The Strangler's Honeymoon (41 page)

‘We tried, but we didn’t find that out either,’ said Baasteuwel with a sigh. ‘I think you should take it, so that you have something to keep yourself occupied.’

‘With pleasure,’ said Moreno. ‘If you pack all the circumstantial evidence into the cardboard box, we’ll be delighted to solve all the problems for you.’

‘Excellent,’ said Baasteuwel, checking his watch. ‘By all means. But I’ll be damned if it isn’t time for lunch. I hope you’ll allow me to treat you to a bite to eat in return for your help.’

‘I think I’m the one who should be doing the thanking so far,’ said Moreno. ‘And as I still owe you at least two restaurant meals from last summer, I reckon this lunch should be on me.’

‘Miserliness and equality of the sexes have always been my guiding stars,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Lead the way.’

During the two-hour drive back to Maardam, Inspector Moreno’s attention was concentrated more or less equally between two things.

The first was the western sky, where the sun suddenly burst forth in spectacular fashion as it sank down behind the sea in a festoon of red and purple . . . Ragged clouds were lit up from beyond the horizon by rogue beams, creating a slowly fading extravaganza as darker and duller tints spread with almost apocalyptic implications.
Der Untergang des Abendlandes
cropped up in her mind as she stood next to her car in a lay-by, making the most of the view for several minutes.
The Decline of the West
. . .

The other was the carton with Baasteuwel’s plastic bags on the front passenger seat of her car.

Thirteen presumed pieces of circumstantial evidence, less substantial than strands of hair. Twelve of them, at least. That badge was the only thing worth devoting time and energy to, it seemed.

A red S against a green background.

Or a snake in the grass? Why not? It must mean something, after all.

Somebody must have been wearing it. The little pin securing the badge must have come loose, fallen out and ended up inside a shoe. Unfortunately not one of the black court shoes Kristine Kortsmaa had been wearing the evening she was murdered, Baasteuwel had explained, so it could have landed up there on some previous occasion. At more or less any time.

But nevertheless it must be an indication of something or other? A tiny piece of information that could turn out to be a key, in fact?

An unintended greeting from a murderer?

Wishful thinking? she thought.

Most probably, yes.

The third thing that occupied her thoughts – especially during the last half-hour of the drive into Maardam, when the sun had set and the plastic bags on the passenger seat beside her were almost invisible in the near-darkness – was a mathematical calculation.

It was quite straightforward, but had nevertheless been the cause of the distraction she had felt while discussing matters with Inspector Baasteuwel – both in his office at the police station and at the Restaurant Bodenthal, where they had eaten an excellent lamb fricassee and an equally excellent lemon sorbet, and talked quite a lot about life and death and the point of being a copper.

Her period had been due last Saturday.

It was four days overdue.

38

‘Why are we sitting here?’ said Rooth.

‘It was something to do with one of those lapel badges on a pin,’ said Jung. ‘Reinhart sounded almost enthusiastic – maybe we’re on the verge of a breakthrough?’

‘You’re talking about the Strangler, are you?’ said Rooth with a yawn.

‘I think so,’ said Jung.

‘That would be good,’ said Rooth. ‘If we got somewhere at last, I mean. It’ll soon be half a year since the murders, and my investigation instincts tell me that’s a bit on the long side.’

‘Ester Peerenkaas was only a month ago,’ said Jung.

‘If she really was one of his victims,’ said Rooth. ‘I must say I’m beginning to have my doubts . . . But I did have a thought this morning.’

‘Really?’ said Jung. ‘Are you telling me you actually start thinking in the morning?’

Rooth frowned and gazed out of the window. It was raining. Wollerimsparken looked as if it would love to sink down into the earth. Or had even begun to do so.

‘Well?’ said Jung. ‘Have you had a stroke?’

‘Hang on,’ said Rooth, raising an index finger as a warning. ‘Any minute now.’

Jung sighed.

‘It’s always interesting to be present when a great mind is at work,’ he said, also looking out of the window. ‘It looks horrible out there! I can’t understand where all that rain comes from. It’s as if—’

‘Yes, now I’ve got it!’ interrupted Rooth. ‘Her parents, that’s what I was thinking about.’

‘Whose parents?’

‘Ester Peerenkaas of course. Or her mother, to be more precise. She doesn’t pester us any more.’

‘Eh?’ said Jung. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She’s stopped contacting us.’

‘I heard what you said,’ said Jung in exasperation. ‘So what?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Rooth flinging his arms out wide. ‘Krause mentioned that she’d been phoning us twice a day the first few weeks, but then she suddenly stopped.’

Jung thought for a moment.

‘I don’t understand what you are getting at. Fru Peerenkaas has stopped pestering the police every day with questions about her missing daughter. Are you suggesting that has some special significance?’

‘I don’t know everything,’ said Rooth. ‘Just almost everything. Where the hell has Reinhart got to? I thought he said—’

‘He’s here,’ said Reinhart as he entered the room. ‘You’re not sitting on eggs by any chance are you, Inspector?’

‘Not just at the moment,’ said Rooth. ‘Easter’s a bit too far away for that.’

‘Unusually clear instructions,’ said Jung when Reinhart had left the room again. ‘We can’t complain on that score.’

Rooth nodded sombrely and stared at the badge he was holding in his hand.

‘We have to find out where this thing comes from and report back by tomorrow afternoon’s run-through at the latest, otherwise we shall be skinned alive. Yes, you’re right: that’s pretty clear.’

‘It’s good to know exactly what’s expected of us,’ said Jung. ‘How do you reckon we should go about it?’

Rooth shrugged.

‘What do you think? The telephone directory is always a good place to start.’

‘Okay,’ said Jung, standing up. ‘Get going on that – I have half an hour’s paperwork waiting on my desk. We can start hunting as soon as you’ve got wind of something.’

Rooth rummaged around in his jacket pocket and produced two or three sweets that he tossed into his mouth.

‘Your word is my command,’ he said. ‘What do you reckon the chances are?’

‘Of what?’

‘Of this little badge really belonging to Kristine Kortsmaa’s murderer.’

‘Not very high,’ said Jung. ‘About zero.’

‘And the possibility that she had anything at all to do with our Strangler?’

‘More or less zero,’ said Jung.

‘Bloody pessimist,’ said Rooth. ‘Leave me in peace so that I can get something done.’

The shop itself was no bigger than about ten or twelve square metres, but perhaps there was more space behind, overlooking the courtyard, where manufacturing and repairs could be carried out. In any case, the firm was called Kluivert & Goscinski, and was squeezed in between a warehouse and an abattoir at the far end of Algernonstraat – a dark, slightly curved apology of a street running from Megsje Boisstraat down to Langgraacht, and was hardly an ideal location for anybody wishing to run a business. The abattoir seemed to have been boarded up for ages.

But perhaps Kluivert & Goscinski was such a niche enterprise – as Jung gathered the term was – that the actual location of the premises didn’t matter much. Medals, plaques, cups, trophies, badges – Manufacture and sales! – Matchless prices! – Rapid delivery! – Brand leaders since the forties!

All this was printed in gold lettering on the chest-high teak counter with a glass top on which Rooth had carefully placed the plastic bag with the Wallburg badge. The shop assistant – a slim black-suited gentleman in his sixties with a nose like a ship’s keel and a moustache like a hairy sausage (and which presumably did little to facilitate the partaking of food, always assuming he ever ate anything, Jung thought) – slid his spectacles up above the bridge of his nose and examined the object in front of him with a degree of seriousness that would not have been out of place had it been the Queen of Sheba’s navel diamond. Jung noticed that he was holding his breath. Rooth as well.

‘Well?’ said Rooth after ten seconds.

The shop assistant put the badge back into the bag and allowed his spectacles to slide down the ship’s keel. There was a red strip where they landed, and Jung assumed this must be an elegant manoeuvre he performed several times every day.

‘I’m afraid I don’t recognize it,’ he said. ‘It’s not one of ours. Not from the last twenty years, that is – it could be older, of course.’

‘Really,’ said Rooth. ‘Do you recognize the symbol itself ?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Could you guess?’

He hesitated.

‘I think it’s quite old. Thirty or forty years old.’

‘What makes you say that?’

The man turned the palms of his hands upwards and moved his fingers slowly up and down, whatever that might mean.

‘Made in this country?’

‘Impossible to say for sure, but I think so.’

‘Why?’

‘The mounting of the enamel disc. What exactly are you looking for?’

‘A murderer,’ said Rooth. ‘The fact is that we are rather keen to identify this little bastard. You don’t happen to know who we would turn to for assistance, by any chance?’

The man fingered his moustache and his eyes glazed over behind his thick spectacle lenses.

‘Goscinski,’ he said in the end.

‘Goscinski?’ said Jung. ‘The man who—’

‘Eugen Goscinski, yes. The founder of this firm. He’s eighty-nine years old now, but what he doesn’t know about heraldry and symbols isn’t worth knowing . . . Even in the most prosaic connections.’

‘Prosaic?’

‘He knows the badges of every single football team in Europe, for instance, then the two or three hundred biggest clubs in South America. If you give him enough time, he can also—’

‘Excellent,’ said Rooth, interrupting him. ‘How can we get in touch with him?’

‘Wickerstraat, next door to your police station, in fact. But you should be aware that old Goscinski’s a bit special. He never sets foot outside the front door during the winter months, for instance. I think it would be best if you phoned him first, he has a reputation for not allowing people into his flat, and he’s not always easy to—’

‘We’re from the CID,’ Rooth pointed out. ‘And this is in connection with a murder investigation, as I said.’

‘Hmm,’ said the man. ‘If you’ll forgive me for saying so, I’m not convinced that Goscinski would pay much attention to such details. He’s become a bit . . . well, a bit special.’

‘We shall have to see what we can do about that,’ said Rooth. ‘If you can give us his address and telephone number, we can sort that out. Inspector Jung here has a degree in psychology and is an outstanding judge of human beings, so it shouldn’t be too big a problem.’

‘Really?’ exclaimed the man in surprise. He pushed up his spectacles once more and looked hard at Jung with renewed interest. ‘I didn’t think—’

‘Address and telephone number, please!’ said Rooth.

‘Something ought to be done about that tongue of yours,’ said Jung when they were back in the car. ‘Cutting it off might be the best option.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Rooth. ‘The funny thing is that you don’t even have the decency to say thank you for a compliment when you receive one. Get driving now and shut up while I ring Goscinski.’

Jung started the engine and began driving at snail’s pace back along the narrow street, listening to how Rooth dealt with the ancient eccentric in Wickerstraat. Despite what the toucan man in the shop had predicted, Rooth had no difficulty in arranging to visit Goscinski and ten minutes later they parked the car in the basement garage at the police station. His apartment was only a stone’s throw away from the station, and when they rang the bell at the entrance to the block of flats down the street, Jung realized that he could probably see the building from his office window.

Let’s hope to God that we’re on the right track, he thought. This improbable proximity to Goscinski was a typical example of the ironic games the gods love to play with us, and it would be surprising if it weren’t significant.

Needless to say there was no rational justification for thinking along those lines – but where had five months of rational thinking got them? wondered Inspector Jung, as he began to feel the familiar butterflies in his stomach that always suggested something was about to happen. A breakthrough, or something similar.

There was a crackling sound in the speaking-tube. Rooth explained who they were, and there was a faint click as the lock on the entrance door was released.

It was quite stifling in Eugen Goscinski’s flat, and perhaps that wasn’t so surprising. It was small, dark and stuffy, and the two cats that came to rub up against them in the hall probably had the same constricted winter habits as their owner. But at least the latter was the only one who smoked, and Jung was grateful for that: it was bad enough already with the ingrained stench of old cigarillos and old man. Their host lit a new Pfitzerboom as soon as he had ushered them into his kitchen and served up three small cups of pitch-black coffee without asking them what they would like in the way of refreshments.

‘Well?’ he said. ‘Fire away!’

Rooth took the plastic bag out of his inside pocket. Goscinski took out the badge, held it by the pin and contemplated it. Jung noticed that once again he was holding his breath.

‘Hmm,’ muttered Goscinski, taking a deep drag of his cigarillo. ‘What have we got here, then? No, er, good Lord – yes, I do believe I recognize it . . .’

‘Excellent,’ said Rooth.

‘. . . Recognize it, but it only rings a very faint bell at the moment, I regret to say . . .’

Jung took a sip of the coffee. It tasted of burnt meat and tar.