“I have a question that is very personal. I have a question that I think could be the key to this whole tragedy. You don’t need to answer if you don’t want to.”
“I understand.”
Van Veeteren paused. Searched for the right words.
“Was Eva. . a good lover?”
Silence. But the answer was audible in the silence.
“Will you. . will you use whatever I say in some way or other? I mean. .”
“No,” said Van Veeteren. “You have my word.”
Berger cleared his throat.
“She was. .” he began hesitantly. “Eva made love like no other woman in existence. I haven’t had many, but I think I can say that even so. She was. . I don’t know, words seem so inadequate. . She was angel and whore. . woman and mother. . and friend. She satisfied everything. Yes, everything.”
“Thank you. That explains a lot. I shall not use what you have said in any improper way.”
Saturday brought with it a pale blue sky and thin, scudding clouds. A sun that seemed cold and distant, and a wind from the sea. He spent the morning walking by the canals, and noticed to his surprise that he could breathe. The air weighed little; there was a whiff of winter in it.
At about two he took the tram to Leimaar. Beate Lingen lived in one of the newly built apartment houses on top of the ridge. High up, on the sixth floor, with a view over the whole town. Over the plain, and the river as it meandered its way to the coast.
She had a glazed balcony with infrared heating and tomato plants, and they sat out there all the time, drinking her Russian tea and eating thin Kremmen biscuits with jam.
“I spend most of my time out here when I’m at home,” she said. “If there was room, I think I’d move my bed out here as well.”
Van Veeteren nodded. It was a remarkable place. Like sitting in a warm glass cage, hovering untrammeled above the world. With a view of everything, yet completely divorced from everything.
I’d like to write my memoirs in a place like this, he thought.
“What do you want to know, Chief Inspector?”
He reluctantly allowed himself to be returned to reality.
“Miss Lingen, if I remember rightly, you knew Eva Ringmar at school. This time, that’s the period I’m most interested in. Let me see, it was. .”
“Muhlboden. The local high school.”
“And you were in the same class?”
“Yes. Between 1970 and 1973. We took the school-leaving exam in May.”
“Were you born in Muhlboden?”
“In a little village just outside. I was bused in.”
“And Eva Ringmar?”
“The same. She lived out at Leuwen, I don’t know if you are familiar with the place?”
“I’ve been there.”
“Yes, quite a lot of us lived outside the town: it’s a big school. Serves a very large district, I believe.”
“How well did you know her?”
“Not at all, really. We didn’t go around together. We were never in the same gang-you know how it is. You’re all in the same class, sit in the same room every day, but you know nothing at all about most of your classmates.”
“Do you know if she. . if Eva had a boyfriend around that time, somebody she was pretty steady with?”
What an awful expression, he thought.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Beate Lingen. “I remember there was an incident in class three-the final year, that is, in the fall-when a boy had an accident. It wasn’t a lad from our class, I think he was a year older, in fact; but I have the impression that Eva was mixed up with it somehow or other.”
“How?”
“I don’t really know. I think it was something to do with a party of some kind. Some of the girls from our class were there, in any case, and there was an accident.”
“What sort of an accident?”
“This boy died. He fell over a cliff. They were in a holiday cottage at Kerran-there are quite a few escarpments out there, a geological fault, I think they say-I seem to remember they found his body the next morning. I assume strong drink played a part as well. . ”
“But are you quite sure that Eva was present?”
“Yes, she must have been there. They tried to hush it all up, I seem to recall. Nobody wanted to talk about what had happened. It was as if. . as if there was something shameful, in fact.”
“And it was an accident?”
“Excuse me? Er, yes. . Of course.”
“There were never any, er, suspicions?”
“Suspicions? No. What kind of suspicions?”
“Never mind,” said Van Veeteren. “Miss Lingen, did you ever speak to Eva Ringmar about what happened? Later, I mean. In Karpatz, or when you used to see each other here in Maardam?”
“No, never. We didn’t really spend time with each other in Karpatz. We just met occasionally, as you do when you’re in the same class. It was more of an obligation, I think, almost. .
She had her own circle of friends, and so did I, come to that.”
“But then in Maardam. Did you used to talk about your school days?”
“No, not really. We might have mentioned a teacher, but as I say, we moved in different circles. There wasn’t a lot to talk about.”
“Did you have the impression that Eva Ringmar was reluctant to talk about the past?”
She hesitated.
“Yes. .” she said eventually. “I suppose you could say that.”
Van Veeteren said nothing for several seconds.
“Miss Lingen,” he said eventually, “I’m very keen to hear about certain matters from that period-the high school years in Muhlboden. Do you think you could give me the name of somebody who was close to Eva Ringmar at that time?. .
Somebody who knows more about her than you do? Preferably several.”
Beate Lingen thought about that.
“Grete Wojdat,” she said after a while. “Yes. . Grete Wojdat and Ulrike deMaas. They were great pals, I know that.
Ulrike was from the same place, I think: Leuwen. They came to school on the same bus, in any case.”
Van Veeteren made a note of the name.
“Have you any idea of where they are now?” he wondered.
“If they’ve got married and changed their name, for instance?”
Beate Lingen thought that over again.
“I know nothing at all about Grete Wojdat,” she said. “But Ulrike. . Ulrike deMaas, I met her a few years ago, in fact. She was living in Friesen. . She was then, in any case. . married, but I think she kept her maiden name.”
“Ulrike deMaas,” said Van Veeteren, underscoring the name. “Friesen. . Do you think it’s worth a visit?”
“How on earth would I know, Inspector?” She looked at him in surprise. “I don’t even have the slightest idea about what you’re trying to find out!”
I think you ought to be grateful for that, Miss Lingen, Van Veeteren thought.
When he left it was dark, and the wind was blowing stronger.
When he came to the tram stop he found that it was in posses-sion of a gang of soccer hooligans shrieking and yelling, in their red-and-white scarves and woolly hats. Van Veeteren decided to walk instead.
As he passed through the Deijkstraat district he crossed over Pampas, the low-lying area just to the south of the municipal forest, where, once upon a time, he had set out on his checkered career as a police officer. When he came to the corner of Burgerlaan and Zwille, he paused and contemplated the dilapidated property next to the
