The Weeping Girl

39

5 August 1999

Constable Vegesack made the sign of the cross, and went in.

Chief of Police Vrommel was lying on the floor in front of his desk, doing leg-raises.

‘Just a moment,’ he said.

Vegesack sat down on the visitor’s chair and watched his boss. The raises were a bit on the strenuous side, it seemed, as Vrommel was groaning like a stranded walrus, and his shiny bald pate glowed like a red traffic light. When he had finished he remained lying there for a while, recovering. Then he got up and sat down at his desk.

‘So you’re going on leave tomorrow, are you?’

Vegesack nodded.

‘Tomorrow, yes.’

‘The weather’s not up to much.’

‘No,’ said Vegesack.

‘It was better last week.’

‘Yes.’

Vrommel opened a desk drawer, produced a paper tissue and wiped his brow and the top of his head.

‘This Van Rippe case. It’s time to make a summary of where we’ve got to.’

‘Are we going to close it down?’ Vegesack asked.

‘Not close it down, no,’ said Vrommel. ‘One doesn’t close down murder investigations just like that. But I’m going to sum it up. It’s been hard going — I don’t think we’ve got anywhere at all, have we?’

‘No.’

‘I think we’ll have to scale it down. We’ve been using extra resources for three weeks now. It’ll be normal routines from now on.’

‘I see,’ said Vegesack.

‘So we need a summary. A sort of report on what we’ve achieved so far. I thought we’d have a little press conference tomorrow morning. We need to report to our superiors as well. Those girl guides from Wallburg haven’t been a lot of use.’

‘Not a lot.’

Vrommel cleared his throat.

‘So, if you type out this summary, you can leave it on my desk before you go home. You have the whole day to devote to it.’

Vegesack nodded.

‘Don’t make it too long-winded. Just the facts. Brevity is the soul of wit.’

Vegesack started to get up.

‘Was there anything else?’

‘If there had been, I’d have said,’ said Vrommel. ‘So, on my desk. Have a good holiday, and keep fit.’

‘Thank you,’ said Vegesack, and left the room.

Ewa Moreno woke up and looked at the clock.

Ten to twelve.

It dawned on her that she was in her own bed, and despite everything had slept no more than nine hours. She tried to feel if there was any muscle in her body that wasn’t aching, but couldn’t find any.

I feel ninety, she thought. And this was supposed to be useful. .?

She had gone to bed shortly before three. She’d got home dead on two o’clock, but had enough sense to take a hot bath before creeping between the sheets. If she hadn’t done that, she probably wouldn’t have been able to move at all now. The last lap of the cycling holiday with Clara Mietens had comprised seventy-five kilometres into a headwind, and the last thirty in rain. They’d expected to set off rather earlier than they actually did, so that they would have a pleasant east wind at their backs and would glide into Maardam with the setting sun in their faces. Well, that was the plan.

An east wind? Moreno thought as she sat up gingerly on the edge of the bed. Had there ever been an easterly wind in Maardam? When they said their mutual goodbyes down at Zwille at a quarter to two, Clara had promised faithfully that if ever she had the strength to get out of bed again, the first thing she would do would be to attach a very heavy weight to her accursed bike (with six gears, two of which worked), throw it into the Langgraacht canal, and sing a hymn.

But it had been quite a good holiday (apart from the last lap, that is). Eight gilt-edged days, brimful of camping life, swimming excursions, conversations, cycle rides (but never in the rain or with a headwind), and total relaxation in the picturesque Sorbinowo region. Clara’s red tent had been newly bought and easy to handle. And the weather had been splendid. Until yesterday.

She went to the bathroom and had a shower. After ten minutes her body began to feel as if it were hers again. And as that happened, her thoughts began to branch out in another direction.

That was inevitable, of course. It was time to re-enter the real world. High time.

She put on her dressing gown and started by going through her mail. Bills, adverts, four picture postcards and a wage slip. Very interesting.

Then she listened to the messages on her telephone answering machine. After considerable thought, she had decided to leave her mobile at home while she undertook the Sorbinowo Tour: so there ought to be quite a few messages waiting for her attention.

And so there were. All kinds of things. A couple of cheerful greetings from Mikael Bau, for instance, and a message from her mother explaining that they (her father as well, presumably, always assuming that nothing hair-raisingly horrific had happened while she’d been away) were on the point of setting off for the airport to catch their flight to Florida, and that they wouldn’t be back until the end of August. In case she tried to contact them and wondered why there was no response.

Eleven messages in all, explained the cool female voice on the tape.

But nothing from Baasteuwel.

Nothing from Vegesack or Kohler. Nothing from Mun-ster.

Not even anything from Selma Perhovens.

Ah well, Moreno thought as she went out to buy something for breakfast. One should never overestimate one’s importance.

It was half past six in the evening when she finally got hold of Inspector Baasteuwel.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Are you back?’

‘I got home yesterday. I thought you said you’d be in touch?’

‘I tried, but I don’t like leaving empty messages on an answering machine.’

‘Really? Well?’

Baasteuwel paused.

‘We’ve shelved it.’

‘Shelved it?’

‘Yes. That was the best thing to do. We came to that conclusion, Kohler and I. I’m on leave now.’

Moreno’s mind was swamped by a tsunami of absurd incomprehension.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ she said. ‘What about Vrommel? You said it was just a matter of time.’

She could hear Baasteuwel lighting a cigarette.

‘Now listen here,’ he said. ‘You have to trust me. It wasn’t possible to pin down that bastard as we’d hoped. We were in total agreement, Kohler and I, that we should stop digging into it any further. Vegesack as well. There was nothing else to take up, and no reason to take things any further. Not as things turned out.’

‘Not as things turned out?’ said Moreno. ‘What do you mean? I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘But that’s how things turned out in any case. You would agree with me if you had all the details in front of you.’

‘Details? What details?’

‘Rather a lot of them, in fact. I can assure you that this is the best solution. It’s just the way it turned out — that’s how it is in a lot of cases, as you ought to know.’

Thoughts were piling up inside Moreno’s head, and she pinched herself on the arm several times to check that she really was awake before continuing.

‘You swore blind that you were going to put Vrommel behind bars,’ she reminded him angrily. ‘An innocent girl has disappeared and a man has been murdered. You became a police officer in order to get the chance of putting guilty swine behind bars, and now. .’

‘It wasn’t possible on this occasion.’

‘And Van Rippe?’

‘The case is in the chief of police’s hands. Kohler and I were called in merely to help out with the early stages of the investigation, don’t forget that. We’ve left it now.’

Moreno removed the receiver from her ear and regarded it with suspicion for a few seconds.

‘Is it really Inspector Baasteuwel of the Wallburg police who I’m talking to?’ she asked eventually.

Baasteuwel laughed.

‘I am indeed that who,’ he said. ‘But I think I can detect a trace of impatience in the inspector’s voice. It sounds almost as if she’s wondering about various things.’

‘Too right I am,’ said Moreno. ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head, dammit. I don’t understand what language you’re speaking. You are abandoning a murder and a missing girl, and going on leave. On which side is your brain haemorrhage?’

‘Right in the middle,’ said Baasteuwel cheerily. ‘I agree that I might well sound a bit off course now that my holiday is beginning to take root. But if you really do want to find out a bit more about what’s been happening in Lejnice, I suppose I might be able to get a grip and accede to your request.’

‘It’s your duty, dammit,’ said Moreno. ‘Where and when?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘The sooner, the better.’

Baasteuwel seemed to be thinking it over.

‘Somewhere in Maardam, perhaps? So that you’re on home ground.’

‘Sounds good,’ said Moreno.

‘Gamla Vlissingen — is it still there?’

‘It certainly is.’

‘Okay,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Tomorrow at seven o’clock, will that be okay? I’ll book a table.’

‘That will be excellent,’ said Moreno.

She hung up and stared out of the window, which was just beginning to be splattered with a new downpour of rain coming in from the west.

I don’t understand this, she thought. I haven’t a bloody clue what’s going on.