‘Yes, although those are the cornerstones. They apply all the time.’
‘So there are no services when the shepherd isn’t there?’
‘No. Why…?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why are you so angry with me?’
Because I get nothing but heartburn all the time, the chief inspector thought.
‘I’m not angry. Can’t you try to explain why those women have chosen not to cooperate with the police?’ he tried once more. ‘If Yellinekis innocent.’
She shrugged again.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is it because Yellinek has told them not to?’
No reply.
‘Do you know if all three have a sexual relationship with him?’
She didn’t react as he’d expected.
She didn’t react at all. Simply sat there in the light blue armchair, with her teacup on her lap and her mouth like a razor blade.
‘Or does every woman in the congregation have a relationship with him?’
Perhaps as a sort of initiation rite, it occurred to him. But for God’s sake, there must be several hundred of them! And there were other men in the congregation, albeit not many of them. The woman’s eyes shifted several times between her teacup and the knot of his tie. Then she said:
‘I think I must ask you to leave me in peace now. I don’t think you are a good person.’
Van Veeteren cleared his throat.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I can assure you that nothing would please me more than to leave you now. But the fact is that I have a job to do. My task is to find a murderer, and if you prefer we could drive to the police station and continue our conversation there.’
She gave a start, and put down her teacup. Clasped her hands more tightly and closed her eyes. He ignored the gesture.
‘Just a few more questions,’ he said. ‘Do you have any children?’
She shook her head.
‘Have you been married?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think there’s anything you know that could be of use to us in this investigation? Anything at all.’
She shook her head once again. He stood up. Have you ever been in bed with a man? he wondered.
Not until he was in the hall did he fire off his final question.
‘Ewa Siguera, by the way. Who’s she?’
‘Siguera?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve no idea. Can’t you leave me in peace now? I need to be alone.’
He saw that she was starting to twitch. Little tics around her eyes and mouth, and he wondered if she suffered from some somatic illness or other, on top of everything else.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I won’t disturb you any longer. Thank you for a very instructive conversation.’
He tried to open the door, but it was only when his hostess helped him with two of the locks that he was able to step out into the fresh air again. He listened to the bolts being shot, one after the other, and took two deep breaths.
For Christ’s sake, he thought. Is there a single member of the church who would pass a mental examination?
Or even a test to prove they were ready to start school?
Then he remembered that the woman who had just locked herself in was supposed to be a primary school teacher, according to the telephone directory. His mind went blank for a moment.
A teacher?
But perhaps one could entertain a pious hope that her teaching activities were restricted to the church’s own private academy. That would limit the damage somewhat.
Nevertheless, what about the children? He descended the stairs with long, almost desperately long strides. Irrespective of whether they live in the Light or in the Other World, what kind of birthmarks would be inflicted on anybody who had to endure a schooling of that kind? Ineradicable for ever and a day.
Give me strength! Van Veeteren thought as he hurried down the street. Oh shit!
He could feel not the slightest trace of that liberal religious tolerance he had flirted with a few days previously.
Red wine, he decided instead. It was only eleven in the morning, but not a minute too soon for a glass and a cigarette. For Christ’s sake.
28
The bar was called Plato’s Cave, and as he sat there among the shadows he devoted his thoughts mainly to the topic that had cropped up during his latest conversation with Andrej Przebuda.
The premise that assaulting children – subjecting them to some kind of abuse, and in one way or another robbing them of their childhood – was in fact the only crime, the only deed, that could never be forgiven.
With the possible exception of accusing somebody – wrongly – of having done so.
What a balance, he thought. What an incredibly delicate balance! In one pan of the scales all the children that had been the victims of incest without the culprit being punished.
And in the other all those who had been punished, despite the fact that they were innocent.
For there certainly had been witch-hunts. Lots of them.
It was not a new problem, but the lopsided paradox that kept nagging inside him, and also haunted this case, seemed to him more and more repulsive with nearly every hour that passed.
With every hour and every pointless interrogation.
It would be nice to be a mere shadow, he thought as he looked around at the walls.
Or sitting under a plane tree in Spili.
During the afternoon he talked to two more people who had seen the light. A man and a woman, in that order. Both were aged about thirty-five, both were single, and they had been members of the church for five and six years respectively. The man – a certain Alexander Fitze – gave the impression of having remained in childhood, slow-cooking, until he was well turned twenty, Van Veeteren thought. He picked his words extremely carefully, as if the letters were made of bone china, but even so managed to give the impression of being strained and nervous. He reminded the chief inspector of an old language teacher he’d had as a young teenager: he had behaved in roughly the same way for a few months before he broke down and hanged himself in the attic.
The woman’s name was Marlene Kochel and she was more phlegmatic, built like a seal and with a lisping, laid-back tone of voice. But as far as their evidence was concerned, what the chief inspector was obliged to listen to that increasingly hot afternoon was strikingly similar.
The same almost clinical lack of solid information when it came to the actual teachings and beliefs behind the Pure Life.
The same putative phrases about light, purity and the sublime life.
The same devoted outpourings with regard to Oscar Yellinek, his divine gifts and his unadulterated nobility.
The same pious drivel. Time after time Van Veeteren found himself thinking about something else while the tirades followed one after the other before biting their own tail. Or sitting and observing – studying – his interviewees from an entirely different point of view from that usual in such circumstances. Or what ought to be usual.
A distrait and exhausted listener who, instead of listening to and trying to form an opinion about what was
