The Stranglers Honeymoon

54

The next day the same sun rose over the same mountain ridge. Poured its unblemished light over the same barren slopes and the same greyish-green olive groves.

And over the same pale-orange agora in Argostoli, with all its elderly gentlemen wandering around or drinking coffee, stray mongrels, clattering Vespas and children at play. Van Veeteren and Münster were enjoying a late breakfast outside the Ionean Plaza while waiting for Chief Inspector Yakos to arrive with the latest news from the pathologist and the technical boys.

‘Those olive trees,’ said Münster, pointing up at the hillsides. ‘I’ve heard they can be several hundred years old.’

‘So I gather,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘What do you make of this, then?’

He tapped his spoon on the five-page fax that had arrived from Maardam a few hours earlier. Münster had received it in reception and read it three times before handing it over to the Chief Inspector.

‘Krause can be very efficient when he puts his mind to it,’ he said diplomatically.

‘He has always been reliable from a quantitative point of view,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘But this really is a remarkable picture of deFraan that is emerging — or that can be deduced, in any case. I can’t help but think about his childhood: that’s where we start bleeding. .’

‘Bleeding?’ said Münster, but received no response.

Instead Van Veeteren thumbed through the papers and cleared his throat.

‘Listen to this: “When deFraan was six years old his father died in what where traumatic circumstances for the little boy. The family house in Oudenzee burnt down to the ground: unlike his son and the boy’s mother, the father was unable to escape. In the investigation that followed in connection with the incident, the mother was suspected of arson at one point, but no charges were made.” What do you say to that?’

Münster thought for a while.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I just have a sort of feeling.’

‘A sort of feeling?’ snorted Van Veeteren. ‘Everything begins with a feeling — even you, Münster.’

‘An interesting point of view,’ said Münster. ‘Perhaps you could enlarge upon it?’

Van Veeteren glared at him before consulting the fax again.

‘Here!’ he exclaimed. ‘Listen to this! “At his mother’s funeral in 1995, according to notes in the will her son was the only one present. After her death he was off work sick for four months.” Four months, Münster! What do you make of that?’

‘Yes,’ said Münster, ‘I noticed that as well. It certainly seems to have a whiff of Freudian implications. What should one make of it? But surely what they found in the freezer is what really turns your stomach over?’

Van Veeteren turned to the relevant section of Krause’s fax and read it out.

‘“Yesterday’s search of deFraan’s flat turned up a macabre discovery in the freezer in his kitchen: two human legs, cut off just below the knee. There is no reason to doubt that these are the missing body parts of Monica Kammerle. A plausible explanation is that deFraan cut the legs off the body of his victim so that it would fit into his golf bag: that was found in a wardrobe, and was overflowing with traces of spent blood.”’

‘Overflowing with traces of spent blood!’ said Münster. ‘For Christ’s sake, what kind of language is that?! But still, it seems to fit in with the facts. He kills her, cuts off her legs, squashes her body into that golf bag and puts the tarpaulin over it. . Takes her in his car and buries her out at Behrensee. For Christ’s sake, I’m relieved not to have met him.’

Van Veeteren slid the papers to one side.

‘Yes,’ he said pensively. ‘Perhaps it’s as well that we didn’t take him alive.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ said Münster.

Van Veeteren scratched at the stubble on his chin and seemed to be wondering what he meant.

‘Just that I would never have been able to understand him,’ he said. ‘And as it is, I don’t even need to try.’

Münster said nothing for a while, and looked out over the square. A dark-brown dog emerged from a side street and circled round them several times, then gave up, and lay down under a neighbouring table. A waiter came with a new pot of coffee.

‘What do you think happened up there?’ Münster asked in the end. ‘And no mystifications, if you don’t mind.’

‘Mystifications?’ exclaimed Van Veeteren in surprise. ‘Surely I don’t normally indulge in mystifications?’

‘Tell me what you think, then.’

‘All right,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘It’s surely pretty obvious. Our friend deFraan had decided to close the circle and put an end to his days — in the same place as his wife, who he killed six years ago. It all started with her — or at least, the murders started with her. . Anyway, fröken Nemesis caught up with him just in time, it seems. She followed him in that taxi — if it had been me I’d have used the scooter he’d hired for the trip back to Argostoli: but maybe she couldn’t get it started, what do I know?’

‘Just in time?’ said Münster. ‘Are you saying that she managed to torture him while he was still alive?’

Van Veeteren made a meal of wiping his mouth with his table napkin before responding.

‘How could I know?’ he said. ‘Presumably it’s not a problem for the pathologist to sort that out, so we shall soon know about it for certain.’

‘No doubt,’ said Münster. ‘And we’ll also find out how long Ester Peerenkaas can manage to hide herself away. . But surely she must have got as far as Athens by now, don’t you think?’

‘I hope so,’ said Van Veeteren, and started filling his cigarette machine with tobacco. ‘I don’t think you lot should put too much effort into trying to find her, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

‘You lot?’ said Münster.

‘Don’t be so pedantic, Münster. That woman has lost her daughter thanks to a bastard of a husband, and she has been disfigured by an even bigger bastard. . If she managed to achieve some kind of revenge up there at the ravine, my instinct is to congratulate her.’

Münster thought that over.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s a pity that taxi driver didn’t see any more than he evidently did. .’

Van Veeteren produced a cigarette from his machine, and lit it. Looked at Münster through the resultant smoke.

‘I’m glad that I don’t have to worry about that detail,’ he said.

‘So I gather,’ said Münster.

‘It’s a pity we can’t stay for a few more days,’ said Münster when Chief Inspector Yakos had left them a few hours later. ‘It must be getting on for twenty-five degrees today. What are those books?’

Van Veeteren placed his right hand on top of the pile of books on the table.

‘A sort of canon,’ he said. ‘About this case. I couldn’t resist taking them off the shelves. Perhaps there is some sort of thread.’

He handed them to Münster one by one: William Blake. Robert Musil. The lugubrious little crime novel by Henry Moll. Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Münster took them and nodded, somewhat bewildered.

A sort of thread? he thought.

‘But what about this one? Rappaport? The Determinant? The thing that we-’

‘Exactly,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘But it’s in Swedish, so I’m not going to try to read it.’

Münster sat there for a while without speaking, his gaze alternating between the books and the Chief Inspector.

‘I understand,’ he said eventually. ‘Anyway, we’ve four hours before our flight leaves. Perhaps we ought to order a taxi, to be on the safe side.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Go on then, do that.’

Münster looked at him sceptically.

‘What does “ah, well” mean?’ he asked.

Van Veeteren shrugged and pushed his straw hat over the back of his head.

‘It doesn’t mean anything special,’ he said. ‘Just that I need a bit of peace and quiet in order to write my memoirs. The G File, among other things. . Ulrike is due here tomorrow, by the way. We’re going to stay for a week — didn’t I mention that? She said it’s been raining non-stop in Maardam. Ah, well. .’

Münster took the last of the olives from the dish and put it in his mouth.

All right, he thought magnanimously. Part of me doesn’t begrudge him that.