33
She had just completed the phone call to Reinhart when there was a ring on her door.
Half past eight, she thought. What on earth…?
It was Mikael Bau, her neighbour in the flat directly below hers.
‘Do you fancy a bite to eat?’ he asked, looking miserable.
Bau was in his thirties and had moved into Falckstraat only a few months ago. She didn’t know him. He had introduced himself when she bumped into him on the stairs the first time, of course, but since then they had merely said hello when they happened to pass each other. Three or four times in all. He looked rather handsome, she had decided from the start. Tall, blond and blue-eyed. And with a smile that seemed to have difficulty in suppressing itself.
But just now he was serious.
‘I’ve made a beef stew,’ he explained. ‘A sort of boeuf bourguignon — it’s all ready, so if you’ve nothing against it…?’
‘It’s a bit out of the blue,’ said Moreno.
‘I can understand that,’ said Bau. ‘Er… I didn’t plan to invite you, but my fiancee dumped me just before it was ready to eat. Please don’t think that…’
He couldn’t find a satisfactory way of finishing the sentence. Moreno didn’t know what to say either.
‘Okay, thank you very much,’ she said in fact. ‘I don’t think I’ve eaten today, as far as I can recall. Can you give me a quarter of an hour to have a shower first? It’s not too difficult to keep stews warm.’
He smiled now.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ll expect you in a quarter of an hour.’
He went back downstairs, and Moreno closed the door.
Is this how things happen? she wondered, but dismissed the thought immediately.
To add to his good looks and polite behaviour, Mikael Bau proved to be an excellent cook. Moreno was full of admiration for the stew, which she ate to her heart’s content; and the subsequent lemon sorbet had precisely the subtle touch of tartness that the recipe usually promises, but the dish rarely delivers.
A man who can cook? she thought. I’ve never met one of those before. He must have a skeleton in his cupboard. She would have dearly liked to ask him why his girlfriend had dumped him; but there was no real opportunity to get as intimate as that, and he didn’t raise the subject himself.
Instead they talked about the weather, the block of flats and the neighbours. And their respective jobs. Bau was a welfare officer, so there were a few points of contact.
‘God only knows why I chose to get involved with the seamy side,’ he said. ‘I won’t go so far as to say that I don’t enjoy it, but I don’t think I’d make the same choice today. Why did you become a police officer?’
Moreno had asked herself that question so many times before that she no longer knew if there was an answer. Or ever had been. Things just turned out the way they did, that was all there was to it; she suspected the same applied to lots of people. Life just turned out the way it did.
‘I think quite a lot comes down to pure chance,’ she said. ‘Or at least, to decisions made without an awful lot of thought. We have less control than we think we have… That we pretend we do have is another matter.’
Bau nodded and looked thoughtful.
‘But it could be that we land up where we belong even so,’ he said. ‘I read the other day about the billiard ball theory — are you familiar with it? You roll along over a level, green surface among lots of other balls. The speeds and directions are fixed, but it’s not possible to work out in advance what’s going to happen… when we collide and change direction. Everything is predestined, but we can’t predict it — there are simply too many contributory factors. Well, something like that.’
She came to think about what The Chief Inspector used to say, and couldn’t help smiling.
‘There are certain patterns,’ she said. ‘They say that there are certain patterns that we never discover — not until afterwards. Then they are perfectly obvious. It’s reminiscent of a police investigation, in fact. Everything becomes clearer if you can approach it backwards.’
Bau nodded again.
‘But you can’t approach it backwards,’ he said. ‘Not in real life. That’s the problem. A drop more wine?’
‘Just half a glass,’ said Moreno.
When she looked at the clock for the first time it was a quarter to twelve.
‘Good gracious,’ she said. ‘Don’t you have to go to work tomorrow?’
‘Of course,’ said Bau. ‘We who work on the seamy side never rest.’
‘Many thanks for a lovely evening,’ said Moreno, standing up. ‘I promise to invite you back in return, but I’ll have to practise a few recipes first.’
Bau accompanied her out into the hall and gave her a carefully restrained hug by way of goodnight. A quarter of an hour later she was lying in bed, thinking about how pleasant it was to get on well with your neighbours.
Then she thought about Erich Van Veeteren. He must have been about the same age as herself and Mikael Bau. Possibly slightly younger — she hadn’t thought about it until now.
And the others?
Vera Miller was thirty-one, and Wim Felders only lived to celebrate his sixteenth birthday.
When you raised yourself above the restricted horizons of good-neighbourliness, quite different considerations applied.
Reinhart was woken up by Joanna pulling at his lower lip. She sat on his stomach with a blissful smile on her face.
‘Daddy’s asleep,’ she said. ‘Daddy’s awake.’
He lifted her up high. She screamed in delight, and a stream of saliva cascaded into his face.
Good Lord, he thought. This is marvellous! It’s six in the morning, and life is pouring down on me already!
He wondered why it was so light in the room, then he recalled that his daughter had just learned how to flick switches on and off, and liked to practise this new skill. He tucked her in beside Winnifred and got up. Established that every single light in the house was switched on, and started switching them all off again. Joanna soon came toddling after him, babbling on about something to do with frogs. Or possibly dogs — she had a dummy in her mouth and it was difficult to make out what she was saying. He took her into the kitchen with him, and started making breakfast.
Halfway through he remembered what he had been dreaming about. Or rather, what had popped up in his mind at some point between sleeping and waking.
They had forgotten to send out a Wanted notice for Keller.
Oh, shit, he thought. Lifted Joanna up into her high chair. Put a plate of mashed banana and yoghurt in front of her and went to his study in order to phone the police station.
It took a while to get the message over, but Klempje, who was on call, eventually seemed to understand. The Wanted notice would be sent out immediately, he gave his word of honour.
I don’t know how many words you know, or how many of them are honourable, Reinhart thought: but he thanked him even so, and hung up.
Careless, he thought. How the hell could anybody have forgotten a thing like that?
Two hours later he was ready to go to work. Winnifred had just got up, and he thought she looked like a thoroughly rested goddess. He toyed with the idea of staying at home for a while and making love to her instead. There was nothing to prevent it, in principle. It would soon be time for Joanna’s nap, and the babysitter wasn’t due until after lunch.
Then he remembered the situation. He unfastened his wife’s dressing gown and embraced her. She gave him a bite on the neck. He bit her back. That would have to suffice. He fetched his overcoat.
‘Are you going to have time off like you thought you would?’ she asked as he stood in the doorway.
‘ Nie ma problemu,’ said Reinhart. ‘That’s Polish and means that we’ll have sorted out this business within the next three days. Three days at most.’
Chief Inspector Reinhart was deceiving her somewhat on that score, but it was not the first time. The main thing was that Winnifred didn’t do that to him.
