‘The main road where the bridge crosses over between the lakes. Just on the other side.’
‘Okay,’ said Jung. ‘I’m on my way there, to help out.’
‘What the hell…?’ said Reinhart, adjusting the focus.
‘What have you seen?’ asked the chief inspector.
He eased back the throttle and the engine spluttered to a halt.
‘There’s a young girl sitting all by herself on a rock on the other side over there. Look!’
Reinhart handed over his binoculars and pointed at the bathing beach. Van Veeteren scanned the water and the forest several times before he found the right spot.
‘My God, yes…’ he said. ‘There’s a summer camp round about there, I’m pretty sure.’
‘Start the engine again,’ said Reinhart. ‘She can’t sit there, for Christ’s sake!’
After several failed attempts, Van Veeteren eventually coaxed the outboard motor back to life and they headed straight across the lake. Reinhart was crouching in the bows with the binoculars, Van Veeteren in the stern, huddled up in an attempt to avoid the worst of the wind and the spray.
I prefer canoes, the chief inspector thought. God knows how much I prefer them. But I haven’t escaped from this treadmill yet, of course.
‘Hi there,’ said the man, standing up.
She paused. Brushed her long hair from out of her eyes and squinted at him.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘What are you doing here yourself?’
He burst out laughing.
‘I like people like you,’ he said. ‘I’m not doing anything special. Just looking for mushrooms – if there are any yet.’
‘Oh, there are,’ she said. ‘We picked a whole bagful the other day. But we had to throw most of them away. Our teachers said they weren’t edible, but I think they only said that because they couldn’t be bothered to trim and clean them. Why haven’t you got anything to put your mushrooms in? What’s that thing?’
She pointed at the rubber thing he was holding in his hand.
‘This?’ he said, with a smile. ‘Would you like me to show you how to use it?’
She checked her watch.
‘Sorry, I don’t have time,’ she said. ‘I’m just looking for my hairslide. I lost it up here yesterday.’
‘Your hair?’ he said, and gulped.
‘Yes, it was somewhere near here.’
She made a sweeping gesture.
‘Let me help you to find it.’
She smiled at him.
‘Thank you! How nice of you. This way!’
‘What are you doing here?’ said Reinhart.
The girl slithered down from the rock.
‘What do you mean?’
They got out of the boat and pulled it up a few metres onto the narrow beach.
‘We’re looking for somebody,’ explained the chief inspector. ‘Haven’t you been told not to go off on your own today?’
‘No… Well, yes, but I’m waiting for a friend.’
‘A friend?’ said Reinhart.
‘Yes, she was just going to fetch something.’
‘What exactly?’
‘A hairslide.’
‘And where had she left it?’ asked Van Veeteren impatiently.
‘She’d lost it up there in the woods yesterday.’
She gestured up the slope.
‘What’s your name?’ asked Reinhart.
‘Ruth Najda. And who are you?’
‘We’re police officers,’ said Reinhart. ‘So you’re saying that your friend has gone up into the woods to look for her hairband, is that right?’
‘Hairslide,’ said Ruth Najda. ‘Not hairband.’
‘Okay. When did she set off?’
The girl checked her watch then shrugged her shoulders.
‘A quarter of an hour ago, more or less. She said she’d be back in five minutes, but that was thirteen and a half minutes ago.’
‘Hell and damnation!’ said Reinhart. ‘Show us exactly which way she took!’
‘Why are you so-’ Ruth Najda began, but the chief inspector interrupted her.
‘Get on with it!’ he bellowed. ‘We’re in a hurry and this isn’t a game!’
‘Okay,’ said the girl, and set off through the alders.
‘How’s it going?’ yelled Suijderbeck into the microphone. ‘Can’t you switch off that damned engine so that we can hear what you say?’
‘It’s not easy to fly a helicopter without an engine,’ explained the voice. ‘But we caught a glimpse of somebody down below a couple of minutes ago. It might have been him. And the guys down there are hot on his heels.’
‘Well done!’ roared Suijderbeck. ‘Make sure he doesn’t get away, because if he does I’ll be up there with you before you know what’s hit you, and kick you all out one after another. Is that clear?’
There was a crackling noise over and over again. Then:
‘Your name’s Suijderbeck, is that right?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘I thought I recognized your style, that’s all.’
‘Over and out,’ said Suijderbeck.
It was Reinhart who saw them first.
He glimpsed the girl’s long, fair hair flashing past some tree trunks, then Wim Fingher’s back appeared briefly. Then they came into full view as they emerged from between two large, moss-covered boulders – first the girl and then, ever so close behind, the murderer, clutching a black baton in his hand.
Van Veeteren stopped dead. Reinhart stumbled, recovered his balance and reached for his gun – but it wasn’t necessary: at that very moment there was a commotion in the thicket and two uniformed police officers came racing out. One threw himself at Wim Fingher in a flying tackle that wouldn’t have been out of place in any American B-movie you could think of, the chief inspector thought. It sent him crashing to the ground, and the other officer stood with his legs wide apart, his pistol aimed at the murderer’s head from a metre away.
‘If you move just one centimetre, you fucking monster, I’ll blow your brains out,’ he explained patiently.
All in all a very professional operation, and the chief inspector suddenly felt utterly exhausted.
Bottomless exhaustion, and he realized that he hadn’t slept a wink for over twenty-four hours.
‘Why did you do that?’ asked Helene Klausner.
‘It was necessary’ Reinhart explained. ‘He’s sick.’
‘Sick?’
‘Yes,’ said Reinhart. ‘Did he touch you?’
‘Touch me? No, he was just helping me to find my hair-slide. This.’
She waved something sky-blue. The chief inspector nodded.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘But shouldn’t you be having breakfast now? Off you go!’
‘All right. Bye-bye!’
They watched the girls slowly ambling towards the red building a little further along the shore.
‘Can I borrow your diving mask now?’ they heard the dark-haired girl ask. ‘I was waiting all the time, and you promised…’
‘Yes, of course,’ said the blonde cheerfully, setting up her hair with a well-practised movement. ‘Let’s have
