35
“Tell me about your illness,” he said.
She lifted the snotty-nosed girl onto her knee and looked somewhat doubtfully at him.
No wonder. His cover story was hardly a masterstroke—a fifty-seven-year-old university lecturer busy writing a dissertation on certain types of hip injuries contracted at birth! What a likely story! He hadn’t even bothered to check any details in advance, just tried to give the impression that his method was statistical. A sociomedical approach, he’d explained. He had equipped himself with a form that wouldn’t have withstood a close examination, of course, but even so—provided he kept it concealed inside the folder he had in front of him—it ought to give the suggestion of professionalism.
Or so he tried to convince himself. Who cares if she was confused, anyway? The main thing was that she answered his questions; she could have as many suspicions as she liked afterward.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“When did it start?”
“When I was born, of course.”
He ticked a box on the form.
“In which year was she confined to bed?”
She thought that one over.
“Nineteen eighty-two, I think. Completely, that is. She spent most of her time in bed before that as well, but I don’t remember her ever walking, or even standing up, after Christmas 1981. I left home in June 1982.”
“Did she ever use a stick?”
She shook her head.
“Never.”
“Did you have much contact with her after you’d moved out?”
“No. What does that have to do with your research?”
He bit his tongue.
“I just want to get a few things about the relationship between you pinned down,” he explained and ticked another box. “So you are saying that she was a total invalid from 1982 until her death?”
“Yes.”
“Where did she spend her last years?”
“In Wappingen. Together with a Sister of Mercy in a little apartment. She had divorced my father—I don’t think she wanted to be a burden on him any longer. Or something of that sort.”
“Did you visit her there?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
She thought for a moment. The girl started whimpering again. Slid down onto the floor and hid away from his gaze.
“Three,” she said. “It’s a long way.”
“And her state?”
“What do you mean?”
“How was she?”
She shrugged.
“The same as usual. A bit happier, perhaps.”
“But confined to bed?”
“Yes, of course.”
Damn, Van Veeteren thought. There’s something that doesn’t add up.
When he emerged into the bright sunshine, he had a short but intense dizzy spell. Was forced to hang on to the iron railing that surrounded the row of houses while he closed his eyes and recovered.
I need a beer, he thought. A beer and a cigarette.
Ten minutes later he had found a table under what looked like a plane tree outside a café. He emptied the tall glass in two swigs and ordered another. Lit a cigarette and leaned back.
Damn! he thought again. What the hell is it that doesn’t add up?
How far could it be to Wappingen?
A hundred and fifty miles? At least.
But if he went to bed early, surely he could raise the strength to drive 150 miles? With stops and rests and all that. It wouldn’t matter if he had to spend the night there. It wasn’t time he was short of nowadays. On the contrary.
He checked the address in his folder.
I’d better ring and arrange a meeting.
Why change my cover story when it seems to be working so well?
Beer number two arrived, and he sucked the froth off it.
What a damned awful story this is, he thought. Have I ever followed a thinner thread?
Just as well that nobody else is involved, thank God for that.
36
“What do we do in here?” wondered Jung.
“We could have a bite to eat, for instance,” said Münster. “Sit down and try to look as if you’re at home here.”
Jung sat down tentatively and looked around the austere premises.
“That won’t be easy,” he said. “But what’s the point? I assume we’re not being allowed to sit here in the town’s most expensive restaurant as a reward for our virtue.”
“Can you see that character in the dark blue suit next to the grand piano?” Münster asked.
“Of course,” said Jung. “I’m not blind.”
“According to Reinhart, he’s one of the top brass in the neo-Nazi movement. His name’s Edward Masseck, incidentally.”
“He doesn’t look like the type.”
“No, he’s an anonymous sort of character, Reinhart says. But he’s well documented. He’s the one behind an awful lot of shit, it seems. Arson in refugee hostels. Riots, desecration of graves, you name it. In any case, he’s sitting there and waiting for a contact from big business, a real big shot. We don’t know who, but when he turns up we’re supposed to let them sit and shuffle paper for a quarter of an hour or so. Then you go and phone from the vestibule while I go and arrest them. Reinhart and a couple of other officers are in two cars just around the corner.”
“I get it,” said Jung. “Why can’t Reinhart do it himself?”
“Masseck knows him,” said Münster. “Anyway, let’s order something to eat. What do you say to some lobster mousse to start with?”
“I had that for breakfast,” said Jung. “But I expect I can force down a bit more.”
“This Verhaven business,” said Jung as they waited for their main course. “How’s it going?”
Münster shrugged.
“I don’t know. I’m also off the case. It looks as if they don’t want to put any more resources into it. I suppose that’s understandable.”
“Why?”
“I expect they’re scared of stirring things up in the courts again. There could be one hell of a row if he should prove to be innocent, especially in the press and on television.”
Jung scratched the back of his neck.
“What does the chief inspector have to say about it?”
Münster hesitated.
“I don’t know. He’s still on sick leave. But it’s obvious that he’s not sitting at home, twiddling his thumbs.”
“Is it true that he’s got somebody on the hook? There was some talk about that in the canteen yesterday afternoon. Somebody who might have done it, that is?”
There was no doubting Jung’s curiosity, and it was obvious to Münster that he must have been aching to ask that question from the moment they’d sat down.
“I don’t know, to be honest,” he said. “I was out at Kaustin with him the day after they released him from the hospital. He pottered around at the house for an hour or so, and then he appeared with that look…you know what he’s like.”
Jung nodded.
“It’s damned amazing,” he said. “We spend several weeks going through that village with a fine-tooth comb—four or five of us—without finding anything of interest at all. Then he drives out there and picks up the trail inside an hour. Astonishing. Do you think it really is possible?”
Münster thought for a few seconds.
“What do you think?” he said.
“No idea,” said Jung. “You’re the one who knows him best.”
That’s true, I suppose, Münster thought. Although he sometimes had the feeling that the closer to Van Veeteren you got, the more unfathomable he became.
“It’s hard to say,” he said. “He’s certainly on to something, though, no doubt about that. But the last time I saw him he was going on about thin threads. And how long a flabby policeman could be stuck in a spider’s web, that kind of thing. He didn’t sound all that enthusiastic, but you know what he’s like.”
“I certainly do,” said Jung. “He’s a one-off, that’s for sure.”
There was a clear tone of admiration in Jung’s voice; there was no mistaking it, and Münster suddenly wished he could think of a way of conveying that to the chief inspector. Perhaps it wouldn’t be completely impossible, he thought. Since the cancer operation, he’d had the impression that their cooperation and level of communication had improved noticeably. There was more of a feeling of equality and more mutual respect. Or however it ought to be expressed.