more.
She gave free rein to her thoughts for a few minutes while she wrote question marks after Mikaela Lijphart and Arnold Maager, and a cross after Tim Van Rippe. But she wrote nothing after the last two names.
Brilliant, my dear Holmes, she thought, and then tried to regain control of her thoughts. Took a sip of the coffee her hostess had prepared for her, reluctantly and extremely expensively. Press on!
What do I know? Are these names connected at all? All of them? Some of them? How?
Vera Sauger clearly didn’t have so much to do with the others — those dead or missing persons — she was just a link. A presumed supplier of information, not a mystery. She would have to be handled especially carefully.
She suddenly realized why she thought the name had sounded familiar. Surely it had been mentioned in one of the interrogation records she had been provided with by Constable Vegesack.
Yes, no doubt about it. She couldn’t remember in what connection, but Vera Sauger had been there, she was convinced of that, despite the fact that her temples had barely been massaged at all.
It wasn’t all that remarkable, in fact. Sigrid Maas had told Mikaela Lijphart to contact Vera Sauger, and if the latter girl had been interrogated in connection with the events of 1983, it merely confirmed the fact that she was someone who was closely linked with Winnie in one way or another.
And that Sigrid Maas was telling the truth — in this respect, at least.
She went back to the first trio. One dead, two missing.
What had happened to Mikaela Lijphart was just as incomprehensible as ever. Before beginning to think about her and speculating, she turned her attention to her father. What were the possible scenarios as far as he was concerned?
There were only two, as far as she could see.
Either Maager had run away from the Sidonis home of his own free will — the little of that he might still possess. Or there were other motives behind his disappearance. Somebody wanted him out of the way.
Why? Why on earth should anybody feel threatened by the existence of Arnold Maager?
There was only one answer, of course. It had to do with that business in the past. Maager might have information about what had really happened sixteen years ago, and such information could be dangerous for somebody who. . well, somebody who — what?
Somebody who had a finger in the pie, and more than that, most likely.
Stop, Moreno thought. I’m going too quickly. It’s pure speculation. Wasn’t the most likely scenario by far — let’s face it — that Maager had run away under his own steam? He’d packed a bag, for instance. The reason why he would want to run away was just as obscure as all the rest of it, but it seemed obvious that it must have to do with his daughter. There were no other stimuli in his life that could set things moving in this way.
Rubbish, she then thought. What do I know about Arnold Maager’s inner landscape? And other people’s motives? Nothing at all.
But then again? She had the feeling that it could be the explanation. That he had simply run away, perhaps in a state of pure desperation to look for his daughter. . Like an aged and crazy King Lear looking for Cordelia. Surely that must be a possibility? She drank half a cup of coffee and rubbed her temples. It made the roots of her hair hurt, but of course didn’t do them any harm.
When no more sensible thoughts occurred to her, she turned over the page in her notebook instead and began writing down her conclusions in order. It took quite a while, and perhaps it was over the top to call them conclusions. It was more like therapy. Brain gymnastics for a mentally retarded detective inspector, she thought. While she was doing this she heard the first heavy raindrops hitting against the window, and in the next-door room the young couple started making love.
She sat there listening for a while, to both the rain and the lovemaking. There’s a time for everything, she thought with a sigh. She switched on the radio to distract herself and poured some more coffee. When she had finished she read through what she had written, and established that the problems remained.
What had happened to Mikaela Lijphart? What had happened to her father?
And the dead man on the beach? Had he anything to do with this other business?
I’ll talk to Vera Sauger tomorrow evening, Moreno thought. That should help me to make progress.
But what if Mikaela never actually visited her? she thought. What would that indicate? What do I do then?
And what should she spend tomorrow doing? Sunbathing and swimming?
In the rain? It was coming down quite heavily now. In any case, it was obvious that she couldn’t carry on pestering poor Vegesack any more than she had already done. Especially as she hadn’t been able to make a single contribution to the case herself, despite all her efforts. There were limits, after all. . Mind you, one might also ask oneself what on earth the police did in these parts.
So, what should she do? Perhaps dig a bit into the past instead? Go back to 1983 again?
But where, in that case? Dig where? Who should she interrogate this time?
She suddenly felt exhaustion threatening to overwhelm her, but gulped down another half cup of coffee and kept it at arm’s length. Well? she thought. Who? Who should she turn to? Needless to say, everybody who was around when it all happened sixteen years ago would be able to supply a certain amount of information, some more than others; but it would be helpful to acquire a better overall view.
It didn’t take her long to hit upon an alternative that seemed promising.
The press, of course. The local daily newspaper.
Satisfied with this decision, she poured the rest of the coffee down the sink and went to bed. It was a quarter past midnight, and it occurred to her that Mikael Bau hadn’t tried to contact her one single time during the evening.
Good, she thought as she switched off the light. But she realized that it was not a wholly satisfactory conclusion.
30
The
The front room looked out on the street and had a counter where Joe Public could submit the copy for adverts and notices, pay subscriptions or complain about things that had appeared in the paper.
Or that hadn’t appeared in the paper.
When Moreno stepped in out of the light drizzle in Zeestraat it was twenty minutes past ten in the morning. A dark-haired woman of about her own age and with an energetic appearance was standing behind the counter, telling somebody off on the telephone, gripping the receiver between her cheek and shoulder while making notes on a pad and leafing through a newspaper.
That’s what I call multi-tasking, Moreno thought. The woman nodded to her, and she sat down on one of the two plastic chairs and waited for the call to come to an end.
Which it did after about half a minute, and judging from the unconstrained wording with which she closed down the call, Moreno gathered that the woman was not unduly worried by having been overheard.
‘Bloody idiot!’ she said as she replaced the receiver. ‘Pardon my French. How can I help you?’
Moreno hadn’t managed to make up her mind what tactics to use, but something in the woman’s bright eyes
