Hakan Nesser - The Weeping Girl

‘She’s never said a word about it,’ he said. From the side of his mouth. With his back to her.

That was true. She had to grant him that as well.

‘Daft, but do whatever you like. What’s the point?’

That’s all. Nothing more. Then he left.

Daft?

Am I doing it for her sake, or for mine? she asked herself.

Reasons? Motives?

As blurred as the borderline between dreams and consciousness.

Unfathomable as stone itself.

Nonsense. Verbal sticking plaster. She probably knows anyway.

9 July 1999

When Detective Inspector Ewa Moreno stopped outside the door of Chief Inspector Reinhart’s office, it was a quarter past three in the afternoon and she was longing for a cold beer.

If she had been born into a different social class, or blessed with more imagination, she might have been longing for a glass of cold champagne instead (or why not three or four?); but today any possibility of thinking straight, any ability to think at all had been sweated away in the early hours of the morning. It was over thirty degrees, and had been about that all day. Both in town and inside the police station. A forgotten manic flat-iron seemed to be pressing down from above, overheating everyone and everything, and apart from chilled drinks, there seemed to be only two possibilities of surviving: the beach and the shade.

There was a noticeable absence of the former in the Maardam police station.

But there were Venetian blinds. And corridors where the sun was certain not to be shining. She stood there with her hand on the door handle, struggling with an impulse (that in itself was sluggish as a bluebottle high on Coca-Cola, so that the outcome could go either way) not to turn it. To retreat discreetly.

Instead of entering and finding out why he wanted to talk to her. There were good reasons for not going in. Or one, at least: in less than two hours’ time she would be going on leave.

Two hours. One hundred and twenty suffocating minutes. If nothing unexpected happened, that is.

Moreno’s intuition told her that he probably hadn’t asked her to come in order to wish her all the best for her holiday. It hadn’t sounded like that, and in any case, to do so wouldn’t be Reinhart’s style.

If nothing unexpected happened . . ?

In a strange way, the unexpected didn’t seem to be all that unexpected. If she’d been offered decent odds, she might well have bet on it. That’s the way it was when you were in the lacklustre police business, and it wouldn’t be the first time. .

So, to beat a retreat, or not to beat a retreat: that was the question. She could always explain that something had turned up. That she hadn’t had time to call in, as he’d put it.

Call in? That sounded a bit dodgy, surely?

Call in at my office some time after lunch. It won’t take long . .

Bugger bugger, she thought. It sounded as potentially deadly as a hungry cobra.

After a brief internal struggle, the drugged-up bluebottle drowned, and her Lutheran-Calvinistic copper’s conscience won the day. She sighed, turned the handle and went in. Flopped down on the visitor’s chair with her misgivings dancing around in her head like butterflies greeting the arrival of summer. And in her stomach.

‘You wanted to see me,’ she said.

Reinhart was standing by the window, smoking, and looking ominous. She noticed that he was wearing flip-flops. Light blue.

‘ Salve ,’ he said. ‘Would you like something to drink?’

‘What do you have to offer?’ Moreno asked, and that cold beer floated into her mind’s eye again.

‘Water. With or without bubbles.’

‘I think I’ll pass,’ said Moreno. ‘If you don’t mind. Well?’

Reinhart scratched at his stubble and put his pipe down on the window ledge beside the flowerpot.

‘We’ve found Lampe-Leermann,’ he said.

‘Lampe-Leermann?’ said Moreno.

‘Yes,’ said Reinhart.

‘We?’ said Moreno.

‘Some colleagues of ours. Out at Lejnice. In Behrensee, to be precise, but they took him to Lejnice. That was the nearest station.’

‘Excellent. And about time, too. Any problems?’

‘Just the one,’ said Reinhart.

‘Really?’ said Moreno.

He flopped down on his desk chair, opposite her, and gave her a look that was presumably meant to express innocence. Moreno had seen it before, and sent a prayer flying out through the window. ‘Not again, please!’ was its essence.

‘Just the one problem,’ said Reinhart again.

‘Shoot,’ said Moreno.

‘He’s not really prepared to cooperate.’

Moreno said nothing. Reinhart fiddled with the papers on his desk and seemed uncertain of how to continue.

‘Or rather, he is prepared to cooperate — but only if he can talk to you.’

‘What?’ said Moreno.

‘Only if he can talk to-’

‘I heard what you said,’ interrupted Moreno ‘But why on earth does he want to talk to me?’

‘God knows,’ said Reinhart. ‘But that’s the way it seems to be — don’t blame me. Lampe-Leermann is prepared to make a full confession, but only if he can lay it at your feet. Nobody else’s. He doesn’t like policemen, he says. Odd, don’t you think?’

Moreno contemplated the picture hanging above Reinhart’s head. It depicted a pig in a suit standing in a pulpit and throwing television sets to a congregation of ecstatic sheep. Or possibly judges wearing wigs, it was difficult to say which. She knew the chief of police had asked him several times to take it down, but it was still there. Rooth had suggested that it was symbolic of the freedom of thought and level of understanding within the police force, and Moreno had a vague suspicion that it could well be an accurate interpretation. Although she had never asked Reinhart himself. Nor the chief of police, come to that.

‘My leave begins two hours from now,’ she said, trying to give him a friendly smile.

‘They’re holding him out at Lejnice,’ said Reinhart, unmoved. ‘A nice spot. It would take just one day. Two at most. Hmm.’

Moreno stood up and walked over to the window.

‘Mind you, if you would prefer to have him brought here, that wouldn’t be a problem,’ said Reinhart from behind her back.

She gazed out over the town and the ridge of high pressure. It was a few days old, but it seemed to be here to stay. That’s what fru Bachman on the ground floor had said, and the meteorologists on the television as well. She decided not to respond. Not without a solicitor present, or a more detailed instruction. Ten seconds passed, and the only sound was from the bustle of the town down below, and the soft tip-tap from Reinhart’s flip-fops as he shuffled about.

Flip-flops? she thought. Surely he could get himself a pair of sandals at least. A chief inspector in light-blue flip-flops?

Perhaps he’d been to the swimming baths at lunchtime and forgotten to change? Or maybe he’d been to see the chief of police and put them on as a sort of irreverent protest? It was hard to say as far as Reinhart was concerned: he liked to make a point.

He gave up in the end.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said. ‘Get a grip, Inspector. We’ve been after this bloody prat for several months now, and at last Vrommel has caught up with him. .’

‘Vrommel? Who’s Vrommel?’

‘The chief of police in Lejnice.’

Reluctantly, Moreno began to consider the possibility. Remained standing with her back turned to Reinhart as the image of Lampe-Leermann appeared in her mind’s eye. . Not much of a name in the underworld, quite small fry in fact: but it was true that they had been on his tail for quite a while. He was strongly suspected of being involved in a few armed robberies in March and April, but that wasn’t the point. Or at least, not the main point.