Hakan Nesser - The Weeping Girl

But then she worried precisely because she hadn’t been worried.

‘Is that all?’ she asked. She tried to make her voice sound so ice-cold that he would realize he could expect no mercy whatsoever.

‘That’s all,’ he said. His smile shrank ever so slightly. ‘I can see that you’ve got the message. Let me know when it’s sunk in.’

Moreno stood up. Went over to the rear door and tapped on it with her bunch of keys. Before she was let out, Lampe-Leermann had time to explain one more detail.

‘It was because of this titbit that I wanted to talk to a woman police officer. I hope you didn’t think there was any other explanation? I couldn’t risk sitting face to face with him. . With that very policeman. Or with somebody who might possibly feel a sense of solidarity with him. . A good word, that — solidarity. Even if it has fallen out of regular use nowadays. Hmm.’

All this was just a dream, thought Detective Inspector Ewa Moreno. But I feel a bit sick for some reason.

Five minutes later she had put both Franz Lampe-Leermann and Lejnice police station behind her.

For today.

Constable Vegesack made the sign of the cross, then knocked on the door.

It wasn’t that he was religious — certainly not, and especially not in the Roman Catholic sense: but on one occasion the sign of the cross had turned out to be useful for him. He had fallen asleep in his car while keeping watch on a suspect (and as a result the said suspect, an intermediary in a cocaine-smuggling gang, had sneaked out of the building and disappeared). The following day he had been summoned to Chief Inspector Vrommel’s office for a dressing-down. For want of any better line of defence, he had made the sign of the cross as he stood waiting outside the door (just as he had seen the Italian goalkeeper do before he saved a penalty in the previous week’s Champion’s League match on the telly), and to his amazement, it seemed to work. Vrommel had treated him almost like a human being.

Vegesack didn’t bother about the fact that Vrommel’s attitude was presumably due mainly to the arrest of the escapee later on in the night. From that day on, he always made the sign of the cross whenever he found himself standing outside his boss’s door.

It couldn’t do any harm, in any case, he thought.

Vrommel was standing between two filing cabinets, doing trunk-bending exercises. He did this for at least ten minutes every day in order to keep fit, and it wasn’t something that necessarily intruded upon his work. Things got done even so, no problem.

‘Sit down,’ he said when Constable Vegesack had closed the door behind him.

Vegesack sat down on the visitor’s chair.

‘Write this down,’ said Vrommel.

The chief of police was known for his parsimony in the use of words, and his bodily contortions made it all the more necessary for him to be even less loquacious than usual.

‘Firstly,’ he said.

‘Firstly?’ said Vegesack.

‘That bastard Lampe-Leermann must be transported to the jail in Emsbaden either this evening or tomorrow. Ring and fix it.’

Vegesack noted this down.

‘Secondly. Inspector Moreno’s recorded interrogation must be typed out so that she can sign it. Do that.’

Vegesack noted it down.

‘Ready by noon tomorrow. There are the cassettes.’

He nodded towards the desk. Vegesack picked up both cassettes and put them in his jacket pocket. The chief of police paused before contorting himself in the opposite direction.

‘Anything else?’ Vegesack asked.

‘I’d have said if there was,’ said Vrommel.

When Vegesack got back to his own office — which he shared with Constables Mojavic and Helme — he wondered if he ought to write down the exchange he’d just had with Vrommel in his black book. The one he’d started on six months ago, and which would eventually be his revenge, his way of getting his own back on Chief Inspector Victor Vrommel. The only thing that enabled him to cope.

The true story of the chief of police in Lejnice.

He had already written over fifty pages, and the title he was currently thinking of giving it was: The Skunk in Uniform .

Although he had not entirely eliminated the possibility of The Long Arm of the Bore , or A Nero of Our Time .

Constable Vegesack checked his diary, and established that there were eighteen days still to go to his leave. Then he telephoned Emsbaden and arranged transport for Franz Lampe-Leermann. That took half an hour. He looked at the clock. A quarter to four. He took out a notepad and a pen, and slotted the first cassette into the player.

With a bit of luck I’ll have finished by midnight, he thought.

When she had more or less finished recounting what had happened, it occurred to her that perhaps she ought to have kept it to herself.

Not just perhaps , in fact. The contents of the scumbag Lampe-Leermann’s rant were such that nobody ought to be exposed to them. Or to be bothered by them.

Especially if it was all a bluff.

And it was a bluff, of course. There was no plausible alternative.

So why had she recounted it all for Mikael Bau the moment they’d sat down on the veranda of the harbour cafe? Why?

She couldn’t think of a satisfactory answer, hesitated for a moment, then bit her tongue.

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘For Gawd’s sake! What do you make of it?’

She shook her head.

‘It’s all made up, of course. What I don’t understand is what he thinks he’s going to get out of it.’

Mikael said nothing, just looked at her as he slowly adjusted his posture.

‘What if it isn’t?’

‘Isn’t what?’

‘Made up.’

‘It is made up.’

‘By whom?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Who’s made it up, of course. I wonder if it’s that Lampe-Leermann himself, or if it’s that journalist?’

Moreno thought for a moment.

‘Or somebody else again,’ she said. ‘I mean, we don’t even know if the journalist really exists.’

‘Not until Scumbag comes up with a name, you mean?’

‘Exactly,’ said Moreno. ‘And he won’t do that for free.’

They sat for a while without speaking. Mikael continued to look at her, his eyebrows slightly raised. Moreno pretended not to notice.

‘Hypothetically. .’ he said.

She didn’t respond. He hesitated for a few more seconds.

‘Hypothetically. Let’s assume that he isn’t bluffing in fact. Then what do we do?’

Moreno glared at him, and clenched her fists. Took a deep breath.

‘Well, then. . Then we find ourselves in a situation where one of my closest colleagues is a bloody child-fucker.’

‘Don’t speak so loudly,’ said Mikael, looking around furtively. Nobody at any of the neighbouring tables seemed to have noticed anything amiss. Moreno leaned forward and continued in a somewhat lower voice.

‘We find ourselves in a situation that’s so damned awful that I won’t be able to sleep a wink at night. That’s obvious, isn’t it?’

Mikael nodded.

‘I think so,’ he said. ‘How many are there to choose from? Possible candidates?. . We’re still being hypothetical, of course.’

Moreno thought that over. Forced herself to think it over.

‘It depends,’ she said. ‘It depends on how many you count as CID officers — several constables double up with different sections, and there are a few borderline cases. Eight to ten, I’d say. . Twelve at most.’

‘A dozen?’

‘At most, yes.’

Mikael emptied his cup of cappuccino and wiped the foam away from his mouth.

‘What are you going to do about it?’ he asked.

Moreno didn’t answer.

There wasn’t any appropriate answer.