The Stranglers Honeymoon

by Håkan Nesser

  ‘Really?’ said Jung. ‘Are you telling me you actually start thinking in the morning?’

  Rooth frowned and gazed out of the window. It was raining. Wollerimsparken looked as if it would love to sink down into the earth. Or had even begun to do so.

  ‘Well?’ said Jung. ‘Have you had a stroke?’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Rooth, raising an index finger as a warning. ‘Any minute now.’

  Jung sighed.

  ‘It’s always interesting to be present when a great mind is at work,’ he said, also looking out of the window. ‘It looks horrible out there! I can’t understand where all that rain comes from. It’s as if—’

  ‘Yes, now I’ve got it!’ interrupted Rooth. ‘Her parents, that’s what I was thinking about.’

  ‘Whose parents?’

  ‘Ester Peerenkaas of course. Or her mother, to be more precise. She doesn’t pester us any more.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Jung. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s stopped contacting us.’

  ‘I heard what you said,’ said Jung in exasperation. ‘So what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Rooth flinging his arms out wide. ‘Krause mentioned that she’d been phoning us twice a day the first few weeks, but then she suddenly stopped.’

  Jung thought for a moment.

  ‘I don’t understand what you are getting at. Fru Peerenkaas has stopped pestering the police every day with questions about her missing daughter. Are you suggesting that has some special significance?’

  ‘I don’t know everything,’ said Rooth. ‘Just almost everything. Where the hell has Reinhart got to? I thought he said—’

  ‘He’s here,’ said Reinhart as he entered the room. ‘You’re not sitting on eggs by any chance are you, Inspector?’

  ‘Not just at the moment,’ said Rooth. ‘Easter’s a bit too far away for that.’

  ‘Unusually clear instructions,’ said Jung when Reinhart had left the room again. ‘We can’t complain on that score.’

  Rooth nodded sombrely and stared at the badge he was holding in his hand.

  ‘We have to find out where this thing comes from and report back by tomorrow afternoon’s run-through at the latest, otherwise we shall be skinned alive. Yes, you’re right: that’s pretty clear.’

  ‘It’s good to know exactly what’s expected of us,’ said Jung. ‘How do you reckon we should go about it?’

  Rooth shrugged.

  ‘What do you think? The telephone directory is always a good place to start.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Jung, standing up. ‘Get going on that – I have half an hour’s paperwork waiting on my desk. We can start hunting as soon as you’ve got wind of something.’

  Rooth rummaged around in his jacket pocket and produced two or three sweets that he tossed into his mouth.

  ‘Your word is my command,’ he said. ‘What do you reckon the chances are?’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of this little badge really belonging to Kristine Kortsmaa’s murderer.’

  ‘Not very high,’ said Jung. ‘About zero.’

  ‘And the possibility that she had anything at all to do with our Strangler?’

  ‘More or less zero,’ said Jung.

  ‘Bloody pessimist,’ said Rooth. ‘Leave me in peace so that I can get something done.’

  The shop itself was no bigger than about ten or twelve square metres, but perhaps there was more space behind, overlooking the courtyard, where manufacturing and repairs could be carried out. In any case, the firm was called Kluivert & Goscinski, and was squeezed in between a warehouse and an abattoir at the far end of Algernonstraat – a dark, slightly curved apology of a street running from Megsje Boisstraat down to Langgraacht, and was hardly an ideal location for anybody wishing to run a business. The abattoir seemed to have been boarded up for ages.

  But perhaps Kluivert & Goscinski was such a niche enterprise – as Jung gathered the term was – that the actual location of the premises didn’t matter much. Medals, plaques, cups, trophies, badges – Manufacture and sales! – Matchless prices! – Rapid delivery! – Brand leaders since the forties!

  All this was printed in gold lettering on the chest-high teak counter with a glass top on which Rooth had carefully placed the plastic bag with the Wallburg badge. The shop assistant – a slim black-suited gentleman in his sixties with a nose like a ship’s keel and a moustache like a hairy sausage (and which presumably did little to facilitate the partaking of food, always assuming he ever ate anything, Jung thought) – slid his spectacles up above the bridge of his nose and examined the object in front of him with a degree of seriousness that would not have been out of place had it been the Queen of Sheba’s navel diamond. Jung noticed that he was holding his breath. Rooth as well.

  ‘Well?’ said Rooth after ten seconds.

  The shop assistant put the badge back into the bag and allowed his spectacles to slide down the ship’s keel. There was a red strip where they landed, and Jung assumed this must be an elegant manoeuvre he performed several times every day.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t recognize it,’ he said. ‘It’s not one of ours. Not from the last twenty years, that is – it could be older, of course.’

  ‘Really,’ said Rooth. ‘Do you recognize the symbol itself ?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Could you guess?’

  He hesitated.

  ‘I think it’s quite old. Thirty or forty years old.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  The man turned the palms of his hands upwards and moved his fingers slowly up and down, whatever that might mean.

  ‘Made in this country?’

  ‘Impossible to say for sure, but I think so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The mounting of the enamel disc. What exactly are you looking for?’

  ‘A murderer,’ said Rooth. ‘The fact is that we are rather keen to identify this little bastard. You don’t happen to know who we would turn to for assistance, by any chance?’

  The man fingered his moustache and his eyes glazed over behind his thick spectacle lenses.

  ‘Goscinski,’ he said in the end.

  ‘Goscinski?’ said Jung. ‘The man who—’

  ‘Eugen Goscinski, yes. The founder of this firm. He’s eighty-nine years old now, but what he doesn’t know about heraldry and symbols isn’t worth knowing . . . Even in the most prosaic connections.’

  ‘Prosaic?’

  ‘He knows the badges of every single football team in Europe, for instance, then the two or three hundred biggest clubs in South America. If you give him enough time, he can also—’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Rooth, interrupting him. ‘How can we get in touch with him?’

  ‘Wickerstraat, next door to your police station, in fact. But you should be aware that old Goscinski’s a bit special. He never sets foot outside the front door during the winter months, for instance. I think it would be best if you phoned him first, he has a reputation for not allowing people into his flat, and he’s not always easy to—’

  ‘We’re from the CID,’ Rooth pointed out. ‘And this is in connection with a murder investigation, as I said.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said the man. ‘If you’ll forgive me for saying so, I’m not convinced that Goscinski would pay much attention to such details. He’s become a bit . . . well, a bit special.’

  ‘We shall have to see what we can do about that,’ said Rooth. ‘If you can give us his address and telephone number, we can sort that out. Inspector Jung here has a degree in psychology and is an outstanding judge of human beings, so it shouldn’t be too big a problem.’

  ‘Really?’ exclaimed the man in surprise. He pushed up his spectacles once more and looked hard at Jung with renewed interest. ‘I didn’t think—’

  ‘Address and telephone number, please!’ said Rooth.

  ‘Something ought to be done about that tongue of yours,’ said Jung when they were back in the car. ‘Cutting it off might be the best opt
ion.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Rooth. ‘The funny thing is that you don’t even have the decency to say thank you for a compliment when you receive one. Get driving now and shut up while I ring Goscinski.’

  Jung started the engine and began driving at snail’s pace back along the narrow street, listening to how Rooth dealt with the ancient eccentric in Wickerstraat. Despite what the toucan man in the shop had predicted, Rooth had no difficulty in arranging to visit Goscinski and ten minutes later they parked the car in the basement garage at the police station. His apartment was only a stone’s throw away from the station, and when they rang the bell at the entrance to the block of flats down the street, Jung realized that he could probably see the building from his office window.

  Let’s hope to God that we’re on the right track, he thought. This improbable proximity to Goscinski was a typical example of the ironic games the gods love to play with us, and it would be surprising if it weren’t significant.

  Needless to say there was no rational justification for thinking along those lines – but where had five months of rational thinking got them? wondered Inspector Jung, as he began to feel the familiar butterflies in his stomach that always suggested something was about to happen. A breakthrough, or something similar.

  There was a crackling sound in the speaking-tube. Rooth explained who they were, and there was a faint click as the lock on the entrance door was released.

  It was quite stifling in Eugen Goscinski’s flat, and perhaps that wasn’t so surprising. It was small, dark and stuffy, and the two cats that came to rub up against them in the hall probably had the same constricted winter habits as their owner. But at least the latter was the only one who smoked, and Jung was grateful for that: it was bad enough already with the ingrained stench of old cigarillos and old man. Their host lit a new Pfitzerboom as soon as he had ushered them into his kitchen and served up three small cups of pitch-black coffee without asking them what they would like in the way of refreshments.

  ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Fire away!’

  Rooth took the plastic bag out of his inside pocket. Goscinski took out the badge, held it by the pin and contemplated it. Jung noticed that once again he was holding his breath.

  ‘Hmm,’ muttered Goscinski, taking a deep drag of his cigarillo. ‘What have we got here, then? No, er, good Lord – yes, I do believe I recognize it . . .’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Rooth.

  ‘. . . Recognize it, but it only rings a very faint bell at the moment, I regret to say . . .’

  Jung took a sip of the coffee. It tasted of burnt meat and tar.

  ‘Yes!’ exclaimed Goscinski. ‘I’ve got it!’

  He hammered away at his forehead with his fist a few times, as if to emphasize that the machinery was still well oiled and in good working order.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Rooth again. ‘This is what we’d hoped for. But what exactly does it signify?’

  ‘The Succulents,’ said Goscinski.

  ‘The Succu-whats?’ said Rooth.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ said Goscinski, sounding very pleased with himself, emptying his cup in one gulp and twirling the pin of the badge. ‘Of course it’s them, by Christ! I actually dealt with the order, but they were made up at the Glinders factory in Frigge. Fifty-six or fifty-seven, if my memory serves me rightly. Two thousand badges. Payment in cash on delivery.’

  ‘What are the Succulents?’ asked Jung calmly.

  Goscinski snorted.

  ‘God only knows. Some association or other. At the university. Something to do with the Freemasons, I assume, but I don’t really know what they got up to.’

  ‘Some kind of university society?’ said Rooth.

  ‘Yes. They were ordered by a dean or somebody like that in the Theology Department. A man of the cloth. I don’t remember his name, but that’s how it was in any case. Why are you so interested in this thing?’

  Jung exchanged looks with Rooth. One of the cats jumped up onto the table and started to lick Goscinki’s cup clean.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Rooth vaguely. ‘We can get in touch with you again if you’d like to know how it goes . . . Or if we need some more information. I assume we can get the information we need from the university. From the registry, perhaps?’

  ‘No doubt,’ said Goscinski. ‘From the bloody pen-pushers. But put your heart and soul into it. What’s the weather like out there?”

  ‘Grey and wet,’ said Rooth. ‘And windy. As usual.’

  ‘I’ll be going out again in April,’ said Goscinski, glancing sceptically out of the window. ‘Around the fifteenth, or thereabouts. Was there anything else you wanted to know, while you’re lounging around here?’

  ‘No,’ said Rooth. ‘Thank you for your help. The Succulents are exactly what we wanted to know about.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Goscinski. ‘Be off with you, then. It’s time for my afternoon nap.’

  They paused for a while in Wickerstraat before going their different ways.

  ‘What do you think about that?’ wondered Jung. ‘The Succulents? What on earth are they when they’re at home?’

  ‘I don’t think anything at all yet,’ said Rooth. ‘But that was the worst bloody coffee I’ve ever drunk in all my life, no doubt about that. Still, we did what we had to do in just one afternoon. I reckon we’ve earned a lie-in tomorrow morning. What do you say to that?’

  ‘I agree entirely,’ said Jung. ‘Shall we say we’ll turn up at about ten?’

  ‘Make it half past,’ said Rooth.

  39

  It was Saturday morning before Chief Inspector Reinhart was able to arrange an audience with one of the pro-vice-chancellors of Maardam University. In the meantime he managed to work up an impressive amount of anger.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Winnifred as they were eating breakfast in bed. ‘You’ve been grinding your teeth all night.’

  ‘They’re a lot of halfwitted bloody idiots,’ said Reinhart. ‘There are people in the university administration who would be locked up in a loony bin if they weren’t allowed to prance and strut around and collect a fat salary in Academe.’

  Winnifred looked at him with an expression of mild surprise for a few seconds.

  ‘I’m well aware of that,’ she said. ‘I also work in the talent factory, remember? It’s not something to grind your teeth about.’

  ‘They’re my teeth,’ said Reinhart. ‘I’ll grind them as much as I like.’

  He turned his head to look at the clock.

  ‘Anyway, it’s time I was off. Professor Kuurtens, is that somebody you know?’

  Winnifred thought hard.

  ‘I don’t think so. What’s his field?’

  ‘Political science, if I heard rightly. Bone idle.’

  Winnifred shook her head and went back to her newspaper.

  ‘Say goodbye to Joanna before you go.’

  Reinhart paused on his way to the bathroom.

  ‘Have I ever forgotten to say goodbye to my daughter?’

  He could hear her chatting away to herself through the open door of the nursery, and noticed that he relaxed his cheek muscles when he started thinking about her. Presumably what his wife had said was true: he really had been grinding his teeth all night.

  Pro-Vice-Chancellor Kuurtens, he thought, you’d better tread extremely carefully.

  Kuurtens received him in an office on the third floor of the registry. Reinhart estimated the ceiling height at four metres, and the floor space at about seventy square metres. Apart from a few freestanding columns in black granite with headless busts on top, a display cupboard from the seventeenth or eighteenth century and a few drab oil paintings depicting long-dead pro-vice-chancellors, there was really only one item of furniture in the room: a gigantic desk made of a black wood Reinhart reckoned was probably ebony, with a high-backed red armchair on each long side.

  In one of them sat Professor Kuurtens, gazing out over the world and the empty desk as he slowly and deliberately wrote a fe
w gems of words with a priceless fountain pen on a sheet of hammered white paper.

  Reinhart sat down in the other one without waiting to be invited.

  A hint of a sneer formed on the professor’s face, which was highly aristocratic in appearance. A classic Greek nose. A high forehead that disappeared under an Olympian mass of greying curls. Deep-set eyes and a firm, trust-inspiring jaw.

  An immaculate grey suit, an ivory-white shirt and a dark-red tie.

  He’s been given the job on the basis of his looks, Reinhart thought. He’s as thick as three sawn planks.

  ‘Welcome, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Or should I address you as Detective Chief Inspector?’

  ‘My name’s Reinhart,’ said Reinhart. ‘I haven’t come here to be addressed, nor to play cricket.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said the professor, glancing at his wristwatch. ‘I can give you fifteen minutes. Cricket?’

  ‘A metaphor,’ Reinhart explained. ‘But never mind that. The Succulents, what are they when they’re at home?’

  Pro-Vice-Chancellor Kuurtens screwed off the cap of his fountain pen, then screwed it back on again.

  ‘I think I must ask you to enlighten me somewhat more on the circumstances before we proceed any further,’ he said.

  ‘Murder,’ said Reinhart. ‘Now you are enlightened. Well?’

  ‘I would not say that was an adequate enlightenment,’ said Kuurtens, clasping his hands over the sheet of paper. ‘If you bear in mind that Maardam University has been in existence for over five hundred years, I trust you will understand that I must protect values that cannot be swept aside as casually as that.’

  ‘What the hell are you babbling on about?’ asked Reinhart, regretting that he hadn’t brought his pipe with him: it would have been an ideal moment just now to envelope this overweening prat in a thick cloud of tobacco smoke.

  ‘Might I beg you to adopt a more seemly tone of conversational discourse.’

  ‘All right,’ said Reinhart. ‘But if you are so simple-minded as to claim that this university has had nothing at all to hide for several hundred years, you are doing your Alma Mater a disservice, as you must surely realize. Anyway, the Succulents. Let’s hear about them. I don’t have unlimited time at my disposal either.’