The Weeping Girl

21

19 July 1999

The call came just after she had parked in the shade of an elm tree, and she thought twice before answering.

‘I just thought you’d like to know,’ said Munster.

For a confused second she had no idea what he was on about.

‘Know?’

‘Lampe-Leermann. That paedophile business.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Moreno.

‘I’ve found the journalist.’

How is that possible? Moreno thought. I’ve almost managed to forget all about the Scumbag after only a couple of days. .

‘So there really was a journalist, after all?’

‘It seems so,’ said Munster, and sounded more sombre than she could ever remember him being.

‘Go on,’ she said.

Munster cleared his throat.

‘I’m in a bit of a jam,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit of a bugger, this business — as they say.’

‘Why are you in a jam?’

‘Well, maybe not in a jam — but the whole business is very dodgy. Lampe-Leermann wasn’t a problem: he told us the name in exchange for a guarantee that he would be sent to the Saalsbach prison. I think he has enemies in a few of the other establishments, and felt threatened. Anyway, he gave me the name of that reporter, no beating about the bush.’

‘Why are you not telling me his name?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Munster.

‘Do you mean you don’t know what he’s called, or that you don’t know why you don’t want to tell me his name?’

‘I know what he’s called,’ said Munster.

‘Have you spoken to him?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

She suddenly felt that hand squeezing her throat again. Paedophile? One of her colleagues. .? She started chanting their names to herself. . Rooth, Jung, deBries. . Like some kind of mantra, or whatever. . Krause, Bollmert. .

‘He admits that he’s spilled the beans to Lampe-Leermann,’ said Munster. ‘While drunk, of course. He claims that he has the name of one of our officers. He has pictures to prove it, and has been given ten thousand to hush it up — exactly what Lampe-Leermann told us, in other words.’

‘God help us,’ said Moreno.

‘Exactly,’ said Munster. ‘And there’s another little snag.’

‘What?’

‘He wants another ten thousand before he’ll tell us the name.’

‘What? What the. .?’

‘That’s what I thought as well,’ said Munster. ‘At first. But there’s a sort of black logic behind it. If he’s been given ten thousand to keep quiet about it, wouldn’t it be immoral to talk about it for nothing? Unethical, as he put it.’

‘But if we pay him another ten thousand. .?’

‘Then the situation is quite different. Have you gathered how things stand?’

Moreno thought for a moment.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose I have. What a prat.’

‘Amen to that,’ said Munster. ‘What do you think I should do now? Go in to Hiller and ask for ten thousand in cash?’

Moreno didn’t reply.

‘How’s the weather where you are on the coast?’ Mun-ster asked.

‘Changeable. It’s sunny again today. Do you have a plan?’

‘Not yet,’ said Munster. ‘But I suppose I’d better make one. I just thought I ought to inform you first.’

‘Thank you,’ said Moreno.

A few moments of silence ensued.

‘It can’t be. . You don’t think he was bluffing,’ she asked, ‘that damned hack of a journalist?’

‘Of course,’ said Munster. ‘I’m sure he is.’

‘There’s nothing worse than false accusations.’

‘Nothing,’ said Munster. ‘Apart from genuine ones. I’ll be in touch.’

‘Do,’ said Moreno.

A black dog was on a lead attached to a kennel, barking at her as she made her way to the office. Deep, muffled, echoing barks as if they were coming from out of a well — an almost surrealistic contrast with the well-tended grounds and the pale yellow buildings, Moreno thought.

But quite a good image for her own black thoughts. Could it be Cerberus? A reminder of the abyss, and the path we shall all tread sooner or later? She wondered why they didn’t get rid of the dog, or at least let it run around loose: it could hardly be an especially encouraging companion to the poor battered and lost souls who lived here, in any case.

She found her way to reception, and introduced herself to a red-haired woman in a white coat behind a glass counter. She explained why she was there.

‘Arnold Maager, er. . yes. .’ said the woman, smiling nervously. ‘I think you’d better have a word with fru Walker.’

‘Fru Walker?’

‘She’s in charge of the clinic. Just a moment.’

She pressed four buttons on the internal telephone.

‘Why do I need to talk to the boss? I just want to pay a visit to herr Maager.’

The red-haired woman blushed.

‘Just a moment.’

She took three steps away from the counter and turned her back on Moreno. She spoke softly into the receiver, then returned to Moreno blushing slightly less obviously.

‘Fru Walker will be pleased to see you straight away. The third door on the right over there.’

She pointed in the direction of a short corridor.

‘Thank you,’ said Moreno, and set off as directed.

Fru Walker was a dark-haired little woman in her sixties. She was sitting at a gigantic desk. Moreno thought she looked out of place. A bit like a pigeon on the long side of a football pitch. She stood up, walked round half the pitch and shook hands when Moreno had closed the door behind her. There seemed to be something wrong with one of her legs — she walked with the aid of a brown walking stick. Perhaps this slight handicap was why she had gone to the trouble of getting up to greet Moreno. To make a point.

She was noticeably worried. She seemed to have made an excessive effort to be welcoming, obviously so, and Moreno wondered why. She had telephoned in advance and informed them of her visit, but she had only spoken to an answering machine. She had mentioned that she was a detective inspector, but it seemed unlikely that this fact would have put the wind up the care-home staff as much as this woman seemed to be signalling.

But the explanation soon emerged.

‘Please take a seat,’ said fru Walker. ‘I think we have a little problem.’

‘Really?’ said Moreno without sitting down. ‘I just want to meet Arnold Maager for a short conversation. What’s the problem?’

‘He’s not here,’ said fru Walker.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Arnold Maager isn’t here in the care home. He’s gone away.’

Gone away? Moreno thought. Arnold Maager? Is she out of her mind?

‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘Where has he gone?’

‘We don’t know. He’s been missing since last Saturday afternoon. I’m really sorry that you’ve come here for nothing, but as you didn’t give us a number we couldn’t ring you back.’

‘How exactly did he go missing?’ Moreno asked.

Fru Walker moved back to sit down at her desk.

‘We don’t know exactly when, or how. But it was during the afternoon in any case. He usually goes for a walk round the grounds in the afternoon, but he didn’t turn up for dinner. On Saturday, as I said.’

‘And he said nothing about where he was going?’

‘No.’

‘Has herr Maager gone missing like this before?’

‘No,’ said fru Walker wearily. ‘Some patients do go away sometimes — they usually go home. But Maager has never left this place during all the years he’s been here.’

‘Sixteen years?’ said Moreno.

‘More or less, yes,’ said fru Walker. ‘We’re very upset, and we had a meeting this morning to discuss what we ought to do next.’

‘Have you reported him as missing?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said fru Walker.

‘When?’

The head of the care home contemplated her clasped hands.

‘Two hours ago.’

Brilliant, thought Moreno, gritting her teeth so as not to say anything over-hastily. Absolutely brilliant! A depressive mentally ill patient goes missing for two whole days, and then they arrange a meeting and decide to contact the authorities. Perhaps it’s time to take a look at routine procedures, as those in authority generally say in circumstances like these.

‘Another police officer was here last week and spoke to Maager. Do you know about that?’

Fru Walker nodded.

‘Yes, I know. Last Wednesday. And he’d been visited by his daughter a few days prior to that. Might there be some connection, do you think? He doesn’t usually have so many visitors.’

Moreno ignored the speculation.

‘You say that Maager went missing on Saturday afternoon, is that right?’

‘Yes. He had lunch as usual at about half past twelve — so it must have been some time after that.’

‘Have you spoken to all the staff?’

‘Yes, and the patients as well. Nobody saw him after two o’clock.’

‘Did anybody see him leave?’

‘No.’

Moreno thought for a moment.

‘What did he take with him?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Clothes? Suitcase? Or didn’t he have anything with him?’

Fru Walker had obviously not thought about this aspect before, but she did so now and hurried round her desk once more.

‘We’ll look into that immediately. We have lists of all the things the patients have in their rooms. Most of them, at least. Follow me.’

‘All right,’ sighed Moreno.

Half an hour later most things had become clear. By all appearances Arnold Maager had not rushed away on the spur of the moment. When all the carers and assistants pooled their observations, it became clear that missing from his room were a small shopping bag and several changes of clothes from his wardrobe. Shirts, underpants and socks, in any case.

There were no other indications, either in Maager’s room or anywhere else, so Moreno thanked everybody for their help and went back to her car.

I must talk to Vegesack without delay, she thought. I need to find out exactly what Maager came out with when Vegesack spoke to him.

Vegesack had made it abundantly clear that Maager hadn’t said very much at all. Moreno assumed that meant there was all the more danger that the constable might have let slip too much. Regarding Mikaela Lijphart, for instance. That she seemed to have disappeared, for instance.

She flopped down behind the wheel. Wound down the side window and turned the ignition key.

Dead.

Not a sound from the starter.

She tried again. And again.

Not so much as a sigh.

I don’t believe it, she thought. I simply can’t believe it. Not just now.

How the hell? she went on to think. How the hell can anybody choose to drive around in an old East German car ten years after the fall of the Wall? A tin-pot old banger that ought to be in a museum!

My dear Mikael, she hissed as she fished for her mobile in her handbag. You’re in a right old mess now. A right old bloody mess!

It was 19 July, and the sun was scorching down from a cloudless sky. Detective Inspector Ewa Moreno’s holiday had just entered its second week. She was in a car park outside a remotely situated mental hospital two kilometres away from the sea, her period had just started, and Mikael Bau’s damned Trabant refused to start.

The first liberated woman in the history of the world? Is that how she had defined her position in life’s system of coordinates just a few days ago?

Huh.

22

‘The world is round,’ said Henning Keeswarden, six years and five months old.

‘As round as a ball,’ said Fingal Wielki, a mere four years and nine months old, but a keen promoter of everything that seemed to be new and modern. Especially if the one who announced it was his adorable cousin.

‘There are people on the other side,’ said young Keeswarden. ‘Do you understand that?’

Fingal nodded enthusiastically. Of course he understood.

‘If we dig a deep, deep hole down into the ground, we’ll eventually come out on the other side.’

‘On the other side,’ agreed Fingal.

‘But we have to dig really, really deep. Then all we need to do is to climb down and come out of the hole on the other side. In China, where the Chinese live.’

‘China, Chinese’ said Fingal. He wasn’t quite sure where that was, nor who the Chinese were, but didn’t want to admit it. ‘We’ll have to dig deep, deep down!’ he said instead.

‘Let’s get going,’ said Henning. ‘We’ve got all day. I once dug a hole that very nearly came out on the other side of the world. I was nearly there — but then I had to go in and eat. I could hear them talking down there.’

‘Talking?’

Fingal couldn’t suppress his surprise.

‘The Chinese. I was that close. I placed my ear against the bottom of the hole, and I could hear them talking quite clearly. I couldn’t understand what they said, of course — they speak a different language, the Chinese do. Shall we dig a hole now that goes all the way through?’

‘Of course,’ said Fingal.

The cousins dug away. Fingal’s spade was red and much newer than Henning’s, which was blue and a bit worse for wear. Perhaps it had been used during the previous China excavation, so it was understandable. But a red spade always digs faster than a blue one.

It was still only morning. They had just come down to the beach with their mothers, who were sisters and currently busy lying down on their backs and tanning their titties — it was that kind of beach.

It was quite easy to dig. At first, at least. But soon the sand they’d dug out started to run back down into the hole. Henning said that they’d have to make the hole a bit wider at the top.

It was rather boring to have to make the hole wider when what they really wanted to do was to dig straight down and come to the Chinese as quickly as possible. But if they wanted to get through, they would have to put up with a few annoying little problems. And keep at it even so.

And so Henning got stuck in, and Fingal followed his example.

‘Shut up now, I’m listening and trying to hear something!’ said Henning when the hole was so deep that only his head and shoulders stuck out when he stood upright on the bottom. That was certainly true of Fingal, at any rate, who was some ten centimetres shorter than his cousin.

‘Sh!’ said Fingal to himself, holding his index finger over his lips when Henning pressed his ear down on the wet sand.

‘Could you hear anything?’ he asked when Henning stood up again and brushed the sand out of his ear.

‘Only something very faint,’ said Henning. ‘We have quite a bit to go yet. Shall we play at slaves?’

‘Slaves? Yes, of course!’ said Fingal, who couldn’t remember just now what a slave was.

Henning clambered up out of the hole.

‘Let’s start with you as the slave and me as the slave driver. You have to do everything I say, otherwise I’ll kill you and eat you up.’

‘Okay,’ said Fingal.

‘Get digging!’ yelled Henning, threateningly. ‘Dig away, you idle slave!’

Fingal started digging again. Down and down, with sand being sprayed around left, right and centre: it was wet and quite hard going, halfway down to China.

‘Dig!’ yelled Henning again. ‘You have to say: Yes, Mister!’

‘Yesmister!’ said Fingal, digging away.

We ought to be making contact with those Chinese soon, he thought; but he daren’t break off to lie down and listen. If he did, his cousin might kill him and eat him up. That didn’t sound very pleasant. Instead he started digging slightly to one side, where it seemed to be easier. Maybe that was the right way to China. He had the feeling it must be the case.

‘Get digging, you idle slave!’ screeched Henning.

His arms were really beginning to ache now, especially the right one that he’d broken when he was out skiing and fell on the ice six months ago. But he didn’t give up. He dug away with the spade and stuck it into the sand wall at the side of the hole with all his strength.

A large chunk of sand fell down as he did so, but that was okay. He realized that he had got there. At last. A foot was sticking out of the sand.

A foot with all five toes and a sole with sand stuck to it. A real Chinese foot!

‘We’re there!’ he shouted. ‘Look!’

The slave driver jumped down into the hole to check. Good God! They really had dug so far down that they’d come to a Chinaman’s feet.

‘Well dug!’ he said.

The only questionable thing — which seemed to challenge the theory that the earth was round — was that the foot hadn’t appeared at the bottom of the hole. It was sticking out from the side instead; and the leg to which the foot was attached also seemed to be sticking out sideways instead of from the bottom up.

But that was a bagatelle.

‘Let’s dig the sand away and take a look at the rest of it,’ said Henning, who had now given up his job as slave driver and was prepared to dig out that leg — and indeed all the rest of the body, which didn’t seem to be a Chinaman after all, but the corpse of an ordinary mortal.

Which didn’t necessarily make matters any worse — although he would never admit to his cousin that he had never seen a corpse before.

But just as he dug in his blue spade and made another chunk of sand fall down into the hole, his auntie Doris appeared at the top of the hole, glowering down at them.

His auntie, Fingal’s mum.

At first she glowered.

Then she screamed.

Then his own mum appeared and she screamed as well. Both he and Fingal were lifted out of the Chinese hole and people came swarming up from all directions — bare-breasted women and women with their breasts hidden away, men with and without sunglasses, some of them with big, flashy swimming trunks, others with tiny ones that more or less disappeared up their backsides. . But all of them pointing and singing from the same hymn sheet:

‘Don’t touch anything! Don’t touch anything!’ shouted a large, fat bloke, louder than anybody else, ‘There’s a body buried down there in the sand! Don’t touch anything until the police get here!’

Henning’s mum lifted her son up, and Fingal’s did the same with hers: but there was a red and a blue spade left lying in the hole, and nobody seemed to have the slightest interest in them.

But those feet — they’d exposed another one when Henning made his final thrust with his spade: everybody seemed to be extremely interested in them.

So, Fingal thought: it really was one of those Chinese we dug up.

‘The earth is round!’ he shouted, waving to everybody while his mum did her best to whisk him away to where their picnic hampers were waiting, filled with apples and buns and sandwiches and juice that was both red and yellow. Oh yes, the earth is round!

THREE

23

22 July 1983

She didn’t register what the girl said at first. The red digits on the clock radio said 01.09; her irritation that somebody had had the cheek to ring at that time of night was mixed with worry that something must have happened. An accident? Her parents? Her brother? Arnold or Mikaela — no, that wasn’t possible, they were both asleep in the same room as she was.

‘I’m sorry — what did you say?’

‘I want to speak to my teacher, magister Maager.’

A pupil. She stopped worrying. A fifteen- or sixteen-year-old chit of a girl telephoning at ten past one in the morning. . Magister Maager? Arnold rolled over in his bed, and the first unmistakable coughs came from Mikaela’s cot: she was awake, and would start howling at any moment. No doubt about it. If that didn’t happen every night, it happened every other, at least.

Some nights more than once. And without any help from the telephone. Her anger burst forth in full bloom.

‘How dare you telephone us in the middle of the night? We have a little child, and we’ve got better things to do than. .’

She lost the thread. No response. For a moment she thought the girl must have hung up, but then she heard the sound of slightly asthmatic breathing at the other end of the line. Arnold switched the light on and sat up. She gestured to him, telling him to see to Mikaela, and he got out of bed.

‘What do you want?’ she asked sternly.

‘I want to speak to Maager.’

‘What about?’

No reply. Mikaela started howling, and Arnold picked her up. Why the hell did he have to pick her up? she wondered. It would have been enough to stick the dummy in her mouth. Now she wouldn’t go back to sleep for at least half an hour.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked. ‘Surely you realize that you simply can’t just ring people up at this time of night?’

‘I need to speak to him. Can you tell him to be at the viaduct a quarter of an hour from now?’

‘At the viaduct? Are you out of your mind? What are you on about, you little. . You little. .’

She couldn’t think of a suitable name to call her. Not without swearing, and she didn’t want to lose control altogether. Mikaela’s first shrill shriek echoed through the room. Hell’s bells! she thought. What’s all this about?

‘Can I speak to him?’

‘No.’

‘It’s. . It’s important.’

‘What’s it about?’

Silence again. Both from the receiver and from Mikaela, who was evidently tired and didn’t have the strength to run through her whole repertoire. She seemed to be happy enough to hang over her father’s shoulder and whimper, thank goodness.

‘Tell him to come to the viaduct.’

‘Certainly not! Tell me who you are, and explain why you’re ringing in the middle of the night.’

Arnold came to sit on the edge of the bed, and looked enquiringly. She met his gaze, and as she did so the girl at the other end of the line decided to lay her cards on the table.

‘My name’s Winnie, I’ve had sex with him and I’m pregnant.’

It was strange that Arnold and Mikaela should be so close to her just as these words drilled their way into her consciousness. That thought struck her now, and recurred later. The fact that they were all sitting next to each other in her half of the double bed at that very moment. The inseparable family. Extremely damned strange, in view of the fact that the chasm that had suddenly opened up between them was so deep and so wide that she knew immediately they would never be able to bridge it. That they would never even try. No chance. She knew that immediately.

What was also strange was that she was able to think such thoughts in a mere fraction of a second. She handed him the receiver and relieved him of his daughter.

‘It’s for you.’

But she didn’t remain calm for long. Once Arnold had replaced the receiver and collapsed in a pathetic heap on the floor beside the bed, she lay Mikaela down between the pillows and began hitting him. As hard as she could, with clenched fists. On his head and shoulders.

He didn’t react. Made no attempt to defend himself, just bowed his head slightly; and soon her arms began to ache. Mikaela woke up again but didn’t start crying. She sat up and watched instead. With eyes open wide, and her dummy in her mouth.

Sigrid ran out of the bedroom, into the bathroom, and locked herself in. Bathed her face in cold water and tried to take control of all the frantic thoughts bombarding her brain.

Stared, first at her own face in the mirror, and then at all the familiar, trivial items beside the washbasin and on all the shelves: all the tubes and jars and tablets of soap and scissors and toothbrushes and packets of plasters — all the things that were the most mundane features of her mundane life, but which now suddenly seemed alien and tainted with threatening and horrible overtones that she couldn’t grasp. I’m going mad, she thought. I’m going out of my mind in this damned bathroom at this very damned moment. . There are only seconds to go.

She dried her face with a hand towel and opened the door.

‘The viaduct, a quarter of an hour from now — is that right?’

He didn’t answer. Not a sound, neither from him nor Mikaela. Nothing but silence from the bedroom. She fished out a jumper and a pair of jeans. Her blue deck shoes. She was dressed and ready to go within half a minute.

Goodbye.

She thought that, but didn’t say it

‘Wait.’

She didn’t wait. She opened the outside door and went out. Closed it behind her and hurried out into the street. The night air was cool and pleasant.

She could breathe.

When he left Mikaela he wasn’t sure if she was asleep. But she was in her cot with her dummy in her mouth, breathing audibly and regularly, as usual. All being well she would be okay for an hour or so on her own.

He closed the outside door as quietly as he could. Thought about taking his bike, but decided not to. He wouldn’t be first there in any case.

It would take eight to ten minutes to walk up to the viaduct, and perhaps he needed to make the most of those minutes. Did he even want to get there first? Didn’t he need these minutes in order to work out some kind of decision? To make up his mind what he was going to do?

Or was everything already cut and dried?

Wasn’t everything decided as soon as he’d overstepped the mark, a month ago? Decided irrevocably? Six weeks ago, to be precise. Hadn’t everything since then been no more than a slowly ticking time bomb?

Had he ever expected anything else? That he would get away with it? That he wouldn’t have to pay for such a catastrophe?

He registered that he was almost running along the dimly lit Sammersgraacht. No sign of another soul, not even a cat.

He turned off right along Dorffsalle, and continued along Gimsweg and Hagenstraat. Past the school.

The school? he thought. Would he ever. .?

He didn’t follow that thought through. Passed by the north-west corner of the playing fields and increased his speed further. Only a couple of hundred metres left.

What’s going to happen now? he thought. What will happen when I get up there?

He suddenly stopped dead. As if the thought had only just struck him.

Why don’t I go home and look after my daughter instead? he asked himself. Why not?

He hesitated for five seconds. Then made up his mind.

24

Interrogation of Ludwig Georg Heller, 2.8.1983.

Interrogator: Chief Inspector Vrommel, Chief of Police.

Also present: Inspector Walevski.

Location: Lejnice police station.

Interrogation transcript: Inspector Walevski.

Vrommel: Your name and address, please.

Heller: Ludwig Heller. Walders steeg 4.

V Here in Lejnice?

H Yes.

V What is your relationship with Arnold Maager?

H We are colleagues. And good friends.

V How long have you known him?

H Since we were sixteen years old. We were at school together.

V Have you been in close communication ever since then?

H No. We studied at different universities, and lived in different places. But we resumed our friendship when we ended up as teachers in the same school. About three years ago.

V Would you claim to know Maager well?

H Yes, I think one could say that.

V Think?

H I know him well.

V His wife as well?

H No. We have only met once or twice.

V Once or twice?

H Three times, I think. We acknowledge each other if we meet in town.

V Do you have a family?

H Not yet. I have a girlfriend.

V I see. You know what has happened, I take it?

H Yes.

V You know that Maager had a relationship with a schoolgirl, and that the girl is dead?

H Winnie Maas, yes.

V Did you teach her as well?

H Yes.

V In what subjects?

H Maths and physics.

V What marks did you give her?

H Marks? I don’t see what relevance that has.

V You don’t? Please answer my question even so.

H I gave her a six in physics and a four in maths.

V Not especially high marks, then.

H No. I still don’t see the relevance.

V Was she pretty?

H I beg your pardon?

V I asked you if Winnie Maas was pretty.

H That’s not something I have an opinion about.

V Did Arnold Maager think Winnie Maas was pretty?

H /No answer/

V I suggest you make an effort to answer that question. In all probability you’ll be asked it again during the trial, so you might as well get used to it.

H I don’t know if Maager thought that Winnie Maas was pretty.

V But you know that he had an affair with her?

H I’d hardly call it an affair.

V You wouldn’t? What would you call it, then?

H She offered herself up to him on a plate. He made a mistake. It only happened once.

V So you think his behaviour is defensible, do you?

H Of course I don’t. All I’m saying is that you could hardly call it an affair.

V Were you present in the flat when Maager and Winnie Maas had intercourse?

H No.

V But you know about it?

H Yes.

V Did you know about it before the girl’s death as well?

H Yes.

V How and when did you hear about it?

H Some colleagues talked about it.

V Who?

H Cruickshank and Nielsen.

V Two of those who were present at the party after the disco on the tenth of June?

H Yes.

V And they said that Maager had sexual intercourse with Winnie Maas?

H Yes.

V When was that?

H A few days afterwards. The last week of term. Maager said so himself not long afterwards.

V In what connection?

H We’d gone out for a beer. At the very beginning of the summer holiday — round about the twentieth.

V Where?

H Lippmann’s. And a few other bars.

V And that was when he told you that he’d had intercourse with a pupil?

H He told me a bit about how it had happened — I already knew about the basic facts.

V What did he say?

H That he’d been as pissed as a newt, and regretted what had happened. And he hoped there wouldn’t be any repercussions.

V Repercussions? What did he mean by that?

H That neither he nor the girl would get into trouble as a result, of course.

V I see. But the other pupils must have known what had happened?

H I assume so. Although I didn’t hear anything about it from pupils. But then it was just before the summer holidays, of course.

V So perhaps the main thing was that none of the parents got to hear about it?

H That’s one way of looking at it, yes.

V Anyway, let’s go on. This wasn’t the only time you discussed the Winnie Maas business with Maager, was it?

H No.

V Let’s hear details.

H We met in the middle of July as well.

V When and where?

H We made a trip out to the islands. One Saturday afternoon. It must have been the fifteenth or sixteenth, I think. Arnold rang me and said he’d like to have a chat. I had nothing else on at the time.

V So what was it all about this time?

H Winnie Maas. She was pregnant. Maager had just heard.

V What sort of state did he seem to be in?

H He was worried, of course. More than just worried, in fact. Winnie evidently wanted to have the baby.

V And what about Maager?

H You’d have to ask him about that.

V We already have done. Now we want to hear what you have to say, herr Heller. No doubt Maager made his own views clear during your trip to the islands.

H He wasn’t his normal self.

V I didn’t ask you if he was his normal self. I want to know what he said in connection with the fact that the girl was pregnant.

H He wanted her to have an abortion, of course. That’s understandable, surely. She was too young to be a mother, and he was worried about how his wife would react.

V Really? So he hadn’t told her about his, er, indiscretion?

H No, he hadn’t.

V Was he afraid that Winnie Maas might do so?

H That’s possible. I don’t understand the point of all this. Why are we sitting here, discussing whether-

V It doesn’t matter whether you understand or not. The police have to do their duty, no matter what. Do you think there was anything else that Arnold Maager was afraid of?

H Such as what?

V Think about it. What did you talk about, in fact?

H Everything under the sun.

V How many islands did you visit?

H Doczum and Billsmaar. We just sailed round them. We didn’t go ashore at all.

V Did you come up with a solution to Maager’s problems?

H Solution? What kind of a solution?

V If you spent several hours on the ferry, you must surely have discussed this and that? Toyed with various thoughts?

H I don’t understand what you’re talking about.

V I’m talking about escape routes. Possible escape routes to enable Arnold Maager to wriggle out of the awkward situation he found himself in. I hope you’re not pretending to be more stupid than you really are — I thought you had a university degree.

H /No reply/

V Surely that’s why he wanted to meet you? To get some help.

H He didn’t only want to talk. He was desperate, for God’s sake.

V Desperate? Are you saying that Arnold Maager was desperate when the pair of you made that trip round the islands on Saturday, the sixteenth of July?

/Pause while a new tape is fitted into the recorder/

Vrommel: Did you have any further contact with Arnold Maager during the weeks before Winnie Maas’s death? After July the sixteenth, that is.

Heller: He phoned me a few times. Before it happened, I mean.

V A few telephone conversations. What did you talk about?

H All kinds of things.

V About Winnie Maas as well?

H Yes.

V And what did Maager have to say?

H He was worried.

V Explain.

H What do you mean, explain?

V Did he say anything about what he intended to do? How did you assess his state of mind?

H He said he was having trouble sleeping. He didn’t know whether or not he should tell his wife.

V Did you give him any advice?

H No. What could I say?

V Did you think he was unbalanced during these telephone calls?

H Not really unbalanced. Worried and tense, more like.

V Do you know if he had much contact with the girl?

H They’d talked things over. He’d tried to persuade her to have an abortion. He’d offered to help her out financially.

V And what did she say to that?

H She stuck to her guns, it seemed. She wanted to have the baby.

V And what about the financial side?

H I don’t know.

V You don’t know?

H No.

V All right. When you heard what had happened, that the girl had been found dead on the railway line, how did you react then?

H I was shocked, naturally.

V Yes, naturally. We were all shocked. Were you surprised as well?

H Of course I was surprised. It was horrendous.

V So you hadn’t expected that development?

H No, of course I hadn’t. He must have taken leave of his senses. It’s horrendous.

V Do you think it’s surprising that he took leave of his senses?

H /No reply/

V I’ll ask you again. Bearing in mind all the circumstances, do you think it’s surprising that Arnold Maager took leave of his senses?

H I don’t know. Perhaps not.

V Thank you, herr Heller. That will be all for now.

25

19 July 1999

For a brief moment — just a fraction of a second — she thought he was going to hit her.

But nothing happened. Not even a gesture. But the very fact that such an image appeared in her mind’s eye must mean something, of course. Not necessarily that he was that type of man — somebody who would start using his fists when he’d run out of words: but something nevertheless. A suspicion? A warning?

Or was it just a distorted figment of the imagination? A projection of her own dodgy emotional life?

In any case, it stayed there. And would continue to stay there, she knew that even before the moment had passed.

‘You did what?’ he snarled through gritted teeth.

‘I left it up there and took a taxi instead,’ she said.

‘You left my car up there in the forest? Without arranging for anybody to see to it?’

She shrugged. He’s got a point, she thought. I wouldn’t be exactly pleased in those circumstances either.

‘A Trabant,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think it was worth bothering about.’

He ignored that comment. Drummed with his fingers on the table, and stared above her shoulder. The skin over his cheeks became taut.

‘So now what?’ he said.

‘I’ll sort it out,’ she said with a sigh. ‘If it’s so damned important for you to have a car at your disposal, maybe you could hire one for the time being. I’ll pay. Unfortunately a lot of other things have happened, and I haven’t time to worry about such trivia at the moment.’

He allowed a few seconds to pass before he asked.

‘What exactly has happened?’

‘Maager has gone missing. Things were hectic, and I didn’t have an opportunity of looking for a garage just then.’

‘Gone missing? Why?’

‘I’ve no idea. He hasn’t been seen at the home since Saturday.’

‘So both the father and the daughter are missing now?’

‘So it seems.’

‘Do the police know about it?’

Moreno took a sip of juice and made to stand up.

‘If they do, they haven’t got round to doing anything about it yet,’ she said. ‘Those layabouts up at Sidonis reported it a few hours ago. Despite the fact that he’s been gone for two days. No, I really must talk to Vrommel and Vegesack about this — it’s high time for them to wake up now.’

Mikael leaned back and looked at her with a trace of a smile on his lips. She wasn’t sure how to interpret it.

It was rather easier to interpret what he said.

‘So, Inspector Moreno is back on duty now, is she?’

Moreno leaned back and thought for two seconds.

‘I’m moving out this evening,’ she said. ‘Thank you for the last few days here.’

His smile seemed to freeze, but before he had a chance to say anything she had stood up and left the table.

‘I’ll sort your car out as well,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Hire a car and spend time on the beach until you get it back!’

Why don’t I even feel sorry for him? she thought when she had turned the corner. Is it because I’m becoming a bitch?

‘Yes, I’d heard about that,’ said Constable Vegesack, looking sombre. ‘It’s a damned nuisance that they’ve left it for so long before reporting it. Not that I know what we can do about it, but things are not made any easier when you’re two days behind even before you’ve started.’

‘The most important thing is not what we can do about it,’ said Moreno, ‘but what has happened.’

Vegesack frowned and felt for the knot of his tie which, for once, wasn’t there. He was wearing a marine blue tennis shirt and thin cotton trousers in a slightly lighter shade — absolutely right for the weather and the time of year, and Moreno wondered in passing if the return of his girlfriend had anything to do with his outfit. She hoped so — and hoped that the bags under his eyes were also connected with her presence. In the way he had indicated a few days previously.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What do you think’s happened, then?’

Moreno cast a glance at the half-open door before replying.

‘Where’s the chief of police?’

‘He’s on the beach,’ said Vegesack. ‘Something has happened. We’ll come to that later.’

Moreno nodded.

‘I hope you don’t mind my poking my nose into this business?’

‘Why should I do that? Everybody has a right to decide how to spend their own holidays.’

She decided not to investigate how large a dose of irony there was in that remark. Not just now, at least.

‘Either Maager has run away,’ she said, ‘or something has happened to him. What do you reckon is most likely?’

Vegesack rubbed both his temples with the tips of his fingers and seemed to be thinking for all he was worth.

‘I’ve no idea,’ he said eventually. ‘How the hell should I know? But what I understand least of all is why anybody should want him out of the way — I assume that’s what you’re fishing for?’

Moreno shrugged.

‘Why should he do a runner? Is that any more likely?’

Vegesack sighed.

‘Would you like a drop of mineral water?’

‘Yes please,’ said Moreno.

He went into the kitchenette and returned with a plastic bottle and two glasses.

‘Dehydration,’ he said. ‘I suffer from it. And lack of sleep.’

But not lack of love, Moreno thought as he was filling her glass. Nor would I if I weren’t so damned snooty.

‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘If we assume — hypothetically — that he’s run off of his own free will, where does that get us?’

‘He must have some reason or other,’ said Vegesack.

‘Precisely. Give me a reason.’

‘He hasn’t left the care home for all of sixteen years.’

‘That’s true.’

‘So it must. . It must be connected with his daughter’s visit.’

‘Really? What makes you think that?’

‘Surely it’s pretty obvious. . But just how it’s linked, God only knows.’

‘She visited him a week last Saturday. Why wait for a whole week?’

Vegesack started rubbing his temples again. Moreno wondered if he’d been on some kind of yoga course and learned to stimulate the flow of blood to his brain by doing that. In any case it looked more intentional than absent-minded; but she didn’t ask about that either.

‘Maybe it doesn’t have so much to do with her visit,’ he said in the end, ‘but more with her disappearance.’

‘That’s what I think as well,’ said Moreno. ‘And how come that Maager knows about Mikaela’s disappearance?’

Vegesack stopped massaging his temples.

‘Oh hell,’ he said. ‘Through me, of course. I told him when I was there and tried to talk to him.’

‘When was that?’

Vegesack worked it out in his head without any further assistance.

‘Last Wednesday, I think. Yes, Wednesday.’

‘That fits. It would be useful if you could recall exactly what you said to him,’ said Moreno. ‘And how he reacted.’

Vegesack flung out his hands and almost overturned the bottle of water.

‘He didn’t react at all. Not to anything. He said hello when I arrived, and goodbye when I left. But that’s about all. . But he did listen to what I said, yes, he did that. I told him how things stood, and that it looked as if Mikaela Lijphart had disappeared. That we knew she was his daughter, and that she’d been to see him, and that her mother had come to Lejnice in order to look for her. Naturally, I tried to find out what he’d said to her, about that business sixteen years ago and so on. If she’d been upset, or how she’d reacted. They’d evidently spent a few hours in the grounds, talking.’

‘But he didn’t give you any answers?’

‘No.’

‘Did you get any impressions? Did he seem worried about her disappearance?’

Vegesack gazed out of the window for a while.

‘Yes, I think so,’ he said. ‘I think that news might even have prevented him from saying anything. He might have said something if I hadn’t told him about Mikaela right away. But then again. . For God’s sake, I don’t know. I was only with him for twenty minutes. Are you suggesting that he might have gone looking for her? Is that the conclusion you’ve reached?’

Moreno took a sip of water.

‘I haven’t come to any conclusions at all,’ she said. ‘It could just as well be that something has happened to him. You spoke to him last Wednesday, but he didn’t disappear from the care home until Saturday. Why did he wait? Something else might have happened — on Thursday or Friday — to influence events. I ought to have asked more questions when I was out there, but that didn’t occur to me until I was on the way back.’

‘It’s Monday today,’ said Vegesack. ‘That means he’s already been missing for several days. He’s not used to being out there. Mixing with people. Isn’t it a bit odd that nobody seems to have noticed him?’

Moreno shrugged.

‘How do you know that nobody’s noticed him?’

Vegesack didn’t answer.

‘There’s so much about this business that seems a bit odd,’ said Moreno. ‘That’s why I just can’t go off and enjoy my holiday. I’ve dreamt about that girl two nights running. I’ve just told my boyfriend to go to hell because of this business. . I don’t know if that can be classified as occupational injury — what do you think?’

Why am I telling this to Vegesack? she asked herself, when she noted his blush and raised eyebrows, and realized that this was intimate information that he didn’t know how to handle.

‘Oh dear,’ he said diplomatically.

‘You can say that again,’ said Moreno. ‘I’ve been poking my nose much too far into this business, but at least I’ve now received confirmation of a few things. I now know I haven’t been imagining things that are too wide of the mark. I take it you didn’t notice any indications that Maager was intending to run away when you were together with him?’

Vegesack shook his head.

‘And heaven only knows how he took the news about his daughter’s disappearance, you reckon?’

‘I wonder if even the heavens know,’ said Vegesack. ‘But it’s all so damned awful — for Maager, I mean. Even if you take into account that he’s a murderer and all the rest of it. First she turns up out of the blue after sixteen years, and then she’s more missing than she’s ever been. It must be hard for him, whichever way you look at it.’

‘Hard indeed,’ agreed Moreno. ‘Could you please help me with one other thing?’

‘Of course,’ said Vegesack, suddenly looking wide awake and raring to go. ‘What?’

‘Find out if Maager had any other visits or telephone calls between Wednesday and Saturday last week.’

‘Okay,’ said Vegesack. ‘I’ll give them a ring. How shall we get in touch — will you be calling in?’

‘I’ll be in touch in any case,’ said Moreno with a sigh. ‘Have there been any more responses to the Wanted notice regarding Mikaela?’

Vegesack rooted around in the pile of papers on his desk.

‘Two,’ he said. ‘We can forget about one of them — a certain herr Podager who always gives advice to the police on occasions like this. He’s over eighty-five and sees all kinds of things, despite the fact that he’s been almost blind for the last twenty years.’

‘I see,’ said Moreno. ‘What about the other one?’

‘A woman up in Frigge,’ said Vegesack, reading from a piece of paper. ‘Fru Gossenmuhle. It seems she phoned the local police last night and claimed she had seen a girl looking like the photograph of Mikaela Lijphart. At the railway station. They were going to talk to her this morning, and then they’ll no doubt be in touch with us.’

Moreno thought for a while.

‘How far is it to Frigge?’ she asked

‘About a hundred and fifty kilometres.’

Moreno nodded.

‘So we just need to wait, then. By the way, to change the subject, can you recommend a decent garage in Lejnice?’

‘Garage?’

‘Yes. A repair workshop. Not too expensive. It’s about mending a Trabant.’

‘A Trabant? Surely you don’t drive around in a Trabant?’

‘Did,’ said Moreno. ‘Well?’

‘Er. . Let’s see. . Yes, Kluiverts, they are reliable.’

She made a note of the number, and another one of a guest house that Vegesack thought charged reasonable rates. He pointed out that he had never actually stayed in a B amp;B establishment in Lejnice, and that of course it was the summer season now.

Naturally, Moreno could have used the police station telephone to make the two calls, but something told her that it was high time she started restoring that old dividing line between work and her private life.

Start sketching it in at least, she thought with grim self-irony as she shook Vegesack’s hand and thanked him for his help.

‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ she said as she stood in the doorway. ‘What had happened down on the beach? You said that Vrommel had been called out.’

Vegesack frowned again.

‘I don’t really know,’ he said. ‘But they’ve evidently found a body.’

‘A body?’

‘Yes. Some little kids were playing around in the sand and dug it up, I think.’

‘And?’

‘That’s all I know,’ said Vegesack apologetically, looking at the clock. ‘We heard about it just over an hour ago. Vrommel took charge of it. Apparently there are officers there from Wallburg as well — scene-of-crime boys and technicians: we don’t have resources like that, and. .’

He fell silent. Stood there with his hands half raised, as if he had been going to start massaging his temples again, but didn’t need to as a thought had struck him.

‘Good Lord! Surely you don’t think. .?’

‘I don’t think anything at all,’ said Moreno. ‘Man or woman?’

‘No idea. He just said a body, that’s all the Skunk said. A dead body.’

The Skunk? Moreno thought and hesitated for a moment with her hand on the door handle.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ she said eventually, and went out into the sunshine.