They’re in a world of their own. There might be a tiny bit of hope for Mathilde Ubrecht, but that’s just speculation. Still, if we were to think of picking out one of them for a bit of… er… special treatment, she’s the one I would recommend.’
‘Well, that’s a start,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Hmm, I think I might take a trip out there this afternoon.’
‘I read somewhere that you can inject alcohol into people who are a bit unwilling to cooperate,’ said Servinus. ‘Push up the blood content by the odd percentage point, and it’s usually hard to shut them up.’
‘I think we’d better stick to more sober methods to start with,’ said the chief inspector. ‘That seems to be a bit more ethical.’
‘Ethical?’ muttered Servinus. ‘I didn’t realize we were playing cricket.’
The chief inspector smiled inwardly, but it didn’t show on the outside.
‘How long can we keep them locked up on the present basis?’ wondered Lauremaa. ‘Don’t we have to charge them soon?’
‘Monday,’ said Servinus. ‘If nothing new happens. But none of them has asked for a lawyer, and none of them has said a word about being released, so I don’t know…’
‘It’s no doubt best to play it by the book,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘If we don’t they could use that against us later on.’
‘Exactly,’ said the chief inspector. ‘We should be able to break them over the weekend. Is one of the ladies interested in having a go?’
He pointed his toothpick first at Tolltse, then Lauremaa.
‘I have the feeling there’s a bit of a gender barrier, you see.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Lauremaa.
‘I wouldn’t mind having an hour or two at home first,’ said Tolltse. ‘We’ve been here for four days now.’
‘What does our team leader say?’ asked Van Veeteren, using his toothpick as a pointer again.
‘Well…’ said Kluuge. ‘I don’t really know.’
‘Sunday,’ decided the chief inspector. ‘I’ll have a go before then, as I said, but if I don’t get anywhere you can have the whole of the Sabbath to see what you two can do.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lauremaa. ‘That’ll be fun.’
‘Next,’ said the chief inspector. ‘What else is there to discuss?’
For the first time for ages there was a trace of impatience in his voice. He noticed it himself, and wondered if it had to do with the heat, or the environment. Both, probably. In any case, he wished he had Munster and Reinhart at hand for an exchange of opinions.
I’ve been spoilt over the years, he acknowledged. Worn out and disillusioned and God only knows what else, but definitely spoilt. I’d better bear that in mind, I suppose.
‘It seems there are no known rapists on the run around here at the moment,’ said Servinus, consulting a sheet of paper. ‘One has just been released from Ulmenthal, but it’s known for certain that he’s been a long way from here. So we’re presumably dealing with somebody new. Whether his name’s Yellinek or something else…’
The chief inspector nodded.
‘Next,’ he said again.
‘We don’t have very much,’ said Kluuge. ‘A few more technical details, of course, after the report from forensics.’
He rummaged through a file on the desk in front of him.
‘That fragment of rubber might be worth taking note of. A condom or something.’
‘That’s what I’ve been wondering about,’ said Tolltse. ‘Do rapists normally use condoms? I’ve never heard of that, anyway.’
There was silence for a while. Suijderbeck scratched his wooden leg.
‘There are all sorts,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Believe you me, all sorts…’
‘Besides, it might not have been a condom,’ Servinus pointed out. ‘They stress that it’s a very small fragment of rubber, and it could easily have been something else.’
‘What, for instance?’ asked Kluuge. But he received no answer.
And just for a moment it was crystal clear that the whole of the investigation team were trying to conjure up the same image in their mind’s eye.
The same infernal, elusive image.
After the press conference – which this time lasted for over an hour, and the chief inspector and Lauremaa had to field many of the questions in order to help out Kluuge, who was close to exhaustion – Van Veeteren had lunch with Suijderbeck at Florian’s. It was exactly a week since he’d been there the previous time, and in view of his estimation of where they were at, there was every reason to indulge themselves with a taste of the good life.
Perhaps even the very best.
‘It’s a bloody circus,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘I think I’ll have eel.’
‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren, ‘I associate eels with drowned corpses, forgive me. What do you mean by circus?’
‘These mass media clowns, of course. But I suppose you’re used to all that crap?’
Van Veeteren shrugged.
‘It’s not easy to get used to it,’ he said. ‘But there is a bit of a discrepancy even so.’
‘Discrepancy?’ said Suijderbeck, sniffing at his glass of beer.
‘Between what’s written and what’s actually done. A lot more happens in the newspapers than in the investigation.’
Suijderbeck tasted the beer and nodded.
‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘What happens and what seems to happen. Have we come up against a brick wall, do you think?’
‘What do you think?’ the chief inspector asked. ‘The girls have gone away. The women are saying nothing. Yellinek’s disappeared.’
Suijderbeck pondered for a moment.
‘Katarina Schwartz,’ he said.
‘No trace,’ said the chief inspector. ‘Neither of her nor of her parents.’
Suijderbeck sat silently for a while, contemplating his beer.
‘Okay,’ he said eventually. ‘We’ve reached a dead end. What do we do?’
‘Hard to say,’ said the chief inspector. ‘But go ahead and order your eel. I’ll start with some crab.’
But once the food had arrived on the table, he knew it was all in vain. There was a time for everything, true, but even to think about being hungry at this time seemed to be almost indecent. He glanced sadly over the table, where Suijderbeck was tucking eagerly into his fatty greasy fish.
Despite all the marbled corpses of young girls. Despite all the infinitesimal fragments of rubber. Despite all the circular saws.
Perverse, he thought. One of these days I simply won’t be able to stand it in this world any more.
It’s only a question of time.
22
He waited for the first cool evening breeze before setting off. The sun was on its way down behind the rows of trees to the west, and he was lucky enough to be able to stay in the shade and relatively mild temperatures all the way.
Wolgershuus was located a few kilometres outside the little town, pleasantly secluded in the woods and some distance from the main road. It comprised extensive walled grounds with half a dozen separate buildings from the early twentieth century, all in the same soft, pale yellow limestone. Van Veeteren had read up on its genealogy: at the beginning a sanatorium and convalescent home for the well-heeled; later – during the war years – an educational institution for female health workers and other volunteers; and then – from the fifties onwards – a treatment centre and residential home for people with various mental and psychosomatic illnesses.
But all the time with an increasing emphasis on detaining potentially dangerous mentally ill patients, if he had
