by Håkan Nesser
How could she leave her fate — and her daughter’s fate — in Chief of Police Vrommel’s hands? she asked herself. Was there anything at all to suggest that he would be able to solve the problem? Vrommel! She recalled how even sixteen years ago she had regarded him as an utterly useless berk, and there was nothing to suggest that he had improved since then. Nothing that she had noticed during the days she had spent in Lejnice, at least.
And now he was the one who was going to find out what had happened to Mikaela. Chief Inspector Vrommel! How could she — as a mother and a thinking woman — allow that to happen? How could she hand over responsibility to such an arch-cretin?
She stubbed out her cigarette and looked out of the window at the sun-drenched polder-landscape. Canals. Black-and-white cattle grazing. A cluster of low stone-built houses with a church steeple sticking up like an antenna or a tentative attempt to make contact with the endless sky.
What am I going on about? she suddenly thought. What am I sitting here gawping at? It doesn’t really matter if it’s Vrommel or somebody else. It’s all about Mikaela. Where on earth is she? What’s happened? Arnold. . Just think that Arnold might actually know something about it!
And once again this inexplicable feeling of guilt dug its claws into her. As inexplicable and irritating as a sore on her soul. Why? Why should she — Sigrid Lijphart, formerly Sigrid Maager — have anything to reproach herself for? In fact she had done more than anybody could have demanded of her. . Much more. She had told Mikaela about Arnold, despite the fact that it would have been much easier to say nothing. She could just as well have remained silent about the whole affair. Now and for ever. That was the line Helmut would have preferred to take — he hadn’t said that in so many words, of course: but then, Helmut was not one for saying anything in so many words.
Keep quiet and let the past be buried. That’s what she could have done. Nobody could have asked more of her than that, and nobody had done so either.
So why? Why hadn’t she taken the easy way out for once? Why always this unreasonable and inflexible demand for honesty?
But hardly had she formulated these questions than his voice rang out from the past.
Motives, it said. You are falsifying your motives.
She couldn’t remember the context in which he’d said it, but that was irrelevant. She didn’t understand what he’d meant even so.
Not then, and not now, perhaps twenty years later. Odd that she should remember that. Odd that it occurred to her now. Motives?
She sighed and lit another cigarette. Scrunched the packet up and chucked it into the litter bin, despite the fact that there were four or five cigarettes left in it.
Enough of that now, she thought. I don’t want to come back home to Helmut stinking of tobacco. I must observe the proprieties.
But nothing seemed to go right. That question that she didn’t even dare to formulate in silence, not even deep, deep down at the bottom of her consciousness — it continued to float around inside her without being expressed, forcing all other thoughts to flee.
That question.
18
16 July 1999
‘Do you think she’s dead?’
Moreno didn’t reply straight away. Got out of the car. Walked round to his side and thought of giving him a kiss on the cheek, but for some reason found that inappropriate and desisted. Put her hand on his arm instead.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Let’s hope to God that she isn’t, but I really have no idea. I have to keep following this up for a bit longer, though. I’m sorry, but I need to know a few more answers before I can let go of it.’
Mikael nodded.
‘Take it easy with the headmaster,’ he urged her. ‘Don’t forget that he’s over eighty. Shall we say an hour?’
‘Plus or minus a half,’ said Moreno. ‘Find yourself a table in the harbour cafe, so that you don’t get irritated unnecessarily.’
She waited until he’d driven off before opening the white-painted gate and walking along the stone-paved path to the house. It looked large and well cared-for. A substantial two-storey house in yellowish-white pommer stone; balconies on the upper floor and terraces on the ground floor, and generous picture windows facing the sea. It must be worth a million, Moreno thought. Especially when you think of the position and the garden. The large lawn was newly mown, the flower beds, bushes and fruit trees well tended, and the large array of garden furniture under an orange parasol looked as if it could have been delivered by the carpenter only a couple of hours ago.
Former headmaster Salnecki was lounging back in one of the comfortable armchairs, and seemed to be about as old as Adam.
White trousers, white shirt, white cotton cardigan. A sporty-looking yellow cap and blue leisure shoes. But none of that helped. He looked older than the gnarled apple trees. He can’t have much longer left, Moreno thought. This is probably his last summer. I hope he’s clear in the head.
He was.
Unusually clear, that was obvious after only a few seconds. And a couple of comments. A rather younger, light-haired and suntanned woman came out carrying a tray with a carafe and glasses. And a dish of bread sticks.
‘A mixture of red and white,’ explained herr Salnecki, filling her glass. ‘Life and death, in the form of blackcurrants and Riesling. I don’t suppose I need to point out that white is the colour of death in quite a lot of cultures. Welcome, and your very good health.’
‘Cheers,’ said Moreno. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’
‘My niece’s daughter. .’ He nodded in the direction of the woman who had just disappeared round the corner. ‘She looks after me. She’s writing a dissertation on the Klimke group, and is making use of my library. Sylvia. A nice girl, as good as gold. My wife passed away a few years ago, I need somebody to look after me. . But I think there was something you wanted to see me about?’
Moreno put her glass down on the table and leaned back in her chair.
‘Maager,’ she said. ‘Arnold Maager. You were still the headmaster at Voellerskolan when it happened, weren’t you?’
‘I suspected as much,’ said Salnecki.
‘Suspected? What do you mean?’
‘That that was what you wanted to talk about. You see, I’ve worked in schools all my life, and I’ve no doubt there have been a few irregularities during that time — but if a detective inspector on holiday comes and asks to talk to me, there’s only one conclusion I can draw. It’s not a pretty tale, that Maager business.’
‘So I’ve gathered,’ said Moreno.
‘Why do you want to drag it up again? Isn’t it better to let things lie in peace?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Moreno. ‘But now there are certain circumstances that have come to light.’
Salnecki burst out laughing.
‘Come to light? I like it! You’re speaking more like a lawyer, Inspector, if I might be allowed to say so. But in any case, I understand that discretion can be a virtue, and my natural curiosity has waned as the years have gone by. . I’m not sure if one should be pleased about that, or sorry. . But what’s not in doubt is that I talk too much. What do you want to know?’
Moreno held back a smile.
‘What happened,’ she said. ‘What you thought about Maager, and so on.’
‘You don’t know the details already?’
‘Very few,’ said Moreno.
Salnecki emptied his glass and put it down firmly on the table.
‘A tragedy,’ he said. ‘There’s no other word for it. And yet at the same time such a banal business. Maager was a good teacher. Liked by both his pupils and his colleagues. Young and ambitious. . And then he goes and jumps into bed with that young chit of a girl. Beyond belief. You have to be able to handle young teenaged girls with hormones, that’s among the first things a male teacher has to get to grips with.’
‘He didn’t just jump into bed with her,’ said Moreno, ‘if I’ve understood the situation rightly.’
Salnecki shoo
k his head and suddenly looked sombre.
‘No. But that’s what started everything off. A cautionary tale, in a way. There’s always a price to pay.’
Moreno raised her eyebrows.
‘Are you saying it was Maager who paid the price? Surely you could say that the girl also paid a price. .’
‘Of course,’ said Salnecki, quick to correct that impression. ‘Of course. That’s what makes it so tragic. Everybody has to pay for a moment of thoughtlessness. Some with their life, others with their sanity. You get the impression that the gods sometimes overdo the retribution thing.’
Moreno thought for a moment. Her host took off his cap, fished a comb out of his back pocket and drew it a few times through his thin, white hair.
‘How did people react?’ asked Moreno. ‘They must have been rather shocked.’
‘Hysterical,’ said Salnecki with a sigh, replacing his cap. ‘People went mad, there were those who wanted to lynch him — I kept getting phone calls in the middle of the night. In a way it was lucky that it happened during the summer holidays, we’d have had to shut down the school otherwise. It was my final year, incidentally. I finished in December. I wish I’d gone in June instead. . But there again, it wouldn’t have been much fun for a new headmaster to start his career with a scandal like that.’
‘What about their relationship?’ Moreno wondered. ‘Maager and the girl, I mean. Had it been going on for long? Did the other pupils know about it, for instance?’
‘Relationship!’ snorted Salnecki. ‘It wasn’t a relationship. The girl offered herself to him on a plate on one single occasion, and they ended up in the same bed. I would guess they were both drunk. I mean, Maager had a family — a wife and a little daughter.’
‘I know about that,’ said Moreno. ‘How did it go for Maager afterwards? Have you had any contact with him?’
Salnecki looked sombre again. A bit of a guilty conscience, presumably, Moreno thought. Wondering if he could have intervened and prevented the disaster in some way. He leaned forward and refilled his glass from the jug.
‘No,’ he said. ‘None at all. He went mad. He’s in a home not far away from here. A few colleagues used to go and visit him during the first few years, but they could never get a single word out of him. . No, it finished him off for the rest of his life.’
‘What happened when they. . met, Maager and young Maas? It happened only once, you said.’
Salnecki shrugged.
‘As far as I know. It was after a disco at the school for the pupils. Maager and a few other teachers had acted as stewards. Afterwards the teachers went to a colleague’s house, a handicraft teacher — a bachelor — and had a few drinks and sat and talked. There was only a week of term left. Anyway, a gang of pupils turned up in the small hours. It should never have happened, of course, but they were invited in and things just went on from there. Maager jumped into bed with Winnie Maas, and-’
‘- she got pregnant and he killed her,’ said Moreno. ‘Six or seven weeks later, was it?’
‘More or less, yes,’ said Salnecki. ‘Not a pretty tale, as I said before. Anyway, your good health!’
They drank. Moreno decided to try another line.
‘This girl, Winnie Maas — she seems to have been a bit, er, precocious. Is that right?’
Salnecki cleared his throat and tried to find the appropriate words.
‘De mortuis nihil nisi bonum,’ he said. ‘Let’s say she was precocious.’
‘Why did he kill her?’
Salnecki pulled at an ear lobe and looked thoughtful.
‘He lost control, I would guess. It really was as simple as that. The girl presumably wasn’t prepared to have an abortion. She wanted to have the child — and might well have demanded lots of money in return for her silence. Or alternatively force him to admit that he was the father. . I don’t know, but I guess those were the conditions. She phoned him the night when it happened. They met on the railway viaduct, and he took leave of his senses. And went mad as well, as I’ve said before. If he went mad before or after he’d thrown her down is a matter for discussion — and it certainly was discussed. That became a crucial point in his trial — how far he was responsible for his own actions and compos mentis: if he knew what he was doing or not when it actually happened. Ah well, it’s a pretty vulnerable contraption, this thing that drives us. .’
He smiled and tapped his right temple with two fingers. Moreno smiled.
‘Mind you, this one has kept going for eighty-one years,’ he added, with a modest smile.
‘What about the girl’s family?’ Moreno asked.
‘Ah well, yes,’ muttered Salnecki. ‘Single mother. No siblings. The mother took it very badly. She was one of the lynch mob, you might say. Calmed down a bit afterwards. But she still lives here in Lejnice, I bump into her occasionally. . Poor woman, she doesn’t seem to have any strength left. But now it’s my turn to ask if there’s any justice left in the world. What are you after? There must be a reason for your interest in these unpleasant goings-on.’
Moreno hesitated. She had expected the question, of course. And she had several more or less plausible responses already worked out: but somehow or other it didn’t seem right to come out with half-truths and evasive answers when faced with this outspoken and foxy old schoolmaster. Not tempting and certainly not right. Especially bearing in mind her thoughts about ethics.
She thought for a few seconds while taking a sip of the mixture of red and white. Of life and death. Then she told him the absolute truth.
‘In the name of all that’s holy!’ exclaimed Salnecki. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ said Moreno.
While Moreno was talking to Salnecki, Mikael had been buying groceries in the market, which had been held in Grote Marckt every Saturday within living memory. That morning both of them — especially Moreno — had been sceptical about swimming and sunbathing, and when a cold front began to move in from the south-west that afternoon, it came as a relief. Instead of conforming with convention and lying stretched out under the unforgiving sun, they could devote themselves with a clear conscience to a ratatouille with curry, Indian cumin and thick cream, a dish they duly enjoyed in the conservatory while the rain pattered against the windowpanes and the tin roof.
And an Italian red to wash it down. Malevoli cheese with slices of pear for afters. And a glass of old port wine from a dust-covered bottle without a label — Mikael claimed that it was from a cellar that came into the family with the house in the twenties. Moreno didn’t know whether to believe him or not. But it was very good in any case. Like a sweet, deep-frozen fire.
They eventually ended up in rocking chairs on either side of the open fire, and Montezuma indicated that Moreno had begun to be accepted by coming to lie in her lap. As she sat there digesting the food and stroking the lazy cat between its ears, Mikael took the opportunity of taking twenty-four photos of them.
‘Very pretty,’ he announced. ‘So very damned pretty. The fire, the woman and the cat.’
She felt too full to protest.
‘You think of her as your own child, don’t you?’ he said when he’d put the camera away.
‘Who? Montezuma?’
‘Mikaela Lijphart. You’re assuming a mother’s responsibility for her. . Because you don’t have any children of your own.’
‘Tuppeny-ha’penny psychology,’ said Moreno.
Is he right? she wondered. Why the hell is he raising this now?
‘Tuppence-ha’penny is worth something. Or used to be,’ Mikael said. ‘What are you trying to convince yourself’? That there’s something fishy about this old scandal?’
‘What do you think yourself?’ Moreno asked, aware of the tone of irritation in her voice. ‘Don’t you agree that it’s a bit odd for this girl to go missing at a moment like this? Just after she’s visited her loony father for the first time? Just after she’s finally discovered why she’s had to grow up without hi
m?’
‘Yes, I agree,’ said Mikael after a moment’s silence. ‘It’s just that I thought you’d had enough of stuff like this nagging you when you’re supposed to be on leave, that’s all.’
‘Are you suggesting that I should just let it all drop?’
He suddenly looked quite angry. Teeth clenched and grinding — for the first time, she thought.
‘Rubbish,’ he said. ‘I think you’re doing the right thing. Absolutely. You don’t need to defend yourself, but it gets more complicated if you keep changing your mind all the time.’
What the hell is he on about? Moreno thought, giving Montezuma a pat which sent her jumping down to the floor.
‘Now listen here,’ she said. ‘I’m not very receptive to all that psychobabble about my motives just now. My period’s due tomorrow or the day after, so we can blame it on that. But in any case, I can’t just stop thinking about that poor girl. And if I’m thinking thoughts, I might as well do something about them as well. If you can’t take that, just say so. But none of these half-baked comments, if you don’t mind.’
That’s blown it, she thought. I might as well pack my things and book into a hotel for tonight.
But he just looked sorry.
‘For pity’s sake,’ he said. ‘What are you talking about? Do you have to empty your brain before your period starts? I’m saying I think you’re doing the right thing. If you’re not sure about that, stop projecting your doubts on to me. . Because that’s exactly what you’re doing. Now, where were we? What did Mikaela Lijphart do after she’d visited her father at the Sidonis home?’
‘Booked herself into the youth hostel,’ said Moreno.
Thank goodness I don’t have to pack my things, she thought.
‘And then?’
‘She took the bus into Lejnice and back. On Saturday evening.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Then she took the bus again on Sunday. Into town. And since then there’s been no sign of her.’
Mikael nodded.