The Inspector and Silence Read Free

Fremdli. When he met her the previous – and only – time, her husband had just been murdered. He made a rapid calculation and concluded it must have been in February. Last February – that chilly, godforsaken month. The blessed time of hopelessness, as Mahler used to call it. They had been sitting in an ordinary, cosy living room in an ordinary, cosy terrace house in Loewingen. He and Ulrike Fremdli, newly widowed. He had asked her the usual, clinically disconsolate questions and he had been impressed by the way in which she handled them.
    Handled both the questions and the grief and shock she must have been feeling.
    When he left her, he had realized that she was a woman he could easily have fallen in love with. Thirty years ago. At the time when he was still capable of falling in love. He had thought about it quite a lot afterwards. Yes, it certainly would have been possible.
    If he hadn’t already given away his life to somebody else, that is.
    And now she was standing here, booking a holiday. Ulrike Fremdli. Fifty and a bit, he would have thought. With her hair recently dyed even more chestnut brown.
    There were certain patterns . . .
    He took a queue ticket and sat down on the narrow tubular-steel armchair behind her, without greeting her. Of course, there was no reason to think that she would remember him as clearly as he remembered her. Or would even remember him at all, come to that. He waited. Shifted the toothpick to the right side of his mouth and tried to look as if he wasn’t listening.
    As if he were just a very ordinary customer wanting to book a package holiday. Or an unusually sweaty part of the furniture.
    But he certainly was listening. Ears cocked. At the same time he could feel a worrying sensation beginning to nag at him. Both in his gut and behind his larynx, where he had long been convinced that the soul was situated. In his case, at least.
    Because Crete was what was being discussed. As plain as a pikestaff, he’d realized that right away. The attractively sun-tanned travel agent was talking about Theseus and Ariadne and the Village of Widows. About Spili and Matala and the Samaria Gorge.
    And now about Rethymnon.
    Chief Inspector Van Veeteren gulped. Took out his handkerchief and wiped the back of his neck again. Despite the slow-moving fans whisking the air under the ceiling, it was as hot as a baking oven.
    ‘You mustn’t underestimate the currents,’ stressed the bronzed young man.
    Certainly not, Van Veeteren thought.
    ‘The Christos Hotel,’ suggested the young Adonis. ‘Simple, but well run. Situated in the middle of the old town . . . Only a minute’s walk to the Venetian harbour.’
    Ulrike Fremdli nodded. The demigod smiled.
    ‘Leaving on the first, then? Two weeks?’
    Van Veeteren felt an attack of giddiness rising up inside him. An almost pubertal feeling of dizziness. He put down the magazine and stood up quickly. I must get a breath of fresh air, he thought. Hell’s bells! I can feel a heart attack coming on.
    Out in the street he paused under a lime tree. Spat out the toothpick and bit his bottom lip hard. Confirmed that this did not wake him up, and hence he had not been dreaming.
    For Christ’s sake, he thought. I’m too old for this sort of thing.
    He bought a bottle of mineral water at the newspaper stall and drank it all in one gulp. Then paused for another minute, thinking things over. It would be silly to get carried away, he told himself.
    But it would be even sillier to ignore all the signs that are dangled in front of me. By the way, seeing as I’m here . . .
    He emerged into the sunshine again. Walked quickly and jauntily over the square and turned into Kellnerstraat. Passed by a few second-hand bookshops before stopping at the corner of Kupinski’s Alley. Wiped the sweat from his brow and looked hard at the over-full display window.
    Carefully, as if studying a poker hand.
    Yes, the notice was still there.
    Assistant required.
    Partnership a