The Inspector and Silence Read Online Free

of paper on his desk.
    ‘Fair enough,’ said Münster. ‘I’ll be incommunicado from Monday onwards anyway.’
    The chief inspector inserted a new toothpick and clasped his hands behind his head.
    ‘It would be good if a nice little two-week case were to crop up now,’ he said. ‘Preferably away from town, something I could sort out on my own.’
    ‘I bet it would,’ said Münster.
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘I bet it would be nice,’ said Münster.
    ‘And what exactly do you mean by that?’
    ‘Nothing special,’ said Münster. ‘Something by the seaside, perhaps?’
    Van Veeteren thought it over.
    ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘No. I’ll be damned if somewhere by a little lake wouldn’t be preferable. I’ll be off to the Med after that anyway . . . Do you happen to have your racket handy?’
    Münster sighed.
    ‘Of course. But isn’t it a bit on the hot side for that?’
    ‘Hot?’ snorted Van Veeteren. ‘On Crete the average temperature at this time of year is forty degrees. At least. So, shall we get going?’
    ‘All right, since you asked me so nicely.’ Münster sighed again, leaving the window.
    ‘I’ll treat you to a beer afterwards,’ Van Veeteren assured him generously. He stood up and made a couple of practice shots. ‘If you win, that is,’ he added.
    ‘I think I can say thank you for the beer in advance,’ said Münster.
    He’s in an unusually good mood, he thought as they took the lift down to the garage. Almost human. Something absolutely extraordinary must have happened to him today.
    Spili, the chief inspector was thinking at the same time. The source of youth . . . half an hour up the mountain in a hired car from Rethymnon . . . the wind blowing through her hair, and all that.
    Why not?
    And then Krantze’s antiquarian bookshop.

4
     
    From a purely physical point of view, the morning of 18 July was perfect.
    The sky was cloudless, the air clear and still cool; the dark water of the lake was mirror-like, and Sergeant Merwin Kluuge completed his run round the alder-lined shore, nearly seven kilometres, in a new record time: 26 minutes and 55 seconds.
    He paused to get his breath back down by the marina, did a few stretching exercises then jogged gently up to the terraced house, where he took a shower, and woke up his blonde-haired wife by carefully and lovingly caressing her stomach, inside which she had been carrying the fruit and aspirations of his life for the past six months.
    The terraced house was even more recent. Barely eight weeks had passed since they had moved in – with the kind assistance of his parents-in-law’s savings; and he was still overcome by feelings of innocent wonder when he woke up in the mornings. When he put his feet on the wine-red wall-to-wall carpet in the bedroom. When he tiptoed from room to room and stroked the embossed wallpaper and pine panelling, which still exuded a whiff of newly sawn timber hinting at unimaginable possibilities and well-deserved success. And whenever he watered the flower beds or mowed the little lawn flanked by the trees, he could not help but feel warm and genuine gratitude to life itself.
    Without warning, everything had suddenly fallen into place. They had been shunted onto a bright and sun-soaked new track, with himself and Deborah as the only carriages of any significance in a solidly built and smooth-running train heading into the future. All loose ends had been tied together when it became clear that Deborah was pregnant – or rather when that fact became public knowledge. They had married two weeks later, and now, on this lovely summer morning, when Merwin Kluuge toyed gently with the soft – and to the naked eye almost invisible – hairs on his wife’s rounded stomach, he was filled with a sensation bordering on the religious.
    ‘Tea or coffee?’ he asked softly.
    ‘Tea,’ she replied without opening her eyes. ‘You know I haven’t touched a drop of coffee for three months now. Why do you ask?’
    Oh yes, of course,