The Weeping Girl

Port Hagen. An even smaller place in the sticks — but little places in the sticks were sometimes attractive places to be, and that’s where Mikael Bau happened to have his holiday home.

Mikael Bau? she thought. My neighbour and occasional partner.

Occasional? she then thought. Partner? It sounded daft. But any other way of describing it sounded even dafter. Or wrong, at least.

Fiance? Lover? Boyfriend?

Could you have boyfriends when you were thirty-two?

Perhaps just my bloke, she thought in the end. Closed her eyes and started to rub the jojoba shampoo into her hair. She had lived for over two years without a bloke since getting rid of Claus Badher, and they hadn’t exactly been brilliant years — neither for herself nor for those she associated with, she was the first to admit that.

They were not years she would wish to go through again, although she supposed she had learned quite a bit. Perhaps that was how one should look at it. And she didn’t want the years she’d spent with Claus back either. Good Lord no, that would have been even less desirable.

All in all, seven wasted years, she decided. Five with Claus, two on her own. Was she on the way to building up a totally wasted life? she asked herself. Was that what was really happening?

Who knows? she thought. Life is what happens when we’re busy making other plans. She massaged her hair a little longer with the shampoo, then started rinsing all the suds away.

In any case, it was too soon to predict what would become of her relationship with Mikael Bau. At least, she had no desire to predict, not at the moment. It was last winter when she’d begun to see him: he’d invited her to share his evening meal the same day that his former girlfriend had dumped him — the middle of December it was, during those awful weeks when they’d been searching for Erich Van Veeteren’s murderer — but it was another month before she’d invited him back. And another six weeks before she’d committed herself and gone to bed with him. Or they had committed themselves. The beginning of March, to be precise. The fourth — she remembered the date because it was her sister’s birthday.

And they had carried on meeting, of course. Even if she was a detective inspector and he was a welfare officer, they were only human.

That’s how he used to put it. Bollocks to all that, Ewa! Whatever else we are, we’re only human.

She liked that. It was unassuming and sensible. Nothing like what Claus Badher would have said, and the less Mikael Bau reminded her of Claus Badher, the better. That was a simple but intuitively infallible way of judging things. Sometimes it was best to take an easy way out when it came to your emotional life, she was old enough to see that. Perhaps one ought to do that all the time, she sometimes thought. Cut out the psychology and live according to instinct instead. And it was nice to be desired, she had to admit. Carpe diem, perhaps?

Easily said, harder to do, she thought as she emerged from the shower. Rather like stopping thinking about something on demand. Whatever, Mikael Bau happened to own this old house in Port Hagen. Or rather, owned it together with four siblings, if she understood it rightly. It was a sort of family jewel, and this year it was his turn to have access to it in July.

Big and dilapidated, he had warned her. But charming, and very private. With running water — sometimes, at least. A hundred metres to the beach.

It sounded like everything a lousily paid police inspector could ask for, and without much pause for thought she had said yes please to the offer of a couple of weeks. Well, no pause at all, to be honest: it was a Sunday morning in May, they had made love and had breakfast in bed. In that order. Some days were easier to organize than others — hardly an earth-shattering insight.

So, two weeks in the middle of July. With her bloke, by the seaside.

And now Franz Lampe-Leermann!

A five-star bastard of an omen, and incredibly poor timing.

She wondered again what it could mean. But then, perhaps there was no point in trying to find a meaning in everything?

As the Chief Inspector used to point out now and again.

After the shower she packed her things, then rang Mikael Bau. Without going into too much detail she explained that she would be arriving at some point in the afternoon rather than in time for lunch, because something had turned up.

Work? he’d wondered.

Yes, work, she’d admitted.

He laughed, and said that he loved her. He’d started saying that recently, and it was remarkable how ambivalent it made her feel.

I love you.

She hadn’t said that to him. It would never occur to her to say that until she felt sure of it. They’d talked about it. He’d agreed with her, of course — what else could he have done, for God’s sake? Said that it didn’t matter as far as he was concerned. The difference was that he was sure. Already.

How could he be? she’d wanted to know.

He explained that he hadn’t had his fingers burnt as badly as she had, and so felt able to stick his neck out and venture into the unknown rather sooner than she could.

A likely story, Moreno thought. We all have our private relationship with language and words, especially the language of love. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with bad experiences.

But she wondered — had often wondered — what the facts really were with regard to his former girlfriend, Leila. They’d been together for over three years, he’d told her, and yet the same evening that she’d dumped him he had marched up the stairs to her flat on the next floor, and rung her doorbell. Invited her to dinner — the dinner he’d prepared for Leila. Just like that. Surely that was a bit odd?

When she asked him about it, he’d blamed the food. He’d prepared a meal for two. You didn’t slave away in the kitchen for an hour and a half, he claimed, and then gobble it all up yourself within ten minutes. No way.

That brought them round to the question of food.

‘If you can bring a bottle of decent white wine with you, I’ll see if I can find a bit of edible fish for you. There’s an old bloke with a stall in the market square who has his own little boat and sells his own catch every morning. He has a wooden leg, believe it or not — the tourists take two thousand pictures of him every summer. . I’ll see what he’s got to offer.’

‘Okay, let’s do that,’ said Moreno. ‘I’ll assume that you get something tasty. I’ve given you an extra three hours, after all. Incidentally. .’

‘Well?’

‘No, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Come off it!’

‘Okay. What colour are your flip-flops?’

‘My flip-flops?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why the hell do you want to know what colour my flip-flops are? There must be at least ten pairs in the house. . Maybe even twenty, but who owns which isn’t at all clear.’

‘Good,’ said Moreno. ‘I regard that as a good omen.’

Mikael said he hadn’t a clue what she was on about, and suggested that she bought herself an efficient sun hat. She promised to think about it, and concluded the call. He didn’t tell her again that he loved her, and she was grateful for that.

If somewhat ambivalent.

Reinhart rang later in the evening, and they spent half an hour discussing how to proceed with the interrogation of Lampe-Leermann. It didn’t seem to be all that complicated in principle, but then again it was important to persuade him to come out with as much information as possible. Lots of names, and especially the key figures.

And it was also important to bear in mind the incriminating evidence, so that in the long run it would be