‘I’m not really sure,’ she said. ‘She was a bit vague, and we didn’t talk for very long. Winnie’s mum had given her my name. It seemed. . Well, it seemed as if she’d got it into her head that her dad was innocent. She didn’t say so straight out, but that’s the impression I had. She’d been to talk to him the day before. On the Saturday. It can’t have been easy. . Not for either of them.’
‘Could Arnold Maager have told his daughter that he didn’t kill Winnie Maas?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Sauger. ‘She just gave that impression. Mind you, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if he’d told her something of that sort. . To portray himself in a rather better light. That occurred to me afterwards.’
Moreno thought about that for a while.
‘I was at that bloody party at Gollumsen’s place,’ said Sauger. ‘And I was a friend of Winnie’s. But not as close a friend as her mother seems to think. When we were a bit younger, perhaps, but not when it happened. We’d sort of drifted apart.’
‘That happens,’ said Moreno. ‘But was there anything more specific that Mikaela wanted to know about? Something more than what you might call the general picture?’
Sauger thought about that and took another nipple.
‘Boyfriends,’ she said. ‘She asked about which boys Winnie had been together with before that business with Maager.’
‘Why did she want to know that?’
‘I’ve no idea. We only talked for about fifteen or twenty minutes. I was in a bit of a hurry.’
‘But you were able to help her with that question about boyfriends?’
‘Yes, I gave her a few names.’
‘Which names?’
Sauger thought for a moment again.
‘Claus Bitowski,’ she said. ‘And Tim Van Rippe.’
FOUR
32
Interrogation of Markus Baarentz, 22.7.1983.
Location: Lejnice police station.
Interrogator: Chief of Police Vrommel.
Also present: Inspector Walevski, Prosecuting Secretary Mattloch.
Interrogation transcript: Inspector Walevski.
Authorized by: Secretary Mattloch, Chief of Police Vrommel.
Vrommel: Name, age and occupation please.
Baarentz: Markus Baarentz. I’m 49 and work as an accountant.
V Here in Lejnice?
B No, in Emsbaden. But I live in Lejnice. Alexanderlaan 4.
V Can you tell us what happened last night?
B Yes, of course. I’m a bridge player. I and my partner, Otto Golnik, took part in a two- day tournament in Frigge. Doubles. It went on and on and didn’t finish until about eleven p.m. We came third, and had to stay on for the prize-giving as well. Anyway, then we drove home. We were in my car — we usually take it in turns. I dropped Otto off first, he lives out at Missenraade, and then I continued home. I took the usual route, of course, and as I drove along Molnerstraat alongside the railway, I saw them.
V What time was that, roughly?
B Two o’clock. A few minutes past. It was shortly after the viaduct, there’s a street lamp just there, so it was impossible not to notice him, to notice them.
V So what exactly did you see?
B Maager. Arnold Maager, who was sitting right next to the railway lines with a girl in his lap.
V How did you know it was Maager?
B I recognized him. I have a boy who goes to the Voeller School. I’ve seen him at a few parents’ meetings. I saw straight away that it was him.
V I see. What did you do?
B I stopped. I could see immediately that there was something wrong. There was no reason to be sitting there, almost on the rails themselves. Even if there aren’t any trains at night, now that they’ve stopped the goods traffic. There was something odd about the girl as well. She was lying stretched out, and he was holding her head on his knee. I think I realized there must have been an accident the moment I saw them.
V Did you see anybody else around?
B Not even a cat. It was the middle of the night, after all.
V So you stopped and got out of the car, did you?
B Yes. Although I first wound down the window and shouted. Asked if there was anything wrong, but he didn’t answer. Then I got out of the car. I shouted again, but he didn’t react. Now I knew that there must be something seriously wrong. I climbed over the fence and went up to them. He didn’t even look up, although he must have heard me. He just sat there, stroking the girl’s hair. He seemed to be in another world, as it were. As if he’d had a shock. For a moment I thought he was drunk, and maybe the girl as well, but I soon gathered that wasn’t the case. It was much worse than that. She was dead.
V How could you tell she was dead?
B I don’t really know. The way she was lying, I suppose. I asked as well, of course, but I didn’t get an answer. Maager didn’t even look at me. I tried to make contact with him, but it was impossible.
V You didn’t notice any injuries to the girl?
B No. It was just the way she was lying. And her face. Her eyes didn’t seem to be properly closed, nor did her mouth. And she wasn’t moving. Not at all.
V And Arnold Maager?
B He just sat there, stroking her hair and her cheeks. He seemed to be in another world, as I said. I called him by his name as well. ‘Herr Maager,’ I said. ‘What’s happened?’
V Did you get an answer?
B No. I didn’t really know what to do. I just stood there for about ten or fifteen seconds or so. I asked again, and in the end he looked up. He looked at me very briefly, and there was something odd about his eyes — about his facial expression, in fact.
V What exactly?
B Something abnormal. When I was a lad I worked for a few summers in a mental hospital, and I thought I recognized that look. I thought about that right away.
V What did you do?
B I asked what was wrong with the girl, but he still didn’t react. I bent down to take a closer look at her. I thought I’d take her pulse or something, but he shooed me away.
V Shooed you away? How?
B Brushed my hand away, sort of. Then he made a noise.
V A noise?
B Yes, a noise. It sounded, well, it sounded a bit like the mooing of a cow.
V Are you saying that Maager mooed like a cow?
B Yes. An inhuman noise in any case. More like the cry of an animal. I assumed he was in a state of shock, and that there was no point in trying to get any sense out of him.
V I understand. Tell us what you did next.
B I thought I needed to call the police and an ambulance. It would have been best, of course, if I could have stopped a car or contacted some other person who could help out, but it was the middle of
