We’ve had enough of each other, the sea and I, he thought, and he became conscious of a mood he recognized from his childhood summers. When he longed to be back at home, longed to be inland, as he used to put it in those days. When he dreamed of eternity shrinking, so that he could overview it.
He wanted to put a frame around everything that was timeless and infinite and seemed to grow and grow under the skies along the coast…
Was that what he was feeling now as well?
Was the bottom line that it was more difficult to handle things by the sea? Did this endless gray mirror make every thing incomprehensible and impossible to master? Make this case so totally hopeless? Reinhart claimed that it was in this very place-where land, sea and sky come together-that everything acquired its true weight and significance.
Its name and attributes.
Hard to say. Perhaps it was just the opposite. In any case, he was aware that thoughts and ideas drifted and became blurred.
When he gazed straight ahead along the slightly curved coast line, which eventually melted into a darkening haze way beyond the west pier, it seemed more difficult than ever to con centrate and focus on something specific. As if everything were being sucked up, vanishing into eternity and the timeless darkness. Yes, Reinhart was wrong, no doubt about it. It was a hindrance, this damn sea.
On the other hand, it did increase one’s sensitiveness, it had to be admitted. The process was open in both directions… no deadlocks to check either impulses or conclusions. Input and output. It was a matter of retaining perceptions and impres sions long enough for him to be able to register them, at least for a moment.
What about the case? The Axman? What were the percep tions that had blown in with the warm winds?
The wind was back to front. Something was wrong. He’d had that feeling for quite a while, and it was even more notice able out here on the silent, firm sand. When he thought back, he realized that something had come up during his conversa tion with Beatrice Linckx. He couldn’t quite remember what it was, hadn’t known at the time either-an expression she’d used, something she’d said in passing, possibly the inherent relationship between the words themselves. An unusual com bination. That had been enough, and he had sensed some thing.
Something that Bausen had said during their latest game of chess as well-the chief of police had moved a pawn and cre ated an advantage for himself, despite the fact that it was pre cisely the move that Van Veeteren had foreseen and wanted him to make.
He’d lit his pipe and said something.
That was unclear as well. Highly unclear-a sudden whiff of something that had dispersed and disappeared just as quickly as it had come, but had nevertheless left a trace in his memory.
Good grief! he thought, and spat out a chewed-up tooth pick. What kind of garbled thinking was this? What precision!
This must be how it feels when Alzheimer’s disease becomes full-blown.
But on the other hand-he was now building lightning-fast bridges between the extremes-the most significant sign of senile dementia was not that you lost your memory. On the contrary! The portals of memory were open wide and allowed everything to enter. No filtering. Everything.
Like the sea. Like the waves. And so it was a matter of choosing. Everything or nothing.
Who was it, then? Who was the Axman? How much longer would he have to hang around this godforsaken place before he could finally put the handcuffs on this damn games player.
What was the combination of words that Beatrice Linckx had let slip? What had Bausen said?
And Laurids Reisin? Sitting at home somewhere weighing the assurance his wife had passed on from the police. Was that anything to rely on? What had he promised? Six to eight days?
When was that? Had he already overstepped that limit, in fact?
No doubt. Van Veeteren sighed.
A jogger, a woman in a red tracksuit, suddenly jumped down from the Esplanade about twenty yards ahead of him.
Her dark hair was tied up with a ribbon the same shade as her jacket. She continued to the water’s edge, to the firm sand, then turned westward, and after only a few seconds, the dis tance between them had doubled. There was something very familiar about her, and it took him a few moments to work out who it was.
Inspector Moerk, of course!
What had Bausen said about her that first day, at the police station?
Beauty and intuition? Something like that; in any case, whatever it was, he agreed with it wholeheartedly.
He sighed and put his hands in his pockets. Felt the pack of cigarettes, and argued with himself for a while. Oh, all right, he decided, and by the time he had lit a cigarette, Beate Moerk had vanished into the darkness.
Swallowed up.
Darkness, he thought, and took a deep drag. The only thing big enough to enclose an ocean.
Not a bad idea. He must remember to take it up with Rein hart one of these days.
But maybe the ocean is bigger after all, he realized almost immediately. No doubt it’s morning on another shore. There’s always another shore.
30
She parked in the usual place on the other side of the smoke house. Locked the car and opened the zip of her tracksuit top slightly. It was warmer than she’d noticed earlier in the day; she would certainly be sweating a lot.
She set off, and immediately the heated excitement she felt in her mind spread all over her body, down to her legs and feet.
The pace she was setting was completely mad so early in the run. She would pay for this, but it was somehow irresistible.
She simply had to run fast now. Run fast and stretch herself to the limit in order to get her mind working clearly… to burn away the nervousness and excessive tension-this vibrant, almost hysterical feeling of approaching triumph. Of being about to have the solution in her grasp.
The breakthrough had arrived. Well, that might be over stating it, perhaps, but if she could complete the train of thought, the one that had been roused to life by the Melnik report and which now, after the first check, had proved to be… well, what?
There was nothing to contradict it, at least-nothing at all.
Although what the implications were was another matter alto gether.
She jumped down onto the beach and continued running to the water’s edge. The wind was warmer than ever down here, and she wished she’d been wearing thinner clothes.
Nothing to contradict it, then. On the contrary. A lot sup ported it-everything, perhaps. If only she could spell out her thoughts to Munster tonight, calmly, in peace and quiet, no doubt it would all become clear-cut.
Dusk was falling, and she wondered if she really ought to run the full course today as well. It would probably be quite dark in the woods on the way back, but there again, she was familiar with every inch… knew every root and every low branch by now; it would be a botched job if she shortened the run, and Beate Moerk didn’t like botched jobs.
And Munster wouldn’t phone until after eight. There was plenty of time.
The lactic acid arrived early. No wonder, she thought, and slowed down a little at last. It was unnecessary to make herself so weary that she ended up staggering through the woods.
A newspaper headline appeared in her mind’s eye: woman police inspector catches axman!
And an introductory paragraph along the lines of: “Despite the presence of criminal experts from outside, it was Kaalbrin gen’s own Beate Moerk who solved the case of the ax mur derer, which has made headlines all over the country. Our town is deeply grateful to her, now that our citizens can once again walk the streets at will and sleep peacefully in their beds at night.”