Van Veeteren had to think that over.
‘Twenty-six,’ he said. ‘It’s about time I stopped worrying about him.’
Ulrike shook her head.
‘Why should you do that?’ she asked. ‘Once your child, always your child. Even if they’re aged a hundred.’
Van Veeteren observed her for a while in silence. Felt the warm soles of her feet against his legs. Good God, he thought. This woman…
It was only the fourth or fifth time they had spent a whole night together, and now, just as on all the previous occasions, he was forced to ask himself why it didn’t happen rather more often. As far as he could tell he didn’t seem to be causing her all that much suffering, so why be so damned cautious? Be as unabashed as a hermit. Not as doubtful as a donkey. As far as he was concerned… well, as far as he was concerned he wasn’t suffering in the least.
He looked out of the window at a New Year’s Day that seemed very uncertain. It had been raining during the night, and the sky and the earth seemed to be conjoined by a blue-grey light that certainly didn’t intend to keep darkness at bay for many hours. It struck him that there were grounds for thinking the sun had been extinguished at some point in November – he couldn’t recall seeing it since then, at least.
‘Lovely weather,’ he said. ‘Shall we go back to bed for a while?’
‘A good idea,’ said Ulrike Fremdli.
When they woke up the next time it was two o’clock.
‘When are your children due?’ he asked in horror.
‘This evening,’ she said. ‘They’re not dangerous.’
‘My solicitude concerns them and nothing else,’ said Van Veeteren, sitting up. ‘I don’t want to give them a shock, the first thing I do in the new year.’
Ulrike pulled him back down onto the bed.
‘You’re staying,’ she said. ‘They’re grown-up now and have flown the nest, both of them. And they’ve seen a thing or two.’
Van Veeteren pondered.
‘Why do we have weekdays when we could have exclusively Sundays?’ he asked slyly.
Ulrike furrowed her brow, then sat astride him.
‘Don’t think I’m in a hurry,’ she said. ‘But one Sunday every other month is on the thin side.’
Van Veeteren stretched out his hands and let her heavy breasts rest on them.
‘You may be right,’ he said. ‘All right, I’ll stay then. I’ll soon be sixty, so maybe it’s time to tie up a few loose ends.’
‘The year is starting off well,’ said Ulrike.
‘It could have started worse,’ said Van Veeteren.
But later, as he lay in bed waiting for her to finish in the bathroom, his thoughts reverted to last night’s dream.
Erich? he thought. Munster? Intendent Munster?
Incomprehensible.
At least for somebody who generally only comprehends a tiny part that is obvious.
31
‘A Happy New Year,’ said Chief of Police Hiller, adjusting his tie. ‘Good to see you back, Reinhart. We all hope that your leave of absence did you good.’
‘Thank you, everybody,’ said Reinhart. ‘Yes, it was relatively bearable. But I don’t understand why I’m being lumbered with this case. There seem to be enough people working on it already. Don’t tell me you’ve got stuck?’
‘Hmm,’ said Hiller. ‘I think we’ll leave it to Intendent Munster to fill you in on that score.’
Munster took out his notebook and looked round the table. Reinhart was right, that couldn’t be denied. There suddenly seemed to be a lot of officers on the case. Himself. Rooth and Heinemann. Jung and Moreno. And now Reinhart as well. Not counting Hiller, of course.
‘I suggest we go through what has happened since that find out in Weyler’s Woods,’ said Munster. ‘It will do no harm for us all to get an overview, and Reinhart can also become aware of all the facts.’
Hiller nodded encouragingly, and made clicking noises with the new Ballograph pen he’d been given as a Christmas present.
‘Right, it was the 21st of December when a young girl, Vera Kretschke, found that human head, hidden in a plastic carrier bag. It was pretty clear from early on that it belonged to Else Van Eck, who had been missing since the end of October. Her husband, Arnold Van Eck, identified her straight away: it was a bit too much for him, and he’s been in hospital out at Majorna ever since…’
‘Poor bastard,’ said Reinhart.
‘Apparently he hasn’t opened his mouth for a week,’ said Moreno.
‘During the eleven days that have passed since then we’ve found three more carrier bags, but she’s still not complete, as it were. Her left leg and part of her trunk are still missing – her pelvis, to be more precise. Two more bags, presumably. Twelve officers are still searching, but it’s not an easy task, of course, even if we assume that the whole lot was dumped in Weyler’s Woods. Nothing has been buried so far: the murderer just covered the bags up as best he could, with leaves and twigs and suchlike.
‘He simply didn’t have a spade,’ said Rooth. ‘Careless type.’
‘Quite possibly,’ said Munster. ‘In any case, according to Meusse she’s been dead for up to two months, so there’s nothing to suggest that she wasn’t murdered the same night as she disappeared… the 29th or soon after. The butchery is not too badly done – I’m quoting Meusse – and could well have been done by somebody with a certain amount of professional skill, he says, although the tools used were of poorish quality. An ordinary, fairly blunt carving knife or something similar. Plus a cleaver, presumably. The actual cause of death seems to have been several powerful blows to the head with a heavy instrument. The parietal bone was well and truly smashed, and bits of bone penetrated the brain; but the killer probably also severed the carotid artery before he started cutting her up… Hrrm. As for the plastic carrier bags, they are widely available and apparently they can be bought by the roll in seven out of ten grocer’s shops or supermarkets. The only thing that might be worth noting is that they were yellow. You can buy dark green ones of the same type, and of course using them would have been preferable if you didn’t want them to be easily found.’
‘He probably didn’t have any others at home,’ said Rooth.
‘It might be as simple as that,’ Munster agreed. ‘All the body parts found so far have been naked. No clothes, no other details that could have left clues. Fingerprints are out of the question, of course, given the length of time that’s passed.’
He paused and looked round the table again.
‘It won’t help us much even if we do find the missing parts,’ said Jung.
‘No,’ said Rooth. ‘Presumably not. But it’s no fun sitting with a puzzle that has two pieces missing.’
‘It’s not exactly a fun puzzle, no matter what,’ said Moreno.
‘It seems not,’ said Reinhart. ‘What do you have in the way of suspicions?’
There was silence for a few seconds, broken only by the clicking of the chief of police’s new pen.
‘Let’s take the other stuff we know first,’ said Munster, ‘and then we can start speculating. We’ve spoken to quite a lot of people, mainly neighbours in the same building – there isn’t much in the way of relatives and friends – but to sum that up, it has to be said that we haven’t found out very much. Fru Van Eck disappeared during the evening of Wednesday, the 29th of October, while her husband was attending a course at the Riitmeeterska school. She was last seen shortly after six o’clock that evening, one of the neighbours thinks she heard her in the flat at around seven, but she wasn’t there when Arnold Van Eck got home at eight o’clock. No one has been able to tell us any more than that.’
‘Could it be one of them?’ wondered Reinhart. ‘The neighbours, I mean. And is it certain that she was the one
