He sipped his beer slowly, and waited. Sat like an imper-turbable godfather in the dirty yellow light shining down onto the table. Baldy had been to light a candle in order to indicate that this booth had been claimed, but apart from that it remained in the shadows, waiting, like Van Veeteren, for Ulrike deMaas.
She arrived shortly after three, exactly as she had promised. A slim, dark woman in a duffel coat and a rust- red shawl. She had finished work at the museum at three o’clock; it was located on the other side of the square, and it didn’t take long to turn off the lights and lock up. Van Veeteren assumed that the number of visitors was similar to that at Poseidon; it was Sunday, and the first Sunday in Advent, at that: people no doubt had better things to do than visiting local museums and restaurants.
“Chief Inspector Veeteren?”
“Van Veeteren. Please sit down. You are Ulrike deMaas, I take it?”
She nodded, took off her duffel coat, and hung it over her chair.
“Please excuse me for suggesting that we should meet here rather than in my home, but things are a bit hectic just at the moment, and you said you wanted to talk in peace and quiet. . ”
She smiled timidly.
“I couldn’t imagine a better place than this,” said Van Veeteren. “What would you like?”
Baldy had slunk out from the shadows.
“To eat?” she wondered.
“Of course,” said Van Veeteren. “I’ve been driving for two hours, and will have to spend another two hours driving back home. A stew in the autumnal darkness is the very least I require. Choose whatever you like. The state is paying.”
She smiled again, a little more sure of herself now.
Removed a band from her hair and released a shower of chest-nut. Van Veeteren reminded himself that he was an ancient cop with only ten years left before retirement.
She lit a cigarette.
“You know, Chief Inspector, when I read about her death, it was as if. . well, not quite as if I’d expected it, but I wasn’t shocked or dismayed, or whatever it is one ought to have been.
Isn’t that strange?”
“Perhaps. Could you explain in more detail?”
She hesitated.
“Eva was. . she was that sort of person, in a way-she lived a high-risk life. Well, maybe that’s overstating it, but there was something. . something dramatic about her.”
“Did you know her well?”
“As well as anybody, I think. In those days, I mean. We never met later. We were in the same class for six years-the last three years at our junior school in Leuwen, and three years at high school in Muhlboden. We saw quite a lot of each other at high school; there were four or five of us in the same group. We used to call it our gang.”
“Girls?”
“Yes, a gang of girls. There was generally only two or three of us when we did something together. The others would be preoccupied with boys at the time, but who was doing what kept changing.”
“I’m with you. Did Eva have many boyfriends in those days?”
“No, she was probably the most careful of all of us. Yes, I’d say that was beyond doubt, but. .”
“But what?”
“In some strange way she had more reason than the rest of us to be careful. That sounds odd, but she always used to jump into things with both feet, as it were, and she had to keep herself on a tight rein to make sure she wasn’t injured. . or hurt, perhaps I should say. She was strong and fragile at the same time, if you see what I mean.”
“Not really, no,” Van Veeteren admitted.
“She changed quite a lot when we were at high school as well. I barely knew her when we were at school in Leuwen.
She and her brother Rolf-they were twins-were more or less inseparable. Their father died at some point around that time. I think that was good from her point of view. He was a heavy drinker. I wouldn’t be surprised if he beat them-her mother as well, I suspect.”
“How did Eva change at high school?”
“She became more open, sort of. Made some good friends.
Started to live, you might say.”
“Thanks to her father’s death?”
“Yes, I think so. The close link with Rolf seemed to become looser as well. I think they’d probably needed each other mostly as a sort of protection against their father.”
“Rolf moved away later on, is that right?”
“Yes, he also went to high school, in a parallel class, but he soon left. Went to sea instead. . Eventually settled down in America, I seem to recall.”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“Do you remember the names of any boys Eva went with?”
“Hmm, I’ve been thinking about that since you called, but the only two I can remember, ones she had a close relationship with, if you see what I mean, were Rickard Antoni, who was in the same class as us-that was right at the end, just before we left school. I think it only lasted for a few weeks; in any case, she’d left him when she started at university in the fall.
He was with another girl by then, Kristine Reger, a friend of mine. They got married eventually.”
“And who was the other one?”
“The other one?”
“Yes, you said you remembered two boys that Eva had a relationship with.”
“Paul Bejsen, of course. The one who died.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
She sighed deeply. Lit another cigarette and sat quite still for a while, her head resting on one hand.
She’s pausing in order to brace herself, he thought. To overcome her reluctance.
“It was the All Saints Day holiday in our last year,” she began. “One of the boys in our class, Erwin Lange his name was, had a holiday cottage-or rather, his parents had a holiday cottage-not far from Kerran. It’s lovely, dramatic countryside out there, with moors and crags and ravines; I don’t know if you’ve ever been there?”
Van Veeteren shook his head.
“Anyway, we had a party. I think there were about twenty of us, most of them from our class, but some others as well.
Eva had been with this Paul Bejsen for a few months. He was a bit older; he’d already passed his school- leaving exam. But they were having a real relationship, I know that.”
“Was he her first lover?”
Ulrike deMass hesitated.
“Well, I don’t know who else her first could have been. .
And yet. .”
“Go on.”
“And yet you couldn’t help feeling she’d been through it all before, that she was quite experienced, in fact.”
“Why did you have that feeling?”
“I don’t know. It’s just something you notice. We girls, we women if you like, notice it, anyway. You can tell if a girl’s been to bed with a boy before.”
Van Veeteren nodded. She might be right.
“What happened that evening?”
“There was quite a lot of strong drink on the go, a fair amount of hash and stuff, but nobody went off the rails, you might say. We had great fun, in fact. We were gathered around a big bonfire in the yard all night, we grilled a pig, we drank and we sang, and. . well, you get the picture. Couples would get together and wander off now and then, into the house or behind a bush. I know at least two girls who lost their virginity that night.”
