by Håkan Nesser
‘Kluuge.’
‘It’s me,’ the chief inspector explained. ‘Well?’
‘One of the girls has started talking,’ said Kluuge.
‘Excellent,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘What does she have to say?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kluuge. ‘She’s on her way here now, with Inspector Lauremaa.’
‘Brilliant,’ said the chief inspector. ‘I’ll be there in a moment. Don’t lose her.’
19
When Van Veeteren entered the chief of police’s office, the car from Waldingen still hadn’t arrived. Kluuge was sitting at his desk, his bronzed arms contrasting with his light blue tennis shirt, but the chief inspector noticed that he looked both older and more tired.
‘A hard day?’ he asked as he flopped down on the sofa.
Kluuge nodded.
‘It’s sheer chaos out there,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to do something about those psychologists. They act like defence lawyers and bodyguards as soon as we get near any of the girls. Makes you wonder whose side they’re on.’
‘I recognize the phenomenon,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘What about the parents? Have they started rolling up?’
‘No, they haven’t in fact.’ Kluuge stood up and started wiping his brow with a wet wipe. ‘Not yet. Four have been in touch, but we told them that the situation is under control and that we would like to keep the girls here for a few more days at least. Besides, they don’t want to go home.’
‘Really?’
‘It seems to be a part of their holy oath, or whatever the hell it is they’ve sworn, that they should stay on. I don’t know, but I suppose we might find out now that one of them has started talking.’
‘Hmm,’ muttered the chief inspector, examining a toothpick. ‘What’s she called?’
Kluuge threw the wipe into the waste bin and consulted a sheet of paper.
‘Marieke Bergson. I wasn’t there; it was Lauremaa who called. About an hour ago.’
He looked at the clock.
‘I don’t understand what’s holding them up.’
‘You don’t know what she’s said, then?’
Kluuge shook his head.
‘No idea. Shall we have a cup of coffee?’
‘I think so,’ said the chief inspector. ‘It might be an idea if you could conjure up some Coca-Cola and that sort of stuff as well. Whatever else the Other World has to offer…’
Kluuge nodded and left the room in order to delegate the food question to Miss Miller. Van Veeteren inserted the toothpick and waited.
The girl’s name was Marieke Bergson. She looked pale, and her eyes were red with weeping.
When she came into the office with Inspector Elaine Lauremaa from the Haaldam police – and also a grim-looking but well-dressed child psychologist with her name, Hertha Baumgartner, taped to her chest – the chief inspector had a fleeting impression of a shoplifter who had just been caught red-handed.
Perhaps that was more or less what Marieke Bergson felt like. She sat down sheepishly on the edge of the chair she was allocated, clasped her hands in her lap and stared hard at her red gym shoes.
Lauremaa sat down next to Van Veeteren. The psychologist stood behind the girl with her hands on the back of the chair, looking at all those present in turn with a sceptical expression on her face, clenching her teeth so that her mouth became no more than a narrow stripe.
Kluuge cleared his throat twice, and introduced all present. That took ten seconds. Then there was silence for another five.
Somebody ought to say something, Van Veeteren thought – but instead there was a knock on the door and Miss Miller appeared with a tray of coffee, soft drinks, crisps and various other refreshments.
‘I’d like you to think carefully about what you say,’ said the psychologist when Miss Miller had withdrawn.
‘That sounds like a good idea,’ said Van Veeteren.
‘Marieke has made a difficult decision, she is under a lot of pressure and I don’t really think she ought to be exposed to cross-examination. I think that ought to be said.’
Lauremaa sighed. She was a rather sturdily built woman in her fifties, and the chief inspector immediately felt a degree of sympathy for her. Probably a woman with three children of her own and plenty of common sense, he thought. But perhaps not much of a diplomat.
Kluuge had no children as yet, but even so managed to serve up coffee and gave the impression of having reacquired some of his earlier irresolution.
It’s up to me, Van Veeteren thought. Just as well, I suppose.
‘Perhaps it might be easier if there weren’t so many of us,’ he suggested.
‘I’m not shifting from Marieke’s side,’ said the psychologist.
Lauremaa and Kluuge exchanged looks. Then Kluuge nodded in agreement and stood up.
‘I think we’d better record this,’ said the chief inspector.
Kluuge and Lauremaa left the room. A minute or so later Kluuge reappeared with a tape recorder.
So, here we go again, the chief inspector thought.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Marieke,’ said the girl, without looking up.
‘Marieke Bergson?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is your mouth feeling a bit dry?’
‘Yes.’
‘Drink a drop more Coca-Cola – that usually helps.’
The psychologist gave him a withering look, but Marieke Bergson did as he’d suggested and sat up a bit straighter.
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirteen.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘In Stamberg.’
‘And you’re in year six?’
‘I’m just going up into year seven.’
‘But you’re enjoying your summer holiday at the moment?’
‘Yes.’
‘At the camp here in Waldingen?’
‘Yes.’
‘If I’ve got it right, there’s something you want to tell us.’
No response.
‘Is that right?’
‘Yes. Maybe.’
‘Would you like me to ask you questions, or would you prefer to tell me about it yourself?’
‘Questions… I think.’
‘Okay. Have another bun if you’d like one.’
The chief inspector took another sip of coffee. He had the impression that the colour of the girl’s face had deepened by several degrees, but the psychologist still looked like a plaster cast.
No doubt she has domestic problems, he decided, then resumed his questions.
‘Do you know what’s happened to one of your friends?’
Marieke Bergson nodded.
‘Clarissa Heerenmacht,’ said the chief inspector. ‘She’s dead.’
‘Yes.’ Her voice quivered somewhat.
‘Somebody must have killed her. I expect you understand that we have to try to catch whoever it was that did it?’
‘Yes. I understand that.’
‘Will you try to help us?’
Another nod, and another sip of Coca-Cola.
‘Can you tell me why your friends don’t want to help us?’
‘They told us not to.’
‘Who did?’
‘The sisters.’
‘They told you that you shouldn’t answer questions put to you by the police?’
‘Yes. We weren’t to say anything.’
‘Did they explain why?’
‘Yes. It was a test. God would test if we were strong enough… To be able to continue.’
‘Continue with what?’
‘Er… I don’t know.’
‘Continue to stay at the camp?’
‘I think so.’
Marieke Bergson couldn’t suppress a sob. Judging by her red eyes, she had been crying a lot. He hoped that she had wept sufficiently to keep her head above water. Most probably neither he nor the psychologist were sufficiently skilled to cope with a teenage breakdown. He recalled fleetingly a few failures in such circumst
ances from his own past.
‘So they said you’d be sent home if you helped us to find the murderer?’
‘Yes… Well, no, that wasn’t what they meant. But everything just seemed to go wrong… I mean, they can’t have known what had happened last Monday…’
‘But they didn’t change anything after they’d got to know?’
‘No.’
‘And you don’t want to go back out there to the camp?’
‘No.’
Her answer was so faint that he could hardly hear it. A whisper so that not even God could catch on to what she said, he thought.
‘How did you get to hear that Clarissa was dead?’
She hesitated.
‘It was… er… we knew on Sunday evening that she wasn’t there any more. She wasn’t there at assembly nor at the evening meal. But they didn’t say anything then.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Not until Monday morning. Then Sister Madeleine told us that she’d gone home.’
‘Hang on a minute. Can you remember the last time you saw Clarissa?’
Marieke Bergson thought that one over. Looked him in the eye for the first time, without averting her gaze, as she bit her lip and seemed to be thinking about it.
‘It was last Sunday,’ she said. ‘In the afternoon. We had a free period, four o’clock I think it was, and I know that she and some of the others went down to the road. Yes, that would be about half past four, I think.’
‘You had a free period?’ Van Veeteren asked. ‘So you should really have been doing something else?’
‘Yes, we were supposed to be having role play.’
‘Role play?’
‘Yes. About the Ten Commandments.’
Van Veeteren nodded. A timetable change, he thought. Why? That was less than two hours after he’d got into his car and driven away from there.
‘And you’re quite sure that you didn’t see her again after that.’
She thought that over again.
‘Yes. I didn’t see her after that.’
‘Do you know who was with her?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘We’ll come back to that,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘So you knew that Clarissa was no longer at the camp on Sunday evening – or at least, not on Monday morning. When did you discover that she hadn’t in fact gone home, but was dead?’
‘That was, er… when you came and woke us up and told us. And we saw her. Although we…’
‘You what?’
‘We didn’t believe you. That was the fact of the matter.’
‘But you saw her, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t understand. Do you think you could explain it a bit better?’
‘We’d expected you to come from the Other World and say terrible things. That was the test, I suppose you could say.’
‘But even so you understood that Clarissa really was dead?’
Marieke Bergson gave a sob.
‘Yes, when I saw her I understood that, of course.’
The chief inspector nodded. He was the one who had insisted they should see the dead body, and although he’d had his doubts about it afterwards, he now conceded that it had been the right thing to do.
The situation had required firm action.
But for Christ’s sake! It was incomprehensible that none of the young girls had broken down when confronted with what had happened. Five o’clock in the morning, summoned out of their warm beds in order to be faced with the sight of a murdered friend. Only the face, admittedly, but still?
On the other hand he’d gone no further than making the girls file past the ambulance and look in through the doors. And he hadn’t started cross-questioning them immediately. He’d allowed them an hour for breakfast first. Deep down he was well aware that the whole set-up was a sort of revenge on the tight-lipped sisters – but maybe he could have saved a day if he’d put the boot in a bit harder?
Put the boot in a bit harder? he thought. What on earth am I going on about?
‘Was there anything else?’ asked the psychologist, and he realized that he must have been lost in thought for quite some time.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot more.’
‘Is there a toilet?’ asked Marieke Bergson. ‘I need to…’
‘Just outside, over there,’ said Van Veeteren, and switched off the tape recorder.
When she came back, she took the initiative straight away.
‘There’s the Katarina thing as well,’ she said.
‘Katarina?’
‘Yes, she was also at the camp to start with, but then one morning they said she’d gone home. She’d done something silly. We’ve been friends since last spring…’
‘What was her second name?’
‘Schwartz. Katarina Schwartz. She had the bed next to me.’
‘Katarina Schwartz,’ repeated the chief inspector, noting it down. ‘Is she also from Stamberg?’
‘Yes.’
‘How old?’
‘Thirteen, nearly fourteen. She moved to Stamberg last spring. She used to live in Willby before.’
‘I don’t suppose you remember her address and telephone number?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Can you write it down for me?’
He slid a notepad and pencil over the table. Marieke Bergson wrote down the details, her tongue in the corner of her mouth. When she’d finished she slid the pad back again. The chief inspector examined her round, school-girlish handwriting for a few seconds before continuing.
‘So, she’d done something silly, you said. Can you tell me any more about that?’
Marieke Bergson hesitated and bit her lip.
‘She swore at Yellinek She had the devil in her body… I thought it was a bit odd, although I knew her; the others thought so as well. We were supposed to pretend she’d never been there.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, but I suppose it was right. She’d been silly, she had the devil inside her, and it was best to forget her. I could hardly remember that she’d ever been at the camp until yesterday, when
…’
Her voice died away. The chief inspector waited, but she said nothing more.
‘Can you remember when exactly Katarina Schwartz disappeared?’
Marieke seemed to be working it out.
‘Two weeks ago, I think. Maybe a bit less. You lose track – time doesn’t pass in the usual way when you’re at Waldingen.’
Van Veeteren suddenly had the feeling that he’d like to continue cross-questioning this teenaged girl for several hours, but he realized he would have to resist the temptation to put her under too much pressure. He needed to prioritize, to take the most important matters first; then he could probably try to penetrate the shadowy side of the Pure Life later on, when there was time and opportunity.
‘Yellinek,’ he said instead. ‘Do you know where Oscar Yellinek is?’
The girl shook her head.
‘You don’t know?’
‘No.’
‘When did he disappear?’
‘The day before yesterday.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. He wasn’t there on Monday morning. He’d been called away.’
‘Called away?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘The Lord had called him, and he needed to be away from the camp for a few days.’
She took a few more sips of Coca-Cola, and the chief inspector closed his eyes for a couple of seconds.
‘When on Monday?’
‘In the morning. He wasn’t there for morning prayers. Sister Ulriche took them instead. Then she told us that God had appeared to him during the night and given him a task. It was important that we should be firm in our faith, and remain pure and worthy in his absence.’
‘Pure and worthy?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see…’ Van Veeteren searched for the right words. �
�And what exactly does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Marieke Bergson.
‘Nor do I,’ said the chief inspector. ‘What do you do in order to show that you are pure and worthy?’
The psychologist raised a warning finger, and Marieke suddenly looked to be on the verge of tears. She wrung her hands and stared down at her shoes again. Van Veeteren hastily changed track.
‘When did you last see Yellinek?’
‘Sunday… Yes, Sunday evening.’
‘What were you doing then?’
‘It was evening prayers. Before we went to bed.’
‘And he didn’t say anything then, about having to go away?’
Marieke looked up, then averted her gaze again.
‘No, it was late at night when he met God, as I’ve said already. But Clarissa wasn’t around. We wondered a bit, but he didn’t say anything about her. He just said that the final struggle was here, and that we should be strong and pure.’
‘The final struggle?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did he mean by that?’
‘I… I don’t know.’
‘So, it was on Monday morning you found out about Clarissa Heerenmacht and also about Yellinek’s task?’
‘Yes – although we knew about Clarissa already. That she was no longer around.’
‘Don’t you think it seemed a bit odd? That the two things happened at the same time, I mean?’
‘No.’
‘But I expect you talked about it?’
‘No, we had to…’
‘Had to what?’
She suddenly lost control. Marieke Bergson slid off the chair and collapsed in a heap on the floor. Covered her face with her hands and drew her knees up to her chin in a sort of twisted foetus position. And slowly a low-pitched, plaintive sobbing emerged from her body, a whimpering – unarticulated despair that he realized must come from chasms deep down in her thirteen-year-old soul. Just for a moment he had the impression that she was play-acting, but he dismissed the thought.
Poor kid, he thought. What have they done to you?
The psychologist hastened to go to her assistance. Started caressing her arms, back and hair in long, gentle strokes. When the girl had recovered somewhat, but was still curled up and lost in her own personal hell, the woman looked up at Van Veeteren.