After a few problems he managed to tether his Canadian canoe by wedging it underneath a projecting root. It swayed a little in the current, but seemed to be comparatively secure even so. He opened his umbrella to shield him from the worst of the sun. Drank half a bottle of mineral water and ate a bun. Adjusted the cushions and settled down. Then waited for a minute or so until a fairly precise and developable premise occurred to him, but the only thing in his mind was the same old question:
What the hell is all this about?
Not especially precise, he was the first to admit that.
Let’s take it in chronological order, anyway:
First: An unknown woman calls and reports a missing person. When she thinks the police reaction has not been good enough, she calls again.
Question: Who is she?
Another question: Why does she call?
He lay still for quite a while without moving so much as a finger, allowing these questions to wander back and forth in his mind. Especially the second one – what the devil was her motive for telephoning the police? But in the end he gave up. No trace of an answer occurred to him, and no unexpected reflections cropped up.
Secondly: Four days later the same woman calls again. Gives detailed instructions as to where to find a murdered girl. Sergeant Kluuge follows the directions and discovers poor Clarissa Heerenmacht, not quite thirteen years old, taking part in the Waldingen camp… Raped, strangled, dead. (But still alive as recently as the previous day – on the Sunday afternoon – when he himself had questioned her about goings-on in the sect, the Pure Life.)
Conclusion one: If the unknown woman had been telling the truth on the first two occasions, she couldn’t have been referring to Clarissa Heerenmacht.
Conclusion two: It seemed not totally improbable that there could be another dead girl in the forest around Waldingen.
Oh hell! the chief inspector thought and took a tomato. He must keep all this at arm’s length. Next?
Let’s see… Thirdly: Oscar Yellinek – prophet and spiritual shepherd of the infernal Pure Life sect – goes up in smoke in connection with the death of Clarissa Heerenmacht, having first instructed the whole of his flock – ewes as well as lambs – to remain silent. Conclusion?
Conclusion? Van Veeteren thought. Yes, what the hell can one conclude?
He closed his eyes and tried once again to open his mind to any thoughts that might occur; but the only thing to arrive was a question mark.
But eventually two – ridiculously simplified – alternatives.
Number one: Oscar Yellinek had raped and murdered Clarissa Heerenmacht (and perhaps also another or others of his young confirmands), and then done a runner in order to escape justice and the day of reckoning.
Number two: Yellinek had nothing to do with the girl’s death, but had chosen to go to earth rather than expose himself to all the cross-examinations and harassment he knew would be the inevitable consequence of the situation.
Commentary on number two: Yellinek was a cowardly bastard. That corresponded with earlier observations.
Necessary corollary of number two: Yellinek must have known about the murder of Clarissa Heerenmacht before the police did!
The chief inspector closed his eyes. Wrong, he thought. It might just be that he knew she had disappeared.
But no doubt the whole line of argument was a ridiculous oversimplification, as already said. About as thin and tenable as a soap bubble, you could say. He sighed. Decided to change track. Systematics are all very well, but it might be time for a spot of less logical thinking.
But before the chief inspector could turn his attention to that, he realized that he would soon be confronted by a very different kind of problem.
How? he thought. How – in this the best of all worlds – can a bloke manage to pee from a canoe? A curse on that damned mineral water!
For the rest of the day – especially on the journey back – Chief Inspector Van Veeteren spent most of the time thinking about that inner landscape.
What could it be that was going on behind the neutral and expressionless faces of Madeleine Zander, Ulrich Fischer and Mathilde Ubrecht? And what was simmering away inside the grim-faced teenaged girls?
Not to mention how long they’d be able to keep it up.
Yesterday evening he’d visited both the camp and the psychiatric clinic where the women were locked up in isolation. He hadn’t bothered to attack the wall of silence himself, merely sat and watched as Kluuge and the detectives from Rembork tried to break through. It wasn’t exactly an unmissable event, but the sergeant was obviously right in suggesting that one of the girls would crack first.
But it was difficult to ignore the unethical aspect of the situation. Or at least, he had difficulty in doing so. The whole business stank of dodgy and dirty goings-on. As far as the young girls were concerned, that is. Of course it was the role of the police to get stuck into whatever turned up – but to subject youngsters to ruthless interrogations with the aim of making them betray a sacred promise – and in other words betray their faith – well, that was pushing things a bit.
Never mind that Yellinek is mad. Never mind the Pure Life’s obscure teachings. Never mind the murder. It was an inner landscape that somebody was intending to crush, and dammit all, safety nets were going to be needed.
When all these misguided individuals woke up. For surely they would eventually wake up?
Perhaps what is written between the lines really is best.
Things were a bit different with regard to the locked-up women. He would have nothing against giving them a bit of a grilling. It wasn’t impossible that he might have a chance to do so that evening – Servinus and Suijderbeck had agreed to spend the day interrogating them, and the fewer rests the women had, the better, presumably.
An even more attractive thought, of course, was the possibility of coming face to face again with Yellinek himself. But on Van Veeteren’s own terms this time. On home ground, as it were. Sitting at a rickety table in the filthiest and smelliest cell he could find. Looking him in the eye and giving him a really hard time.
But there was nothing he could do about that. Yellinek wasn’t around. All they had was fourteen witnesses who refused to say a word. No openings. No threads.
But no matter what, he would have liked to spend some time wandering around that inner landscape. It could have taught him a great deal.
People are unfathomable, he thought.
That’s why we can understand them, he added after a few seconds’ paddling.
When the chief inspector berthed skilfully and elegantly at the jetty close to Grimm’s Hotel, he had been away for over seven hours, and as far as the basic questions were concerned – Who? and Why? – he was more or less back where he started.
But he had made up his mind to follow a particular line. Or to hold a particular series of meetings, rather – there were people he would like to exchange words with and ask a few specific questions.
Always assuming it was possible to get hold of people at this time of year. That was something that couldn’t be taken for granted.
The youth with the crew cut had changed into a green tracksuit, unless it was a different person altogether. The chief inspector stepped ashore without getting his feet wet, and declared himself satisfied with both the canoe and the trip as a whole. He then walked straight to the cafe and ordered a dark beer.
I don’t want to feel thirty years younger than I did this morning, he thought, and so bought a pack of West as well.
Miss Wandermeijk – young Mr Grimm’s fiancee, if he’d understood the situation rightly – brought him his beer, and also a message from Kluuge. It had arrived only ten minutes ago, and suggested that a little breakthrough had taken place.
It wasn’t possible to be more specific than that. Kluuge had evidently learned to be a bit more reticent in his correspondence, which of course – like several other things – had to be seen as a step in the right direction. The chief inspector tucked the fax into his back pocket, but chose to enjoy both his beer and a cigarette before calling
