The Stranglers Honeymoon

by Håkan Nesser

  Mind you, it didn’t work that way when she was touched, only when she was subjected to a jet of hot water: so perhaps she wasn’t all that abnormal after all.

  Whatever, she liked nothing better than to take a long shower – the longer the better. Sometimes she could almost lapse into a trance in the bathroom, to the rest of the family’s increasingly perplexed surprise. A twenty-or thirty-minute soak was nothing unusual, but eventually both the IT genius and their offspring came to terms with it. Every human being has a right to have their fundamental needs satisfied, she used to maintain, and if she were to try to overcome this harmless perversion, no doubt something much worse would turn up to replace it. The sum of one’s vices is constant.

  Besides, it wasn’t always a case of sinking into a trance. Not every time. While in the shower she could also experience an enhanced feeling of insight and clarity of thought, and very often she was able to make important decisions and solve complicated problems while in this meditative mode. Confused thinking was ironed out and irritations rinsed away. If she ever tried to work out why such remarkable things happened while she was in the shower, she usually found that the most congenial solution was that she was born under the sign of Pisces.

  The rest of her family were born under earth and air signs, and could hardly be expected to fully appreciate the significance of water.

  That evening she was in the shower a mere twenty minutes after arriving back home, and there was only one problem that occupied her thoughts as she wallowed in the hot jets of water. Only one.

  The conversation with Clara Peerenkaas.

  Without a second thought Intendent Münster had accepted her suggestion that they should renew contact with the worried parents out at Willby – which happened to be his home town, he informed her. She had rung and given notice of her arrival time, and at four o’clock she had been received in a neat, yellow-painted house on the bank of a canal in the idyllic little town on the River Gimser.

  The husband had been otherwise engaged. Inspector Sammelmerk had drunk tea and eaten biscuits while sitting on a somewhat slippery plush sofa, trying to work out what it was about fru Peerenkaas’s behaviour that disturbed her.

  Or ‘disturbed’ was too strong a word: surprised her.

  There was certainly something odd about it.

  Elusive and hard to pin down, but odd even so.

  Her worry about what might have happened to her daughter seemed to be genuine enough, there were no two ways about that. When Sammelmerk asked bluntly why the Peerenkaases had stopped telephoning the police, the reply was that they had lost heart when no progress was made. They had discussed the possibility of employing a private detective, but still hadn’t made up their minds. Instead they had been concentrating on their efforts to contain their worries and fears.

  This seemed quite a plausible explanation, Sammelmerk thought. They were religious and had received stalwart support from their parish, fru Peerenkaas maintained. Prayers were said for Ester several times a week, for instance: when one was unable to do anything concrete to solve a problem, it was a person’s duty to put his or her trust in God. Calmly and without hesitation.

  It had all sounded very convincing, and it was not until she was in the car on the way back to Maardam that Sammelmerk began to doubt the evidence of her senses. When she could contemplate what had happened from a distance, as it were.

  And now, as she stood there in the shower, it soon dawned on her what the problem was.

  She was lying.

  Somehow or other fru Peerenkaas was not telling the truth.

  God only knows about what, exactly, she thought. That could be literally true, in view of what had been said about prayers and the other world.

  But there was something wrong in any case. Fru Peerenkaas was holding something back, and had not quite been able to conceal the fact that she was doing so.

  That was the top and bottom of it.

  But what?

  What exactly had she been keeping to herself ? Sammelmerk wondered, and raised the temperature of the water by half a degree.

  It didn’t help.

  Nor did it help that she stayed in the shower for thirty-five minutes. Nor that she raised the temperature another half-degree, so that it really was at the very limit of what was bearable. Nor did it help that her youngest son came and belted on the door, wondering whether she intended to spend the whole night in there or was turning into a seal.

  Nothing helped.

  But something was wrong, she was sure of that. Fru Peerenkaas was lying about something.

  But she didn’t know what. It was maddening.

  Winnifred Lynch folded up the sheet of paper and drank the remains of her whisky.

  ‘I’m ready,’ she said.

  Van Veeteren gave a start and realized that he had almost fallen asleep. He looked at the clock. Only a few minutes had passed, but the silence had been manifest. Very manifest indeed. Like a vacuum.

  She slid the paper back across the table just as he had done. Like the final hidden card to complete a straight flush, he thought. He picked it up and unfolded it.

  ‘Who?’ he asked.

  ‘Maarten deFraan,’ she said. ‘Number two.’

  He looked at the name. Allowed a few seconds to pass while stroking his cheek. He realized that he hadn’t shaved today.

  ‘DeFraan?’ he said. ‘Are you sure?’

  It was only a name as far as he was concerned, nothing more.

  ‘If it is one of that quartet, yes. The others are impossible.’

  ‘How can you know?’

  ‘I just know.’

  He thought for a moment.

  ‘Is he a plausible candidate? Or just the least unlikely?’

  She hesitated before answering. Pressed the fingertips of each hand against one another and contemplated them.

  ‘I can . . . I can imagine him in that role. He has always made me feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘Do you know him well?’

  ‘Not at all. Remember that there are over thirty members of staff in our department. I come across him occasionally, but our offices are a long way apart. It’s mostly at meetings and suchlike.’

  ‘What do you know about him?’

  ‘Not a lot. Hardly anything. He came to the department the year before I started, I think. Was awarded the chair in English literature – there’s another chair but that’s for somebody more linguistically inclined: that’s my own field. DeFraan used to be in Aarlach, unless I’m much mistaken. He’s regarded as a big talent – it’s rare to get a chair before you’re forty.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘No. Quite close to the university, I think. But I can find out all his details from the computer, if you’d like me to.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Can you get them for me by tomorrow?’

  ‘Of course. Is one allowed to ask the oracle a question?’

  ‘The oracle will only respond to the question if he knows the answer,’ said Van Veeteren.

  ‘Fair deal,’ said Winnifred with a fleeting smile. ‘What made you narrow everything down to . . . well, to this quartet in the English Department?’

  Van Veeteren thought for a moment.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘A few somewhat vague indicators, in fact. Do you know the details of the case?’

  ‘To some extent,’ said Winnifred. ‘We’ve discussed it in the bath a few times . . . And this afternoon at the hospital, of course.’

  ‘In the bath?’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Reinhart and you?’

  ‘Yes, that’s where we have our best conversations. Hmm . . .’

  ‘I see,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Well, there was nothing special – there never is when I’m under way. It was obvious at quite an early stage that the person the police were looking for had a fair amount of literary education, and when we had a tip suggesting he was in the university world, it was j
ust a matter of finding the right faculty. And subject area. Robert Musil is what you might call public property – you don’t need to be a German language expert to know about him and his books; but that Benjamin Kerran from an obscure English criminal novel . . . coupled with T. S. Eliot at Keefer’s restaurant – well, I would suggest that settled it.’

  ‘Could well be,’ said Winnifred tentatively. ‘But it’s not a cut and dried case, surely?’

  ‘I’ve never claimed that it is,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘However, there are eleven of your colleagues who are members of the Succulent society. Seven could be excluded on the grounds of their age. But as you say, they are by no means indisputable observations. And bear in mind that we are talking about a method, nothing more than that: the possible margins of error border on the grandiose. The moment I discover deFraan has nothing to hide, we can forget the whole business and no harm will have been done . . . Incidentally, do you happen to know his area of special expertise?’

  Winnifred thought for a moment, and he could see that a penny had suddenly dropped for her.

  ‘Good God!’ she said. ‘You could well be right. I’m pretty sure that his doctoral thesis was on English popular literature. Underground and crime novels and such stuff. Around the beginning of the twentieth century, I think.’

  ‘Aha,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘That really could put him in the spotlight. Anyway, I mustn’t disturb you any longer. I hope I don’t need to tell you how significant your contribution could turn out to be?’

  ‘Nor that I should hold my tongue,’ said Winnifred. ‘Many thanks, this has been very . . . interesting. Would you like me to fax his personal details to the bookshop tomorrow?’

  Van Veeteren shook his head.

  ‘I’d prefer to come to the university and fetch them in person. It would be useful for me to have a look around.’

  ‘Your word is my command,’ said Winnifred. ‘You’ll find me in my office at any time between twelve and four – but ring first just to be on the safe side.’

  Van Veeteren promised to do that. He put the list of names in his pocket and stood up. When he had finished putting on his street clothes in the hall, Winnifred had one last query.

  ‘How many has he killed?’

  ‘If he really is the one, he could well have killed five people.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ whispered Winnifred, and he realized it was only now that all the implications of the situation had really registered with her. That this wasn’t some kind of theoretical riddle.

  ‘Go to bed now and think about something else,’ he recommended.

  ‘I shall just have another whisky first,’ said Winnifred. ‘How about you?’

  He declined the offer, and left.

  Ulrike was already asleep by the time he got home in Klagenburg.

  Perhaps that was just as well. He wouldn’t have been able to resist discussing with her the outcome of his conversation with Winnifred, and the sensible thing was of course to avoid involving anybody else in this ploy. Not even Ulrike. Not even as a sounding board – the method and what he planned to do next would probably not be able to cope with no end of viewpoints and female intuition.

  What he planned to do next wasn’t all that clear at the moment: but he had a name now.

  A name without a face. He hadn’t yet seen Maarten deFraan, neither in a photograph nor in real life. It felt odd. An odd way to find a murderer. He wondered if he had ever gone about tracking down a criminal in as clinical a way as this. Probably not.

  He went to the larder and looked somewhat half-heartedly to see if there was a bottle of dark beer left, but decided not to bother. If there had been any whisky left in the house he would probably have allowed himself a wee dram: but he knew they had drunk the last drop during the Christmas holidays, and hadn’t got round to replenishing stocks.

  In any case, he was not into hard liquor. Red wine or beer. The darker the better. In both cases. And Ulrike’s taste was the same in this respect, as in so many others.

  But what mattered now was not drinking habits. All that mattered was the Strangler. He dug out a CD of Pärt’s Für Alina, and switched it on at low volume. Stretched out on the sofa in the darkness, with a blanket over him.

  Professor deFraan? he thought. Who the hell are you?

  Private detective Van Veeteren? he then thought. Who the hell do you think you are?

  Clever stuff. A way of proceeding that he might be able to make use of in his book of memoirs – if he ever got round to finishing it off. He hadn’t added anything to it for over three months now. He was stuck in that accursed G File, and not for the first time. The only case he had failed to solve after thirty years in the police force – that wasn’t too bad a record, of course, but G could still keep him awake at night.

  Be off with you! he snarled at G. We’re going to concentrate on the Strangler now!

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  The plan. What should he do? How should he approach him?

  How should he go about tricking Professor deFraan into giving himself away, to put it bluntly? What was the best way of confronting him? In what situation could he be expected to be fooled into giving the game away sufficiently for a cynical antiquarian bookseller to be able to catch on?

  To produce that absolutely unique expression that appears in every murderer’s eyes. In certain situations.

  Perhaps not every murderer, he decided after a couple of seconds. But in most of them.

  At the moment when the murderer looks for the first time into the eyes of his nemesis – the person who knows.

  That is the moment, Van Veeteren thought, that fraction of a second when a veil descends over the murderer’s eyes, and nothing can be more explicit for anybody who knows how these things happen. Nothing.

  But there is another sort as well, he reminded himself.

  Another sort of murderer who is immune to a sense of shame. G, for instance. Van Veeteren was forced to make a mental effort to abolish his image.

  And if Maarten deFraan was in fact guilty, but made of the same hard stuff as G, Van Veeteren’s method would never succeed.

  But that remained to be seen. A lot remained to be seen, that was for sure.

  He yawned. Wondered if he ought to remain lying there on the sofa and listen to the rest of Pärt. Or whether he ought to join Ulrike in bed.

  It was not a difficult decision to make.

  44

  The lecture room looked as if it could accommodate about a hundred students, and was about three-quarters full. He chose a fairly discreet seat in the last row but one. Sat down, adjusted the shelf that turned his seat into a little desk, and tried to look like a twenty-three-year-old student.

  This didn’t come naturally to him. He looked around and reckoned that he was the oldest person present by a margin of at least fifteen years – only a few women sitting two rows diagonally in front of him looked as if they had passed the thirty mark, and provided him with a modicum of consolation. Swayed no doubt by jealousy and prejudice, he decided that they were a group of secondary school teachers making the most of the half-term holiday to brush up their English language and literature, and celebrate not having to teach.

  The rest of those present were young and talented. More or less as they had been when he himself spent a few years at university round about 1960 – reading various subjects with varying degrees of success. To his surprise, he realized that he missed that experience. He would love to relive those halcyon days – and was decidedly jealous of all these young people whose lives were as yet an unwritten page.

  But needless to say, it wasn’t as straightforward as that. Obviously. It hadn’t been the case then, and was not the case now. He had boobed left, right and centre in the course of his life: for these talented young people, most of their mistakes were yet to come. It was a toss-up when it came to deciding which of them was most to be envied.

  He recalled the smell as well. He didn’t know if it emanated from the spacious
lecture theatre with its high, barred windows, worn seats and warm, dusty radiators – or if people aged about twenty-three always generated a smell like this. But it didn’t matter. Neither then nor now. It also felt unexpectedly odd – as if he had ended up in a time warp which forty years of experience were incapable of sorting out . . . A kind of pocket of resistance, perhaps? Despite all so-called progress. The older we become, he thought, the more our conception of time becomes circular. There seems to be less difference between today and tomorrow. But that’s not especially strange, of course.

  He took out his notebook and the papers he had been given by Winnifred Lynch, and wondered if there might be some kind of attendance register. Not that it mattered all that much – Winnifred had assured him that it would be highly unlikely, and that in no circumstances would he be thrown out. Professor deFraan’s lecture on Conrad, Borrow and Trollope was open to students enrolled for various courses, and it was not unusual for members of the general public to sneak in and listen simply because they found it interesting. So he didn’t need to regard himself as an outsider. Even if that’s what he was.

  The personal details about Maarten deFraan took up two densely written pages. He had been given them by Winnifred in her office a mere five minutes ago, and hadn’t had time to do more than glance at them. If the lecture turned out to be sleep-inducing, he could no doubt take a closer look at them – discreetly, of course.

  This also felt remarkably familiar – having a sort of alternative occupation to keep him going during lectures. That was presumably how he had regarded the situation in the sixties, he now realized. No wonder he hadn’t progressed very far in the academic circus, Van Veeteren thought, and yawned.

  But there was presumably no reason to cry over spilled milk in this connection either.

  DeFraan appeared at exactly fifteen minutes past eleven, and the hushed murmur became a more or less respectful silence. Van Veeteren had to acknowledge that he did not have an immediate impression that this was the man he was looking for. Unfortunately – but no doubt that would have been too much to ask for. DeFraan looked healthy and in quite good shape. On the tall side, quite sturdy and with a face that reminded Van Veeteren vaguely of an American actor whose name he had long since forgotten. Bushy hair, dark and with a trace of grey here and there; his thin oval-shaped spectacles and neatly trimmed beard gave him an air of strength and intellectual integrity. Dark polo-necked sweater and a modest dark grey jacket. It seemed highly likely that women would find him attractive.