‘Hard to say. Somewhere between forty and fifty but I’m not sure. .. Could be older. Voices are not my strong point.’
‘What did she sound like?’
‘Like I said. She spoke quietly, especially the first time… Sounded very serious anyway, as if she really meant what she was saying. That’s why I concluded that I ought to call the chief inspector.’
‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Have you got any more information about that sect?’
Kluuge scratched nervously at his neck.
‘I’ve spoken to colleagues in Stamberg. They promised to gather together a bit of information and fax it over, but nothing’s come yet.’
Van Veeteren nodded.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll go back to my hotel – you can let me know if anything turns up. I’ll be staying on here for a few more days, no matter what.’
‘Good,’ said Kluuge, looking a bit self-conscious. ‘I’m grateful, as I said.’
‘You don’t need to keep on being grateful all the time,’ said the chief inspector, rising to his feet. ‘I suspect there’s something rotten going on here – I’ve paid, by the way.’
‘I understand,’ said Kluuge.
By the time Van Veeteren had returned to his room at Grimm’s, it was half past two in the afternoon and the sun was shining diagonally through the open window. He closed the curtains and took a long, cool shower, this time not paying any attention to the colour scheme.
When he had cooled down sufficiently, he stretched himself out on the bed and called the police station in Maardam. He eventually got hold of Munster.
‘How’s it going?’ Van Veeteren asked.
‘How’s what going?’ Munster wondered.
‘How the hell do I know? The trigger-happy lunatic, for instance.’
‘We caught him this morning. Don’t you listen to the radio?’
‘I’ve been a bit busy,’ Van Veeteren explained.
‘Oh dear,’ said Munster.
‘So I might be able to get a bit of help?’ asked Van Veeteren rhetorically. ‘Now that you’ve got your man.’
Munster coughed and sounded worried – and the chief inspector recalled that Munster was about to go on holiday. He explained what he wanted, and Munster promised to do whatever he could – to find out all there was to know about the Pure Life, and to fax it without delay to Grimm’s Hotel in Sorbinowo.
‘The quicker, the better,’ said Van Veeteren, and hung up.
No harm in casting out a few more lines, he thought, and started to get dressed.
In case Kluuge might have rung the wrong number, or something.
A quarter of an hour later he was back in the car, armed with a new pack of cigarettes and a few fugues. He wasn’t heading anywhere in particular – unless an hour’s unhurried drive round the lakes and through the aromatic forests could be defined as somewhere in particular.
And a trip through Bach’s unfailingly logical variations.
He was back by five o’clock. Took another shower, and before going out to choose a suitable eating place, he enquired at reception if there were any messages for him.
There were not.
Nothing from Kluuge.
Nothing from Munster.
Ah well, he thought. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
And as he wandered towards the town centre, he wondered what on earth he meant by that.
9
Despite the massive influx of tourists seeking fresh air and good walking country – at this time of year the town probably housed twice as many people as during the winter, Van Veeteren would have thought – Sorbinowo had it limits. The number of respectable eating places (to qualify as such in his opinion you needed to be able to sit down and eat at a proper table, and be spared having to listen to canned music at more or less unbearable sound levels) was precisely five. Including Florian’s, where he had taken lunch with Kluuge, and Grimm’s Hotel, where he was staying.
This second evening the chief inspector chose number four: a simple, quasi-Italian establishment in one of the little alleys leading from Kleinmarckt up the hill to the church and the railway station. The pasta turned out to be a bit sticky and the beer lukewarm, but it was peaceful and quiet, and he could sit there alone with his thoughts.
Something which rarely happened, in fact.
Prayers? he thought.
Self-denial? Purity?
He had been thinking about such things in the car as well, while listening to the fugues.
And the image of the tranquil bodies of the little girls at the water’s edge came back to him. And the pale women wrapped in their lengths of bleached cotton cloth.
What the devil was going on?
A justified question, no doubt about that. There were voices inside him – loud voices – stubbornly demanding that he should sort them out. Return to Waldingen without a second’s delay – preferably together with Kluuge in his uniform – and bring the lot of them to book.
Give Oscar Yellinek a good dressing-down and set about all that sanctimoniousness with a sledgehammer. Find out the name of every single girl and send them off home at the first opportunity.
Very loud voices.
But there was something else as well. He took another swig of beer and tried to pin it down.
Something to do with freedom and rights, presumably.
With the right to practise one’s religion in peace and without interference. Not to have the police lurking round every corner, ready to come storming in the moment anything happened that didn’t conform with convention.
With defending, or at least not squashing, a minority.
Yes, something of that sort. Definitely.
Despite his instinctive dislike of Yellinek, he couldn’t help agreeing with him when it came down to basics. What right had he, the unbeliever, to stand in judgement over these members of a drop-out sect?
Two anonymous telephone calls. Little girl missing? Was that sufficient reason?
It could no doubt be argued that one should have rather firmer ground on which to stand. Somewhere a bit drier for one’s feet.
The fair-haired waitress came with his coffee and cognac. He lit a cigarette.
Not to mention the inconvenience!
He took a sip of cognac. Perhaps that was what put him off the most. The inconvenience. In the other half of the scales, comfort and warmth – for if he really did make up his mind to move in now, wasn’t it likely that Yellinek and the female troika would make him take the consequences as well? Force him to take responsibility for the whole group of girls and make sure each of them got back home safely?
And there was no reason to think that the girls’ parents would have a more benevolent attitude towards the police than their spiritual leader had displayed. After all, they had sent their offspring to this camp, and whether or not they were completely naive, they were hardly likely to be pleased to receive their half-confirmed teenagers three weeks earlier than expected. Anybody would be able to understand that. Even Kluuge. Even an agnostic detective chief inspector on his last legs.
Hell and damnation, Van Veeteren thought as he gestured for the bill. I’m sitting here like a donkey in two minds, thinking rubbish.
About a case that doesn’t even exist!
Or at least, probably doesn’t, he added. It must be the weather.
He paid, and left El Pino. It occurred to him that perhaps a decent glass of wine might help to get his mind back on track. White, of course, in view of the temperature; it was a few minutes short of half past eight, and the heat of the day was still lingering around Kleinmarckt, where the occasional tourist (and perhaps one or two locals) were strolling around in the gathering dusk.
Mersault, perhaps? Or just a simple glass of Riesling? That would probably be easier to find.
He could feel his mood improving already.
After all, the only reason he’d come here in the first place was to fill in time until Crete. Christos Hotel, the source of youth and that chestnut brown hair.