Münster had been apprehensive, of course, and when he returned to his car after about half an hour he saw immediately that Bart had disappeared.

A cold shudder ran down his spine as he stood on the pavement wondering what the hell he should do; and, of course, that was the intention. Bart's disheveled head suddenly appeared in the back window-he had been lying on the floor hidden under a blanket, and his broadly grinning face left no doubt about the fact that he considered it an unusually successful joke.

“You really looked shit scared!” he announced in glee.

“You little bastard,” said Münster. “Would you like a hamburger?”

“And a Coke,” said Bart.

Münster drove toward the center of town in search of a suitable establishment for the provision of such goods, and decided that his son would have to grow several years older before it was appropriate to take him along on a similar assignment.

“There's an in-depth article about your case in the Allgemejne today” said Winnifred Lynch. “Have you read it?”

“No,” said Reinhart. “Why should I do that?”

“They try to make a profile of the perpetrator.”

Reinhart snorted.

“You can make a perpetrator profile only in the case of a serial killer. And even then it's a decidedly dodgy method. But it sounds good in the press, of course. They can write and make up stories about murderers who don't exist. A green flag for any fantasies you like. Much more fun than reality naturally.”

Winnifred Lynch folded up the newspaper.

“Isn't it a serial killer, then?”

Reinhart looked hard at her over the edge of his book.

“If we go and take a bath, I can tell you a bit more about it.”

“Good that you have such a big bathtub,” commented Winnifred ten minutes later. “If I do take you on, it'll be because of the bathtub. So don't imagine anything else. Okay?”

“The murderer?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don't know,” said Reinhart, sinking down further into the bubbles. “Of course it's possible that there's going to be a series, but it's almost impossible to judge after only two. And then, what kind of a series is it? Continue this series of numbers: one, four… then what? There are all kinds of possibilities.”

“And the former National Servicemen have nothing useful to say?”

Reinhart shook his head.

“I don't think so. Not the ones I spoke to, in any case. But the key might well be there somewhere, even so. It's so damned easy to hide something, if you want to. If there's something you don't want stirred up, then all you do is say nothing about it. It was thirty years ago, after all…”

He leaned his head against the edge of the bath and thought for a while.

“It's going to be extremely difficult to solve this case, no matter what. If there are no more after these two, that is. There's a bit of difference in the work input, I can assure you.”

“What do you mean?”

Reinhart cleared his throat.

“Well, hypothetically Let's say I make up my mind to kill somebody, anybody at all. I get up at three o'clock on a Tuesday morning. I get dressed in dark clothes, hide my face, go out and find a suitable place, and wait. Then I shoot the first person to come past and go home.”

“Using a silencer.”

“Using a silencer. Or I stab him with a knife. What chance is there of my being found out?”

“Not a lot.”

“Next to none. But if I do it even so, how many working hours do you think it costs the police? Compared with the hour it took me.”

Winnifred nodded. Stuck her right foot into Reinhart's armpit and started wiggling her toes.

“That's nice,” said Reinhart. “When war breaks out, can't we just come here and lie like this?”

“By all means,” said Winnifred. “But what about a motive? That's what you're getting at, I take it?”

“Exactly,” said Reinhart. “It's because of this imbalance that we have to look for a motive. A single thought on the right lines can save thousands of working hours. So you can see why I'm such a trump card at the police station.”

She laughed.

“I can imagine it. But you haven't had that thought on the right lines in this case, is that it?”

“Not yet,” said Reinhart.

He found the soap and started lathering her legs.

“I think it's a wronged woman,” said Winnifred after a while.

“I know that's what you think.”

He thought for half a minute.

“Would you be able to fire those other two shots?”

She thought about it.

“No. Not now. But I don't think it's impossible. You can be driven to it. It's hardly inexplicable, let's face it. On the contrary, in fact.”

“A madwoman who goes around shooting the willies off all men? With good reason?”

“For specific reasons,” said Winnifred. “Specific causes. And not just any old willies.”

“Perhaps she's not mad, either?” said Reinhart.

“Depends on how you look at it, I suppose. She's been wronged, as I said. Affronted, perhaps… No, let's change the subject, this is making me feel unwell.”

“Me too,” said Reinhart. “Shall I do the other leg as well?”

“Yes, do that,” said Winnifred Lynch.

Van Veeteren had arranged to meet Renate for a while on Sunday afternoon, but when he got up at eleven o'clock, he was pleased to discover that his cold had gotten so much worse that he had a perfectly good excuse for canceling the meeting. All his respiratory passages seemed to be blocked by something thick and slimy and more or less impenetrable, and the only way in which he could breathe at all was by walking around with his mouth wide open. For a few painful seconds he observed what this procedure looked like in the hall mirror, and he recognized that today was one of those days when he ought not to force his presence on another human being.

Not even an ex-wife.

It was bad enough putting up with himself, and the day progressed in a fashion reminiscent of a seal traveling through a desert. At about ten in the evening he slumped over the kitchen table with his feet in a bubbling footbath and a terry towel draped over his head-in the vain hope that the steam from an aromatic concoction in a saucepan would banish the slime in his frontal cavities. It certainly had an effect: fluid poured out from every orifice, and he was covered in sweat.

Bugger this for a lark, he thought.

And then the telephone rang.

Van Veeteren recalled Reinhart's early morning call the other day and formed a rapid but logical conclusion: if I didn't wish to receive any calls, I ought to have pulled out the plug.

I haven't pulled out the plug, and therefore I'd better answer.

“Hello. Enso Faringer here.”

For a few blank seconds he hadn't the slightest idea who Enso Faringer was.

“We met down at Freddy's and talked about Maasleitner.”

“Yes, of course. What do you want?”

“You said I should give you a call if I remembered anything.”

“And?”

“I've remembered something.”

Van Veeteren sneezed.

“Excuse me?”

“It was nothing. What have you remembered?”

“Well, I remember Maasleitner talking about that music.”

“What music?”

“Somebody had telephoned him over and over again, and played him a tune, it seems.”

“A tune?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. It had annoyed him, in any case.”

A diffuse memory began to stir in the back of the chief inspector's brain.

“Hang on a minute. What kind of music was it?”

“I don't know. He never said what it was-I don't think he knew.”

“But why did this person call him? What was the point?”

“He didn't know. That's what irritated him.”

“Was it a man or a woman?”

“I don't think he said. I think it was just music, all the time.”

Van Veeteren thought for a moment.

“When exactly was this?”