They sat for a while without speaking. Mikael continued to look at her, his eyebrows slightly raised. Moreno pretended not to notice.
‘Hypothetically. .’ he said.
She didn’t respond. He hesitated for a few more seconds.
‘Hypothetically. Let’s assume that he isn’t bluffing in fact. Then what do we do?’
Moreno glared at him, and clenched her fists. Took a deep breath.
‘Well, then. . Then we find ourselves in a situation where one of my closest colleagues is a bloody child- fucker.’
‘Don’t speak so loudly,’ said Mikael, looking around furtively. Nobody at any of the neighbouring tables seemed to have noticed anything amiss. Moreno leaned forward and continued in a somewhat lower voice.
‘We find ourselves in a situation that’s so damned awful that I won’t be able to sleep a wink at night. That’s obvious, isn’t it?’
Mikael nodded.
‘I think so,’ he said. ‘How many are there to choose from? Possible candidates?. . We’re still being hypothetical, of course.’
Moreno thought that over. Forced herself to think it over.
‘It depends,’ she said. ‘It depends on how many you count as CID officers — several constables double up with different sections, and there are a few borderline cases. Eight to ten, I’d say. . Twelve at most.’
‘A dozen?’
‘At most, yes.’
Mikael emptied his cup of cappuccino and wiped the foam away from his mouth.
‘What are you going to do about it?’ he asked.
Moreno didn’t answer.
There wasn’t any appropriate answer.
11
By the time they got back to Port Hagen and Tschandala it was five o’clock, and a red-haired woman was sitting on the veranda, waiting for them.
‘Oh my God,’ muttered Mikael. ‘I’d forgotten about her.’
The woman turned out to be called Gabriella de Haan, a former girlfriend of Mikael’s, and had come in connection with a cat. This was apparently called Montezuma, and was a lazy-looking ginger-coloured female aged about ten. It seemed to Moreno that there were several striking similarities between the two ladies. Quite a few, she decided after a cursory inspection.
‘Don’t you like cats?’ Mikael wondered when froken de Haan left after less than five minutes.
‘Oh yes, I certainly do,’ said Moreno. ‘I used to have one a few years ago, but it disappeared in mysterious circumstances. But this one. .?’
She nodded in the direction of Montezuma, who was stretched out on her side in the old, faded garden hammock and seemed to have made herself at home.
‘This one, well. .’ said Mikael, looking appropriately guilty for a brief moment. ‘I thought I’d mentioned her. She’s going to live here for a few weeks while Gabriella’s in Spain. I couldn’t very well say no — we got her when we were living together, and Gabriella took her when we split up. She could do with a bit of sea air, poor old Monty. She normally spends all her time cooped up in a flat. . Anyway, she’s unlikely to disturb us. She’s as good as gold, even if she does occasionally give the impression of being a bit prickly.’
He bent down and started stroking the cat’s stomach, which seemed to transport her into feline heaven.
Moreno couldn’t help smiling. She closed her eyes and tried to look into the future. In ten years’ time or so. . How things might be if she made certain decisions and stuck to them.
Her and Mikael Bau. A couple of children. A big house. A few cats.
The image was no more specific than that, but it somehow appeared quite naturally, and on the whole she found it quite acceptable. To say the least.
I’m falling, she thought. I must build up a bit of strength and some defence mechanisms, otherwise I shall just drift along with the current.
That evening they walked to Wincklers, the restaurant furthest out on the promontory at the northern end of the beach with a reputation for good food. They began with fish soup and mineral water, then lemon sorbet with fresh raspberries, and all the time managed to avoid talking about Franz Lampe-Leermann.
Until they were on the way back home and stopped in front of a pile of jellyfish that somebody had fished out of the sea and placed in a hollow in the sand.
‘Scumbag,’ said Mikael. ‘Is this what he looks like?’
Moreno looked down into the hollow with revulsion.
‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘Yes, more or less. But who cares what he looks like. I just wish he hadn’t come out with that last accusation.’
‘Hmm. I thought the detective inspector had something nasty at the back of her mind while we were eating the dessert.’
Moreno sighed.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘But let’s face it, how could I avoid thinking about it? Tell me how if you can. No matter how you look at it, it’s an accusation. . an absolutely horrific accusation about one of my colleagues. Somebody I’ve been working with and respected and thought I knew and could rely on. If it should turn out that. . No, for Christ’s sake, it’s just a bluff of course — but the thought is still there, nagging away. Ugh! Can you understand that?’
Mikael said he could. They turned their backs on the nasty heap and started walking again. In silence to start with, but then he took the opportunity of telling her about the day nursery in Leufshejm called The Happy Panda. A rumour started to circulate to the effect that there was a paedophile among the staff. . There was a comprehensive investigation which concluded with a hundred-and-ten per cent certainty that the rumour was false and all the staff were as clean as the driven snow: but nevertheless The Happy Panda was forced to close down after a few months because no parent was prepared to send their child there.
And because all the nine female staff stood shoulder to shoulder with their three male colleagues. That was another way of putting it.
One of the three men was an old childhood friend of Mikael’s. The nursery had been closed for four years now, but his friend’s wife had left him and he was retraining as an engine driver.
‘Nice,’ said Moreno.
‘Very nice,’ agreed Mikael. ‘At least he’s moved on after his suicidal phase. But I think we’re getting away from the point.’
Moreno said nothing for a while.
‘Are you suggesting that it’s sufficient for Lampe-Leermann to have sown the seed of doubt in my mind? That I won’t be able to forget it, no matter what?’
‘Something like that,’ said Mikael. ‘It’s basic psychology. It’s so damned easy to cause irreparable damage. . When even you can’t fend off an accusation like this, how do you think the general public would react if they got to know about it? No smoke without fire and all that. Bloody hell!’
Moreno didn’t respond.
‘Although I wonder what you think, deep down,’ he said after a little pause. ‘Seriously. It would be easier to talk about it if you didn’t feel you needed to protect your colleagues. Could there be any truth in it? Is there any possibility — any possibility at all — that it’s any more than a malicious lie?’
Moreno continued walking, and gazed out to sea in the rapidly descending darkness. It was no longer possible to make out the horizon, but a series of lights from the fishing boats that had just gone out for the night seemed to indicate where it was.
