‘That early bishop was a good move,’ said Mahler, scratching at his beard. ‘Very nearly caught me on the hop.’
‘You were lucky,’ said the chief inspector. ‘I regard myself as the moral victor. Speaking of morals, what do you know about the Pure Life?’
‘The Pure Life?’ Mahler looked bewildered for a few seconds. ‘Oh, you don’t mean that blasted sect, do you?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Van Veeteren.
Mahler thought for a moment.
‘Why do you ask? In the name of duty, I hope? Or are you thinking of joining?’
Van Veeteren didn’t respond.
‘Nasty,’ said Mahler after another moment’s thought. ‘Not that I know all that much about them, but I wouldn’t want to pick my friends from that lot. A smart leader, sucks in emotionally unstable and scared people, turns them into robots, and presumably gets up to no good. Mind you, to the casual observer they’re meek and mild, as soft as sugary angel-drops, needless to say. Especially after what happened.’
‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘You’re taking the words from my lips.’
‘What’s it all about?’
The chief inspector shrugged.
‘I don’t know yet. It might be just a false alarm. I’ll be leaving town for a few days, in any case. Off to Sorbinowo.’
‘Aha,’ said Mahler. ‘That could be very pleasant at this time of year. All those lakes and so on.’
I’ll be there on duty, of course,’ Van Veeteren pointed out.
‘Of course you will,’ said Mahler with a smile. ‘But I expect you’ll have half an hour off now and then… I remember a very good writer from those parts, by the way.’
‘Really?’
‘He wrote about my first poetry collections. Positive and intelligent. Seems to have a good grasp of what this damned life is all about. He’s still editor-in-chief there, I think.’
Van Veeteren nodded.
‘What’s his name? In case I need to talk to somebody with a clear head.’
‘Przebuda. Andrej Przebuda. He must be getting on for seventy by now, but I’m sure he’ll be continuing to man the cultural barricades until they scatter his ashes in the winds.’
Van Veeteren made a note of the name and emptied his glass.
‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘I suppose it might be fun to get away for a bit.’
‘Of course,’ said Mahler. ‘But steer well clear of funerals.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Van Veeteren promised. ‘Have we time for another one?’
Mahler checked his watch.
‘I think we can fit another one in,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you due for a holiday soon, by the way? Or have they withdrawn perks like that?’
‘First of August,’ the chief inspector said, turning the board round. ‘I’m off to Crete, and I have a few hopes of that.’
‘Well I’ll be damned!’ Mahler exclaimed. ‘What hopes?’
But the chief inspector simply contemplated his black queen, an inscrutable expression on his face.
‘Mind you, I have misgivings,’ he admitted after a while.
‘About Crete?’
‘No, about Sorbinowo. There seems to be a child missing. I don’t like that sort of stuff.’
Mahler emptied his glass.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Children ought not to go missing. Especially if they die. As long as Our Good Lord can’t take care of that detail, I shall refuse to believe in him.’
‘Same here,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Anyway it’s your move.’
THREE
19-23 JULY
7
Elgar’s cello concerto came to an end a hundred metres before the road sign at the entrance to the town. He switched off the CD and drove into a parking area with a tourist information board and an excellent view over the countryside below. Groped around in the glove pocket and produced the half-full pack of West he had been thinking about for the last half-hour. Lit a cigarette and got out of the car.
He stretched his back and performed a few cautious physical jerks while taking in the panorama spread out before him. The water course – basically the River Meusel that three or four times expanded to form long and narrow dark lakes – flowed towards the south-west through a flat, cultivated valley. The town of Sorbinowo was scattered around and between lakes number two and three from where he was standing, and he counted half a dozen bridges before the river disappeared from sight among wooded hills some six kilometres or so further on. Yachts, canoes and every kind of boat you could think of were bobbing up and down in the water, rocked by the gentle breeze. Directly below him several anglers were fishing from an old stone bridge, and about three kilometres to the west hordes of children were laughing and shouting and splashing around in an area designated a bathing beach.
This really was an idyll; Hiller and Mahler had been right. Dark, glittering waters. Fields of ripe corn. A scattering of deciduous woods and occasional villages in a half-open landscape. The whole area encircled by silent coniferous forests. The armies of silence.
A quivering summer heat made the rippling water enticing, even for a bather as hesitant as Chief Inspector Van Veeteren.
An idyll – yes, okay, he thought and drew deeply on his cigarette. Seen from a distance, before you’ve had a chance to scrape the surface, most things could seem pretty and well-organized. That was a reliable old truth.
As he stood there listening to the usual signals from the small of his back after a long car journey, a many- threaded skein of thoughts came to life inside him – about age and distance. For when he eventually (August? Krantze’s antiquarian bookshop?) asserted the undoubted rights that came with his age and retired… when he gave up once and for all rooting around in the rubbish heaps of his environment, what he intended to seek out and lay claim to was distance – to occupy the elevated position afforded by keeping things at a distance. The observer’s perspective. At long last to allow himself to be satisfied with the surface – glittering or not – and to interpret all the signs in a positive way. Or better still, not at all. To allow a pattern to be just that, a pattern. To leave the world and himself in peace.
In other words, just to sit there gaping at what went on. With a beer and a chessboard at Yorrick’s or Win- derblatt’s. The wages of virtue after a life spent on the shadowy side?
Some bloody hope, he thought, stubbing out his cigarette. There are so many snags. Always these goddamned snags.
Anyway, time to lift the lid of summer-slumbering Sorbinowo.
A little girl missing?
The Pure Life?
Pure drivel, more like! he thought, drinking the last few lukewarm drops of mineral water that had been lying and sloshing about for far too long on the passenger seat. The paranoid imaginings of a nervous summer stand-in, nothing more… But if he could drag things out for a few days and at the same time repay his debt to that crackpot Malijsen, he had no real reason to complain.
There were worse times than wasted time – perhaps that was precisely what constituted the observer’s position? One of the things, at least.
Or so the chief inspector thought in the back of his mind as he wiped the sweat off his brow. Then he
