‘ In vino veritas,’ said Moreno. ‘But we could be quite wrong as well. It doesn’t have to be blackmail, and there doesn’t have to be a doctor involved… And perhaps there’s no connection at all between Vera Miller and Erich Van Veeteren.’
‘Oh, don’t start that,’ groaned Reinhart. ‘I thought we were just getting somewhere.’
Moreno smiled.
‘It’s midnight,’ she said.
Reinhart sat up on his chair.
‘Ring for a taxi,’ he said. ‘I’ll wake Rooth up.’
When he got home both Winnifred and Joanna were sound asleep in the double bed. He stood in the doorway for a while, looking at them and wondering what he had done to deserve them.
And what the payment would be…
He thought about The Chief Inspector ’s son. About Seika. About Vera Miller. About what would happen to Joanna in fifteen to twenty years’ time when young men began to take an interest in her… All kinds of men.
He noticed that the hairs on his lower arms were standing on end when he tried to imagine that, and he carefully closed the door. Took a dark beer out of the refrigerator instead, and flopped down on the sofa to think things over.
To think about what, if anything, there was he could be absolutely sure about regarding the Van Veeteren and Miller cases.
And what he could be fairly sure about.
And what he thought.
Before he had got very far, he fell asleep. Joanna found him on the sofa at six o’clock the following morning.
30
Winnifred had only one seminar on Monday morning, and would be home by noon. After a short discussion with himself, Reinhart phoned the childminder and gave her the morning off. Then devoted himself exclusively to Joanna. Brushed her teeth and hair, drew pictures and flicked through books, and had a nap between nine and ten. Ate yoghurt with bananas, danced and flicked through more books between ten and eleven. Strapped her into the child seat in the car at half past eleven and twenty minutes later collected mother and wife from the university.
‘Let’s go for a drive,’ he said. ‘I think we need it.’
‘Terrific,’ said Winnifred.
It was not difficult to decide to leave the police station to its own devices after the work put in over the last few days. On that December Monday the weather comprised equal doses of wind and a distinctly dodgy absence of rain. Nevertheless, they chose the coast. The sea. Walked along the promenade at Kaarhuis and back — Reinhart with a singing and shouting Joanna on his shoulders — and enjoyed some fish soup at Guiverts restaurant, the only one in town that was open. The tourist season seemed to be further away than Jupiter.
‘Ten days to Christmas,’ said Winnifred. ‘Will you really have a whole week off, as you tried to trick me into believing?’
‘That depends,’ said Reinhart. ‘If we solve the case we’re busy with, I think I can promise you two.’
‘Professor Gentz-Hillier is keen to rent us his cottage up at Limbuijs. Shall I accept?… Ten to twelve days over Christmas and New Year? It would be nice to live the simple life out in the wilds — or what does the chief inspector think about that?’
‘The simple life out in the wilds?’ said Reinhart. ‘Do you mean a log fire, mulled wine and half a metre of books to read?’
‘Exactly,’ said Winnifred. ‘No telephone and a kilometre to the nearest native. If I’ve understood it correctly, that is. Shall I clinch the deal?’
‘Do that,’ said Reinhart. ‘I shall sit down tonight and solve these cases. It’s about time.’
When he entered his office in the police station it was half past five. The pile of cassettes on his desk had grown a little, since during the day Jung, Rooth and Bollmert had been in contact with ten more doctors. There were also a few scribbled notes to the effect that nothing especially exciting had emerged from any of those interviews. Krause had submitted a report after having spoken to the Pathology Laboratory — the contents of Vera Miller’s stomach had been analysed and it had been established that she had consumed lobster and salmon and caviar during the hours before she died.
Plus a considerable quantity of white wine.
So he fed her pretty well before killing her at least, Reinhart thought as he lit his pipe. Every cloud… Lets hope she was a bit numb after drinking all that wine as well — but they’d known about that earlier.
He sat back in his chair and tried to recall the previous day’s conversation with Moreno. Cleared an area of his desk and took a sheet of paper and a pencil and began recapitulating with iron-hard, systematic logic.
At least, that was what he intended doing, and he was still hard at work half an hour later when the telephone rang.
It was Moreno.
‘I think I’ve found him,’ she said. ‘Are you still in your office? If so, I’ll be there shortly.’
‘Shortly?’ said Reinhart. ‘You have three minutes, not a second longer.’
He screwed up his iron-hard thoughts and threw them into the waste-paper basket.
Van Veeteren didn’t think the temperature in the flat had become much better than the previous time he’d been there, but Marlene insisted that there had been a significant improvement. She served tea, and they shared fraternally the apple strudel he had bought in the bakery on the square. The conversation was somewhat inhibited, and he soon realized that there was not going to be a straightforward lead-in to what he really wanted to talk to her about.
‘How are things for you?’ he asked in the end. ‘Financially and so on, I mean?’
That was heavy-handed, and she buttoned up immediately. Went out into the kitchen without answering, but came back half a minute later.
‘Why do you ask?’
He thrust out his arms and tried to adopt a mild, disarming expression. That was not something that came naturally to him, and he felt like a shoplifter who had been caught red-handed with six packets of cigarettes in his pockets. Or condoms.
‘Because I’d like to help you, of course,’ he admitted. ‘Let’s not beat about the bush — I’m bloody useless when it comes to beating about the bush.’
That was much more disarming than any facial expression, it seemed, for she smiled at him after a moment’s hesitation.
‘I can manage,’ she said. ‘So far, at least… And I have no desire to become a burden on anybody. But I like the fact that you exist. Not with regard to money, but because of Erich, and this.’
She stroked her stomach, and for the first time Van Veeteren thought he could discern a slight bump there. A trace of a protuberance that was just a little bit more than a normally rounded female stomach, and he felt a faint wave of dizziness surge through him.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you exist as well. Do you think we know where we stand now?’
‘I think so,’ said Marlene.
Just before leaving, he remembered another thing.
‘That note,’ he said. ‘That scrap of paper with the name. Did you phone the police about it?’
She raised her hand to her forehead.
‘I forgot all about it,’ she said. ‘I didn’t give it another thought… But I’ve still got it, if you’d like to look at it.’
She went back into the kitchen, and returned with a small piece of lined paper, evidently torn out of a notebook.
‘I’ll take care of it,’ said Van Veeteren, putting it in his inside pocket. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll phone Reinhart tomorrow morning.’
When he got back home he checked the telephone directory. There was half a column of people with the surname Keller in the Maardam section. Twenty-six, to be precise. He wondered whether he ought to ring Reinhart straight away, but as it was a quarter past nine by now, he let it be.
No doubt they are up to the eyes in it, he thought. I’d better not keep poking my nose in all the time.
It was three quarters of an hour before Moreno put in an appearance. Meanwhile Reinhart had managed to drink three cups of coffee, smoke the same number of pipefuls, and started to feel queasy.