The Weeping Girl

by Håkan Nesser

  She paused briefly.

  ‘I was under the impression that all this business was supposed to be linked with the case we’re working on, somehow or other,’ said Kohler.

  Moreno cleared her throat.

  ‘That’s right. Vera Sauger gave Mikaela Lijphart two possible names. People she could contact if she wanted to pursue her queries further. And she gave the same names to Vrommel. One of them was Tim Van Rippe.’

  ‘The gent buried in the sand,’ said Kohler.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ said Baasteuwel.

  Silence enveloped the table.

  ‘This isn’t the only complication,’ said Moreno after Vegesack had nipped out into the kitchen to fetch four more beers. ‘A week after Mikaela went to visit her father at the care home, he disappeared. Last Saturday afternoon, to be precise. Nobody knows where he is. Vegesack was there and spoke to him a few days earlier, but it was evidently impossible to get much out of him.’

  ‘Not a word,’ said Vegesack.

  Baasteuwel ran his hands through his tousled hair and stared at Moreno; but it was Kohler who spoke.

  ‘This Tim Van Rippe,’ he said. ‘Our body on the beach. What role does he play in this old story?’

  Moreno turned over a page in her notebook to check on the details.

  ‘According to Vera Sauger he knew the girl Winnie Maas pretty well. He might even have been in a relationship with her as well, before she jumped into bed with Arnold Maager. But that isn’t so important. The important thing is that there is a clear connection here. Mikaela Lijphart was given his name, plus another one that I haven’t had time to check up on yet, and it’s very possible that she might have been to meet him on the Sunday. A week later he’s found murdered and buried on the beach. It’s an amazing coincidence that the body was discovered, of course – but then you’d have thought that the murderer would have been a bit more careful and dug a bit deeper down. Or what do you think?’

  Kohler nodded.

  ‘His head was very close to the surface, in fact. It would no doubt have been exposed sooner or later by the wind, or by the running around of holidaymakers.’

  Baasteuwel stood up.

  ‘And so all this business of what Vera Sauger said and did has been hushed up by the chief of police, has it? What the hell’s going on? In addition to the fact that Vrommel’s a berk. I need a smoke. Is out there okay?’

  Vegesack nodded and Baasteuwel went out through the balcony door.

  ‘Irrespective of what’s behind it all,’ said Moreno, ‘it’s obvious that Vrommel isn’t playing the game. He doesn’t want to root around in what happened sixteen years ago. He doesn’t want anybody to find a link between the Maager case and the body on the beach. I don’t know what, but it seems pretty clear that something wasn’t what it seemed all those years ago. Correct me if I’m wrong.’

  ‘Are there any more . . . irregularities?’ Kohler wondered.

  Moreno thought for a moment.

  ‘There’s bound to be,’ she said. ‘It’s just that we don’t know what they are. I spoke to the pathologist, the man who did the post-mortem on Winnie Maas, and I must say his reaction was astonishingly strong. He became terribly upset for some reason – as if I were somehow questioning his honour and credibility. Just because I wanted to put a few simple things to him. I didn’t have a chance to ask him a single question before he boiled over.’

  ‘It sounds like a damned conspiracy,’ said Kohler. ‘Or a cover-up at the very least. Has anybody taken a look at the trial records? Is there anything dodgy there?’

  ‘I haven’t got round to it, I’m afraid,’ said Moreno with a sigh. ‘Don’t forget I’m here on holiday.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Kohler, with what could possibly have been interpreted as a melancholy smile.

  Baasteuwel returned from his smoking break.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked, looking first at Moreno and then Vegesack. ‘Personally, I’ve only had the time it takes to smoke one miserable little cigarette to think things over, and I have to say I just don’t understand it . . . For those of you who don’t know me, I should point out that this is very unusual.’

  He pulled a face and flopped down into the armchair. Moreno hesitated for a few moments before responding.

  ‘I think,’ she said, hastily trying to keep her guard up and not say too much, ‘I think that what really happened in 1983 wasn’t quite as straightforward as they concluded then. And that Chief of Police Vrommel – and presumably others as well – had good reason to make sure that something was brushed under the carpet. I don’t know what and I don’t know why. I also think that there are people here in Lejnice who have known the truth but have kept quiet about it for sixteen years – and that Tim Van Rippe was one of them. And that somebody killed him to make sure that he didn’t give the game away. Yes, in broad outline that’s what I think.’

  ‘Hmm,’ muttered Baasteuwel. ‘And how the hell could this somebody know that this girl was going to visit Tim Van Rippe that particular day?’

  Moreno shook her head.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ she admitted. ‘But Mikaela stirred up quite a lot of things before she disappeared in a puff of smoke. She met both Winnie Maas’s mother and this Vera Sauger. Perhaps several other people as well, but since nobody seems to be bothering to look into the matter, we don’t yet know who. Vera gave me another name as well as Tim Van Rippe – one Claus Bitowski. I’ve rung his number several times this morning, but there’s been no reply.’

  ‘Are you suggesting . . . ?’ said Baasteuwel, but hesitated for a moment. ‘Are you suggesting that he’s also buried on the beach somewhere? This Bitowski? Is that your hypothesis between the lines?’

  Moreno hesitated and looked round the table.

  ‘I don’t have a hypothesis,’ she said. ‘But it wouldn’t be all that difficult to check in any case. If he’s alive it must surely be possible to get hold of him. Somehow or other.’

  Baasteuwel nodded.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ he said. ‘And what about Mikaela? What are we going to do about little fröken Lijphart? That’s a harder nut to crack, I suspect. This damned Vrommel . . . What the hell’s behind all this?’

  Nobody seemed to have a good answer to that question, and silence reigned once more. Moreno thought she could almost see – or at any rate sense – the highly charged thoughts of each of them hovering like a cloud over the table. Good, she thought. It’s good to have more brains at work in this connection. At last . . .

  ‘Ah well,’ said Baasteuwel in the end. ‘I can see by the cheerful expressions on your faces that we can assume she’s also lying there in the sand.’

  ‘There’s nothing to suggest that,’ Moreno hurried to point out; but even as she said that she became aware that it had more to do with wishful thinking than anything else.

  Kohler sighed.

  ‘We’ll have to arrange for the whole beach to be dug up,’ he said. ‘It should be quite straightforward. A few hundred men and a few months . . . Maybe we could get the army involved, they are usually keen on this kind of thing.’

  ‘When there isn’t a war on,’ said Baasteuwel.

  ‘I suggest we wait for a few days with that,’ said Moreno. ‘I mean, there are other angles of approach. How’s the investigation into Tim Van Rippe going, for instance?’

  Baasteuwel made a noise reminiscent of a lawn mower that failed to start. Or a Trabant.

  ‘Sluggish,’ he said. ‘The Van Rippe investigation’s proceeding sluggishly. But perhaps that’s the intention.’

  ‘Let’s hear about it,’ said Moreno optimistically.

  Constable Vegesack, who had been sitting there and listening in silence for most of the time, decided to do the talking.

  ‘No, not a lot has happened,’ he said. ‘The postmortem is over and done with, we got the paperwork yesterday. It’s not possible to be more precise about the time of death, it seems. He died at some point within a twenty-four-hour period – midday on Sunday the
eleventh and Monday the twelfth at the same time. The cause of death is beyond dispute: a pointed instrument stabbed into the left eye that continued into the brain. No sign of any other injury, no sign of a struggle – no wounds or scratches, no scraps of skin and so on. But it’s odd that somebody could just come up and stab him in the eye: it’s possible that he was caught completely by surprise. Maybe he was lying asleep . . . Or sunbathing.’

  He waited for comments from Kohler or Baasteuwel, but neither of them seemed to have anything to say. Vegesack took a mouthful of beer, and continued.

  ‘We’ve spoken to several people who knew Van Rippe, but nobody had anything relevant to say. He’d planned to go away for a few days with a female friend of his – Damita Fuchsbein: she was the one who reported him missing, and she identified the body. The last person to see him alive, as far as we know at the moment at least, is a neighbour of his. He’s called Eskil Pudecka, and he claims to have spoken to Van Rippe shortly after one o’clock on Sunday – that means of course that the twenty-four-hour period shrinks slightly, but maybe that doesn’t matter much. We’ve also spoken to Van Rippe’s mother and his brother, they are his closest relations, but they know as little as everybody else.’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Who exactly has been talking to all these people? Kohler and I have spoken to four or five people at most, but who dealt with this girlfriend, for instance? And the relatives?’

  Vegesack thought for a moment.

  ‘I interrogated Damita Fuchsbein,’ he said. ‘You couldn’t really say she was his girlfriend, by the way. Vrommel dealt with both his mother and his brother – the mother as recently as yesterday, I believe. She’s been away.’

  Baasteuwel slammed his fist down on the table.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he snorted. ‘Vrommel deals with the mother! Vrommel deals with the brother! Vrommel deals with every bastard who might have something to hide . . . For Christ’s sake! He’s running this show just as he wants to, the swine! Have you seen any transcripts from the interrogations he’s conducted?’

  Vegesack looked embarrassed.

  ‘No . . .’ he said. ‘No, I don’t think he’s arranged for them to be typed out yet.’

  ‘Have you seen anything?’ said Baasteuwel, glaring at his colleague.

  Kohler shook his head.

  ‘Calm down now,’ he urged. ‘Don’t get carried away again.’

  Baasteuwel flung out his arms in frustration and sank back into his armchair. Moreno wondered if he often got carried away, and what might happen in that case. It seemed obvious that Kohler had some kind of point in any case, as Baasteuwel didn’t bother to protest.

  ‘We must look into this,’ Kohler said. ‘Obviously. But I suggest we do so with a modicum of discretion. Does anybody think we have anything to gain by putting Vrommel up against the wall straight away?’

  Moreno thought about that. So did Vegesack and Baasteuwel: she could sense their minds working overtime. As far as she could judge neither of them would have anything at all against confronting Vrommel with a 500-watt lamp shining into his face and a whole arsenal of accusations.

  She certainly didn’t either, but that naturally didn’t mean that Kohler’s line was not to be preferred. Vrommel is presumably no thickie, even if he is a shit heap. Or a skunk. But it would be better to have a little patience and give themselves a chance of ascertaining a few facts first.

  It wasn’t at all clear what, but if there was anything they ought to be familiar with by now it was a lack of clarity.

  Baasteuwel put her thoughts into words.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll give the bastard a few days to stew. It might be fun to see how he acts in the circumstances, if nothing else.’

  Vegesack nodded. Moreno and Kohler nodded.

  ‘Let’s do that, then,’ said Kohler. ‘But what now? Perhaps we ought to share out the workload a bit?’

  ‘I agree,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘But what the hell should we do? All those who are on leave can go and buy themselves an ice cream if they’d prefer.’

  34

  That afternoon Moreno went to stay with Selma Perhovens. A promise was a promise, after all, and the landlady at Dombrowski’s had informed her firmly that new guests were due to move into Moreno’s room that evening.

  Perhovens hadn’t sounded as if she’d regretted making the offer when Moreno phoned her that morning. On the contrary. We women must stick together, she said, and the least we can do is to offer one another a bit of hospitality in times of need. Besides, they had quite a lot to talk about, she thought.

  Moreno thought so as well, and she had no hesitation in taking over the box room. Box room and guest room. The flat was in Zinderslaan, and was large, old and lived-in: four rooms and a kitchen and high ceilings – far too big for a rather small mother and her slightly built daughter, but she had acquired it in connection with her divorce, so why not?

  The daughter was called Drusilla, was eleven going on twelve, and seemed to have about twice as much energy as her mother. Which was saying something. When Moreno crossed the threshold, Drusilla eyed her up and down, from top to toe.

  ‘Is she going to stay here? Cool!’

  Moreno gathered that she wasn’t the first temporary guest in the box room. While a two-hour belt of rain drifted past, she devoted herself to playing cards, watching the television and reading comics together with Drusilla. Not one thing after the other, but all at the same time. Simply gaping at the telly was too boring, Drusilla thought. And the same applied to playing cards. You needed to have something to do as well.

  Meanwhile Perhovens sat in her room, writing: there were two articles that needed to be written by half past four, she apologized for being a poor hostess, but what the hell . . .

  She was afraid that she was also booked that evening, unfortunately, and at about five o’clock she took Drusilla with her and left Moreno to her own devices. They’d be back by about eleven, all being well.

  Or thereabouts.

  ‘You must stay for several days,’ insisted Drusilla as they left. ‘I shan’t be going to visit my cousins until next week, my friend is in Ibiza, and Mum’s so boring when all she does is work.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Moreno.

  When she was on her own she ran a bath. Luckily she had her mobile in the bathroom, for while she was lying there in the lime-blossom-scented foam, she had no fewer than three calls.

  The first was from her best friend Clara Mietens, who had finally got back home and listened to her answering machine. She had been on a buying trip to Italy (Clara owned and ran a boutique in Kellnerstraat in central Maardam, selling clothing not produced by factories or sweat-shops), she’d met a man who wasn’t worth bothering about, and had nothing at all against a few days cycling around Sorbinowo, as they had discussed earlier. Next week, Monday or Tuesday perhaps – she would need a bit of time to brief her stand-in. And to check and see if she really did still have a bike.

  Moreno explained – without going into detail – that she was also tied up for a few days, and they agreed to get in touch again on Sunday.

  Was the idle life by the seaside invigorating? Clara had asked.

  Moreno assured her that it was, and hung up.

  Then Inspector Baasteuwel rang. He reckoned the pair of them ought to have a meeting in order to discuss things. In view of the latest development, he and Kohler had booked into Kongershuus, and he was free that evening. So how about a bite to eat and a glass of wine? he wondered. And a bit of intelligent conversation about what the hell was going on in this godforsaken dump with that goddamned chief of police.

  Moreno accepted without needing to give the proposal any further thought. Werders restaurant, eight o’clock.

  Two minutes later Mikael Bau rang. He was also free that evening and really needed to talk to her, he claimed. To sort out this and that, no hard feelings, but surely they could have a bite to eat and a glass of wine, like civilized human beings?

 
She said that unfortunately she was tied up that evening, but that she’d have nothing against meeting him the next day, always assuming that she hadn’t gone home by then. He accepted after a few seconds of reluctant silence. Then he wondered if she always behaved like this when she was having her period. Hiding herself away like a wounded lioness, telling all males to go to hell.

  She laughed and said that he didn’t need to worry about that. Her period was over, she was lying in lime-blossom-scented bubbles in a lion-footed bathtub and looking forward to new adventures.

  He asked what the hell she meant by that, but she didn’t know either and so they closed down the call having half agreed to meet the following day.

  Inspector Baasteuwel had booked a table behind two dense artificial fig trees, and was sitting with a dark beer, waiting for her.

  ‘Why did you become a cop?’ he asked when they had completed their orders. ‘I’m not an idiot, but I can’t help asking that whenever I meet a new brother-in-misery. Or sister.’

  Moreno had seven different answers prepared for whenever she was asked that question, and selected one of them.

  ‘Because I thought I’d be good at it,’ she said.

  ‘Good answer,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘I can see that you’re not an idiot either.’