incorruptible journalist who – given sufficient time – was quite capable of writing an article on more or less any subject at all. Although he tried to exclude it, Van Veeteren had to admit that the setting of this evening’s conversation reminded him of something else as well. The classic crime novel hero – the case-hardened detective who gathers together all the facts in his head and then solves the case while sitting with his pipe in a winged armchair in his library.
Although on this occasion it was Przebuda smoking the pipe. Van Veeteren was smoking cigarettes.
So perhaps it was his host who would come up with the solution, not himself.
If a solution was needed, that is. Perhaps all the goings-on didn’t amount to an equation – wasn’t that the conclusion he had reached? No missing girl, and no case in fact. Nevertheless there was something special about this room; the only thing missing, of course, was a chessboard. But Przebuda had already admitted that chess was a pastime that had never managed to capture his interest.
Something that indisputably made the game even more unique than it already was, Van Veeteren thought. But pastime! Surely that was little short of blasphemy!
‘Needless to say I have a few notes,’ said Przebuda after a few seconds of silence. ‘In case you are interested. I thought I might write half a page last summer when they were last here. The Pure Life
… I suppose I thought I’d try to dig down into the sect itself, as it were. Not just the summer camp. Anyway, I interviewed the shepherd and took a few photographs, but I eventually decided to shelve the project.’
‘Why?’
Przebuda shrugged.
‘I don’t really know. Some jobs you just drop, period. I think it had something to do with the impression they made. I found it a bit distasteful, to be honest. I take it you understand what I mean.’
Van Veeteren nodded.
‘That Yellinek and his four fancy women.’
‘Four?’
‘Yes indeed. There were four women who took care of all the chores out there in the forest. Much younger than he was, and, well, I suppose that gave me cold feet, or however you might want to put it. And I don’t particularly want to give dodgy people like that free publicity. Has he brought the same harem with him this year as well?’
‘Three,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Only three.’
Przebuda burst out laughing.
‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he’s beginning to run out of steam. If they observe other Muslim traditions, maybe they have the right to be satisfied as well. What’s the routine? Two nights out of three?’
‘Every other night, I think,’ said the chief inspector. ‘There are various trends. You don’t happen to have the names of the women who were here last year, do you?’
Przebuda raised an eyebrow, and then his wine glass.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘It’s just a thought that struck me,’ said the chief inspector.
‘All right, I’ll take a look,’ said Przebuda. ‘But first, your very good health.’
‘Cheers,’ said Van Veeteren.
Przebuda stood up and went over to his desk, which was piled high with documents. It formed a triangle in a corner of the room, and must have been over two metres square. He switched on a lamp and began rummaging through a collection of red and green files at least a metre high. After a while he returned with one of them, and took out a bundle of unsorted documents.
‘So, let’s have a look,’ he said, taking a pair of glasses from his breast pocket. ‘I don’t really know why I bothered, but I did actually take a few pictures of them. Yes, here we are.’
He picked out a photograph and studied it critically for a few seconds before handing it to Van Veeteren. The chief inspector looked at the picture. It was obviously taken on the terrace outside the main building. In the early evening sunshine, to judge by the light and the shadows. Oscar Yellinek was leaning against the rail, flanked by four women, two on each side. Despite the fact that they were unremarkable, he had no trouble in identifying three of them. But to the left of Mathilde Ubrecht and with one hand resting on Yellinek’s shoulder was a dark-haired, unknown woman. She seemed a bit younger than the others, and unlike the rest of them had managed to raise a smile, aimed at the camera. Without a doubt she was easily the prettiest of them all.
‘Hmm,’ said the chief inspector. ‘Do you have their names?’
‘Could be,’ said Przebuda. ‘Does it say anything on the back?’
Van Veeteren turned the picture over and read:
‘Fr. l.: Ulriche Fischer, Madeleine Zander, O.Y., Ewa Siguera, Mathilde Ubrecht’
Ewa Siguera? he thought, and took a sip of wine. Sounds like a character in a novel.
Przebuda had managed to light his pipe again, and blew a few puffs of thick smoke over the table.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think I’d already decided by then that I wasn’t going to run the story. What are you angling for?’
The chief inspector thought for a moment, continuing to scrutinize the photograph.
‘No idea,’ he said. ‘I suppose you could call it some sort of avant garde knowledge.’
‘I see,’ said Przebuda with a smile. ‘Maybe we should take a look at the rest of the papers anyway. I have quite a bit on Yellinek, if I remember rightly. Although I don’t think I made any notes about kidnapping. Still, the best things are always written between the lines. Don’t you think we ought to crack open another bottle, by the way?’
‘This heat certainly makes a man thirsty,’ said Van Veeteren.
‘Religion is a multifaceted thing,’ declared Andrej Przebuda quite a while later. ‘Personally it’s something I’ve left behind me; but I can’t say that it hasn’t left its traces.’
Van Veeteren waited.
‘My parents, all my family were practising Jews. When the heat was turned up and we realized what was really in store for us – my father was the most clear-sighted of the whole family – they placed me and my sister with a Catholic family in a little village miles away from anywhere. They kept us hidden on their farm for four years; we were the only two to survive. Ironically enough our hiding place was less than fifty kilometres from Auschwitz. Ah well, then I married a woman from India; she died six years ago and is buried in the Reformed Cemetery here in Sorbinowo.’
The chief inspector nodded.
‘Any children?’ he asked.
‘A handful,’ said Przebuda. ‘Neither more nor less. Eleven grandchildren. But I’ve dropped the religion, as I said.’
‘And you weren’t inspired to take it up again when you met the Pure Life?’
Przebuda smiled.
‘No, but perhaps we ought to be grateful to them because they look after quite a few people who would otherwise be locked away in an institution. At society’s expense, of course. But this business of the children is another story. Perhaps you should send in an undercover agent to find out what really goes on. Maybe a bright thirteen-year-old with a mobile phone… But I assume you have more urgent matters to keep you occupied.’
Van Veeteren nodded in agreement.
‘Too right we have,’ he said. ‘For my part I’ll be going on holiday in just over a week, so unless somebody comes along with a missing young lassie in the next twelve hours, I’ll be on my way. I can’t claim to have achieved much at all. The film club and this evening were the only useful things, to be honest. But they are not to be sneered at.’
‘Glad you think so,’ said Przebuda.
‘May I take these papers about Yellinek as bedtime reading?’ the chief inspector asked. ‘I can call in and leave them in the editorial office tomorrow morning, before I leave.’
‘Of course,’ said Przebuda, spreading out his arms. ‘So you’re not thinking of letting go of the thread just yet?’
Van Veeteren stubbed out the evening’s final cigarette.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll hang on to it until it breaks of its own accord. That’s a bad habit of mine I’ve had for years.’
