The Weeping Girl

‘DeHaavelaar?’

‘Yes. Winnie Maas was pregnant when she died, but I wouldn’t have thought Arnold Maager was the father.’

Moreno tried to digest the information and register what it meant.

‘What the hell. .?’ she said. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Not at all,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘I just have that feeling — but I’m shit hot when it comes to feelings. And he’s come back.’

‘Come back?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who?’

‘Arnold Maager, of course. He came back to the Sidonis home this afternoon.’

Moreno was dumbstruck for a few seconds.

‘Came back? You’re saying he simply came back. .?’

‘Yep.’

‘How? Where has he been?’

‘He hasn’t said. He hasn’t said anything at all, in fact. Just lies on his bed, staring at the wall, it seems. Whatever he’s been up to, he’s been without his medication for almost a week. Antidepressants, I assume. They’re a bit worried about him.’

‘How did he come back?’

‘He simply came marching in, just like that. Vrommel’s out there now, talking to him.’

‘Vrommel? Wouldn’t somebody else have been better?’

‘We can’t very well take all his bloody duties away from him without his suspecting something. Vegesack went with him to keep an eye on things, and as Maager’s autistic now it probably doesn’t matter much.’

Moreno thought for a moment.

‘Let’s hope not,’ she said. ‘I can’t keep up with all this. Anything else?’

‘Quite a bit,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘But I have to go to a series of little interviews now. How long will you be around tomorrow?’

Moreno hesitated. She hadn’t yet decided what time to leave. But surely there was no need to set off at daybreak come what may? And she needed to buy something for Selma Perhovens. And for Drusilla as well.

‘There’s a train at four o’clock. I’ll probably take that.’

‘Excellent,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘That means we can have lunch together.’

He hung up. Moreno remained standing with the telephone in her hand for a while. Well, well, well, she thought. So Maager wasn’t the child’s father? What does that mean?

Hard to say. But he must have thought that it was his in any case. Wasn’t that the main thing?

Suddenly the questions started bubbling up inside her head again. The main thing for whom?

Winnie Maas, of course. Maybe somebody else as well?

After all, virgin births are rather unusual, just as Mikaela Lijphart had said on the train a couple of weeks ago. .

Moreno stretched herself out on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

What on earth had happened to Mikaela Lijphart?

What had Arnold Maager been doing while he was away, and why had Tim Van Rippe died?

There’s a lot that isn’t clear. A hell of a lot.

And how were things going with regard to the ensnaring of Chief of Police Vrommel? She’d forgotten to ask Baasteuwel about that.

Ah well, that could wait until tomorrow, she decided.

Every day has enough trouble of its own to cope with.

36

24 July 1999

Inspector Baasteuwel stood in the shadow of a warehouse, watching a seagull.

The seagull was watching him. Apart from that, nothing much was happening. The sun was shining. The sea was as calm as a millpond.

He checked his watch. It was no more than a quarter past ten, but he could swear that the temperature was already very close to the thirty mark. If it hadn’t already passed it. So the high pressure was still dominant, and the sky was so cloud-free that looking at it almost gave him a headache. It struck him that this Saturday should have been the third day of his leave. Damn and blast. But that was life. . He lit a cigarette, today’s fourth. Or possibly fifth.

At last the ferry came gliding round the breakwater. It looked half empty. Not to say completely empty. Needless to say there was no sensible reason why anybody should head for the mainland from the islands on a day like today. On the contrary. In the pens designated for passengers wanting to embark, people were packed as tightly as Westwerdingen sardines, and the barrier had been lowered behind the last car that could be accommodated on the eleven o’clock departure ten minutes ago. Why on earth should anybody want to take a car with them into the archipelago?

Baasteuwel left the relatively cool shade behind the warehouse and walked towards the gate through which disembarking passengers would be siphoned out. He opened up his umbrella.

He regretted the umbrella business: it was his wife who had given it to him in an attack of grim feminist humour, but what the hell? Bitowski must have something to look for that could be easily identified, and a blue- and-yellow umbrella decorated with an advert for Nixon condoms was no doubt as good as anything.

Especially in weather like this. When he looked round, he couldn’t see any other condom umbrellas pretending they were parasols.

So Claus Bitowski couldn’t very well miss him.

And he didn’t. One of the first passengers to disembark was a corpulent man of about thirty, perhaps slightly more. He was wearing sunglasses, and a back-to-front baseball cap. In one hand he was holding a dirty yellow sports bag made of PVC-coated fabric, in the other a half-empty bottle of beer. His T-shirt with the logo ‘We are the Fuckin’ Champs’ was unable to keep his pot belly from hanging down over the top of his jeans.

‘Are you that fucking cop?’ he asked.

Baasteuwel closed the umbrella. His parents ought to have used Nixon, he thought.

‘I am indeed. And I suppose you are Claus Bitowski?’

Bitowski nodded. Drank the rest of the beer and looked round for a rubbish bin. When he didn’t find one, he flung the empty bottle into the water instead. Baasteuwel looked the other way.

‘I’ve nothing to say,’ said Bitowski.

‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Baasteuwel. ‘I haven’t asked you anything yet.’

‘About Van Rippe. I know nothing.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Good that you came in any case. Shall we find somewhere to sit down?’

Bitowski lit a cigarette.

‘I haven’t anything to say, no matter what we do.’

Great, Baasteuwel thought. A thirty-year-old baby. I’d better approach this pedagogically.

‘How about Strandterrassen and a beer?’ he suggested.

Bitowski took a deep drag and considered the offer.

‘All right, then,’ he said.

They crossed over Zuiderslaan and sat down at a table under a parasol. Baasteuwel beckoned to a waitress and ordered two beers.

‘I take it you know that Tim Van Rippe has been murdered?’ he said when the beers had been served.

‘Bloody horrendous,’ said Bitowski.