by Håkan Nesser
1978, he thought. Or possibly 1979.
Anyway, a one-week course for high-ranking police officers and detectives. Time: late autumn, October or November. Place: a tourist hotel, one or two stars, by the sea in Lejnice. Purpose: lost in the murky depths of time.
The incident, the thing that made this week more memorable than similar lugubrious jamborees, had taken place – if his memory served him correctly – on the Wednesday after three or four days of lectures by bearded psychologists in sandals, and pointless group sessions, and later and later evenings in bars and pubs. A young desperado who was staying at the same hotel as the police contingent barricaded himself into his room with a young woman he had abducted at gunpoint.
It soon transpired that this weapon was a Kalashnikov, and the young man’s demand was that the police should bring his ex-girlfriend to his room together with a million guilders, otherwise he would turn his blonde hostage (who was three weeks pregnant, to make matters worse) and anybody else who was foolhardy enough to come anywhere near him into minced meat.
The timescale did not leave the police much room for manoeuvre: two hours, not a second more.
As the terms were more or less impossible – apart from anything else the ex-girlfriend was on holiday somewhere in Italy, and in all probability not especially interested in cooperating in any case – the local police leaders in consultation with the top-ranking officers attending the conference decided to attempt a rescue operation. Tactics were drawn up in great haste despite a mass of contrary opinions, Van Veeteren was judged suitable to play a leading role, and after a fairly successful ploy he suddenly found himself in the barricaded room with the desperado and his hostage. The intention was that he should trick the youth to move towards the window and start negotiating for at least ten seconds – long enough for one of the sharpshooters on the roof opposite to take aim and liquidate him by means of two or three well-directed bullets in the head and chest.
The gunman, that is, not Van Veeteren.
However, the young man turned out to be less than enthusiastic about this scenario. Instead of standing by the window, he bundled Van Veeteren into the far corner of the room and urged him to close his eyes and offer up a final prayer to his creator, assuming he thought he had one.
Van Veeteren was unable to hit upon a suitable deity on the spur of the moment, and instead started counting from one to ten. When he got as far as seven there was a commotion on the balcony and Malijsen barged into the room – in accordance with plans that nobody else had had a hand in devising, nor even had any idea about. Van Veeteren opened his eyes just in time to hear Malijsen fire and see the young man’s head transformed into something beyond description, but a sight that for many years afterwards was not infrequently in his head when he woke after a bad dream.
‘You can thank your lucky stars I happened to be passing,’ were Malijsen’s first words.
They had spent several hours together on subsequent evenings, and the lasting impression Van Veeteren had of his rescuer was that he was a rather untalented crackpot holding a series of – more or less seriously meant – ideas and principles about practically everything. Unfortunately. A middle-aged boy scout, as Reinhart would no doubt have called him: weird, overweening, and a warmonger. Van Veeteren was sick and fed up of his company after only half an hour, but as the fact was that this podgy policeman had saved his life, he had no alternative but to treat him to an occasional beer.
During the rest of the conference there had been a great deal of discussion about competence and the scope for individual initiatives in advanced police work, and only a few months after the incident in Lejnice Van Veeteren had read in the police journal that Inspector Wilfred Malijsen had just been appointed chief of police in Sorbinowo.
It was not outside the bounds of possibility that there could be a connection.
Malijsen? Van Veeteren thought as he took two olives. Time to pay off an old debt?
Then he turned his mind to other things. First to Crete, and then to a variation of the Scandinavian Defence he had read about, and that might be worth trying in his next match.
The club’s premises in Styckargrand were almost deserted, as they often were in summer, and the air felt pleasantly cool under the domed ceiling when the chief inspector walked through the door. As usual, Mahler was sitting right at the back, under the Durer print. For once he was looking gloomy, and Van Veeteren recalled that he had just returned from Chadow where he had attended the funeral of an aunt.
‘Do you miss her?’ he asked in surprise. ‘I thought you said she had a personality like a verruca.’
‘They’re squabbling about her inheritance,’ Mahler explained. ‘A depressing business. If those are the bastards I’m related to, there’s not much hope for me either.’
‘I’ve never held out much hope for you,’ said the chief inspector, sitting down. ‘But I’ll get the first beer in if you set up the pieces. I’m intending to murder you tonight with a new opening gambit.’
Mahler brightened up slightly.
‘He who murders last murders best,’ he said, adjusting the board.
The first game took an hour and a half, and they agreed on a draw after nearly eighty moves.
‘That early bishop was a good move,’ said Mahler, scratching at his beard. ‘Very nearly caught me on the hop.’
‘You were lucky,’ said the chief inspector. ‘I regard myself as the moral victor. Speaking of morals, what do you know about the Pure Life?’
‘The Pure Life?’ Mahler looked bewildered for a few seconds. ‘Oh, you don’t mean that blasted sect, do you?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Van Veeteren.
Mahler thought for a moment.
‘Why do you ask? In the name of duty, I hope? Or are you thinking of joining?’
Van Veeteren didn’t respond.
‘Nasty,’ said Mahler after another moment’s thought. ‘Not that I know all that much about them, but I wouldn’t want to pick my friends from that lot. A smart leader, sucks in emotionally unstable and scared people, turns them into robots, and presumably gets up to no good. Mind you, to the casual observer they’re meek and mild, as soft as sugary angel-drops, needless to say. Especially after what happened.’
‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘You’re taking the words from my lips.’
‘What’s it all about?’
The chief inspector shrugged.
‘I don’t know yet. It might be just a false alarm. I’ll be leaving town for a few days, in any case. Off to Sorbinowo.’
‘Aha,’ said Mahler. ‘That could be very pleasant at this time of year. All those lakes and so on.’
I’ll be there on duty, of course,’ Van Veeteren pointed out.
‘Of course you will,’ said Mahler with a smile. ‘But I expect you’ll have half an hour off now and then… I remember a very good writer from those parts, by the way.’
‘Really?’
‘He wrote about my first poetry collections. Positive and intelligent. Seems to have a good grasp of what this damned life is all about. He’s still editor-in-chief there, I think.’
Van Veeteren nodded.
‘What’s his name? In case I need to talk to somebody with a clear head.’
‘Przebuda. Andrej Przebuda. He must be getting on for seventy by now, but I’m sure he’ll be continuing to man the cultural barricades until they scatter his ashes in the winds.’
Van Veeteren made a note of the name and emptied his glass.
‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘I suppose it might be fun to get away for a bit.’
‘Of course,’ said Mahler. ‘But steer well clear of funerals.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Van Veeteren promised. ‘Have we time for another one?’
Mahler checked his watch.
‘I think we can fit another one in,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you due for a holiday soon, by the way? Or have they withdrawn perks like that?’
‘First of August,’ the chief inspector said, tur
ning the board round. ‘I’m off to Crete, and I have a few hopes of that.’
‘Well I’ll be damned!’ Mahler exclaimed. ‘What hopes?’
But the chief inspector simply contemplated his black queen, an inscrutable expression on his face.
‘Mind you, I have misgivings,’ he admitted after a while.
‘About Crete?’
‘No, about Sorbinowo. There seems to be a child missing. I don’t like that sort of stuff.’
Mahler emptied his glass.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Children ought not to go missing. Especially if they die. As long as Our Good Lord can’t take care of that detail, I shall refuse to believe in him.’
‘Same here,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Anyway it’s your move.’
THREE
19-23 JULY
7
Elgar’s cello concerto came to an end a hundred metres before the road sign at the entrance to the town. He switched off the CD and drove into a parking area with a tourist information board and an excellent view over the countryside below. Groped around in the glove pocket and produced the half-full pack of West he had been thinking about for the last half-hour. Lit a cigarette and got out of the car.
He stretched his back and performed a few cautious physical jerks while taking in the panorama spread out before him. The water course – basically the River Meusel that three or four times expanded to form long and narrow dark lakes – flowed towards the south-west through a flat, cultivated valley. The town of Sorbinowo was scattered around and between lakes number two and three from where he was standing, and he counted half a dozen bridges before the river disappeared from sight among wooded hills some six kilometres or so further on. Yachts, canoes and every kind of boat you could think of were bobbing up and down in the water, rocked by the gentle breeze. Directly below him several anglers were fishing from an old stone bridge, and about three kilometres to the west hordes of children were laughing and shouting and splashing around in an area designated a bathing beach.
This really was an idyll; Hiller and Mahler had been right. Dark, glittering waters. Fields of ripe corn. A scattering of deciduous woods and occasional villages in a half-open landscape. The whole area encircled by silent coniferous forests. The armies of silence.
A quivering summer heat made the rippling water enticing, even for a bather as hesitant as Chief Inspector Van Veeteren.
An idyll – yes, okay, he thought and drew deeply on his cigarette. Seen from a distance, before you’ve had a chance to scrape the surface, most things could seem pretty and well-organized. That was a reliable old truth.
As he stood there listening to the usual signals from the small of his back after a long car journey, a many-threaded skein of thoughts came to life inside him – about age and distance. For when he eventually (August? Krantze’s antiquarian bookshop?) asserted the undoubted rights that came with his age and retired… when he gave up once and for all rooting around in the rubbish heaps of his environment, what he intended to seek out and lay claim to was distance – to occupy the elevated position afforded by keeping things at a distance. The observer’s perspective. At long last to allow himself to be satisfied with the surface – glittering or not – and to interpret all the signs in a positive way. Or better still, not at all. To allow a pattern to be just that, a pattern. To leave the world and himself in peace.
In other words, just to sit there gaping at what went on. With a beer and a chessboard at Yorrick’s or Win-derblatt’s. The wages of virtue after a life spent on the shadowy side?
Some bloody hope, he thought, stubbing out his cigarette. There are so many snags. Always these goddamned snags.
Anyway, time to lift the lid of summer-slumbering Sorbinowo.
A little girl missing?
The Pure Life?
Pure drivel, more like! he thought, drinking the last few lukewarm drops of mineral water that had been lying and sloshing about for far too long on the passenger seat. The paranoid imaginings of a nervous summer stand-in, nothing more… But if he could drag things out for a few days and at the same time repay his debt to that crackpot Malijsen, he had no real reason to complain.
There were worse times than wasted time – perhaps that was precisely what constituted the observer’s position? One of the things, at least.
Or so the chief inspector thought in the back of his mind as he wiped the sweat off his brow. Then he clambered back into the car and started to freewheel slowly down towards the village.
It only took five minutes to walk from the police station at Kleinmarckt to Florian’s Inn, and it was immediately obvious to Van Veeteren that this was not one of the places where Sergeant Kluuge normally had his lunch. Crisp white tablecloths, discreet waiters dressed like penguins and an air-conditioning system that seemed to work even on the open terrace where Kluuge had reserved a table.
And the establishment was deserted.
‘My God, what a place!’ said the chief inspector in a friendly tone, and sat down.
‘It’s our treat,’ explained Kluuge, somewhat embarrassed and completely unnecessarily. ‘Choose whatever you like!’
Van Veeteren gazed out over the water, potentially threatening and still glittering some twenty metres below, and thought about that business of surfaces again. Then he applied himself to a study of the menu brought to him discreetly by one of the penguins.
‘Perhaps we should talk a little about… about those telephone calls,’ said Kluuge when they had made inroads into their salmon roulade. ‘That’s why you’ve come here, after all.’
‘Hmm,’ agreed Van Veeteren. ‘Tell me about them. I can eat and listen at the same time, it’s a skill I’ve developed over the years.’
Kluuge laughed politely and put down his knife and fork.
‘Yes, well, it’s just those two phone calls, but I got the feeling
… the feeling…’
Van Veeteren nodded encouragingly.
‘I reckon it could be serious. There was something about her voice. I don’t think she sounded like a loony, or anything like that.’
And you have a long experience of loonies, do you? Van Veeteren thought; but he didn’t say anything.
‘Obviously, I called that camp to check up, but they didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. Then I tried to find out a bit about what they get up to, but I didn’t get very far. Waldingen is owned by a foundation that’s been going for a long time, and they rent the place out to sizeable groups, mostly during the summer of course. The Pure Life were there last year, and they’ve booked themselves in for more or less the whole of this summer. From the middle of June until September the first, if I’ve understood it rightly.’
‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren, taking a swig of beer.
‘I drove out there yesterday afternoon to take a look. It’s about thirty kilometres from here. I just drove past, without stopping. It’s pretty remote, I must say: nothing but the lake and the forest, and it must be at least a kilometre to the nearest neighbour. I suppose it’s pretty ideal if you want to be on your own. I seem to remember that my old school organized camps there, but I never attended any of them.’
‘That woman,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘The one who called. Who do you think she was?’
Kluuge looked blank.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Have a guess.’
Kluuge shrugged.
‘If she’s telling the truth,’ said the chief inspector, wiping his mouth with his serviette, ‘we have to assume that she must know about what’s happened somehow or other. Don’t you think?’
Kluuge nodded thoughtfully.
‘Er, yes, I suppose so.’
‘I assume you don’t have one of those telephones that tell you the number of the person who’s called you?’
Kluuge shook his head and looked embarrassed again.
‘We’ll get one after the summer holiday. Malijsen has ordered one, but there have been delivery delays.’
Van Veeteren changed trac
k.
‘Do you know how many people there are at the camp?’
‘Not exactly. It’s some kind of Confirmation jamboree. Only girls, I think. And I suppose they’ll have a few leaders, and then there’s that priest.’
‘Priest?’
‘Oscar Yellinek He’s the one who started the sect, if I’ve got it right. I spent some time yesterday looking into it. Set it up ten or twelve years ago, based mainly in Stamberg – well, more or less only there, apparently. There was a branch in Kaalbringen, but it didn’t last long and has closed down. There have been quite a few articles and suchlike written about it, and there was a scandal a year or so ago. Yellinek was in jail for a few months, but it’s been all quiet lately…’
Van Veeteren washed down the remains of his salmon with half a glass of beer. Kaalbringen? he recalled. Chief Inspector Brausen? The axe murderer…
He suppressed the memory. Gazed out over the lake, and the clusters of children romping around on the beaches. Summer camps, he thought instead. The whole area is infested with summer camps, of course. A few unpleasant memories from his own childhood began to stir, but he managed to bite their heads off.
‘But you didn’t go in and take a closer look?’ he asked. ‘When you were driving past anyway?’
‘No,’ said Kluuge. ‘I didn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I thought I’d better wait until you arrived. I’d called them earlier, and they said there was nobody missing.’
Great, Van Veeteren thought. That’s what I call socking it to ’em.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we ought to drive out there and take a look even so. The lion’s den and all that.’
Kluuge nodded enthusiastically. Sat up straight and gave the impression of being ready to set off without delay.
‘Calm down,’ said the chief inspector. ‘All in good time. We must first see if we can get a decent dessert at this place.’
‘I suppose you’re snowed under with work, are you?’ the chief inspector asked when they got back to the chief of police’s apricot-coloured office. (Apricot? Van Veeteren thought. I bet the bugger painted it himself!)