And about time, for Christ’s sake, he thought.
He stared at the information for a few seconds. Then closed his eyes and leaned back against the pillows, trying to clear the junk and rubbish from his brain. Cows, priests and things like that. Lay there for quite a while without thinking a single thought.
And then they emerged from the slough of forgetfulness – two random comments he had heard one afternoon getting on for two weeks earlier.
Or was it in fact two different afternoons?
He couldn’t remember, and of course, it didn’t matter.
He allowed another few minutes to pass, but nothing else happened. Just the information given in the telephone directory and those two comments – and when he opened his eyes again, he was aware that it was barely more than a mere suspicion.
He drank the remains of both bottles of beer. Then started ringing round and arranging meetings for the next day.
When he had finished, he read two more chapters of Klimke, took a shower and went to bed.
The telephone rang at two minutes past seven the next morning.
It was Reinhart, but before the chief inspector had time to tell him to go to hell he had taken command.
‘Have you a television set in your room?’
‘Yes…’
‘Switch it on then! Channel 4.’
Then he hung up. Van Veeteren fumbled for the remote control, and managed to press the right button. Three seconds later he was wide awake.
As far as he could judge it was the routine morning news bulletin. An excited newscaster. Flickering pictures of a building on fire. Firefighters and sirens. Very realistic interviews with soot-covered senior officers.
He recognized it immediately. The camera even paused for a few seconds on the abusive graffiti he had seen with his own eyes only the other day.
Murdering bastards and so on.
Practically everything was in flames, and the chief officer of the fire brigade thought there was little chance of saving anything of the building. So they were concentrating on stopping the blaze from spreading to adjacent buildings. There was quite a strong wind blowing. It was finito as far as the church was concerned, he reckoned.
But apart from that, everything was under control.
Arson?
Of course it was arson. The alarm had been raised at four in the morning, the fire brigade had arrived twenty minutes later, and by then the whole building was ablaze.
No doubt at all that it was arson. Perhaps that was understandable, in the circumstances…
Van Veeteren switched off. Remained in bed for half a minute more, thinking. Then put on a shirt and some trousers, took the elevator down to reception and sent a fax to Wicker’s Travel Agency in Maardam.
Cancelled his package holiday due to begin on the first of August.
Then he went back up to his room and took the longest shower of his life.
33
From a purely physical point of view, acting Chief of Police Kluuge was a wreck by this morning.
When he got off his bicycle outside the police station in the fresh morning air, he was puffing and panting, his heart was pounding wildly, and unfortunately things were just as bad as far as his mind was concerned. He recognized that this was hardly surprising: the last three nights he had slept for less than ten hours all told, and obviously one was always bound to come up against a limit eventually. Or a brick wall.
We must bring this case to a conclusion pretty soon, he decided. Two more days like these and I’ll have to take sick leave.
But then again, there were only five more days to go before Malijsen came back on duty, so perhaps it would be best to stick it out, no matter what.
Incidentally, Kluuge thought as he fiddled with the various locks, it’s odd that he hasn’t been in touch at all. No matter how isolated it is at the lake where he’s fishing, it’s surely impossible to imagine that he hasn’t heard anything about what’s been going on? There can’t be a single person in the whole country who doesn’t know what’s been happening in Sorbinowo during these hot summer weeks. Very strange.
And odder still, of course, if you happen to be the real chief of police for the area.
But of course, Malijsen was Malijsen. He’s probably dug himself in and is waiting for the Japanese hordes to arrive, Kluuge guessed, wiping the sweat from his brow.
He met Suijderbeck in the entrance, on his way out.
‘Aren’t you going to attend the run-through meeting?’
‘Ciggy break,’ muttered Suijderbeck, and spat into the flower bed. ‘I’m just nipping to the news stand and I’ll be back before you’ve even had time for a pee.’
Nice guy, Kluuge thought. Good camaraderie and a good atmosphere, just like they said it should be at police college. He entered his office, which had recently undergone several changes as far as the furniture was concerned, in an effort to keep up with the requirements of the investigation. But his desk was still there, and he flopped down behind it after greeting the others.
Servinus was in his usual place, as were Tolltse and Lauremaa, plus one of the latest newcomers – Detective Inspector Jung from the Maardam police. The other newcomer, the somewhat strange Inspector Reinhart, was smoking his pipe through the open window, and Chief Inspector Van Veeteren’s chair was empty, as usual.
Ah well, Kluuge thought when Suijderbeck reappeared. We’d better get going, then.
‘We’d better get going, then,’ he said, logically enough.
‘Not a bad idea,’ said Reinhart.
‘I have to say,’ Servinus admitted, ‘that I feel pretty disgusted when people start burning down churches. Despite my deep-rooted atheism.’
‘Yes, they’re going too far now,’ Kluuge agreed.
‘The mob’s taking over,’ said Lauremaa. ‘We really must get this case solved PDQ – you all heard what the psychologist said on the television, I take it? This kind of thing always inspires copycat actions… And we know how pyromaniacs operate, don’t we?’
‘Yes indeed,’ said Reinhart. ‘But bollocks to what’s happening in Stamberg. They have their own police force there, we can assume.’
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘And this means that we’ll probably lose about fifty reporters, so perhaps we don’t need to spend all day weeping.’
‘Anyway,’ said Reinhart, ‘I’d like to be informed about what’s been happening. Let’s get the gen first.’
‘Okay,’ said Kluuge, stretching himself. ‘I suppose it could be summed up by saying that all our guesses have been confirmed. Katarina Schwartz had been dead for nearly two weeks when she was found – round about 16 July they reckon. As I understand it, that fits in well with other information we have. Tolltse?’
Inspector Tolltse leafed through her notebook.
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘We – Inspector Lauremaa and I, that is – have spoken again to five of the girls, and it seems that Katarina Schwartz went missing round about then. Probably a day or so earlier, the 14th or 15th, but they are all pretty bad at dates. None of them has been keeping a diary, and there doesn’t even seem to have been a calendar out there. Not where the girls lived, at least.’
‘Beyond time and space,’ muttered Servinus.
‘What about the circumstances?’ wondered Reinhart impatiently. ‘We can assume that she disappeared at a certain time of day, surely. Or did she just dissolve bit by bit?’
‘Yes, there were various circumstances,’ Lauremaa confirmed. ‘In the first place they wanted everybody to forget that she’d ever been at the camp. It must have been her disappearance that the anonymous woman phoned about the first time, but right from the start the organizers and the girls denied that there had ever been more than
