The Weeping Girl

by Håkan Nesser

  H A few days afterwards. The last week of term. Maager said so himself not long afterwards.

  V In what connection?

  H We’d gone out for a beer. At the very beginning of the summer holiday – round about the twentieth.

  V Where?

  H Lippmann’s. And a few other bars.

  V And that was when he told you that he’d had intercourse with a pupil?

  H He told me a bit about how it had happened – I already knew about the basic facts.

  V What did he say?

  H That he’d been as pissed as a newt, and regretted what had happened. And he hoped there wouldn’t be any repercussions.

  V Repercussions? What did he mean by that?

  H That neither he nor the girl would get into trouble as a result, of course.

  V I see. But the other pupils must have known what had happened?

  H I assume so. Although I didn’t hear anything about it from pupils. But then it was just before the summer holidays, of course.

  V So perhaps the main thing was that none of the parents got to hear about it?

  H That’s one way of looking at it, yes.

  V Anyway, let’s go on. This wasn’t the only time you discussed the Winnie Maas business with Maager, was it?

  H No.

  V Let’s hear details.

  H We met in the middle of July as well.

  V When and where?

  H We made a trip out to the islands. One Saturday afternoon. It must have been the fifteenth or sixteenth, I think. Arnold rang me and said he’d like to have a chat. I had nothing else on at the time.

  V So what was it all about this time?

  H Winnie Maas. She was pregnant. Maager had just heard.

  V What sort of state did he seem to be in?

  H He was worried, of course. More than just worried, in fact. Winnie evidently wanted to have the baby.

  V And what about Maager?

  H You’d have to ask him about that.

  V We already have done. Now we want to hear what you have to say, herr Heller. No doubt Maager made his own views clear during your trip to the islands.

  H He wasn’t his normal self.

  V I didn’t ask you if he was his normal self. I want to know what he said in connection with the fact that the girl was pregnant.

  H He wanted her to have an abortion, of course. That’s understandable, surely. She was too young to be a mother, and he was worried about how his wife would react.

  V Really? So he hadn’t told her about his, er, indiscretion?

  H No, he hadn’t.

  V Was he afraid that Winnie Maas might do so?

  H That’s possible. I don’t understand the point of all this. Why are we sitting here, discussing whether—

  V It doesn’t matter whether you understand or not. The police have to do their duty, no matter what. Do you think there was anything else that Arnold Maager was afraid of?

  H Such as what?

  V Think about it. What did you talk about, in fact?

  H Everything under the sun.

  V How many islands did you visit?

  H Doczum and Billsmaar. We just sailed round them. We didn’t go ashore at all.

  V Did you come up with a solution to Maager’s problems?

  H Solution? What kind of a solution?

  V If you spent several hours on the ferry, you must surely have discussed this and that? Toyed with various thoughts?

  H I don’t understand what you’re talking about.

  V I’m talking about escape routes. Possible escape routes to enable Arnold Maager to wriggle out of the awkward situation he found himself in. I hope you’re not pretending to be more stupid than you really are – I thought you had a university degree.

  H /No reply/

  V Surely that’s why he wanted to meet you? To get some help.

  H He didn’t only want to talk. He was desperate, for God’s sake.

  V Desperate? Are you saying that Arnold Maager was desperate when the pair of you made that trip round the islands on Saturday, the sixteenth of July?

  /Pause while a new tape is fitted into the recorder/

  Vrommel: Did you have any further contact with Arnold Maager during the weeks before Winnie Maas’s death? After July the sixteenth, that is.

  Heller: He phoned me a few times. Before it happened, I mean.

  V A few telephone conversations. What did you talk about?

  H All kinds of things.

  V About Winnie Maas as well?

  H Yes.

  V And what did Maager have to say?

  H He was worried.

  V Explain.

  H What do you mean, explain?

  V Did he say anything about what he intended to do? How did you assess his state of mind?

  H He said he was having trouble sleeping. He didn’t know whether or not he should tell his wife.

  V Did you give him any advice?

  H No. What could I say?

  V Did you think he was unbalanced during these telephone calls?

  H Not really unbalanced. Worried and tense, more like.

  V Do you know if he had much contact with the girl?

  H They’d talked things over. He’d tried to persuade her to have an abortion. He’d offered to help her out financially.

  V And what did she say to that?

  H She stuck to her guns, it seemed. She wanted to have the baby.

  V And what about the financial side?

  H I don’t know.

  V You don’t know?

  H No.

  V All right. When you heard what had happened, that the girl had been found dead on the railway line, how did you react then?

  H I was shocked, naturally.

  V Yes, naturally. We were all shocked. Were you surprised as well?

  H Of course I was surprised. It was horrendous.

  V So you hadn’t expected that development?

  H No, of course I hadn’t. He must have taken leave of his senses. It’s horrendous.

  V Do you think it’s surprising that he took leave of his senses?

  H /No reply/

  V I’ll ask you again. Bearing in mind all the circumstances, do you think it’s surprising that Arnold Maager took leave of his senses?

  H I don’t know. Perhaps not.

  V Thank you, herr Heller. That will be all for now.

  25

  19 July 1999

  For a brief moment – just a fraction of a second – she thought he was going to hit her.

  But nothing happened. Not even a gesture. But the very fact that such an image appeared in her mind’s eye must mean something, of course. Not necessarily that he was that type of man – somebody who would start using his fists when he’d run out of words: but something nevertheless. A suspicion? A warning?

  Or was it just a distorted figment of the imagination? A projection of her own dodgy emotional life?

  In any case, it stayed there. And would continue to stay there, she knew that even before the moment had passed.

  ‘You did what?’ he snarled through gritted teeth.

  ‘I left it up there and took a taxi instead,’ she said.

  ‘You left my car up there in the forest? Without arranging for anybody to see to it?’

  She shrugged. He’s got a point, she thought. I wouldn’t be exactly pleased in those circumstances either.

  ‘A Trabant,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think it was worth bothering about.’

  He ignored that comment. Drummed with his fingers on the table, and stared above her shoulder. The skin over his cheeks became taut.

  ‘So now what?’ he said.

  ‘I’ll sort it out,’ she said with a sigh. ‘If it’s so damned important for you to have a car at your disposal, maybe you could hire one for the time being. I’ll pay. Unfortunately a lot of other things have happened, and I haven’t time to worry about such trivia at the moment.’

  He allowed a few seconds to pass before he asked.

&nb
sp; ‘What exactly has happened?’

  ‘Maager has gone missing. Things were hectic, and I didn’t have an opportunity of looking for a garage just then.’

  ‘Gone missing? Why?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. He hasn’t been seen at the home since Saturday.’

  ‘So both the father and the daughter are missing now?’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘Do the police know about it?’

  Moreno took a sip of juice and made to stand up.

  ‘If they do, they haven’t got round to doing anything about it yet,’ she said. ‘Those layabouts up at Sidonis reported it a few hours ago. Despite the fact that he’s been gone for two days. No, I really must talk to Vrommel and Vegesack about this – it’s high time for them to wake up now.’

  Mikael leaned back and looked at her with a trace of a smile on his lips. She wasn’t sure how to interpret it.

  It was rather easier to interpret what he said.

  ‘So, Inspector Moreno is back on duty now, is she?’

  Moreno leaned back and thought for two seconds.

  ‘I’m moving out this evening,’ she said. ‘Thank you for the last few days here.’

  His smile seemed to freeze, but before he had a chance to say anything she had stood up and left the table.

  ‘I’ll sort your car out as well,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Hire a car and spend time on the beach until you get it back!’

  Why don’t I even feel sorry for him? she thought when she had turned the corner. Is it because I’m becoming a bitch?

  ‘Yes, I’d heard about that,’ said Constable Vegesack, looking sombre. ‘It’s a damned nuisance that they’ve left it for so long before reporting it. Not that I know what we can do about it, but things are not made any easier when you’re two days behind even before you’ve started.’

  ‘The most important thing is not what we can do about it,’ said Moreno, ‘but what has happened.’

  Vegesack frowned and felt for the knot of his tie which, for once, wasn’t there. He was wearing a marine blue tennis shirt and thin cotton trousers in a slightly lighter shade – absolutely right for the weather and the time of year, and Moreno wondered in passing if the return of his girlfriend had anything to do with his outfit. She hoped so – and hoped that the bags under his eyes were also connected with her presence. In the way he had indicated a few days previously.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What do you think’s happened, then?’

  Moreno cast a glance at the half-open door before replying.

  ‘Where’s the chief of police?’

  ‘He’s on the beach,’ said Vegesack. ‘Something has happened. We’ll come to that later.’

  Moreno nodded.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind my poking my nose into this business?’

  ‘Why should I do that? Everybody has a right to decide how to spend their own holidays.’

  She decided not to investigate how large a dose of irony there was in that remark. Not just now, at least.

  ‘Either Maager has run away,’ she said, ‘or something has happened to him. What do you reckon is most likely?’

  Vegesack rubbed both his temples with the tips of his fingers and seemed to be thinking for all he was worth.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said eventually. ‘How the hell should I know? But what I understand least of all is why anybody should want him out of the way – I assume that’s what you’re fishing for?’

  Moreno shrugged.

  ‘Why should he do a runner? Is that any more likely?’

  Vegesack sighed.

  ‘Would you like a drop of mineral water?’

  ‘Yes please,’ said Moreno.

  He went into the kitchenette and returned with a plastic bottle and two glasses.

  ‘Dehydration,’ he said. ‘I suffer from it. And lack of sleep.’

  But not lack of love, Moreno thought as he was filling her glass. Nor would I if I weren’t so damned snooty.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘If we assume – hypothetically – that he’s run off of his own free will, where does that get us?’

  ‘He must have some reason or other,’ said Vegesack.

  ‘Precisely. Give me a reason.’

  ‘He hasn’t left the care home for all of sixteen years.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘So it must . . . It must be connected with his daughter’s visit.’

  ‘Really? What makes you think that?’

  ‘Surely it’s pretty obvious . . . But just how it’s linked, God only knows.’

  ‘She visited him a week last Saturday. Why wait for a whole week?’

  Vegesack started rubbing his temples again. Moreno wondered if he’d been on some kind of yoga course and learned to stimulate the flow of blood to his brain by doing that. In any case it looked more intentional than absent-minded; but she didn’t ask about that either.

  ‘Maybe it doesn’t have so much to do with her visit,’ he said in the end, ‘but more with her disappearance.’

  ‘That’s what I think as well,’ said Moreno. ‘And how come that Maager knows about Mikaela’s disappearance?’

  Vegesack stopped massaging his temples.

  ‘Oh hell,’ he said. ‘Through me, of course. I told him when I was there and tried to talk to him.’

  ‘When was that?’

  Vegesack worked it out in his head without any further assistance.

  ‘Last Wednesday, I think. Yes, Wednesday.’

  ‘That fits. It would be useful if you could recall exactly what you said to him,’ said Moreno. ‘And how he reacted.’

  Vegesack flung out his hands and almost overturned the bottle of water.

  ‘He didn’t react at all. Not to anything. He said hello when I arrived, and goodbye when I left. But that’s about all . . . But he did listen to what I said, yes, he did that. I told him how things stood, and that it looked as if Mikaela Lijphart had disappeared. That we knew she was his daughter, and that she’d been to see him, and that her mother had come to Lejnice in order to look for her. Naturally, I tried to find out what he’d said to her, about that business sixteen years ago and so on. If she’d been upset, or how she’d reacted. They’d evidently spent a few hours in the grounds, talking.’

  ‘But he didn’t give you any answers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you get any impressions? Did he seem worried about her disappearance?’

  Vegesack gazed out of the window for a while.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ he said. ‘I think that news might even have prevented him from saying anything. He might have said something if I hadn’t told him about Mikaela right away. But then again . . . For God’s sake, I don’t know. I was only with him for twenty minutes. Are you suggesting that he might have gone looking for her? Is that the conclusion you’ve reached?’

  Moreno took a sip of water.

  ‘I haven’t come to any conclusions at all,’ she said. ‘It could just as well be that something has happened to him. You spoke to him last Wednesday, but he didn’t disappear from the care home until Saturday. Why did he wait? Something else might have happened – on Thursday or Friday – to influence events. I ought to have asked more questions when I was out there, but that didn’t occur to me until I was on the way back.’

  ‘It’s Monday today,’ said Vegesack. ‘That means he’s already been missing for several days. He’s not used to being out there. Mixing with people. Isn’t it a bit odd that nobody seems to have noticed him?’

  Moreno shrugged.

  ‘How do you know that nobody’s noticed him?’

  Vegesack didn’t answer.

  ‘There’s so much about this business that seems a bit odd,’ said Moreno. ‘That’s why I just can’t go off and enjoy my holiday. I’ve dreamt about that girl two nights running. I’ve just told my boyfriend to go to hell because of this business . . . I don’t know if that can be classified as occupational injury – what do you think?’

  Why am I telling
this to Vegesack? she asked herself, when she noted his blush and raised eyebrows, and realized that this was intimate information that he didn’t know how to handle.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said diplomatically.

  ‘You can say that again,’ said Moreno. ‘I’ve been poking my nose much too far into this business, but at least I’ve now received confirmation of a few things. I now know I haven’t been imagining things that are too wide of the mark. I take it you didn’t notice any indications that Maager was intending to run away when you were together with him?’

  Vegesack shook his head.

  ‘And heaven only knows how he took the news about his daughter’s disappearance, you reckon?’

  ‘I wonder if even the heavens know,’ said Vegesack. ‘But it’s all so damned awful – for Maager, I mean. Even if you take into account that he’s a murderer and all the rest of it. First she turns up out of the blue after sixteen years, and then she’s more missing than she’s ever been. It must be hard for him, whichever way you look at it.’

  ‘Hard indeed,’ agreed Moreno. ‘Could you please help me with one other thing?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Vegesack, suddenly looking wide awake and raring to go. ‘What?’

  ‘Find out if Maager had any other visits or telephone calls between Wednesday and Saturday last week.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Vegesack. ‘I’ll give them a ring. How shall we get in touch – will you be calling in?’

  ‘I’ll be in touch in any case,’ said Moreno with a sigh. ‘Have there been any more responses to the Wanted notice regarding Mikaela?’

  Vegesack rooted around in the pile of papers on his desk.

  ‘Two,’ he said. ‘We can forget about one of them – a certain herr Podager who always gives advice to the police on occasions like this. He’s over eighty-five and sees all kinds of things, despite the fact that he’s been almost blind for the last twenty years.’

  ‘I see,’ said Moreno. ‘What about the other one?’

  ‘A woman up in Frigge,’ said Vegesack, reading from a piece of paper. ‘Fru Gossenmühle. It seems she phoned the local police last night and claimed she had seen a girl looking like the photograph of Mikaela Lijphart. At the railway station. They were going to talk to her this morning, and then they’ll no doubt be in touch with us.’

  Moreno thought for a while.

  ‘How far is it to Frigge?’ she asked