‘Really?’ said the chief inspector.
‘Yes, really – although that soon passed. Everything passed. Some things lasted just for a few months, others for a bit longer, and every time she started out on something new it was as if nothing of the old stuff counted any longer. As if… As if she needed to start out on a new life twice a year, more or less. Not exactly a secure background for a little kid, don’t you think? It was all that jumping around from one thing to another that finished me off in the end.’
‘I understand,’ said Van Veeteren, and he really did. ‘But she seems to have stuck with the Pure Life – is that true?’
Uri Zander inhaled and nodded.
‘Yes, it seems so. You might ask yourself why. I think she was there at the very beginning, that must be over ten years ago now. It would have been better if she’d stuck to another of her fads, but I couldn’t give a toss about that now. Janis has flown the nest, and she has no intention of finding herself a new mum.’
‘Who looked after her?’ the chief inspector asked. ‘After you’d separated, that is.’
‘Me, of course,’ said Uri Zander, with perhaps a trace of humble pride in his voice. ‘For fuck’s sake, she couldn’t be left with that scatterbrained nincompoop! They used to get together over the weekend the first few years, but then Madeleine cleared off to the USA for six months – some fancy emancipated sect or other; I think they were at the heart of a scandal later on, but that was after she’d moved on – and since then they haven’t been in touch at all. Janis wasn’t interested, nor was the scatterbrained nincompoop, as I understand it.’
Van Veeteren devoted a few moments’ thought to this family idyll.
‘Do you know a lot about the Pure Life?’ he asked eventually. ‘What they get up to, that sort of thing?’
Zander puffed away at his cigarette and gazed out of the window, looking miserable.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Only what I’ve read in the newspapers. And what people have been saying after these murders, of course. Obviously, I think they’re a collection of right bastards, and it’s a bloody scandal that they can hoodwink so many poor swine who are so stupid that they can’t distinguish between a hole in the ground and their own arsehole. Youngsters and old dodderers and all the rest of ’em, just so that they can get screwed by the priest and shag one another.’
‘So you think that’s what it’s all about, do you?’
‘Yes,’ Zander said. ‘That’s what I think. And I’m not the only one.’
Van Veeteren thought for a moment.
‘What do you think about the murders?’ he asked.
Zander stubbed out his cigarette and his face took on a thoughtful expression.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘This Yellinek character might well be a bloody psychopath, I don’t doubt that for a second: so I reckon he’s the one who’s done it. And now, needless to say, he’s hiding away here in Stamberg, in a house owned by some lunatic woman who’s a member of his congregation – there are plenty of those around. Most likely, of course, he’s busy screwing her all ends up. For Christ’s sake! The Pure Life? Fuck me!’
‘Hmm,’ said the chief inspector, glancing at the poster. ‘But why are Madeleine and the rest of them refusing to say a word, do you think?’
‘Because he’s told them to stay schtum, of course. He’s the big shagger god after all, and they obey every word he utters. I take it you know about the court case against him a few years ago?’
‘Of course,’ said Van Veeteren.
‘Anyway, all I can say is that I hope to God you find the bastard and put an end to him and his fucking hangers-on,’ Uri Zander declared. ‘It’s disgusting that they’re allowed to carry on as they do – and they have a school as well. Just imagine, pouring all that shit into youngsters’ minds!’
Van Veeteren began to realize that he’d got as far as he was going to get, and there wasn’t much point in sitting around and listening to Zander’s outbursts. His host was currently fumbling around in the cigarette pack: the cupboard was evidently almost bare, and so he slid it back under the pile of newspapers.
‘Your ex-wife?’ Van Veeteren began. ‘Madeleine. You haven’t married somebody else since then, have you?’
Zander shook his head.
‘Is there any message you’d like me to pass on to her? We’ve got them locked up in Sorbinowo, and I expect to see her tomorrow or the day after.’
Zander looked at him in astonishment.
‘A message for Madeleine? I’ll be fucked if I have anything to say to her.’
‘Maybe your daughter might want to say something to her?’
‘They have no contact with each other. I’ve explained that already.’
‘Yes, that’s right, you have,’ said the chief inspector.
All right, he thought, and braced himself for the effort required to extract himself from the beanbag, or whatever it was he was sitting in. Enough for today. All things considered, he’d been presented with a pretty substantial picture of Madeleine Zander – especially if he compared it with the strangely elusive impression he’d had from the unbleached linen confrontations in Waldingen.
But whether it was going to be of any use to him was another question, of course.
They were already in the hall when his final question occurred to him. ‘Ewa Siguera – does that name mean anything to you?’
‘Siguera?’ said Uri Zander, scratching the place where his hair used to be. ‘No, I don’t know anybody of that name – unless you mean Figuera, of course. I think that was her name.’
‘Figuera?’
‘Yes.’
‘And who’s Ewa Figuera, then?’
Zander shrugged.
‘I don’t really know her,’ he explained, ‘but if I remember rightly that was the name of the woman Madeleine lived with for a while. She might have been a lesbian, but I don’t know.’
‘When was that?’
Zander thought it over.
‘I can’t really remember,’ he said. ‘It was Janis who mentioned it. A few years ago, I reckon. We happened to bump into them. Down by the river.’
‘Is she still living in Stamberg?’ Van Veeteren asked.
‘How the hell would I know?’ said Zander. ‘Why not look her up in the telephone directory?’
Not a bad idea, the chief inspector thought as he took leave of his melancholy host.
Another glimpse into an interesting life, he decided as he emerged into the sunlight again. And it occurred to him that he hadn’t even bothered to find out what Uri Zander did for a living nowadays. Always assuming he did anything at all, of course.
Perhaps he could glean that information from the telephone directory as well, if the desire to know should get the better of him.
Figuera? he muttered to himself as he inserted a new menthol-impregnated toothpick into his front teeth, as a counterbalance to Zander’s prejudices. What if it turned out that this whole case depended on a stupid misspelling?
F instead of S.
There was no evidence to suggest that this was the case, but it wouldn’t surprise him.
Not one bit, dammit. Stranger things had been known to happen.
31
Since Inspector Jung turned up early, as usual, he had to sit down and wait a while for Ulriche Fischer.
It was no big deal, in fact. He declined politely but firmly the offer of Constable Matthorst’s company, and instead sat down at a table under one of the chestnut trees that surrounded the big lawn (where one or two residents and one or two carers were wandering around, evidently aimlessly) – and this gave him an excellent opportunity to plan and polish his tactics for the impending conversation.
The only problem was that he couldn’t concentrate. Not for more than three seconds at a time, that is. No matter how he tried to tame and channel his thoughts, they seemed to sleepwalk stubbornly back to the same topic.