‘It’s so sad,’ she said. ‘He was such a fine fellow, Bonger.’
‘He was indeed,’ said Jung.
‘They should really have left him there. Buried under his own boat – that would have been stylish.’
Could be, Jung thought. That was no bad idea. Although perhaps it would have been most stylish of all if they had never found him. Let’s face it, he had nothing to do with that other business. Absolutely nothing.
He had slipped on the gang-plank, that’s all, when he came home that Saturday night. Drunk and unsteady on his feet. It could have happened to anybody, Jung thought. It could have happened to me. Presumably he had hit his head as well, Bonger, and then fallen into the water. Sunk a few metres, and later floated up against the bottom of his own canal boat.
And stayed there. Under his own floor, as it were. Yes, Barga had a point.
‘Poor bastard,’ said Rooth. ‘Lying in the water doesn’t make you any prettier. But I should congratulate you. You were right after all… There was nothing more mysterious to it than that. I wonder how many other missing persons are lying in canals.’
‘Let’s not worry about that just now,’ said Jung. ‘I think we ought to try to get a roof over our heads instead.’
‘Another good idea,’ said Rooth, shaking the umbrella so that Jung became even wetter than he was already. ‘But there’s one thing you can clear up for me first, before we forget about it.’
‘What’s that?’ said Jung.
‘That pair of screwing machines – de Booning and whatever the other character is called – why did they move out?’
‘Menakdise,’ said Jung. ‘Tobose Menakdise. Guess.’
‘I haven’t a clue,’ said Rooth.
‘Okay. They need a bigger flat. She’s expecting a child.’
‘How odd,’ said Rooth.
Jung was just about to turn round and leave when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was fru Jümpers, who was standing under another dripping umbrella.
‘I was just wondering,’ she said. ‘Would you gentlemen perhaps like to call in for a glass of something? In my boat that is. Barga and I think we ought to drink a toast to the dear departed.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Jung. ‘I think perhaps we ought to-’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Rooth. ‘We’ll be there in two flicks of a donkey’s tail.’
At first Ulrike Fremdli thought the antiquarian bookshop was closed, but then she saw Van Veeteren lying back in a wing chair in the middle of all the shelves.
‘You won’t sell much if you sit there all the time,’ she said.
Van Veeteren looked up from the little leather-bound volume he had in his hand.
‘You have to become acquainted with the stock,’ he said. ‘Nice to see you.’
‘The same to you,’ said Ulrike Fremdli with a smile. Then she became serious. Looked at him with a slightly doubtful expression, shaking her head slowly.
‘You are a remarkable fellow,’ she said. ‘I can’t get over that. Do you mean… Are you saying that your Macbeth dream came true?’
‘True and true,’ muttered Van Veeteren.
‘How is he?’
‘Better,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I was there an hour ago. He’ll pull through, but they’ll have to remove that kidney. And he’s bound to be off work for several months – maybe that’s just what he needs. He was foolish to go in on his own like he did.’
Ulrike nodded.
‘He’s been worn out,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘At least, that’s what his wife Synn said. She was there at the hospital with the children. And Inspector Moreno as well… It was a good job we turned up when we did – he couldn’t have coped with lying there for much longer.’
‘But what about that dream?’ said Ulrike again.
Van Veeteren didn’t answer. Instead he leafed back through a few pages of the book he was reading.
‘“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,”’ he quoted. ‘Hamlet. A lovely little edition. Printed in Oxford in 1836. Just come in.’
He held it up.
‘I thought it was Macbeth we were talking about?’ said Ulrike.
Van Veeteren stood up and replaced the volume in a bookcase with glass doors.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘There’s something about Shakespeare. I think he’s said more or less all that needs saying: he covers all the bases, you could say… He’d even have been able to make something of that Leverkuhn family, no doubt.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Listen to this. The father rapes both his daughters. One goes out of her mind, the other becomes a lesbian. The son murders his father, and stabs a police officer. The mother takes all the guilt upon herself, butchers a witness and hangs herself. Just the stuff to turn into a tragedy, don’t you think?’
Ulrike eyed him sceptically.
‘Is that what it’s all about?’ she said. ‘This case?’
‘In a nutshell,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘And you should bear in mind that until three months ago they were regarded as a perfectly normal family – until somebody happened to lift the lid on them, as it were.’
Ulrike thought that over for a while.
‘How do you put up with it?’ she said in the end.
‘I don’t put up with it,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I work in a bookshop.’
She nodded.
‘So I’ve heard. But you put your oar in, nevertheless, don’t you?’
‘I become involved,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘There’s a difference. Anyway, it’s-’
‘It’s time for lunch,’ said Ulrike. ‘I’m free until two o’clock. Are you coming?’
‘Of course,’ said Van Veeteren, stretching his arms above his head. Adjusted his back gingerly and suddenly looked worried.
‘What’s the matter?’
Van Veeteren cleared his throat.
‘Nothing. I just can’t help wondering, that’s all.’
‘Wondering?’
‘If this really was the way the tragedy happened. If life is a novel or a play, as some people suggest, it wouldn’t be all that difficult to write another chapter, or another scene – or what do you think?’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ said Ulrike Fremdli. ‘I’m hungry.’
He took hold of her hand and squeezed it slightly awkwardly.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I sometimes find it a bit hard to keep my thoughts in check. Let’s go.’
42
Elaine Vorgus stared first at the tarot cards, and then at her lover.
‘It’s remarkable,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s ever happened to me before. All sixteen cards the wrong way round – no, I’ve never seen the likes of it before. I’ll have to look it up in the books.’
‘What does it mean?’ asked Ruth Leverkuhn, sipping her wine at the same time as she leaned forward over the table and stroked her girlfriend’s bare arm. ‘What does it mean when they’re back to front?’
It was not the first time they’d been sitting there like this, and even if it was Ruth’s fate lying on the table in front of them, she knew that it meant more to her girlfriend than it did to herself. Elaine responded to her caress and looked up from the cards.
‘The significance is the opposite of what the cards say,’ she said. ‘The message is reversed. Wealth means poverty, strength means weakness, love means hatred… It’s as simple as that. But all sixteen cards, that must mean something very special. As if…’
‘As if what?’ said Ruth, with loving patience.
‘As if it referred to somebody quite different from you, for instance. As if the whole of you were back to front in some way… But I’m only guessing. I’ve never come across sixteen cards the wrong way round before.’
‘Let’s write it all down and leave it until later,’ said Ruth. ‘I want to drink more wine and then make love instead.’
Elaine smiled and thought for a while. Then she raised her glass and ran her tongue over her lips a few times.