Hakan Nesser - The Inspector and Silence

That the group was a collective, but that Yellinek was their spiritual leader.

That her life had changed eleven years ago, and since then she had lived in enlightenment and purity.

That the three sisters shared all the chores at the camp; that the girls – all twelve of them – were still wandering around in the dark, but were on their way towards the light, and everything was in the hands of God.

And in Oscar Yellinek’s.

Also that all these things were beyond the chief inspector’s comprehension, because he was not initiated.

Van Veeteren spat out an ill-treated toothpick through the driver’s window and chanted a long sequence of curses to himself. Tried to identify the dark suspicion that had been lurking deep down inside him ever since he backed out from between the pine trees.

All the time, in fact. While he was talking to Yellinek. While he’d been sitting waiting, and watched the girls walking in neat formation back from their bathing expedition. While he’d been listening to Sister Madeleine’s pious outpourings.

He eventually realized that it was probably a question of being unable to do anything about it. Impotence.

Pure, unadulterated impotence.

He made a supreme effort to suppress it, and lit a cigarette instead.

There are too many ingredients in this soup, he decided. Far too many. I don’t even know if it is a soup.

Anyway, time to stop thinking, he decided a few moments later. I’m just rambling on. Like some damned television personality.

‘Word for word?’ asked Kluuge, puckering up his brow. The chief inspector noted that it was quite a high brow with room for rather a lot of creases, and decided that he must not underestimate what was behind it.

‘Preferably,’ he said. ‘As accurately as you can remember, in any case.’

‘The first time she just said that a girl had disappeared,’ Kluuge explained. ‘And that we must do something about it. The second time she added a bit more detail.’

‘What?’

‘Well, she maintained that we hadn’t done anything. Said she might bring in the press, and that they might murder somebody else…’

‘Murder?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re sure she used that word?’

‘Absolutely.’

Kluuge nodded several times, to remove any possible doubt.

‘Anything else?’ asked the chief inspector.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Age?’

‘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.

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.