Jung thought for three seconds.
‘Where do you think she did it?’ he said. ‘The butchery, I mean. If we ignore why for the moment.’
Moreno shook her head.
‘How should I know? The bathtub, perhaps. Yes, she hit and killed her with a frying pan, then butchered her in the bathroom – that sounds about right, don’t you think? That’s what I’d do. Afterwards you only need to rinse everything down, maybe a bit of soap or scrubbing powder. But why? Tell me why! We can’t just ignore the cause, there must be a reason.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jung. ‘I’m just one of the blind boys.’
At a quarter to two – that same rain-free January day – there was a discreet knock on the door of Intendent Reinhart’s room.
‘Come in,’ said Reinhart.
The door opened slowly, and Winckelhübe the linguist popped his head round it.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Reinhart, looking up from his pile of papers.
‘Well, I’ve made a little analysis,’ said Winckelhübe, scratching his stomach. ‘I’m not a hundred per cent certain, but I’m prepared to bet on it being about seals. The text, that is.’
‘Seals?’ said Reinhart.
‘Yes, seals,’ said Winckelhübe.
‘Hmm,’ said Reinhart. ‘Bang on. That’s exactly what we suspected. Thank you very much. Send your invoice to the police authorities.’
Winckelhübe remained standing there, looking slightly confused.
‘Would you like a lollipop as well?’ asked Reinhart. ‘I’m afraid we’ve run out.’
It was obvious that the therapist Clara Vermieten treated several of the patients at the Gellner Home. In the bookcase of the cramped office deBuuijs showed Münster into, four of the shelves were marked with initials. It said I.L. on the top shelf, where there were several cassettes, neatly sorted into stacks of ten. Münster counted sixty-five of them. The shelves lower down contained significantly fewer.
On the tiny desk was a portrait of a dark-haired man of about thirty, a telephone and a cassette recorder.
Aha, Münster thought. I’d better get going, then.
He lifted down one of the stacks. He noted that there was a date on the spine of each cassette. 4/3, 8/3, 11/3… and so on. He took one out at random and inserted it into the cassette player. It seemed to have been rewound to the beginning, as it started with a voice he assumed was Clara Vermieten’s, stating the date on which the recording was made.
Conversation with Irene Leverkuhn, the fifteenth of April, nineteen ninety-seven.
Then a short pause.
– Irene, it’s Clara. How are you today?
– I’m well today, said Irene in the same monotonous tone of voice that he had been listening to not long ago.
– It’s good to see you again, said the therapist. I thought we could have a little chat, as we usually do.
– As we usually do, said Irene.
– Has it been raining here today?
– I don’t know, said Irene. I haven’t been out.
– It was raining when I drove here. I like rain.
– I don’t like rain, said Irene. It can make you wet.
– Would you like to lie down, as usual? Clara asked. Or would you prefer to sit?
– I’d like to lie down. I usually lie down when we talk.
– You can lie down now, then, said Clara. Do you need a blanket? Perhaps it’s a bit cold?
– It’s not cold, said Irene.
Münster pressed fast forward, then pressed play again.
– Who is that? he heard the therapist ask.
– I can’t really remember, said Irene.
– But you know his name, do you?
– I know his name, Irene confirmed.
– What’s he called? asked Clara.
– He’s called Willie.
– And who’s Willie?
– Willie is a boy in my class.
– How old are you now, Irene?
– I’m ten. I’ve got a blue dress, but it has a stain on it.
– A stain? How did that happen?
– I got a stain when I had ice cream, said Irene.
– Was that today? Clara asked.
– It was this afternoon. Not long ago.
– Is it summer?
– It’s been summer. It’s autumn now, school has started.
– What class are you in?
– I have started class four.
– What’s your class mistress called?
– I don’t have a class mistress. We have a man. He’s strict.
– What’s he called?
– He’s called Töffel.
– And where are you just now?
– Just now I’m in our room, of course. I’ve come home from school.
– What are you doing?
– Nothing.
– What are you going to do?
– I’ve got a stain on my dress, I’m going to the kitchen to wash it off.
Münster switched off again. Looked at the stacks of cassettes on the shelf and rested his head on his right hand. What on earth am I doing? he thought.
He wound fast forward, and listened for another minute. Irene was talking about the kind of paper she used to make covers for her school books, and what they’d had for school dinners.
He rewound the cassette and put it back into the case. Leaned back on the chair and looked out of the window. He suddenly shuddered as it dawned on him that what he had just listened to was a conversation taking place – when exactly? At the very beginning of the 1960s, he guessed. It was recorded less than a year ago, but in fact Irene Leverkuhn had been a long way back in her childhood – somewhere in that drab little house in Pampas that he had been looking at only a few weeks ago. That was pretty remarkable, for goodness’ sake.
He began to respect this therapist and what she was doing. He hadn’t managed to get a word of sense out of the woman who had sat at a desk painting, but here she was telling Clara Vermieten all kinds of things.
I must reassess psychoanalysis, Münster thought. It’s high time.
He looked at the clock and wondered how best to continue. Just listening to cassettes at random, one after the other, didn’t seem especially efficient, no matter how fascinating it might be. He stood up and examined the dates written on the cassette cases.
The first one was recorded just over a year ago, it seemed. On 23/11 1996. He took down the stack furthest to the right, comprising only four cassettes. The bottom one was dated 16/10, the top one 30/10.
He went back to the desk, picked up the telephone and after various complications had Hedda deBuuijs on the other end of the line.
‘Just a quick question,’ he said. ‘When did Clara Vermieten take maternity leave?’
‘Just a moment,’ said deBuuijs, and he could hear her leafing through some ledger or other.
‘The end of October,’ she said. ‘Yes, that’s when it was. She had a little girl about a week later.’
‘Thank you,’ said Münster, and hung up.
He removed the top cassette from the stack and took out the one dated 25/10. Saturday, the 25th of October. Went back to the desk chair, sat down and started listening.
It took barely ten minutes before he got there, and while he was waiting he recalled something Van Veeteren had once said. At Adenaar’s, as usuaclass="underline" probably one Friday afternoon, when he usually liked to speculate a bit more than usual.