That wouldn’t be too much of a surprise, he thought gloomily. No matter how you looked at it, the so-called chain of circumstantial evidence linking deFraan to the murders was so thin and drawn-out that any prosecutor worth his salt would laugh to scorn the poor officer in charge of the investigation who presented it. No doubt about that. A few abstruse literary characters, a lapel badge dropped in a shoe, a gang of harmless academic freemasons. . And all of it drowning in an abundance of wild guesswork and speculation!
Firm proof? Don’t make me laugh! Just the sort of dry, cold laughter that five dead people might be able to produce.
Oh hell, Van Veeteren thought for the hundred-and-tenth time since Friday evening. Let’s hope to goodness those damned fingerprints do exist in that book, otherwise I might as well throw in the towel.
Take the king off the board and acknowledge defeat.
He stared up at the dark façades.
I don’t even know where you live, he thought with a sigh of resignation. I don’t know if you’re at home or not. You didn’t answer the telephone, but there’s no law that forces you to pick up the receiver, even if you hear the phone ringing.
He threw the cigarette butt onto the gravel and trampled on it. Went back out of the entrance gates and into the street. Just had time to see the person sitting in the car parked on the other side of the road.
A woman behind the wheel. A streetlamp shone a certain amount of light onto the side window and he could see the hijab over her head quite clearly. He saw nothing of her hair, and only a glimpse of her face.
But he did meet her gaze for a brief moment before she started the car and drove off.
He never saw the registration number.
But he felt his heart pounding like the kick of a horse in his chest.
In the end, Monday finally came. When he met Winnifred Lynch in the morning, it felt as if a month had passed since he saw her last.
‘Well?’ he said, and thought that if he had a God he would have said a silent prayer at this very moment.
A prayer hoping that something at least had fallen into place. That not all the baited lines he had thrown into the waters would come up without even a nibble. Winnifred cleared her throat and took a sheet of paper out of her shoulder bag.
‘I wrote it down,’ she said with an apologetic smile. ‘Although that wasn’t necessary, of course.’
He clasped his hands. He had heard worse introductions than that.
‘Fire away,’ he urged her.
She studied what she had written for a few seconds.
‘I think things are starting to shape up,’ she said. ‘But I suppose you are the one who should judge that.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Everything is witnessed and vouched for.’
‘Come to the point now, never mind the preliminaries.’
‘All right. In the first place, that Wallburg business seems to fit in. DeFraan took part in a symposium there lasting four days in June 1999, so he could very well have met that woman.’
‘Excellent,’ said Van Veeteren, fiddling with his cigarette machine. He could feel his pulse beating significantly more strongly.
‘In the second place, I’ve arranged for some fingerprints. I took a few things from his desk — a few books, a tea mug, a few plastic files. I handed them over at the police station a few hours ago.’
She must get paid for this, Van Veeteren thought. If this bears fruit I shall personally squeeze a thousand out of Hiller. Two.
‘And thirdly, my poor husband told me something that very nearly made my heart stop.’
‘Reinhart?’ said Van Veeteren. ‘What do you mean?’
Winnifred took a deep breath before continuing.
‘I went to visit him yesterday evening — incidentally, he’s going to be discharged tomorrow or the day after. . Anyway, he told me had a dream — or perhaps had begun to remember — about what happened when he was run over. He thinks somebody pushed him in front of that bus.’
Van Veeteren suddenly felt something short-circuiting inside him. A blinding white light flashed inside his skull, and he was forced to close his eyes for a second in order to control himself.
‘What the hell. .?’ he snorted, and noted that his temples were pounding like a steam hammer. ‘Do you mean to say that somebody. .?’
She nodded solemnly.
‘Yes. That’s what he says.’
‘He says that?’
‘Yes. He lay there thinking about it for two days before mentioning it to me, so he must be pretty sure about it.’
He felt for words, but couldn’t find any. Then he pounded on the table with his fist and stood up.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ he groaned. ‘What a damned. . Good Lord, thank goodness he survived.’
‘That’s what I think as well.’
‘A priest in front of a train, and a detective officer in front of a bus. Yes, by Jove, things really are starting to shape up, you’re absolutely right!’
Winnifred bit her lower lip, and he suddenly became aware of how scared she was. He sat down on his chair again, and stroked her arm somewhat clumsily.
‘Calm down now,’ he urged her. ‘We shall sort this out. The danger is over.’
She tried to smile, but it came over as a grimace.
‘There’s one more thing,’ she said. ‘He’s cancelled all his lectures for this week.’
‘What? Cancelled?’
‘DeFraan. He sent a fax to the office on Saturday. Very brief. It just said he was going to be away, and the students should be informed.’
Four thousand thoughts exploded inside Van Veeteren’s head, but the only one that came out of his mouth was an obscenity.
‘Fucking hell!’
Spring arrived on Tuesday morning. Mild south-westerly winds swept the sky clear of clouds, and as he walked through Wollerimsparken on his way to the police station, he could feel the ground swelling under his feet. Small birds were hopping around busily in the bushes. The old ladies on the benches were hatless, and had unbuttoned their coats. He was passed by a jogger wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
So I’ve survived another winter, he thought with a sudden flush of surprise.
That was combined with a certain degree of willpower impelling him into the Maardam police station, especially on a day like this: but it was too late to do anything about it now. Intendent Münster had suggested this venue for a meeting to discuss developments, and he hadn’t raised any objections. For whatever reasons. As he approached the shadowy entrance with the sun shining diagonally from behind him, he felt a bit like Dante approaching the gates of hell.
That’s enough of literary allusions! he told himself. There have been more than enough of those in this case.
He marched in through the door and took the lift up to the third floor without looking round.
Münster received him with coffee and a wry smile.
‘Wipe that grin off your face,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘This is just a lightning visit.’
‘I know,’ said Münster. ‘But it’s cool to see you here anyway.’
‘Cool?’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Have you gone out of your tiny mind? Let’s get going. Athens, did you say?’
Münster nodded and became serious.
‘Yes. A plane from Sechshafen last Sunday morning. Due to land about noon. What do you think?’
‘Think? That he’s done a runner, of course. How’s it going with the fingerprints?
‘It’ll take a bit more time,’ said Münster. ‘They’ve only just started on that book.’
‘Blake?’
‘William Blake, yes. But Mulder says there are several fingerprints they can use. The ones from deFraan’s office are ready, of course. But how the hell could you know that he’d had that book in his hands? He wiped the whole of the flat clean.’
Van Veeteren shrugged.
‘I’ve also thumbed through Blake,’ he said drily. ‘Let’s wait with the acclamations until we know whose fingers they find.’
‘All right,’ said Münster. ‘They say they’ll be ready by this afternoon in any case. But surely he’s the one — we don’t need to doubt that any more, do we?’