Hakan Nesser - The Stranglers Honeymoon

‘Hydrofluoric acid?’ she said.

‘Yes, it’s much worse than hydrochloric acid and sulphuric acid and stuff like that. It sort of creeps though the skin and deep down into the flesh. . Hmm, maybe I don’t need to describe it in detail?’

‘I think I’ve actually seen it once,’ said Sammelmerk. ‘What hydrofluoric acid does to you. I agree with you, it’s horrendous. So you’re saying that Ester Peerenkaas had got some of that in her face, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did it happen?’ asked Sammelmerk. ‘I recall another friend of hers telling us that she used to carry a little bottle of acid in her handbag. Was that what. .?’

Kristeva nodded.

‘Exactly. She always had that bottle with her. The idea was to protect herself from rapists. And that’s how it happened, but not quite in the way intended. I don’t know exact details, Ester didn’t want to discuss it. . She has changed a lot, not just her face. She’s. . well, it’s taken me quite a while to catch on, but she’s gone mad. Crazy and dangerous. It was hard going, having her staying with me: she’s like a. . like a black hole. I’ve tried talking to her, tried to make her see some sort of light in the darkness, but she hasn’t listened to me, not even for a second. When I’ve tried to come close to her she has simply pointed at her deformed face and told me to go to hell. She’s obsessed by what has happened to her. Totally obsessed.’

‘So what actually happened?’ asked Moreno. ‘You said she gave some indication of it at least.’

Kristeva nodded.

‘Yes, I know what happened — but only in broad outline. He tried to kill her. Not to rape her, that wasn’t his primary aim at least. He had his hands round her neck and was going to strangle her, but she managed to get the bottle out of her handbag to throw over him. He somehow managed to fend her off: I think he was standing behind her, and she got most of it in her own face. But a small amount landed on him, and that’s what presumably saved her life. She somehow managed to run out of the flat, he rushed into the bathroom, bellowing away, and switched on the shower, according to Ester. She splashed cold water onto her face from the kitchen tap, gathered together her things and raced off with a wet towel over her head — and terrible pains, of course.’

‘How much of her face was affected?’ Moreno wondered. ‘It must have been horrendously painful.’

‘It was a miracle that she managed to make it home,’ said Kristeva. ‘The whole of her right cheek up to her eye is ruined, and part of her nose and forehead as well. She looks grotesque, like a leper. At least she can still see out of that eye, but her skin is. . well, there’s hardly any of it left. She sleeps with a wet towel over her face now.’

‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Sammelmerk. ‘Is it possible to. . to repair it somehow?’

Kristeva sighed.

‘I don’t really know. She didn’t want to talk about it, but I’ve been in touch with a doctor — without letting on what it was really all about, of course — and he says it’s possible to restore a face to a certain extent. Even if it’s very disfigured. It would take a series of small operations and transplants over a period of about five or six years. The problem is that Ester isn’t interested in such a solution — not yet at least.’

‘I can understand that,’ said Moreno, stroking her cheek lightly with two fingers. She could feel that she had goose pimples.

‘What did she do when she got home that evening?’ asked Sammelmerk. ‘I thought it was necessary to get medical care as soon as possible?’

‘Yes indeed. But not in this case. She said she kept herself locked up in her flat for a whole night and a day, bathing her face in water and applying ointments and whatever else she had at hand. The next evening she took the night train to Paris with a shawl over her head and face, and dark glasses, of course. She stayed in Paris for a month.’

‘A month in Paris?’ said Moreno. ‘Where? Why?’

‘At a friend’s. She knows quite a lot of people there. She lived in Paris during the years she was married. She went to a doctor specializing in skin conditions — apparently he is one of her circle of acquaintances there — and got some help. She hid herself away in her friend’s flat. Lay low and prepared for her return.’

She paused again and eyed Moreno and Sammelmerk for several seconds. As if she were telling a story that wasn’t true, Moreno thought, and needed to keep stopping to check that her listeners were still interested in what was coming next.

‘She got in touch with her mother eventually. Explained that she was still alive, but said that her parents would never see her again if they gave the slightest indication to anybody that she had been in touch. And then she turned up at my door a couple of weeks ago. Disguised as a Muslim woman, so that she could keep her face hidden in a way that seemed natural, of course. The conditions were more or less the same for me as they had been for her mother and father. I wasn’t to say anything at all about her to anybody, it was as simple as that. It was a shock for me to discover that she was still alive, and, well. . I promised to do all I could to help her. As you might recall, I was actually the one who was supposed to meet that man at Keefer’s in December. In fact. But I fell ill, and things turned out as they did. .’

‘Excuse me a moment,’ said Moreno, interrupting her and glancing at the tape recorder. ‘I take it you’re talking about Maarten deFraan, professor of English at Maardam University, is that right?’

‘DeFraan, yes,’ said Kristeva. ‘That’s his name. She didn’t want to tell me his name at first, but after a few days I managed to squeeze it out of her. But Ester Peerenkaas is no longer Ester Peerenkaas, that’s the most horrific thing of all. She’s not the same person. She has only one thought in her head, a single one, and that is taking her revenge on that man.’

She threw her arms out in a gesture of impotence.

‘Why can’t she simply go to the police?’ wondered Sammelmerk.

‘Do you think I haven’t kept asking her that?’ said Kristeva with a snort. ‘Do you think I haven’t spent many a day and night asking her just that?’

‘But why?’ insisted Moreno. ‘Why not the police? This man has many more things on his conscience, not just Ester Peerenkaas’s ruined face. .’

Kristeva sighed deeply again, and sat up straight.

‘Because that wouldn’t be enough for her,’ she said. ‘A conventional punishment wouldn’t be sufficient. Ester has been let down by the authorities in the past as well — I don’t know how much you know about her background, but that man who took their daughter and disappeared, well, she spent two years fighting for her rights before she gave up. That sort of thing leaves its mark. Quite simply, she doesn’t trust the police. She intends to kill Maarten deFraan with her own hands — and not just kill him, come to that.’

Moreno gave a start.

‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘Not just kill him?’

Kristeva took a drink of water and sat in silence for a while before answering.

‘She intends to torture him,’ she said eventually in a low voice. ‘I think. . I think she intends to capture him somehow or other, and then subject him to something horrendous. Extremely painful, and lasting for as long as possible, before she finally kills him. Don’t ask me how she’s going to do it, but she’s obsessed by it. It’s the only thing that keeps her going, and it’s as if. . as if it’s not really about her. I think she sees herself as a tool — a representative of all the women who have been tormented by men. She sees it as a mission to take revenge for all the oppression our sex has been subjected to since the beginning of time — and to take it out on him, of course. It’s as if she had been chosen. As I’ve said, she’s mad. .’