responding.
‘I think,’ she said, hastily trying to keep her guard up and not say too much, ‘I think that what really happened in 1983 wasn’t quite as straightforward as they concluded then. And that Chief of Police Vrommel — and presumably others as well — had good reason to make sure that something was brushed under the carpet. I don’t know what and I don’t know why. I also think that there are people here in Lejnice who have known the truth but have kept quiet about it for sixteen years — and that Tim Van Rippe was one of them. And that somebody killed him to make sure that he didn’t give the game away. Yes, in broad outline that’s what I think.’
‘Hmm,’ muttered Baasteuwel. ‘And how the hell could this somebody know that this girl was going to visit Tim Van Rippe that particular day?’
Moreno shook her head.
‘I’ve no idea,’ she admitted. ‘But Mikaela stirred up quite a lot of things before she disappeared in a puff of smoke. She met both Winnie Maas’s mother and this Vera Sauger. Perhaps several other people as well, but since nobody seems to be bothering to look into the matter, we don’t yet know who. Vera gave me another name as well as Tim Van Rippe — one Claus Bitowski. I’ve rung his number several times this morning, but there’s been no reply.’
‘Are you suggesting. .?’ said Baasteuwel, but hesitated for a moment. ‘Are you suggesting that he’s also buried on the beach somewhere? This Bitowski? Is that your hypothesis between the lines?’
Moreno hesitated and looked round the table.
‘I don’t have a hypothesis,’ she said. ‘But it wouldn’t be all that difficult to check in any case. If he’s alive it must surely be possible to get hold of him. Somehow or other.’
Baasteuwel nodded.
‘Yes indeed,’ he said. ‘And what about Mikaela? What are we going to do about little froken Lijphart? That’s a harder nut to crack, I suspect. This damned Vrommel. . What the hell’s behind all this?’
Nobody seemed to have a good answer to that question, and silence reigned once more. Moreno thought she could almost see — or at any rate sense — the highly charged thoughts of each of them hovering like a cloud over the table. Good, she thought. It’s good to have more brains at work in this connection. At last. .
‘Ah well,’ said Baasteuwel in the end. ‘I can see by the cheerful expressions on your faces that we can assume she’s also lying there in the sand.’
‘There’s nothing to suggest that,’ Moreno hurried to point out; but even as she said that she became aware that it had more to do with wishful thinking than anything else.
Kohler sighed.
‘We’ll have to arrange for the whole beach to be dug up,’ he said. ‘It should be quite straightforward. A few hundred men and a few months. . Maybe we could get the army involved, they are usually keen on this kind of thing.’
‘When there isn’t a war on,’ said Baasteuwel.
‘I suggest we wait for a few days with that,’ said Moreno. ‘I mean, there are other angles of approach. How’s the investigation into Tim Van Rippe going, for instance?’
Baasteuwel made a noise reminiscent of a lawn mower that failed to start. Or a Trabant.
‘Sluggish,’ he said. ‘The Van Rippe investigation’s proceeding sluggishly. But perhaps that’s the intention.’
‘Let’s hear about it,’ said Moreno optimistically.
Constable Vegesack, who had been sitting there and listening in silence for most of the time, decided to do the talking.
‘No, not a lot has happened,’ he said. ‘The postmortem is over and done with, we got the paperwork yesterday. It’s not possible to be more precise about the time of death, it seems. He died at some point within a twenty-four-hour period — midday on Sunday the eleventh and Monday the twelfth at the same time. The cause of death is beyond dispute: a pointed instrument stabbed into the left eye that continued into the brain. No sign of any other injury, no sign of a struggle — no wounds or scratches, no scraps of skin and so on. But it’s odd that somebody could just come up and stab him in the eye: it’s possible that he was caught completely by surprise. Maybe he was lying asleep. . Or sunbathing.’
He waited for comments from Kohler or Baasteuwel, but neither of them seemed to have anything to say. Vegesack took a mouthful of beer, and continued.
‘We’ve spoken to several people who knew Van Rippe, but nobody had anything relevant to say. He’d planned to go away for a few days with a female friend of his — Damita Fuchsbein: she was the one who reported him missing, and she identified the body. The last person to see him alive, as far as we know at the moment at least, is a neighbour of his. He’s called Eskil Pudecka, and he claims to have spoken to Van Rippe shortly after one o’clock on Sunday — that means of course that the twenty-four-hour period shrinks slightly, but maybe that doesn’t matter much. We’ve also spoken to Van Rippe’s mother and his brother, they are his closest relations, but they know as little as everybody else.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Who exactly has been talking to all these people? Kohler and I have spoken to four or five people at most, but who dealt with this girlfriend, for instance? And the relatives?’
Vegesack thought for a moment.
‘I interrogated Damita Fuchsbein,’ he said. ‘You couldn’t really say she was his girlfriend, by the way. Vrommel dealt with both his mother and his brother — the mother as recently as yesterday, I believe. She’s been away.’
Baasteuwel slammed his fist down on the table.
‘Bloody hell!’ he snorted. ‘Vrommel deals with the mother! Vrommel deals with the brother! Vrommel deals with every bastard who might have something to hide. . For Christ’s sake! He’s running this show just as he wants to, the swine! Have you seen any transcripts from the interrogations he’s conducted?’
Vegesack looked embarrassed.
‘No. .’ he said. ‘No, I don’t think he’s arranged for them to be typed out yet.’
‘Have you seen anything?’ said Baasteuwel, glaring at his colleague.
Kohler shook his head.
‘Calm down now,’ he urged. ‘Don’t get carried away again.’
Baasteuwel flung out his arms in frustration and sank back into his armchair. Moreno wondered if he often got carried away, and what might happen in that case. It seemed obvious that Kohler had some kind of point in any case, as Baasteuwel didn’t bother to protest.
‘We must look into this,’ Kohler said. ‘Obviously. But I suggest we do so with a modicum of discretion. Does anybody think we have anything to gain by putting Vrommel up against the wall straight away?’
Moreno thought about that. So did Vegesack and Baasteuwel: she could sense their minds working overtime. As far as she could judge neither of them would have anything at all against confronting Vrommel with a 500-watt lamp shining into his face and a whole arsenal of accusations.
She certainly didn’t either, but that naturally didn’t mean that Kohler’s line was not to be preferred. Vrommel is presumably no thickie, even if he is a shit heap. Or a skunk. But it would be better to have a little patience and give themselves a chance of ascertaining a few facts first.
It wasn’t at all clear what, but if there was anything they ought to be familiar with by now it was a lack of clarity.
Baasteuwel put her thoughts into words.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll give the bastard a few days to stew. It might be fun to see how he acts in the circumstances, if nothing else.’
Vegesack nodded. Moreno and Kohler nodded.
‘Let’s do that, then,’ said Kohler. ‘But what now? Perhaps we ought to share out the workload a bit?’
‘I agree,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘But what the hell should we do? All those who are on leave can go and buy themselves an ice cream if they’d prefer.’
34
