The Stranglers Honeymoon

by Håkan Nesser

  ‘He’s gone home for the day,’ said Van Veeteren an hour later when they sat down with a beer each under a green parasol outside the Ionean Plaza. ‘Chief Inspector Yakos. I rang the station, but the secretary wasn’t even sure if he’d been in at all today – she hadn’t seen him, if I understood her rightly. You haven’t considered moving yet, have you?’

  ‘I’m sitting here,’ said Münster.

  ‘Hmm, so you are,’ said Van Veeteren, taking out his cigarette machine. ‘Anyway, she was going to tell him that I want to meet him tomorrow morning, no matter what. I wonder where the hell our friend has got to . . . He’s got a few days’ start on us, of course.’

  Friend? Münster thought. He’s taken the lives of five people, or however many it is by now. Whatever he is, he’s certainly not a friend.

  ‘Was it Chief Inspector Yakos who was in charge of the investigation in 1995?’ he asked.

  ‘In so far as you can call it an investigation,’ said Van Veeteren, suddenly looking much grimmer. ‘I hope he speaks better English than his secretary in any case. But perhaps it’s intentional that the local population should look after criminal activities on the island, and not the tourists.’

  Münster said nothing for a while, gazing out over the square, where a blue Mediterranean twilight had begun to descend and make outlines more blurred. It made everything look even more attractive, like a large living room under an open sky. The temperature was still around twenty degrees, he estimated, and there were rather more people out and about now. Elderly gentlemen sitting and reading newspapers, or chatting over tiny cups of coffee. Women with or without string bags, with or without widows’ veils. Young people sitting on the little podium, smoking. A few motorcyclists standing around, preening themselves . . . Young girls laughing and shouting and chasing one another, and small boys playing football. Dogs and cats. Not many tourists, as far as he could judge: perhaps twenty or so in the cafes and tavernas he could see from their table.

  How the hell are we going to find him? he thought. We don’t even know for sure if he’s on this island.

  Has he really got a plan, this bookseller by the name of Van Veeteren?

  He didn’t bother to ask as he knew he wouldn’t get a sensible answer. Was content to keep a discreet eye on his former boss from the side – just now he looked as inscrutable as a newly dug-up antique statue as he sat there sipping his beer with a newly rolled and newly lit cigarette between the index and long fingers of his right hand. But I suppose statues didn’t normally smoke and drink beer, Münster thought. I suppose I’m an astronaut after all, at bottom.

  He relies on his intuitive ideas no matter what, always has done. But sooner or later surely even he must step on a land mine? Or was that not the case? Wasn’t the fact of the matter that Van Veeteren was always more sure about things than the impression he tried to give? Always knew more than he pretended to know? That could well be the case now, although on the other hand . . .

  ‘Oh hell!’ exclaimed Van Veeteren, interrupting his chain of thought. ‘That wouldn’t be an impossibility, of course!’

  ‘What wouldn’t?’ said Münster.

  ‘That Muslim woman.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be the case that . . .’

  Münster waited.

  ‘It could equally well be . . .’

  Münster sighed.

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Don’t ask so many damned questions, I’m trying to think. Have you got your mobile with you?’

  The leader of the investigation sighed and handed over his mobile.

  50

  As they sat waiting in Inspector Sammelmerk’s office, Ewa Moreno thought about the problem of time and space.

  Or to be more precise, things that happen and when they happen. About the peculiar fact that events appear to have the ability to attract other events. Like a sort of magnetism, almost. She recalled having discussed this phenomenon with Münster at some point: how long periods of time can pass – in one’s private life but more especially in police work – unbearable periods when nothing at all happens. Boring investigations when days and weeks and months pile up when nothing at all happens and zero progress is made: and then suddenly, without warning, two or three or even four crucial events occur more or less simultaneously.

  Like now. Like this day in March with warm breezes and the promise of spring in the air. She had been sitting in her office with the windows wide open all afternoon. The phone call from the Greek archipelago had come at exactly ten minutes past five: a week’s accumulated paperwork had just been completed, and she was the only person left in the much reduced CID. That was why she was the one to receive the call from the Chief Inspector.

  She had spoken to him for barely five minutes: no longer was needed. Then she had hung up and sat staring out of the window for a while, thinking about what action needed to be taken.

  And about what the hell he was up to out there.

  And then the next phone call had come. Anna Kristeva. Passed on to her via the switchboard, like the previous one. When she had been listening for long enough – a few minutes at most – to be clear that a face-to-face meeting was necessary, she had agreed a time, hung up and looked at the clock. It was still short of half past five.

  A quarter of an hour, then. No longer than that had passed between the calls from Van Veeteren and Anna Kristeva. Surely that was remarkable. What peculiar waves in the passage of time had caused this sudden concentration in the flow of events? And brought matters to a head more or less simultaneously.

  Bookseller Van Veeteren and lawyer Anna Kristeva? Two people completely unknown to each other, several thousand miles apart.

  Well, as far as the Chief Inspector was concerned, it hadn’t been a question of making a decision, of course. It was more of an insight. Several thoughts that had suddenly rung a bell, and several observations that put matters into perspective. Intuition, as it is called.

  But Anna Kristeva had made a decision, something she had been thinking about for days, even weeks. Something that had stretched her nerves to their limits, and reduced her night’s sleep to several hours below the minimum necessary.

  That was presumably why she had black rings under her eyes, Moreno thought, when fröken Kristeva turned up at the police station at a couple of minutes after seven.

  ‘Two women police officers?’ said Kristeva when the polite preliminaries had been completed. ‘That’s something I hadn’t expected. Is this some kind of new interrogation psychology you are developing?’

  ‘It’s pure coincidence,’ said Inspector Sammelmerk. ‘Please take a seat. Coffee? Water?’

  ‘Water, please.’ She ran her hands over her somewhat creased blue jacket, and turned to Moreno. ‘I gather it was you I spoke to on the telephone – I don’t think we’ve met before.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Moreno. ‘And I must say you really surprised me. So we’d be grateful if you could tell us the whole story from the beginning. We need to record it as well – it could be the crucial proof we are looking for. Then we’ll write a summary which you must call in and sign within the next few days. It’s standard procedure, so to say.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Kristeva, looking down at the floor. ‘I know I ought to have come to see you much earlier, but I didn’t get round to it. This business . . . well, it hasn’t been easy.’

  Sammelmerk switched on the tape recorder.

  ‘Interrogation of Anna Kristeva at Maardam Police Station on the fifth of March 2001,’ she said. ‘The time is 19.15. Those present are Inspector Moreno and Inspector Sammelmerk. Would you please tell us why you have come here, fröken Kristeva.’

  Kristeva took a deep breath and looked a few times at each inspector in turn before starting.

  ‘Ester Peerenkaas,’ she said. ‘It’s about Ester Peerenkaas, my friend, who’s been missing for . . . well, it must be a month and a half by now. Mo
st people have probably assumed she’s dead – that she was murdered by that man who has killed several women previously, it seems. But that is not the case. Ester is alive.’

  She had been staring fixedly at the tape recorder during these preliminary remarks. Now she paused briefly, looked up and drank a sip of water.

  ‘Go on,’ said Moreno.

  Kristeva put her glass back on the table and clasped her hands in her lap.

  ‘I also thought she was dead, to be honest. But then one evening a couple of weeks ago, she phoned me. It was the nineteenth of February, a Monday evening. I was awfully surprised, of course . . . and awfully pleased. At first I thought it was somebody having me on, but nothing could have made me happier than that telephone call – although I hadn’t yet heard her story. She asked if she could come and stay with me for a few days, and she begged me to promise not to tell anybody that she was still alive. I didn’t understand why – not until I saw her and heard what had happened that night . . . And until I heard about her plan.’

  ‘Her plan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She paused again and shook her head slightly, as if she found it hard to believe her own words.

  ‘She turned up with a suitcase that same night, and when I saw her face I had quite a shock. It looked awful. My first reaction was that it looked like severe burns – the kind of thing you see on the television and in the newspapers . . . But it was in fact hydrofluoric acid in Ester’s case. I don’t know if you are aware of what such acid does to your skin, what a mess it can make of a face.’

  Moreno exchanged glances with her colleague, who frowned and looked vaguely doubtful.

  ‘Hydrofluoric acid?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, it’s much worse than hydrochloric acid and sulphuric acid and stuff like that. It sort of creeps though the skin and deep down into the flesh . . . Hmm, maybe I don’t need to describe it in detail?’

  ‘I think I’ve actually seen it once,’ said Sammelmerk. ‘What hydrofluoric acid does to you. I agree with you, it’s horrendous. So you’re saying that Ester Peerenkaas had got some of that in her face, is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did it happen?’ asked Sammelmerk. ‘I recall another friend of hers telling us that she used to carry a little bottle of acid in her handbag. Was that what . . . ?’

  Kristeva nodded.

  ‘Exactly. She always had that bottle with her. The idea was to protect herself from rapists. And that’s how it happened, but not quite in the way intended. I don’t know exact details, Ester didn’t want to discuss it . . . She has changed a lot, not just her face. She’s . . . well, it’s taken me quite a while to catch on, but she’s gone mad. Crazy and dangerous. It was hard going, having her staying with me: she’s like a . . . like a black hole. I’ve tried talking to her, tried to make her see some sort of light in the darkness, but she hasn’t listened to me, not even for a second. When I’ve tried to come close to her she has simply pointed at her deformed face and told me to go to hell. She’s obsessed by what has happened to her. Totally obsessed.’

  ‘So what actually happened?’ asked Moreno. ‘You said she gave some indication of it at least.’

  Kristeva nodded.

  ‘Yes, I know what happened – but only in broad outline. He tried to kill her. Not to rape her, that wasn’t his primary aim at least. He had his hands round her neck and was going to strangle her, but she managed to get the bottle out of her handbag to throw over him. He somehow managed to fend her off: I think he was standing behind her, and she got most of it in her own face. But a small amount landed on him, and that’s what presumably saved her life. She somehow managed to run out of the flat, he rushed into the bathroom, bellowing away, and switched on the shower, according to Ester. She splashed cold water onto her face from the kitchen tap, gathered together her things and raced off with a wet towel over her head – and terrible pains, of course.’

  ‘How much of her face was affected?’ Moreno wondered. ‘It must have been horrendously painful.’

  ‘It was a miracle that she managed to make it home,’ said Kristeva. ‘The whole of her right cheek up to her eye is ruined, and part of her nose and forehead as well. She looks grotesque, like a leper. At least she can still see out of that eye, but her skin is . . . well, there’s hardly any of it left. She sleeps with a wet towel over her face now.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Sammelmerk. ‘Is it possible to . . . to repair it somehow?’

  Kristeva sighed.

  ‘I don’t really know. She didn’t want to talk about it, but I’ve been in touch with a doctor – without letting on what it was really all about, of course – and he says it’s possible to restore a face to a certain extent. Even if it’s very disfigured. It would take a series of small operations and transplants over a period of about five or six years. The problem is that Ester isn’t interested in such a solution – not yet at least.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ said Moreno, stroking her cheek lightly with two fingers. She could feel that she had goose pimples.

  ‘What did she do when she got home that evening?’ asked Sammelmerk. ‘I thought it was necessary to get medical care as soon as possible?’

  ‘Yes indeed. But not in this case. She said she kept herself locked up in her flat for a whole night and a day, bathing her face in water and applying ointments and whatever else she had at hand. The next evening she took the night train to Paris with a shawl over her head and face, and dark glasses, of course. She stayed in Paris for a month.’

  ‘A month in Paris?’ said Moreno. ‘Where? Why?’

  ‘At a friend’s. She knows quite a lot of people there. She lived in Paris during the years she was married. She went to a doctor specializing in skin conditions – apparently he is one of her circle of acquaintances there – and got some help. She hid herself away in her friend’s flat. Lay low and prepared for her return.’

  She paused again and eyed Moreno and Sammelmerk for several seconds. As if she were telling a story that wasn’t true, Moreno thought, and needed to keep stopping to check that her listeners were still interested in what was coming next.

  ‘She got in touch with her mother eventually. Explained that she was still alive, but said that her parents would never see her again if they gave the slightest indication to anybody that she had been in touch. And then she turned up at my door a couple of weeks ago. Disguised as a Muslim woman, so that she could keep her face hidden in a way that seemed natural, of course. The conditions were more or less the same for me as they had been for her mother and father. I wasn’t to say anything at all about her to anybody, it was as simple as that. It was a shock for me to discover that she was still alive, and, well . . . I promised to do all I could to help her. As you might recall, I was actually the one who was supposed to meet that man at Keefer’s in December. In fact. But I fell ill, and things turned out as they did . . .’

  ‘Excuse me a moment,’ said Moreno, interrupting her and glancing at the tape recorder. ‘I take it you’re talking about Maarten deFraan, professor of English at Maardam University, is that right?’

  ‘DeFraan, yes,’ said Kristeva. ‘That’s his name. She didn’t want to tell me his name at first, but after a few days I managed to squeeze it out of her. But Ester Peerenkaas is no longer Ester Peerenkaas, that’s the most horrific thing of all. She’s not the same person. She has only one thought in her head, a single one, and that is taking her revenge on that man.’

  She threw her arms out in a gesture of impotence.

  ‘Why can’t she simply go to the police?’ wondered Sammelmerk.

  ‘Do you think I haven’t kept asking her that?’ said Kristeva with a snort. ‘Do you think I haven’t spent many a day and night asking her just that?’

  ‘But why?’ insisted Moreno. ‘Why not the police? This man has many more things on his conscience, not just Ester Peerenkaas’s ruined face . . .’

  Kristeva sighed deeply again, and sat up straight.

  ‘Bec
ause that wouldn’t be enough for her,’ she said. ‘A conventional punishment wouldn’t be sufficient. Ester has been let down by the authorities in the past as well – I don’t know how much you know about her background, but that man who took their daughter and disappeared, well, she spent two years fighting for her rights before she gave up. That sort of thing leaves its mark. Quite simply, she doesn’t trust the police. She intends to kill Maarten deFraan with her own hands – and not just kill him, come to that.’

  Moreno gave a start.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘Not just kill him?’

  Kristeva took a drink of water and sat in silence for a while before answering.

  ‘She intends to torture him,’ she said eventually in a low voice. ‘I think . . . I think she intends to capture him somehow or other, and then subject him to something horrendous. Extremely painful, and lasting for as long as possible, before she finally kills him. Don’t ask me how she’s going to do it, but she’s obsessed by it. It’s the only thing that keeps her going, and it’s as if . . . as if it’s not really about her. I think she sees herself as a tool – a representative of all the women who have been tormented by men. She sees it as a mission to take revenge for all the oppression our sex has been subjected to since the beginning of time – and to take it out on him, of course. It’s as if she had been chosen. As I’ve said, she’s mad . . .’

  She paused again.

  ‘But I understand her, of course. It’s not all that odd that she has become like she is: that’s why I didn’t want to betray her.’

  She tried to make eye contact with both Moreno and Sammelmerk now, as if in the hope of receiving support. Or at least some kind of understanding. Moreno found herself trying to avoid Kristeva’s eyes, and she nodded rather vaguely.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It’s understandable. I think it would be understandable for a male detective officer as well – for most of the ones I know, at least.’