The circumstances?

He switched off the lights. He felt at home in the darkness inside the house, and he knew that no matter what happened, he would not need a flashlight in order to find his way around. Neither indoors nor out of doors. He knew every nook and cranny. Every door and creaking stair. Every path, every bush, and every root. Every stone. Everything was in its place, had always been there, and that gave him a feeling of confidence and security-something he might have hoped for during the planning stage, but had hardly dared count on.

Anyway, the outbuilding.

He unhasped the door. Dragged the mattress up the stairs as best he could. Placed it carefully by the window. Not much headroom up there. He had to crawl, crouch down. He went back to collect pillows and blankets. It was colder in the outbuilding, there was no source of heat at all, and it was clear that he would have to wrap himself up well.

He adjusted the mattress to an optimal position under the sloping roof. Lay down, and checked it was all as he'd foreseen.

Perfect, more or less. He could look out through the slightly rippled, old-fashioned glass pane and see the gable end of the house, with both the front door and the kitchen door in his field of view. The distance was no more than six or eight meters.

He opened the window slightly. Took out the gun and stuck it out through the opening, moved it back and forth, testing. Took aim.

Would he hit her at this distance?

He thought so. Perhaps not accurately enough to kill her outright, but he would probably have time for three or four shots.

That should be sufficient. He was not a bad marksman, even though it had been several years since he'd been out with the hunting club up here.

He returned to the house. Ferried over a few more blankets and some of the provisions. The idea was that he would spend his time lying here. Spend as much time as possible in the correct position in the outbuilding loft.

He would be lying here when she came.

He would ambush her and give her the coup de grâce.

He would finish off the mad bitch once and for all through this open window.

Pure luck, he would tell the police afterward. It could just as easily have been she who got me instead… Good thing I was on my guard.

Self-defense. Of course it was self-defense, for God's sake-he didn't even need to lie.

But he would not reveal the real reason. The root of the evil. The reason he knew he was next on the list.

He had done all he could. Went back to the house and listened.

It's strange how quiet it is, he thought, and remembered that this was what he always felt here. The silence that came rolling in from the forest and obliterated every slight sound. Wiped out everything with its enormous, silent soughing.

The armies of silence, he thought. The Day of Judgment…

He checked his watch and decided to pay a visit to the inn. A short walk there and back, along the familiar road.

Just for a beer. And, maybe, the answer to a question.

Any strangers around lately?

Any new faces?

When he got back, the darkness lay thick over the house and its environs. The buildings and the scraggy fruit trees could just about be made out against the background of the forest-rather better here and there against the somewhat lighter sky over the treetops. He had drunk two beers and a whiskey. Spoken to Lippmann and Korhonen, who had charge of the bar nowadays. Not a lot of customers, of course: a normal weekday at the beginning of March. And not many strangers, not recently, either. The occasional one who had passed through and called in, but nobody who had been there more than once. Women? No, no, not as far as they could remember. Neither Lippmann nor Korhonen. Why was he asking? Oh, business reasons. Nudge, nudge. Did he really think they would swallow that? Pull the other one. Tee hee. And cheers! Good to see you back here in the village.

Homecoming.

He tiptoed over the wet grass. It hadn't rained at all this evening, but damp mists had drifted in from the coast and settled down over the open countryside bordering the forests like an unseen presence. He kept stopping and listening, but all he could hear was the same impenetrable silence as before. Nothing else. He withdrew behind the outbuilding in order to rid his body of the remnants of the beer. Carefully opened the door, which usually squeaked a bit but didn't on this occasion. He would oil it tomorrow, just in case.

Crouched down in order to negotiate the cramped staircase again, and crawled over to his bed. Fiddled around with the blankets. Wriggled in and snuggled down. Turned over on his side and peered out. The house was dark and inert down below. Not a sound. Not a movement. He slid the pistol under his pillow, and placed his hand over it. He would have to sleep lightly, of course-but then, he usually did.

Always woke up at the slightest sound or movement.

Would no doubt do that now as well.

Blankets wrapped around his body. Face close to the window-pane. Hand over the gun.

So. Bring her on.

36

“I don't know,” said the chief inspector. “It's just an opinion, but if these three were up to no good together, you'd think that at least some of the others ought to have known about it. So it's more likely that something of this sort would happen toward the end of the course. But then, that's only speculation, pure and simple.”

“Sounds reasonable, though,” said Münster.

“Anyway rapes in 1965. How many have you found?”

“Two,” said Münster.

“Two?”

“Yes. Two cases of rape reported, both of them in April. The first girl was attacked in a park, it seems. The other in an apartment in Pampas.”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“How many rapists?”

“One in the park. Two in the apartment. The pair in the apartment were sentenced, the one in the park got away with it. He was never found.”

Van Veeteren leafed through his papers.

“Do you know how many rapes have been reported so far this year?”

Münster shook his head.

“Fifty-six. Can you explain to me how the hell the number of rapes could shoot up so drastically?”

“Not rapes,” said Münster. “Reported rapes.”

“Precisely” said the chief inspector. “How do you rate the chances of tracking down a thirty-year-old unreported rape?”

“Poor,” said Münster. “How do we know it's a matter of rape anyway?”

The chief inspector sighed.

“We don't know,” he said. “But we can't just sit here twiddling our thumbs. You can have another job instead. If it gets us somewhere I'll invite you to dinner at Kraus.”

Mission Impossible, Münster thought, and so did the chief inspector, it seemed, as he cleared his throat somewhat apologetically.

“I want to know about all births registered by the mother with the father given as unknown. December ′65 to March ′66, or thereabouts. In Maardam and the surrounding district. The names of the mothers and the children.”

“Especially girls?” Münster asked.

“Only girls.”

That evening he went to the movies. Saw Tarkovsky's Nostalgia for the fourth, or possibly the fifth, time. With the same feelings of admiration and gratitude as usual. The masterpiece of masterpieces, he thought as he sat there in the half-empty cinema and allowed himself to be gobbled up by the pictures; and he suddenly thought of what the vicar had said at his confirmation service-a gentle preacher with a long white beard, and there were doubtless many in the congregation who considered him a very close relation of God the Father himself.

There is evil in this world, he had declared, but never and nowhere so much that there is no room left over for good deeds.

Not a particularly remarkable claim in itself, but it had stuck in Van Veeteren's mind and occasionally rose up to the surface.