Hakan Nesser - The Inspector and Silence

Apart from in circles. What little they found out was what they had already worked out for themselves.

When – and how – he would find the time and energy to sit down and think about the actual murder and how to solve it, well, he found that very hard to see just at the moment.

Is this the way it always was? he wondered at the back of his mind. In all the cases I’ve been involved in?

Merwin Kluuge sighed yet again, and checked his watch.

A quarter to two.

That meant a window of twenty minutes for Deborah. Half an hour at most.

I must buy her some flowers on Friday, he thought. No time for that today, that’s for sure.

At about the same time as Merwin Kluuge gently – but perhaps not quite as gently as was his wont – stroked his wife’s stomach and his as yet unborn son, Van Veeteren left Elizabeth Heerenmacht to allow her to say farewell to her murdered niece down in the cold-storage room at Sorbinowo hospital, to which the battered body had just been moved after two and a half days at the forensic clinic in Rembork.

Elizabeth Heerenmacht was not a member of the Pure Life church – although after spending half an hour in her company the chief inspector found it hard to understand why not. She seemed to have all the qualifications, to put it mildly: that was the harsh conclusion he had drawn, unfortunately.

But perhaps that was a bit unfair, given the nature of this grim and roasting-hot day. It was difficult not to be prejudiced when the sweat was flowing freely, then froze to ice down in the mortuary before starting to pour off him again when he emerged once more into the sun.

Earlier in the morning he had devoted quite a lot of time to another woman – the mysterious Ewa Siguera. At least, he wanted to convince himself that she was mysterious, that there was just as much mystery about her in reality as there was about her name and her smile in the photograph Przebuda had taken of her the previous summer.

Rubbish, he then thought in a moment of pungent self-criticism. That kind of thinking would be more appropriate in a novel.

But what the hell was one supposed to do? he thought. The less contact you had with the opposite sex, the more fond you grew of it – or of certain examples of it, anyway. Nothing new about that.

He had been advised by the registration authorities that Ewa Siguera did not live in Stamberg. He had also asked Lauremaa and Tolltse to confront the confirmation candidates with her photograph, but as far as he could tell nobody had come up with any helpful information.

The plot thickens, he thought with a feeling of bitter self-satisfaction. Then he removed a chewed-up toothpick from his mouth and shook his head. Oh shit! he exclaimed, I’m a travesty of a police detective! Of myself. Am I looking for a murderer, or for a woman? In the warmed-up cold sweat on my face? One with chestnut-brown hair…?

After an hour’s fruitless search, he called Reinhart and passed the task on to him. Asked him to track down Ewa Siguera and report back the moment he found her. There had been other possible paths to follow, of course, but as he suspected that the inspector was simply twiddling his thumbs while waiting for his holiday to begin – or devoting himself to his beautiful and newly married wife – he might as well be made to do something to earn his wages.

Reinhart had little in the way of objections. He promised loyally to get in touch as soon as he discovered anything. Within the next twenty-four hours at most.

So his assumptions about Reinhart’s thumbs and his wife had been an accurate guess, the chief inspector thought.

‘And how are things with the bloodhound himself?’ Reinhart had asked. ‘Sunbathing, swimming and fishing all day long, eh?’

‘You’ve forgotten the wine and the women,’ Van Veeteren informed him.

He began with the Finghers, as he could see that they were at home.

He only managed to say hello to Mrs Fingher, a sinewy farmer’s wife in her fifties – she was on her way to look after a grandchild, she announced, as she hurried past him in the direction of an old, hand-painted Trotta parked on the road outside the house – but both Mr Fingher and his son Wim seemed to have plenty of time for a chat.

‘It’s mainly Sunday evening I’m interested in, this time round,’ explained the chief inspector after they had settled down on garden chairs under a shady chestnut tree.

‘Sunday evening?’ said Fingher. ‘Wim, go and fetch a couple of beers. Would you like a Pilsner, Chief Inspector?’

‘I wouldn’t say no,’ said Van Veeteren, and the son went back into the house.

‘Why?’ asked Fingher. ‘What do you want to know about Sunday evening?’

‘Can you tell me what time the party from the summer camp arrived, and if anything unusual happened?’

Fingher tried to remember, and his son arrived with the beers.

‘No, everything was the same as usual, as I recall it. What do you think?’

He looked at Wim, who merely shrugged.

‘What time?’ asked Van Veeteren.

‘Seven, maybe half past. Around then. As usual.’

Wim Fingher nodded in agreement, and all three took a swig of beer. It was unusually sweet, and Van Veeteren wondered if it might be home-brewed. There were no labels on the bottles, so it wasn’t out of the question.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Was Yellinek with them?’

‘Eh? Yes, of course.’

‘And four girls?’

‘Yes, four.’

‘Do you recognize the one who was found murdered?’

Fingher nodded solemnly.

‘By Christ, yes. She’d been here several times, just like the other three. This is a right bloody mess, if only I’d had any idea I’d have…’

‘You’d have what?’ wondered Van Veeteren.

‘Huh, I’ll be buggered if I know. Castrated that damned black-coated bastard, for instance. I’m damned if I know how anybody can send their kids to a place like that. We only have Wim here, but if I had a daughter I swear I’d lock her up if there was anybody like him around…’

His anger suddenly seemed to put a lid on his words, and he fell silent. Van Veeteren took another swig and allowed a few seconds to pass before continuing.

‘Did you notice anything special about him last Sunday?’

‘That bastard,’ said Fingher. ‘No, I don’t think so. What do you say, Wim?’

Mathias emptied his glass in one swig.

‘No,’ said Wim. ‘I only saw him in passing, but he seemed the same as ever.’

‘Nothing unusual about the girls either?’

Wim shook his head. His father belched.

‘No,’ he said. ‘They just stood there holding on to the cart, as usual.’

‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Will you promise to contact us if you should think of anything? Anything at all that might seem tasty.’

Tasty? he thought. I’m losing my way with words.

‘Of course,’ said Fingher, scratching his head. ‘Obviously we’ll do anything we can to help. But I have to say I’m fucked if I know what you’re after.’

Van Veeteren ignored the criticism.

‘Last Monday, then?’ he asked instead. ‘I assume Yellinek wasn’t here then, in any case.’

‘Correct,’ said Fingher. ‘Only one of the women came on Monday.’

‘No girls?’

‘Not a single one.’

‘Did she explain why?’

‘Explain? Did she hell. Just stood there looking like a fart in a bottle, trying to be posh – as if she was God’s mother’s cousin or something.’

Van Veeteren cleared his throat.

‘You’re not religious yourself, I take it, Mr Fingher.’

‘No fucking chance,’ said the farmer and belched again.

‘Same here,’ said his son.

The chief inspector emptied his glass.

‘Ah well, thank you,’ he said. ‘I won’t disturb you any longer. But do get in touch if you think of anything… As I said.’