They had breakfast together in bed, watching the early morning programme on their new 27-inch television set, and once again Kluuge ran his fingers gently over the tense skin, feeling for kicks and any other sign of life from Merwin junior. At precisely 07.45 he left his home and his married bliss.
He wheeled his twelve-gear bicycle out of the garage, clipped back his trousers, fixed his briefcase on the luggage carrier, and set off.
Exactly eleven minutes later he came to a halt in Kleinmarckt. The square was still more or less deserted; three or four market traders were busy opening up their stalls next to the town hall, arranging displays of fruit and vegetables. A few fat pigeons were strutting around the fountain, for want of anything else to do. Kluuge parked his bicycle in the stand outside the police station, secured it with a couple of stout locks, and wiped a drop of sweat from his brow. Then he walked through the semi-transparent glass doors, greeted Miss Miller in reception, and took possession of the chief of police’s office.
He sat down behind the impressively large desk, removed his bicycle clips and turned to the first page of the notepad beside the telephone.
Missing girl??? it said.
He looked out of the window, which Miss Miller had opened slightly, and gazed at the blossoming elder. The chief of police had informed him that it was an elder, but anybody could see that it was blossoming.
From a purely physical point of view it was still a perfect morning; but as far as Merwin Kluuge’s duties as acting chief of police were concerned, there was beyond doubt a cloud on the horizon.
At least one.
Precisely one.
‘Holiday,’ Chief of Police Malijsen had said, tapping him on the collarbone with two fingers. ‘I hope to God you’re fully aware of what the word holiday means. Peace and quiet. Being alone and left to yourself. Coniferous forests, mountain air and new waters to fish in. I’ve invested my hard-earned wages in hiring this damned cottage, and I have every intention of staying there for three weeks, provided the Japs don’t attack us. Is that clear, Sergeant Kluuge?’
For the last thirty years Chief of Police Malijsen’s credo had been that sooner or later the Japanese would inflict upon the world a new – but much better executed – Pearl Harbor, and he rarely missed an opportunity to mention it.
‘You’ll be in charge of the shop. It’s time for you to stand on your own two feet and become more than a mere paper shuffler and a thorn in the side of Edward Marckx.’
Gathering together and sending off the monthly reports from the Sorbinowo police district really did comprise the major part of Kluuge’s regular duties; that had been the case ever since he first took up his post just over three years ago, and would no doubt continue to be until the day – still ten years or more away – when Malijsen reached an age enabling him to resign his job and devote all his time to pleasure, sitting in front of the television. Or tying fishing flies. Or building defences to foil the increasingly inevitable attack from the slant-eyed yellow hordes from the east.
According to Kluuge’s view of the world and its inhabitants, Chief of Police Malijsen had a screw loose, an opinion probably shared by a few other Sorbinowo residents, but by no means all. Despite being a bit of a one-off character, Malijsen had the reputation of being the right man for his job, and for keeping the gap between right and wrong, between upright local citizens and crooks, open and wide. Even such a dodgy character as Edward Marckx – arsonist, jailbird, hot-tempered drug addict and violent brawler – had once, presumably in connection with one of his many brushes with the law, expressed his grudging admiration of the chief of police:
‘A particularly obnoxious bastard, but with a heart in his body and a hole in his arse!’
Perhaps Kluuge could sign up to the second part of that assessment.
On his way out of the door, Malijsen had paused and been serious for a few moments. Checked the torrent of words and raised an eyebrow.
‘Are you sure you can cope with this?’
Kluuge had snorted quietly. Not rudely. Not nervously.
‘Yes, of course.’
Nevertheless Malijsen had looked a bit doubtful and taken a card out of his wallet.
‘For Christ’s sake don’t disturb me unless you really have to! There’s a public telephone in the village, of course, but I need these weeks to get over Lilian.’
Lilian was Malijsen’s wife, stricken by cancer; after many years of more or less unbearable suffering she had finally given up the ghost and departed from this world. Drugged up to the eyeballs, and a shadow of a shadow… That was in the middle of March. Kluuge had attended the funeral with Deborah, who had noted that the chief of police had shed the occasional tear, but not excessively.
‘If the shit hits the fan, you can always get in touch with VV instead,’ Malijsen explained. ‘He’s an old colleague of mine, and he owes me a favour.’
He handed over the card and Kluuge put it in his breast pocket without so much as glancing at it. A quarter of an hour later, he sat down behind the imposingly large desk, leaned back and looked forward to three weeks of calm and prestigious professional activity.
That was six days ago. Last Friday. Today was Thursday. The first call had come last Tuesday.
The second one yesterday.
Oh hell, Kluuge thought and stared at the card with the very familiar name. He drummed on it with his finger, thinking back to what happened two days ago.
‘There’s a woman who’d like to speak to you.’
He noted that Miss Miller avoided addressing him as ‘Chief of Police’. She’d been doing that right from the start; at first it had annoyed him somewhat, but now he just ignored it.
‘A telephone call?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay put her through.’
He lifted the receiver and pressed the white button.
‘Is that the police?’
‘Yes.’
‘A little girl has disappeared.’
The voice was so faint that he had to strain his ears to catch what she was saying.
‘A little girl? Who am I speaking to?’
‘I can’t tell you that. But a little girl has disappeared from Waldingen.’
‘Waldingen? Can you speak a bit louder?’
‘The Pure Life Camp at Waldingen.’
‘You mean that sect?’
‘Yes. A little girl has disappeared from their confirmation camp in Waldingen. I can’t say any more. You must look into it.’
‘Hang on a minute. Who are you? Where are you calling from?’
‘I must stop now.’
‘Just a minute…’
She had hung up. Kluuge had thought the matter over for twenty minutes. Then he asked Miss Miller to look up the number for Waldingen – after all, there was nothing there apart from an old building used as a centre for summer camps. After a while he had given them a call.
A soft female voice answered the phone. He explained that he’d been informed that one of the confirmands had disappeared. The woman at the other end of the line sounded genuinely surprised, and said that nobody had been missing at lunch two hours previously.
Kluuge thanked her, and hung up.
The second call had come yesterday. Half an hour before the end of office hours. Miss Miller had already gone home, and the phone had been switched through to the chief of police’s office.
‘Hello. Chief of Police Kluuge here.’
‘You haven’t done anything.’
The voice sounded a little louder this time. But it was the same woman, no doubt about it. The same tense, forced composure. Somewhere between forty and fifty, although Kluuge acknowledged that he was bad when it came to guessing age.
‘Who am I speaking to?’
‘I rang yesterday and reported that a little girl had disappeared. You’ve done nothing about it. I assume she’s been murdered. If you don’t do something, I’ll be forced to turn to the newspapers.’
That was the point at which Kluuge felt the first pang of panic. He gulped, and his mind was racing.