‘Hmm,’ said Anna. ‘He certainly has a point, no doubt about that. If half of what he says is true he has a lot going for him. Can I have a look at his photo again?’
Ester handed it over. A powerfully built man, smiling, half-length. White shirt, open-necked. Thinning hair and his eyes perhaps a bit too close together — but what the hell? There surely can’t be any doubt that he must be one of the chosen two.
They had changed the rules of the game after the second advert, so that there were now just two finalists: one each. It would have felt wrong in the long run to have more than that, simply in order to have back-ups. Neither Ester nor Anna had been attracted to that model — it would have been cowardly, to put it bluntly. Too vague and not sufficiently uncompromising. You needed to play this sort of game with a certain elan, to take a few chances in order to achieve a romantic outcome — otherwise there was a risk of everything being watered down, something neither of them could have tolerated. A yawning Amor? No thank you. Certain rules didn’t need to be spelled out, but they were there even so.
‘Okay, the pilot is one of them,’ said Anna, handing back the photo. ‘Nothing to argue about there. Do you have a number two?’
Her friend said nothing for a while, just read the submissions and studied the pictures.
‘Not really,’ she said eventually. ‘Possibly this journalist, but it’s up to you.’
Anna took over the documents and glanced through them.
‘I’m a bit doubtful about him,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’m just biased, but that editor I wasted two months on last spring was really no Richard Burton. Even if he did knock back a few glasses.’
‘Richard Burton?’ said Ester with a laugh. ‘If he’s the one you’re after I suggest that bloke from Wahrsachsen, whatever his name is. At least he has the right sort of impressive-looking facial expression.’
Anna picked up the photo of Angus Billmaar, a forty-four-year-old with a steel business of his own. And she also burst out laughing.
‘Good God no!’ she snorted. ‘I mean Richard Burton before he became an old-age pensioner. Are you really telling me that this bloke is forty-four? I have to say I very much doubt it — he must have chopped a decade off when nobody was looking. How the hell could he get through to the last round?’
Ester shrugged.
‘Lack of competition,’ she suggested. ‘Unfortunately. Who do you suggest, then?’
Anna contemplated the remaining two photographs, holding one in each hand and weighing up first one, then the other, several times. Checked their write-ups as well, before putting everything down on the table in front of her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t find any of them uplifting.’
‘Nor do I,’ agreed Ester. ‘Mind you, I do have my period at the moment — but I don’t think I’d find any of them inspiring under any circumstances. Not in the best of worlds. So what the hell do we do?’
Anna thought for a moment.
‘I have a suggestion,’ she said.
‘Really? Let’s hear it.’
‘It goes a bit against the rules, but we’ve put them aside before now. I’m quite attracted to my wild card.’
Ester took a sip of cognac and pulled a face.
‘A plunge into the dark,’ she said. ‘I know you find it hard to resist that kind of temptation.’
‘Do you have a better solution?’
Ester shook her head.
‘Only that we work our way through them all once again — but I don’t suppose for a moment that it would help. But I’d like to make it clear that I wouldn’t want to draw lots and take that kind of risk. You’d have to take him on.’
Anna smiled.
‘We don’t need to draw lots. You take your pilot, and I’ll take on this mystery man.’
Ester frowned, and thought for a moment.
‘No photo, no name,’ she said. ‘No address and no telephone number. You can hardly say that he’s complied with the requirements. Read it out again, let me hear it once more.’
Anna cleared her throat and read out the short text written on a yellow card.
‘“Saw your advert by chance. If you really are the person you say you are, it could be interesting to meet you. I’ll reserve a table at Keefer’s on the eighth. If you turn up at about eight, I’ll treat you to a bite to eat and a chat. How to recognize me? A red tie and Eliot’s The Waste Land in the same colour.” That was all. What do you think?’
Her friend looked thoughtful and fingered the bottle of cognac.
‘Eliot?’ she said. ‘Have you read Eliot?’
Anna thought for a moment.
‘Nothing apart from the odd poem we had to study at grammar school. But he has neat handwriting — not T. S. Eliot. . I like it. And the colour of the card he wrote on is rather attractive.’
Ester topped up their glasses, then nodded thoughtfully a few times.
‘You sound impressively rational,’ she said. ‘I’m almost inclined to agree with you. Handwriting and a feeling for colours can tell you more than lots of other rubbish. When’s the eighth? Next Friday?’
Anna worked it out rapidly inside her head.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘So, shall we say that we’ve made up our minds?’
‘Let’s do that,’ said Ester with a smile. ‘Fifth time lucky. . A pilot and a mystery man. Cheers and good hunting, my lovely.’
‘Cheers,’ said Anna Kristeva. ‘I have to say that when it comes to foreplay, you and I are unbeatable.’
‘I reckon we’re unbeatable on all fronts,’ said Ester Peerenkaas. ‘May the gods be with us on this occasion as well.’
‘Of course they will be,’ said Anna Kristeva.
And she washed away the sudden pang of fear that flashed through her consciousness with a draught of excellent Renault.
25
‘Three weeks!’ said Reinhart. ‘Three bloody weeks since the girl was found out there on the beach! And we’ve got absolutely nowhere — did you hear that? Nowhere! It’s a scandal!’
He leaned forward over his desk and glared at all those present in turn: but nobody seemed to have anything to say in their defence. Moreno signalled to him by means of a glance in the direction of the woman sitting diagonally opposite her.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Reinhart, with a sweeping gesture. ‘You probably haven’t met the brains trust yet. . I’d like to introduce you all to Inspector Sammelmerk. She’s been transferred here from Saaren, to fill the gap left by deBries. About time, some might say — it’s been over a year. . Anyway, from left to right: Krause, Moreno, Jung, Rooth, Münster, and yours truly, Chief Inspector Reinhart. . Any questions?’
Nobody had any questions. Jung blew his nose into a paper tissue.
‘Welcome,’ said Rooth. ‘Although we met yesterday, didn’t we?’
Jung, Moreno and Münster joined in the welcome by nodding. Krause stood up and shook her hand, and Inspector Sammelmerk herself did her best to avoid looking embarrassed. She was quite a tall and well-built woman in her forties: she had asked to be transferred from Saaren for personal reasons, this Tuesday was her second day in the Maardam CID, and of course there was no reason to make a fuss about it.
‘Thank you,’ she said in any case. ‘I’m not usually difficult to work with — and I hope you aren’t either. Anyway, shall we get going?’
‘Excellent,’ said Reinhart. ‘We all have our pluses and minuses, of course, but several of us are fairly normal human beings. If you feel you’d like to make a good impression on us, we have just the case for you to take on. Let’s call it the Kammerle-Gassel case, for want of anything better. I thought of asking Inspector Krause to spell everything out — he’s the youngest and least depraved brain we have access to, and as I said, we haven’t exactly been making progress these last few weeks. Let’s hear it then.’