He started thinking about loneliness instead.
The loneliness that everybody experienced, but that of Martina and Monica Kammerle in particular. They must have felt very isolated, incredibly so. They had lived there behind those dark windows, and their world didn’t seem to have extended all that far beyond the cramped three-roomed flat. They had had each other, presumably — a sick mother and her isolated daughter. No social contacts — apart from a man who killed them both when he thought the time was ripe. . What a depressing state of affairs: but that is evidently how things were. Exactly like that. Some people’s lot is allocated in so miserly a fashion, Münster thought. They never have a chance to influence the course of their lives.
Not the slightest chance. Monica Kammerle lived to the age of sixteen. Sixteen! His own son Bart would reach that age two years from now.
That thought crawled around in his brain like a freezing cold worm, and he shuddered uncontrollably. What kind of a monster would wipe out a sixteen-year-old girl? Take away her life? Kill her, saw off her legs and bury her among the dunes at the edge of the sea?
Saw off her legs!
He felt fury welling up inside him — a fury that was like an old acquaintance he could never get rid of. A hopeless and desperate relation that constantly reared its ugly head and held him captive by means of its inescapable blood relationship. Anger and impotence.
Was there really any logic behind actions like this? Patterns that could be discovered?
Oh yes. He knew that was entirely possible. If only one could overcome one’s disgust, suppress one’s personal feelings of impotence and fling wide the gates — then, perhaps, it might be possible to detect indications.
But what? he thought. What am I looking for? The portrait of a murderer? Would it be possible to establish that at this stage? Of course not! We don’t know a thing, for Christ’s sake.
He switched off the music. It was a piano solo now. Did there always have to be a piano solo in a performance of jazz music? he wondered. That wasn’t something it was appropriate to think about just now, it was somehow too lightweight. Like a thin, blue cloud of smoke. He made a mental note to ask Reinhart about that. If there were CDs with exclusively woodwind. Or woodwind, bass and percussion, perhaps?
Intendent Münster shook his head. Took one final look at the unlit and meaningless windows, and started the engine.
He drove slowly through the narrow streets of Stopeka. It was high time: his badminton match with the Chief Inspector was due to begin at half past five.
Detective Inspector Ewa Moreno had eaten a lot of excellent dinners in Mikael Bau’s kitchen, but his bouillabaisse took the biscuit.
‘It comes down to the stock,’ he said when they had finished eating. ‘All fish soups taste of salt, of course: but there is a qualitative aspect to the salt you put in the stock, and not merely a quantitative aspect as most people seem to think.’
‘Really?’ said Moreno.
‘Poor quality stock kills lots of other tastes, whereas a good quality stock can highlight them instead. . The same applies to that little drop of lemon juice. . Or the dash of angostura. . Or that half-drop of tabasco.’
‘You don’t say.’ Moreno lay back in her chair, feeling well satisfied. ‘And how exactly did you make the stock in this evening’s meal? To tell you the truth, it’s one of the best I’ve ever eaten.’
Mikael Bau didn’t reply. He merely sat there, looking at her with his warm blue eyes. Then he cleared his throat and looked up at the ceiling instead.
‘The basis is lobster shell, of course. But if you marry me, I’ll give you the whole recipe.’
‘All right,’ said Moreno.
When she came back up to her own flat she didn’t switch on the light. Instead she dragged the armchair forward so that it was facing the window. She flopped down into it and gazed out at the violet-blue sky.
Am I out of my mind? she wondered. He actually proposed, and I actually said yes.
The motive was a recipe for the right kind of stock in a fish soup. Lobster shell?
Mikael Bau had proposed to her several times before. Not always directly. But she had never said yes.
She had now, though. She was going to marry him. That was what was expected of you if you said yes in a situation like that.
Oh my God, she thought. I didn’t even think about it.
She could feel the butterflies in her stomach, and she was close to tears. Or to bursting out laughing. Or something in between. But she could feel tears on her cheeks — on the right one, at least.
When we have children, she thought, they are bound to ask how it came about that we decided to get married. And I shall have to tell them that the trump card their dad played was a fish soup.
She smiled up at the dark sky, and suddenly recalled one of the quotations Van Veeteren used to come out with.
Life is not a walk over an open field.
How very true.
Before going to bed she listened to her answering machine. There was only one message, and it was from Inspector Baasteuwel in Wallburg.
Could she please ring him before midnight. Yes, it was important.
She looked at the clock. Five to twelve. She dialled his number.
He answered after a mere second.
‘Ewa Moreno,’ she said. ‘You wanted to tell me something. I’m sorry it’s so late, but you said it would be okay until midnight.’
‘No problem’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Or rather, there is a problem, that’s why I rang.’
‘Go on,’ said Moreno.
‘The old man’s had a heart attack, we’ll have to postpone it.’
‘I beg your pardon? Who’s had a heart attack?’
‘My dad. His third, they don’t think he’ll survive it, so I have to sit up with him.’
‘Your dad?’
‘Yes. He’s eighty-nine, I don’t think he’s aiming to get to ninety. But I’ll have to sit up tonight with him, and maybe for a few more days and nights. So I’m afraid we shall have to put off that discussion about the strangler.’
‘Of course,’ said Moreno. ‘Obviously you must be with him. The case is only marking time anyway. Do you have any brothers and sisters?’
‘No,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘I’m afraid not. And my mum died ten years ago, so. . Well, you know how it is.’
‘Yes,’ said Moreno, thinking at the same time that in fact she didn’t, of course. Sitting at a parent’s deathbed must surely be one of those experiences you couldn’t possibly understand properly unless you had actually done it yourself. She tried to think of something appropriate to say, but words seemed to be as distant as death itself.
‘I’ll phone you in due course,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Take care.’
‘And you,’ said Moreno. ‘Is there. . Is there anything I can do for you?’
Baasteuwel laughed drily and briefly.
‘No, dammit,’ he said. ‘It feels very strange, I must admit. I can’t really get my mind round it, but I’ve never believed that business of eternal life. Not even for my old man. Sleep well, my lovely.’
‘Thank you. The same to you.’
‘No chance of that.’
‘Oh no, of course not,’ said Moreno.
As soon as she had replaced the receiver she started thinking about her own parents’ state of health.
And about her brother.
And Maud.
Her spirits fell like a stone, and suddenly she recalled another one of those mottoes she’d had on her wall as a teenager:
If you don’t dare to trust in your love,
you must trust your loneliness.
Or had it said your freedom, in fact? Or your strength? She couldn’t remember.
Then it occurred to her that she wouldn’t now need to get up at six the next morning in order to drive to Wallburg, and she picked up the receiver again.