A few hours later a handful of passengers had contacted the police, but what they had to say was hardly of significance. It sounded more like a collection of irrelevant details and guesses, and there were therefore grounds for believing that the train line (as Reinhart insisted on calling it) was not very promising.

By three o'clock, the officers in charge of the investigation were beginning to show the strain. They had spent the day in two rooms, Van Veeteren's and Münster's offices, which were next to each other, and the piles of paper and empty coffee mugs had increased steadily for six hours.

“Hell's bells,” said Reinhart. “Here's another call from the old witch who's seen our woman in Bossingen and Linzhuisen and Oosterbrügge. Now she's seen her in church at Loewingen as well.”

“We ought to have a better map,” said deBries. “With flag pins or something. I think we've had several tips from Aarlach, for instance. It would make things easier…”

“You and Rooth can fix one,” said Van Veeteren. “Go to your office so that you don't disturb us.”

DeBries finished off his Danish pastry and went to fetch Rooth.

“This is a real bugger of a job, sheer drudgery,” said Reinhart.

“I know,” said Van Veeteren. “No need to remind me.”

“I'm beginning to think she's the most observed woman in the whole country. They've seen her everywhere, for Christ's sake. In restaurants, at football matches, parking lots, cemeteries… in taxicabs, buses, shops, the movies…”

Van Veeteren looked up.

“Hang on,” he said. “Say that again!”

“What?” asked Reinhart.

“All those places you chanted.”

“What the hell for?”

Van Veeteren made a dismissive gesture.

“Forget it. Cemeteries…”

He picked up the telephone and called the duty officer. “Klempje? Get hold of Constable Klaarentoft without delay! Yes, I want him here in my office.”

“Now what are you onto?” asked Reinhart.

For once things went smoothly and half an hour later Klaa rentoft stuck his head around the door after knocking tentatively.

“You wanted to speak to me, Chief Inspector?”

“The photographs!” said Van Veeteren.

“What photographs?” wondered Klaarentoft, who took an average of a thousand a week.

“From the cemetery, of course! Ryszard Malik's burial. I want to look at them.”

“All of them?”

“Yes. Every damned one.”

Klaarentoft was beginning to look bewildered.

“You've still got them, I hope?”

“Yes, but they've only been developed. I haven't printed them out yet.”

“Klaarentoft,” said Van Veeteren, pointing threateningly with a toothpick. “Go down to the lab this minute and print them! I want them here within an hour.”

“Er, yes, of course, will do,” stammered Klaarentoft, and hurried out.

“If you can do it more quickly, so much the better!” yelled the chief inspector after him.

Reinhart stood up and lit his pipe.

“Impressive issuing of orders,” he said. “Do you think she was there, or what are you after?”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“Just a feeling.”

“Feelings can be helpful at times,” said Reinhart, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “How are Jung and Moreno doing, incidentally? With Innings and that Friday evening, I mean.”

“I don't know,” said Van Veeteren. “They've found the right place, it seems, but not whoever was with him.”

“And what's Heinemann doing?”

“He's in his office nosying into bank-account details, apparently,” said Van Veeteren. “Just as well, this would be a bit much for him.”

“It's starting to be a bit much for me as well, to tell you the truth,” said Reinhart, flopping back down on his chair. “I have to say I'd prefer her to come here in person and give herself up. Can't we put that request in the next press release?”

There was a knock on the door. Münster came in and perched on the edge of the desk.

“Something occurred to me,” he said. “This woman can hardly be older than forty That means she would have been ten at most when they were at the Staff College…”

“I know,” muttered Van Veeteren.

Reinhart scratched his face with the stem of his pipe.

“And what are you trying to say in view of that?”

“Well,” said Münster, “I thought you'd be able to work that out for yourself.”

It took Klaarentoft less than forty minutes to produce the photographs, and when he had put them on Van Veeteren's desk he lingered in the doorway, as if waiting for a reward of some kind. A coin, a candy, a few grateful and complimentary words at least. The chief inspector grabbed hold of the pictures, but Reinhart had noticed the hesitant giant.

“Hmm,” he said.

Van Veeteren looked up.

“Well done, Klaarentoft,” he said. “Very good. I don't think we need you anymore today.”

“Thank you, Chief Inspector,” said Klaarentoft, and left.

Van Veeteren leafed through the shiny photographs.

“Here!” he bellowed suddenly. “And here! I'll be damned!”

He skimmed quickly through the rest.

“Come here, Reinhart! Just look at these! That's her, all right.”

Reinhart leaned over the desk and studied the pictures of a woman in a dark beret and light overcoat tending a grave not far from Malik's; one was in profile, the other almost full face. They were evidently taken with only a short interval between: the photographer had simply changed his position. She was standing by the same grave and seemed to be reading what it said on the rough, partly moss-covered stone. Slightly bent, and one hand holding back a plant.

“Yes,” said Reinhart. “That's her, by God.”

Van Veeteren grabbed the telephone and called the duty officer.

“Has Klaarentoft left yet?”

“No.”

“Stop him when he appears, and send him back up here,” he said, and hung up.

Two minutes later Klaarentoft appeared in the doorway again.

“Good,” said Van Veeteren. “I need enlargements of these two, can you do that?”

Klaarentoft took the pictures and looked at them.

“Of course,” he said. “Is it…”

“Well?”

“Is it her? Maria Adler?”

“You can bet your life it is,” said Reinhart.

“I thought there was something odd about her.”

“He has a keen nose,” said Reinhart when Klaarentoft had left.

“Yes indeed,” said Van Veeteren. “He took twelve pictures of the clergyman as well. We'd better arrest him right away.”

“At last,” said Reinhart when he snuggled down behind Win-nifred Lynch in the bath. “It's been a bastard of a day. What have you done?”

“Read a book,” said Winnifred.

“A book? What's that?” said Reinhart.

She laughed.

“How's it going? I take it you haven't caught her?”

“No,” said Reinhart. “More than thirteen hundred tips, but we don't know where she is or who she is. It's a bugger. I thought we might even solve it today.”

“Hmm,” said Winnifred, leaning back against his chest. “All she needs is a wig. No suspicions, even?”

“She's probably gone northward,” said Reinhart. “She might have taken a train. We'll be talking to a guy tomorrow who thinks he might have been in the same coach as she was. He rang just before I left.”

“Any more?”

Reinhart shrugged.

“I don't know. We don't know about the motive, either.”

She thought for a moment.

“You remember I said it would be a woman?”

“Yes, yes,” said Reinhart, with a trace of irritation.

“A wronged woman.”

“Yes.”

She stroked his thigh with her fingers.

“There are many ways of wronging a woman, but one is infallible.”

“Rape?”

“Yes.”

“She was ten years old at most when they left the Staff College,” said Reinhart. “Can't be more than forty now-what do you think…?”

“No, hardly,” said Winnifred. “Awful, but there's something of that sort in the background, believe me.”

“Could well be,” said Reinhart. “Can't you look a bit deeper into your crystal ball and tell me where she's hiding as well? No, let's forget this for a while. What was the book you read?”