The Strangler's Honeymoon (21 page)

But it was already five minutes after half past. Why hadn’t she arrived?

A quarter of an hour later she still hadn’t turned up, and he had sent the waitress away twice without having ordered.

What the hell had happened? Rooth began to think that it was embarrassing to sit there alone at the table. All around him were diners chatting away merrily, devouring their main courses and draining bottles of wine: it was only at his corner table, set for two, that there was a lonely, middle-aged detective inspector with shattered hopes and a receding hairline.

Bugger this for a lark, he thought. I’ll wait for another five minutes, then I’ll phone her.

In fact he held out for ten minutes; and then when he furtively took his mobile out of his briefcase, he realized that he didn’t have her number.

‘
Sacramento diabolo basta
,’ Rooth muttered silently to himself. ‘
Madre mia
, what the hell should I do? Something must have happened to her. No doubt she’s been run over by a tram on the way here. Or been mugged. Or been arrested by the police.’

After a little more thought that last possibility seemed to be somewhat unlikely – and it suddenly occurred to him that he had given her his telephone number. Yes indeed: he hadn’t received hers, but she’d got his. For some reason or other.

Has something cropped up? he wondered, and rang his own home number in order to listen to his answering machine.

There was only one message, and it was from her. Recorded at 18.21. Round about the time he was in the sauna.

She was terribly sorry, she said, but there was a problem. A colleague had suddenly been taken ill, and she’d been forced to work over. She probably wouldn’t get home until about eleven, but she left her number so that he could ring her.

Rooth switched off his mobile and stared at it for a while.

Sorry, she had said. Terribly sorry.

And she had left her number and asked him to ring her.

Hmm, he thought. Maybe that’s not a bad sign after all. He’d just have to be patient.

He beckoned to the waitress, ordered another beer plus a salad and a large steak.

It wasn’t that he particularly felt like working, but sitting there drinking coffee and cognac with nothing to look at apart from the china and his own hands did not seem especially satisfactory.

That was why he took the list of names out of his briefcase.

That was why he started studying those forty-six names rather more closely.

That was why he suddenly reacted to one of them.

Just because he’d been reading casually through the list in a typically two-fingered sort of way. His brain switched off, but nevertheless receptive in that remarkable way he remembered from talking to Van Veeteren on some occasion or other.

There was a D in brackets after the name. D as in daughter. It was Jung who’d found it. He remembered it now. Monica Kammerle’s little notebook, to be precise: it hadn’t meant a thing when he first wrote it down together with all the other names, but now it rang a bell. Surely that was the man’s name? Surely it was? . . .

He checked his watch. Five past ten. The night was yet young. He took out his address book and dialled Ewa Moreno’s number.

‘Good evening,’ said Rooth. ‘It’s your favourite colleague.’

‘So I hear,’ said Moreno.

‘I hope you hadn’t gone to bed?’

‘At ten o’clock? Who do you think I am?’

‘We’d better not go into that,’ said Rooth. ‘Anyway, have you looked at the list?’

‘What list?’

‘What list! For Christ’s sake! We work our guts out and produce a very instructive list of names, and then discover that our sisters and brothers in the force haven’t even—’

‘Oh,’ said Moreno, ‘that list. No, I haven’t had time yet. Why do you ask?’

‘Huh,’ said Rooth. ‘There’s a name on it that it’s suddenly occurred to me that I recognize.’

‘Suddenly?’

‘Yes. I didn’t think about it when we were slaving away and writing down all the names, Jung and I; but now I’m sitting here at Kraus with the list in my hand, and it jumps off the page at me . . .’

‘Eh?’ said Moreno.

He broke off, and the line was silent for a few seconds.

‘Are you telling me that you’re sitting at Kraus and working?’

‘Not really, but a girl I was supposed to have dinner with didn’t turn up, and so – but bollocks to that. Are you going to get your list out or aren’t you?’

‘Okay,’ said Moreno. ‘Just a minute.’

Rooth waited and drank the rest of his cognac.

‘Number eleven,’ he said when Moreno returned. ‘Tomas Gassel. Does that ring a bell?’

Moreno said nothing, and for a moment he wondered if there was a fault on the line.

‘Hello. Are you still there?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Moreno. ‘Of course I’m still here. It’s just that I was a bit surprised. You’re absolutely right. Tomas Gassel must be that priest . . . the one who fell under the train. There surely can’t be anybody else with that name. What the hell does he have to do with all this?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m wondering,’ said Rooth. ‘What happened to that investigation? It was you who was in charge of it, I seem to remember.’

‘Shelved,’ said Moreno. ‘It will be closed down altogether shortly, I assume. There’s nothing to suggest a crime.’

‘Until now,’ said Rooth.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Until now,’ said Rooth again.

‘Okay,’ said Moreno.

She thought for a moment.

‘Hmm, maybe there was a bit more than we thought earlier as well,’ she said. ‘With regard to Gassel. To be honest . . . Yes, to be honest I think this changes the whole situation. It might be pure coincidence, of course, but I have the feeling that it isn’t. It would be much too . . . too improbable.’

‘Really?’ said Rooth. ‘Would you kindly stop talking in riddles, woman. What the hell are you saying?’

But Moreno evidently had no desire to fill him in on that point.

‘Gassel?’ she mumbled instead. ‘What the hell’s going on? Anyway, we must look into this in more detail tomorrow – and obviously, I must get in touch with the
Chief Inspector
again.’

‘The
Chief Inspector
?’ wondered Rooth. ‘Do you mean . . . ?’

‘Yes,’ said Moreno. ‘I mean him. I’ll explain everything tomorrow. Thank you for ringing – I shan’t sleep a wink now all night.’

Rooth thought for a moment.

‘Would you like me to pop over?’ he said: but Ewa Moreno only laughed and hung up.

He put his mobile away, and looked around the almost full, buzzing restaurant.

Checked his watch.

Saw that it was still only a quarter past ten, and decided to round off with a dark beer.

Then he would go home and phone Jasmina Teuwers.

The
Chief Inspector
? he thought, when his drink had been served. What the hell has he got to do with this?

WALLBURG

JUNE 1999

19

Kristine Kortsmaa was annoyed.

It ought to have been a lovely evening . . . well, it
was
of course a lovely evening – apart from that damned bloke. ‘A pain in the ass,’ as Birthe used to say. The moment she stepped onto the dance floor, he was there, forcing his attentions on her. No matter how much she ignored him and tried to move away from him, he still chased her up. Which wasn’t all that difficult of course: it wasn’t ballroom dancing, people were swaying from side to side and jumping around, and doing whatever they wanted to do. The band was called Zimmermans, and was playing almost exclusively old Dylan songs. Everybody was in high spirits, sweaty, and to say the least contented. Kristine Kortsmaa had always been a fan of Dylan, despite the fact that her dad was younger than her guru.

And she liked dancing. Prancing around artistically and uninhibitedly in time with the music – well, in time with anything you liked, to be honest. Yes indeed, it would have been a perfect evening if it hadn’t been for that berk.

Berk . . . That was a good name for him, she thought. He had a crew cut, more or less; big ears and a crooked nose. Much older than she was as well – he must have been getting on for forty. Couldn’t he see that she wasn’t interested? Purple shirt. Purple! He had asked her to dance with him twice: on both occasions she had shaken her head, and looked away. But when she had a rest and sat down at her table, listening to the music – or chatting to Claude and Birthe and Sissel – she could see that he was watching her all the time.

She had come here with Claude and Birthe. Sissel and Maarten and a couple of their friends had joined them, and they had been lucky enough to find a table quite near the front. They had eaten various Mexican fancy dishes and drunk a few bottles of wine before Zimmermans got going. There had been a party mood right from the start, and it was still going swimmingly. Kristine had every reason to get a bit drunk and enjoy an evening of dancing and good music – every reason: after no end of trials and tribulations she had at last completed her training to become a physiotherapist. At last. She had been awarded her licence and diploma the previous day, and today had spent over five hours filling in forms and applying for jobs. Eight jobs. She was confident of having a job from the middle of August onwards: there was a shortage of good qualified physiotherapists . . . But for now, and for another seven weeks, it was summer. Nothing but summer and summer and summer. And she was free – she had enough money to last her for a few months, and no Ditmar: he seemed to have gathered at last that it was all over between them. At long last.

So there was nothing unresolved, lurking in the background, she thought. No skeletons in the cupboard, casting a shadow over her future. Nothing at all.

Apart from that bloke. The berk. She wondered if he was high on drugs: there was something about his eyes. He seemed to be in another world, but at the same time very intense – just like junkies always did. As if they were operating on a different frequency from everybody else.

Which they were, not to put too fine a point on it. She danced away from him, and joined Birthe, Claude and the others. Sissel and Maarten seemed to have found each other, and had eyes for nothing else: but there was still a little group out there, dancing away without inhibitions. Claude looked at her approvingly, and she wondered if he fancied her. Or maybe he was a bit drunk: he tended to start flirting when he’d had too much to drink – or so Birthe maintained.

But what the hell? she thought, continuing to look at him and wiggling her hips, sufficiently innocently but attractively to confirm what his eyes had already concluded. That was her intention, at least.

‘I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight’ came to an end. Applause, shouts and whistles made clear the audience’s approval. The band acknowledged the applause and bowed, and the singer announced that there would now be something a bit softer. Three of the musicians left the stage: only the solo guitarist and one of the girl back-up team remained.

‘Tomorrow Night’ from the album
Good as I Been to You
, the singer announced. Oh, shit! Kristine thought. That means dancing with a partner. Sissel and Maarten were already facing each other and swaying from side to side. Birthe had her arms round Claude, and something similar was being enacted all over the dance floor. The guitarist strummed the first chord, and the Berk suddenly appeared in front of her with a new gleam in his eye. She glanced quickly around, and saw a possible escape route.

He was leaning against one of the pillars with a beer in his hand. Looked nice. Normal, at least. Black jeans and a short-sleeved white shirt. Slightly tanned. A bit on the old side, perhaps, but what the hell . . . A second later she was standing in front of him.

‘Please dance with me.’

‘Eh?’ said the man, looking surprised.

‘May I have the pleasure of this dance? There’s a bloke who’s pestering me.’

She gestured back over her shoulder, and the man nodded. Caught on to the situation immediately. Put his beer glass down on a table and laughed.

‘All right. I’ll be your bodyguard tonight.’

Kristine Kortsmaa suddenly felt that she wasn’t annoyed in the slightest any more.

She realized how drunk she must be when he had to help her to fit her key into the lock.

‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘But I had good reason to celebrate tonight.’

‘Really?’ he said, holding the door open for her. ‘What reason was that?’

‘Passing my exams. I finished my physiotherapist training today. Or yesterday, to be precise. No more swotting, thank God. Would you like to come in? I don’t normally invite men into my flat, but maybe we could chat for a while. If you wanted to, that is . . .’

He looked at his watch.

‘I don’t know. The conference programme is pretty intense. I have to be up and about by nine tomorrow morning.’

‘Just a few minutes.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘A quarter of an hour.’

Half an hour later they were dancing again. Or perhaps you couldn’t really call it dancing. They were standing there, swaying from side to side – she in her bare feet, he in his stockinged feet. Dylan again, but now on her latest CD. It was dark in the room, but only a pleasant sort of summer darkness – the balcony door was open, letting in a pungent scent of blossoming jasmine and honeysuckle. She could feel his erection against her stomach, and closed her eyes.

She shouldn’t have done that. Closed her eyes.

The room started swimming, and she felt sick.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel well.’

She pushed him away and hurried into the bathroom.

It took some time, and when she returned to the living room she couldn’t see him. Has he left? she thought, walking out onto the balcony. I hope so.

She felt clearer in the head after being sick, washing herself and brushing her teeth. She realized to her horror that she had brought back into her home a man she didn’t know at all. Pleasant enough, and courteous: but there are limits, as Birthe used to say. Kristine hadn’t had sex with anybody after Ditmar – that was three months ago by now, and doing something about it was naturally enough high on the list of her priorities for the summer. But she hadn’t intended it to be a one-night stand like this. Somebody attending a conference that she’d picked up at Dorrit’s. Certainly not, for Christ’s sake!