Tomaszewski thought that one over.
“I think so. Not that it was a real problem. It was just that he had something about him that could be a bit trying. But, of course, there's bound to be one or two like that in such a big group.”
“Did you mix at all when you were off duty?”
Tomaszewski shook his head.
“Never.”
“Do you know if Malik and Maasleitner did?”
“I've no idea. I wouldn't have thought so, but, of course, I can't swear to it.”
“Do you know if any of the others were close to them? To either one of them, that is?”
Tomaszewski studied the photograph again. Moreno produced a list of names and handed it to him. Drank a little tea and took a chocolate biscuit while he was thinking about it. Looked around the whitewashed walls, crammed full with rows of colorful, nonfigurative paintings, almost edge to edge. Her host was evidently something of a collector. She wondered how much money was hanging here.
Probably quite a lot.
“Hmm,” he said eventually. “I'm afraid I can't be of much help to you. I can't think of any link between them. I can't associate Malik with anybody else at all. I think Maasleitner occasionally hung around with them.”
He pointed to two faces in the back row.
“Van der Heukken and Biedersen?” Moreno read the names from her list.
Tomaszewski nodded.
“As far as I can recall. You realize that it's over thirty years ago?”
Moreno smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “I realize that. But I understood that time spent on National Service had an ineradicable effect on all young men who underwent it.”
Tomaszewski smiled.
“No doubt it did on some. But most of us try to forget all about it, as far as possible.”
“Charming” was the word that stuck in her mind after the visit to Tomaszewski. The discreet charm of the middle classes, she recalled, and she had to admit that on the whole, there were worse ways of spending an hour on a Saturday morning.
She had not expected her trip to Dikken to produce anything substantial for the investigation, and the same applied to the next name on her list: Pierre Borsens.
When she got off the bus in Maardam, she had succeeded in thrusting aside the morning's gloomy thoughts and made up her mind to call in at the covered market and buy a couple of decent cheeses for the evening meal. Pierre Borsens lived only a block away from the market, and it wasn't yet quite half past twelve.
The man who sat down at the table brought with him an aroma that Jung had some difficulty in identifying. It had the same crudely acidic quality as cat piss, but it also had an unmistakable tang of the sea. Rotten seaweed scorched by the sun, or something of the sort. Most probably it was a combination of both these ingredients.
And more besides. Jung hastily moved his chair back a couple of feet, and lit a cigarette.
“I take it you are Calvin Lange?” he asked.
“I certainly am,” said the man, reaching out a grubby hand over the table. Jung leaned forward and shook it.
“My place is a bit of a mess at the moment,” the man explained. “That's why I thought it would be better to meet here.”
He smiled, and revealed two rows of brown, decayed teeth. Jung was grateful to hear what the man said. He would prefer not to have been confronted by the mess.
“Would you like a beer?” The question was rhetorical.
Lange nodded and coughed. Jung gestured toward the bar.
“And a cigarette, perhaps?”
Lange took one. Jung sighed discreetly and decided it was necessary to get this over with as quickly as possible. It was always problematic to arrange reimbursement for beer and cigarettes; that was something he'd discovered a long time ago.
“Do you recognize this?”
Lange took the photograph and studied it while drawing deeply on his cigarette.
“That's me,” he said, placing a filthy index finger on the face of a young, innocent-looking man in the front row.
“We know that,” said Jung. “Do you remember what those two are called?”
He pointed with his pen.
“One at a time,” said Lange.
The waitress arrived with two glasses of beer.
“Cheers,” said Lange, emptying his in one gulp.
“Cheers,” said Jung, pointing at Malik in the photograph.
“Let's see,” said Lange, peering awkwardly. “No, no fucking idea. Who else?”
Jung pointed at Maasleitner with his pen.
“Seems familiar,” said Lange, scratching his armpit. “Yes, I recognize that bugger, but I've no idea what he's called.”
He belched and looked gloomily at his empty glass.
“Do you remember the names Malik and Maasleitner?”
“Malik and…?”
“Maasleitner.”
“Maasleitner?”
“Yes.”
“No, is that him?”
He plonked his finger on Malik.
“No, that's Malik.”
“Oh, shit. What have they done?”
Jung stubbed out his cigarette. This was going brilliantly.
“Do you remember anything at all from your year as a National Serviceman?”
“National Service? Why are you asking about that?”
“I'm afraid I can't go into that. But we're interested in these two people. Staff College 1965-that's right, isn't it?”
He pointed again.
“Oh, shit,” said Lange, and had a coughing fit. “You mean this picture is from the Staff College? Fuck me, I thought it was the handball team. But there were too many of 'em.”
Jung thought about this for three seconds. Then he returned the photograph to his briefcase and stood up.
“Many thanks,” he said. “You're welcome to my beer as well.” “If you twist my arm,” said Lange.
Mahler advanced a pawn and Van Veeteren sneezed.
“How are things? Under the weather again?”
“Just a bit, yes. I was out in the rain at the cemetery for too long yesterday afternoon.”
“Stupid,” said Mahler.
“I know,” sighed Van Veeteren. “But I couldn't just walk away. I'm rather sensitive about that kind of thing.”
“Yes, I know how you feel,” said Mahler. “It was that Malik, I gather. How's the case going? They're writing quite a lot about it in the newspapers.”
“Badly,” said Van Veeteren.
“Have you found a link yet?”
Van Veeteren nodded.
