by Håkan Nesser
Eventually, perhaps, Münster thought wearily. Just now I don’t understand this case. But I do understand that it is closed.
He realized immediately that his latest assumption was also an over-hasty conclusion, but he didn’t have time to revise it before Van Veeteren cleared his throat and addressed Yakos’s query.
‘What has been going on? . . .’ he said slowly. ‘Hmm, God only knows. But if we really want to know, we shall have to wait for the postmortem results, of course. That body has been mutilated . . . The question is whether it happened before or after the bullet went through his brain . . . Either or, as it were. Personally, I have to admit that I couldn’t care less which.’
Chief Inspector Yakos stared at him in genuine surprise.
‘Couldn’t care less? Forgive me, but I don’t understand what you are saying. That man has been murdered, and—’
‘Thank you,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘You don’t need to enlighten me. But there is a possibility that he took his own life, don’t forget that . . . And that those mutilations of his body were administered afterwards. When we get the postmortem results, we’ll know the answer to that.’
‘Why?’ wondered Yakos. ‘Why on earth should anybody want to . . .’
Van Veeteren put a hand on his shoulder.
‘My dear friend,’ he said. ‘If you come to our hotel this evening, I’ll tell you a story.’
Chief Inspector Yakos hesitated for a moment. Then he nodded, shrugged, and gazed out to sea.
‘It’s a lovely morning,’ he said.
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.
THE MIND’S EYE
An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
Janek Mitter stumbles into his bathroom one morning after a night of heavy drinking, to find his beautiful young wife, Eva, floating dead in the bath. She has been brutally murdered. Yet even during his trial Mitter cannot summon a single memory of attacking Eva, nor a clue as to who could have killed her if he had not. Only once he has been convicted and locked away in an asylum for the criminally insane does he have a snatch of insight – but is it too late?
Drawing a blank after exhaustive interviews, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren remains convinced that something, or someone, in the dead woman’s life has caused these tragic events. But the reasons for her speedy remarriage have died with her. And as he delves even deeper, Van Veeteren realizes that the past never stops haunting the present . . .
Out in paperback now
BORKMANN’S POINT
An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
Borkmann’s rule was hardly a rule; in fact, it was more of a comment, a landmark for tricky cases . . . In every investigation, he maintained, there comes a point beyond which we don’t really need any more information. When we reach that point, we already know enough to solve the case by means of nothing more than some decent thinking.
Two men are brutally murdered with an axe in the quiet coastal town of Kaalbringen and Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, bored on holiday nearby, is summoned to assist the local authorities. The local police chief, just days away from retirement, is determined to wrap things up before he goes.
But there is no clear link between the victims. Then one of Van Veeteren’s colleagues, a brilliant young female detective, goes missing – perhaps she has reached Borkmann’s Point before anyone else . . .
Out in paperback now
THE RETURN
An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
An unmissable hospital appointment is looming for Inspector Van Veeteren when a corpse is found rolled in a rotting carpet by a young child playing in a local beauty spot. Missing head and limbs, the torso is too badly decomposed for forensic identification – bar one crucial detail . . .
Circumstantial evidence soon points to a local man, a double murderer who disappeared nine months before, shortly after being released on parole; a local hero turned monster after being convicted of killing two women over a span of three decades.
Recuperating after an operation, Van Veeteren is nevertheless directing investigations from his hospital bed, for he is convinced that only the innocence of this new victim can be the motive for his murder. But the two women have been dead for long enough for any evidence to have died with them . . . And is he simply on the wrong track completely?
Out in paperback now
WOMAN WITH A BIRTHMARK
An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
A young woman shivers in the December cold as her mother’s body is laid to rest in a cemetery. The only thing that warms her is the thought of the revenge she will soon take . . .
Then a middle-aged man is killed at his home, shot twice in the chest and twice below the belt. He had recently received a series of bizarre phone calls where an old song is played down the line – evoking an eerie sense of both familiarity and unease. Before the police can find the culprit, a second man is killed in the same way.
Chief Inspector Van Veeteren and his team must dig far back into each man’s past – but with few clues at each crime scene, can they find the killer before anyone else dies?
Out in paperback now
THE INSPECTOR AND SILENCE
An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
In the beautiful forested lake-town of Sorbinowo, the tranquillity is shattered when a girl goes missing from the summer camp of the mysterious the Pure Life, a religious sect buried deep in the woods.
Chief Inspector Van Veeteren’s investigations at the Pure Life seem to go nowhere fast. But things soon take a sinister turn when a young girl’s body is discovered in the woods, raped and strangled; and the sect’s leader Yellinek himself disappears. As the body count rises, a media frenzy descends upon the town and the pressure to find the monster behind the murders weighs heavily on the investigative team. Finally Van Veeteren realizes that to solve this disturbing case, faced with silence and with few clues to follow, he has only his intuition to rely on . . .
Out in paperback now
THE UNLUCKY LOTTERY
An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
Four friends celebrate winning the lottery. Just hours later, one of them – Waldemar Leverkuhn – is found in his home, stabbed to death.
With Chief Inspector Van Veeteren on sabbatical, working in a second-hand bookshop, the case is assigned to Inspector Münster. But when another member of the lottery group disappears, as well as Leverkuhn’s neighbour, Münster appeals to Van Veeteren for assistance.
Soon Münster will find himself interviewing the Leverkuhn family, including the eldest – Irene – a resident of a psychiatric clinic. And as he delves deeper into the family’s history, he will discover dark secrets and startling twists, which not only threaten the clarity of the case – but also his life . . .
Out in paperback now
HOUR OF THE WOLF
An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
In the dead of night, in the pouring rain, a drunk driver smashes his car into a young man. He abandons the body at the side of the road, but the incident will set in motion a chain of events which will change his life forever.
Soon Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, now retired from the Maardam police force, will face his greatest trial yet as someone close to him is, inexplicably, murdered.
Van Veeteren’s former colleagues, desperate for answers, struggle to decipher the clues to this appalling crime. But when another body is discovered, it gradually becomes clear that this killer is acting on their own terrifying logic . . .
Out in paperback now
THE WEEPING GIRL
An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
A community is left reeling after a teacher – Arnold Maa
ger – is convicted of murdering his female pupil Winnie Maas.
Years later, on her eighteenth birthday, Maager’s daughter Mikaela finally learns the terrible truth about her father. Desperate for answers, Mikaela travels to the institution at Lejnice where Maager has been held since his trial. But soon afterwards she inexplicably vanishes.
Detective Inspector Ewa Moreno from the Maardam police is on holiday in the area when she finds herself drawn into Mikaela’s disappearance. But before she can make any headway in the case, Maager himself disappears – and then a body is found. It will soon become clear to Ewa that only unravelling the events of the past will unlock this dark mystery . . .
Out in paperback now
Also by Håkan Nesser
THE MIND’S EYE
BORKMANN’S POINT
THE RETURN
WOMAN WITH A BIRTHMARK
THE INSPECTOR AND SILENCE
THE UNLUCKY LOTTERY
HOUR OF THE WOLF
THE WEEPING GIRL
First published in Great Britain 2013 by Mantle
This electronic edition published 2013 by Mantle
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-230-76626-6
Copyright © Håkan Nesser 2001
English translation copyright © Laurie Thompson 2013