He swallowed.
Two creatures were sitting in the wagon, and it took him several seconds before it dawned on him that they were, in fact, two human beings.
“We don’t accept just any patients here,” explained Dr. Meisse.
“We only take the worst cases. We have no illusions about cur ing anybody; we simply try to give them a reasonably decent life. Insofar as that’s possible…”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“I understand,” he said. “How many patients do you have?”
“It varies,” said Meisse. “Between twenty-five and thirty, approximately. Most of them spend the rest of their days here; that’s the point, really…”
“You’re the last port of call?”
“You could put it like that, yes. We have a philosophy… I don’t know if you are familiar with Professor Seldon’s ideas?”
Van Veeteren shook his head.
“Ah, well,” said Meisse with a smile, “maybe we can talk about that some other time. I don’t suppose you’ve come here to discuss the treatment of severe psychiatric cases.”
“No.” Van Veeteren cleared his throat and took his note book out of his briefcase. “You were good friends with Maurice
Ruhme… even when you were in Aarlach, if I understand correctly?”
“Yes, I got to know him about… five years ago, more or less, through my wife. She and Beatrice-Beatrice Linckx, that is-are old childhood friends, well, school friends, in any case.”
“When did you first meet Maurice Ruhme?”
Dr. Meisse pondered a moment.
“I’m not absolutely sure when I was first introduced to him, but we’d started to meet socially by the winter of 1988-89, in any case… now and then, at least.”
“Miss Linckx also works out here, is that right?”
“Yes, she’s been with us for six months or so.”
Van Veeteren paused.
“Did you fix this job for her?”
But Dr. Meisse only laughed.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I’m afraid I don’t have much influence in such matters, unfortunately. I put in a good word for her, I sup pose. Why do you ask?”
Van Veeteren shrugged but didn’t answer.
“What do you know about Ruhme’s cocaine addiction while he was in Aarlach?”
Meisse turned serious again, and ran his hand over his bald head.
“Not very much,” he said. “No details. Maurice preferred not to talk about it. He told me a little bit one night, when we’d had a fair amount to drink; I think that was the only time it was ever mentioned. He’d got over it, in any case. I reckoned he had a right to draw a line underneath it.”
“Were you acquainted with Ernst Simmel and Heinz
Eggers?”
The doctor gave a start.
“With…? The other two? No, of course not. I don’t understand-”
“And what about Ruhme?” asked Van Veeteren, cutting him short. “Can you see any connection between him and the other two?”
Dr. Meisse produced a handkerchief and dried his forehead as he pondered that.
“No,” he said after a while. “I have thought about it, of course, but I haven’t been able to come up with any link at all.”
Van Veeteren sighed and looked out the window again. He wondered if there was anything sensible he could ask the young doctor about as he watched a trio approaching the building from the direction of the greenhouses. A man and a woman walked on either side of a hunched figure, supporting her-for it was a she; he could see that now-with their arms around her hunched back. She seemed to be dragging her feet through the gravel, and it sometimes looked as if her helpers were lifting her up and carrying her. It suddenly dawned on him that he recognized the man. The tall, thin figure, the thick dark hair-Dr. Mandrijn, no doubt about it. He watched the three of them for a bit longer before turning to Dr. Meisse.
“What does Dr. Mandrijn do here?”
“Dr. Mandrijn?”
Van Veeteren pointed.
“Oh, of course, Mandrijn. That’s a relative of his… a niece, if I remember rightly. Brigitte Kerr. One of our most recent guests. She arrived only a month or so ago, poor girl-”
“What’s the matter with her?”
The doctor flung out his arms in an apologetic gesture.
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid there are some things I can’t discuss.
Professional secrecy you know, not only-”
“Crap.” Van Veeteren cut him short again. “It’s true that I don’t have any papers with me, but it will be only a matter of time if I decide to relieve you of that commitment to secrecy.
May I remind you that this is a murder investigation.”
Meisse hesitated.
“Just give me an indication,” said Van Veeteren. “That will be sufficient. Are drugs involved, for instance?”
The doctor looked up at the ceiling.
“Yes,” he said. “To a large extent. But she’s not in my group, so I don’t know all that much about it.”
Van Veeteren said nothing for a while. Then he looked at his watch and rose to his feet.
“Many thanks for your time,” he said. “I’ll have a word with
Miss Linckx as well. May I just ask you one final question?”
“Of course,” said Meisse, who leaned back in his chair and smiled again.
Van Veeteren paused for effect.
“Who do you think killed Maurice Ruhme?”
The smile vanished.
“What…?” said Meisse. “Who…? I’ve no idea, of course.
If I had the slightest idea of who the Axman was, I’d have told the police long ago, obviously!”
“Obviously,” said Van Veeteren. “I’m sorry I had to take up so much of your time.”
This place seems to have a remarkable ability to attract people to it, he thought, after he’d left Dr. Meisse in peace and was instead looking for Miss Linckx’s office. How many people had he come across, in fact, with some kind of connection with this gloomy, isolated institution?
He started counting, but before he’d gone very far, he bumped into Miss Linckx in the corridor, and decided to aban don that line of thinking until after he had interviewed her.
As he drove out of the parking lot an hour or so later, he was thinking mostly about what sort of an impression she had made on him. The beautiful Beatrice Linckx. And if it really was as she maintained, that her relationship with Maurice
Ruhme had truly been based on the strongest and most solid trinity as she claimed-respect, honesty and love.
In any case, it didn’t sound so silly, he thought, and started remembering his own broken-down marriage.
But he’d hardly gotten as far as recalling Renate’s name when he drove into a cloudburst, so he turned his attention to trying to see through the windshield and stay on the road instead.
28
The confession came early in the morning. Apparently, Mr. Wollner had been waiting in the drizzle outside the police sta tion since before six, but it wasn’t until Miss deWitt, the clerk, opened up just before seven that he was able to get in.
“What’s it all about?” she asked, after she’d sat him down on the visitors’ sofa with brown canvas cushions, hung up her hat and coat and put the kettle on in the canteen.
“I want to confess,” said Mr. Wollner, staring down at the floor.
Miss deWitt observed him over the top of her frameless spectacles.
“Confess to what?”
“The murders,” said Mr. Wollner.
Miss deWitt thought for a moment.
“What murders?”
“The ax murders.”
“Oh,” said Miss deWitt. She felt a sudden attack of dizzi ness that she didn’t think was connected with the menopausal flushes she’d been suffering from for some time now. She held on to the table and closed her eyes tightly.
Then she got a grip on herself. None of the police officers would turn up until about half past seven, she was sure of that.