The tram arrived and she elbowed her way on board. She even managed to find a seat — between an overweight man reading the Bible and a woman looking like an unusually thin Barbie doll — and continued thinking about it.
She started recapitulating the grim fate of the isolated family in Moerckstraat — was ‘family’ the right word, in fact? It was just a matter of two people: a mother and her daughter. Could such constellations properly be called families?
‘My family consists of one person,’ she recalled reading somewhere. ‘Me.’
Anyway, both of them were no longer with us. Martina and Monica Kammerle. Dead.
Killed.
There’s a murderer on the loose, as the saying goes. Perhaps he had murdered several women? That woman up in Wallburg, for instance? And maybe he had — this is where the passing whim came into it — maybe he also had something to do with the disappearance of Ester Peerenkaas?
It seemed to be beyond question that the man behind it all was the wild card she had gone to meet at the restaurant. The man who called himself Amos Brugger.
Ester Peerenkaas had told her friend that he’d said that was his name.
Amos Brugger.
But there was nobody by that name in Maardam, Reinhart had announced, and he had also suggested that it must mean something.
Mean something? Moreno thought. Names don’t usually mean anything at all, surely?
She looked out of the window. The tram was just pulling up at the Ruyders Plejn stop.
She checked her watch.
A quarter to nine. She had another sudden thought, and got off.
‘The day’s starting well,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I hadn’t expected to see such a pretty detective inspector among all these piles of paper.’
‘Come off it,’ said Moreno. ‘A hundred years from now and we’re all nothing but a pile of bones. I think it was the Chief. . that it was you who taught me that.’
‘You’re probably right,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘On both counts. But if you have something to talk to me about, you’re lucky. I’m not usually here at work at nine in the morning. . Would you like some coffee?’
‘If you can supply a rusk or something to go with it,’ said Moreno. ‘I didn’t have time for breakfast this morning. Perhaps I ought to phone Reinhart and tell him I’m going to be a bit late. It’s just an idea I’ve had. . That I’d like to discuss with you.’
‘Really?’ said Van Veeteren, looking somewhat surprised. ‘I have lots of ideas I’m only too happy to discuss. Blame yourself. . Anyway, let’s lock the door and retire to the kitchenette.’
‘Well, what’s it all about, as it says in the Koran?’ he wondered when the cups were on the table and Moreno had just taken her first bite of the ciabatta bread he had heated up in the oven. ‘I take it that you haven’t called on me simply because you’re hungry and are interested in books.’
‘No — although I’m not really sure,’ said Moreno. ‘I just wanted to hear what you think. I had an idea, as I said. .’
‘Might one guess that it has to do with the Strangler again?’ asked Van Veeteren, starting to roll a cigarette.
‘Hmm,’ said Moreno. ‘Of course it has. . But I suppose that wasn’t too difficult to work out.’
‘Nothing new has happened, has it? I haven’t seen a word in the press for several weeks now.’
‘It’s at a stand-still,’ said Moreno. ‘But we’ve had reported a missing woman. I got the feeling that there might be a link. That’s my idea.’
Van Veeteren finished rolling his cigarette and gave her a searching look.
‘When?’ he asked.
‘About a week ago. . Well, a week-and-a-half.’
‘Here in Maardam?’
‘Yes.’
‘Age?’
‘Thirty-five.’
‘About the same as you, roughly speaking?’
‘More or less,’ admitted Moreno.
‘Although you look more like twenty-five.’
‘Come off it.’
Van Veeteren lit the cigarette.
‘And what makes you think there might be a connection?’
Moreno hesitated for a few seconds before replying.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Just intuition.’
Van Veeteren snorted.
‘For God’s sake, woman! If you start calling intuition nothing, you’ve forfeited the right to assistance from the supernatural. Well?’
Moreno laughed.
‘All right, I take it back. But the fact is that there aren’t any tangible links. .’
‘Have you discussed this with Reinhart or Münster?’
‘No. They might be thinking along the same lines, I don’t know. I didn’t think about it until yesterday.’
Van Veeteren inhaled and thought.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me about this new woman.’
‘Amos Brugger?’ exclaimed Van Veeteren ten minutes later.
‘Reinhart said the name rang a bell — that’s what he said yesterday, at least. But he couldn’t think of what the connection was.’
She looked up and met Van Veeteren’s gaze. And stiffened.
Before he spoke she knew that he knew. There was no doubt about it.
His face seemed to have frozen in a strange way. Coagulated, perhaps. His mouth was half open, and a thin stream of smoke oozed slowly out of one corner and crawled up his cheek. His eyes seemed to be switched off. Or pointing inwards.
The expression only lasted for less than a second, but Moreno knew that this was how she would remember him. Always remember him. The Chief Inspector.
Like Rodin’s famous Thinker, when the thought finally occurs to him and he raises his head from out of his hand.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘You can bet your life you’re right. Shall I tell you who Amos Brugger is?’
‘Please do. .’ said Moreno, swallowing. ‘Are you saying. .?’
Van Veeteren stood up and went into the bookshop. Returned half a minute later with three books that he placed on the table between them.
‘Musil,’ he explained. ‘Robert Musil. Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften — The Man Without Qualities. One of the greatest works of the twentieth century. On a par with Kafka and Joyce, some people maintain. I’m inclined to agree with them.’
‘Really?’ said Moreno, picking up the first of the volumes.
‘Unfinished, alas. He spent over twenty years writing it, if I remember rightly, but was never happy with the ending. Anyway, there is a murderer in the book. A murderer of women, to be more precise. A brilliant psychological portrait, in fact. Do you know what he’s called?’
Moreno shook her head.
‘He’s called Moosbrugger,’ said Van Veeteren, taking a swig of coffee.
‘Moosbrugger?. . Amos Brugger?’
‘Exactly, said Van Veeteren. ‘Or why not A. Moosbrugger. . I am A Moosbrugger. . I don’t think it can get much clearer than that.’
‘Oh my God. .’ said Moreno.
‘Didn’t he borrow a name out of a book the previous occasion as well?’
‘Yes,’ said Moreno. ‘Benjamin Karren. We’re not certain but we think he might have got it from an English crime novel from the thirties. You’re right. So you think. .?’
‘What do you think yourself?’ asked Van Veeteren. ‘Anyway, I suggest you hurry along to the police station and urge your colleagues to commit all available resources to this business.’
‘I’m on my way already,’ said Moreno, getting to her feet. ‘Thank you. . Thank you for your help. And for breakfast.’
‘You’re welcome,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘But make damned sure that I’m kept in the picture. Don’t forget that I have a finger in the pie myself. . If I hadn’t sent that blasted priest packing, things would have been rather different now.’
‘I promise,’ said Moreno, hurrying out of the shop.
The perfect morning? she thought. For Christ’s sake. .
33
‘So it’s one hundred per cent clear,’ growled Reinhart. ‘Hands up all those who’ve read Musil.’
He stared at his colleagues and allowed five seconds of silence to flow past before slowly raising his right hand, then lowering it again.