Vegesack rubbed both his temples with the tips of his fingers and seemed to be thinking for all he was worth.
‘I’ve no idea,’ he said eventually. ‘How the hell should I know? But what I understand least of all is why anybody should want him out of the way — I assume that’s what you’re fishing for?’
Moreno shrugged.
‘Why should he do a runner? Is that any more likely?’
Vegesack sighed.
‘Would you like a drop of mineral water?’
‘Yes please,’ said Moreno.
He went into the kitchenette and returned with a plastic bottle and two glasses.
‘Dehydration,’ he said. ‘I suffer from it. And lack of sleep.’
But not lack of love, Moreno thought as he was filling her glass. Nor would I if I weren’t so damned snooty.
‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘If we assume — hypothetically — that he’s run off of his own free will, where does that get us?’
‘He must have some reason or other,’ said Vegesack.
‘Precisely. Give me a reason.’
‘He hasn’t left the care home for all of sixteen years.’
‘That’s true.’
‘So it must. . It must be connected with his daughter’s visit.’
‘Really? What makes you think that?’
‘Surely it’s pretty obvious. . But just how it’s linked, God only knows.’
‘She visited him a week last Saturday. Why wait for a whole week?’
Vegesack started rubbing his temples again. Moreno wondered if he’d been on some kind of yoga course and learned to stimulate the flow of blood to his brain by doing that. In any case it looked more intentional than absent-minded; but she didn’t ask about that either.
‘Maybe it doesn’t have so much to do with her visit,’ he said in the end, ‘but more with her disappearance.’
‘That’s what I think as well,’ said Moreno. ‘And how come that Maager knows about Mikaela’s disappearance?’
Vegesack stopped massaging his temples.
‘Oh hell,’ he said. ‘Through me, of course. I told him when I was there and tried to talk to him.’
‘When was that?’
Vegesack worked it out in his head without any further assistance.
‘Last Wednesday, I think. Yes, Wednesday.’
‘That fits. It would be useful if you could recall exactly what you said to him,’ said Moreno. ‘And how he reacted.’
Vegesack flung out his hands and almost overturned the bottle of water.
‘He didn’t react at all. Not to anything. He said hello when I arrived, and goodbye when I left. But that’s about all. . But he did listen to what I said, yes, he did that. I told him how things stood, and that it looked as if Mikaela Lijphart had disappeared. That we knew she was his daughter, and that she’d been to see him, and that her mother had come to Lejnice in order to look for her. Naturally, I tried to find out what he’d said to her, about that business sixteen years ago and so on. If she’d been upset, or how she’d reacted. They’d evidently spent a few hours in the grounds, talking.’
‘But he didn’t give you any answers?’
‘No.’
‘Did you get any impressions? Did he seem worried about her disappearance?’
Vegesack gazed out of the window for a while.
‘Yes, I think so,’ he said. ‘I think that news might even have prevented him from saying anything. He might have said something if I hadn’t told him about Mikaela right away. But then again. . For God’s sake, I don’t know. I was only with him for twenty minutes. Are you suggesting that he might have gone looking for her? Is that the conclusion you’ve reached?’
Moreno took a sip of water.
‘I haven’t come to any conclusions at all,’ she said. ‘It could just as well be that something has happened to him. You spoke to him last Wednesday, but he didn’t disappear from the care home until Saturday. Why did he wait? Something else might have happened — on Thursday or Friday — to influence events. I ought to have asked more questions when I was out there, but that didn’t occur to me until I was on the way back.’
‘It’s Monday today,’ said Vegesack. ‘That means he’s already been missing for several days. He’s not used to being out there. Mixing with people. Isn’t it a bit odd that nobody seems to have noticed him?’
Moreno shrugged.
‘How do you know that nobody’s noticed him?’
Vegesack didn’t answer.
‘There’s so much about this business that seems a bit odd,’ said Moreno. ‘That’s why I just can’t go off and enjoy my holiday. I’ve dreamt about that girl two nights running. I’ve just told my boyfriend to go to hell because of this business. . I don’t know if that can be classified as occupational injury — what do you think?’
Why am I telling this to Vegesack? she asked herself, when she noted his blush and raised eyebrows, and realized that this was intimate information that he didn’t know how to handle.
‘Oh dear,’ he said diplomatically.
‘You can say that again,’ said Moreno. ‘I’ve been poking my nose much too far into this business, but at least I’ve now received confirmation of a few things. I now know I haven’t been imagining things that are too wide of the mark. I take it you didn’t notice any indications that Maager was intending to run away when you were together with him?’
Vegesack shook his head.
‘And heaven only knows how he took the news about his daughter’s disappearance, you reckon?’
‘I wonder if even the heavens know,’ said Vegesack. ‘But it’s all so damned awful — for Maager, I mean. Even if you take into account that he’s a murderer and all the rest of it. First she turns up out of the blue after sixteen years, and then she’s more missing than she’s ever been. It must be hard for him, whichever way you look at it.’
‘Hard indeed,’ agreed Moreno. ‘Could you please help me with one other thing?’
‘Of course,’ said Vegesack, suddenly looking wide awake and raring to go. ‘What?’
‘Find out if Maager had any other visits or telephone calls between Wednesday and Saturday last week.’
‘Okay,’ said Vegesack. ‘I’ll give them a ring. How shall we get in touch — will you be calling in?’
‘I’ll be in touch in any case,’ said Moreno with a sigh. ‘Have there been any more responses to the Wanted notice regarding Mikaela?’
Vegesack rooted around in the pile of papers on his desk.
‘Two,’ he said. ‘We can forget about one of them — a certain herr Podager who always gives advice to the police on occasions like this. He’s over eighty-five and sees all kinds of things, despite the fact that he’s been almost blind for the last twenty years.’
‘I see,’ said Moreno. ‘What about the other one?’
‘A woman up in Frigge,’ said Vegesack, reading from a piece of paper. ‘Fru Gossenmuhle. It seems she phoned the local police last night and claimed she had seen a girl looking like the photograph of Mikaela Lijphart. At the railway station. They were going to talk to her this morning, and then they’ll no doubt be in touch with us.’
Moreno thought for a while.
‘How far is it to Frigge?’ she asked
‘About a hundred and fifty kilometres.’
Moreno nodded.
‘So we just need to wait, then. By the way, to change the subject, can you recommend a decent garage in
