‘With pleasure,’ said Moreno. ‘If you pack all the circumstantial evidence into the cardboard box, we’ll be delighted to solve all the problems for you.’
‘Excellent,’ said Baasteuwel, checking his watch. ‘By all means. But I’ll be damned if it isn’t time for lunch. I hope you’ll allow me to treat you to a bite to eat in return for your help.’
‘I think I’m the one who should be doing the thanking so far,’ said Moreno. ‘And as I still owe you at least two restaurant meals from last summer, I reckon this lunch should be on me.’
‘Miserliness and equality of the sexes have always been my guiding stars,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Lead the way.’
During the two-hour drive back to Maardam, Inspector Moreno’s attention was concentrated more or less equally between two things.
The first was the western sky, where the sun suddenly burst forth in spectacular fashion as it sank down behind the sea in a festoon of red and purple. . Ragged clouds were lit up from beyond the horizon by rogue beams, creating a slowly fading extravaganza as darker and duller tints spread with almost apocalyptic implications. Der Untergang des Abendlandes cropped up in her mind as she stood next to her car in a lay-by, making the most of the view for several minutes. The Decline of the West. .
The other was the carton with Baasteuwel’s plastic bags on the front passenger seat of her car.
Thirteen presumed pieces of circumstantial evidence, less substantial than strands of hair. Twelve of them, at least. That badge was the only thing worth devoting time and energy to, it seemed.
A red S against a green background.
Or a snake in the grass? Why not? It must mean something, after all.
Somebody must have been wearing it. The little pin securing the badge must have come loose, fallen out and ended up inside a shoe. Unfortunately not one of the black court shoes Kristine Kortsmaa had been wearing the evening she was murdered, Baasteuwel had explained, so it could have landed up there on some previous occasion. At more or less any time.
But nevertheless it must be an indication of something or other? A tiny piece of information that could turn out to be a key, in fact?
An unintended greeting from a murderer?
Wishful thinking? she thought.
Most probably, yes.
The third thing that occupied her thoughts — especially during the last half-hour of the drive into Maardam, when the sun had set and the plastic bags on the passenger seat beside her were almost invisible in the near-darkness — was a mathematical calculation.
It was quite straightforward, but had nevertheless been the cause of the distraction she had felt while discussing matters with Inspector Baasteuwel — both in his office at the police station and at the Restaurant Bodenthal, where they had eaten an excellent lamb fricassee and an equally excellent lemon sorbet, and talked quite a lot about life and death and the point of being a copper.
Her period had been due last Saturday.
It was four days overdue.
38
‘Why are we sitting here?’ said Rooth.
‘It was something to do with one of those lapel badges on a pin,’ said Jung. ‘Reinhart sounded almost enthusiastic — maybe we’re on the verge of a breakthrough?’
‘You’re talking about the Strangler, are you?’ said Rooth with a yawn.
‘I think so,’ said Jung.
‘That would be good,’ said Rooth. ‘If we got somewhere at last, I mean. It’ll soon be half a year since the murders, and my investigation instincts tell me that’s a bit on the long side.’
‘Ester Peerenkaas was only a month ago,’ said Jung.
‘If she really was one of his victims,’ said Rooth. ‘I must say I’m beginning to have my doubts. . But I did have a thought this morning.’
‘Really?’ said Jung. ‘Are you telling me you actually start thinking in the morning?’
Rooth frowned and gazed out of the window. It was raining. Wollerimsparken looked as if it would love to sink down into the earth. Or had even begun to do so.
‘Well?’ said Jung. ‘Have you had a stroke?’
‘Hang on,’ said Rooth, raising an index finger as a warning. ‘Any minute now.’
Jung sighed.
‘It’s always interesting to be present when a great mind is at work,’ he said, also looking out of the window. ‘It looks horrible out there! I can’t understand where all that rain comes from. It’s as if-’
‘Yes, now I’ve got it!’ interrupted Rooth. ‘Her parents, that’s what I was thinking about.’
‘Whose parents?’
‘Ester Peerenkaas of course. Or her mother, to be more precise. She doesn’t pester us any more.’
‘Eh?’ said Jung. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s stopped contacting us.’
‘I heard what you said,’ said Jung in exasperation. ‘So what?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Rooth flinging his arms out wide. ‘Krause mentioned that she’d been phoning us twice a day the first few weeks, but then she suddenly stopped.’
Jung thought for a moment.
‘I don’t understand what you are getting at. Fru Peerenkaas has stopped pestering the police every day with questions about her missing daughter. Are you suggesting that has some special significance?’
‘I don’t know everything,’ said Rooth. ‘Just almost everything. Where the hell has Reinhart got to? I thought he said-’
‘He’s here,’ said Reinhart as he entered the room. ‘You’re not sitting on eggs by any chance are you, Inspector?’
‘Not just at the moment,’ said Rooth. ‘Easter’s a bit too far away for that.’
‘Unusually clear instructions,’ said Jung when Reinhart had left the room again. ‘We can’t complain on that score.’
Rooth nodded sombrely and stared at the badge he was holding in his hand.
‘We have to find out where this thing comes from and report back by tomorrow afternoon’s run-through at the latest, otherwise we shall be skinned alive. Yes, you’re right: that’s pretty clear.’
‘It’s good to know exactly what’s expected of us,’ said Jung. ‘How do you reckon we should go about it?’
Rooth shrugged.
‘What do you think? The telephone directory is always a good place to start.’
‘Okay,’ said Jung, standing up. ‘Get going on that — I have half an hour’s paperwork waiting on my desk. We can start hunting as soon as you’ve got wind of something.’
Rooth rummaged around in his jacket pocket and produced two or three sweets that he tossed into his mouth.
‘Your word is my command,’ he said. ‘What do you reckon the chances are?’
‘Of what?’
‘Of this little badge really belonging to Kristine Kortsmaa’s murderer.’
‘Not very high,’ said Jung. ‘About zero.’
‘And the possibility that she had anything at all to do with our Strangler?’
‘More or less zero,’ said Jung.
‘Bloody pessimist,’ said Rooth. ‘Leave me in peace so that I can get something done.’
The shop itself was no bigger than about ten or twelve square metres, but perhaps there was more space behind, overlooking the courtyard, where manufacturing and repairs could be carried out. In any case, the firm was called Kluivert amp; Goscinski, and was squeezed in between a warehouse and an abattoir at the far end of Algernonstraat — a dark, slightly curved apology of a street running from Megsje Boisstraat down to Langgraacht, and was hardly an ideal location for anybody wishing to run a business. The abattoir seemed to have been boarded up for ages.
But perhaps Kluivert amp; Goscinski was such a niche enterprise — as Jung gathered the term was — that the actual location of the premises didn’t matter much. Medals, plaques, cups, trophies, badges — Manufacture and sales! — Matchless prices! — Rapid delivery! — Brand leaders since the forties!
All this was printed in gold lettering on the chest-high teak counter with a glass top on which Rooth had carefully placed the plastic bag with the Wallburg badge. The shop assistant — a slim black-suited gentleman in his sixties with a nose like a ship’s keel and a moustache like a hairy sausage (and which presumably did little to facilitate the partaking of food, always assuming he ever ate anything, Jung thought) — slid his spectacles up above the bridge of his nose and examined the object in front of him with a degree of seriousness that would not have been out of place had it been the Queen of Sheba’s navel diamond. Jung noticed that he was holding his breath. Rooth as well.