by Håkan Nesser
“Do you know if she…if Eva had a boyfriend around that time, somebody she was pretty steady with?”
What an awful expression, he thought.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Beate Lingen. “I remember there was an incident in class three—the final year, that is, in the fall—when a boy had an accident. It wasn’t a lad from our class, I think he was a year older, in fact; but I have the impression that Eva was mixed up with it somehow or other.”
“How?”
“I don’t really know. I think it was something to do with a party of some kind. Some of the girls from our class were there, in any case, and there was an accident.”
“What sort of an accident?”
“This boy died. He fell over a cliff. They were in a holiday cottage at Kerran—there are quite a few escarpments out there, a geological fault, I think they say—I seem to remember they found his body the next morning. I assume strong drink played a part as well….”
“But are you quite sure that Eva was present?”
“Yes, she must have been there. They tried to hush it all up, I seem to recall. Nobody wanted to talk about what had happened. It was as if…as if there was something shameful, in fact.”
“And it was an accident?”
“Excuse me? Er, yes…. Of course.”
“There were never any, er, suspicions?”
“Suspicions? No. What kind of suspicions?”
“Never mind,” said Van Veeteren. “Miss Lingen, did you ever speak to Eva Ringmar about what happened? Later, I mean. In Karpatz, or when you used to see each other here in Maardam?”
“No, never. We didn’t really spend time with each other in Karpatz. We just met occasionally, as you do when you’re in the same class. It was more of an obligation, I think, almost…. She had her own circle of friends, and so did I, come to that.”
“But then in Maardam. Did you used to talk about your school days?”
“No, not really. We might have mentioned a teacher, but as I say, we moved in different circles. There wasn’t a lot to talk about.”
“Did you have the impression that Eva Ringmar was reluctant to talk about the past?”
She hesitated.
“Yes…” she said eventually. “I suppose you could say that.”
Van Veeteren said nothing for several seconds.
“Miss Lingen,” he said eventually, “I’m very keen to hear about certain matters from that period—the high school years in Mühlboden. Do you think you could give me the name of somebody who was close to Eva Ringmar at that time?…Somebody who knows more about her than you do? Preferably several.”
Beate Lingen thought about that.
“Grete Wojdat,” she said after a while. “Yes…Grete Wojdat and Ulrike deMaas. They were great pals, I know that. Ulrike was from the same place, I think: Leuwen. They came to school on the same bus, in any case.”
Van Veeteren made a note of the name.
“Have you any idea of where they are now?” he wondered. “If they’ve got married and changed their name, for instance?”
Beate Lingen thought that over again.
“I know nothing at all about Grete Wojdat,” she said. “But Ulrike…Ulrike deMaas, I met her a few years ago, in fact. She was living in Friesen…. She was then, in any case…married, but I think she kept her maiden name.”
“Ulrike deMaas,” said Van Veeteren, underscoring the name. “Friesen…. Do you think it’s worth a visit?”
“How on earth would I know, Inspector?” She looked at him in surprise. “I don’t even have the slightest idea about what you’re trying to find out!”
I think you ought to be grateful for that, Miss Lingen, Van Veeteren thought.
When he left it was dark, and the wind was blowing stronger. When he came to the tram stop he found that it was in possession of a gang of soccer hooligans shrieking and yelling, in their red-and-white scarves and woolly hats. Van Veeteren decided to walk instead.
As he passed through the Deijkstraat district he crossed over Pampas, the low-lying area just to the south of the municipal forest, where, once upon a time, he had set out on his checkered career as a police officer. When he came to the corner of Burgerlaan and Zwille, he paused and contemplated the dilapidated property next to the Ritmeeters brewery.
It looked exactly as he remembered it. The façade cracked and disintegrating, the plaster flaking away. Even the obscene graffiti at street level seemed to be from another age.
There was no light in either of the two windows on the third floor, just as had been the case that mild and fragrant summer evening twenty-nine years ago when Van Veeteren and Inspector Munck had broken into the flat after a hysterical telephone call. Munck had gone in first and taken the volley of shots from Mr. Ocker in his stomach. Van Veeteren had sat on the hall floor, holding Munck’s head while the man bled to death. Mr. Ocker was lying on the floor three meters farther into the apartment, shot through the throat by Van Veeteren.
Mrs. Ocker and their four-year-old daughter were found by the ambulance team: strangled and stuffed into a wardrobe in the bedroom.
He tried to recall when he had last heard anything from Elisabeth Munck. It must have been many years ago; despite the fact that he had very nearly become her lover, in a desperate attempt to make amends and build bridges and come to terms with his own distorted feelings of guilt.
He continued strolling over the Alexander Bridge, while asking himself why he had chosen this particular route. For Christ’s sake, there were plenty of memories to keep the Burgerlaan 35 story alive: it wasn’t necessary to dig up anything new.
It was several minutes after half past five when he entered his office on the fourth floor, and a mere fifteen minutes later he had established contact with Ulrike deMaas. Spoken to her on the telephone, and arranged a meeting for the following day.
Then he phoned the police garage and ordered the same car as he’d had the previous Sunday. When that was sorted out, he switched off the light and remained seated in the darkness with his hands clasped behind his head.
Strange how everything fell into place.
It’s as if somebody were pulling the strings, he thought.
It wasn’t a new thought, and as usual he cast it aside.
36
The body of Elizabeth Karen Hennan was found near the edge of Leisner Park in Maardam by an early riser taking his dog for a walk. It was naked and had been thrown into a hawthorn thicket only a few meters from the path for cyclists and horseback riders that cut across the whole park, and there was good reason to suspect that the murderer had taken her there in a car or some other vehicle.
No attempt had been made to conceal the body. Mr. Moussère saw it even before his German shepherd had reached the thicket, although his attempt to prevent the dog from following its natural instincts had been in vain.
The police were called from a nearby telephone kiosk, and the call was logged at 6:52. First on the scene, after only a few minutes, was patrol car No. 26; Constables Rodin and Markovic immediately cordoned off the area and carried out the first interrogation of Mr. Moussère.
At 7:25, Inspector Reinhart arrived, accompanied by Inspector Heinemann and two crime-scene technicians. The medical team arrived twenty minutes later, and the first journalist, Aaron Cohen from the Allgemejne, failed to put in an appearance until about half past eight. Evidently whoever was supposed to be listening in to the police radio had fallen asleep, but Cohen insisted that he was not to blame.
Almost everything was clear by then, and for once Reinhart was able to make a fairly considered and appropriately doctored summary of the situation.
The body appeared to be that of a certain Elizabeth K. Hennan, aged thirty-six, resident in Maardam and employed as an assistant at the souvenir boutique Gloss in Karlstorget. Although the body had been naked when discovered, identification had been easy, as the victim’s belongings had been found a little farther into the same thicket. The police had recovered her c
lothes—apart from her knickers—and her purse, containing money, keys, and identification documents.
The time of death had not yet been established, but the police pathologist, Meusse, had been able to make an estimate. Judging by the temperature of the corpse and the degree of rigor mortis, it would seem to have ceased to live at some time between one o’clock and three o’clock in the morning.
There was no doubt about the cause of death. Elizabeth Hennan had been strangled, probably at a different location from the place where the body was found. There was no sign of the victim’s having offered any resistance to her attacker, which could be explained by her having apparently first been rendered unconscious by a blow to the temple with a blunt instrument.
Among the details omitted from Reinhart’s summary was the fact that the body had been subjected to a degree of sexual violence, probably before as well as after the moment of death.
Chief of Police Edmund Hiller was informed of the murder at about ten o’clock that same morning, while partaking of a cup of coffee at home, and he immediately ordered Detective Inspector Reinhart to take charge of the investigation. He also withdrew Inspectors Rooth and Heinemann from the so-called teacher murder, and put them at Reinhart’s disposal.
At this point neither Hiller nor anybody else had reason to suspect a connection between the two cases.
When Chief Inspector Van Veeteren collected his red Toyota from the police pool that same morning, he was totally unaware of the night’s events; but of course, there is no reason to think that his knowing about what had happened would have altered the subsequent course of events in any significant way.
III
Sunday, November 29–Thursday, December 3
37
The town of Friesen seemed not to have bothered to get out of bed this gray, misty November Sunday. On the stroke of half past two he parked outside the railway station, and it only took him a couple of minutes to find the restaurant Poseidon, which was in a basement on the north side of the market square.
The premises were barren and deserted, but even so he was careful to choose an enclosed booth in a far corner. Sat down and ordered a beer. The waiter was chubby and completely bald, and reminded Van Veeteren of a film gangster he had seen many years ago.
In a whole series of movies, no doubt; but his name escaped him. Both the name of the character and of the actor.
And as he sat there, waiting for Ulrike deMaas, a new feeling started to creep up on him: that this was the right place, the very place.
That this is where he ought to have come a long time ago, for a conversation with this old friend of Eva’s. He could feel it in the atmosphere, in the damp emptiness. As if this restaurant and this Sunday afternoon had been waiting for him. If this had been a movie, what was lying in store for him would have been the inevitable key scene; the one that could have been edited and used over and over again. Showing short flash-backs, each one lasting only a second or two, from the whole story so far…It was all very clear now, the whole thing; but this was also the kind of knowledge that he usually would prefer not to be aware of. This intuition that seemed to affect only himself, and could almost persuade him to imagine that he was some kind of a vehicle for a higher level of justice; a tool that was never wrong, not even in the twenty-first case….
However, it was nothing to brag about. He recalled how he had once found a rapist by locking himself up in his office and playing patience for half an hour. That wasn’t something to include in lectures addressed to new recruits.
He sipped his beer slowly, and waited. Sat like an imperturbable godfather in the dirty yellow light shining down onto the table. Baldy had been to light a candle in order to indicate that this booth had been claimed, but apart from that it remained in the shadows, waiting, like Van Veeteren, for Ulrike deMaas.
She arrived shortly after three, exactly as she had promised. A slim, dark woman in a duffel coat and a rust-red shawl. She had finished work at the museum at three o’clock; it was located on the other side of the square, and it didn’t take long to turn off the lights and lock up. Van Veeteren assumed that the number of visitors was similar to that at Poseidon; it was Sunday, and the first Sunday in Advent, at that: people no doubt had better things to do than visiting local museums and restaurants.
“Chief Inspector Veeteren?”
“Van Veeteren. Please sit down. You are Ulrike deMaas, I take it?”
She nodded, took off her duffel coat, and hung it over her chair.
“Please excuse me for suggesting that we should meet here rather than in my home, but things are a bit hectic just at the moment, and you said you wanted to talk in peace and quiet….”
She smiled timidly.
“I couldn’t imagine a better place than this,” said Van Veeteren. “What would you like?”
Baldy had slunk out from the shadows.
“To eat?” she wondered.
“Of course,” said Van Veeteren. “I’ve been driving for two hours, and will have to spend another two hours driving back home. A stew in the autumnal darkness is the very least I require. Choose whatever you like. The state is paying.”
She smiled again, a little more sure of herself now. Removed a band from her hair and released a shower of chestnut. Van Veeteren reminded himself that he was an ancient cop with only ten years left before retirement.
She lit a cigarette.
“You know, Chief Inspector, when I read about her death, it was as if…well, not quite as if I’d expected it, but I wasn’t shocked or dismayed, or whatever it is one ought to have been. Isn’t that strange?”
“Perhaps. Could you explain in more detail?”
She hesitated.
“Eva was…she was that sort of person, in a way—she lived a high-risk life. Well, maybe that’s overstating it, but there was something…something dramatic about her.”
“Did you know her well?”
“As well as anybody, I think. In those days, I mean. We never met later. We were in the same class for six years—the last three years at our junior school in Leuwen, and three years at high school in Mühlboden. We saw quite a lot of each other at high school; there were four or five of us in the same group. We used to call it our gang.”
“Girls?”
“Yes, a gang of girls. There was generally only two or three of us when we did something together. The others would be preoccupied with boys at the time, but who was doing what kept changing.”
“I’m with you. Did Eva have many boyfriends in those days?”
“No, she was probably the most careful of all of us. Yes, I’d say that was beyond doubt, but…”
“But what?”
“In some strange way she had more reason than the rest of us to be careful. That sounds odd, but she always used to jump into things with both feet, as it were, and she had to keep herself on a tight rein to make sure she wasn’t injured…or hurt, perhaps I should say. She was strong and fragile at the same time, if you see what I mean.”
“Not really, no,” Van Veeteren admitted.
“She changed quite a lot when we were at high school as well. I barely knew her when we were at school in Leuwen. She and her brother Rolf—they were twins—were more or less inseparable. Their father died at some point around that time. I think that was good from her point of view. He was a heavy drinker. I wouldn’t be surprised if he beat them—her mother as well, I suspect.”
“How did Eva change at high school?”
“She became more open, sort of. Made some good friends. Started to live, you might say.”
“Thanks to her father’s death?”
“Yes, I think so. The close link with Rolf seemed to become looser as well. I think they’d probably needed each other mostly as a sort of protection against their father.”
“Rolf moved away later on, is that right?”
“Yes, he also went to high school, in a parallel class, but he soon left. Went to sea instead…Eventually settled down in America, I seem to re
call.”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“Do you remember the names of any boys Eva went with?”
“Hmm, I’ve been thinking about that since you called, but the only two I can remember, ones she had a close relationship with, if you see what I mean, were Rickard Antoni, who was in the same class as us—that was right at the end, just before we left school. I think it only lasted for a few weeks; in any case, she’d left him when she started at university in the fall. He was with another girl by then, Kristine Reger, a friend of mine. They got married eventually.”
“And who was the other one?”
“The other one?”
“Yes, you said you remembered two boys that Eva had a relationship with.”
“Paul Bejsen, of course. The one who died.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
She sighed deeply. Lit another cigarette and sat quite still for a while, her head resting on one hand.
She’s pausing in order to brace herself, he thought. To overcome her reluctance.
“It was the All Saints Day holiday in our last year,” she began. “One of the boys in our class, Erwin Lange his name was, had a holiday cottage—or rather, his parents had a holiday cottage—not far from Kerran. It’s lovely, dramatic countryside out there, with moors and crags and ravines; I don’t know if you’ve ever been there?”
Van Veeteren shook his head.
“Anyway, we had a party. I think there were about twenty of us, most of them from our class, but some others as well. Eva had been with this Paul Bejsen for a few months. He was a bit older; he’d already passed his school-leaving exam. But they were having a real relationship, I know that.”
“Was he her first lover?”
Ulrike deMass hesitated.
“Well, I don’t know who else her first could have been…. And yet…”
“Go on.”
“And yet you couldn’t help feeling she’d been through it all before, that she was quite experienced, in fact.”
