Van Veeteren nodded.

“Have you any cigarettes?”

Reinhart shook his head.

“Afraid not.”

“Never mind. Just a few more questions, so that I know I'm not barking up the wrong tree. If it really is just a small group that the killer is after, Innings must have known that his turn would be coming. Or suspected it, at least. Isn't that right?”

“Yes,” said Reinhart. “Especially if he was going to be the last one.”

Van Veeteren thought about that for a few seconds.

“And must have known who the killer is?”

“Who's behind it all, in any case. A slight difference again.”

“Is there any possibility do you think, that Innings wouldn't recognize one of the group?”

Reinhart lit his pipe and thought that one over.

“They haven't seen one another for thirty years,” he said. “We know what they all look like nowadays, but they don't. They may just have that old photograph to go on… And their memories, of course.”

“Go on,” said Van Veeteren.

“Even so, I think I'd recognize the blokes I did National Service with. Without any trouble at all, in fact.”

“Same here,” said the chief inspector. “Especially if I'd been prepared for it. So, conclusion?”

Reinhart puffed away at his pipe. “If we're talking about a small group,” he said, “then the murderer is an outsider. It could be a contract killer, of course, but I think that's hardly likely.”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“Yes,” said Reinhart. “As I've said before, I'm inclined to think that the murderer is a woman, and as far as I know, there isn't a woman in the group.”

“You're sometimes bloody brilliant at observing things,” said the chief inspector.

“Thank you. There's one thing we mustn't forget, though.”

“What's that?”

“There's nothing to stop it being a woman who intends to kill the whole lot of 'em.”

“There's nothing much to stop a woman doing anything at all,” sighed Van Veeteren. “Apart from us. Shall we get this thing solved now, then?”

“Let's. It's about time,” said Reinhart.

The distance to Loewingen, the latest murder scene, was not much more than thirty kilometers, and as he settled down in the car, he regretted that it wasn't a bit farther. A few hours' driving wouldn't have done him any harm; even when he got up, he'd felt the unfulfilled need for a long and restful journey. Preferably through a gray, rain-sodden landscape, just like this one. Hours in which to think things over.

But in fact it was minutes instead-he managed to stretch it to half an hour by taking the alternative route via Borsens and Penderdixte, where he had spent a few summers as a seven- or eight-year-old.

There were two reasons why he had postponed his visit until Friday. In the first place, Münster and Rooth had already spoken to Ulrike Fremdli and the three teenagers on Wednesday evening, and it might be a good idea not to give the impression that the police were hounding them every day. And in the second place, he'd had plenty to occupy himself with yesterday even so.

You could say that again. During the afternoon he and Rein-hart had addressed the delicate business of organizing protection for the as-yet-not-murdered (as Reinhart insisted on calling them).

The five living abroad were without doubt the easiest ones to sort out. After a brief discussion it was decided quite simply to leave them to their own devices. This was made clear in the letter circulated to everybody concerned, which urged them to turn to the nearest police authority in whatever country they were living in, if they felt threatened or insecure in any way.

There are limits, after all, Reinhart had said.

As for those still in the country but outside the Maardam police district, something similar applied. Reinhart spent more than three hours telephoning colleagues in various places and simply instructing them to protect Mr. So-and-So from all threats and dangers.

It was not a pleasant task, and afterward Reinhart had gone to Van Veeteren's office and requested a job with the traffic police instead. The chief inspector had rejected this request, but told Reinhart that he was welcome to throw up in the wastepaper basket if he felt the need.

It was one of those days.

In the Maardam police district there were now thirteen possible victims left, and to look after them Van Veeteren assembled-if one were to be honest-a ragbag of constables and probationers, and left it to the promising and enthusiastic Widmar Krause to instruct and organize them.

When he had done that and leaned back for a moment, Van Veeteren tried to make a snap judgment of how effective this expensive protection would really be, and concluded that if it had been a condom he'd been assessing, to put it brutally, they might just as well have gone ahead without it.

But fictitious-or simulated-protection was nevertheless preferable to nothing at all, he tried to convince himself, with covering his own back in the forefront of his mind.

Then Van Veeteren, Reinhart, and Münster spent the rest of the afternoon and evening discussing the murderer's character and identity, and working out a system for how the interviews with the as-yet-not-murdered should be conducted (and in this context as well, they decided to leave those living abroad to their own devices, at least for the time being). Increasingly frequently they were interrupted by the duty officer or Miss Katz, rushing in with so-called hot tips from the general public, which had started flowing in despite the fact that the press conference was only a few hours old.

By about eight, Reinhart had had enough.

“Fuck this for a lark!” he exclaimed, and threw away the sheet of paper he'd just read. “It's impossible to think if we have to keep beavering away like this all the time.”

“You could buy us a beer,” said Van Veeteren.

“All right. I expect you'll want cigarettes as well?”

“Just a few at most,” said the chief inspector modestly.

This was in fact what occupied his thoughts for the first half of the drive to Loewingen.

I ought not to smoke, he thought.

I drink too much beer.

Neither habit is good for me, certainly not the cigarettes. In connection with an operation for bowel cancer almost a year ago, an innocent doctor had said that an occasional glass of beer wouldn't do him any harm-Van Veeteren had immediately committed this advice to memory, and he knew that he would never forget it, even if he lived to be a hundred and ten.

Incidentally, wasn't it the case that an occasional cigarette could stimulate the thought processes?

Whatever, I ought to play badminton with Münster more often, he thought. Go out jogging now and then. If only I could get rid of this damned cold!

It was only after he'd passed the farm in Penderdixte where he'd spent some of his childhood that he changed tack and started thinking about the investigation. This accursed investigation.

Three murders.

Three men shot in cold blood.

In rather less than a month.

This last one was without doubt more than a bit rich. No matter how much he thought about it, changed the angle or reassessed it, he simply couldn't make it add up.

The questions were obvious.

Was there in fact a smaller group within the group? (“I hope to God there is!” Reinhart had let slip over a beer the previous evening; and, of course, that was significant. Reinhart was not in the habit of placing himself in the hands of the sacred.)

If not, and if the murderer was intending to kill all of them-well, they must be dealing with a lunatic. With an incomprehensible, irrational, and presumably totally mad motive. Nobody can have an acceptable (in any sense of the word) reason for killing thirty-three people, one after the other.

Not according to Chief Inspector Van Veeteren's yardstick, in any case.