The Stranglers Honeymoon (13 page)

Brunner stopped.

‘What did he want?’ he asked.

It seemed to occur to him almost immediately that he didn’t really have any right to ask such a question, and he sat down in the armchair again and sighed.

‘I never discovered what he wanted,’ explained Van Veeteren. ‘But I had hoped that you might be able to point me in the right direction.’

‘I see. Let me think for a moment.’

Brunner clasped his hands in his lap and closed his eyes. Van Veeteren assumed that in this simple way he was obtaining permission to proceed from a higher authority, and wondered in passing if this might be one of the motives for all religious activities: the need to pass responsibility on to somebody else.

The unwillingness to bear the burden.

‘All right,’ said Brunner in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, opening his eyes. ‘Yes, we had several differences of opinion, Pastor Gassel and I. You are right in that respect.’

Van Veeteren looked up at the ceiling and gave silent thanks for the praise accorded to him.

‘What differences?’ he asked.

‘Pastor Gassel was homosexual.’

‘Really?’ said Van Veeteren.

There followed a moment’s silence.

‘One can have different views on homosexuality,’ said Brunner.

‘Can one?’ said Van Veeteren.

‘Personally I have a liberal attitude based on biological and Christian points of view.’

‘Meaning what?’ wondered Van Veeteren.

‘Nobody should be condemned because he – or she – has a deviant sexuality.’

‘I agree.’

‘But the person concerned must make the best of the situation. Acknowledging one’s homosexuality is of course a vital and necessary step – Pastor Gassel and I were in complete agreement on that score. But we had different opinions when it came to the next step.’

‘Which is?’ wondered Van Veeteren.

‘Fighting against it, of course,’ said the vicar, sitting up straight. ‘There are natural circumstances, and unnatural circumstances, and in the church we must pray for and help those who find themselves in unnatural circumstances. For me, this has always been obvious and a guiding principle. One can perhaps understand individuals who are unable – who don’t have the strength – to fight against their illness: but when a priest doesn’t even understand the importance of fighting against it at all, well, he is on the wrong path. His own illness, and what is more . . . well, perhaps you can understand our different points of view now?’

Van Veeteren nodded.

‘I think so. Did you notice anything unusual in Pastor Gassel’s behaviour shortly before his death?’

The vicar shook his head slowly.

‘No, I don’t think so. Not that I can recall, at least.’

‘Was he depressed?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Do you know if anything special happened during the autumn or the late summer that might have been traumatic for him?’

‘Traumatic? No, I’ve no idea of anything like that. But then we didn’t have the sort of relationship that would lead to him confiding in me, because . . . well, because of what we’ve just been talking about.’

‘I understand,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I assume you can’t comment on the likelihood of him committing suicide or that sort of thing?’

‘When it comes to matters of faith we are not as rigid as the Roman Catholics,’ said Brunner, clearing his throat. ‘Of course it is never right to take your own life: but it is not for us to judge a desperate person who turns to desperate measures . . .’

‘If we leave matters of faith to one side,’ said Van Veeteren, ‘would you say it was possible rather than out of the question that Gassel might have committed suicide?’

The vicar pursed his lips and seemed to be thinking hard.

‘I really can’t say,’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t think he would have done, of course, and know of nothing that would suggest he might have done. But on the other hand, I can’t exclude the possibility altogether.’

‘Do you know if he was in a relationship? Did he live with a partner, for instance?’

The vicar blushed again.

‘A partner? No, certainly not . . . But I have no idea about . . . about that sort of thing.’

‘I see. Was it public knowledge in the parish – his deviant sexuality, as you called it?’

‘The fact that he was homosexual?’

‘Yes.’

‘I hope not. It would have come to my notice if it had been, and we had at least come to an agreement that he wouldn’t make a song and dance about it. It’s a very sensitive matter in connection with the teaching of confirmands, and of course it is the vicar who must accept ultimate responsibility. I hope you realize that all this hasn’t been exactly easy for me.’

No, Van Veeteren thought. You poor thing – you manage to persuade the diocese to award you an extra post, and you end up with a clockwork orange. It must be a bit annoying, to be sure.

But hardly so annoying that the vicar would feel it necessary to dispatch Gassel into the Twilight Zone by shoving him under a train? His face seemed to be too mild and innocent for anything like that.

‘So it was because of these little differences of opinion that he was unwilling to go and confess to you? Do you agree to that as a reasonable conclusion to draw?’

Brunner thought for a moment.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s the way things were, unfortunately. And I don’t think he would have turned to Pastor Hartlew either. As you know, confession is not a sacrament in our church, but of course there is always the possibility of getting things off one’s chest. In the knowledge that whatever one says will go no further. But I don’t understand why he turned to you, of all people.’

‘Neither do I,’ said Van Veeteren, who saw no point in mentioning Gassel’s Catholic aunt. ‘Does Pastor Hartlew share your views on homosexuality?’

‘I’m sure he does.’

‘How was it you put it?’

‘Put what?’

‘Your views. “A liberal attitude based on biological and Christian points of view,” I think you said.’

Brunner thought for five seconds

‘I don’t remember,’ he said in due course, with a tired shrug of the shoulders.

‘Even if he didn’t want to talk to the vicar, surely it was quite a long step from that to going to talk to you?’ commented Ulrike Fremdli later that same day. ‘If you have any homosexual traits, you’ve been pretty successful in hiding them from me. But perhaps that wasn’t why he came to see you?’

‘Presumably not,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘No, I prefer women, full stop. But joking apart, it’s a hell of an odd coincidence, there’s no getting away from that. Gassel comes to me and asks for help, and a week or so later he’s run over by a train. If he really wanted to take his own life, surely he could have waited a couple of days and got off his chest whatever it was he wanted to say? Or left me out of it in the first place? And for Christ’s sake, you don’t just happen to fall off a railway platform by mistake.’

‘Was he drunk?’

‘Not even half a pint of beer in his blood, according to Moreno.’

‘And you had no indication of what it was all about? When he came to see you, I mean.’

‘Not as far as I remember,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘That’s what’s so damned annoying, the fact that I don’t remember. I think he said something about a woman . . . a woman who had confided in him, I assume. And he’d promised to say nothing about it, and above all not to go to the police. I had the impression that he was afraid something would happen: but that could be something that came to me with hindsight . . . There again, I’m pretty sure he did say something to that effect. Something would happen, if precautions were not taken . . . Bloody hell!’

Ulrike lifted Stravinsky up from the sofa and started tickling him under his chin.

‘But he wasn’t the one who was in danger?’

‘Not as I understood it. I suppose we could find out if he’d noted down who had come to confess to him – but for Christ’s sake, I’m not in the police force any more, isn’t that true?’

‘Yes,’ said Ulrike. ‘As far as I’m aware.’

‘Huh,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Damn and blast, I don’t think I can just ignore this business.’

Ulrike put Stravinsky down on the floor and leaned against him on the sofa. Sat quietly for a few seconds, stroking the veins on the back of his hand.

‘What alternatives do you have?’

Van Veeteren sighed.

‘A few names, for instance,’ he said. ‘People who knew him. And also a nasty feeling that if I don’t continue to poke away at this business, nothing much will happen. It’s not good, wandering around with a dead priest on your conscience . . . Anyway, I suppose we can wait and see if anything occurs to me.’

‘I expect it will,’ said Ulrike. ‘If I know you right.’

‘What on earth do you mean by that?’ said Van Veeteren.

MAARDAM

NOVEMBER 2000

12

Sunday 5 November 2000, was the day when a sneeze threatened to ruin Egon Traut’s marriage.

At least, that gloomy prospect hovered over him for several long hours in the evening, and there is after all a certain difference between a grim outlook and ruins.

Egon Traut was a self-employed businessman. He had a firm making and selling display stands for opticians and shops selling spectacles. The factory was located in Chadow, where he also lived in a spacious, hacienda-inspired villa with his wife and five children, of whom two had flown the nest (for most of the time, at least), two were twins in their teens (and quite a handful), and the fifth (an afterthought called Arnold) suffered from Hörndli’s syndrome and was autistic.

The firm was called GROTTENAU, an anagram of his own name, and at the end of the eighties and throughout the nineties it had slowly but surely increased its market share, at first in Chadow, then in the surrounding area, and eventually the whole country – to such an extent that by the beginning of the new millennium it claimed sixty per cent of the whole cake. In opticians’ circles F/B GROTTENAU was, if not a concept, then at least a name associated with expertise, quality and reliable delivery.

Since 1996 Egon Traut had employed a staff of four. Three of them worked on the production of the display stands in Chadow’s new industrial estate, and the fourth dealt with the paperwork. The last was Betty Klingerweijk, who was exactly ten years younger than he was, and owned a pair of breasts that sometimes kept him awake at night, unable to expunge their image from his head.

When he was lying in the matrimonial bed, that is. It sometimes happened that, instead, he was in the same bed as the aforementioned breasts, and on those (unfortunately all too sporadic) occasions, of course, he did not need to worry about expunging them from his head. On the contrary. Getting them into his head (via his mouth) was something he was only too happy to spend time and effort on. Betty Klingerweijk had been his lover for rather more than three years by this time, and she was the one who sneezed so unfortunately on this rainy November Sunday.

It happened on the motorway between Linzhuisen and Maardam: they were on the way home from a three-day sales trip in the southern provinces, and Traut had just rung his wife on his mobile to ask her for some information.

‘What was that?’ asked his wife.

‘What was what?’ said Traut.

‘That noise. It sounded like somebody sneezing.’

‘Eh? . . . I didn’t hear anything.’

‘You don’t have somebody in the car with you, do you?’

‘No. Why should I have?’

‘That’s a good question. It sounded like a woman sneezing in any case.’

‘How odd. Perhaps there was somebody on the line.’

‘Somebody on the line? That’s the daftest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m absolutely certain that I heard a sneeze. You have another woman with you in the car, don’t you?’

‘I swear I don’t,’ said Traut.

‘Huh, tell that to the marines,’ said his wife. ‘But it’s what you don’t tell the marines that I’m interested in. What’s her name? Is it somebody I know, or have you just picked her up?’

Traut tried to hit on a counter-move, but his mind was pretty sluggish today and nothing plausible occurred to him.

‘It’s not that vulgar little hussy fröken Klingerweijk, is it?’ yelled his wife as loudly as she could, to make sure she could be heard clearly in the car. Traut glanced at his passenger, and could see she had heard what was said.

Bugger it, he thought. Death to the inventor of the mobile phone.

‘I can assure you,’ he assured her. ‘I’m as much alone in the car as . . . as a herring in a church.’

‘A herring in a church? What are you raving on about? There aren’t any herrings in a church. Are you not even sober?’

‘Of course I’m sober. You know I’m always very careful about what I drink when I’m travelling on business. And if there were a herring in a church, it would be feeling pretty lonely, wouldn’t it? Can I get to the point now, or are you going to go on and on, accusing me of God knows what?’

That was quite a clever ploy, and the receiver was silent for a few seconds. But it was not a good silence, he could hear quite clearly that she didn’t believe him. And in the corner of his eye he could see that Betty Klingerweijk was glaring at him, and seemed to be preparing to sneeze again. Out of sheer cussedness.

‘What point?’ asked his wife.

‘Your barmy sister, of course. What’s her new address – you said they’d just moved. I’ll be in Maardam in five minutes.’

That was enough to shift the focus of the conversation – for the time being, at least. His sister-in-law was in fact the reason he had made the call, and doing so was bound to portray him in a more favourable light. His wife had gone on and on about how he really must call in and check on how she was, seeing as he was passing though Maardam in any case. Her sister hadn’t answered the phone for over a month, and something must have happened to her. That was as clear as day, and blood is thicker than daylight.

They had discussed the matter at considerable length on the Thursday morning before he had set off, but he hadn’t actually promised to call on her sister. Not as far as he could recall, at least. So the fact that he was ringing her now and offering to do so must surely be seen as a reasonable and humane thing to do. He was prepared to put himself out and call on her lunatic sister in her flat in order to make sure she was okay – wasn’t that proof of how highly he valued his wife and their married life together?