“I know that's what you think.”
He thought for half a minute.
“Would you be able to fire those other two shots?”
She thought about it.
“No. Not now. But I don't think it's impossible. You can be driven to it. It's hardly inexplicable, let's face it. On the contrary, in fact.”
“A madwoman who goes around shooting the willies off all men? With good reason?”
“For specific reasons,” said Winnifred. “Specific causes. And not just any old willies.”
“Perhaps she's not mad, either?” said Reinhart.
“Depends on how you look at it, I suppose. She's been wronged, as I said. Affronted, perhaps… No, let's change the subject, this is making me feel unwell.”
“Me too,” said Reinhart. “Shall I do the other leg as well?”
“Yes, do that,” said Winnifred Lynch.
Van Veeteren had arranged to meet Renate for a while on Sunday afternoon, but when he got up at eleven o'clock, he was pleased to discover that his cold had gotten so much worse that he had a perfectly good excuse for canceling the meeting. All his respiratory passages seemed to be blocked by something thick and slimy and more or less impenetrable, and the only way in which he could breathe at all was by walking around with his mouth wide open. For a few painful seconds he observed what this procedure looked like in the hall mirror, and he recognized that today was one of those days when he ought not to force his presence on another human being.
Not even an ex-wife.
It was bad enough putting up with himself, and the day progressed in a fashion reminiscent of a seal traveling through a desert. At about ten in the evening he slumped over the kitchen table with his feet in a bubbling footbath and a terry towel draped over his head-in the vain hope that the steam from an aromatic concoction in a saucepan would banish the slime in his frontal cavities. It certainly had an effect: fluid poured out from every orifice, and he was covered in sweat.
Bugger this for a lark, he thought.
And then the telephone rang.
Van Veeteren recalled Reinhart's early morning call the other day and formed a rapid but logical conclusion: if I didn't wish to receive any calls, I ought to have pulled out the plug.
I haven't pulled out the plug, and therefore I'd better answer.
“Hello. Enso Faringer here.”
For a few blank seconds he hadn't the slightest idea who Enso Faringer was.
“We met down at Freddy's and talked about Maasleitner.”
“Yes, of course. What do you want?”
“You said I should give you a call if I remembered anything.”
“And?”
“I've remembered something.”
Van Veeteren sneezed.
“Excuse me?”
“It was nothing. What have you remembered?”
“Well, I remember Maasleitner talking about that music.”
“What music?”
“Somebody had telephoned him over and over again, and played him a tune, it seems.”
“A tune?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know. It had annoyed him, in any case.”
A diffuse memory began to stir in the back of the chief inspector's brain.
“Hang on a minute. What kind of music was it?”
“I don't know. He never said what it was-I don't think he knew.”
“But why did this person call him? What was the point?”
“He didn't know. That's what irritated him.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“I don't think he said. I think it was just music, all the time.”
Van Veeteren thought for a moment.
“When exactly was this?”
Faringer hesitated.
“The same day we went to Freddy's, I think. When he was shot. Or maybe the day before.”
“And this call was repeated several times?”
“Yes, it seems so.”
“Did he try to do anything about it?”
“I don't know.”
“And he didn't know who it was behind it?”
“I don't think so. No, he was angry, mainly because he'd no idea what it was all about.”
Van Veeteren thought again.
“Mr. Faringer,” he said eventually. “Are you sure you remember this correctly? You're sure you haven't got hold of the wrong end of the stick?”
He could hear some coughing at the other end of the line, and when the little German teacher's voice returned, there was no doubt that he was rather offended.
“I know I was slightly drunk, but I can remember this as clear as day.”
“I understand,” said Van Veeteren. “Is there anything else you remember?”
“Not yet,” said Faringer. “But if I do, I'll be in touch again.”
“I'll probably be in touch again as well,” said the chief inspector before hanging up.
Well, what the devil does this mean? he wondered as he poured the liquid from the footbath and the concoction of herbs down the sink.
And what was it he almost remembered that somebody had said a few weeks ago?
18
It was late on Tuesday afternoon before they succeeded in tracking down all the remaining thirty-three staff NCOs (which was their official military status) of the 1965 vintage. Thirty-one of the group were still alive, the youngest of them now fifty the eldest fifty-six. Five of them turned out to be resident abroad (three in other European countries, one in the United States, one in South Africa), fourteen were still in the Maardam police district, and the remaining twelve in other parts of the country.
Heinemann was in charge of this side of the investigation and kept a register of all those concerned. He also made an effort to systematize the results of the interrogations, without finding an entirely successful method. When he handed the documentation over to Van Veeteren at about half past six in the evening, he devoted some considerable time to an attempt to enlighten his boss about all the cryptic signs and abbreviations, but in the end they both realized that it was a waste of time.
“You can explain it orally instead when we meet tomorrow to run through the current situation,” Van Veeteren decided. “It'll be just as well for everybody to get the information at the same time.”
