girls had even tried hard to find the odd nice thing to say about him, although their efforts gave the distinct impression of being rather strained and forced.

He was knowledgeable, and sometimes fair, he didn't have any particular favorites-those were among the good qualities they mentioned. (In other words, he thought just as badly about all of them, Jung thought to himself.)

In the end they had gone back to the headmaster's study again. He served them coffee and wondered if they needed any further information-and hoped that if so, they could arrange to dig deeper outside school hours.

Neither Moreno nor Jung thought they had much more to ask about at this stage. Apart from what could have caused his murder and who did it, of course; but the headmaster had merely shaken his head in response to that.

“You mean, can I think of anybody who would want to eliminate him? No. I assume you are not looking for a young murderer. Our oldest pupils are sixteen years of age. I can't imagine that any member of our staff would… No, that's out of the question. He wasn't exactly well liked, but it's completely out of the question.”

“What do you think?” asked Moreno as they waited at a red light down by Zwille.

“Well,” said Jung, “I wouldn't like to be the headmaster and need to say a few words at the funeral. Good Lord, no.”

“It's wrong to tell lies in church,” said Moreno.

“Exactly.”

“And Malik doesn't seem to have had any connection with the school at all. No, I think we can leave them in peace and let them get on with their studies.”

Jung said nothing for a while.

“How about going for lunch somewhere instead?” he said as the police station loomed up in front of them. “There's two hours to go before our meeting.”

Ewa Moreno hesitated.

“Okay,” she said. “At least they won't have us getting in the way if we do that.”


***

DeBries started the tape recorder even before Alwin Malgre had settled down in the visitor's chair.

DEB:-Welcome, Mr. Malgre. I'd like to ask you a few questions about Wednesday evening.

M:-So I understand.

DEB:-So, your name is Alwin Malgre, and you live at Weijskerstraat 26B?

M:-That's correct.

DEB:-Would you mind speaking a bit louder, please?

M:-Why?

DEB:-I'm recording our conversation on this tape recorder.

M:-Oh…

DEB:-Anyway. I take it you are aware that a murder was committed in the apartment block where you live at some time between midnight and two in the morning last Wednesday night?

M:-Maasleitner, yes. It's terrible.

DEB:-Your apartment is next door to his, I understand. Can you please tell me what you were doing the night before last?

M:-Er, let me see… Yes, I was at home, reading…

DEB:-Do you live alone in the apartment?

M:-Yes, of course.

DEB:-And you didn't have any visitors?

M:-No.

DEB:-Please go on.

M:-I was at home reading all evening. Cramming, perhaps I should say. I had to attend that seminar because Van Donck didn't have time…

DEB:-Who's Van Donck?

M:-My boss, of course.

DEB:-What is your work, and what exactly was this conference? Is that where you were yesterday?

M:-Yes, in Aarlach. I work at the Stamp Center. Van Donck is my boss… Well, there's just the two of us in the firm. You could say that I'm his assistant.

DEB:-You sell postage stamps, is that right?

M:-And buy. Are you interested in philately, Mr… Mr…?

DEB:-DeBries. No. What was this conference all about?

M:-More of a seminar, really. Seminar and auction. About the problems resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union. This time it was mainly the stamps issued by the Baltic states that we were discussing. I don't know if you realize the chaos that has been caused in philately by the formation of all these new states… It's a gold mine for us as well, of course, depending on how speculative you want to be.

DEB:-Naturally. Anyway, we can go into that some other time. Back to Wednesday evening, if you wouldn't mind.

M:-Well, I don't know what to say. I came home at half past six or thereabouts. Had my evening meal and started reading. Had a cup of tea at about half past nine, I should think it was… Watched the nine o'clock news on the telly as well, of course. Well, and then I suppose I sat up until about half past eleven, roughly.

DEB:-So you were asleep from half past eleven, is that right?

M:-No, I carried on reading until about a quarter to one. In bed, that is. Van Donck had acquired two new books that same afternoon, and obviously, I didn't want to go to Aarlach underprepared. I'd have a bit of time on the train as well, naturally, but…

DEB:-Did you notice anything?

M:-Excuse me?

DEB:-Did you notice anything unusual during the evening?

M:-No.

DEB:-You didn't hear anything around midnight?

M:-No… No, I was in bed by then. The bedroom faces the courtyard.

DEB:-So you didn't notice when Mr. Maasleitner came home?

M:-No.

DEB:-Nothing else around that time either?

M:-No.

DEB:-Do you usually hear noises from inside Maasleitner's apartment?

M:-No, the building is extremely well insulated.

DEB:-We've gathered that. Were you well acquainted with your neighbor?

M:-Maasleitner, you mean?

DEB:-Yes.

M:-No, not at all. We said hello if we bumped into each other on the stairs, but that's all.

DEB:-I understand. Is there anything else you saw or heard that you think might be connected with the murder?

M:-No.

DEB:-Nothing you noticed that you think we ought to know about?

M:-No-What are you referring to?

DEB:-Anything at all. Something unusual that has happened recently for instance?

M:-No… no, I can't think of anything.

DEB:-You don't know if Maasleitner had any visitors these last few days?

M:-No, I've no idea. You'd better ask the other neighbors. I'm not all that observant…

DEB:-We can't very well expect you to be. Anyway, many thanks, Mr. Malgre. If anything occurs to you, please get in touch with us without delay.

M:-Of course. Thank you very much. This was most interesting.

Extremely productive, deBries thought after Malgre had left the room. He lit a cigarette, stood by the window, and gazed out over the town.

Three hundred thousand people, he thought. There sometimes seemed to be pretty high walls between all of them. While one of them gets shot and killed, his neighbor is in bed ten meters away, reading up on Estonian postage stamps.

But no doubt that's what was meant by the concept of privacy.


***

It took Van Veeteren about a minute to discover that having lunch while reconstructing what had happened was not a good idea. When he entered Freddy's bar and restaurant through the low door, Enso Faringer was already sitting at their reserved table, and his nervousness was obvious from a distance.

Van Veeteren sat down and produced a pack of cigarettes: Faringer took one and dropped it on the floor.

“So,” the chief inspector began, “we might as well have a bite to eat, seeing as we're sitting here.”

“Sounds good.”

“So this is where you spent Wednesday evening, is it?”

Faringer nodded and adjusted his spectacles, which evidently had a tendency to slide down his shiny nose.

“I understand you are a German teacher.”

“Yes,” said Faringer. “Somebody has to be.”

Van Veeteren was not sure if that was meant as a joke or not.

“You presumably knew Maasleitner well?”

“Er… not really, no.”

“But you used to meet, I gather?”

“Only sporadically. We'd go out for a beer now and then.”

“Such as last Wednesday?”

“Yes, like last Wednesday.”

Van Veeteren said nothing for a while in order to give Faringer an opportunity of saying something off his own bat; but it was a waste of time. His eyes were moving ceaselessly behind his thick glasses, he was wriggling and squirming in his chair and fiddling with the knot of his tie.

“Why are you so nervous?”

“Nervous?”

“Yes. I have the impression you're frightened of something.”

Faringer emitted a very short laugh.

“No, I'm always like this.”

Van Veeteren sighed. The waiter came with the menu and they spent a few minutes perusing it before deciding on today's special.

“What did you talk about on Wednesday?”

“I can't remember.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't recall. We had a bit too much to drink, and I often get these black holes in my memory.”

“But you must remember something, surely?”

“Yes, I know that Maasleitner asked me about the situation at school. He was in a bit of a mess. He asked me to help him.”

“How?”

Faringer scratched at his neck, where he had some kind of a rash.

“Oh, I don't know. Keep my eyes open, I assume.”

“He didn't ask you to take an initiative?”

“An initiative? No. How would I be able to take an initiative?”

No, Van Veeteren thought. That would be out of the question, of course. Enso Faringer wasn't the type to take initiatives.

The lunch lasted for forty-five minutes, despite the fact that Van Veeteren canceled dessert and coffee; and by the time he sat down in the driver's seat of his car, he was convinced of one thing. Faringer had been telling the truth. The little German teacher had no recollection of the measures he and Maasleitner had drawn up to save the world during the evening of the murder. Van Veeteren had also talked to the staff at Freddy's, and nobody found it the least bit strange that the “little Kraut” had lost his memory. On the contrary.

It had simply been one of those evenings.

So that was that, Van Veeteren thought. Deep down he was also rather grateful-having to sit there and listen to Enso Faringer's account of a whole evening of drunken rambling would hardly have constituted an unmissable experience.

When he was about halfway back to the police station, he found himself with something else to think about. It had started raining again, and it was clear that if he didn't do something about replacing that damned windshield wiper as soon as possible, something nasty was likely to happen.

But then again, he knew that the moment he did something about replacing a broken part, something else would break.

His car was like that, that's all there was to it.

A bit reminiscent of life itself.

15

“Why did you give Heinemann the job of sifting the background?” wondered Reinhart. “I mean, he needs a week in order to have a shit.”

“Could be,” said Van Veeteren. “But at least he's meticulous. Let's start without him. Somebody pour out the coffee. Miss Katz promised to serve us something tasty.”

“Sounds good,” said Rooth.

“Let's start with the scientific guff,” said the chief inspector, distributing a set of photocopies. “I don't think you'll find anything sensational there.”

The seven detectives present each read through the brief reports from the pathologist and the forensic team (all apart from Van Veeteren, who had already digested them, and Rein-hart, who preferred to fill his pipe); and the consensus was that sure enough, they didn't contain anything new. Generally speaking, they merely confirmed what was already known-cause of death, time of death (now made more precise, assigned to the period between 2345 and 0115), the weapon (a 7.65-millimeter Berenger, ninety-nine percent certain to be the same gun used for the murder of Ryszard Malik). No fingerprints had been found, no trace of anything unusual; the piece of metal used to jam the lock was made of stainless steel, available all over the place and impossible to trace.

“All right,” said Van Veeteren. “Let's record the crap, so that Heller can use it as a lullaby to send him into dreamland over the weekend.”

He started the tape recorder.

“Run-through of the case of Rickard Maasleitner, Friday, February second, three-fifteen p.m. Those present: Van Veeteren, Münster, Rooth, Reinhart, Moreno, deBries, and Jung. Reinhart and deBries first.”

“Pass,” said Reinhart.

“We've got nowhere,” deBries explained. “We've interviewed over seventy people at number 26 and the building opposite. Nobody's seen or heard a squeak. The light over the front door of 26B had blown out, by the way, so it would have been hard to get an image of the murderer anyway.”

“Did he smash that as well?” asked Moreno.

“Probably not, but it's hard to say. It's been out of order for the past six days.”

“Nothing else?” asked Van Veeteren.

“No,” said Reinhart. “The transcripts of the interrogations are at your disposal if you want something guaranteed to send you to sleep over the weekend.”

“Good,” said Van Veeteren. “Well done.”

“Thank you,” said deBries.

The rest of the meeting proceeded in more or less the same way. As far as the character and general reputation of the deceased was concerned, a number of reports came up with the same conclusion. Rickard Maasleitner was a shit. A bully and a self-centered know-it-all of the very worst sort, it seemed. Even so, it was difficult to see that anybody would have had sufficient cause to kill him. As far as was known he hadn't had any affairs-indeed, it was not at all clear if he'd had a single relationship with a woman since his divorce eight years earlier. He might possibly have resorted to prostitutes occasionally, but this was pure speculation that couldn't be confirmed or disproved. He had no debts. No commitments. No shady deals.

And nobody had been close to him.

His former wife had nothing positive to say about him, nor had anybody else. His children were naturally a bit shocked, but any sorrow they might have felt would no doubt be able to be assuaged successfully, according to both amateur and professional diagnoses.

Both of Rickard Maasleitner's parents were dead, and one could be forgiven for thinking that his last real ally had been buried three years ago, in the shape of his mother.

“A right bastard!” was Reinhart's summary of the victim's character. “He sounds so awful, it would have been interesting to meet him.”

Van Veeteren switched off the tape recorder.

“A good finishing line,” he explained.

“Wouldn't it be possible to track down the weapon?” Jung asked.

Van Veeteren shook his head.

“DeBries, tell the assembled masses how one goes about getting hold of a gun. You've been looking into this.”

“By all means,” said deBries. “Pretty straightforward, in fact. You get in touch with somebody who gives the impression of being just outside the reach of the law-some seedy-looking type hanging around the Central Station or Grote Square, for instance. You say you need a gun. He tells you to wait, and a quarter of an hour later he comes back with an envelope. You slip him a hundred guilders for his services, then you go home and open the envelope. The instructions are inside. You have to send money-let's say a thousand guilders-to a general delivery address. Müller, General Post Office, Maardam, for instance. You do as bidden, and a week or so later you receive a letter with a key inside it. It's for a safe-deposit box at the Central Station. You go there, open the box, and presto!-you find a little box containing a gun…”

“Then all you need to do is get off your ass and start killing,” said Van Veeteren.

“A sound method,” said Rooth again.

“Devilishly clever,” said Reinhart. “But we have to assign Stauff or Petersén to the job of looking into that. Just to be sure.”

Van Veeteren nodded. Reached over the table and took a cigarette out of deBries's pack.

“And what are the rest of us supposed to do, then?” asked Münster.

“Jung,” said the chief inspector, when he'd finally managed to light his cigarette. “Could you go and search for Heinemann? It'll be a real mess if we can't nurse a single horse over the winning line.”

“Sure,” said Jung, rising to his feet. “Where is he?”

Van Veeteren shrugged.

“Somewhere in the building, I assume. In his office, if you're lucky.”


***

Ten minutes later Jung returned with Heinemann in tow.

“Sorry,” said Heinemann, flopping down onto an empty chair. “I was a bit delayed.”

“You don't say,” said Reinhart.

Heinemann put a large envelope on the table in front of him.

“What have you got there?” asked Münster.

“The connection,” said Heinemann.

“What do you mean?” wondered Rooth.

“I was supposed to look for the connection, wasn't I?”

“Well, I'll be damned!” said deBries.

Heinemann opened the envelope and took out an enlarged photograph. He handed it to Van Veeteren.

The chief inspector studied it for a few seconds, looking bewildered.

“Explain,” he said eventually.

“Of course,” said Heinemann, taking off his glasses. “The photograph is of the leaving class-that really is what they call it-from the United Services Staff College in 1965. Third from the left in the bottom row is Ryszard Malik. Second from the right in the middle row is Rickard Maasleitner.”

You could have heard a pin drop. Van Veeteren passed around the photograph of thirty-five formally dressed young men in gray-green military shirts with innocent expressions on their faces.

“Did you say 1965?” asked Münster when everybody had seen it.

“Yes,” said Heinemann. “They were called up in April ′64, and left at the end of May ′65. Anyway, that's what I've found… Apart from the fact that they have the same initials, of course, but I expect you've thought about that?”

“What?” said Rooth. “My God, you're right!”

“R.M.,” said Reinhart. “Hmm, I don't suppose it means anything.”

“Have you got the names of all of them?” asked Van Veeteren.

Heinemann dug down into the envelope and produced a sheet of paper.

“Just the names and dates of birth so far, but Krause and Willock are working on more. It'll take a while, as you'll appreciate.”

“The main thing is that it's done scrupulously,” said Reinhart.

Silence again. Münster stood up and walked over to the window, turning his back on the others. Van Veeteren leaned back and sucked in his cheeks. Moreno took another look at the photograph.

“Well,” said deBries after a while, “this is worth thinking about, I reckon.”

“Presumably,” said Van Veeteren. “We'll take a break now. I need to contemplate. Come back here half an hour from now, and then we can decide where to go from here. DeBries, can you let me have a cigarette?”

“Where exactly is this military college?” asked Moreno when they had reassembled.

“Up in Schaabe nowadays,” said Heinemann. “It was moved from here in Maardam at the beginning of the seventies-it used to be out at Löhr.”

“Did you find any other connections?” Münster wondered.

“No, not yet. But I think this one is spot-on. If there are any others, they will probably be further back in the past.”

“How should we go about this, then?” asked Rooth.

Van Veeteren looked up from the list of names.

“This is what we'll do,” he said, checking how many of them there were. “There are eight of us. Each of us will take four names and track them down over the weekend. It ought to be possible to find at least two out of four. You can check addresses and suchlike with Krause and Willock. They can distribute the names among you as well. On Monday morning I want comprehensive reports, and if you come across anything significant before then, get in touch.”

“Sound method,” said Reinhart.

“Exactly what I was going to say,” said Rooth. “When will Krause and Willock be ready?”

“They'll be working all evening,” said Van Veeteren. “Joensuu and Klempje have been roped in as well. You can all go home and then ring here and get your four names tonight, or tomorrow morning. Okay? Any questions?”

“One more thing, perhaps,” said Reinhart.

“Of course, dammit,” said Van Veeteren, tapping at the photograph with his index finger. “Tread carefully. It's by no means certain that these are the guys we're looking for. Don't forget that!”

“Should we release this information to the general public?” Münster asked.

Van Veeteren thought for three seconds.

“I think we should be extremely careful not to do that,” he said eventually. “Bear that in mind when you ask your questions as well-don't say too much about what's going on. I don't think Hiller would be too pleased if thirty-three people suddenly turned up and demanded police protection all around the clock.”

“Mind you, it would be fun to see his face if they did,” said Reinhart.

“If they did,” said Van Veeteren.

Russian roulette? Münster thought as he was sitting with the kids on his knee an hour later, watching a children's program on the TV Why do the words “Russian roulette” keep coming into my head?

It could be a coincidence, of course, Van Veeteren thought as he settled down in the bath with a burning candle on the lavatory seat and a beer within easy reach. Pure coincidence, if Reinhart hadn't already banned that expression. Two people living in the same town might well end up sooner or later in the same photograph, whether they want to or not.

Wasn't that more likely than their not doing so?

God only knows, Van Veeteren thought. In any case, we'll find out eventually.

16

Saturday, February 3, began with warm southwesterly winds and a misleadingly high and bright sky. Van Veeteren had already made up his mind in principle to attend Ryszard Malik's funeral, but when he stood in the balcony doorway to check the weather situation at about nine o'clock, he realized that he also had the gods on his side.

Still standing there, he tried to establish what had led him to make that decision. Why he felt it was so necessary for him to be present at the burial ceremony in the Eastern Cemetery, that is. And, to his horror, it dawned on him that it was because of an old movie. Or several movies, rather. More specifically that classic introductory scene with a group of people dressed in black around a coffin being lowered slowly into a grave. And then, a short distance away, two detectives in their crumpled trench coats observing the mourners. They turn up their collars and begin a whispered conversation about who's who… Who is that lady with the veil, half-turned away from the grave; why isn't the widow crying, and which of the bastards is it who pumped a bullet into the head of the stinking-rich Lord Ffolliot-Pym?

What reasoning! Van Veeteren thought as he closed the balcony door. Downright perverse! But then, there's nothing one won't do…

Out in the windswept cemetery later that day there seemed to be a distinct shortage of possible murderers. The one who behaved most oddly was without doubt a large man in a green raincoat and red rubber boots; but he had been instructed to attend by the chief inspector.

Constable Klaarentoft was known as the force's most skillful photographer, and his task on this occasion was to take as many pictures as he possibly could. Van Veeteren knew that he had stolen this idea from another movie, namely Blow-Up, from the mid-sixties. Antonioni, if he remembered rightly. The theory was, of course, that somewhere among all these faces, which would slowly emerge from the police photographic laboratory, would be the murderer's.

Ryszard Malik's and Rickard Maasleitner's murderer.

He recalled seeing the film-which was a pretty awful mishmash-three times, simply to observe how the face of a killer could be plucked out of the lush greenery of an English park.

Another kind of perversion, of course, and Klaarentoft had evidently not seen the film. He traipsed around between the graves, snapping away to his heart's content, totally ignoring Van Veeteren's instruction to be as unobtrusive as possible.

The fact that he managed to take no less than twelve pictures of the clergyman conducting the ceremony suggested that he might not have grasped the point of his contribution.

On the other hand, of course, the group that followed Ryszard Malik to his final resting place was on the sparse side, so there was a shortage of motifs. Van Veeteren counted fourteen persons present-including himself and Klaarentoft-and during the course of the ceremony he was able to identify all of them, apart from two children.

He was unable to detect furtive observers keeping some distance away from the grave (there were a few persons tending other graves in the vicinity of course, but none of them behaved strangely or alerted his famous intuition in the slightest), and when the rain started to fall and he had managed to give Klaarentoft discreet instructions to go away and snap something else, he had long been aware that there was not much point in his hanging around.

And an hour or so later, when he had finally managed to drink a glass of mulled wine at the Kraus bar, he realized that the cold he had succeeded in keeping at bay over the last few days had now gotten a second wind.

The next funeral will be my own, he predicted.

“It's Saturday. Do you really have to do that today?” he had asked.

“Today or tomorrow. Don't you think it's best if I get it out of the way as soon as possible?”

“Yes, of course,” he'd replied, and turned over in his bed. “I'll see you this evening.”

It wasn't an especially unusual exchange. Nor unexpected. As she sat in the bus she felt a nagging pain at the back of her head, like a bad omen. She had been with Claus Badher for fifteen months now-maybe sixteen, it depended on what criteria you used-and it was probably the best relationship she'd ever been involved in. In fact, it certainly was. It involved love and mutual respect, shared values and interests, and everything else one could reasonably expect.

Everything in the garden was lovely. Pure bliss. All their friends thought they ought to take things further. Move in together permanently, with all that implied. Claus thought so too.

There was just that little irritation. That tiny little snag that frightened her. That might be rooted in contempt, despite everything, and if so was destined to grow and become even more worrying. She didn't know. Contempt for her job. Needless to say he was extremely careful not to make it obvious-probably didn't even realize it himself; but sometimes she couldn't help but notice. It just crept up on her, flashed briefly on the surface, then vanished: but she knew it was there. As in the little exchange they'd just had, for instance, which wasn't really significant in itself as yet… But she suspected it could grow into something really threatening as the years passed by.

A threat to their equal status. And to her life.

Claus Badher worked as a foreign-exchange broker in a bank, and was on his way up. She worked as a detective inspector and was on the way… where was she on the way to?

She sighed. At the moment she was on the way to a house in Dikken, where she was due to meet a fifty-two-year-old lawyer and ask him about his time as a National Serviceman.

Absurd? Yes, it was absurd. She often thought that Claus was absolutely right. Always assuming that that was what he was thinking, of course…

She got off the bus and walked the hundred meters or so to the house. Went in through the gate and was greeted by two boxer puppies, enthusiastically barking and wagging their stumpy tails. She paused on the gravel path to stroke them. Looked up at the big two-story house in dark brown English brick with green shutters. Behind one of the gable ends she could just make out a swimming pool, and some wire netting she assumed must be surrounding a tennis court.

Why not? she thought. If I really had to, I suppose I might manage to cope with living like this.

“Ewa Moreno, detective inspector. I'm sorry to trouble you. I just have a few questions I'd like to ask you.”

“No problem. I'm at your disposal.”

Jan Tomaszewski was wearing something she assumed must be a smoking jacket-and indeed, the rest of him seemed to belong to another age. Or in a movie. His dark hair was powdered and immaculately combed, and his slim body gave the distinct impression of being aristocratic. Leslie Howard? she wondered. He reached out over the smoke-gray glass table and served her tea from a charmingly sculpted silver pot.

Another world, she thought. I'd better get going before I swoon.

“Thank you,” she said. “As I mentioned, I need to ask you about the time you spent during your National Service at the Staff College in Löhr. I think that was 1964 to 1965-is that right?”

He nodded.

“That's correct. Why on earth should you be interested in that?”

“I'm afraid I can't tell you that. And I'd appreciate it if you would be discreet about our conversation as well. Perhaps we can meet again at a later stage if you want to know more.”

That was a formulation she had thought out in advance, and she could see that it had fallen on fruitful ground.

“I understand.”

“Anyway, we are mainly interested in a couple of your fellow students at the college. Ryszard Malik and Rickard Maasleitner.”

She took the photograph out of her briefcase and handed it to him.

“Can you point them out?”

He smiled and took a pair of glasses from his breast pocket. Scrutinized the photograph for some thirty seconds.

“Maasleitner isn't a problem,” he said. “We were in the same barrack room nearly all the time. I'm not so sure about Malik, but I think that's him.”

He pointed and Moreno nodded.

“Correct. Can you tell me what you remember about them?”

Tomaszewski took off his glasses and leaned back in his chair.

“I can hardly remember Malik at all,” he said after a while. “We were never in the same group and we didn't mix when we were off duty He was a bit introspective and pretty anonymous, I think. I should mention that I'm not completely unaware of what has happened…”

Moreno nodded.

“Do I take it that you think this is the link? The connection between the two of them, I mean?”

“We're following up several different lines of inquiry,” Moreno explained. “This is just one of them. Obviously, we need to follow up every possibility.”

“Of course. Anyway, I recall Maasleitner in a bit more detail. We were frequently in the same class during training-telegraphy, general staff work, and so on. I have to say I didn't much like him. He was a bit dominant, if you see what I mean.”

“How do you mean, dominant?” Moreno asked.

“Well…” Tomaszewski flung out his arms. “Bigmouthed. Young and arrogant. A bit unbalanced-but he probably wasn't all that bad.”

“Was he generally disliked?”

Tomaszewski thought that one over.

“I think so. Not that it was a real problem. It was just that he had something about him that could be a bit trying. But, of course, there's bound to be one or two like that in such a big group.”

“Did you mix at all when you were off duty?”

Tomaszewski shook his head.

“Never.”

“Do you know if Malik and Maasleitner did?”

“I've no idea. I wouldn't have thought so, but, of course, I can't swear to it.”

“Do you know if any of the others were close to them? To either one of them, that is?”

Tomaszewski studied the photograph again. Moreno produced a list of names and handed it to him. Drank a little tea and took a chocolate biscuit while he was thinking about it. Looked around the whitewashed walls, crammed full with rows of colorful, nonfigurative paintings, almost edge to edge. Her host was evidently something of a collector. She wondered how much money was hanging here.

Probably quite a lot.

“Hmm,” he said eventually. “I'm afraid I can't be of much help to you. I can't think of any link between them. I can't associate Malik with anybody else at all. I think Maasleitner occasionally hung around with them.”

He pointed to two faces in the back row.

“Van der Heukken and Biedersen?” Moreno read the names from her list.

Tomaszewski nodded.

“As far as I can recall. You realize that it's over thirty years ago?”

Moreno smiled.

“Yes,” she said. “I realize that. But I understood that time spent on National Service had an ineradicable effect on all young men who underwent it.”

Tomaszewski smiled.

“No doubt it did on some. But most of us try to forget all about it, as far as possible.”

“Charming” was the word that stuck in her mind after the visit to Tomaszewski. The discreet charm of the middle classes, she recalled, and she had to admit that on the whole, there were worse ways of spending an hour on a Saturday morning.

She had not expected her trip to Dikken to produce anything substantial for the investigation, and the same applied to the next name on her list: Pierre Borsens.

When she got off the bus in Maardam, she had succeeded in thrusting aside the morning's gloomy thoughts and made up her mind to call in at the covered market and buy a couple of decent cheeses for the evening meal. Pierre Borsens lived only a block away from the market, and it wasn't yet quite half past twelve.


***

The man who sat down at the table brought with him an aroma that Jung had some difficulty in identifying. It had the same crudely acidic quality as cat piss, but it also had an unmistakable tang of the sea. Rotten seaweed scorched by the sun, or something of the sort. Most probably it was a combination of both these ingredients.

And more besides. Jung hastily moved his chair back a couple of feet, and lit a cigarette.

“I take it you are Calvin Lange?” he asked.

“I certainly am,” said the man, reaching out a grubby hand over the table. Jung leaned forward and shook it.

“My place is a bit of a mess at the moment,” the man explained. “That's why I thought it would be better to meet here.”

He smiled, and revealed two rows of brown, decayed teeth. Jung was grateful to hear what the man said. He would prefer not to have been confronted by the mess.

“Would you like a beer?” The question was rhetorical.

Lange nodded and coughed. Jung gestured toward the bar.

“And a cigarette, perhaps?”

Lange took one. Jung sighed discreetly and decided it was necessary to get this over with as quickly as possible. It was always problematic to arrange reimbursement for beer and cigarettes; that was something he'd discovered a long time ago.

“Do you recognize this?”

Lange took the photograph and studied it while drawing deeply on his cigarette.

“That's me,” he said, placing a filthy index finger on the face of a young, innocent-looking man in the front row.

“We know that,” said Jung. “Do you remember what those two are called?”

He pointed with his pen.

“One at a time,” said Lange.

The waitress arrived with two glasses of beer.

“Cheers,” said Lange, emptying his in one gulp.

“Cheers,” said Jung, pointing at Malik in the photograph.

“Let's see,” said Lange, peering awkwardly. “No, no fucking idea. Who else?”

Jung pointed at Maasleitner with his pen.

“Seems familiar,” said Lange, scratching his armpit. “Yes, I recognize that bugger, but I've no idea what he's called.”

He belched and looked gloomily at his empty glass.

“Do you remember the names Malik and Maasleitner?”

“Malik and…?”

“Maasleitner.”

“Maasleitner?”

“Yes.”

“No, is that him?”

He plonked his finger on Malik.

“No, that's Malik.”

“Oh, shit. What have they done?”

Jung stubbed out his cigarette. This was going brilliantly.

“Do you remember anything at all from your year as a National Serviceman?”

“National Service? Why are you asking about that?”

“I'm afraid I can't go into that. But we're interested in these two people. Staff College 1965-that's right, isn't it?”

He pointed again.

“Oh, shit,” said Lange, and had a coughing fit. “You mean this picture is from the Staff College? Fuck me, I thought it was the handball team. But there were too many of 'em.”

Jung thought about this for three seconds. Then he returned the photograph to his briefcase and stood up.

“Many thanks,” he said. “You're welcome to my beer as well.” “If you twist my arm,” said Lange.

Mahler advanced a pawn and Van Veeteren sneezed.

“How are things? Under the weather again?”

“Just a bit, yes. I was out in the rain at the cemetery for too long yesterday afternoon.”

“Stupid,” said Mahler.

“I know,” sighed Van Veeteren. “But I couldn't just walk away. I'm rather sensitive about that kind of thing.”

“Yes, I know how you feel,” said Mahler. “It was that Malik, I gather. How's the case going? They're writing quite a lot about it in the newspapers.”

“Badly,” said Van Veeteren.

“Have you found a link yet?”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“But I'm not sure it's the right one. Well, I suppose I am, really… But that doesn't mean very much yet. You could say that I'm looking for a stone and I've found the market square.”

“Eh?” said Mahler.

Van Veeteren sneezed again.

“For Christ's sake,” he said. “Looking for a star and I've found a galaxy, how about that? I thought you were supposed to be the poet.”

Mahler chuckled.

“I know what you mean,” he said. “But isn't it an incident that you're looking for?”

Van Veeteren picked up his white knight and sat there for a few seconds, holding it in his hand.

“An incident?” he said, placing the knight on c4. “Yes, that's probably not a bad guess. The problem is that such a lot is happening.”

“All the time,” said Mahler.

17

Of the four people eventually allocated to Inspector Münster, it turned out that one lived in central Maardam, one in Linzhuisen, barely thirty kilometers away and one down in Groenstadt, a journey of some two hundred kilometers. On Saturday afternoon, Münster conducted a short telephone interview with the last-a certain Werner Samijn, who worked as an electrical engineer and didn't have much to say about either Malik or Maasleitner. He had lived in the same barrack room as Malik and remembered him most as a rather pleasant and somewhat reserved young man. He thought Maasleitner was a more cocksure type (if the inspector and the man's widow would excuse the expression), but they had never mixed or gotten to know each other.

Number one on the list, Erich Molder, failed to answer the several phone calls Münster made to his house in Guyderstraat; but number two, Joen Fassleucht, was available; Münster offered to drive to his home late on Sunday afternoon.

Münster's son, Bart, aged six and a half, objected strongly to this arrangement, but after some discussion, it was decided that Bart could go along in the car, provided he promise to stay in the backseat reading a Monster comic while his father carried out his police duties.

It was the first time Münster had agreed to anything of this nature, and as he sat in Fassleucht's living room nibbling at cookies, he became aware that it did not have a particularly positive influence on his powers of concentration.

But perhaps that didn't matter so much on this occasion-it was hardly an important interrogation, he tried to convince himself. Fassleucht had mixed with Malik quite a lot during his National Service: they were both part of a group of four or five friends who occasionally went out together. Went to the movies, played cards, or simply sat at the same table in the canteen and gaped at the goggle-box. After demobilization, all contact had ceased; and as for Maasleitner, all Fassleucht could do was confirm the opinion expressed by Samijn the previous day.

Overbearing and rather cocky.

Münster had been apprehensive, of course, and when he returned to his car after about half an hour he saw immediately that Bart had disappeared.

A cold shudder ran down his spine as he stood on the pavement wondering what the hell he should do; and, of course, that was the intention. Bart's disheveled head suddenly appeared in the back window-he had been lying on the floor hidden under a blanket, and his broadly grinning face left no doubt about the fact that he considered it an unusually successful joke.

“You really looked shit scared!” he announced in glee.

“You little bastard,” said Münster. “Would you like a hamburger?”

“And a Coke,” said Bart.

Münster drove toward the center of town in search of a suitable establishment for the provision of such goods, and decided that his son would have to grow several years older before it was appropriate to take him along on a similar assignment.

“There's an in-depth article about your case in the Allgemejne today” said Winnifred Lynch. “Have you read it?”

“No,” said Reinhart. “Why should I do that?”

“They try to make a profile of the perpetrator.”

Reinhart snorted.

“You can make a perpetrator profile only in the case of a serial killer. And even then it's a decidedly dodgy method. But it sounds good in the press, of course. They can write and make up stories about murderers who don't exist. A green flag for any fantasies you like. Much more fun than reality naturally.”

Winnifred Lynch folded up the newspaper.

“Isn't it a serial killer, then?”

Reinhart looked hard at her over the edge of his book.

“If we go and take a bath, I can tell you a bit more about it.”

“Good that you have such a big bathtub,” commented Winnifred ten minutes later. “If I do take you on, it'll be because of the bathtub. So don't imagine anything else. Okay?”

“The murderer?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don't know,” said Reinhart, sinking down further into the bubbles. “Of course it's possible that there's going to be a series, but it's almost impossible to judge after only two. And then, what kind of a series is it? Continue this series of numbers: one, four… then what? There are all kinds of possibilities.”

“And the former National Servicemen have nothing useful to say?”

Reinhart shook his head.

“I don't think so. Not the ones I spoke to, in any case. But the key might well be there somewhere, even so. It's so damned easy to hide something, if you want to. If there's something you don't want stirred up, then all you do is say nothing about it. It was thirty years ago, after all…”

He leaned his head against the edge of the bath and thought for a while.

“It's going to be extremely difficult to solve this case, no matter what. If there are no more after these two, that is. There's a bit of difference in the work input, I can assure you.”

“What do you mean?”

Reinhart cleared his throat.

“Well, hypothetically Let's say I make up my mind to kill somebody, anybody at all. I get up at three o'clock on a Tuesday morning. I get dressed in dark clothes, hide my face, go out and find a suitable place, and wait. Then I shoot the first person to come past and go home.”

“Using a silencer.”

“Using a silencer. Or I stab him with a knife. What chance is there of my being found out?”

“Not a lot.”

“Next to none. But if I do it even so, how many working hours do you think it costs the police? Compared with the hour it took me.”

Winnifred nodded. Stuck her right foot into Reinhart's armpit and started wiggling her toes.

“That's nice,” said Reinhart. “When war breaks out, can't we just come here and lie like this?”

“By all means,” said Winnifred. “But what about a motive? That's what you're getting at, I take it?”

“Exactly,” said Reinhart. “It's because of this imbalance that we have to look for a motive. A single thought on the right lines can save thousands of working hours. So you can see why I'm such a trump card at the police station.”

She laughed.

“I can imagine it. But you haven't had that thought on the right lines in this case, is that it?”

“Not yet,” said Reinhart.

He found the soap and started lathering her legs.

“I think it's a wronged woman,” said Winnifred after a while.

“I know that's what you think.”

He thought for half a minute.

“Would you be able to fire those other two shots?”

She thought about it.

“No. Not now. But I don't think it's impossible. You can be driven to it. It's hardly inexplicable, let's face it. On the contrary, in fact.”

“A madwoman who goes around shooting the willies off all men? With good reason?”

“For specific reasons,” said Winnifred. “Specific causes. And not just any old willies.”

“Perhaps she's not mad, either?” said Reinhart.

“Depends on how you look at it, I suppose. She's been wronged, as I said. Affronted, perhaps… No, let's change the subject, this is making me feel unwell.”

“Me too,” said Reinhart. “Shall I do the other leg as well?”

“Yes, do that,” said Winnifred Lynch.


***

Van Veeteren had arranged to meet Renate for a while on Sunday afternoon, but when he got up at eleven o'clock, he was pleased to discover that his cold had gotten so much worse that he had a perfectly good excuse for canceling the meeting. All his respiratory passages seemed to be blocked by something thick and slimy and more or less impenetrable, and the only way in which he could breathe at all was by walking around with his mouth wide open. For a few painful seconds he observed what this procedure looked like in the hall mirror, and he recognized that today was one of those days when he ought not to force his presence on another human being.

Not even an ex-wife.

It was bad enough putting up with himself, and the day progressed in a fashion reminiscent of a seal traveling through a desert. At about ten in the evening he slumped over the kitchen table with his feet in a bubbling footbath and a terry towel draped over his head-in the vain hope that the steam from an aromatic concoction in a saucepan would banish the slime in his frontal cavities. It certainly had an effect: fluid poured out from every orifice, and he was covered in sweat.

Bugger this for a lark, he thought.

And then the telephone rang.

Van Veeteren recalled Reinhart's early morning call the other day and formed a rapid but logical conclusion: if I didn't wish to receive any calls, I ought to have pulled out the plug.

I haven't pulled out the plug, and therefore I'd better answer.

“Hello. Enso Faringer here.”

For a few blank seconds he hadn't the slightest idea who Enso Faringer was.

“We met down at Freddy's and talked about Maasleitner.”

“Yes, of course. What do you want?”

“You said I should give you a call if I remembered anything.”

“And?”

“I've remembered something.”

Van Veeteren sneezed.

“Excuse me?”

“It was nothing. What have you remembered?”

“Well, I remember Maasleitner talking about that music.”

“What music?”

“Somebody had telephoned him over and over again, and played him a tune, it seems.”

“A tune?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. It had annoyed him, in any case.”

A diffuse memory began to stir in the back of the chief inspector's brain.

“Hang on a minute. What kind of music was it?”

“I don't know. He never said what it was-I don't think he knew.”

“But why did this person call him? What was the point?”

“He didn't know. That's what irritated him.”

“Was it a man or a woman?”

“I don't think he said. I think it was just music, all the time.”

Van Veeteren thought for a moment.

“When exactly was this?”

Faringer hesitated.

“The same day we went to Freddy's, I think. When he was shot. Or maybe the day before.”

“And this call was repeated several times?”

“Yes, it seems so.”

“Did he try to do anything about it?”

“I don't know.”

“And he didn't know who it was behind it?”

“I don't think so. No, he was angry, mainly because he'd no idea what it was all about.”

Van Veeteren thought again.

“Mr. Faringer,” he said eventually. “Are you sure you remember this correctly? You're sure you haven't got hold of the wrong end of the stick?”

He could hear some coughing at the other end of the line, and when the little German teacher's voice returned, there was no doubt that he was rather offended.

“I know I was slightly drunk, but I can remember this as clear as day.”

“I understand,” said Van Veeteren. “Is there anything else you remember?”

“Not yet,” said Faringer. “But if I do, I'll be in touch again.”

“I'll probably be in touch again as well,” said the chief inspector before hanging up.

Well, what the devil does this mean? he wondered as he poured the liquid from the footbath and the concoction of herbs down the sink.

And what was it he almost remembered that somebody had said a few weeks ago?

18

It was late on Tuesday afternoon before they succeeded in tracking down all the remaining thirty-three staff NCOs (which was their official military status) of the 1965 vintage. Thirty-one of the group were still alive, the youngest of them now fifty the eldest fifty-six. Five of them turned out to be resident abroad (three in other European countries, one in the United States, one in South Africa), fourteen were still in the Maardam police district, and the remaining twelve in other parts of the country.

Heinemann was in charge of this side of the investigation and kept a register of all those concerned. He also made an effort to systematize the results of the interrogations, without finding an entirely successful method. When he handed the documentation over to Van Veeteren at about half past six in the evening, he devoted some considerable time to an attempt to enlighten his boss about all the cryptic signs and abbreviations, but in the end they both realized that it was a waste of time.

“You can explain it orally instead when we meet tomorrow to run through the current situation,” Van Veeteren decided. “It'll be just as well for everybody to get the information at the same time.”


***

There had been a rumor to the effect that the chief of police himself intended to turn up for this meeting, which was due to take place at ten a.m. on Wednesday; but when the time came he was unable to attend. Whether this was due to something important that had cropped up, or the desire to repot some plants in his office, was something nobody was in a position to say-but the fact that February is the most sensitive month for all plants was something that Reinhart at least was fully conversant with.

“Eight wise heads is a good score,” he said. “If we had Hiller's as well, that would reduce the number to seven. Let's get started.”

Heinemann's summary-with questions and interruptions and comments-took almost an hour, despite the fact that there were no real links or justifiable suspicions to report.

Opinions of Ryszard Malik had been more or less unanimous. A rather reticent, somewhat reserved person; friendly, reliable, without any striking characteristics or interests-that seemed to be the general impression. His social intercourse with his fellow students had been restricted to a group of four or five, generally speaking; but even among those there was nobody able to give any interesting tips of use to the investigation.

Needless to say, it was not easy to have any idea about what any such tips might have constituted; but without denigrating anybody's efforts, it would be fair to say that comments made about Malik failed to bring the question of who murdered him a single centimeter closer to a solution.

The same could probably also be said of Maasleitner. The perception of him as a somewhat overbearing, self-centered, and not very likeable young man was universal. He had belonged to a group of eight to ten people who frequently went around together, in their free time as well as during duty hours. Quite an active group, it seems, with a few questionable escapades on the program for some evenings, not to say nights, as Heinemann put it.

“Questionable evening and night escapades?” said Reinhart, raising his eyebrows. “Is that a formulation you made up yourself?”

“No,” said Heinemann unexpectedly. “It's a quotation from the Koran.”

“I don't believe that for a moment,” said Rooth.

“Go on,” said Van Veeteren, clearly irritated.

“It must also be pointed out,” said Heinemann, “that not a single one of those questioned managed to think of any links at all between Malik and Maasleitner, which surely undermines our hypotheses to some extent. We need to ask ourselves two questions. First: Is this really the background to the murders? Were Ryszard Malik and Rickard Maasleitner really murdered because they were on the same course when they did their National Ser vice thirty years ago?”

He paused. Van Veeteren blew his nose into a paper tissue, which he then dropped on the floor under his desk.

“Second: If we say yes to the first question, what form does that connection take? There are two possibilities. Either the murderer is one of the others in the photo”-he tapped on the photograph with the frame of his spectacles-“or there is an outsider who has some kind of relationship with the group.”

“Who intends to murder all thirty-five of them,” said Rooth.

“There are only thirty-one left,” deBries pointed out.

“Great,” said Rooth.

Heinemann looked around, waiting for comments.

“Okay, we've made a note of that,” said Reinhart, clasping his hands behind his head. “Where do we go from here, then?”

Van Veeteren cleared his throat and leaned forward over the table, resting his head on his clenched hands.

“We have an extremely important question to ask ourselves,” he said, speaking slowly to emphasize the significance. “I know it's a bit of hocus-pocus, but never mind. Anyway, did any of you smell a rat when you spoke to these people? Something they weren't telling us about? Just a little trace of a suspicion, you know what I mean… No matter how illogical or irrational it might seem. If so, speak up now!”

He looked around the table. Nobody spoke. Jung looked as if he were about to, but changed his mind. DeBries might also have been on the way to saying something, but decided to hold back. Moreno shook her head.

“No,” said Reinhart in the end. “I usually recognize murderers, but this time I saw no trace of one.”

“There were several of them we interviewed over the phone,” said Münster. “It's almost impossible to get the kind of impression we're talking about if we don't have them sitting in front of us.”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“Perhaps we should have another chat with the lads who were a bit familiar with Maasleitner. It couldn't do any harm. If the murderer is an outsider who nevertheless has some sort of link with that group… well, there are all kinds of possibilities, needless to say. I think we should try to find out if there was something that happened… something that could have been traumatic, somehow or other.”

“Traumatic?” said Rooth.

“It ought to have cropped up during our interviews, if there had been anything like that,” said deBries.

“Possibly,” said Van Veeteren. “But you never know. We have a few more interviews to conduct, in any case. I have an old colonel and a couple of company commanders in store.”

“Where?” asked deBries.

“One here,” said Van Veeteren. “Two up in Schaabe, unfortunately.”

“I know a girl in Schaabe,” said Rooth.

“Okay,” said Van Veeteren. “You can take those two.”

“Thank you,” said Rooth.

“What about that music?” said deBries.

“Yes,” said Van Veeteren with a sigh. “God only knows what it means, but it seems that both Malik and Maasleitner received strange telephone calls shortly before their time was up. Someone who didn't say a word, just played a tune…”

“What kind of a tune?” wondered Jung.

“We don't know. Mrs. Malik evidently took two such calls; she mentioned it when she was in the hospital, but we didn't take her all that seriously. I went to see her yesterday-she's still staying with her sister, and won't be leaving there anytime soon, I suspect. She confirms that it actually happened, but she had no idea what the music was, nor what it might signify.”

“Hmm,” said Reinhart. “What about Maasleitner?”

“He evidently also received lots of calls the same day, or the day before. He told that little Kraut teacher about it, but he was wallowing in alcohol up to his armpits more or less, and doesn't remember all that much about it.”

“But it must have been the same music, no matter what,” said Münster.

“Yes,” muttered the chief inspector. “We can take that for granted. But it would be interesting to know what the point of it was.”

Nobody spoke.

“Didn't they understand, at least?”

Van Veeteren shook his head.

“It seems not. Maasleitner didn't, in any case. We don't know if Malik received any calls himself. He didn't say anything to his wife, but that's understandable.”

“Very understandable,” said Rooth.

Reinhart took out his pipe and stared at it for a while.

“It seems we have a worthy opponent this time, don't you think?”

Van Veeteren nodded glumly.

“We certainly do. Anyway, I have no intention of mentioning this telephone music to the media… not yet, at least. But obviously, we have to warn the remaining thirty-one.”

“Those who have still survived,” said deBries.

“Münster can write a letter that we can send to them. Be careful about the wording, and I want to see it before it goes out.”

“Of course,” said Münster.

“I suppose we'll have to cut back on the number of officers on the case,” said the chief inspector, blowing his nose for the twentieth time in an hour. “Let's discuss how to divide the jobs after coffee.”

“There's a right time for everything,” said Reinhart.


***

Reinhart sat down opposite the chief inspector and stirred his coffee slowly.

“It feels a bit worrying,” he said.

Van Veeteren nodded.

“Do you think there'll be more?”

“Yes.”

“So do I.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“It might be just as well,” said Reinhart. “We'll never solve it otherwise.”

Van Veeteren said nothing. Rubbed his nose with a paper tissue, breathing heavily. Rooth came to join them, carrying an overloaded tray.

“What's preferable?” Reinhart continued. “Two victims and a murderer who gets away with it? Or three victims and a murderer who gets caught?”

“Or four?” said Van Veeteren. “Or five? There always has to be a limit.”

“Or at least one has to be imposed,” said Reinhart. “That's not quite the same thing.”

“It would be best if there weren't any victims at all,” interposed Rooth. “And no murderer, either.”

“Utopia,” Reinhart snorted. “We deal with reality.”

“Oh, that,” said Rooth.

That evening, ensconced in an armchair and wrapped up in two blankets with Handel in the speakers, Van Veeteren thought back to the conversation in the canteen. He noted that it was almost exactly a week since Rickard Maasleitner was murdered. Nearly three since the first murder.

And he also noted that the police had hardly earned any laurels thus far. Had he used the resources available to him as best he could?

Should he not have arranged some kind of protection? Ought he not to have put more resources into tracing the weapon? Should he not…?

He picked up the photograph and studied it for the thousandth time since Heinemann first produced it. Studied the faces of these formally dressed young men, one after the other.

Thirty-five young men full of optimism as they began to make their way into the world. Every one of them looking with confidence as far into the future as it was possible to see, or so it seemed.

The future? he thought.

Was one of them next in line?

He thought so. But who?

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