The Stranglers Honeymoon

11

In the early hours of Monday morning he dreamt about a train hurtling at high speed through the world and running over hordes of black cats with white patches; and early the following morning he woke up in a cold sweat after being chased through a deserted and unlit town by a mad, bearded priest with a gigantic dead swallow in his mouth and a carpet-beater in his hand.

The message could hardly be clearer, and when Ulrike had left for work at about half past eight, he telephoned the Maardam CID.

After the obligatory wrong connections, he finally got through to Münster.

‘That priest,’ he said.

‘What priest?’ wondered Münster.

‘The one that died. Who fell in front of a train.’

‘Oh, him,’ said Münster. ‘I know nothing about it. It was Moreno who took charge of that.’

‘Moreno?’

‘Yes. Why do you ask, Chief Inspector?’

Hell and damnation, Van Veeteren thought. Four years have passed, and he still calls me that. No doubt it will say Chief Inspector on my gravestone.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Münster, who had drawn conclusions from the silence in his receiver. ‘I obviously have trouble in getting used to it.’

‘Never mind,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Can you put me through to Moreno?’

‘I can always try,’ said Münster. ‘But I don’t think there was anything for us to worry about. No suspicious circumstances at all. I suppose you don’t want to tell me why you’re ringing?’

‘Quite right,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Put me through to Moreno now.’

Detective Inspector Ewa Moreno was not in her office, but he eventually caught up with her via her mobile in a car between Linzhuisen and Weill. It was true that she had been dealing with the case of the priest who fell under a train — and what Münster said was also true, i.e. that there was no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary.

Apart from the possibility that Gassel might have done it of his own free will, that is. The train driver had been interrogated, but had noticed nothing unusual apart from a person appearing out of nowhere and suddenly falling down in front of the engine. Obviously, it had been a traumatic experience for him — every train driver’s nightmare — but Moreno had not managed to squeeze anything else out of him, despite talking to him for two hours, she said. Or trying to talk to him.

Van Veeteren pondered for a moment. Then he asked if she might possibly have time to indulge in a glass of beer with him that evening at Adenaar’s: and she had.

What’s he after? she wondered.

He didn’t want to go into that over the phone, but promised to do so while they were enjoying their beers.

She turned up a quarter of an hour late, and what struck him immediately was how beautiful she was. The most attractive inspector in the whole world, he thought. She seemed to get prettier and prettier as the years went by: he wondered what kept her in the force, and how old she actually was. No more than thirty-five in any case. A year had passed since he saw her last, in fact — in connection with the deplorable case involving Intendent deBries — and the situation then had been so awful that even an attractive woman had been unable to distract attention from the horror of it all.

‘I’m afraid I’m a bit late, Chief Inspector. I hope you haven’t been waiting for too long.’

‘Go to hell,’ he said. ‘Drop that Chief Inspector crap or I’ll have an epileptic fit.’

She laughed.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It takes time to get used to it.’

‘Four years,’ Van Veeteren pointed out. ‘Is it all that difficult to get used to it over four years?’

‘We police are a bit slow to catch on,’ said Moreno. ‘As is well known.’

‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren, beckoning to the waiter. ‘You can say that again.’

‘So, Gassel,’ said Moreno after they had ordered. ‘What’s it all about? I have to admit I was a bit curious.’

Van Veeteren scratched his head impassively and took out his cigarette machine.

‘I don’t really know,’ he admitted. ‘I started to smell a rat, but no doubt it has to do with my age and impending Alzheimer’s.’

‘Shall we take a bet on it?’ Moreno asked.

Van Veeteren fed tobacco into the machine and said nothing for a while.

‘He came to see me,’ he said eventually. ‘That’s the rat.’

‘Came to see you?’ said Moreno. ‘Gassel came to see you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I never got round to talking to him, unfortunately. I had an appointment at the dentist’s, and the following day I was flying to Rome with Ulrike. You’ve never met her, but she’s my better half. . Much better, in fact. Anyway, that was three weeks ago — just over, to be precise: we agreed to meet when I got back, but now he’s dead. It could be pure coincidence, of course, but you sometimes wonder.’

Moreno said nothing, but a furrow appeared in her brow.

‘I did get a hint of what he wanted, though,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘He wanted to get something off his chest.’

‘Get something off his chest?’

‘Yes. Somehow or other. He’d evidently got to hear of something that came within his duty of confidentiality and so he couldn’t tell me what — a confessor who wanted to confess, as you might say.’

‘Confession?’ said Moreno. ‘But he wasn’t a Catholic priest.’

Van Veeteren lit his cigarette.

‘No,’ he said. ‘But as far as I can make out most other denominations use a sort of modified variation of confession. I suppose they’ve begun to understand that our conscience can sometimes become too heavy to bear.’

Moreno smiled.

‘Didn’t he say anything else?’

Van Veeteren shook his head gloomily.

‘Not as far as I remember. But he did make a decidedly nervous impression, and that’s what worries me. If it hadn’t been for that damned olive stone, I’d have sat down and listened to what he had to say, of course.’

‘Olive stone?’ said Moreno. ‘Now then, Chief. . Now you’re talking in riddles.’

‘I broke a filling on an olive stone,’ explained Van Veeteren, pulling a face. ‘The same day as we were due to fly to Rome. . or the day before, to be precise. That was why I had to go to the dentist’s. My fangs are in pretty good shape apart from that.’

‘I don’t doubt that for a second,’ said Moreno, deepening the furrow in her brow somewhat.

The waiter came with the beers. They drank a toast, then sat in silence for a while.

‘Do you think there’s something illegal lurking in the background? Is that what you’re saying?’

Van Veeteren inhaled deeply, then peered through the smoke as he breathed out.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s impossible to say, but he’d picked me out in order to take me into his confidence because of what I was — a former chief inspector. Former, kindly take note of that. It was no coincidence — if I remember rightly, he let slip that he’d promised not to go to the police, that was the point. So what the hell could it be all about, if there wasn’t something illegal going on?’

Moreno shrugged.

‘Who knows?’ she said. ‘What do you think? Your intuition is not exactly an unknown concept, after all.’

‘Bah,’ muttered Van Veeteren, taking a swig of beer. ‘I don’t think as much as a chicken’s fart. Perhaps it’s the latest fad in the criminal underworld to go to confession, how should I know? But what about you, Inspector? Have you no suggestion to make? I assume there must have been some sort of investigation?’

Moreno sighed and looked slightly worried.

‘Not much of one,’ she said. ‘We haven’t written it off yet — it’s only a week after it happened, of course; but we haven’t found anything to suggest that. . well, to suggest that there are evil spirits behind it, as it were.’

‘Who have you spoken to?’

‘His father,’ said Moreno. ‘He’s a retired former self-employed businessman up in Saaren. He took it very hard. It was his only son, his wife died a year ago. A colleague out at Leimaar as well, and quite a few people in the station, of course. Gassel lived alone. Not many friends. It’s possible he was depressed, but based on what we know there’s no reason to make a song and dance about it. We simply don’t have any evidence to suggest anything improper.’

‘And nothing odd?’

Moreno paused to think that over.

‘I see what you’re getting at,’ she said. ‘I’m not as sensitive as a certain former chief inspector used to be, but I haven’t noticed anything odd. Nothing at all. It would no doubt have been different if there had been any witnesses, somebody who’d seen or noticed something, but nobody has come forward. It was wet and windy that evening, and pretty dark on the platform where it happened. And there was nobody waiting to get onto the train — it was the terminus.’

‘I understand,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘And the engine driver didn’t notice anything?’

‘No. He happened to be looking down at the controls at the moment when it happened. That’s what he says, at least. All he noticed was a jolt.’

‘A jolt?’

‘Yes, that’s how he put it.’

‘And it hasn’t been established what Gassel was doing there? Whether he was waiting to meet somebody in, or something like that?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know what he’d been doing earlier in the evening? Before he fell onto the tracks, that is?’

Moreno shook her head.

‘No. It seems he was running a confirmation class until six o’clock. Out at Leimaar. Then he presumably went home. He lived in Maagerweg in the town centre. He should have been home by about half past six, but that’s only a guess. He fell under the train at 22.46, but what he’d been doing before that we have no idea.’

‘Had he bought a ticket?’

‘No. Not at the station, in any case. And he didn’t have one on him.’

‘So you don’t know why he was at the station at all? Unless of course he’d gone there to jump under a train. .’

‘No. As I said.’

Van Veeteren looked out of the window and sighed.

‘And you haven’t made much of an effort to find out, either?’

‘No,’ said Moreno. ‘Presumably he was at home all evening, but who knows? We have other things to do to keep us busy, you know.’

‘You don’t say,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Anyway, I suspect this is about as far as we’re going to get. Thank you for coming to listen to my high-flown rhetoric. Do you mind if I ask you a personal question before we pack up?’

‘Please do,’ said Moreno.

‘You are probably the most beautiful copper I’ve ever seen. I’m old enough to dare to say that. Haven’t you got married yet?’

He watched her blush, and noted that she waited until it had passed.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘No, not yet. I keep myself young by not doing so.’

‘How old are you, in fact?’

‘Old enough to have the sense to say thank you for a compliment,’ said Inspector Moreno.

The vicar of Leimaar parish was Franz Brunner, and he received Van Veeteren at his vicarage. It was the oldest building in the area, he claimed — a low, handsome, wooden building from the early nineteenth century with wings covered in ivy, Virginia creeper and rambler roses gleaming in the sudden autumn sunshine.

Van Veeteren enquired tactfully if the church itself wasn’t a little older, but Brunner explained that it had burnt to the ground at the end of the nineteenth century, and the new one wasn’t consecrated until 1908.

Leimaar was also one of the most recently built parts of Maardam, Van Veeteren was aware of that. Not until after the Second World War, in three or four stages: in the fifties, sixties and eighties. Nearly all the buildings were blocks of flats, rather ordinary in appearance: but being on a ridge with views for miles over the plain leading to the sea, it was considered to be one of the more attractive parts of the town. He recalled once having interrogated an elderly woman in a conservatory right at the top of one of the blocks of flats, and making a mental note that Leimaar was one of the places he might consider as a suitable environment in which to spend the autumn of his life.

But not the vicarage. And he wasn’t yet in the autumn of his life, even if he was well past sixty and it was the beginning of October.

‘As I said,’ he began, ‘it’s about Pastor Gassel.’

The vicar assumed an expression of pious professional sorrow and served coffee.

‘Ah yes, Gassel,’ he said. ‘That was a sad story.’

Van Veeteren waited in order to give him an opportunity of enlarging upon that platitude, but the vicar showed no sign of doing so. Instead he selected a biscuit and began chewing thoughtfully.

As far as Van Veeteren could tell he was in his fifties, perhaps fifty-five, but there was hardly a wrinkle on his pale face, and his ash-blond hair was parted in a way that made him look like a confirmation candidate. His hands, which only just peeped out of the sleeves of his black priestly jacket, were as smooth as a communion wafer, and Van Veeteren decided provisionally that he was one of those unfortunate people who manage to grow old without looking old. Who have lived so carefully and with such respect for the rules of morality and virtue that time has not succeeded in leaving any traces on their bodies.

He also wondered if he had ever come across this phenomenon outside the ranks of religious practitioners. Presumably not, he decided: it had to do with Sodom and Gomorrah, of course.

‘How long had he been working in your parish?’ he asked after his host had swallowed the biscuit and started looking round for another one.

‘Not all that long,’ said Brunner, withdrawing his hand. ‘Just over a year. This was his first post after qualifying — he had studied various other subjects before coming round to theology.’

He made it sound like a mild but fully justified rebuke.

‘I see,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Were you on good terms with him?’

‘Of course. There are only three priests in this parish, and we must share out the chores fairly.’

‘Chores?’ Van Veeteren took the opportunity of remarking, and a faint glow spread over the vicar’s white-bread cheeks.

‘I was joking,’ he said. ‘Yes, we work together every day — or worked — me, Pastor Hartlew and Pastor Gassel. We devote ourselves to quite a lot of social work, which not everybody realizes. Hartlew has been with me since 1992, and Gassel joined us last year when the diocese finally agreed to establish a new living in the parish. I should point out that we take care of forty thousand souls, more than any other parish in Maardam.’

A hard job, Van Veeteren thought, but refrained from expressing his admiration.

‘What was he like?’ he asked instead.

‘What do you mean?’ asked the vicar.

‘When I ask what he was like, it means that I would like to know what he was like,’ Van Veeteren explained, tasting the coffee. As expected, and as usual, it was like dishwater. They base all their activities on the drinking of coffee, he thought, but even so they never learn how to make it properly.

‘I’m not really sure exactly what you want to know,’ said Brunner. ‘I gather he had been to see you, is that right?’

‘Yes,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘He had a few problems connected with his work.’

‘Problems? I don’t think I understand what you-’

‘That’s the impression I had. That something had happened in connection with his work.’

The vicar flung his hands out wide.

‘What could that have been?’

‘That’s what I’m asking you. Could you do that again?’

‘What? What should I do again?’

‘Fling your hands out once again. Forgive me for saying so, but you look like an actor who is being forced to play the same scene for the twentieth time. No offence intended.’

Brunner opened his mouth for two seconds, then closed it again. Van Veeteren took a biscuit, and congratulated himself on rather a successful opening move.

‘What is it you’re actually after?’ asked Brunner when he had recovered. ‘You don’t really have any authorization any more, am I right? You’ve left the police force, haven’t you?’

‘True,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Why do you ask? Have you something to hide?’

‘Of course not. It’s just that I think you are acting a bit aggressively. Why should I have anything to hide?’

‘God moves in a mysterious way,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘But it is quite obvious to me that you are uncomfortable about this conversation. If you asked me to say what I think, I would say that you were not on very good terms with Pastor Gassel. Am I right?’

Brunner had problems with the colour of his face again.

‘We respected each other,’ he said. ‘You must. . you must understand that to a large extent the work of a parish priest is just like any other job. As vicar, I am of course in charge of everything when it comes to responsibilities and duties. .’

‘So you had different views when it came to beliefs?’

The vicar thought for a moment.

‘In one respect, yes.’

‘On something important?’

Brunner stood up and started walking backwards and forwards around the room.

‘Why are you insisting on this?’ he asked after half a minute’s silence. ‘Is it so important for you?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Maybe, maybe not. But the fact is that Pastor Gassel came to me to confess, fundamentally speaking. One might have thought it would have been more natural for him to go to his own vicar. Or at any rate to somebody inside the church’s organization. Personally, I’m a defector, an agnostic detective chief inspector.’

Brunner stopped.

‘What did he want?’ he asked.

It seemed to occur to him almost immediately that he didn’t really have any right to ask such a question, and he sat down in the armchair again and sighed.

‘I never discovered what he wanted,’ explained Van Veeteren. ‘But I had hoped that you might be able to point me in the right direction.’

‘I see. Let me think for a moment.’

Brunner clasped his hands in his lap and closed his eyes. Van Veeteren assumed that in this simple way he was obtaining permission to proceed from a higher authority, and wondered in passing if this might be one of the motives for all religious activities: the need to pass responsibility on to somebody else.

The unwillingness to bear the burden.

‘All right,’ said Brunner in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, opening his eyes. ‘Yes, we had several differences of opinion, Pastor Gassel and I. You are right in that respect.’

Van Veeteren looked up at the ceiling and gave silent thanks for the praise accorded to him.

‘What differences?’ he asked.

‘Pastor Gassel was homosexual.’

‘Really?’ said Van Veeteren.

There followed a moment’s silence.

‘One can have different views on homosexuality,’ said Brunner.

‘Can one?’ said Van Veeteren.

‘Personally I have a liberal attitude based on biological and Christian points of view.’

‘Meaning what?’ wondered Van Veeteren.

‘Nobody should be condemned because he — or she — has a deviant sexuality.’

‘I agree.’

‘But the person concerned must make the best of the situation. Acknowledging one’s homosexuality is of course a vital and necessary step — Pastor Gassel and I were in complete agreement on that score. But we had different opinions when it came to the next step.’

‘Which is?’ wondered Van Veeteren.

‘Fighting against it, of course,’ said the vicar, sitting up straight. ‘There are natural circumstances, and unnatural circumstances, and in the church we must pray for and help those who find themselves in unnatural circumstances. For me, this has always been obvious and a guiding principle. One can perhaps understand individuals who are unable — who don’t have the strength — to fight against their illness: but when a priest doesn’t even understand the importance of fighting against it at all, well, he is on the wrong path. His own illness, and what is more. . well, perhaps you can understand our different points of view now?’

Van Veeteren nodded.

‘I think so. Did you notice anything unusual in Pastor Gassel’s behaviour shortly before his death?’

The vicar shook his head slowly.

‘No, I don’t think so. Not that I can recall, at least.’

‘Was he depressed?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Do you know if anything special happened during the autumn or the late summer that might have been traumatic for him?’

‘Traumatic? No, I’ve no idea of anything like that. But then we didn’t have the sort of relationship that would lead to him confiding in me, because. . well, because of what we’ve just been talking about.’

‘I understand,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I assume you can’t comment on the likelihood of him committing suicide or that sort of thing?’

‘When it comes to matters of faith we are not as rigid as the Roman Catholics,’ said Brunner, clearing his throat. ‘Of course it is never right to take your own life: but it is not for us to judge a desperate person who turns to desperate measures. .’

‘If we leave matters of faith to one side,’ said Van Veeteren, ‘would you say it was possible rather than out of the question that Gassel might have committed suicide?’

The vicar pursed his lips and seemed to be thinking hard.

‘I really can’t say,’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t think he would have done, of course, and know of nothing that would suggest he might have done. But on the other hand, I can’t exclude the possibility altogether.’

‘Do you know if he was in a relationship? Did he live with a partner, for instance?’

The vicar blushed again.

‘A partner? No, certainly not. . But I have no idea about. . about that sort of thing.’

‘I see. Was it public knowledge in the parish — his deviant sexuality, as you called it?’

‘The fact that he was homosexual?’

‘Yes.’

‘I hope not. It would have come to my notice if it had been, and we had at least come to an agreement that he wouldn’t make a song and dance about it. It’s a very sensitive matter in connection with the teaching of confirmands, and of course it is the vicar who must accept ultimate responsibility. I hope you realize that all this hasn’t been exactly easy for me.’

No, Van Veeteren thought. You poor thing — you manage to persuade the diocese to award you an extra post, and you end up with a clockwork orange. It must be a bit annoying, to be sure.

But hardly so annoying that the vicar would feel it necessary to dispatch Gassel into the Twilight Zone by shoving him under a train? His face seemed to be too mild and innocent for anything like that.

‘So it was because of these little differences of opinion that he was unwilling to go and confess to you? Do you agree to that as a reasonable conclusion to draw?’

Brunner thought for a moment.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s the way things were, unfortunately. And I don’t think he would have turned to Pastor Hartlew either. As you know, confession is not a sacrament in our church, but of course there is always the possibility of getting things off one’s chest. In the knowledge that whatever one says will go no further. But I don’t understand why he turned to you, of all people.’

‘Neither do I,’ said Van Veeteren, who saw no point in mentioning Gassel’s Catholic aunt. ‘Does Pastor Hartlew share your views on homosexuality?’

‘I’m sure he does.’

‘How was it you put it?’

‘Put what?’

‘Your views. “A liberal attitude based on biological and Christian points of view,” I think you said.’

Brunner thought for five seconds

‘I don’t remember,’ he said in due course, with a tired shrug of the shoulders.

‘Even if he didn’t want to talk to the vicar, surely it was quite a long step from that to going to talk to you?’ commented Ulrike Fremdli later that same day. ‘If you have any homosexual traits, you’ve been pretty successful in hiding them from me. But perhaps that wasn’t why he came to see you?’

‘Presumably not,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘No, I prefer women, full stop. But joking apart, it’s a hell of an odd coincidence, there’s no getting away from that. Gassel comes to me and asks for help, and a week or so later he’s run over by a train. If he really wanted to take his own life, surely he could have waited a couple of days and got off his chest whatever it was he wanted to say? Or left me out of it in the first place? And for Christ’s sake, you don’t just happen to fall off a railway platform by mistake.’

‘Was he drunk?’

‘Not even half a pint of beer in his blood, according to Moreno.’

‘And you had no indication of what it was all about? When he came to see you, I mean.’

‘Not as far as I remember,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘That’s what’s so damned annoying, the fact that I don’t remember. I think he said something about a woman. . a woman who had confided in him, I assume. And he’d promised to say nothing about it, and above all not to go to the police. I had the impression that he was afraid something would happen: but that could be something that came to me with hindsight. . There again, I’m pretty sure he did say something to that effect. Something would happen, if precautions were not taken. . Bloody hell!’

Ulrike lifted Stravinsky up from the sofa and started tickling him under his chin.

‘But he wasn’t the one who was in danger?’

‘Not as I understood it. I suppose we could find out if he’d noted down who had come to confess to him — but for Christ’s sake, I’m not in the police force any more, isn’t that true?’

‘Yes,’ said Ulrike. ‘As far as I’m aware.’

‘Huh,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Damn and blast, I don’t think I can just ignore this business.’

Ulrike put Stravinsky down on the floor and leaned against him on the sofa. Sat quietly for a few seconds, stroking the veins on the back of his hand.

‘What alternatives do you have?’

Van Veeteren sighed.

‘A few names, for instance,’ he said. ‘People who knew him. And also a nasty feeling that if I don’t continue to poke away at this business, nothing much will happen. It’s not good, wandering around with a dead priest on your conscience. . Anyway, I suppose we can wait and see if anything occurs to me.’

‘I expect it will,’ said Ulrike. ‘If I know you right.’

‘What on earth do you mean by that?’ said Van Veeteren.

MAARDAM

NOVEMBER 2000