She paused briefly.
“I was one of them.”
Van Veeteren exchanged his toothpick for a cigarette.
“I was eighteen years of age, for Christ’s sake! It was about time. Anyway, the next morning we found out what had happened, and it was one hell of a bloody awful morning, as you can no doubt imagine. We were all woken up by the police; I think it couldn’t have been any later than about half past seven.
Twenty young people with hangovers and only a couple of hours’ sleep in their bodies. The police came with a neighbor.
He’d found a dead body at the bottom of a precipice. I think. .
I think that was the morning quite a few of us grew up.”
She said nothing for a few seconds.
“I certainly did, at least. I lost my virginity and a good friend that same night.”
“Were you a very good friend of Paul Bejsen’s?”
“Well, perhaps not; but I knew him quite well. He was a nice lad, likable and gifted. Everybody liked him. I expect several girls were in love with him.”
“You as well?”
“No. Not then. Had been, perhaps.”
“What had happened?”
Ulrike deMaas raised her shoulders, as if she suddenly felt cold.
“They’d been out on the moor, he and Eva. She’d told him it was over between them, for some reason or other. Left him out there. I don’t know, he must have been pretty drunk, I suppose, but that was one of the things that were hushed up, of course. In any case, he’d done away with himself. Thrown himself over a precipice. Strangely enough, he’d picked the right place. Macabre, it was. According to local folklore, Vejme Klint used to be the suicide precipice-you know, the place where old people used to go many years ago when they began to feel that their life was coming to an end. So that they didn’t become a burden on their families. .”
She shook her head.
“It was a terrible business, Chief Inspector. And there’s never been a heavier lid placed over anything boiling as much as that. His parents were very religious, Reformerde Kirk, and m i n d ’ s e y e
he was an only child. . Well, I’m sure you understand the circumstances. Muhlboden is not a very big place.”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“What about the police investigation? You must all have been interrogated?”
“Yes, we all had to turn up at the police station and tell our version of what happened. . Separately, at different times.
That took several days, and we were excused lessons. But there wasn’t much we could say, of course.”
“He didn’t leave a letter?”
“No.”
“How did Eva Ringmar take it?”
“Hard. Really hard, I think. If I remember rightly she stayed at home for the rest of the term. . Or most of it, at least. Yes, she was there for the end-of-term ceremonies, I remember now. We were in the choir, both of us; she hadn’t practiced anything, of course, but that didn’t matter. It was just the usual songs. . ”
She paused again.
“It’s the first Sunday in Advent today. It’s twenty years since it happened. I hadn’t thought about that. May I. . may I ask you a question, Chief Inspector?”
“Of course.”
“Why are you raking over this old business-surely you don’t think it has anything to do with, with. .”
“With what, Miss deMaas? Or is it Mrs.?”
“Somewhere in between, I suppose. . With what has happened now, of course. The murders of Eva and her husband. Surely you don’t think there’s a connection?”
“Miss deMaas,” Van Veeteren decided, “if there’s anything I’ve learned in this job, it’s that there are more connections in the world than there are particles in the universe.”
He paused and allowed her green eyes to observe him.
“The hard bit is finding the right ones,” he added eventually.
“Have you managed to do that?” she’d asked, just before they’d said their good-byes in the square. “Found the right connections, I mean?”
“I think so,” he’d said. “I just need to study the components a little more carefully in order to be sure.”
He had not been quite clear about what he meant when he said that. . Her eyes had been so big and serious, and it didn’t sound so silly. . Besides, why was it essential to think before speaking? Had he not learned over the years that it could just as well be vice versa?
Let the words come out, they always conceal something, as Reinhart kept saying.
She had given him a hug and thanked him for the meal, and it occurred to him that she was the second woman in this investigation that he could have fallen for.
If he had been at an appropriate age, that is. And the type to fall.
It took half an hour of driving to shake off these unbidden emotions, but that still left him with plenty of time to think over what he had been told, and to plan his next step.
There was not far to go now, he could feel it. One, possibly two more interviews. A few specific questions to the right person, and the whole background ought to be clear.
Then all that remained would be to pin down the key player in the drama. The person playing the leading role. .
The murderer.
He sighed, and felt his disgust rising.
The weariness and hopelessness.
How many were they, when it came to the crunch? How many people had lost their lives because of this compulsive, this perverted. .?
He wasn’t sure.
Two. . quite certainly.
Three. . most probably.
Four. . possibly.
Even more?
He considered that to be not unlikely. After all the years he had spent on the shady side of society, there was not a lot that he considered to be unlikely.
But nevertheless. What if he didn’t confess?
What if he had become so hardened that he denied everything when confronted by Van Veeteren?
That was not very likely, but it was possible, of course. In that case they would have to dig out proof for the whole cart-load of shit!
He cursed out loud and increased his speed. . But then he remembered the circumstances.
Proof?
That wasn’t his problem. That was something the rest of them could sort out-Munster and Reinhart and Rooth-
while he sat back under the palm trees in Brisbane.
Were there palm trees in Brisbane?
He put Handel on, and increased his speed even more.
38
Munster contemplated his lists. Then he contemplated Jung, who was sitting half asleep under the portrait of the minister of justice.
