Rooth took a dog biscuit.
‘Pretty sure,’ he said. ‘Various things point in that direction.’
‘What sort of things?’
She hasn’t read Musil either, Rooth thought. We have something in common, at least.
‘I can’t go into that, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘What else did she have to say about Brugger?’
‘Not a lot, in fact. She talked about their advert — hers and Anna Kristeva’s. I didn’t know they went in for that kind of thing. . Anyway, we talked more about that than about Brugger.’
Rooth munched away at the biscuit, and thought hard.
‘Why did she feel ambivalent about him?’ he asked. ‘Surely she must have said something more about that?’
DeBuijk also thought hard.
‘No, I don’t think so. Maybe “ambivalent” is a bit over the top. . She claimed that she liked the man when she met him. They sat talking for quite some time at that restaurant, it seems, and then she spoke to him on the phone once or twice, and. . well, she evidently wasn’t sure how interested in him she really was. Whether or not there was a solid basis to build on.’
‘I see,’ said Rooth, examining his matchstick-man who now had both a tail and large breasts. ‘You say they spoke on the phone: do you know if she rang him, or whether it was the other way round?’
‘How on earth would I know that?’
‘I’m only asking in an attempt to discover if she had his telephone number.’
‘Ah,’ said deBuijk. ‘No, I haven’t the slightest idea, as I said before. What. . What do you think has happened? I mean-’
‘It’s too early to have any theories about that,’ said Rooth.
How many times have I churned out that line, he wondered. Or words to that effect. It must be several hundred. He turned over to a new page in his notebook, and sat quietly for a while.
‘She could defend herself,’ said deBuijk out of the blue.
‘Eh?’ said Rooth.
‘Defend herself. Ester could do that.’
‘Against men?’
Jujitsu? he wondered. Karate? Tear gas?
‘A woman can find herself in difficult situations,’ explained deBuijk.
‘You don’t need to tell me that,’ said Rooth. ‘I’ve been a police officer for twenty years. How could she defend herself?’
‘There are all sorts of ways,’ said deBuijk.
‘I know,’ said Rooth.
‘Ester used hydrofluoric acid.’
‘Hydrofluoric acid?’
‘Yes. She always carried a little bottle in her handbag which she could throw into the face of a man if he went too far. . She showed me it.’
Good God, thought Rooth, wondering if it was usual practice. Did lots of women wander around with bottles of hydrofluoric acid in their pretty little handbags? Or some similar brew. Had Jasmina Teuwers been sitting there, fingering a similar little bottle, when they had dinner at Mefisto’s a few days before Christmas?
‘I see,’ he said. ‘It sounds horrendous. . That kind of stuff can produce terrible injuries, can’t it?’
DeBuijk shrugged.
‘I don’t really know. But I suppose that’s the point.’
‘Has she ever used it?’
‘No. . But she’s a tough cookie, our Ester. When it comes to men, that is. Nowadays. I take it you know about how her ex ran off with their daughter?’
‘Yes,’ said Rooth. ‘I know about that.’
There followed a few seconds of silence once again, and deBuijk squirmed uneasily in her chair.
‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘I’m scared stiff something has happened to her. . Something awful. She’s simply not the type to hide herself away like this for such a long time. Do you really have no idea if. .?’
‘No,’ lied Rooth. ‘I’m afraid not. But we’re working all out to get to the bottom of this business.’
She hesitated for a moment, then she looked him in the eye and said:
‘Do you think she’s. . dead?’
Yes, Rooth thought. I think so.
‘No,’ he said. ‘She’s gone missing. That’s not the same thing.’
‘Really?’ said deBuijk.
Huh, what the hell can I say? he thought.
‘There are lots of other possible explanations,’ he said.
Can you give me a single one, Mr Detective Inspector? he asked himself when he emerged into the street again.
Just one single explanation that would imply Ester Peerenkaas was still alive?
What had Reinhart suggested? Sun and champagne in the South Pacific?
That would have to be the only possibility. He couldn’t think of any others, and as he crossed over Grote Torg the image of Jasmina Teuwers and that bloody ponytail cropped up again.
Evening classes in Italian! thought Inspector Rooth as he kicked to one side a fat pigeon that hadn’t enough sense to get out of his way.
Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate!
He was damned if next week he wouldn’t go there and stick that notice on the classroom door. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!
Then he would never set foot inside the building again.
‘Can you explain what happened?’ asked Jung, leaning over the counter.
The woman on the other side sighed deeply, as if his question incorporated some sort of attack on the peace and quiet of her working environment.
‘It’s not exactly rocket science,’ she said. ‘You just put them in, and then you take them out — assuming you’ve had a written answer, that is.’
‘Put them in and take them out?’ said Jung. ‘What do you mean by that?’
She shook her head almost imperceptibly, presumably in response to what she perceived to be his mental capacity, and raised her head from the computer.
‘People place an advert and provide a contact address. Punters respond, and after a few days the advertisers come to collect the responses.’
‘I see. So these responses stay here with you for that short period of time?’
‘Yes, of course. I don’t know what the practice is as far as other newspapers are concerned, but here at Allgemejne we’ve been using the same system for twenty-five years. Any responses that haven’t been collected after a month are thrown away.’
‘Do you get a lot of these adverts?’
‘A lot? You can bet your life we do. A few thousand a week, at the very least.’
‘Wow,’ said Jung. ‘So we’re looking for a response that presumably came in towards the end of November last year. I assume it’s impossible to find out any details about it now?’
‘Too right,’ said the woman. ‘It will have been either collected or thrown away. What kind was it, incidentally?’
‘Kind?’
‘Boats or stamps or pets or dating or-’
‘Dating, I’d have thought,’ said Jung.
‘What kind?’ she asked again.
‘The usual. .’ said Jung.
‘Him looking for her, or vice versa?’
‘Vice versa.’
‘Huh,’ said the woman. ‘Those are the most popular ones in fact. About ten a day.’
‘So many?’ said Jung. ‘How many responses do they usually get?’
He realized that the hope of finding any clues about Amos Brugger in this way had long since flown out of the window; but he was beginning to get curious.
‘That depends,’ said the woman. ‘Young women get twenty to thirty per week. Older ones ten to fifteen. But now I really must get on with my work. I assume you’ve had answers to all your questions?’
‘Yes, thank you very much,’ said Jung. ‘I had no idea there were so many people indulging in. . in this kind of activity.’
‘Huh,’ muttered the woman. ‘There’s no end of lonely people around.’
That certainly seems to be the case, thought Jung as he settled down in his car again. Paradoxically enough, that seemed to be the lowest common denominator among people. Loneliness.
Why on earth did I come here at all? he asked himself. Anna Kristeva had said they had thrown away the response from Amos Brugger — as they had done with all the other letters hoping to exploit the favours on offer from her and Ester Peerenkaas. He would never have even dreamt that the newspaper would retain a copy.