to happen inside himself. How his awareness of the room round about him seemed to shrink, and how he was slowly but surely being drawn into something dark and swirling, something sucking him in, something irrevocable. He closed his eyes tightly and leaned back.
‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Don’t wait too long. If you do I’ll come back and remind you of what you said.’
He stayed there for a few more minutes. Clausen was staring at his hands again, the trembling continued. The air conditioning hummed. The fluorescent tube flickered once or twice. Nothing else happened.
Then Van Veeteren stood up. Signalled that he wanted to be let out, and left the room.
He didn’t say a word. Not to Reinhart or to anybody else. Walked straight through the foyer, opened up his umbrella and wandered out into the town.
