If it hadn’t been for the girl’s anxious voice, Moreno could have burst out laughing. But Mikaela felt anything but at ease, that was very obvious. They sat down. Moreno put a hand on her arm.
‘You’re worried.’
‘Yes. It’s so horrible. I can’t sleep at night.’
‘You realize. . I expect you realize that I want to know what happened?’
‘Yes. .’ Mikaela looked down at the table. ‘I know I have to tell you everything. I’m so grateful that you were so kind to me on the train, and I know that you’ve been working very hard ever since as well.’
Moreno tried to produce another encouraging smile, but could feel that it had difficulty in establishing itself.
‘It wasn’t all that much of an effort,’ she said. ‘Shall we order so that we can eat while we’re talking, perhaps?’
It took some time to place the orders. Moreno wondered if she had ever been in a situation like this before. She didn’t think so. Her feelings told her this was the case, although it was of course anything but clear what the precise situation was. She had spent days, nights, weeks, trying to understand what could have happened to this girl who had disappeared without trace, and now she was suddenly sitting face to face with her at a restaurant table. Without so much as a second’s warning. That damned Baasteuwel, she thought. No, she’d never experienced anything like this before.
And Mikaela wasn’t well. She looked pale and out of sorts. It seemed pointless starting to talk to her about banalities — the weather and the wind, and if she’d been to the cinema lately — totally pointless.
‘Let’s hear it, then, Mikaela,’ she said instead. ‘You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. I think you said that the last time we met.’
‘No, it was you who said that,’ said Mikaela. ‘Where shall I start?’
‘At the beginning, of course. From when we said goodbye outside the station at Lejnice.’
Mikaela raised her gaze and looked Moreno in the eye for a few seconds. Then she took a deep breath and launched into her account.
‘Well, at first everything went just as I’d expected it would, in fact,’ she began as she slowly clasped her hands on the table in front of her — as if it were an accomplishment she had just learned and was still finding it a bit difficult to achieve, Moreno thought.
‘I went to that home and met my father. It was. . it was so odd, so horrific to enter a room and see a complete stranger who was in fact my dad. I’d thought about it and tried to imagine it, of course, but even so it felt much stranger that I could ever have believed. He was so small and alien and so. . ill. I thought he looked like a bird. This is my bird daddy, I thought. But nevertheless I knew that it was him the moment I clapped eyes on him, it was somehow so obvious, I can’t explain it.’
Her voice was a little steadier now, Moreno noticed, once she’d got going.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘You know. . the background?’
Moreno nodded.
‘I didn’t tell you everything I knew on the train; I think I was a bit ashamed. My dad had an affair with a schoolgirl who was only sixteen — when I was two. It happened, and there’s nothing I can do to change it. The girl died, and he was found guilty of having killed her. But it’s wrong. That’s not what happened. He told me that day that it wasn’t him who pushed Winnie Maas down on to the railway line. It took him two hours to tell me. He gave me a letter he’d written, and it said the same thing. He was with the girl, but he didn’t kill her. . He was ashamed something awful when he tried to talk to me about it, but I forced him to do it. He’s not strong, my dad: he’s like a bird. A sick bird. I feel so sorry for him. .’
She paused, and looked enquiringly at Moreno, who encouraged her to continue.
‘I was crying when I left. I went to the youth hostel, but it was completely full and I very nearly didn’t get a bed — but it turned out okay in the end. I didn’t really know what to do next, but I believed my dad when he said that he was innocent of the girl’s death and so after I’d thought things over for a while, I decided to try to trace the girl’s mother — if she was still in Lejnice — and tell her what I’d discovered. And maybe ask her a few questions as well. And that’s what I did, without any real problems. I met her on the Sunday — she wasn’t very nice: a bit of a drunk, I think. She even showed me a revolver she kept in order to defend herself — goodness only knows what she needed to defend herself against. . I’m quite sure she didn’t believe me when I said my dad had been wrongly convicted. She called him a disgusting creep and a murderer and plenty more besides, and claimed that he had ruined her life. Obviously I felt sorry for her as well: it must be awful if your child dies in such a horrible way. .’
The meal was served, but Mikaela didn’t seem to want to stop, now that she was under way.
‘As I sat there in fru Maas’s disgusting flat, I started thinking seriously about what had really happened when her daughter died — all my dad told me is that it wasn’t him who killed her — and it occurred to me that maybe I ought to try to talk to some more local people about it all, seeing as I was at the scene, after all. I regret ever having such an idea — my God, how I regret that. .’
‘Did it ever occur to you that the girl might have jumped off the viaduct rather than being pushed?’ Moreno wondered.
Mikaela shook her head.
‘I thought about that, but my dad didn’t think she had, and nor did fru Maas when I spoke to her.’
‘I see. Anyway, what did you do?’
‘I got a couple of names from fru Maas. People who had known her daughter, she claimed — I don’t really know why she gave me them. Most of the time she sat there going on about how I was the despicable child of a murderer, and how I ought to be ashamed of showing myself in public, and lots more along those lines.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Moreno. ‘I’ve also met her.’
‘Have you really?’
Mikaela looked guilty for a moment — as if she were worried about having caused any trouble. Moreno urged her to continue.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I went to a woman called Vera Something. .’
‘Sauger?’
‘Yes, that’s it. Vera Sauger. She had known Winnie Maas quite well, and had my dad as a teacher, it seems. I told her I believed that my dad was innocent, and then. . well, then she sort of shut up. Withdrew into her shell. I had the impression. . No, I don’t really know.’
‘Go on,’ said Moreno.
‘I had the impression that she’d known that was the case all along. That he was not guilty. No, I don’t mean that she actually knew, just that I had that impression at the time, when I was at her house. Do you follow me?’
Moreno said that she did.
‘Well, this Vera Sauger gave me a couple of new names, people I ought to talk to. There was one whose name I’ve forgotten, and the other was Tim Van Rippe. God, but I wish I’d never been given those names. .’
‘I understand,’ said Moreno. She was actually beginning to understand. At last. ‘How did that go?’ she asked.
Mikaela took another deep breath. Picked up her knife and fork, but then laid them down again on the table.
‘It was so awful,’ she said. ‘So horrendously awful, I’ll never be able to forget it. . Never, never ever. I’ve dreamt about it every single night since it happened. Several times every night, as soon as I fall asleep. . All the time, nonstop, it seems like.’
For a moment it looked as if the girl was going to burst into tears, but she gritted her teeth and continued instead.
‘I phoned him. Tim Van Rippe, that is. I told him who I was and asked if he had time for a little chat. He sounded a bit odd, but I didn’t think so much about that. . He said he was busy until that evening, and we agreed to meet at a certain spot on the beach at nine o’clock.’
‘Nine o’clock in the evening?’
‘Yes. On the beach. I asked if he couldn’t make it a bit earlier, but he said he couldn’t. So I went along with nine o’clock. I checked the train times and there was one at ten to eleven, so I’d be able to get home anyway.
