‘You knew him?’
‘Not nowadays. I suppose I used to.’
Baasteuwel took out a notebook and began writing.
‘In 1983, for instance?’
‘Eh?’
‘In 1983. That’s a year.’
‘I know that. Yes, I knew Van Rippe when we were at school, and-’
‘Did you know Winnie Maas as well?’
‘Winnie? What the hell has that got to do with it?’
‘Did you know her?’ asked Baasteuwel again.
‘Yes, but what the hell. .? Of course I knew Winnie a bit. I was at her funeral. We were at school together, and so-’
‘The same class?’
‘No, I was a year older. Why are you asking about this? I keep telling you I don’t know anything.’
‘We’re investigating the murder of Van Rippe,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Surely you want us to catch whoever killed him?’
‘Yes, but I know nothing.’
That’s probably true, Baasteuwel thought. About most things.
‘When did you go out to the islands?’
‘Two weeks ago.’
‘What day?’
Bitowski thought that over.
‘Sunday, I think. Yes, we took the afternoon boat.’
‘We?’
‘Me and my mates.’
‘I see,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘You and your mates. Were you visited by a young lady called Mikaela Lijphart before you set off?’
‘Eh?’ said Bitowski. ‘Mikaela what?’
‘Lijphart. Did you talk to her that Sunday?’
‘Of course I bloody didn’t,’ said Bitowski. ‘I’ve never even heard of her.’
‘Did you know Tim Van Rippe well in your younger days?’
‘Fairly well.’
‘Did he have something going with Winnie Maas?’
Bitowski shrugged. His stomach wobbled.
‘I think so. She had something going with lots of people.’
‘When was she together with Van Rippe, do you remember that?’
‘No. How the hell could I?’
‘Was it just before she died, for instance?’
‘No, for Christ’s sake,’ said Bitowski. ‘It was long before that. She screwed around quite a bit.’
‘Screwed around?’
‘Yes, she was that type.’
‘Did you also have sex with Winnie Maas?’
Bitowski emptied his glass of beer and belched.
‘I might have done.’
‘Might have done? Did you have sex with her or not?’
Bitowski stared at his glass, and Baasteuwel waved to the waitress and ordered another glass.
‘Once,’ said Bitowski.
‘When?’ asked Baasteuwel. ‘When she was in class nine?’
‘No, before that. I was in class nine, she must have been in class eight.’
‘And it was just once?’
‘That I screwed her all ends up, yes.’
Baasteuwel contemplated his puffed-up face for a while.
‘Are you sure that she wasn’t together with Tim Van Rippe in May/June 1983?’
Bitowski was served with another beer, and took a swig.
‘Sure and sure,’ he said. ‘She ought not to have been, at least. She gave me a blow job at the beginning of May.’
‘Gave you a blow job?’
‘Yes — for Christ’s sake, it was a party, wasn’t it? But I don’t really remember.’
Baasteuwel repressed an urge to stab his Nixon umbrella in Claus Bitowski’s pot belly.
Don’t remember? he thought. Ten years from now you won’t remember your name, never mind where your cock is.
‘Can you give me the names of any other boys that Winnie might have had sex with? In the spring of ’83, that is.’
‘No,’ said Bitowski. ‘I don’t think there was anybody special, and I didn’t really know her all that well. I don’t know anything about all this, as I’ve already told you.’
‘Were you interrogated at all in connection with Winnie’s death?’ asked Baasteuwel.
‘Interrogated? No, why should I have been interrogated? I don’t understand why you’re sitting here and interrogating me now, either.’
‘So no police officer asked you any questions at all?’
‘No.’
Baasteuwel suddenly felt that he had no more questions to ask either. Apart perhaps from asking Bitowski if he knew the name of the president of the USA. Or a town in France. Or how much was 11 times 8.
‘That’s all,’ he said. ‘Thank you for the beer.’
‘Eh? What the hell. .?’
‘A joke,’ Baasteuwel explained.
Constable Vegesack was nervous.
It had nothing to do with going behind the back of Chief of Police Vrommel. Not at all. But it was hard to deceive other people. Unpleasant. Especially somebody like fru Van Rippe — her son had been murdered, and now he had to sit here and lie to her. It felt wrong and repugnant, even if what he was going to have to serve up to her was not a pack of outright lies.
It was more a case of keeping a straight face and not telling her the whole truth.
Pulling the wool over her eyes, as they say. But that was bad enough.
‘I don’t understand what’s going on,’ she’d said as she got into the police car. ‘Why do you want to talk to me again? Has something new happened?’
‘Not really,’ Vegesack had replied. ‘It’s just that we need a bit more detailed information.’
‘And because of that you need to drive me to Lejnice and back?’
‘We thought that would be best.’
It was rather more than an hour’s drive from Karpatz to Lejnice, but luckily she decided to keep quiet for most of the time. Vegesack stole a look at her as she sat in the passenger seat, squeezing a handkerchief in her lap. A sixty-year-old woman, over the hill, with a dead son. She blew her nose now and then. Perhaps she’s got hay fever, he thought. Or perhaps it was her grief that was releasing itself in that way. These were difficult days for her, of course. Her son was going to be buried the following week: Thursday, if Vegersack remembered rightly. Cremation was not possible, for technical reasons connected to the investigation. It must be awful for her, that was the bottom line. As if her own life had come to an end, in a way.
Although he found it difficult to imagine what she was feeling. He was relieved that he didn’t need to talk about it.
And uncomfortable at having to pull the wool over her eyes, as said before.
‘Did you know Tim?’ she asked when they’d gone about halfway.
