“My place is a bit of a mess at the moment,” the man explained. “That's why I thought it would be better to meet here.”
He smiled, and revealed two rows of brown, decayed teeth. Jung was grateful to hear what the man said. He would prefer not to have been confronted by the mess.
“Would you like a beer?” The question was rhetorical.
Lange nodded and coughed. Jung gestured toward the bar.
“And a cigarette, perhaps?”
Lange took one. Jung sighed discreetly and decided it was necessary to get this over with as quickly as possible. It was always problematic to arrange reimbursement for beer and cigarettes; that was something he'd discovered a long time ago.
“Do you recognize this?”
Lange took the photograph and studied it while drawing deeply on his cigarette.
“That's me,” he said, placing a filthy index finger on the face of a young, innocent-looking man in the front row.
“We know that,” said Jung. “Do you remember what those two are called?”
He pointed with his pen.
“One at a time,” said Lange.
The waitress arrived with two glasses of beer.
“Cheers,” said Lange, emptying his in one gulp.
“Cheers,” said Jung, pointing at Malik in the photograph.
“Let's see,” said Lange, peering awkwardly. “No, no fucking idea. Who else?”
Jung pointed at Maasleitner with his pen.
“Seems familiar,” said Lange, scratching his armpit. “Yes, I recognize that bugger, but I've no idea what he's called.”
He belched and looked gloomily at his empty glass.
“Do you remember the names Malik and Maasleitner?”
“Malik and…?”
“Maasleitner.”
“Maasleitner?”
“Yes.”
“No, is that him?”
He plonked his finger on Malik.
“No, that's Malik.”
“Oh, shit. What have they done?”
Jung stubbed out his cigarette. This was going brilliantly.
“Do you remember anything at all from your year as a National Serviceman?”
“National Service? Why are you asking about that?”
“I'm afraid I can't go into that. But we're interested in these two people. Staff College 1965-that's right, isn't it?”
He pointed again.
“Oh, shit,” said Lange, and had a coughing fit. “You mean this picture is from the Staff College? Fuck me, I thought it was the handball team. But there were too many of 'em.”
Jung thought about this for three seconds. Then he returned the photograph to his briefcase and stood up.
“Many thanks,” he said. “You're welcome to my beer as well.” “If you twist my arm,” said Lange.
Mahler advanced a pawn and Van Veeteren sneezed.
“How are things? Under the weather again?”
“Just a bit, yes. I was out in the rain at the cemetery for too long yesterday afternoon.”
“Stupid,” said Mahler.
“I know,” sighed Van Veeteren. “But I couldn't just walk away. I'm rather sensitive about that kind of thing.”
“Yes, I know how you feel,” said Mahler. “It was that Malik, I gather. How's the case going? They're writing quite a lot about it in the newspapers.”
“Badly,” said Van Veeteren.
“Have you found a link yet?”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“But I'm not sure it's the right one. Well, I suppose I am, really… But that doesn't mean very much yet. You could say that I'm looking for a stone and I've found the market square.”
“Eh?” said Mahler.
Van Veeteren sneezed again.
“For Christ's sake,” he said. “Looking for a star and I've found a galaxy, how about that? I thought you were supposed to be the poet.”
Mahler chuckled.
“I know what you mean,” he said. “But isn't it an incident that you're looking for?”
Van Veeteren picked up his white knight and sat there for a few seconds, holding it in his hand.
“An incident?” he said, placing the knight on c4. “Yes, that's probably not a bad guess. The problem is that such a lot is happening.”
“All the time,” said Mahler.
17
Of the four people eventually allocated to Inspector Münster, it turned out that one lived in central Maardam, one in Linzhuisen, barely thirty kilometers away and one down in Groenstadt, a journey of some two hundred kilometers. On Saturday afternoon, Münster conducted a short telephone interview with the last-a certain Werner Samijn, who worked as an electrical engineer and didn't have much to say about either Malik or Maasleitner. He had lived in the same barrack room as Malik and remembered him most as a rather pleasant and somewhat reserved young man. He thought Maasleitner was a more cocksure type (if the inspector and the man's widow would excuse the expression), but they had never mixed or gotten to know each other.
Number one on the list, Erich Molder, failed to answer the several phone calls Münster made to his house in Guyderstraat; but number two, Joen Fassleucht, was available; Münster offered to drive to his home late on Sunday afternoon.
Münster's son, Bart, aged six and a half, objected strongly to this arrangement, but after some discussion, it was decided that Bart could go along in the car, provided he promise to stay in the backseat reading a Monster comic while his father carried out his police duties.
It was the first time Münster had agreed to anything of this nature, and as he sat in Fassleucht's living room nibbling at cookies, he became aware that it did not have a particularly positive influence on his powers of concentration.
But perhaps that didn't matter so much on this occasion-it was hardly an important interrogation, he tried to convince himself. Fassleucht had mixed with Malik quite a lot during his National Service: they were both part of a group of four or five friends who occasionally went out together. Went to the movies, played cards, or simply sat at the same table in the canteen and gaped at the goggle-box. After demobilization, all contact had ceased; and as for Maasleitner, all Fassleucht could do was confirm the opinion expressed by Samijn the previous day.
Overbearing and rather cocky.
Münster had been apprehensive, of course, and when he returned to his car after about half an hour he saw immediately that Bart had disappeared.
A cold shudder ran down his spine as he stood on the pavement wondering what the hell he should do; and, of course, that was the intention. Bart's disheveled head suddenly appeared in the back window-he had been lying on the floor hidden under a blanket, and his broadly grinning face left no doubt about the fact that he considered it an unusually successful joke.
“You really looked shit scared!” he announced in glee.
“You little bastard,” said Münster. “Would you like a hamburger?”
“And a Coke,” said Bart.
Münster drove toward the center of town in search of a suitable establishment for the provision of such goods, and decided that his son would have to grow several years older before it was appropriate to take him along on a similar assignment.
“There's an in-depth article about your case in the Allgemejne today” said Winnifred Lynch. “Have you read it?”
“No,” said Reinhart. “Why should I do that?”
“They try to make a profile of the perpetrator.”
Reinhart snorted.
“You can make a perpetrator profile only in the case of a serial killer. And even then it's a decidedly dodgy method. But it sounds good in the press, of course. They can write and make up stories about murderers who don't exist. A green flag for any fantasies you like. Much more fun than reality naturally.”
Winnifred Lynch folded up the newspaper.
“Isn't it a serial killer, then?”
Reinhart looked hard at her over the edge of his book.
“If we go and take a bath, I can tell you a bit more about it.”
“Good that you have such a big bathtub,” commented Winnifred ten minutes later. “If I do take you on, it'll be because of the bathtub. So don't imagine anything else. Okay?”