The Weeping Girl ivv-8

by Håkan Nesser

  ‘I was at that bloody party at Gollumsen’s place,’ said Sauger. ‘And I was a friend of Winnie’s. But not as close a friend as her mother seems to think. When we were a bit younger, perhaps, but not when it happened. We’d sort of drifted apart.’

  ‘That happens,’ said Moreno. ‘But was there anything more specific that Mikaela wanted to know about? Something more than what you might call the general picture?’

  Sauger thought about that and took another nipple.

  ‘Boyfriends,’ she said. ‘She asked about which boys Winnie had been together with before that business with Maager.’

  ‘Why did she want to know that?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. We only talked for about fifteen or twenty minutes. I was in a bit of a hurry.’

  ‘But you were able to help her with that question about boyfriends?’

  ‘Yes, I gave her a few names.’

  ‘Which names?’

  Sauger thought for a moment again.

  ‘Claus Bitowski,’ she said. ‘And Tim Van Rippe.’

  FOUR

  32

  Interrogation of Markus Baarentz, 22.7.1983.

  Location: Lejnice police station.

  Interrogator: Chief of Police Vrommel.

  Also present: Inspector Walevski, Prosecuting Secretary Mattloch.

  Interrogation transcript: Inspector Walevski.

  Authorized by: Secretary Mattloch, Chief of Police Vrommel.

  Vrommel: Name, age and occupation please.

  Baarentz: Markus Baarentz. I’m 49 and work as an accountant.

  V Here in Lejnice?

  B No, in Emsbaden. But I live in Lejnice. Alexanderlaan 4.

  V Can you tell us what happened last night?

  B Yes, of course. I’m a bridge player. I and my partner, Otto Golnik, took part in a two-day tournament in Frigge. Doubles. It went on and on and didn’t finish until about eleven p.m. We came third, and had to stay on for the prize-giving as well. Anyway, then we drove home. We were in my car — we usually take it in turns. I dropped Otto off first, he lives out at Missenraade, and then I continued home. I took the usual route, of course, and as I drove along Molnerstraat alongside the railway, I saw them.

  V What time was that, roughly?

  B Two o’clock. A few minutes past. It was shortly after the viaduct, there’s a street lamp just there, so it was impossible not to notice him, to notice them.

  V So what exactly did you see?

  B Maager. Arnold Maager, who was sitting right next to the railway lines with a girl in his lap.

  V How did you know it was Maager?

  B I recognized him. I have a boy who goes to the Voeller School. I’ve seen him at a few parents’ meetings. I saw straight away that it was him.

  V I see. What did you do?

  B I stopped. I could see immediately that there was something wrong. There was no reason to be sitting there, almost on the rails themselves. Even if there aren’t any trains at night, now that they’ve stopped the goods traffic. There was something odd about the girl as well. She was lying stretched out, and he was holding her head on his knee. I think I realized there must have been an accident the moment I saw them.

  V Did you see anybody else around?

  B Not even a cat. It was the middle of the night, after all.

  V So you stopped and got out of the car, did you?

  B Yes. Although I first wound down the window and shouted. Asked if there was anything wrong, but he didn’t answer. Then I got out of the car. I shouted again, but he didn’t react. Now I knew that there must be something seriously wrong. I climbed over the fence and went up to them. He didn’t even look up, although he must have heard me. He just sat there, stroking the girl’s hair. He seemed to be in another world, as it were. As if he’d had a shock. For a moment I thought he was drunk, and maybe the girl as well, but I soon gathered that wasn’t the case. It was much worse than that. She was dead.

  V How could you tell she was dead?

  B I don’t really know. The way she was lying, I suppose. I asked as well, of course, but I didn’t get an answer. Maager didn’t even look at me. I tried to make contact with him, but it was impossible.

  V You didn’t notice any injuries to the girl?

  B No. It was just the way she was lying. And her face. Her eyes didn’t seem to be properly closed, nor did her mouth. And she wasn’t moving. Not at all.

  V And Arnold Maager?

  B He just sat there, stroking her hair and her cheeks. He seemed to be in another world, as I said. I called him by his name as well. ‘Herr Maager,’ I said. ‘What’s happened?’

  V Did you get an answer?

  B No. I didn’t really know what to do. I just stood there for about ten or fifteen seconds or so. I asked again, and in the end he looked up. He looked at me very briefly, and there was something odd about his eyes — about his facial expression, in fact.

  V What exactly?

  B Something abnormal. When I was a lad I worked for a few summers in a mental hospital, and I thought I recognized that look. I thought about that right away.

  V What did you do?

  B I asked what was wrong with the girl, but he still didn’t react. I bent down to take a closer look at her. I thought I’d take her pulse or something, but he shooed me away.

  V Shooed you away? How?

  B Brushed my hand away, sort of. Then he made a noise.

  V A noise?

  B Yes, a noise. It sounded, well, it sounded a bit like the mooing of a cow.

  V Are you saying that Maager mooed like a cow?

  B Yes. An inhuman noise in any case. More like the cry of an animal. I assumed he was in a state of shock, and that there was no point in trying to get any sense out of him.

  V I understand. Tell us what you did next.

  B I thought I needed to call the police and an ambulance. It would have been best, of course, if I could have stopped a car or contacted some other person who could help out, but it was the middle of the night and I couldn’t see another soul. I didn’t want to leave him there with the girl either, not without establishing what state she was in; but in the end I managed to take her pulse without him protesting. She didn’t have one, as I’d suspected. She was dead.

  V Where did you take her pulse?

  B On her wrist. He didn’t want me to come anywhere near her neck.

  V Did you recognize the girl as well?

  B No. I’ve heard since who she is, but I’m not acquainted with the family.

  V But in the end you went and got some help in any case, is that right?

  B Yes. There was nothing else I could do. I climbed back over the fence on to the road, went to the nearest house and rang the doorbell. I switched the car lights off as well — I’d left them on without thinking. It took some time before anybody came to answer, but all the time I was waiting I kept my eye on Maager and the girl, and could see that they were still there, beside the railway line. It was no more than thirty or forty metres away. The woman who answered the door was Christina Deijkler, I know her slightly although I didn’t know she lived in that very house. I explained the situation, and she could see for herself that it was exactly as I’d said. She went to phone the emergency services and I went back to wait: the police car turned up after about ten minutes — Helme and Van Steugen. The ambulance arrived shortly afterwards.

  V Thank you, herr Baarentz. You did exactly the right thing. I have just a few more questions. While you were trying to get through to Maager, did you get any idea of what had happened?

  B No.

  V He didn’t give any indication at all? In words or gestures or in any other way?

  B No. He didn’t express himself at all. Apart from that strange noise, that is.

  V And you didn’t draw any conclusions?

  B No, not then. I heard today what it was all about. It’s horrendous, but I had no idea about any of that at the time, in the middle of the night.

  V How did you find out about what h
ad happened?

  B Alexander, my boy. He’d picked up the gossip in the town — the news seems to have spread like wild fire, and I suppose that’s understandable. Apparently Maager had had a relationship with the girl, that seems to have been common knowledge in the school. It’s a scandal, of course. I don’t really know what to say about it. They reckon he threw her down from the viaduct — is that true?

  V It’s too early to comment on the cause of death, but we don’t exclude that possibility. Are you absolutely certain that you didn’t see anybody else in the vicinity of the scene of the accident?

  B Absolutely.

  V No cars passing by, or that you’d seen shortly before you got there?

  B No. I don’t think I saw more than one single car after I’d dropped Otto Golnik off in Missenraade. And none at all anywhere near the viaduct, I’m sure of that.

  V You seem to be an unusually observant person, herr Baarentz.

  B I suppose I am. I’m a pretty precise sort of person — you have to be in my job. I suppose playing bridge helps as well: you have to be wide awake all the time.

  V I take your point. Many thanks, herr Baarentz. You have been extremely useful to us.

  B No problem. I’ve just done my duty, nothing more.

  33

  22 July 1999

  It was Thursday before the Wanted notice for Arnold Maager — 44 years old, 176 centimetres tall, slimly built and ash-grey-haired; possibly depressed, possibly confused, probably both — reached the public at large. By that time he had been missing for almost five days. He was last seen in the Sidonis Foundation care home just outside Lejnice, where he had been living for the last fifteen years, last Saturday — and it was probable that he was dressed in a white T-shirt, blue or brown cotton trousers, a light-coloured wind-cheater and Panther trainers.

  That same day, at dawn, a search party comprising fourteen officers from the police forces in Lejnice, Wallburg and Emsbaden began to comb the immediate vicinity of the Sidonis home — an operation that was completed at about five in the afternoon without any clues having been found to throw light on what had happened to the missing mentally ill patient.

  Simultaneously with the publication by the media of details of Maager’s disappearance, the police also issued a renewed Wanted notice for his daughter, Mikaela Lijphart, this time country-wide. She had now been missing for eleven days, and anybody who had seen the girl at any time during that period — or who could provide any other information that could be of use to the investigation team — was urged to get in touch immediately with the Lejnice police. Or with their nearest police station.

  The only person who responded to the latter request was the missing girl’s mother, Sigrid Lijphart, and that was not in order to pass on any new information but — as usual — to ask why the hell they hadn’t made any progress. Vrommel had no satisfactory answer to this question — as usual — and fru Lijphart threatened to report him to higher authorities if he and his colleagues failed to come up with something in the very near future. If for nothing else she would report them for negligence and a failure to fulfil a police officer’s duty to citizens. Vrommel asked politely if she would like him to send her forms she could fill in in order to make a complaint — a B112-5GE with regard to negligence, and a B112-6C for a failure to fulfil their duty — but she declined on both scores.

  Fru Lijphart asked no questions and lodged no complaints with regard to the disappearance of her former husband.

  Constable Vegesack lived with his Marlene in one of the newly built blocks of flats in Friederstraat, only a stone’s throw from the beach, and after a minimum of discussion — and an invitation from Vegesack — that is where their meeting was held. Discretion was essential, given the circumstances that had arisen: the police station was out of the question as a venue, and it would not be easy to hire a suitable alternative location at short notice.

  Three rooms and a kitchen, Moreno noted as she was being welcomed by Vegesack. Large balcony with a splendid view of the sea and Gordon’s Lighthouse. Not bad at all. She recalled that he’d told her that Marlene was an architect, and she wondered if she was also an interior designer. It looked very much like it, but she wasn’t at home just now and so Moreno couldn’t very well look any further into that. But the rooms and furniture seemed to have a well-thought-out colour scheme, the walls were not cluttered with kitsch — just a few high-quality reproductions: Tiegermann, Chagall and a few of Cezanne’s self-portraits. Bookcases with quite a lot of books. Large green plants. A piano — she wondered if it was Vegesack or his girlfriend who played. Or perhaps both of them? Good, she thought. This gives me confidence in him.

  But they weren’t gathered here to pass judgement on style and homeliness. The grim expressions on the faces of Intendent Kohler and Inspector Baasteuwel, who were each installed in a renovated 1950s armchair, gave no room for doubt on that score. On the contrary.

  ‘Fire away,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘What the hell is this all about?’

  Vegesack went to fetch four beers, and Moreno sat down on the sofa.

  ‘I smell a rat in this accursed business,’ she said.

  ‘Is its name Vrommel, by any chance?’ wondered Kohler.

  ‘The chief of police is bound to be in its vicinity in any case,’ said Moreno. ‘It’s no doubt best to fill you in a bit. Would you like me to start in the present, or the past?’

  ‘The past,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘For Christ’s sake, when they picked out Kohler and me they told us it would be all over in two or three days. I was due to go on holiday today. But it’s not the first time. .’

  ‘It probably won’t be the last either,’ said Kohler drily. ‘Let’s get a bit of flesh on the bones.’

  Moreno glanced at Vegesack, but he gestured to her and encouraged her to take command. She took her notebook out of her bag.

  ‘All right,’ she began. ‘Let’s take things in chronological order. Sixteen years ago — almost to the day, in fact — something happened here in Lejnice that. . well, I suppose you could say it left its mark. A teacher at the local school, Arnold Maager, had an affair with one of his pupils, a certain Winnie Maas. She became pregnant, and he killed her. That’s the official version, at least. They say he threw her down from a railway viaduct — it’s pretty high, she fell on to the rails down below and was killed. He was found sitting by the rails with the girl’s body in his lap. In the middle of the night. He went out of his mind as a result, and he’s been in a mental hospital ever since. The Sidonis care home, which isn’t far from here. He was found guilty, although he never confessed because he wasn’t of sound mind when the trial took place. Maager was married and had a little daughter when it happened; his wife distanced herself from him without further ado, and he hasn’t seen her or his daughter since then. They moved away from Lejnice that same autumn. Anyway, that’s the background. In outline. Any questions?’

  She looked round the table.

  ‘What a nice story,’ said Baasteuwel, taking a swig of beer.

  ‘Very,’ said Moreno. ‘But let’s fast-forward to the present. When I came out to Lejnice, let’s see — ’ she worked it out in her head — ‘twelve days ago, I met a young girl on the train who turned out to be Maager’s daughter. We got talking. She’d just celebrated her eighteenth birthday, and was on her way to visit her father at the Sidonis care home for the first time. She hadn’t seen him since she was two years old, and didn’t even know he existed. Her mother had told her about him the previous day, and the girl was pretty nervous about meeting him.’

  ‘No wonder,’ said Kohler.

  ‘Yes indeed. Anyway, a few days later her mum turned up here in Lejnice — Maager’s ex-wife, that is — and announced that her daughter hadn’t returned home. She’d gone missing.’

  ‘Gone missing?’ said Baasteuwel. ‘What the hell. .?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Moreno. ‘We know she visited her dad at the home on Saturday, and spent the night at the youth hostel out at Missenraade: but
nobody’s seen her since Sunday. And now the strange goings-on begin.’

  ‘Begin?’ said Kohler. ‘The strange goings-on begin now?’

  Moreno shrugged.

  ‘Well, continue, if you prefer. I’m only here in Lejnice on holiday, in fact, but I had a little job to sort out in the first few days. At the police station. Anyway, I’d met the girl on the train, and-’

  ‘What’s her name?’ interrupted Baasteuwel.

  ‘Mikaela. Mikaela Lijphart. As I said, I’d met her, and now I bumped into her mother as well. She was very worried, for obvious reasons. Eventually Chief of Police Vrommel agreed to issue a Wanted notice — but don’t let me hear anybody claiming that he prioritized it. The point, of course, was to ask if anybody had seen Mikaela last Sunday. Or later in the week. As far as we know only two people contacted the police as a result. One was a woman in Frigge who claimed to have seen the girl at the railway station up there, the other was a certain Vera Sauger — I spoke to her last night. It was after that conversation that Vegesack and I decided to arrange this meeting.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ said Baasteuwel, leaning forward over the table. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Vrommel spoke to both the women, and according to him nothing significant emerged. Nevertheless, Vera Sauger told me last night that she’d been visited by Mikaela that Sunday, and they’d had quite a long talk. The girl was trying to make contact with anybody who’d been involved in one way or another in the happenings of 1983. Anybody who’d known her father or the dead girl Winnie Maas. We don’t know why Mikaela wanted to do this, but it could be a result of something her dad told her when she visited him at the Sidonis home. That’s mere speculation, of course; but she must surely have had some reason for starting to root around. Unless it was mere curiosity. In any case, she went to see Winnie’s mother — I’ve spoken to her as well. But neither she nor Vera Sauger could be of much help to Mikaela — or so they say, at least. Fru Maas is more than a bit of a drunk, incidentally. We don’t know if the girl met anybody else apart from these two.’