‘Surely we’ve sorted the immediate vicinity already,’ said Moreno. ‘Have they found anything? The scene- of-crime gentlemen, I mean,’
‘A shoe,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘The right size, could be Van Rippe’s, but it’s not certain. It was lying about ten metres away.’
‘An excellent clue.’
‘Brilliant. Vrommel has it on his desk, and is supposed to be studying it. I must remember to keep an eye on it and make sure he doesn’t spirit it away. It ought to have been sent to the Pathology Laboratory, of course, but that hasn’t happened. Ah well. .’
He suddenly yawned, and Moreno had an immediate urge to follow suit.
‘Make sure you do that, then,’ she said, looking at the clock. ‘Send off the shoe and keep an eye on Vrommel. Shall we ask for the bill? Or have you anything else to say? You have to be at work tomorrow morning, if I’m not much mistaken.’
‘Huh,’ grunted Baasteuwel. ‘You’re right, of course. Not that I have anything against a hard day’s work. It’s sitting around and twiddling my thumbs that goes against the grain for me.’
Moreno recalled his initial question.
‘So that’s why you became a police officer, is it, if I might respond with a question? To avoid sitting around and twiddling your thumbs.’
Baasteuwel looked pensive for a moment.
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I became a police officer because I enjoy putting crooked bastards behind bars. I’ll never catch up with all of them, of course — there’s too many of ’em: but I feel a bit better every time I manage to nail another of the swine. My wife thinks I’m perverted.’
He smiled without showing his teeth.
‘There are worse reasons for becoming a cop,’ said Moreno.
‘There certainly are,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Anyway, I’ll be in touch tomorrow. Assuming you’ll still be around, that is?’
Moreno nodded.
‘I’ll be around until Saturday at least. I have an appointment with a young lady tomorrow.’
The young lady in question had gone to bed by the time she returned to Zinderslaan, but her mother was sitting in the kitchen, checking proofs.
‘I feel like a gypsy,’ Moreno said. ‘Wandering around and changing my address several times a week.’
‘Gypsies are nice people,’ said Perhovens. ‘Would you like some tea?’
Moreno said she would love some. It was turned half past eleven, but if they were going to exchange a few words and experiences, it could well be best to seize the opportunity while Drusilla was out of the way.
‘Tim Van Rippe,’ Perhovens said. ‘We’re going to reveal his name tomorrow. I hope you’ve nothing against that?’
‘Not at all,’ said Moreno. ‘His next of kin know about it.’
‘Good. I’d be quite interested in talking our way through this Maager business, in fact. I reckon it’s about time I wrote something about that as well. If it turned out to be appropriate. A few little adjustments might be in order, perhaps? In the next week or so. . What kind of tea would you like? I have sixty-two different sorts.’
‘Strong,’ said Moreno.
35
The ridge of high pressure returned on Friday. The rain from the south-west had moved on, and it became rapidly warmer. As early as seven in the morning the big thermometer on the side of the Xerxes IT company building in Lejnice was showing 25 degrees in the shade, and it would get even hotter.
Detective Inspector Ewa Moreno was not one of those who got up to check the weather at seven o’clock that morning. Instead she was woken up at nine by Drusilla Perhovens, who immediately put her in the picture.
‘The sky is as blue as flax flowers, and the sun’s shining like hell.’
‘Don’t swear, Drusilla,’ said her mother, who was standing in the doorway, brushing her hair.
‘You’ve got to let yourself go now and then,’ said Drusilla. ‘You’ve taught me that.’
Then she turned to Moreno.
‘You can come with me to the beach if you like,’ she said. ‘We’ll be picking up a boy who’s a friend of mine, so you won’t need to entertain me all the time.’
Moreno thought about that for a couple of seconds, then accepted.
But as it turned out, merely lying around on the beach and making the most of the high pressure wasn’t entirely without its problems. Drusilla kept her promise and spent most of the time with a young man by the name of Helmer — swimming, building sandcastles, swimming, playing football, swimming, eating ice cream, swimming and reading comics. Moreno rang the changes by first lying on her back, then on her stomach; but irrespective of her position she found it hard not to think about what was hiding away in this warm, soft sand less than a week ago.
And what might still be lying hidden there.
Perhaps I’m lying on a corpse, she thought as she shut her eyes to keep out the glare of the sun. Before long Drusilla and Helmer will come running up to tell me that they’ve dug up a head.
She had the feeling that it was beginning to be high time she put all this behind her. Time to leave Lejnice and life on the beach, and go back home to Maardam at last. The Mikaela Lijphart case wasn’t her case any longer. Nor was the Arnold Maager case, nor the Tim Van Rippe case. They never had been her concern, strictly speaking; but now at least she had left them in competent hands: Kohler’s and Baasteuwel’s, and — if that weren’t enough — those of the collective of local journalists: Selma Perhovens and, as far as she understood, Aaron Wicker. There was no reason why she should be involved any longer. None at all. She had done more than anybody could reasonably have asked; and if her aim was to return to work in August with anything like recharged batteries, it was high time that she allowed herself some real holiday. Cycling and camping in the wild Sorbinowo region, for instance. Warm evenings round the campfire with barbecued fish, good wine and existential conversation. Nocturnal swims in dark waters.
And if they really were considering digging up the whole of this beach, teeming with holidaymakers, that was something she had no great desire to be involved in. No desire at all.
Even so, needless to say that was precisely what she started dreaming about when she fell asleep. Hordes of sweaty soldiers, dressed in green, under the command of a bald senior officer (looking remarkably like Vrommel, in fact, but with a Hitler moustache rather than a thin conventional one), hacking away with pickaxes and spades and digging up corpse after corpse, which were piled up according to age and sex under the supervision of herself and Constable Vegesack. Baasteuwel was wandering round with a brush, removing the sand from their faces and bodies, and they appeared one by one before her horrified eyes. Mikaela Lijphart, Winnie Maas, Arnold Maager (whom she had only seen in a bad photograph but who nevertheless was more recognizable than any of the others for some incomprehensible reason), Sigrid Lijphart, Vera Sauger, Mikael Bau, Franz Lampe-Leermann. . She had some difficulty in understanding how the last two were relevant in this context, but accepted it as an example of life’s inherent lunacy. It wasn’t until Drusilla came up hand in hand with Maud, Moreno’s sister — not as she had turned out, but as she remembered her as a teenager — that she’d had enough of the show and woke up.
Her head was bursting. Never lie down and fall asleep in the sun! She remembered that as an instruction her mother — for whatever reason — had tried to ram into her brain when she was a child, and even if she didn’t feel she’d derived all that much wisdom from that source, she felt she had to concede that today of all days her mother was right on that score at least. She struggled to her feet, and went for a swim.
‘Baasteuwel, detective inspector,’ said Baasteuwel.
