Hakan Nesser - The Inspector and Silence

Van Veeteren stood up and walked over to the window. Turned his back on the others and gazed out over the unsettled sky, swaying back and forth.

‘Well,’ he said eventually, ‘of course we should interrogate them while we’re waiting. But we mustn’t forget to ask ourselves what the hell has been going on out there. Or what we think has been going on, at least. I have my doubts, myself.’

‘What?’ said Kluuge. ‘What do you mean by that, Chief Inspector?’

But he didn’t receive a reply. The notorious detective inspector simply stood there, swaying back and forth on his heels, his hands clasped behind his back. Suijderbeck lit his fourth cigarette in the last half-hour, and Servinus had leaned back and fallen asleep with his mouth open wide.

Huh, Sergeant Kluuge thought. It’s not easy, being in charge of a murder investigation. It needs somebody who’s up to it, no doubt about that.

He had spent a lot of time and effort on his equipment, but evidently it wasn’t appropriate even so. Not in everybody’s eyes, that is.

‘Are you going to take all that stuff with you?’ asked the young man with a crew cut and sporting a buttercup-yellow tracksuit.

‘Naturally,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Is it a problem?’

‘No, of course not. But cushions and an umbrella…?’

‘Parasol,’ insisted the chief inspector. ‘Protection from the sun. As you may have noticed, it looks like being another hot day. The cushions are for my back and my head – I happen to know how uncomfortable it is, sitting in a canoe, and I intend being away all day. Well, are you going to rent one to me, or aren’t you?’

‘Of course,’ said the youth, a becoming shade of red appearing to contrast with the buttercup yellow. ‘I beg your pardon. So, which one would you like? It’s thirty guilders per day, plus a hundred-guilder deposit.’

Van Veeteren took out his wallet and paid.

‘That one,’ he said, pointing at one of the red Canadian canoes lined up neatly beside the boathouse. ‘The wider it is, the better.’

The young man carried the canoe to the water without needing any assistance, then held on to it while the chief inspector loaded on board the cushions, his briefcase and the parasol. And then himself. For a nerve-racking second, before he flopped down onto the bottom of the boat, he thought it would capsize; but once he had settled down and adjusted the cushions behind his back, he smiled and nodded to the young man, who gave him a good push, sending the canoe gliding over the mirror-like water.

Not bad, he thought as he began paddling cautiously alongside the bank lined with alders. Not bad at all.

Heading east, that’s how he had planned it. Upstream out, downstream back. Mind you, in this early morning stillness the canoe was gliding along so effortlessly that he doubted if there was any current at all. Ah well, no doubt it would make itself felt when he came to some narrower stretches.

He paddled for a hundred strokes before checking his watch. A quarter to nine. Carpe diem! he thought. Dipped his hand into the cool water and rinsed his face. Took off his shirt and shoes, and set off again. Calmly and rhythmically. The temperature was still only about twenty degrees, at a guess; but there was no doubt – as he had explained to the buttercup-yellow youth – that it was going to be a hot day. Another one. But it would be hard to think of a more acceptable way of spending it, surely?

Poor Kluuge, he thought, in a moment of generosity and sympathy.

But if you are only a consultant, you may as well act like one.

In his briefcase he had – apart from newspapers and toothpicks – two bottles of mineral water, a bag of newly baked buns (from the bakery next door to Grimm’s) and a few tomatoes. That was all. No beer, no cigarettes.

It was intended to be that sort of day. One of those days when you get things done, and even so feel younger when you go to bed in the evening than you did when you got up in the morning. As somebody or other – presumably not Reinhart – had once put it.

It was also meant to be a day when, in peace and quiet – one might even say in splendid isolation – he would have an opportunity to put what had happened back there in Waldingen under the microscope.

Mainly that sort of day.

Weigh up the pros and cons, whatever they may be, and listen to the voice of his intuition – it hadn’t been very audible thus far, but then, if he counted Monday – when they had discovered Clarissa Heerenmacht’s dead body – as day number one, this was only the morning of day three. There again, if he started with his arrival in Sorbinowo, he would have to admit that nearly a week had passed by already.

So the chances of his coming up with something or other during his day on the dark waters should be rather more than mere pious hope. Might he be able to find a foothold, and clear his mind of irrelevant junk and prejudices?

Those were the thoughts passing through the chief inspector’s head as he paddled along the river. Left, right, left, right. He had to keep adjusting his course – he was finding it a bit hard to stick to the rhythm he’d learned many moons ago, but what the hell? This wasn’t a display.

It was only when he’d progressed quite a long way up the river, and was beginning to feel the strength of the current, that he felt able to divert the whole of his attention to the thoughts building up in his mind. To the case.

Clarissa Heerenmacht. Waldingen.

The Pure Life. The anonymous woman.

The murderer?

He slowed down; contented himself with just an occasional stroke of the paddle to prevent himself from drifting backwards between the wooded banks. This was countryside, not an urban area. Nothing but coniferous forest teeming with brushwood, and a scent of alder and aspen. The trees leaned over the water: roots and branches reached out across the narrow river, bridges were few and far between. After no more than an hour, he found himself in the midst of what could almost be termed a wilderness – and he understood even more clearly the attraction the Sorbinowo region must have for all categories of outdoor types.

But enough of forest air and bucolic romanticism! The case. Concentration.

He started with the previous day. Forced his thoughts back to the press conference, which he had to admit Kluuge had conducted admirably. The connection between the murder and the Pure Life had been toned down to a minimum – Clarissa Heerenmacht was one of the girls who had been staying at the camp, she had left the site in unknown circumstances, and then been found dead in the forest. That was all.

No tracks. No clues. Not a word about anonymous telephone calls.

And no indications or theories to follow up. So far. But all available officers had been put on the case, and they were doing whatever could be done. No doubt the gentlemen of the press would understand that the police had to be careful about what they made public in these early stages? Excuse me, and the ladies of the press as well, of course.

And so on. It had lasted for over twenty-five minutes, and the chief inspector had only needed to speak on two occasions. Another good mark for Kluuge, no doubt about it, especially as both Servinus and Suijderbeck had been too tired even to open their mouths. Except when they needed to yawn.

Before setting out he had glanced through the two newspapers he had with him in his briefcase. Naturally space was given to the murder – the link between summer and murder and a young girl had an obvious appeal for headline writers, but even so there was considerable restraint. They were holding back, simple as that. No doubt the evening tabloids would make a meal of it, but Van Veeteren didn’t think he could have made a better job of the press conference than Kluuge had managed.