The Inspector and Silence (7 page)

A woman dressed in a grey and white sari came to greet him, before he’d had the chance even to get out of the car. Or rather, it looked like a sari, but when he looked more closely he could see that she was wearing a length of thick, unbleached cotton cloth. Her skin, hair, lips and eyes were about the same colour, and Van Veeteren had a fleeting vision of a bowl of porridge left out of the fridge overnight.

Forty-five, he decided. A bit dotty. Man-hater.

‘Chief Inspector Veeteren?’ she said, proffering a somewhat limp hand.

‘Van Veeteren. Yes, I phoned you last night. I wanted to speak to Mr Yellinek.’

‘Come with me.’

She led the way to the horseshoe-shaped building that embraced an overgrown grassy patch with islands of blueberry sprigs and wild raspberries. The dark brown, substantial wooden buildings with newly fitted tin roofs comprised a main house that was quite large, with two storeys, a veranda and chimneys, and a smaller one on each side – simple, rectangular boxes from a much later date. The lake was on the other side of the road, only fifty metres or so away, and when he glanced in that direction he became aware of the naked bodies on the shore.

A dozen or so girls, paddling in the shallow water or sitting in the sun on towels, chatting away to one another.

But no splashing about. No noise, no giggling and shouting, no carefree laughter. In their midst he noticed two other women, dressed in exactly the same way as the one in front of him. He paused in mid-stride, and observed the painting – that’s what it was, no other word would suffice – while associations raced in torrents through his mind.

But nothing stuck Only a feeling of somewhat worrying admiration. And when the man on the veranda cleared his throat, Van Veeteren turned his back on the scene and wiped it from his memory.

‘Welcome to our abode.’

‘Thank you.’

‘We are not happy about your visit, but we offer you our hospitality and will answer your questions.’

‘Excellent,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I take it you are Mr Yellinek?’

The man said nothing but bowed his head. He was older than Van Veeteren had expected, presumably round about his own age. Not many years younger, in any case. Thin and somewhat lopsided. His hair was mousey and shoulder-length, tied in a sort of ponytail. His beard hung down over his chest in tufts, and his clothes had evidently been made from the same material as those of the three women. Wide-fitting, greyish white shirt and voluminous trousers ending halfway up his shin. Sandals.

A prophet, no doubt about that, Van Veeteren thought, following him into the house. They sat down opposite each other at a large, round wooden table surrounded by ten simple chairs. Yellinek put on a pair of glasses with taped frames, and looked the chief inspector in the eye.

‘You have fifteen minutes,’ he said. ‘We have prayers at eleven o’clock.’

Van Veeteren raised an eyebrow and left it up there for a few seconds.

‘The fact of the matter is,’ he explained, ‘that I am here on behalf of the police investigating a crime, and I shall spend as much time on it as I consider to be appropriate. But if you are cooperative, I see no reason why it should take more than a quarter of an hour.’

Oscar Yellinek said nothing.

‘How would you describe your association?’

Yellinek took off his glasses and put them in a brown leather case.

‘I don’t suppose for one moment that you intend to become a member of our church, Chief Inspector. Might I suggest that we devote our time to discussing the reason you have come here instead?’

‘I gather you have had previous contact with the police?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘So you accept our authority?’

‘As long as what you want doesn’t conflict with the will of God. Might I ask you to come to the point?’

Van Veeteren shrugged.

‘You know what this is all about. We have been informed that a little girl has disappeared from your camp. I’m just looking into the matter.’

‘Nobody is missing.’

‘How many young people do you have here?’

‘Twelve.’

‘Exclusively girls?’

‘We don’t believe in unregulated relations between the sexes at a young age.’

‘So I have gathered,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘So you have a dozen girls here. How old are they and what’s the point of their stay?’

Yellinek clasped his hands on the table in front of him.

‘Between twelve and fourteen,’ he said. ‘The purpose is to prepare them for reception into the Pure Life.’

‘A sort of confirmation?’

‘You could say that.’

‘How long do they stay here?’

‘Seven weeks.’

‘So you hire this place for the whole of the summer?’

‘Yes. We have two devotional weeks for adults in August as well. Our girls have about half their time left now.’

‘Twelve, you said?’

‘Yes, twelve.’

‘And what do you spend the time doing?’

‘Prayers, self-denial, purity. Those are the pillars of our faith – but I don’t think you are interested in that kind of spirituality, Chief Inspector.’

Don’t say that, Van Veeteren thought. It’s more a question of what the hell it means, and how a normal thirteen-year-old could possibly be interested in it.

‘How many adults?’

‘Four. Me, and three assistants who help with practical things.’

‘Women?’

‘Yes.’

Van Veeteren thought for a moment.

‘Can you give me a list of the girls you have here now?’

Yellinek shook his head.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not in our interest. Neither the girls’ nor their parents’.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘We have had some experience of the police. As you said yourself.’

‘You realize that I can compel you to tell me if needs be?’

Yellinek didn’t turn a hair. Merely paused, while contemplating his crossed thumbs.

‘Of course. But I’m not going to give you any names unless you force me to by violent means.’

‘So you think you are above the law?’

‘There’s more than one law, Chief Inspector.’

‘Rubbish.’

Van Veeteren leaned back in his chair and fumbled in his breast pocket for a toothpick. Found one, held it up to the light and inspected it for a moment, then inserted it into his lower teeth. Yellinek observed his shenanigans with undisguised scepticism.

‘So you are suggesting that I should accept your word?’

There was a glint of something yellow in the depths of the prophet’s beard. Possibly a smile.

‘Yes. That’s what I’m suggesting.’

‘I want to speak to one of the girls. Several of them, in fact.’

Yellinek raised a finger and shook his head.

‘We don’t allow them to do anything that isn’t in their programme. It’s important that they are left alone during this time.’

Van Veeteren took out the toothpick.

‘Are you saying that you keep them incommunicado for seven weeks?’

‘You don’t understand what this is all about, Chief Inspector. It’s sometimes necessary to protect the spiritual. Not to expose it to the bumps and bashes of everyday life. It’s absolutely essential at this stage of their education.’

‘So you are refusing to let me speak to any of them? Just for a couple of minutes?’

‘It’s so easy to undermine what has been built up over a long period. I know this might sound harsh, Chief Inspector, but you have to understand that we mean well. We believe in what we are doing. We are practising our religion – it’s easy to mock and pour scorn upon us, but we have a legal right. Since you seem to be so obsessed by rights and the law . . .’

He looked at the clock. Van Veeteren replaced the toothpick. Five seconds passed.

‘And those telephone calls?’ he wondered. ‘That anonymous woman who insists that one of the girls has been murdered – what do you have to say about that?’

‘Malevolence,’ said Yellinek without hesitation. ‘This isn’t the first time we’ve been accused, Chief Inspector. We’ve been through this before, as I’ve said.’

Van Veeteren thought that over.

‘What about the women?’ he said. ‘Your assistants. If I were to grab one of them and chat to her for a while – would that reduce your spiritual palace to ruins?’

‘Of course not,’ said Yellinek. ‘I have to leave you now. It’s time for prayers. If you stay put here, I’ll send one of them in to you.’

He left the room. Van Veeteren closed his eyes and clenched his fists. After a while he clasped his hands instead.

What a load of crap, he thought. Oh lord, give me strength!

He made up his mind on the drive back.

Not to start more intensive investigations and not to shoot and sink Yellinek’s spiritual longboat, but to stay in Sorbinowo for another day.

Perhaps just one. Perhaps several.

For there was something. It wasn’t clear what, but hidden away somewhere in this story – which presumably wasn’t a story at all – was something that reminded him of . . . Hmm, what did it remind him of?

He didn’t know. The underhand and unmotivated sacrifice of a peasant? A monster concealed inside stupidity? Why not?

Or was it just his imagination? The woman he had spoken to for ten minutes was the one who had come to escort him from his car. She introduced herself as Sister Madeleine, and didn’t have much to say over and above what Yellinek had told him already.

Except that she had been a member of the Pure Life from the very start. Unlike Sisters Ulriche and Mathilde, who had joined rather later.

That the group was a collective, but that Yellinek was their spiritual leader.

That her life had changed eleven years ago, and since then she had lived in enlightenment and purity.

That the three sisters shared all the chores at the camp; that the girls – all twelve of them – were still wandering around in the dark, but were on their way towards the light, and everything was in the hands of God.

And in Oscar Yellinek’s.

Also that all these things were beyond the chief inspector’s comprehension, because he was not initiated.

Van Veeteren spat out an ill-treated toothpick through the driver’s window and chanted a long sequence of curses to himself. Tried to identify the dark suspicion that had been lurking deep down inside him ever since he backed out from between the pine trees.

All the time, in fact. While he was talking to Yellinek. While he’d been sitting waiting, and watched the girls walking in neat formation back from their bathing expedition. While he’d been listening to Sister Madeleine’s pious outpourings.

He eventually realized that it was probably a question of being unable to do anything about it. Impotence.

Pure, unadulterated impotence.

He made a supreme effort to suppress it, and lit a cigarette instead.

There are too many ingredients in this soup, he decided. Far too many. I don’t even know if it is a soup.

Anyway, time to stop thinking, he decided a few moments later. I’m just rambling on. Like some damned television personality.

‘Word for word?’ asked Kluuge, puckering up his brow. The chief inspector noted that it was quite a high brow with room for rather a lot of creases, and decided that he must not underestimate what was behind it.

‘Preferably,’ he said. ‘As accurately as you can remember, in any case.’

‘The first time she just said that a girl had disappeared,’ Kluuge explained. ‘And that we must do something about it. The second time she added a bit more detail.’

‘What?’

‘Well, she maintained that we hadn’t done anything. Said she might bring in the press, and that they might murder somebody else . . .’

‘Murder?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re sure she used that word?’

‘Absolutely.’

Kluuge nodded several times, to remove any possible doubt.

‘Anything else?’ asked the chief inspector.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Age?’

‘Hard to say. Somewhere between forty and fifty but I’m not sure . . . Could be older. Voices are not my strong point.’

‘What did she sound like?’

‘Like I said. She spoke quietly, especially the first time . . . Sounded very serious anyway, as if she really meant what she was saying. That’s why I concluded that I ought to call the chief inspector.’

‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Have you got any more information about that sect?’

Kluuge scratched nervously at his neck.

‘I’ve spoken to colleagues in Stamberg. They promised to gather together a bit of information and fax it over, but nothing’s come yet.’

Van Veeteren nodded.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll go back to my hotel – you can let me know if anything turns up. I’ll be staying on here for a few more days, no matter what.’