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“Sankta Katarina is a school for girls, Chief Inspector. Our teachers are women, our house matrons are women, our school janitors, our gardener, our kitchen staff-all of them are women. I’m the headmistress and I’m a woman. That’s the way it’s been since the very start, in 1882: exclusively women.
We think it is a strength, Chief Inspector. It’s not good for girls if men come into their lives too early. But I assume I’m talking to deaf ears.”
Van Veeteren nodded and tried to sit upright. He had a pain in the small of his back, and what he would really like to do was to lie on the floor with his legs on the seat of the chair-that usually helped. But something told him that Miss Barbara di Barboza didn’t like men lying on the floor of her study. It was bad enough having to be visited by a man in the first place. And a police officer at that.
But his back was giving him hell. It was that damned hotel bed, of course. He had felt stiff when he got up that morning, and a two-hour drive hadn’t improved matters. Perhaps he would have to call on Hernandez, the chiropractor, when he got back home. It was six months since he’d last been, so it was about time for another visit. The worst thing was the badminton, of course. Chasing down Munster’s short, angled returns could spell disaster for a bad back, he knew that, but he certainly didn’t want to postpone the match planned for Tuesday evening. So he’d have to grin and bear it.
He shifted his weight from right to left. It hurt. He groaned.
“Are you unwell, Chief Inspector?”
“I’m all right, thank you; just a bit of pain in my back.”
“Probably due to the wrong diet. You’d be surprised if I were to tell you the effect various foods have on one’s muscles and muscular tension.”
Not surprised, Van Veeteren thought. I’d be bloody furi-ous. I might even be tempted to do things that would make it necessary for me to arrest myself.
“Sounds interesting,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’m a bit short of time, so we’d better concentrate on what I’ve come here for.”
“Miss Ringmar?”
“Yes.”
The headmistress took a folder from the shelf behind her and opened it on the desk in front of her.
“Eva Ringmar. Appointed by us on September 1, 1987.
Taught French and English. Resigned at her own request on May 31, 1990.”
She closed the folder and returned it to its place.
“What was your impression of her?”
“My impression? Good, of course. I interviewed her per -
sonally. There was nothing about her to object to. She lived up to my expectations of her, and carried out her teaching and other duties impeccably.”
“Other duties. . What do you mean by that?”
“She had certain duties as a class teacher and house matron. We are a boarding school, as you may have noticed.
We don’t only look after the girls in the classroom, but we take care of the whole of their upbringing. Fostering the whole person is one of our principles. Always has been from the very beginning. That’s what has created the good reputa-tion we enjoy.”
“Really?”
“Do you know how many applications we receive at the beginning of each academic year? Over two thousand. For two hundred and forty places.”
Van Veeteren lowered his shoulders and tried to curve his back inward.
“Did you know Miss Ringmar’s background when you
appointed her?”
“Of course. She’d had a hard time. We believe in people, Chief Inspector.”
“And are you aware of what has happened, that both she and her husband have been murdered?”
“We are not isolated in this school, don’t think that. We read the newspapers and keep abreast of what’s happening in the world. More so than many others, I would suggest.”
Van Veeteren wondered if she was well up on the reading habits of police officers, but had no desire to ask her to comment on that. He took out a toothpick instead. Put it into his mouth and made it move slowly from one side to the other.
Di Barboza slid her spectacles to the tip of her nose and observed him critically.
Before long she’ll be demanding to see my identity card again, he thought. It’s preposterous, the extent to which a bit of a pain in the back restricts your abilities.
“Well, what else do you want to know, Chief Inspector? I don’t have all day to spare either.”
He stood up and walked over to the window. Stretched his back and gazed out at the mist-filled grounds. Several other buildings could be glimpsed through the trees, all of them in the same dark red brick as the “refectory,” which was where 1 8 3
di Barboza held sway, and the head-high wall that surrounded the whole establishment. In Anglo-Saxon style, this barrier was topped by broken glass. It had made him smile as he drove in through the gates-smile and wonder if the symbolic broken glass was meant to deter outsiders from breaking in, or inmates from breaking out.
He certainly did have prejudices against this place. He was full to the brim with prejudices, and he was slightly irritated to find that they had not been reinforced by what he had seen and heard that morning, despite di Barboza’s willingness to show him around. He had taken lunch in the large dining room in the company of a hundred or so women of various ages, mainly young women, of course; but nowhere had he been able to discern the oppressed sexuality or sexual frustra-tion or whatever it was that he thought he would sense. Perhaps it was just a matter of the good old fear of women, the realization that despite everything, it was the opposite sex that had the best prospects of coming to grips with life.
At least, that is how his wife would have diagnosed the situation; he didn’t doubt that for one second.
If I’d been born a woman, he thought, I’m damned if I wouldn’t have turned out more or less like di Barboza!
“Well?” said di Barboza.
“Well what?”
“What else do you want to know? I’m starting to run out of time, Chief Inspector.”
“Two things,” he said. “First of all, do you know if Miss Ringmar had a relationship with a man while she worked here. . She lived in, I believe, is that the case?”
“She had a room in the Curie Annex, yes. No, I don’t know if she had a relationship. Was that one question or two, Chief Inspector?”
He ignored the correction.
“Can you give me the name of a colleague, somebody who was friendly with her, who might be able to answer some more detailed questions?”
The headmistress slid back her spectacles and thought that one over.
“Kempf,” she said. “Miss Kempf has the room next to the one Miss Ringmar used to live in. I believe they were good friends as well. In any case, I saw them together occasionally.”
“You don’t mix with the other teachers yourself, Miss di Barboza?”
“No, I try to keep a certain distance. We respect one another, but we cannot ignore the fact that we have different responsibilities. Our statutes define the role of the headmistress as the person in overall charge of the school, and the responsibilities that entails. It’s not up to me to question those statutes.”
She checked the watch that was hanging on a chain around her neck. Van Veeteren remembered something Reinhart had said not so long ago: “I normally steer well clear of women who wear a watch around their neck.”
Van Veeteren wondered what it meant. Perhaps it contained a kernel of great wisdom, like quite a few things that Reinhart came out with.
In any case, he was relieved to get out into the fresh air. He crossed over the large lawn, despite di Barboza’s express instructions to stick to the paved paths. He could feel her eyes boring into his back.
Two girls aged about twelve, wearing overalls over their school uniform, were busy painting the trunk of a fruit tree white. He approached them cautiously, and attracted their attention by coughing.
“Excuse me, but does this happen to be the Curie Annex?”
“Yes. The entrance is over there.”