clambered back into the car and started to freewheel slowly down towards the village.
It only took five minutes to walk from the police station at Kleinmarckt to Florian’s Inn, and it was immediately obvious to Van Veeteren that this was not one of the places where Sergeant Kluuge normally had his lunch. Crisp white tablecloths, discreet waiters dressed like penguins and an air-conditioning system that seemed to work even on the open terrace where Kluuge had reserved a table.
And the establishment was deserted.
‘My God, what a place!’ said the chief inspector in a friendly tone, and sat down.
‘It’s our treat,’ explained Kluuge, somewhat embarrassed and completely unnecessarily. ‘Choose whatever you like!’
Van Veeteren gazed out over the water, potentially threatening and still glittering some twenty metres below, and thought about that business of surfaces again. Then he applied himself to a study of the menu brought to him discreetly by one of the penguins.
‘Perhaps we should talk a little about… about those telephone calls,’ said Kluuge when they had made inroads into their salmon roulade. ‘That’s why you’ve come here, after all.’
‘Hmm,’ agreed Van Veeteren. ‘Tell me about them. I can eat and listen at the same time, it’s a skill I’ve developed over the years.’
Kluuge laughed politely and put down his knife and fork.
‘Yes, well, it’s just those two phone calls, but I got the feeling
… the feeling…’
Van Veeteren nodded encouragingly.
‘I reckon it could be serious. There was something about her voice. I don’t think she sounded like a loony, or anything like that.’
And you have a long experience of loonies, do you? Van Veeteren thought; but he didn’t say anything.
‘Obviously, I called that camp to check up, but they didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. Then I tried to find out a bit about what they get up to, but I didn’t get very far. Waldingen is owned by a foundation that’s been going for a long time, and they rent the place out to sizeable groups, mostly during the summer of course. The Pure Life were there last year, and they’ve booked themselves in for more or less the whole of this summer. From the middle of June until September the first, if I’ve understood it rightly.’
‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren, taking a swig of beer.
‘I drove out there yesterday afternoon to take a look. It’s about thirty kilometres from here. I just drove past, without stopping. It’s pretty remote, I must say: nothing but the lake and the forest, and it must be at least a kilometre to the nearest neighbour. I suppose it’s pretty ideal if you want to be on your own. I seem to remember that my old school organized camps there, but I never attended any of them.’
‘That woman,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘The one who called. Who do you think she was?’
Kluuge looked blank.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Have a guess.’
Kluuge shrugged.
‘If she’s telling the truth,’ said the chief inspector, wiping his mouth with his serviette, ‘we have to assume that she must know about what’s happened somehow or other. Don’t you think?’
Kluuge nodded thoughtfully.
‘Er, yes, I suppose so.’
‘I assume you don’t have one of those telephones that tell you the number of the person who’s called you?’
Kluuge shook his head and looked embarrassed again.
‘We’ll get one after the summer holiday. Malijsen has ordered one, but there have been delivery delays.’
Van Veeteren changed track.
‘Do you know how many people there are at the camp?’
‘Not exactly. It’s some kind of Confirmation jamboree. Only girls, I think. And I suppose they’ll have a few leaders, and then there’s that priest.’
‘Priest?’
‘Oscar Yellinek He’s the one who started the sect, if I’ve got it right. I spent some time yesterday looking into it. Set it up ten or twelve years ago, based mainly in Stamberg – well, more or less only there, apparently. There was a branch in Kaalbringen, but it didn’t last long and has closed down. There have been quite a few articles and suchlike written about it, and there was a scandal a year or so ago. Yellinek was in jail for a few months, but it’s been all quiet lately…’
Van Veeteren washed down the remains of his salmon with half a glass of beer. Kaalbringen? he recalled. Chief Inspector Brausen? The axe murderer…
He suppressed the memory. Gazed out over the lake, and the clusters of children romping around on the beaches. Summer camps, he thought instead. The whole area is infested with summer camps, of course. A few unpleasant memories from his own childhood began to stir, but he managed to bite their heads off.
‘But you didn’t go in and take a closer look?’ he asked. ‘When you were driving past anyway?’
‘No,’ said Kluuge. ‘I didn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I thought I’d better wait until you arrived. I’d called them earlier, and they said there was nobody missing.’
Great, Van Veeteren thought. That’s what I call socking it to ’em.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we ought to drive out there and take a look even so. The lion’s den and all that.’
Kluuge nodded enthusiastically. Sat up straight and gave the impression of being ready to set off without delay.
‘Calm down,’ said the chief inspector. ‘All in good time. We must first see if we can get a decent dessert at this place.’
‘I suppose you’re snowed under with work, are you?’ the chief inspector asked when they got back to the chief of police’s apricot-coloured office. (Apricot? Van Veeteren thought. I bet the bugger painted it himself!)
‘Well,’ said Kluuge. ‘I’ve got loads of reports and suchlike to see to.’
Van Veeteren dropped a toothpick behind the radiator.
‘Okay, I suggest you try to find out a bit more about that sect. Call the police in Stamberg and hear what they have to say, that’s probably easiest. I’ll take care of Waldingen myself, if you don’t mind. Do you have their number, so that I can give them a ring first?’
Kluuge wrote it down on a scrap of paper.
‘I think I’ll book myself a room for the night as well, to make sure that we can get to the bottom of this. Can you recommend anywhere?’
Kluuge hesitated.
‘The City Arms or Grimm’s,’ he said eventually. ‘The City Arms is probably a bit higher class, but Grimm’s is located by the edge of the lake. A hundred metres or so from Florian’s, where we had lunch. Not quite as good, but still…’
‘Grimm’s will be fine,’ said the chief inspector, standing up. ‘You can give me a buzz if anything crops up, otherwise I’ll see you here tomorrow morning.’
Kluuge stood up and shook hands.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’m grateful to you for taking this on.’
‘No problem,’ said Van Veeteren, leaving Sergeant Kluuge to his fate.
The room was a most unfortunate mixture of old and new, but there was an ample bath and a balcony with a pleasant view over the lake and the village climbing up the slope towards the edge of the forest on the far shore. Van Veeteren moved in, put his suitcase in the rickety wardrobe and dialled the number to Waldingen.
Still no answer after ten rings, so he replaced the receiver. Turned his attention instead to the map that Kluuge had provided him with. Waldingen wasn’t a village even, the sergeant had explained, it was really only the name of that old summer camp for children – built sometime in the twenties – but nevertheless it was named on the map. A little black square next to a road branching off from a bigger road that ran round two little lakes before
