“I know the feeling,” said Van Veeteren. “I was tempted to do the same when I was a pupil there.”
“What do we do next? Alibis?”
“Yes. Interrogate every single one of the bastards. Tell Reinhart to be hard on them. The time involved is nice and clear: Thursday afternoon to Friday morning. This morning.
Anybody who can’t account for that period will be locked up anyway.”
“Eva Ringmar as well? Or have we enough to be going on with?”
“Have another go at the Ringmar alibis; it won’t do any harm. And, Munster, if we find anybody who might have had an opportunity both times, lie low: I’d like to be in on what happens next.”
He raised his tankard and drained it completely.
“That was good,” he said. “Fancy another one?”
Munster shook his head.
“Really? Ah well, I suppose it’s starting to get a bit late.
Anyway, Rooth and deBries can spend a bit longer out at Majorna, and then they can do the rounds of the neighbors.
Plus Bendiksen, I think. Sooner or later we have to find out what happened to Eva Ringmar.”
“And what are you going to do yourself, sir?”
Without thinking about it, he’d slipped back into the usual formal politeness. Van Veeteren sat for a while without answering.
“First of all I shall talk to the wig-makers,” he said eventually. “Did you know that in this town you can buy or hire wigs from eleven different places?”
“I had no idea,” said Munster. “Just think.”
“Yes; and there are a few more loose ends I’m intending to tie up,” Van Veeteren said as he dropped his cigarillo into his tankard. “Do you know what I think, Munster?”
“No.”
“I think this is a nasty business. A very nasty business indeed, dammit.”
27
He took the route over the moors. It would doubtless add an hour to his journey, but that was what he wanted today.
Alone behind the wheel with Julian Bream and Tarrega echoing in his ears, and the barren landscape acting as a barrier and a filter between himself and all too importunate reality; that was more or less what he had reckoned on. He also chose a car from the police pool with considerable care: an almost new red Toyota with tinted windows and some decent loudspeakers at front and back.
He was on his way by eight or so; a dark, foggy morning which improved as time wore on, but the damp, gray clouds never really went away. When he stopped for lunch at an inn in Moines, the whole village was still shrouded in a heavy mist that seemed to come rolling in from the moors. He realized that it was one of those days when the light would never really break through. Darkness would never be totally conquered.
He ate a fish stew with a lot of onion and wine in it, and allowed his thoughts to wander over the previous day and the paltry results it had produced. He had spent more than eight hours interviewing the staff of various wig boutiques, a thankless and monotonous exercise that he could have delegated to somebody else in view of his rank, but which he had undertaken nevertheless. When it was all finished and he was installed at his desk, summing up, he was at least able to confirm that during the past week, none of the eleven boutiques had sold, rented out, or been robbed of a wig similar to the one worn by the killer on the night of the murder at Majorna.
He had expected no other outcome. Why should such an intelligent and cold-blooded person-which is what they seemed to be dealing with, no matter what-have done something so stupid? But everything had to be checked, and now that was done.
The work carried out by the pathologist and the forensic team had failed to produce a breakthrough, either. Meusse’s observations had been confirmed down to the smallest detail, and what the forensic boys liked to call their Hoovering opera-tion produced as little in the way of results as if the crime scene had been an operating theater instead of a ward in a psychiatric hospital.
Nevertheless, the evening brought with it a faint ray of light, even if it had nothing to do with the case. Just as he was about to go to bed, Renate had called and announced that she didn’t think it was such a good idea for them to move back together after all. In any case, there was certainly no hurry.
There’s a time for everything, she had said; and for once he was in full agreement with her. They had concluded their telephone conversation on the best of terms, and she had even persuaded him to promise to pay a visit to their lost son in state prison as soon as he had time.
He drove on through the afternoon, along the narrow, winding roads over the moors and beside the river, as the darkness and the fog grew, and now came the illusory opening he had been hoping for. The very essence of motion. . where moving through space and time seemed to stimulate an impression of movement in other spheres as well. Thoughts and patterns and deductions flowed through his consciousness, effortlessly and without resistance, accompanied by the unfilled space created by the classical guitar.
But the direction taken by these expanding movements kept pace with the oncoming darkness. There was something about this case, about both these murders, that was constantly forcing everything onto a downward path, and leaving a nasty taste in his mouth. A feeling of disgust and impotence, similar to what he used to experience every time he was confronted by a violent murder; when he’d still been a young police officer who believed he could bring about change; before the daily confrontation with a certain kind of behavior blunted him sufficiently for him to be able to carry out his job properly.
Hand in hand with these suspicions was the fear that he knew more than he understood. That there was a question, a clue, that he ought to be able to pin down and examine in more detail, or some connection that he had overlooked, which, when exposed to the light of day, would prove to be the key to the case as a whole.
But this was no more than a vague feeling, perhaps no more than a false hope given the lack of anything else; and whatever the truth was, it had not become one jot clearer this afternoon. It had been, and continued to be, a journey into the unknown. What was growing inside him was worry-the worry that everything would take too long, that he would get it all wrong again, that evil would turn out to be much more powerful than he had wanted to acknowledge.
Evil?
That was not a concept he liked to be confronted with.
The woman who opened the door had long red hair and looked as if she might give birth at any moment.
“Van Veeteren,” he said. “I phoned yesterday. You must be Mrs. Berger?”
“Welcome,” she said with a smile; and as if she had been able to read his thoughts, she added, “Don’t worry about me; there’s a whole month to go yet. I always get to look like this.”
She took his coat and ushered him into the house. Introduced two children, a boy aged four to five, and a girl aged two to three; it was a long time since he’d been any good at making more precise estimates in that age group.
She shouted upstairs, and a voice announced that he was on his way. Mrs. Berger invited Van Veeteren to sit down in a cane armchair, part of a small group in front of an open fire, and excused herself, saying her presence was needed in the kitchen. The boy and girl peered furtively at Van Veeteren, then decided to accompany their mother.
He was left alone for about a minute. It was clear that the Berger household was not exactly suffering from a shortage of money. The house was located securely and well away from the nearest neighbors at the edge of the little town, with unin-terrupted views of the countryside. He had not had enough time to form an opinion about the exterior of the house, but the interior and fittings demonstrated good taste and the means to satisfy it.
For a brief moment, he may have regretted accepting the invitation he had been given. Interrogating one’s host over dinner was hardly an ideal situation. Not easy to bite the hand that feeds you, he thought; much easier to stare somebody down across a rickety hardboard table in a dirty prison cell.
But no doubt all would be well. It was not his intention to cross-question Andreas Berger, even if it might be
