The Strangler's Honeymoon (42 page)

‘Yes!’ exclaimed Goscinski. ‘I’ve got it!’

He hammered away at his forehead with his fist a few times, as if to emphasize that the machinery was still well oiled and in good working order.

‘Excellent,’ said Rooth again. ‘This is what we’d hoped for. But what exactly does it signify?’

‘The Succulents,’ said Goscinski.

‘The Succu-whats?’ said Rooth.

‘Yes indeed,’ said Goscinski, sounding very pleased with himself, emptying his cup in one gulp and twirling the pin of the badge. ‘Of course it’s them, by Christ! I actually dealt with the order, but they were made up at the Glinders factory in Frigge. Fifty-six or fifty-seven, if my memory serves me rightly. Two thousand badges. Payment in cash on delivery.’

‘What are the Succulents?’ asked Jung calmly.

Goscinski snorted.

‘God only knows. Some association or other. At the university. Something to do with the Freemasons, I assume, but I don’t really know what they got up to.’

‘Some kind of university society?’ said Rooth.

‘Yes. They were ordered by a dean or somebody like that in the Theology Department. A man of the cloth. I don’t remember his name, but that’s how it was in any case. Why are you so interested in this thing?’

Jung exchanged looks with Rooth. One of the cats jumped up onto the table and started to lick Goscinki’s cup clean.

‘It’s a long story,’ said Rooth vaguely. ‘We can get in touch with you again if you’d like to know how it goes . . . Or if we need some more information. I assume we can get the information we need from the university. From the registry, perhaps?’

‘No doubt,’ said Goscinski. ‘From the bloody pen-pushers. But put your heart and soul into it. What’s the weather like out there?”

‘Grey and wet,’ said Rooth. ‘And windy. As usual.’

‘I’ll be going out again in April,’ said Goscinski, glancing sceptically out of the window. ‘Around the fifteenth, or thereabouts. Was there anything else you wanted to know, while you’re lounging around here?’

‘No,’ said Rooth. ‘Thank you for your help. The Succulents are exactly what we wanted to know about.’

‘Okay,’ said Goscinski. ‘Be off with you, then. It’s time for my afternoon nap.’

They paused for a while in Wickerstraat before going their different ways.

‘What do you think about that?’ wondered Jung. ‘The Succulents? What on earth are they when they’re at home?’

‘I don’t think anything at all yet,’ said Rooth. ‘But that was the worst bloody coffee I’ve ever drunk in all my life, no doubt about that. Still, we did what we had to do in just one afternoon. I reckon we’ve earned a lie-in tomorrow morning. What do you say to that?’

‘I agree entirely,’ said Jung. ‘Shall we say we’ll turn up at about ten?’

‘Make it half past,’ said Rooth.

39

It was Saturday morning before Chief Inspector Reinhart was able to arrange an audience with one of the pro-vice-chancellors of Maardam University. In the meantime he managed to work up an impressive amount of anger.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Winnifred as they were eating breakfast in bed. ‘You’ve been grinding your teeth all night.’

‘They’re a lot of halfwitted bloody idiots,’ said Reinhart. ‘There are people in the university administration who would be locked up in a loony bin if they weren’t allowed to prance and strut around and collect a fat salary in Academe.’

Winnifred looked at him with an expression of mild surprise for a few seconds.

‘I’m well aware of that,’ she said. ‘I also work in the talent factory, remember? It’s not something to grind your teeth about.’

‘They’re my teeth,’ said Reinhart. ‘I’ll grind them as much as I like.’

He turned his head to look at the clock.

‘Anyway, it’s time I was off. Professor Kuurtens, is that somebody you know?’

Winnifred thought hard.

‘I don’t think so. What’s his field?’

‘Political science, if I heard rightly. Bone idle.’

Winnifred shook her head and went back to her newspaper.

‘Say goodbye to Joanna before you go.’

Reinhart paused on his way to the bathroom.

‘Have I ever forgotten to say goodbye to my daughter?’

He could hear her chatting away to herself through the open door of the nursery, and noticed that he relaxed his cheek muscles when he started thinking about her. Presumably what his wife had said was true: he really had been grinding his teeth all night.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor Kuurtens, he thought, you’d better tread extremely carefully.

Kuurtens received him in an office on the third floor of the registry. Reinhart estimated the ceiling height at four metres, and the floor space at about seventy square metres. Apart from a few freestanding columns in black granite with headless busts on top, a display cupboard from the seventeenth or eighteenth century and a few drab oil paintings depicting long-dead pro-vice-chancellors, there was really only one item of furniture in the room: a gigantic desk made of a black wood Reinhart reckoned was probably ebony, with a high-backed red armchair on each long side.

In one of them sat Professor Kuurtens, gazing out over the world and the empty desk as he slowly and deliberately wrote a few gems of words with a priceless fountain pen on a sheet of hammered white paper.

Reinhart sat down in the other one without waiting to be invited.

A hint of a sneer formed on the professor’s face, which was highly aristocratic in appearance. A classic Greek nose. A high forehead that disappeared under an Olympian mass of greying curls. Deep-set eyes and a firm, trust-inspiring jaw.

An immaculate grey suit, an ivory-white shirt and a dark-red tie.

He’s been given the job on the basis of his looks, Reinhart thought. He’s as thick as three sawn planks.

‘Welcome, Chief Inspector.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Or should I address you as Detective Chief Inspector?’

‘My name’s Reinhart,’ said Reinhart. ‘I haven’t come here to be addressed, nor to play cricket.’

‘Hmm,’ said the professor, glancing at his wristwatch. ‘I can give you fifteen minutes. Cricket?’

‘A metaphor,’ Reinhart explained. ‘But never mind that. The Succulents, what are they when they’re at home?’

Pro-Vice-Chancellor Kuurtens screwed off the cap of his fountain pen, then screwed it back on again.

‘I think I must ask you to enlighten me somewhat more on the circumstances before we proceed any further,’ he said.

‘Murder,’ said Reinhart. ‘Now you are enlightened. Well?’

‘I would not say that was an adequate enlightenment,’ said Kuurtens, clasping his hands over the sheet of paper. ‘If you bear in mind that Maardam University has been in existence for over five hundred years, I trust you will understand that I must protect values that cannot be swept aside as casually as that.’

‘What the hell are you babbling on about?’ asked Reinhart, regretting that he hadn’t brought his pipe with him: it would have been an ideal moment just now to envelope this overweening prat in a thick cloud of tobacco smoke.

‘Might I beg you to adopt a more seemly tone of conversational discourse.’

‘All right,’ said Reinhart. ‘But if you are so simple-minded as to claim that this university has had nothing at all to hide for several hundred years, you are doing your Alma Mater a disservice, as you must surely realize. Anyway, the Succulents. Let’s hear about them. I don’t have unlimited time at my disposal either.’

The professor leaned back in his chair and adopted an expression of deep thought. Reinhart waited.

‘An association,’ he said in the end.

‘Thank you,’ said Reinhart. ‘More details, please.’

‘Statutes from 1757. An association of scholars active in various faculties of the university, with the aim of promoting research and progress.’

‘Why the name “Succulents”?’

Kuurtens shrugged.

‘The original founders of the association were biologists. The title was a reference to an ability to reproduce and persist over a long period of time – applied to knowledge, for instance. But perhaps you don’t—’

‘I understand,’ said Reinhart. ‘So we’re talking about freemasons, are we?’

‘There are no freemasons any longer.’

‘That’s an assertion open to discussion. But I’m talking about those days.’

Kuurtens paused and contemplated his fountain pen.

‘Sort of.’

‘And the Succulents have continued to exist ever since then, have they?’

‘Continuously.’

‘With a red S against a green background as their symbol?’

The professor moved his head in a way vaguely reminiscent of the shape of a banana. A combination of affirmation and protest.

‘Yes, although it’s a comparatively recent invention. Quite late in the twentieth century.’

‘I see,’ said Reinhart. ‘And how many members are there today?’

‘About a hundred.’

‘Men and women?’

‘Men only.’

‘And you are a member yourself ?’

‘It is forbidden to inform outsiders with regard to membership.’

‘How can you know that if you’re not a member?’

Professor Kuurtens did not reply. As I said, Reinhart thought: he’s not exactly Nobel prizewinner material.

‘I happen to know that you are a senior member of the Succulents, and I take it for granted that you will allow me to take a look at the membership list. Right now, I can’t see any objections to that.’

‘But that’s . . . That is out of the question!’ exclaimed Professor Kuurtens. ‘Do you think you can come barging in here and demand to look at . . . at whatever you like?’

Reinhart crossed his arms.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what I think. If you happen to have a lawyer among your band of fellow-travellers, he will doubtless be able to explain to you that I have every right to – as you so neatly put it – come barging in.’

The professor stared at him for a moment, then put the fountain pen in his breast pocket and sat up straight.

‘I have no intention of handing over to you a list of members,’ he said belligerently. ‘The Succulents are a totally independent organization and have no official links with the university. This is not my pigeon.’

Reinhart eyed him severely and slowly shook his head.

‘Don’t be silly now,’ he said. ‘Don’t behave like an academic jackass. We’re talking about murderers, not pigeons. I’ll give you five minutes in which to sort yourself out and be reasonable. If you continue to be uncooperative, I’ll have you collected by a police car and arrested for obstructing a murder investigation. Is that clear?’

The pro-vice-chancellor turned pale.

‘You . . . You are exceeding your authority,’ he muttered.

‘That’s not impossible,’ Reinhart admitted, ‘but I don’t think so. In any case, it would be worth the trouble of shoving you into the back seat of one of our police cars – and I think I’d take the opportunity of having a chat with one of our local newspapers first. Can you imagine the headlines on the front page? Have you ever tried handcuffs, by the way?’

Now I’ve gone too far, he thought. But Professor Kuurtens looked appropriately pale as a result of the seriousness of the situation, and the hair-raising images that had been suggested to him. He sat motionless and straight-backed for half a minute while wringing his hands over the white sheet of paper on his desk. Reinhart began to feel deeply satisfied.

He looks like a plaster cast, he thought. It would be possible to put his skull on top of one of those headless busts, in fact. It would be most appropriate. I don’t think I’m going to need to grind my teeth tonight.

‘Let’s see now,’ said Pro-Vice-Chancellor Kuurtens in the end. ‘If you give me a few more details, perhaps we can reach a solution . . .’

‘There’s not much more I can say,’ said Reinhart patiently. ‘In the course of murder investigation we have come across a membership badge of the Succulents. One of your colleagues told me on the phone that these badges were made in 1957, and were given to new members as they enrolled.’

‘Which colleague was it who told you that?’

‘That’s not something you should worry about,’ said Reinhart. ‘But the bottom line is that this membership badge plays a significant role in our investigation, and that’s why I need a copy of your current membership list. I can’t tell you any more than that, I’m afraid.’

Kuurtens swallowed a few times, and kept glancing up at the stucco decorations.

‘Well, those badges . . .’ he said. ‘They haven’t been all that significant. As you said, they were made in 1957 – for our bicentenary year. And, as you also said, every member receives one when he’s elected as a member.’

‘How do you elect them?’

‘On the basis of recommendations. There must be at least three recommendations from at least three existing members.’

How many per year?’

‘Not many. Half a dozen at most. And applicants have to have a doctorate as well, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Reinhart. ‘Well, have you made your mind up yet? If you want to avoid being up to the ears in a scandal, I suggest that you should produce that membership list. You can probably imagine what the media would make of it if you – a semi-secret gang of freemasons in the academic world – were exposed as being involved in a murder investigation . . . I can tell you that it’s not just a matter of one victim, but several. And if you make things worse by refusing to cooperate . . . well . . .’

Professor Kuurtens took two deep breaths then stood up. Held onto the desk just in case . . .

‘I don’t like your methods,’ he said in a feeble attempt to sound uncooperative. ‘I really don’t approve of them at all. But you leave me with no choice, I’m afraid. If you come with me to my office, I’ll give you a copy of our membership list. I assume you will treat it with maximum discretion.’

‘Discretion is one of my strongest sides,’ said Reinhart. ‘Let’s go. So you have an office as well? What exactly is this room, then?’

‘This is what’s called an Audi – a reception room,’ said Kuurtens. ‘It’s been used as such ever since 1842 when this building came into use. Yes, indeed.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ agreed Reinhart, following the pro-vice-chancellor down the stairs.