had been instructed to attend by the chief inspector.
Constable Klaarentoft was known as the force's most skillful photographer, and his task on this occasion was to take as many pictures as he possibly could. Van Veeteren knew that he had stolen this idea from another movie, namely
Ryszard Malik's and Rickard Maasleitner's murderer.
He recalled seeing the film-which was a pretty awful mishmash-three times, simply to observe how the face of a killer could be plucked out of the lush greenery of an English park.
Another kind of perversion, of course, and Klaarentoft had evidently not seen the film. He traipsed around between the graves, snapping away to his heart's content, totally ignoring Van Veeteren's instruction to be as unobtrusive as possible.
The fact that he managed to take no less than twelve pictures of the clergyman conducting the ceremony suggested that he might not have grasped the point of his contribution.
On the other hand, of course, the group that followed Ryszard Malik to his final resting place was on the sparse side, so there was a shortage of motifs. Van Veeteren counted fourteen persons present-including himself and Klaarentoft-and during the course of the ceremony he was able to identify all of them, apart from two children.
He was unable to detect furtive observers keeping some distance away from the grave (there were a few persons tending other graves in the vicinity of course, but none of them behaved strangely or alerted his famous intuition in the slightest), and when the rain started to fall and he had managed to give Klaarentoft discreet instructions to go away and snap something else, he had long been aware that there was not much point in his hanging around.
And an hour or so later, when he had finally managed to drink a glass of mulled wine at the Kraus bar, he realized that the cold he had succeeded in keeping at bay over the last few days had now gotten a second wind.
The next funeral will be my own, he predicted.
“It's Saturday. Do you really have to do that today?” he had asked.
“Today or tomorrow. Don't you think it's best if I get it out of the way as soon as possible?”
“Yes, of course,” he'd replied, and turned over in his bed. “I'll see you this evening.”
It wasn't an especially unusual exchange. Nor unexpected. As she sat in the bus she felt a nagging pain at the back of her head, like a bad omen. She had been with Claus Badher for fifteen months now-maybe sixteen, it depended on what criteria you used-and it was probably the best relationship she'd ever been involved in. In fact, it certainly was. It involved love and mutual respect, shared values and interests, and everything else one could reasonably expect.
Everything in the garden was lovely. Pure bliss. All their friends thought they ought to take things further. Move in together permanently, with all that implied. Claus thought so too.
There was just that little irritation. That tiny little snag that frightened her. That might be rooted in contempt, despite everything, and if so was destined to grow and become even more worrying. She didn't know. Contempt for her job. Needless to say he was extremely careful not to make it obvious-probably didn't even realize it himself; but sometimes she couldn't help but notice. It just crept up on her, flashed briefly on the surface, then vanished: but she knew it was there. As in the little exchange they'd just had, for instance, which wasn't really significant in itself as yet… But she suspected it could grow into something really threatening as the years passed by.
A threat to their equal status. And to her life.
Claus Badher worked as a foreign-exchange broker in a bank, and was on his way up. She worked as a detective inspector and was on the way… where was she on the way to?
She sighed. At the moment she was on the way to a house in Dikken, where she was due to meet a fifty- two-year-old lawyer and ask him about his time as a National Serviceman.
Absurd? Yes, it was absurd. She often thought that Claus was absolutely right. Always assuming that that was what he was thinking, of course…
She got off the bus and walked the hundred meters or so to the house. Went in through the gate and was greeted by two boxer puppies, enthusiastically barking and wagging their stumpy tails. She paused on the gravel path to stroke them. Looked up at the big two-story house in dark brown English brick with green shutters. Behind one of the gable ends she could just make out a swimming pool, and some wire netting she assumed must be surrounding a tennis court.
Why not? she thought. If I really had to, I suppose I might manage to cope with living like this.
“Ewa Moreno, detective inspector. I'm sorry to trouble you. I just have a few questions I'd like to ask you.”
“No problem. I'm at your disposal.”
Jan Tomaszewski was wearing something she assumed must be a smoking jacket-and indeed, the rest of him seemed to belong to another age. Or in a movie. His dark hair was powdered and immaculately combed, and his slim body gave the distinct impression of being aristocratic. Leslie Howard? she wondered. He reached out over the smoke-gray glass table and served her tea from a charmingly sculpted silver pot.
Another world, she thought. I'd better get going before I swoon.
“Thank you,” she said. “As I mentioned, I need to ask you about the time you spent during your National Service at the Staff College in Lohr. I think that was 1964 to 1965-is that right?”
He nodded.
“That's correct. Why on earth should you be interested in that?”
“I'm afraid I can't tell you that. And I'd appreciate it if you would be discreet about our conversation as well. Perhaps we can meet again at a later stage if you want to know more.”
That was a formulation she had thought out in advance, and she could see that it had fallen on fruitful ground.
“I understand.”
“Anyway, we are mainly interested in a couple of your fellow students at the college. Ryszard Malik and Rickard Maasleitner.”
She took the photograph out of her briefcase and handed it to him.
“Can you point them out?”
He smiled and took a pair of glasses from his breast pocket. Scrutinized the photograph for some thirty seconds.
“Maasleitner isn't a problem,” he said. “We were in the same barrack room nearly all the time. I'm not so sure about Malik, but I think that's him.”
He pointed and Moreno nodded.
“Correct. Can you tell me what you remember about them?”
Tomaszewski took off his glasses and leaned back in his chair.
“I can hardly remember Malik at all,” he said after a while. “We were never in the same group and we didn't mix when we were off duty He was a bit introspective and pretty anonymous, I think. I should mention that I'm not completely unaware of what has happened…”
Moreno nodded.
“Do I take it that you think this is the link? The connection between the two of them, I mean?”
“We're following up several different lines of inquiry,” Moreno explained. “This is just one of them. Obviously, we need to follow up every possibility.”
“Of course. Anyway, I recall Maasleitner in a bit more detail. We were frequently in the same class during training-telegraphy, general staff work, and so on. I have to say I didn't much like him. He was a bit dominant, if you see what I mean.”
“How do you mean, dominant?” Moreno asked.
“Well…” Tomaszewski flung out his arms. “Bigmouthed. Young and arrogant. A bit unbalanced-but he probably wasn't all that bad.”
“Was he generally disliked?”
