on a white woman’s breast, and she concluded that the twain can in fact meet.
By the time she entered the shower she had decided that the hand and the breast in the image she had conjured up were not in any way Claus’s and hers, but Tobose Menakdise’s and Filippa de Booning’s, and she was suddenly back in the middle of the investigation.
You talk about what fills the mind, she seemed to remember somebody saying. But so what? The more thoughts she devoted to the Leverkuhn case and the fewer to Claus, the better, no doubt.
And the healthier it would be for her maltreated spiritual life.
There was always the hope that there might be other alternatives with which to rack her brains. In that spirit she set out after breakfast on a long walk along Willemsgraacht – towards the Lauern lakes and Lohr. Strolled through the light rain and thought about all sorts of things, but mostly about her parents – and her brother in Rome, whom she hadn’t seen for over two years. Her parents lived not quite so far away, down in Groenstadt, but that contact was not everything it might have been either. It was easy to form opinions about the Leverkuhns’ family relationships, but to be honest, her own were not much better.
And then she had a sister, Maud. She had no idea where Maud was – in Hamburg at a guess – nor what state she was in.
Perhaps the anthropologists were right, she thought, and that when the northern European nuclear family had exhausted its role as an economic and social entity, it had also lost its emotional significance.
Emotions were no more than superstructure and empty show. Men and women met, had children, then wandered off in different directions. Heading for wherever it was they were going before they happened to meet, for their various goals. Yes, perhaps that was how you ought to look at it. In any case, there were plenty of examples of this in the animal world, and a human being is basically a biological being, after all.
This last point reminded her that she was also a female, and that this week she was in the middle of her monthly cycle and was going to find it difficult to do without a man. In the long run, at least. What a pity, she thought, what a pity that a human being should be so badly constructed that there was such a long way between brain, heart and sex at times. Or rather, usually.
Always?
The cafe at Czerpinski’s mill was open, and she decided to indulge herself in a cup of tea before returning home. But she would have to be quite quick about it: it was already a quarter to three, and no way did she want to be wandering around in the dark.
She had barely entered the premises before noticing that sitting at one of the tables in the circular room were Benjamin Wauters and Jan Palinski – they didn’t recognize her, or at least showed no indication of having done so, but she realized that it was a sign.
A sign to the effect that there was no point in trying to keep her work at a distance any more.
Nevertheless, she hung on for a bit longer. On Saturday evening she phoned both her brother and her parents, watched a French film from the sixties on the television, and hand-washed two jumpers. But when Sunday morning announced itself with a high, clear blue sky, she saw that it was all in vain. It was simply too urgent. The case. Her work. A few hours of private investigation without any great expectations. It was in the nature of things, and there was no point in pretending otherwise.
There is something deep down inside me, she thought, that makes me do this. A drive, an urge that I never acknowledge, but it actually steers my life. Or at least my professional life. I like poking my nose into things! I enjoy putting other people under a magnifying glass. Their motivation and their actions.
Besides, I’m in the middle of the month, she added. I’d better look after the sublimation myself.
She smiled at that last thought as she stood waiting for the bus to Kolderweg. Working instead of making love? How totally absurd! If Claus could follow her thoughts for five minutes he would probably never dare to meet her again.
But perhaps that’s the situation in all relationships?
With all women and their men with the beautiful hands?
The bus was approaching.
The door was opened by a woman she had never seen before, and just for a moment Moreno sensed the possibility of a breakthrough. But then the woman introduced herself as Helena Winther, the younger sister of Arnold Van Eck, and the hope was lost.
‘I arrived yesterday,’ she explained. ‘I thought I needed to – he’s not very strong.’
She was a slim woman in her mid-fifties, with the same anaemic appearance as her brother but with a handshake that suggested a certain strength of character.
‘You don’t live here in Maardam, then?’
‘No, in Aarlach. My husband has a business there.’
She led the way into the living room where Van Eck was sitting hunched up in front of the television. He looked as if he had only stopped crying a short while ago.
‘Good morning,’ said Moreno. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Awful,’ said Van Eck with a cough. ‘There’s such a big gap.’
Moreno nodded.
‘I can well imagine,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d just call in and see if anything had occurred to you. These things usually come out of the blue, as I said before’
‘It’s a mystery!’ Van Eck exclaimed. ‘A complete mystery!’
I wonder if he thinks the same way as he talks, Moreno wondered. Whatever, he must surely be a special case even in that male sector she had been thinking about?
‘You can’t remember if your wife acted in an unusual way during the days before she disappeared?’ she asked. ‘Said or did something she didn’t usually say or do?’
Van Eck sighed from the very depths of his martyred soul.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing like that. I’ve been lying awake at night, thinking and thinking, but everything is a complete mystery. It’s like a nightmare even though I’m awake.’
‘And you don’t remember noticing anything unusual when you came back home after your course last Wednesday? That first impression you had the moment you crossed the threshold, if you follow me.’
Van Eck shook his head.
‘Do you think your wife had any male friends you didn’t know about?’
‘Eh?’
For a second Van Eck looked cross-eyed behind the thick lenses of his spectacles, and Moreno realized that the question – like any possible answer to it – was way beyond his imagination.
She also realized that she wasn’t going to get anything more out of him, but before moving on to the people who lived upstairs she had a few words with his sister in the kitchen.
‘Do you have much contact with your brother and your sister-in-law?’ she asked.
Helena Winther shrugged.
‘Not a lot,’ she said. ‘There’s the age difference, of course, but we do meet now and then. My husband and Arnold are very different, though.’
‘And Else?’
Winther looked out of the window and hesitated before answering.
‘She’s a bit unusual,’ she said. ‘But you’ll have gathered that. They are not the most normal couple in the world, but in a way they make a real pair. You’ve seen what he’s like without her.’
‘Is he taking any tranquillizers?’
She shook her head.
‘He never takes medicine. He’s never even taken an aspirin for as long as he’s lived.’
‘Why not?’
Winther said nothing, just looked at Moreno with her eyebrows slightly raised, and for a few seconds it was as if the whole masculine mystique was weighed up and fathomed out between those four female eyes.
And found to be unfathomable. Moreno noticed that she was smiling inwardly.
‘You have no idea about what might have happened?’
‘None at all. As he says, it’s a complete mystery. She’s not the type who disappears. On the contrary, if you see what I mean.’
With a slight nod Moreno indicated that she did. Then she shook hands with both her and her brother, and
