Hakan Nesser - The Weeping Girl

There’s a lot that isn’t clear. A hell of a lot.

And how were things going with regard to the ensnaring of Chief of Police Vrommel? She’d forgotten to ask Baasteuwel about that.

Ah well, that could wait until tomorrow, she decided.

Every day has enough trouble of its own to cope with.

24 July 1999

Inspector Baasteuwel stood in the shadow of a warehouse, watching a seagull.

The seagull was watching him. Apart from that, nothing much was happening. The sun was shining. The sea was as calm as a millpond.

He checked his watch. It was no more than a quarter past ten, but he could swear that the temperature was already very close to the thirty mark. If it hadn’t already passed it. So the high pressure was still dominant, and the sky was so cloud-free that looking at it almost gave him a headache. It struck him that this Saturday should have been the third day of his leave. Damn and blast. But that was life. . He lit a cigarette, today’s fourth. Or possibly fifth.

At last the ferry came gliding round the breakwater. It looked half empty. Not to say completely empty. Needless to say there was no sensible reason why anybody should head for the mainland from the islands on a day like today. On the contrary. In the pens designated for passengers wanting to embark, people were packed as tightly as Westwerdingen sardines, and the barrier had been lowered behind the last car that could be accommodated on the eleven o’clock departure ten minutes ago. Why on earth should anybody want to take a car with them into the archipelago?

Baasteuwel left the relatively cool shade behind the warehouse and walked towards the gate through which disembarking passengers would be siphoned out. He opened up his umbrella.

He regretted the umbrella business: it was his wife who had given it to him in an attack of grim feminist humour, but what the hell? Bitowski must have something to look for that could be easily identified, and a blue-and-yellow umbrella decorated with an advert for Nixon condoms was no doubt as good as anything.

Especially in weather like this. When he looked round, he couldn’t see any other condom umbrellas pretending they were parasols.

So Claus Bitowski couldn’t very well miss him.

And he didn’t. One of the first passengers to disembark was a corpulent man of about thirty, perhaps slightly more. He was wearing sunglasses, and a back-to-front baseball cap. In one hand he was holding a dirty yellow sports bag made of PVC-coated fabric, in the other a half-empty bottle of beer. His T-shirt with the logo ‘We are the Fuckin’ Champs’ was unable to keep his pot belly from hanging down over the top of his jeans.

‘Are you that fucking cop?’ he asked.

Baasteuwel closed the umbrella. His parents ought to have used Nixon, he thought.

‘I am indeed. And I suppose you are Claus Bitowski?’

Bitowski nodded. Drank the rest of the beer and looked round for a rubbish bin. When he didn’t find one, he flung the empty bottle into the water instead. Baasteuwel looked the other way.

‘I’ve nothing to say,’ said Bitowski.

‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Baasteuwel. ‘I haven’t asked you anything yet.’

‘About Van Rippe. I know nothing.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Good that you came in any case. Shall we find somewhere to sit down?’

Bitowski lit a cigarette.

‘I haven’t anything to say, no matter what we do.’

Great, Baasteuwel thought. A thirty-year-old baby. I’d better approach this pedagogically.

‘How about Strandterrassen and a beer?’ he suggested.

Bitowski took a deep drag and considered the offer.

‘All right, then,’ he said.

They crossed over Zuiderslaan and sat down at a table under a parasol. Baasteuwel beckoned to a waitress and ordered two beers.

‘I take it you know that Tim Van Rippe has been murdered?’ he said when the beers had been served.

‘Bloody horrendous,’ said Bitowski.

‘You knew him?’

‘Not nowadays. I suppose I used to.’

Baasteuwel took out a notebook and began writing.

‘In 1983, for instance?’

‘Eh?’

‘In 1983. That’s a year.’

‘I know that. Yes, I knew Van Rippe when we were at school, and-’

‘Did you know Winnie Maas as well?’

‘Winnie? What the hell has that got to do with it?’

‘Did you know her?’ asked Baasteuwel again.

‘Yes, but what the hell. .? Of course I knew Winnie a bit. I was at her funeral. We were at school together, and so-’

‘The same class?’

‘No, I was a year older. Why are you asking about this? I keep telling you I don’t know anything.’

‘We’re investigating the murder of Van Rippe,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Surely you want us to catch whoever killed him?’

‘Yes, but I know nothing.’

That’s probably true, Baasteuwel thought. About most things.

‘When did you go out to the islands?’

‘Two weeks ago.’

‘What day?’

Bitowski thought that over.

‘Sunday, I think. Yes, we took the afternoon boat.’

‘We?’

‘Me and my mates.’

‘I see,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘You and your mates. Were you visited by a young lady called Mikaela Lijphart before you set off?’

‘Eh?’ said Bitowski. ‘Mikaela what?’

‘Lijphart. Did you talk to her that Sunday?’

‘Of course I bloody didn’t,’ said Bitowski. ‘I’ve never even heard of her.’

‘Did you know Tim Van Rippe well in your younger days?’

‘Fairly well.’

‘Did he have something going with Winnie Maas?’

Bitowski shrugged. His stomach wobbled.

‘I think so. She had something going with lots of people.’

‘When was she together with Van Rippe, do you remember that?’

‘No. How the hell could I?’

‘Was it just before she died, for instance?’

‘No, for Christ’s sake,’ said Bitowski. ‘It was long before that. She screwed around quite a bit.’

‘Screwed around?’

‘Yes, she was that type.’

‘Did you also have sex with Winnie Maas?’

Bitowski emptied his glass of beer and belched.

‘I might have done.’

‘Might have done? Did you have sex with her or not?’

Bitowski stared at his glass, and Baasteuwel waved to the waitress and ordered another glass.

‘Once,’ said Bitowski.

‘When?’ asked Baasteuwel. ‘When she was in class nine?’

‘No, before that. I was in class nine, she must have been in class eight.’

‘And it was just once?’

‘That I screwed her all ends up, yes.’

Baasteuwel contemplated his puffed-up face for a while.

‘Are you sure that she wasn’t together with Tim Van Rippe in May/June 1983?’

Bitowski was served with another beer, and took a swig.

‘Sure and sure,’ he said. ‘She ought not to have been, at least. She gave me a blow job at the beginning of May.’

‘Gave you a blow job?’

‘Yes — for Christ’s sake, it was a party, wasn’t it? But I don’t really remember.’

Baasteuwel repressed an urge to stab his Nixon umbrella in Claus Bitowski’s pot belly.

Don’t remember? he thought. Ten years from now you won’t remember your name, never mind where your cock is.

‘Can you give me the names of any other boys that Winnie might have had sex with? In the spring of ’83, that is.’

‘No,’ said Bitowski. ‘I don’t think there was anybody special, and I didn’t really know her all that well. I don’t know anything about all this, as I’ve already told you.’

‘Were you interrogated at all in connection with Winnie’s death?’ asked Baasteuwel.

‘Interrogated? No, why should I have been interrogated? I don’t understand why you’re sitting here and interrogating me now, either.’