‘She got in touch with her mother eventually. Explained that she was still alive, but said that her parents would never see her again if they gave the slightest indication to anybody that she had been in touch. And then she turned up at my door a couple of weeks ago. Disguised as a Muslim woman, so that she could keep her face hidden in a way that seemed natural, of course. The conditions were more or less the same for me as they had been for her mother and father. I wasn’t to say anything at all about her to anybody, it was as simple as that. It was a shock for me to discover that she was still alive, and, well. . I promised to do all I could to help her. As you might recall, I was actually the one who was supposed to meet that man at Keefer’s in December. In fact. But I fell ill, and things turned out as they did. .’
‘Excuse me a moment,’ said Moreno, interrupting her and glancing at the tape recorder. ‘I take it you’re talking about Maarten deFraan, professor of English at Maardam University, is that right?’
‘DeFraan, yes,’ said Kristeva. ‘That’s his name. She didn’t want to tell me his name at first, but after a few days I managed to squeeze it out of her. But Ester Peerenkaas is no longer Ester Peerenkaas, that’s the most horrific thing of all. She’s not the same person. She has only one thought in her head, a single one, and that is taking her revenge on that man.’
She threw her arms out in a gesture of impotence.
‘Why can’t she simply go to the police?’ wondered Sammelmerk.
‘Do you think I haven’t kept asking her that?’ said Kristeva with a snort. ‘Do you think I haven’t spent many a day and night asking her just that?’
‘But why?’ insisted Moreno. ‘Why not the police? This man has many more things on his conscience, not just Ester Peerenkaas’s ruined face. .’
Kristeva sighed deeply again, and sat up straight.
‘Because that wouldn’t be enough for her,’ she said. ‘A conventional punishment wouldn’t be sufficient. Ester has been let down by the authorities in the past as well — I don’t know how much you know about her background, but that man who took their daughter and disappeared, well, she spent two years fighting for her rights before she gave up. That sort of thing leaves its mark. Quite simply, she doesn’t trust the police. She intends to kill Maarten deFraan with her own hands — and not just kill him, come to that.’
Moreno gave a start.
‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘Not just kill him?’
Kristeva took a drink of water and sat in silence for a while before answering.
‘She intends to torture him,’ she said eventually in a low voice. ‘I think. . I think she intends to capture him somehow or other, and then subject him to something horrendous. Extremely painful, and lasting for as long as possible, before she finally kills him. Don’t ask me how she’s going to do it, but she’s obsessed by it. It’s the only thing that keeps her going, and it’s as if. . as if it’s not really about her. I think she sees herself as a tool — a representative of all the women who have been tormented by men. She sees it as a mission to take revenge for all the oppression our sex has been subjected to since the beginning of time — and to take it out on him, of course. It’s as if she had been chosen. As I’ve said, she’s mad. .’
She paused again.
‘But I understand her, of course. It’s not all that odd that she has become like she is: that’s why I didn’t want to betray her.’
She tried to make eye contact with both Moreno and Sammelmerk now, as if in the hope of receiving support. Or at least some kind of understanding. Moreno found herself trying to avoid Kristeva’s eyes, and she nodded rather vaguely.
‘Yes indeed,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It’s understandable. I think it would be understandable for a male detective officer as well — for most of the ones I know, at least.’
‘No doubt about that,’ said Sammelmerk. ‘But I don’t think we should get too deeply involved in the sex role aspects at this stage. In any case, I don’t think you need to worry at all about having kept quiet about this. The whole business is bad enough as it is. But what’s the current situation? I don’t think you’ve quite brought us up to date, as it were. .’
Kristeva cleared her throat and continued.
‘Ester had that Muslim woman disguise — she’d bought it in Paris somehow or other. Hijab and all. I don’t know if you can just walk into a shop and buy everything, just like that — perhaps it is that simple. The problem when she came back here was that she didn’t even know what the man was called. He hadn’t used his real name, as you know. But she knew where he lived, and it wasn’t long before she knew who he was. She shadowed him for a few days while she was making her plans. Presumably he noticed her, because one day she discovered that he’d upped and left Maardam. Last Sunday, I think it was. In addition somebody else had turned up, also shadowing deFraan, according to Ester. Some sort of sleuth or detective officer from your lot, if I understood her rightly.’
Moreno managed another movement of the head that committed herself to nothing.
‘In any case, deFraan must have become aware of one of them, or perhaps both. He must have realized that no matter what, he was living dangerously, and one day he was simply no longer there. Ester was furious, she didn’t sleep for two nights, didn’t even go to bed. I really thought she was going to lose control — she must have been taking some kind of tablets too. And then, well, she simply disappeared as well.’
‘Disappeared?’ said Moreno.
Kristeva nodded.
‘So you’re saying that Ester Peerenkaas disappeared once again, are you?’ said Sammelmerk, checking that the tape recorder was still functioning. ‘After Maarten deFraan had left Maardam.’
‘Yes,’ said Kristeva somewhat wearily. ‘That’s what I’m saying. On Wednesday last week she was suddenly no longer there. She had left and taken her suitcase with her, without a word of explanation.’
Five seconds passed.
‘Where is she?’ asked Moreno.
Kristeva shrugged in resignation.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t have the slightest idea. But I know who she’s after, and I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes.’
Moreno looked at Sammelmerk. Sammelmerk looked out of the window and drummed lightly with a pencil on her underlip.
‘Maarten deFraan,’ she said slowly. ‘The Strangler. Suspected of having taken the life of five people — or perhaps it’s only four now. So you’re saying that he’s the one Ester Peerenkaas is after?’
Yes,’ said Kristeva, with another sigh. ‘I don’t suppose you know where he is?’
‘We have our suspicions,’ said Moreno.
Inspector Sammelmerk switched off the tape recorder.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ she said. ‘Forgive me, but I really must swear a little off the record. What a dreadful story! Yes, as Inspector Moreno said, we think we’ve begun to nail him down — but the less said, the better.’
‘Where?’ asked Kristeva, but she received no reply.
‘Thank you for coming to us,’ said Moreno instead. ‘It hasn’t been easy for you.’
Anna Kristeva allowed herself a very slight and brief smile.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It hasn’t been easy.’
When they were alone, Inspector Sammelmerk went over to the door and switched off the light.
‘Good God,’ she said as she flopped down onto her desk chair again. ‘What do you say to that?’
‘What is there to say?’ said Moreno.
Sammelmerk thought for a while, biting her underlip and gazing out through the window.
‘If we continue to refrain from getting involved in the sex role aspects,’ she said eventually, ‘where do we land up?’
‘In Greece, of course.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘What about?’
‘About how things are down there. Do you think she’s landed up there as well?’
‘No idea,’ said Moreno. ‘But I reckon we ought to give them a ring in any case.’
Irene Sammelmerk waited for a few long seconds, then slid the telephone across her desk.