Hakan Nesser: The Weeping Girl

The big thing is that he mixed with certain other gentlemen who were much bigger heavyweights than he was. Leading lights in so-called Organized Crime, to use a term that was heard all too often nowadays. There was no doubt about his links, and Lampe-Leermann had a reputation for grassing. A reputation for being more concerned — in certain difficult circumstances at least — about his own skin than that of others, and willing to inform the police authorities of what he knew. If doing so would serve his own ends, and could be treated with appropriate discretion.

And it could be in this case. At least, there was good reason for thinking so. Reinhart was inclined to think so, and Moreno tended to agree with him. In principle, at least. That was why they had made a bigger effort than usual when it came to tracking down Lampe-Leermann. That was why they had found him. Today of all days.

But the news that he was only prepared to unburden his mind to Inspector Moreno had come as a bit of a surprise, no question. That was something they hadn’t reckoned with. Neither her nor anybody else. Just some malevolent little gremlin, no doubt. . Damn and blast, you can never. .

‘He likes you,’ said Reinhart, interrupting her train of thought. ‘That’s nothing to be ashamed of. I think he remembers when we were playing a game of good-cop bad-cop with him a few years ago. Anyway, that’s the way it is. He wants to talk to you, and nobody else. But there’s the minor matter of your leave, of course. .’

‘Exactly,’ said Moreno, returning to her chair.

‘It’s not so far up to Lejnice,’ said Reinhart. ‘A hundred and twenty kilometres or thereabouts, I should think. .’

Moreno said nothing. Closed her eyes instead and fanned herself with yesterday’s Gazett that she had picked up from the pile of newspapers on the desk.

‘Then I came to think of that house you’re going to — didn’t you say it was in Port Hagen?’

Oh my God! Moreno thought. He remembers. He’s been doing his homework.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Port Hagen, that’s right.’

Reinhart tried to look innocent again. He’d be good as the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood , Moreno thought.

‘If I’m not much mistaken it’s quite close by,’ he said. ‘It must be only ten kilometres or so north of Lejnice. I used to go there when I was a kid. You’d be able to. .’

Moreno threw away the newspaper with a resigned gesture.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘Don’t go on. I’ll sort it out. Damn it all, you know as well as I do that Lampe-Leermann is the nastiest, creepiest piece of work that ever wore a pair of hand-sewn shoes. . or a signet ring. Apart from anything else he always stinks of old garlic. Note that I said old garlic — I’ve nothing against the fresh stuff. But I’ll sort it out, you don’t need to strain yourself any more. Damn it all once again! When?’

Reinhart walked over to the flowerpot in order to empty his pipe.

‘I told Vrommel you’d probably turn up tomorrow.’

Moreno stared at him.

‘Have you fixed a time without consulting me?’

‘ Probably ,’ said Reinhart. ‘I said you’d probably turn up tomorrow. What the hell’s the matter with you? Aren’t we playing for the same team any more, or what’s going on?’

Moreno sighed.

‘Okay,’ she sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I’d planned to set off tomorrow morning anyway, so it won’t involve a lot of disruption. In fact.’

‘Good,’ said Reinhart. ‘I’ll ring Vrommel and confirm that you’re coming. What time?’

She thought for a moment.

‘About one. Tell him that I’ll be there at around one, and that Lampe-Leermann shouldn’t be given any garlic with his lunch.’

‘Not even fresh?’ wondered Reinhart.

She didn’t answer. As she was on her way out through the door, he reminded her of how serious the situation was.

‘Make sure you squeeze out of that bastard every bloody name he can give us. Both you and he will get a bonus for every arsehole we can put behind lock and key.’

‘Of course,’ said Moreno. ‘But there’s no need to swear so much. I like the colour of your shoes, though — it makes you look really young again. .’

Before Reinhart could respond she was out in the corridor.

It wasn’t until she was at home and in the shower that she realized it was an omen.

What else could it be? How else could one interpret it? Franz Lampe-Leermann simply turning up out of the blue and attacking her holiday two hours before it started? Surely that was highly unlikely? Or highly significant, depending on how you looked at it. He had managed to keep out of the way of the police since about the middle of April — that was when they started searching for him seriously, after a particularly clumsy bank raid in Linzhuisen on Maundy Thursday — and then the stupid idiot goes and gets himself arrested just now! In Lejnice, of all places.

Lejnice. A small, unremarkable coastal town with about twenty to twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Plus a few extra thousands in the summer. And situated, just as Reinhart had said, a mere ten kilometres away from the place she’d planned to spend the first two weeks of her holiday.

Port Hagen. An even smaller place in the sticks — but little places in the sticks were sometimes attractive places to be, and that’s where Mikael Bau happened to have his holiday home.

Mikael Bau? she thought. My neighbour and occasional partner.

Occasional? she then thought. Partner? It sounded daft. But any other way of describing it sounded even dafter. Or wrong, at least.

Fiance? Lover? Boyfriend?

Could you have boyfriends when you were thirty-two?

Perhaps just my bloke , she thought in the end. Closed her eyes and started to rub the jojoba shampoo into her hair. She had lived for over two years without a bloke since getting rid of Claus Badher, and they hadn’t exactly been brilliant years — neither for herself nor for those she associated with, she was the first to admit that.

They were not years she would wish to go through again, although she supposed she had learned quite a bit. Perhaps that was how one should look at it. And she didn’t want the years she’d spent with Claus back either. Good Lord no, that would have been even less desirable.

All in all, seven wasted years, she decided. Five with Claus, two on her own. Was she on the way to building up a totally wasted life? she asked herself. Was that what was really happening?

Who knows? she thought. Life is what happens when we’re busy making other plans. She massaged her hair a little longer with the shampoo, then started rinsing all the suds away.

In any case, it was too soon to predict what would become of her relationship with Mikael Bau. At least, she had no desire to predict, not at the moment. It was last winter when she’d begun to see him: he’d invited her to share his evening meal the same day that his former girlfriend had dumped him — the middle of December it was, during those awful weeks when they’d been searching for Erich Van Veeteren’s murderer — but it was another month before she’d invited him back. And another six weeks before she’d committed herself and gone to bed with him. Or they had committed themselves. The beginning of March, to be precise. The fourth — she remembered the date because it was her sister’s birthday.

And they had carried on meeting, of course. Even if she was a detective inspector and he was a welfare officer, they were only human.

That’s how he used to put it. Bollocks to all that, Ewa! Whatever else we are, we’re only human.

She liked that. It was unassuming and sensible. Nothing like what Claus Badher would have said, and the less Mikael Bau reminded her of Claus Badher, the better. That was a simple but intuitively infallible way of judging things. Sometimes it was best to take an easy way out when it came to your emotional life, she was old enough to see that. Perhaps one ought to do that all the time, she sometimes thought. Cut out the psychology and live according to instinct instead. And it was nice to be desired, she had to admit. Carpe diem , perhaps?