Hour of the Wolf (27 page)

When he entered his office in the police station it was half past five. The pile of cassettes on his desk had grown a little, since during the day Jung, Rooth and Bollmert had been in contact with ten more doctors. There were also a few scribbled notes to the effect that nothing especially exciting had emerged from any of those interviews. Krause had submitted a report after having spoken to the Pathology Laboratory – the contents of Vera Miller’s stomach had been analysed and it had been established that she had consumed lobster and salmon and caviar during the hours before she died.

Plus a considerable quantity of white wine.

So he fed her pretty well before killing her at least, Reinhart thought as he lit his pipe. Every cloud . . . Lets hope she was a bit numb after drinking all that wine as well – but they’d known about that earlier.

He sat back in his chair and tried to recall the previous day’s conversation with Moreno. Cleared an area of his desk and took a sheet of paper and a pencil and began recapitulating with iron-hard, systematic logic.

At least, that was what he intended doing, and he was still hard at work half an hour later when the telephone rang.

It was Moreno.

‘I think I’ve found him,’ she said. ‘Are you still in your office? If so, I’ll be there shortly.’

‘Shortly?’ said Reinhart. ‘You have three minutes, not a second longer.’

He screwed up his iron-hard thoughts and threw them into the waste-paper basket.

Van Veeteren didn’t think the temperature in the flat had become much better than the previous time he’d been there, but Marlene insisted that there had been a significant improvement. She served tea, and they shared fraternally the apple strudel he had bought in the bakery on the square. The conversation was somewhat inhibited, and he soon realized that there was not going to be a straightforward lead-in to what he really wanted to talk to her about.

‘How are things for you?’ he asked in the end. ‘Financially and so on, I mean?’

That was heavy-handed, and she buttoned up immediately. Went out into the kitchen without answering, but came back half a minute later.

‘Why do you ask?’

He thrust out his arms and tried to adopt a mild, disarming expression. That was not something that came naturally to him, and he felt like a shoplifter who had been caught red-handed with six packets of cigarettes in his pockets. Or condoms.

‘Because I’d like to help you, of course,’ he admitted. ‘Let’s not beat about the bush – I’m bloody useless when it comes to beating about the bush.’

That was much more disarming than any facial expression, it seemed, for she smiled at him after a moment’s hesitation.

‘I can manage,’ she said. ‘So far, at least . . . And I have no desire to become a burden on anybody. But I like the fact that you exist. Not with regard to money, but because of Erich, and this.’

She stroked her stomach, and for the first time Van Veeteren thought he could discern a slight bump there. A trace of a protuberance that was just a little bit more than a normally rounded female stomach, and he felt a faint wave of dizziness surge through him.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you exist as well. Do you think we know where we stand now?’

‘I think so,’ said Marlene.

Just before leaving, he remembered another thing.

‘That note,’ he said. ‘That scrap of paper with the name. Did you phone the police about it?’

She raised her hand to her forehead.

‘I forgot all about it,’ she said. ‘I didn’t give it another thought . . . But I’ve still got it, if you’d like to look at it.’

She went back into the kitchen, and returned with a small piece of lined paper, evidently torn out of a notebook.

‘I’ll take care of it,’ said Van Veeteren, putting it in his inside pocket. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll phone Reinhart tomorrow morning.’

When he got back home he checked the telephone directory. There was half a column of people with the surname Keller in the Maardam section. Twenty-six, to be precise. He wondered whether he ought to ring Reinhart straight away, but as it was a quarter past nine by now, he let it be.

No doubt they are up to the eyes in it, he thought. I’d better not keep poking my nose in all the time.

It was three quarters of an hour before Moreno put in an appearance. Meanwhile Reinhart had managed to drink three cups of coffee, smoke the same number of pipefuls, and started to feel queasy.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I really had to gobble a sandwich and take a shower first.’

‘You look like a young Venus,’ said Reinhart. ‘Well, what the hell do you have to say for yourself?’

Moreno hung up her jacket, opened the window and sat down opposite Reinhart.

‘A doctor,’ she said. ‘It could well be him . . . Although I’m afraid I had second thoughts after I’d rung. I mean, I could be quite wrong.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Reinhart. ‘Who is he, and how do you know it’s him?’

‘His name’s Clausen. Pieter Clausen. But I haven’t spoken to him . . . He seems to have disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’ said Reinhart.

‘Well, disappeared might be an exaggeration,’ said Moreno. ‘But he can’t be contacted, and he wasn’t at the hospital today, despite the fact that he ought to have been.’

‘Rumford?’

‘New Rumford, yes. He was off sick all last week, but he should have been back on duty today. This morning. But he didn’t turn up.’

‘How do you know all this? Who have you spoken to?’

‘Doctor Leissne. The doctor-in-charge of general medicine. He’s Clausen’s boss. Obviously, I didn’t tell him all my suspicions, or what we were really looking for and so on; but I thought . . . Well, I thought I was on to something. Leissne was annoyed, obviously – his secretary had been trying to phone Clausen all morning but nobody had answered. And nobody on his ward knows where he is. There might be something fishy about his week on sick leave as well, but I’m only guessing, of course.’

‘Family?’ said Reinhart. ‘Is he married?’

Moreno shook her head.

‘No, he lives alone. Out at Boorkhejm. Divorced several years ago. But he’s been working at Rumford for ten years, and he hasn’t collected any black marks.’

‘Not until now,’ said Reinhart.

‘Not until now,’ repeated Moreno thoughtfully. ‘But we shouldn’t get carried away. I only had time to speak to Leissne and one of the ward nurses – it didn’t crop up until half past four.’

‘How did it crop up?’

‘Dr Leissne’s secretary came and said she wanted to talk to me. I’d just finished one of these.’

She foraged in her handbag and produced three cassettes, which she put on the table.

‘I see,’ said Reinhart. ‘Have you got any more information about him?’

Moreno handed over a sheet of paper, and Reinhart studied it for a while.

Personal details. Posts held and qualifications. A black-and-white photograph of a man about thirty-five years old. Short, dark hair. Thin lips, long thin face. A little birthmark on one cheek.

‘Could be anybody,’ he said. ‘Is it an old photo?’

‘Five or six years, I reckon,’ said Moreno. ‘He’s just turned forty now.’

‘Does he have any children? From that old marriage, for instance?’

‘Not as far as Leissne knew.’

‘Women? Fiancée?’

‘Not clear.’

‘And no black marks?’

‘None that has been recorded, at least.’

‘What about his ex-wife?’

Moreno went to close the window.

‘Nobody knows. They didn’t even know what she was called. But I’ve got the name of a colleague who Leissne thought might be able to give us a bit more information. Apparently he knocked around a bit with Clausen outside working hours.’

‘And what does he have to say?’

‘Nothing. I’ve only spoken to his answering machine.’

‘Oh, bugger,’ said Reinhart.

Moreno looked at the clock.

‘Half past seven,’ she said. ‘Maybe we could drive out and take a look? To Boorkhejm, I mean. We’ve got his address.’

Reinhart knocked out his pipe and stood up.

‘What are you waiting for?’ he asked.

On the way out to Boorkhejm they were subjected to a hailstorm that made the suburban gloom even gloomier than usual. It took them a while to find Malgerstraat, and when Reinhart pulled up outside number seventeen, he felt even more sorry for the human race than he usually did. It must be difficult to find any sort of meaning of life when you live out here, he thought. In these grey boxes in this dreary climate. The street that God forgot. Grey, wet and narrow.

But it was middle-class even so. Standing outside each of the row of houses was a caravan of more or less identical small Japanese cars, and a blue television screen could be seen in every third window.

But number seventeen was shrouded in darkness. Both downstairs and upstairs. The house was one of a terrace of two-storey boxes in grey or possibly brown brick, with nine square metres of garden and an asphalted drive leading to the garage. A soaking wet flowerbed overgrown with weeds and a letter box made of concrete with black iron fittings.

Reinhart switched off the engine, and they remained sitting in the car for a while, looking at the house. Then he got out and lifted the lid of the letter box. It was fitted with a lock, but through the slit he could see several newspapers and rather a lot of mail. In fact, it was crammed full – he doubted if there would be room for another newspaper. He returned to the car.

‘Would you like to go and ring the bell?’ he said to Moreno.

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘There doesn’t seem much point.’

But she got out of the car even so and walked up to the door. Pressed the bell push and waited for half a minute. Tried again. Nothing happened. She went back to Reinhart, who was standing beside the car, smoking with the pipe upside down in view of the rain.

‘Now what?’ she said.

‘We raid the house tomorrow morning,’ said Reinhart. ‘He has twelve hours in which to turn up.’

They crept back into the car and started trying to find their way out of the suburb.

‘Who did you say?’ said Constable Klempje, dropping his newspaper on the floor. ‘Oh dear . . . I mean, good morning, Chief Inspector!’

He stood up and bowed solemnly.

‘No, he’s not in, but I saw Krause in the corridor two seconds ago – shall I shout for him?’

He stuck his head out of the door and was lucky enough to attract Krause’s attention.

‘
The Chief Inspector
,’ he whispered when Krause came closer. ‘On the phone . . .
The Chief Inspector!
’

Krause stepped inside and took over the receiver.

‘Krause here. Good morning,
Chief Inspector
. . . What can I do for you?’

He listened and made notes for about a minute. Then he wished him a pleasant day and hung up.

‘What did he want?’ asked Klempje, scratching his ear with his index finger.

‘Nothing you need bother about,’ said Krause, and left.

Stuck-up ass, Klempje thought. I was only trying to help . . .

It took a few hours to prepare the necessary documentation for raiding the house, but at ten o’clock they were in place outside Malgerstraat 17. Reinhart, Moreno, Jung, and a car with four technicians and equipment worth a quarter of a million. If it’s going to be done, we’d better do it properly, Reinhart thought. He had rung Clausen’s number twice an hour since half past six; Rooth, deBries and Bollmert had been sent to the New Rumford Hospital to gather more facts, and it had stopped raining ten minutes ago. Everything was ready for the big breakthrough.

‘It looks a bit better in daylight in any case,’ said Reinhart. ‘Let’s go.’

The front door lock was opened by one of the technicians in thirty seconds flat, and Reinhart entered first. He took a look around. Hall, kitchen and large living room on the ground floor. Everything looked very ordinary: not all that clean, some unwashed cups, glasses and cutlery in the kitchen sink. The living room had a sofa group, teak bookcases, a hi-fi system and a substantial cupboard in what he thought was red oak. A television set without a video recorder, but with a thick layer of dust. On the smoke-coloured glass table was a fruit bowl with three apples and a few sorry-looking grapes. A copy of the
Neuwe Blatt
from last Thursday was lying open on the floor beside one of the armchairs.

Thursday? he thought. Four days already. Time to fly to the moon several times over.

He walked up the stairs. Jung and Moreno followed at his heels while the technicians carried in their equipment then stood in the hall, waiting for instructions.

Three rooms on the upper floor, one of which served as a study with a desk, a computer and a few rickety bookcases; another was a box room. The third was the bedroom: he walked in and looked around. Large double bed with pine head- and footboards. The bedding was primitively masculine . . . A bedcover with a large multi-coloured check pattern was draped over haphazard groups of pillows and blankets. A Van Gogh reproduction hung on one wall, suggesting a lack of interest in art. Reinhart had the impression that he had even seen the motif on tins of coffee. Various items of clothing lay about, both in and around a brown plastic laundry basket. Shirts and trousers were hanging on both white-painted chairs. Two books, a telephone and a clock radio were standing on one of the bedside tables . . . A dry cactus on the window ledge between half-drawn curtains . . . A series of dark stains on the beige fitted carpet.

He beckoned Jung and pointed at the carpet.

‘There,’ he said. ‘Tell them to start up here.’

While the technicians were carrying their equipment upstairs, Reinhart and Moreno went through the kitchen and into the garage. There was a red Audi, probably a couple of years old, and about as ordinary as everything else in the house. He tried the door. It wasn’t locked. He bent down and looked inside, first the front seat and then the back. Stood up again and nodded to Moreno.

‘When they’ve finished upstairs I think they should take a look at this.’

He had left the back door open, and Moreno looked inside.

‘It could be anything,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t have to be blood . . . Neither here nor in the bedroom.’