“I suppose so, but I doubt it. .”
“What about her son? The son who died. Did she tell you about him?”
“Yes, but only once. . I’ll have to stop now, Chief Inspector. My fingers are going to sleep. How does it feel?”
Van Veeteren sat up. Not bad. He moved tentatively. .
bent forward. . to the right, to the left. It was actually feeling better.
“Excellent! A pity I have to sit behind the wheel again.
Many thanks, Miss Kempf. If you ever find yourself in jail, just give me a call and I’ll come and get you out.”
She smiled and rubbed her fingers.
“Not necessary, Chief Inspector. I’ll find my own way of breaking out. But I have a lesson in ten minutes, so I think we’ll have to stop now.”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“I’d like to ask you just one more question. I can see that you are a lady of good sense, Miss Kempf. I’d like you to use that, and refrain from answering if you are doubtful.”
“I understand.”
“Okay. Do you think it’s possible that all the time you knew her, there was a man in Eva Ringmar’s life. . a man who, for whatever reason, she kept secret?”
Miss Kempf removed her oval glasses. Held them up to the light and examined them. Breathed heavily on the lenses and rubbed them with a corner of her red tunic.
He realized that it was a ritual. A ceremony performed while she formed her conclusions. What a waste, this lesbian love business, he thought.
She replaced her spectacles and met his gaze. Then she answered.
“Yes,” she said. “I think that’s possible.”
“Thank you,” said Van Veeteren.
He left Gimsen at about three, and ran into rain as soon as he reached the A64 trunk road. Darkness was also closing in rapidly, but he didn’t put any music on. Devoted his mind to thoughts and guesses instead, and lapped up the monotonous sound of rubber tires on a wet road.
He tried to conjure up a picture of Eva Ringmar, but he was unable to pin her down-just as nobody else seemed to have managed to do. He regretted not having tried to get more information out of Mitter, but that was water under the bridge now. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been possible anyway.
Mitter had only really known her for six months. He’d married her on some inexplicable impulse, and probably knew no more about her background than Van Veeteren had managed to piece together by this time.
It was in the background, somewhere in the past, that the murderer was hiding. There could be no doubt about that anymore. He had been there for a number of years, at the very least since the Thursday before Easter, 1986; but there was nothing to exclude the possibility that it had all started much earlier than that.
Or? Surely that must be the case?
But what did he actually know? How much were all these guesses worth, when it came to the crunch?
If Eva Ringmar was a shadowy figure, the murderer’s outline was even more blurred. The shadow of a shadow.
Van Veeteren cursed and bit the end off a toothpick. Was there anything at all to suggest that he was on the right track?
Wasn’t the fact of the matter that he was groping his way through the dark, in far more than one sense?
And what the hell was the motive?
He spat out the splinters of wood and wondered what he should do next. There were several possibilities, each one vaguer than the one before. The safest bet, of course, would be to place all his hopes on Munster and Reinhart. With a little bit of luck they ought to be able to tighten the net around Bunge High School to such an extent that one or two ugly cus-tomers would be trapped inside it, worth studying in more detail.
Always assuming that they were fishing in the right place. .
Ah well, he would find out soon enough. In any case, there were a few questions they must not overlook. He assumed the interrogations would begin the following day. They could hardly have done any more today than putting headmaster Suurna under the cosh, and drawing up procedures. He checked his watch and guessed that Munster would be back home by now. He also recognized that he himself had no great desire to drive another four hundred kilometers that evening.
Another hour, perhaps, then a motel, a chat on the phone with Munster and a decent dinner. A large lump of meat and something creamy with garlic in it, he thought, would fit the bill.
And a full-bodied wine.
He sorted through the cassettes on the seat beside him.
Found Vaughan Williams and inserted him into the player.
32
Liz Hennan was scared.
It was only after she had taken a long and thorough shower and lain awake in the darkness for half an hour that she realized what the problem was.
For it was not something that used to afflict her very often.
As she lay there, staring at the digital clock spitting forth the red minutes of the night, she tried to recall the feeling.
When had she last been scared? As scared as this?
It must have been a long time ago, that was certain.
Perhaps even when she was a teenager. She had reached the age of thirty-six now, and there had doubtless been many opportunities to be scared. Lots of them. But was it not the very fact of there being so many that had taught her to cope?
Chastened and taught her.
That life wasn’t all that dangerous. It was no dance on roses, that was for sure-but what the hell? She’d never expected it to be that. Her mother had been able to make her understand that, and good for her.
There were men and there were men. And sometimes you made a mistake. But there was always a way out, that was the point. If you’d demeaned yourself, or landed up with a real shit, all you needed to do was to get out of the mess. Tell him to go to hell, and start all over again.
That’s the way things were, and had been all her life. There were good times and there were bad times. That’s life, as Ron used to say.
The clock showed 12:24. She had difficulty in settling down tonight, she could feel it. . Feel it in her stomach and in her breasts. And in her pussy. She ran her fingers over her labia: dry. As dry as rusks. That’s not how things usually were when she’d been so close to a man. .
Scared.
It wasn’t Ron she was scared of, even if she wouldn’t want to be anywhere near him if he found out about this new man.
But why should he find out? She’d been more careful than ever, not breathed a word to anybody, not even to Johanna.
No-in fact, it was Ron she was longing to be with just now.
Wished that he was lying behind her, snuggled up close, with his strong, protective arm around her. .
That’s how things ought to have been. She’d married Ron three years ago, and they had not been bad years. But now he wasn’t at home. This wouldn’t be his home for another eighteen months yet, and that was an awfully long time to wait. His next leave wasn’t for another three weeks, and he was insisting on spending it to visit that bastard Heinz in Hamburg. Instead of coming home to her, the shit. What right had he to complain about her, if she
