‘What did he take with him?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Clothes? Suitcase? Or didn’t he have anything with him?’
Fru Walker had obviously not thought about this aspect before, but she did so now and hurried round her desk once more.
‘We’ll look into that immediately. We have lists of all the things the patients have in their rooms. Most of them, at least. Follow me.’
‘All right,’ sighed Moreno.
Half an hour later most things had become clear. By all appearances Arnold Maager had not rushed away on the spur of the moment. When all the carers and assistants pooled their observations, it became clear that missing from his room were a small shopping bag and several changes of clothes from his wardrobe. Shirts, underpants and socks, in any case.
There were no other indications, either in Maager’s room or anywhere else, so Moreno thanked everybody for their help and went back to her car.
I must talk to Vegesack without delay, she thought. I need to find out exactly what Maager came out with when Vegesack spoke to him.
Vegesack had made it abundantly clear that Maager hadn’t said very much at all. Moreno assumed that meant there was all the more danger that the constable might have let slip too much. Regarding Mikaela Lijphart, for instance. That she seemed to have disappeared, for instance.
She flopped down behind the wheel. Wound down the side window and turned the ignition key.
Dead.
Not a sound from the starter.
She tried again. And again.
Not so much as a sigh.
I don’t believe it, she thought. I simply can’t believe it. Not just now.
How the hell? she went on to think. How the hell can anybody choose to drive around in an old East German car ten years after the fall of the Wall? A tin-pot old banger that ought to be in a museum!
My dear Mikael, she hissed as she fished for her mobile in her handbag. You’re in a right old mess now. A right old bloody mess!
It was 19 July, and the sun was scorching down from a cloudless sky. Detective Inspector Ewa Moreno’s holiday had just entered its second week. She was in a car park outside a remotely situated mental hospital two kilometres away from the sea, her period had just started, and Mikael Bau’s damned Trabant refused to start.
The first liberated woman in the history of the world? Is that how she had defined her position in life’s system of coordinates just a few days ago?
Huh.
22
‘The world is round,’ said Henning Keeswarden, six years and five months old.
‘As round as a ball,’ said Fingal Wielki, a mere four years and nine months old, but a keen promoter of everything that seemed to be new and modern. Especially if the one who announced it was his adorable cousin.
‘There are people on the other side,’ said young Keeswarden. ‘Do you understand that?’
Fingal nodded enthusiastically. Of course he understood.
‘If we dig a deep, deep hole down into the ground, we’ll eventually come out on the other side.’
‘On the other side,’ agreed Fingal.
‘But we have to dig really, really deep. Then all we need to do is to climb down and come out of the hole on the other side. In China, where the Chinese live.’
‘China, Chinese’ said Fingal. He wasn’t quite sure where that was, nor who the Chinese were, but didn’t want to admit it. ‘We’ll have to dig deep, deep down!’ he said instead.
‘Let’s get going,’ said Henning. ‘We’ve got all day. I once dug a hole that very nearly came out on the other side of the world. I was nearly there — but then I had to go in and eat. I could hear them talking down there.’
‘Talking?’
Fingal couldn’t suppress his surprise.
‘The Chinese. I was that close. I placed my ear against the bottom of the hole, and I could hear them talking quite clearly. I couldn’t understand what they said, of course — they speak a different language, the Chinese do. Shall we dig a hole now that goes all the way through?’
‘Of course,’ said Fingal.
The cousins dug away. Fingal’s spade was red and much newer than Henning’s, which was blue and a bit worse for wear. Perhaps it had been used during the previous China excavation, so it was understandable. But a red spade always digs faster than a blue one.
It was still only morning. They had just come down to the beach with their mothers, who were sisters and currently busy lying down on their backs and tanning their titties — it was that kind of beach.
It was quite easy to dig. At first, at least. But soon the sand they’d dug out started to run back down into the hole. Henning said that they’d have to make the hole a bit wider at the top.
It was rather boring to have to make the hole wider when what they really wanted to do was to dig straight down and come to the Chinese as quickly as possible. But if they wanted to get through, they would have to put up with a few annoying little problems. And keep at it even so.
And so Henning got stuck in, and Fingal followed his example.
‘Shut up now, I’m listening and trying to hear something!’ said Henning when the hole was so deep that only his head and shoulders stuck out when he stood upright on the bottom. That was certainly true of Fingal, at any rate, who was some ten centimetres shorter than his cousin.
‘Sh!’ said Fingal to himself, holding his index finger over his lips when Henning pressed his ear down on the wet sand.
‘Could you hear anything?’ he asked when Henning stood up again and brushed the sand out of his ear.
‘Only something very faint,’ said Henning. ‘We have quite a bit to go yet. Shall we play at slaves?’
‘Slaves? Yes, of course!’ said Fingal, who couldn’t remember just now what a slave was.
Henning clambered up out of the hole.
‘Let’s start with you as the slave and me as the slave driver. You have to do everything I say, otherwise I’ll kill you and eat you up.’
‘Okay,’ said Fingal.
‘Get digging!’ yelled Henning, threateningly. ‘Dig away, you idle slave!’
Fingal started digging again. Down and down, with sand being sprayed around left, right and centre: it was wet and quite hard going, halfway down to China.
‘Dig!’ yelled Henning again. ‘You have to say: Yes, Mister!’
‘Yesmister!’ said Fingal, digging away.
We ought to be making contact with those Chinese soon, he thought; but he daren’t break off to lie down and listen. If he did, his cousin might kill him and eat him up. That didn’t sound very pleasant. Instead he started digging slightly to one side, where it seemed to be easier. Maybe that was the right way to China. He had the feeling it must be the case.
‘Get digging, you idle slave!’ screeched Henning.
His arms were really beginning to ache now, especially the right one that he’d broken when he was out skiing and fell on the ice six months ago. But he didn’t give up. He dug away with the spade and stuck it into the sand wall at the side of the hole with all his strength.
A large chunk of sand fell down as he did so, but that was okay. He realized that he had got there. At last. A
