Hakan Nesser - The Inspector and Silence

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think I’d already decided by then that I wasn’t going to run the story. What are you angling for?’

The chief inspector thought for a moment, continuing to scrutinize the photograph.

‘No idea,’ he said. ‘I suppose you could call it some sort of avant garde knowledge.’

‘I see,’ said Przebuda with a smile. ‘Maybe we should take a look at the rest of the papers anyway. I have quite a bit on Yellinek, if I remember rightly. Although I don’t think I made any notes about kidnapping. Still, the best things are always written between the lines. Don’t you think we ought to crack open another bottle, by the way?’

‘This heat certainly makes a man thirsty,’ said Van Veeteren.

‘Religion is a multifaceted thing,’ declared Andrej Przebuda quite a while later. ‘Personally it’s something I’ve left behind me; but I can’t say that it hasn’t left its traces.’

Van Veeteren waited.

‘My parents, all my family were practising Jews. When the heat was turned up and we realized what was really in store for us – my father was the most clear-sighted of the whole family – they placed me and my sister with a Catholic family in a little village miles away from anywhere. They kept us hidden on their farm for four years; we were the only two to survive. Ironically enough our hiding place was less than fifty kilometres from Auschwitz. Ah well, then I married a woman from India; she died six years ago and is buried in the Reformed Cemetery here in Sorbinowo.’

The chief inspector nodded.

‘Any children?’ he asked.

‘A handful,’ said Przebuda. ‘Neither more nor less. Eleven grandchildren. But I’ve dropped the religion, as I said.’

‘And you weren’t inspired to take it up again when you met the Pure Life?’

Przebuda smiled.

‘No, but perhaps we ought to be grateful to them because they look after quite a few people who would otherwise be locked away in an institution. At society’s expense, of course. But this business of the children is another story. Perhaps you should send in an undercover agent to find out what really goes on. Maybe a bright thirteen-year-old with a mobile phone… But I assume you have more urgent matters to keep you occupied.’

Van Veeteren nodded in agreement.

‘Too right we have,’ he said. ‘For my part I’ll be going on holiday in just over a week, so unless somebody comes along with a missing young lassie in the next twelve hours, I’ll be on my way. I can’t claim to have achieved much at all. The film club and this evening were the only useful things, to be honest. But they are not to be sneered at.’

‘Glad you think so,’ said Przebuda.

‘May I take these papers about Yellinek as bedtime reading?’ the chief inspector asked. ‘I can call in and leave them in the editorial office tomorrow morning, before I leave.’

‘Of course,’ said Przebuda, spreading out his arms. ‘So you’re not thinking of letting go of the thread just yet?’

Van Veeteren stubbed out the evening’s final cigarette.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll hang on to it until it breaks of its own accord. That’s a bad habit of mine I’ve had for years.’

He got up from the armchair and noticed immediately that the last glass of Burgundy had been stronger than he’d thought.

There won’t be a lot of reading done tonight, he thought. It’ll probably be more a question of trying to stay awake long enough to get into bed before I fall asleep.

Which was of course no more than a pious hope – especially in view of what lay in store for him during the rest of the night.

But as yet he hadn’t the slightest bit of knowledge about that – be it empirical or intuitive.

In normal circumstances – when he wasn’t standing in as chief of police in the Sorbinowo police district – he would naturally have delegated all calls in a situation like this to his answering machine. No question. He and Deborah had nestled down at opposite ends of the new Wassmeyer sofa with a box of chocolates within easy reach; the film starring Clint Eastwood hadn’t yet got as far as the first ads break, and a pleasant, warm breeze was wafting in through the open French windows. Gently and tenderly he was massaging her bare feet.

From a purely physical point of view, it was more or less a perfect evening.

‘Phone call,’ said Deborah, sliding a chocolate between her red lips.

Kluuge sighed, and heaved himself up from the sofa. The nearest telephone was in the bedroom, and he closed the door behind him, so as not to disturb his wife’s enjoyment of the film.

Typical, he thought. But if you’re on duty, that’s the way it is.

‘Chief of Police Kluuge.’

‘Hello?’

That was quite enough for him to recognize the voice. In a mere split second, Clint and his wife and the chocolates were banished from his mind.

‘Yes, Kluuge here.’

‘It’s me again.’

‘So I hear. What do you want?’

‘I want to give you a tip.’

‘A tip?’

‘There’s the dead body of a girl at Waldingen.’

‘We are busy investigating…’

‘I know. But you’re not getting anywhere. If you go there and find the body, perhaps you will believe me.’

‘I don’t believe there is a body,’ said Kluuge. ‘You keep on calling just to draw attention to yourself. We have-’

‘Drive out to the summer camp.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’ll describe the way for you.’

‘The way to where?’

‘To the body. I’ll tell you exactly where it is, so you can go there and look at it. Then you might understand that I’m telling you the truth.’

Kluuge gulped.

‘Er…’ was all he could manage.

‘A hundred metres past the camp buildings there’s a little path off to the right. Go down it, and just after you’ve passed a big boulder on your left you’ll see an enormous aspen tree. She’s lying just a few metres behind the rock. It’s no more than fifteen metres off the path.’

‘Hang on a minute,’ said Kluuge. ‘I must fetch a pen.’

‘You don’t need one,’ said the woman. ‘A hundred metres past the main building. A path to the right. Close to the aspen behind the big boulder. You’ll find her there.’

A mass of questions suddenly piled up inside Sergeant Kluuge’s brain, but before he could ask any of them, the caller had hung up.

Oh hell! he thought. Hell and damnation!

He thought for fifteen seconds, then dialled the number to Grimm’s Hotel. It rang twelve times before anybody in reception answered, and the only information he received was that Mr Van Veeteren had gone out several hours ago without leaving any indication of where he was going. Nor when he would be back.

Kluuge hung up. Stared out through the open window. Darkness was slowly embracing the warmth of summer still dancing outside. Grasshoppers were chirruping away. The clock on the bedside table indicated 22.20.

What the hell should I do now? he wondered. Somewhere deep down inside him he could hear a faint voice whispering that he should go back to the sofa. Simply return to Deborah and her warm tootsy-wootsies. The easy way out, of course, would be to simply forget the whole business and pretend that nobody had called. That he’d never heard a word about a dead little girl or a path or a boulder. But shame at the very suggestion that such a thought could ever have occurred to him soon took the upper hand. Grew bigger and redder.

Never, he thought. No chance. I must take full responsibility now.

He thought for a few more minutes, then called Grimm’s Hotel again and left a message for the chief inspector: Red-hot tip in the Waldingen case. Have gone there. Kluuge

Five minutes later he had already kissed his wife goodnight and was on his way out into the night.