noticed the hesitant giant.
“Hmm,” he said.
Van Veeteren looked up.
“Well done, Klaarentoft,” he said. “Very good. I don't think we need you anymore today.”
“Thank you, Chief Inspector,” said Klaarentoft, and left.
Van Veeteren leafed through the shiny photographs.
“Here!” he bellowed suddenly. “And here! I'll be damned!”
He skimmed quickly through the rest.
“Come here, Reinhart! Just look at these! That's her, all right.”
Reinhart leaned over the desk and studied the pictures of a woman in a dark beret and light overcoat tending a grave not far from Malik's; one was in profile, the other almost full face. They were evidently taken with only a short interval between: the photographer had simply changed his position. She was standing by the same grave and seemed to be reading what it said on the rough, partly moss-covered stone. Slightly bent, and one hand holding back a plant.
“Yes,” said Reinhart. “That's her, by God.”
Van Veeteren grabbed the telephone and called the duty officer.
“Has Klaarentoft left yet?”
“No.”
“Stop him when he appears, and send him back up here,” he said, and hung up.
Two minutes later Klaarentoft appeared in the doorway again.
“Good,” said Van Veeteren. “I need enlargements of these two, can you do that?”
Klaarentoft took the pictures and looked at them.
“Of course,” he said. “Is it…”
“Well?”
“Is it her? Maria Adler?”
“You can bet your life it is,” said Reinhart.
“I thought there was something odd about her.”
“He has a keen nose,” said Reinhart when Klaarentoft had left.
“Yes indeed,” said Van Veeteren. “He took twelve pictures of the clergyman as well. We'd better arrest him right away.”
“At last,” said Reinhart when he snuggled down behind Win-nifred Lynch in the bath. “It's been a bastard of a day. What have you done?”
“Read a book,” said Winnifred.
“A book? What's that?” said Reinhart.
She laughed.
“How's it going? I take it you haven't caught her?”
“No,” said Reinhart. “More than thirteen hundred tips, but we don't know where she is or who she is. It's a bugger. I thought we might even solve it today.”
“Hmm,” said Winnifred, leaning back against his chest. “All she needs is a wig. No suspicions, even?”
“She's probably gone northward,” said Reinhart. “She might have taken a train. We'll be talking to a guy tomorrow who thinks he might have been in the same coach as she was. He rang just before I left.”
“Any more?”
Reinhart shrugged.
“I don't know. We don't know about the motive, either.”
She thought for a moment.
“You remember I said it would be a woman?”
“Yes, yes,” said Reinhart, with a trace of irritation.
“A wronged woman.”
“Yes.”
She stroked his thigh with her fingers.
“There are many ways of wronging a woman, but one is infallible.”
“Rape?”
“Yes.”
“She was ten years old at most when they left the Staff College,” said Reinhart. “Can't be more than forty now-what do you think…?”
“No, hardly,” said Winnifred. “Awful, but there's something of that sort in the background, believe me.”
“Could well be,” said Reinhart. “Can't you look a bit deeper into your crystal ball and tell me where she's hiding as well? No, let's forget this for a while. What was the book you read?”
“ La Vie Devant Soi,” said Winnifred.
“Emile Ajar?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I think I need a child.”
Reinhart leaned his head against the tiles and closed his eyes. Sensed two completely irreconcilable images flashing through his brain, but it all happened so quickly that he never managed to grasp their significance.
Assuming they had any.
“May I give you one?” he said.
“If you insist,” she said.
31
“She could well have taken that train,” said Munster. “He seems pretty sure of what he's talking about.”
“Good,” said Van Veeteren. “Where did she go to?”
Munster shook his head.
“Alas,” he said. “He got off in Rheinau, but she didn't. So… somewhere farther north than Rheinau, it seems.”
“There must be more people who saw her?” said Reinhart.
“You'd have thought so. In any case, there was somebody else in the same coach, according to Pfeffenholtz.”
“Pfeffenholtz?”
“Yes, that's his name. There was somebody else there all the way from Maardam. A skinhead. And it seems he was still there after Rheinau.”
“Wow,” said Reinhart.
“Dark glasses, Walkman, and a comic book,” said Munster. “Between eighteen and twenty about. Eating candy all the time, and a cross tattooed over his right ear.”
“A swastika?” Reinhart asked.
“Evidently,” sighed Munster. “What should we do? Send out a ‘wanted’ notice?”
Van Veeteren grunted.
“A swastika and candies?” he said. “Good God, no. Somebody else can go chasing after neo-Nazi puppies. But this Pfeffen-berg…”
“Holtz,” said Munster.
“Okay, okay, Pfeffenholtz. He seems to know what he's talking about?”
Munster nodded.
“Okay,” said Van Veeteren. “Go back to your office and pick out the ones from the Staff College who might fit in. The ones who live north of Rheinau, in other words. Fill me in when you've done that.”
Munster stood up and left the room.
“Have you thought about the motive?” Reinhart wondered.
