Hakan Nesser - The Inspector and Silence

‘Oscar Augustinus Yellinek has been lying dead out at Waldingen for about ten days. There is nothing to suggest that he didn’t die that same Sunday evening when all the other things happened – 21 July, in other words. Why he should have first run away and hidden himself, and then come back to get murdered – well, I don’t understand why he should do that. Mind you, I have to admit that there are a lot of things in this messy business that I don’t understand.’

‘You’re in good company there,’ said Lauremaa.

‘Unlike the dead girls,’ Suijderbeck continued, ‘Pastor Yellinek displays no signs of having been raped, to borrow Servinus’s elegantly worded statement on the television.’

‘Kiss my arse,’ said Servinus.

‘Another difference from the girls is that he was killed by blows to the head. What does the latest missive from the post-mortem say?’

Kluuge fished it out.

‘“Several violent blows with a sharp instrument”,’ he quoted. ‘It still hasn’t been established what that can have been. Something pretty heavy with sharp edges. Or a sharp edge, perhaps.’

‘How many blows?’ asked Jung.

‘More than necessary,’ said Reinhart. ‘Ten or eleven. Presumably the killer carried on hitting him for a while after Yellinek was already dead. He might have finished him off with the first blow, but wanted to make sure.’

‘Not a very professional job, in other words,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘It seems he panicked. Anyway, if we believe what the experts tell us, there were several blows to the chest and shoulders as well. He was evidently a bit desperate.’

‘And no resistance,’ said Jung.

‘Apparently not,’ said Servinus. ‘But it’ll be another three days before the analysis is finished.’

‘What are they looking for?’ asked Kluuge. ‘Fragments under the fingernails and so on?’

‘Yes,’ said Reinhart. ‘And strands of hair and dandruff and fingerprints.’

‘After ten days?’ wondered Tolltse. ‘Is there any point?’

‘It’s almost impossible to get rid of dandruff,’ said Jung, scratching his head.

‘And we had that pouring rain of course,’ said Kluuge. ‘Whenever that was…’

‘Now I’ll take over again,’ said Suijderbeck ‘He probably wasn’t killed at the spot where he was found either, our pastor friend. But this time the murderer was probably trying to hide the body. It was a bloody good piece of luck that the pooches found him. A big pile of twigs and pine needles, we saw that with our own eyes. But it ought to have been possible to hide him more efficiently.’

‘If there was time,’ Servinus pointed out.

‘Time, yes,’ said Suijderbeck, looking thoughtful.

‘Wasn’t Miss Miller supposed to fix coffee and sandwiches?’ wondered Reinhart, fiddling restlessly with his pipe and tobacco pouch.

‘She’ll be serving them up at ten o’clock,’ Kluuge promised. Half an hour to go. ‘Anyway anything else? What do you think?’

Suijderbeck seemed to have got tired of summing up. Instead he stood up and began wandering around the room.

‘My artificial leg is itching,’ he explained. ‘This always happens when my brain stops working.’

‘What about the Kuijpers?’ said Servinus. ‘They seem a pretty odd couple, don’t you think?’

‘I’ve seen odder,’ said Tolltse. ‘I don’t think the Finghers seem much better.’

Nobody spoke for a few seconds.

‘You don’t think they are involved somehow, do you?’ asked Lauremaa, frowning.

Suijderbeck paused.

‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘But then, whichever way you look at it, somebody must have done it.’

‘Good thinking,’ said Lauremaa.

‘Can’t anybody draw any other… any sensible conclusions?’ Tolltse wondered, looking round the table. ‘Because if not, I shall.’

‘Please do,’ said Reinhart, lighting his pipe.

‘It wasn’t Yellinek who murdered the girls,’ said Tolltse.

‘Really?’ said Jung. ‘Are you sure of that? He presumably didn’t kill himself, I can grant you that, but as I understand it he could still have murdered the girls.’

Tolltse thought for a moment.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I take it back. But who killed him, then? Isn’t that what we’re trying to discover?’

‘Good question,’ said Servinus. ‘How do you women do it?’

Reinhart blew a diversionary cloud of smoke over the battlefield.

‘I don’t know who killed Yellinek,’ he said. ‘But what I do know is that it’s time to present him to his fancy women at Wolgershuus. The fact that he’s dead, I mean. The sooner, the better. If we don’t have anything more sensible to do, I suggest we attend to that detail right away.’

Kluuge looked around for signs of any views on that proposal, but when he didn’t detect any, he cleared his throat and made up his mind on the hoof.

‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘Let’s do that. Reinhart and Jung can drive out there, that should be enough. It might be best to take them one at a time, or what do you think?’

‘What else could we do, for Christ’s sake?’ snorted Reinhart. ‘We’ll wait for a bit before showing them the actual corpse. It should be sufficient to show them a video of the news and a few newspapers – in case they don’t believe us.’

‘Do we have any video recordings of new bulletins?’ asked Jung.

Kluuge shook his head and looked worried.

‘It could be arranged, but it would take some time, I assume.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Reinhart. ‘A radio will do – they’re broadcasting news bulletins eight times an hour. We’ll be able to convince them that the Prince of Light is dead.’

‘The Prince of Light,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘Fucking hell!’

‘Hang on a minute,’ said Servinus. ‘Can we be sure that they don’t know about it already?’

‘They’re isolated,’ said Kluuge. ‘I phoned Schenck and gave him strict orders before we set off this morning.’

‘Good,’ said Reinhart.

‘Who’s Schenck?’ said Servinus.

‘He relieves Matthorst now and then. It’s necessary – Matthorst says he’s beginning to feel peculiar.’

‘I can well believe it,’ said Tolltse. ‘He’s been hanging around up there for as long as the women.’

‘There are some people who’ve been in there for fifteen years,’ Suijderbeck pointed out.

‘Anyway,’ said Lauremaa, ‘I reckon that if those three ladies know anything about Yellinek’s death, it means that they’ve known all along. Right?’

‘Correct,’ said Reinhart. ‘That would put the cat among the pigeons. Come on, Jung, let’s get going.’

‘Leave a few sandwiches for us,’ said Jung, getting to his feet.

‘Has anybody heard anything from the chief inspector?’ wondered Lauremaa when Reinhart and Jung had left.

‘Not a dicky bird,’ said Suijderbeck. ‘I have to say he made a good impression on me, but now he seems to be like any old deserter. What the hell’s he up to?’

‘Hmm, I don’t know,’ sighed Kluuge. ‘Let’s try to make some headway even so. It would be good if we could make a bit of a better impression at tomorrow’s press conference.’

‘I’m going to give it a miss,’ said Suijderbeck.

‘I’d thought of suggesting that you should,’ said Lauremaa, and smiled for the first time all day.

Van Veeteren met Marie-Louise Schwartz in a terraced house in the southernmost suburb of Stamberg. The visit lasted for an hour, and fifty of those sixty minutes were spent slumped in a cretonne armchair, observing his weeping hostess in the cretonne armchair opposite.

She occasionally managed to pull herself together to some extent, but as soon as he asked her a question, she started crying again. Eventually he tired of even making an effort; simply sat there and let her despair speak for itself.