Heinemann dug down into the envelope and produced a sheet of paper.
“Just the names and dates of birth so far, but Krause and Willock are working on more. It'll take a while, as you'll appreciate.”
“The main thing is that it's done scrupulously,” said Reinhart.
Silence again. Münster stood up and walked over to the window, turning his back on the others. Van Veeteren leaned back and sucked in his cheeks. Moreno took another look at the photograph.
“Well,” said deBries after a while, “this is worth thinking about, I reckon.”
“Presumably,” said Van Veeteren. “We'll take a break now. I need to contemplate. Come back here half an hour from now, and then we can decide where to go from here. DeBries, can you let me have a cigarette?”
“Where exactly is this military college?” asked Moreno when they had reassembled.
“Up in Schaabe nowadays,” said Heinemann. “It was moved from here in Maardam at the beginning of the seventies-it used to be out at Löhr.”
“Did you find any other connections?” Münster wondered.
“No, not yet. But I think this one is spot-on. If there are any others, they will probably be further back in the past.”
“How should we go about this, then?” asked Rooth.
Van Veeteren looked up from the list of names.
“This is what we'll do,” he said, checking how many of them there were. “There are eight of us. Each of us will take four names and track them down over the weekend. It ought to be possible to find at least two out of four. You can check addresses and suchlike with Krause and Willock. They can distribute the names among you as well. On Monday morning I want comprehensive reports, and if you come across anything significant before then, get in touch.”
“Sound method,” said Reinhart.
“Exactly what I was going to say,” said Rooth. “When will Krause and Willock be ready?”
“They'll be working all evening,” said Van Veeteren. “Joensuu and Klempje have been roped in as well. You can all go home and then ring here and get your four names tonight, or tomorrow morning. Okay? Any questions?”
“One more thing, perhaps,” said Reinhart.
“Of course, dammit,” said Van Veeteren, tapping at the photograph with his index finger. “Tread carefully. It's by no means certain that these are the guys we're looking for. Don't forget that!”
“Should we release this information to the general public?” Münster asked.
Van Veeteren thought for three seconds.
“I think we should be extremely careful not to do that,” he said eventually. “Bear that in mind when you ask your questions as well-don't say too much about what's going on. I don't think Hiller would be too pleased if thirty-three people suddenly turned up and demanded police protection all around the clock.”
“Mind you, it would be fun to see his face if they did,” said Reinhart.
“If they did,” said Van Veeteren.
Russian roulette? Münster thought as he was sitting with the kids on his knee an hour later, watching a children's program on the TV Why do the words “Russian roulette” keep coming into my head?
It could be a coincidence, of course, Van Veeteren thought as he settled down in the bath with a burning candle on the lavatory seat and a beer within easy reach. Pure coincidence, if Reinhart hadn't already banned that expression. Two people living in the same town might well end up sooner or later in the same photograph, whether they want to or not.
Wasn't that more likely than their not doing so?
God only knows, Van Veeteren thought. In any case, we'll find out eventually.
16
Saturday, February 3, began with warm southwesterly winds and a misleadingly high and bright sky. Van Veeteren had already made up his mind in principle to attend Ryszard Malik's funeral, but when he stood in the balcony doorway to check the weather situation at about nine o'clock, he realized that he also had the gods on his side.
Still standing there, he tried to establish what had led him to make that decision. Why he felt it was so necessary for him to be present at the burial ceremony in the Eastern Cemetery, that is. And, to his horror, it dawned on him that it was because of an old movie. Or several movies, rather. More specifically that classic introductory scene with a group of people dressed in black around a coffin being lowered slowly into a grave. And then, a short distance away, two detectives in their crumpled trench coats observing the mourners. They turn up their collars and begin a whispered conversation about who's who… Who is that lady with the veil, half-turned away from the grave; why isn't the widow crying, and which of the bastards is it who pumped a bullet into the head of the stinking-rich Lord Ffolliot-Pym?
What reasoning! Van Veeteren thought as he closed the balcony door. Downright perverse! But then, there's nothing one won't do…
Out in the windswept cemetery later that day there seemed to be a distinct shortage of possible murderers. The one who behaved most oddly was without doubt a large man in a green raincoat and red rubber boots; but he had been instructed to attend by the chief inspector.
Constable Klaarentoft was known as the force's most skillful photographer, and his task on this occasion was to take as many pictures as he possibly could. Van Veeteren knew that he had stolen this idea from another movie, namely Blow-Up, from the mid-sixties. Antonioni, if he remembered rightly. The theory was, of course, that somewhere among all these faces, which would slowly emerge from the police photographic laboratory, would be the murderer's.
Ryszard Malik's and Rickard Maasleitner's murderer.
He recalled seeing the film-which was a pretty awful mishmash-three times, simply to observe how the face of a killer could be plucked out of the lush greenery of an English park.
Another kind of perversion, of course, and Klaarentoft had evidently not seen the film. He traipsed around between the graves, snapping away to his heart's content, totally ignoring Van Veeteren's instruction to be as unobtrusive as possible.
The fact that he managed to take no less than twelve pictures of the clergyman conducting the ceremony suggested that he might not have grasped the point of his contribution.
On the other hand, of course, the group that followed Ryszard Malik to his final resting place was on the sparse side, so there was a shortage of motifs. Van Veeteren counted fourteen persons present-including himself and Klaarentoft-and during the course of the ceremony he was able to identify all of them, apart from two children.
He was unable to detect furtive observers keeping some distance away from the grave (there were a few persons tending other graves in the vicinity of course, but none of them behaved strangely or alerted his famous intuition in the slightest), and when the rain started to fall and he had managed to give Klaarentoft discreet instructions to go away and snap something else, he had long been aware that there was not much point in his hanging around.
And an hour or so later, when he had finally managed to drink a glass of mulled wine at the Kraus bar, he realized that the cold he had succeeded in keeping at bay over the last few days had now gotten a second wind.
The next funeral will be my own, he predicted.
“It's Saturday. Do you really have to do that today?” he had asked.
“Today or tomorrow. Don't you think it's best if I get it out of the way as soon as possible?”
“Yes, of course,” he'd replied, and turned over in his bed. “I'll see you this evening.”
It wasn't an especially unusual exchange. Nor unexpected. As she sat in the bus she felt a nagging pain at the back of her head, like a bad omen. She had been with Claus Badher for fifteen months now-maybe sixteen, it depended on what criteria you used-and it was probably the best relationship she'd ever been involved in. In fact, it certainly was. It involved love and mutual respect, shared values and interests, and everything else one could reasonably expect.